On Earth you have ascension to godhood, which entails a total and constant holistic understanding of the universe no less, which is the same as the power to alter it. Everyone has experienced understandings which move in that direction: complicated things seeming simpler, minor things becoming important, learning to edit your perception actively ('The dullard finds even wine tasteless but the sorcerer can be intoxicated by the mere sight of water.') This is the explicit aim of many religions (one of my main objections to doctrinal Christianity is that it teaches that you must _die_ to achieve godhood). (I'm not absolutely sure what levels all this is true on, but definitely some.)
Gloranthan Illumination is _not_ this, because Greg torques things
when he translates them. Earth-ascension becomes basically 2 things in
Glorantha, illumination and becoming a hero or a god. One big
difference is that on Earth, morality seems to be written into the
system. The martial arts master who can kill with a look but never
fights at all, because in order to be able to do that he must be
saintly, he must have no wish to use this power. (This could be why,
although there may be ascended masters who can vanish mountains,
mountains don't get vanished.) Whereas on Glorantha you have
Ralzakark's sword broos using illumination to make themselves fight
(everyone) better. Gloranthan illumination is neither entirely
fictional (whatever that would mean) nor entirely based on Earth
mysticism, but a little goes a long way.
Realising in the _abstract_ that chaos is not necessarily evil is a huge jump. (Imagine life in Earth hunter-gatherer societies where any lapse in self-control or social order could mean death, and increase it metaphysically by orders of magnitude, & read Robert Holdstock's _The Hollowing_.) The writeup in D:LoD (who actually wrote it?) likens accepting chaos to suggesting rape and murder are OK; or, I suppose, that dying is OK, or pain doesn't really hurt. Any description of illumination makes it sound like a lie (which is why it's insidious). It's also antithetical to most cult membership (based on being as rigidly like your god as possible), everybody's way of life, social order of all kinds (arguably), and the nature of Glorantha as rewritten by the Compromise.
Really realising that chaos doesn't equal evil means having touched it in some way, which is part of why some illuminates are insane (= their thinking is functionally damaged rather than just that they think differently). One of the really Big things in Glorantha is hurting yourself to win battles: Time, Arkat, Humakti geases, Argrath's dragon magic. llluminates understand that accepting chaos at all may be suicidal, but that the alternative is worse. Sandy pointed out a while ago that whether illumination may be benign is what the Hero Wars are being fought over. Also Greg & Sandy know stuff we don't, to do with Arkat and the God Learner secret (whatever that is), which must have something to do with this.
Problem always that only illuminants know what illumination is, we have to talk around it which I suppose is part of why it hasn't been discussed much here. In the Lunar heartlands I imagine that most people would have some doubts about whether it exists, given its rarity and the abundance of other things to believe in with visible effects. I'd think playing an illuminated character convincingly over time is very hard (to do it for a few scenes, just act inscrutable, but watered-down one-dimensional illumination is just wise-Hollywood-mentor). The best advice for campaigns would be from someone who has played an illuminated PC, I don't remember if anyone here has said they have. And don't have Arkat's Blessing.
What are the estimates of #s of illuminants in the Empire?
(I'm not a Gloranthan authority (or a newcomer) so I could have got
things wrong here. As Mark Twain, Robert Anton Wilson and everybody
else has said, listen to what I say but don't believe a word of it.)
Merlin
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