The World View destroyed by Illumination

From: ANDOVER_at_delphi.com
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 21:30:26 -0500 (EST)


Here is a good descreption of the kind of world view that illumination destroys, from Gordon Dickson's The Dragon, Thre Earl, and The Troll, another in his Dragon Knight series, in which a 20th century American becomes a magician knight in a 14th century English world: "This medieval time in which Jim and Angie now lived was one in which almost no one ever seemed to change his or her mind. . . . It was generally true . . . (of) even his own men-at-arms, castle servants, and the people belonging to the Malencontri estates -- who were theoretically bound to obey any order he gave them. He could control the last category of people physically, but he could not even bend the point of view of any one of them.
Curiously, it was as if they were responsible only to what they considered their job or duty -- and the way they did it was the way it had always been done. He, at best, was only their temporary overseer.

It was as if he was there only to do his own job, which was to see that they did theirs in traditional fashion and no other. If part of their duty required their going out and dying for him, then that was all right too -- but only if it was part of that unwritten contract that seemed to exist between them and him. They would instantly obey his wildest whim, if it did not disagree with that contract, and silently, politely, but immovably, they would resist anything that did disagree."

(Dickson has another way of looking at the same pehnomenon in his short story, later novella, Pro)

From the point of view of Glorantha, with a few notable exceptions, everyone on this list is both illuminated and a God Learner to boot. The exceptions seem to be about equally divided between non-illuminated chaotics and nonilluminated  (what? Lawfuls?)! You know who you are! Jim Chapin


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