I realize i'm a bit behind the curve on this discussion, so my apologies beforehand. I'd been thinking about the question of why illumination is so radical, especially for lunars. I agree with an earlier post that, for most gloranthans, Chaos is _the_ evil, so accepting Chaos would be akin to a medieval soldier accepting Satanism.
But the holdup is that Chaos - as far as I can tell - isn't universally held as the ultimate evil. In the lunar empire, for example, broos are allowed to exist (I believe), so there's a certain tacit acceptance of chaos. But even for lunars illumination is a radical departure. Why is this?
A friend of mine had an interesting idea, which i'll shamelessly plagiarize here. The one concept which drives all gloranthans is the existance of some spiritual/deistic power, which ultimately provides meaning to life. So my friend proposes that illumination is the process of understanding the "true" nature of gods, etc. Specifically, of realizing that the gods/spirits/etc are limited in what they can know, how they can behave, etc. Perhaps this realization even extends to questioning whether the gods are conscious at all, but thats another can of worms.
In any case, this seems to neatly explain a lot of aspects of the big I. The gods are limited, so they can't provide meaning, so ultimately there is no Truth, just a lot of limited truths, with no ultimate guidance - a terrible realization for any fanatic, which basically any gloranthan qualifies as. But conversely the gods are limited, and only need to be appeased in limited ways; hence one can simultaneously worship multiple gods, provided that one properly acts the role of the worshipper for each. The poor limited god, the illuminate thinks, what he doesn't know can't hurt him.
So what do y'all think? I think the main reason I like this is that it's basically postmodernism, gloranthan style - truth is shattered, so all identities, including that of the worshipper, are roles which we perform but which don't necc have meaning outside of their setting. But my brain is rotten these days, so perhaps this doesn't have the same appeal to others.
Theo
theodore.posselt_at_sap-ag.de
End of Glorantha Digest V2 #444
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