Magic

From: Jesper Wahrner <jewahr_at_hts.calypso.net>
Date: 23 Mar 96 19:27:46 -0100


From my admittedly somewhat God-Learnerish point of view something that is central to Gloranthan magic is the interplay between subjective reality and objective reality. When magic occurs something that is firmly rooted in personal (or communal) convictions changes reality even for people that doesn't hold these convictions. The magician's subjective reality is partly transformed into objective reality.

When a Storm-Voice calls upon Orlanth to strike a Rokari wizard with lightning, the wizard may - if he survives - attempt to explain the lightningbolt in terms that fits into his worldview, as seen in Gods of Glorantha. But I think that he misses the point. For a moment there reality changed and the Orlanth believed in by the Storm-Voice and his congregation was actually there and cast his lightning.

Hero-Quests show that this works in the other direction as well. The Hero-plane seems to be more than just a place where you go to interact with your personal beliefs. It seems to be the place where the beliefs of you, your community and other people as well is turned into some sort of objective reality that can be interacted with and changed. And by changing the objective reality of the Hero-plane you may change the subjective reality of someone who was dependent on the way the Hero-plane looked before you changed it. Thus someone's worldview can be changed by the use of magic.

Powered by hypermail