Illumination & the Half-Way Covenant

From: ANDOVER_at_delphi.com
Date: Mon, 15 Jul 1996 20:28:44 -0500 (EST)


One of the strange consequences of illumination being necessary to ascend to the highest levels of the Lunar Empire is that it becomes the equivalent of the Calvinist concept of being a member of the "elect." (A strange link here between Chaos and Law!) There does seem to be some connection between the Lunar model and the society of Puritan New England, where the "elect," those who knew they were saved by God had rights over others. After a while, of course, the problem was that many people never had the conversion experience which made it possible for them to become part of New England's baptized rulers (apparently faking it didn't occur to most people!). So eventually came the Halfway Covenant, which admitted to baptism the children of baptized persons who had not themselves experienced conversion, and began the dilution of Puritan hegemony.
The Lunar parallel is obvious -- I find it hard to believe in ruling classes that wil for long permit the evolution of societies in which their kids don't have a better shot at being rulers than anyone else. I still have trouble picturing the way illumination works in the Empire. On a related question, that of Yelm, it does appear that Yelmies are European nobles rather than British nobles. By that I mean that all the sons of Yelm are themselves potential members of the cult, which, over time, means that many Yelmies would be poor farmers, as is the case with Italian nobility, frex. The primogeniture system of the British insures that the nobility don't multiply beyond their numbers, and left us with "great commoners" like Winston Churchill, the grandson of the Duke of Marlborough. So I think that the families with Yelm members would evolve like the Tekumel clans, where even aristocratic clans like Sea Blue have poor members. I wonder how good the priests are in determining ancestry? In the American version of Home of the Bold, as a priest of Yelm, I (Count Leonidas) seem to have been indirectly responsible for having Greg Stafford tortured to death, since I demanded correct generalogical "proofs" before accepting a certain barbarian King (ably played by Mike Dawson) into the cult!
Jim Chapin

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