Some more comments on Pantheon Initiation and mystery cults; Pam Carlson wrote:
>But when I think about RW examples, for many cultures, religious
>mystery is power - or at least uniqueness. It is also very personal.
>Frex, at Ayre's Rock, we saw some Aboriginal holy places at a distance.
>They were considered mysterious; women never went to the men's site, men
>never went to the women's site....[snip]...I seriously doubt that it is
possible to
>understand the _mysteries_ of the Aboriginals' beliefs by casually
>talking to one or reading in a bookshop.
I completely agree that there is a compelling aura to mystery cults that practically demands their inclusion in Glorantha; my point, however, is that within the context of religious experience mystery cults and their ilk are only one aspect. AFAIK, it was the very _personal_ nature of mystery cults, and their reputed emphasis on the concept of personal salvation (the mystery cults of the Ancient World were pretty effective at remaining mysterious, to the extent that today we really have no idea what their Secret Cult Lore was, but AFAIK personal salvation was a fairly common thread), which sometimes put them in more-or-less direct conflict with the very public cults of ancient Greece and Rome which were open to everyone. In fact, I guess I see the mode of the mystery cult (personal, private) as sort of operating in conflict with the civic pantheon (group-oriented, public, open), and in thinking about pantheon initiation (about religion as opposed to cult?) I'm not sure I find mystery cults a good model to work from.
Given that cities almost seem to be looked at as kind of "decadent", at least amongst the Orlanthi and their patrons on the digest, I can understand to some extent the desire to ignore a rich RW source of inspiration, but IMO the public cultic rituals of the polis and the later Roman world (or the Celts or the Scythians or the Egyptians or Sumerians, for that matter) fit pretty well with Gloranthan religion (and their ritual calendars certainly included plenty of restricted, secretive rituals and sacrifices); this would certainly seem to be the case in Peloria or Safelster, frex. I for one find the tension between the mysteries and the broader public cults interesting; the same tension can even be found in the conflict between mystical, gnosis-based initiatory Christian Sects, particularly in the Near East, and the much more straight-forward interpretations put forward by more "orthodox" traditions which may have inherited the public/civic emphasis of both Ancient Judaism and Roman cult practice. To make all Gloranthan cults mystery cults robs us of the tension-producing friction between civic cults and movements of personal salvation, if nothing else, and ignores the fact that such a difference even exists or existed.
In fact, it actually strikes me that the leading candidates for true Gloranthan mystery cults are actually the Lunar cults -- the emphasis on personal development, maximizing one's spiritual and HeroQuest potential, the initiatory gnosis-like requirements of illumination in the Red Goddess cult, etc., and their roots in the tradition of Nysalor and movements like "Every Man a Sun".
OTOH, if you want to make Australian Aboriginal religious practice the model for all Gloranthan divine cults, it's certainly as good a model as a Greco-Roman one -- and given the dominance of the Aussie-Seattle/Pacific Rim arm of the digest, why not? :-)
>In my Glorantha, there is a public (community based) aspect to the
>Orlanth HHD, and a private one (men only). This holds true for all the
>lifepath cults...[snip]...I think of the word "mystery" in this sense as
>meaning "ritual of connection ".
Actually, this works fine for me too, it's just that I would still think of Orlanth as you have described it as still being a more or less "open" cult, even if certain of its rituals are performed in "secrecy"; in a sense, the exclusion of women doesn't qualify it as a mystery cult IMO (nor, similarly, the banning of men from some Ernalda rituals). The ceremony is still being performed as part of a public, civic religious calendar for _public and civic_ purposes, at least presumably; the ceremony is not being performed for the benefit of individuals, or for a specific segment of Orlanthi society, but for the society as a whole. That there might be other rituals in the course of the calendar, or one's lifepath, that are secretive and restricted and performed for the benefit of the few rather than the many is a given, but that doesn't make the overall character of Orlanthi religion that of a mystery cult IMO.
Speaking of calendars, Saravan Peacock delurks (hi, welcome!) and mentions a Far Point Stead Calendar in "Questlines" (aargh, something else to track down after finally getting GRaOY and FS); if memory serves, didn't that wind up getting posted to the digest at some point -- the author being John Hughes? Maybe Michael Raaterova? If I'm right, does anyone remember what digest that appeared in by any chance?
Just some thoughts.
Mark
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