Re: Mysticism

From: David Weihe <weihe_at_eagle.danet.com>
Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 13:22:48 EDT


> From: Nils Weinander <nilsw_at_ibm.net>
> I have used a somewhat taostic model for eastern magic/mysticism:
> transcend the boundaries of the Many through inner and outer
> balance and integration. I have recently learned that this is wrong.
> Mysticism is about non-being and has no practical use.

This last sentence is too absolutist to be accurate. If this were absolutely true, Mystics would have been eliminated and/or replaced by Darwinian processes. More likely, some beginners' exercises or meditation aids can be bent to mundane uses, like the exercises to gain control over one's body (to help banish its distracting effects) that Indian Buddhists introduced to help their Chinese converts became the foundation of various schools of martial arts.

At a more powerful level, one could gain such closeness to the Void one could, "purely as a side effect" become immune to detection, perhaps even to the extent of imitating RQ2's Invisibility spell. Or, one could be able to grant another a mystic vision of the Void, acting as a short term Mind Blast.

At extreme, I could even imagine a sort of reverse Illusion, gaining the ability to do short-term anihilation of real objects by one's conviction of their non-existance (rather like the effect in the Larry Niven story, Nonesuch, for example).

All of these would be deplored as perverting their "true mystical calling" of course, much as Aikido shuns scored sparring bouts, but would still be impressive enough to persuade outsiders not to kill Mystics just to test the sharpness of their swords.


End of The Glorantha Digest V5 #675


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