>Mystics can do magic with tangible effects, but that is incidental,
>a side effect. What's worse, when they use magic, they get entangled
>with the world they try to leave behind. Thus, mystics try their
>very best not to use magic.
There is a major difference using magic only at the right time and trying not to use magic at all. There are visible examples of mystic magic in Kralorela, such as the transmuting monks.
>A sorcerer or shaman actively strives to get magic. A mystic
>gains the _potential_ for magic as a side effect.
This merely means that Kralorela has a different feel with respect to magic (which we knew already) and does not make a mystical Kralorela impossible.
>> Methinks you're assuming that prayer = theism here. Mystic
>> deities are known in Peloria (such as Dayzatar, the Red Goddess
>> and Primoltus) so worshipping the gods does not entail theistic
>> worship. I think the Kralori peasants in worshipping the gods
>> would follow a variation of Devotion (cf enclosure #1 p58)
>> in their life.
>That's still worship, not mysticism.
p58 of Enclosure #1 states that 'Devotion' is '[i]n a sense the old aesthetic methodology applied to a deity rather than a philosophy'. Aesceticism is defined on the same page as a 'form of non-worship ... devoted to non-divine concepts, typically mystical philosophies, transcendant metaphysics, or transpersonal entities'. (If you can tell me the difference between them, I've a forbidden secret I'd tell...)
>But to temper things a bit, the dominant philosophy can certainly
>be mystical, without the majority of people living by it.
I fail to see why the Kralori peasants cannot be mystical. Even in your example, the lay buddhists are still buddhists.
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