Saints and Illumination from Julian Lord on 1998-07-17 (Glorantha Digest Vol 06)

From: Julian Lord <julian.lord_at_hol.fr>
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 12:41:36 +0200

Simon Hibbs:

> >Disagree though about illuminates being
> >unable to acheive sainthood. Can't see
> >why not.
>
> Illuminates "find the divine within themselves". That's pantheism in
> Malkioni terms and is incompatible with the concept of Solace. IMHO.

Well! This old thread again ...

For the illuminate, divinity is transcendant, as it ought to be (but often isn't) in Malkionism. Finding the divine within is a goal of all truly religious sentiment. I think that you're generally right in suggesting that Illumination leads to pantheism, though, or animism. This tendancy is probably a root cause for the splintering of Malkionism.

I don't think that illumination is incompatible with Solace, as Saint Hrestol himself showed, surely. But it is true that Malkionism usually says that you go to Solace if you obeyed the Law. This has little to do with Illumination. Solace is, surely, full of narrow-minded little bigots, who always obeyed the lords and priests. Good Malkioni, who hated the pagan, and reviled and killed the krjalk. Or who died during some Crusade.

Anyway, I don't think that Sainthood and Solace are the same thing. They ought to be v. similar, certainly, but it appears that they aren't, in mainstream Malkionism at least.
This doesn't mean though that illumination is incompatible with Solace. Illumination tends to make all things compatible, doesn't it? IMO Illumination is incompatible with nothing.

> >Resist Flame
>
> I'll trade you for a few points of CounterMetcalfe.

It's a deal !

Julian Lord

PS I disagree with the diagrams representing the relationships of the four main philosophical currents of thought in Glorantha. It looks like they're turning into an alignment table from an AD&D book by Gary Gygax ! (My character's alignment is Mystic Theist, and he will Fight Animism and Materialism wherever they are found ...) I don't think that they'll be of much help to anyone understanding anything at all about the subject. That they must be given in any order at all is unavoidable. Any possible order would be suitable, IMHO.