>Who are the Near Ones?
A pamaltelean sect. They are thought by some people to be illuminates. Mentioned in passing in the Nysalor writeup from Dorastor: Land of Doom.
Me>> There is a 'dark' side to illumination? Given that illuminates
>> transcend good and evil, how can one tell if a 'bad' illuminate
>> is not experiencing the same religious feeling?
>Oh, there is *definitely* a "dark" side to illumination. [...] Simply,
>someone who has become illuminated by transcending an us/them dichotomy
>is a "light" side illuminate. Someone who has become illuminated by
>transcending a mine/yours dichotomy is a "grey" illuminate. Someone
>who has become illuminated by transcending the Death/Entropy dichotomy
>as a "dark" illuminate. (These are obviously just examples, not
>definitions.)
Shouldn't the Death/Entopy dichotomy be a Creation/Destruction dichotomy? After all the Lunars teach that Chaos/Entropy is merely the Death of the Gods.
>Religious feeling is not defined, I think, by a quality of one's personal
>feelings, but by a correspondance of these feelings with an absolute Good
>(not a culturally defined version, because we are discussing illuminates),
>which CANNOT be transcended, because it is a universal and elemental Truth.
>Now, very few things would fit into our notion of universal Goodness. Being,
>for instance, isn't a universal Good, as Kralori Mysticism shows. Creation,
>however (ie the fact that a universal Creation occurred), is Good, pure and
>simple, and in spite of the fact that there is a Creation/Destruction
>dichotomy. That the world has come into Being is Good.
>Truly religious feeling, then, is the presence of universal and eternal
>Goodness *within*, IMO. Not all illuminates can be described as being
>possessed of this presence.
This seems to imply that entities such as Shiva Nataraja, Shargash or Humakt which have Destruction as their aim, are not in contact with this Universal Good. Thus to suggest that their followers (some of which are mystics) do not have True Religious Feeling seems IMO to be a value judgement.
If your answer to this is to say that such mystics do have True Religious Feeling, then I feel you have effectively said that 'dark' mystics/illuminates/whatever have True Religious Feeling.
Moreover from current Greggly writings (cf the 'Sheng in Hell' answer at www.glorantha.com), the emphasis on mysticism is to reach into the transcendant world. Thus to use one's mysticism for material benefit (even if it is to reward people with a universal age of peace and plenty) is a bad thing and will ultimately lead to bad consequences.
Powered by hypermail