> Peter> 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?
Not all illuminates transcend good and evil, I think. Some content themselves with good and bad.
> Me> 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.)
>
> Peter> 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.
I don't think they're quite the same thing, myself. Creation and Destruction leave something new behind, and so does Death. The only thing Entropy leaves behind is the Chaos Void.
Perhaps what I'm after is a perception of illuminates, because they live in the world, and society, being defined as Light Side illuminates or Dark Side illuminates according to a set of (theoretical) universal values (values for "Light" and "Dark") of non-illuminated religious life. So, if you are filled with joy and light, but cultivate a gorp pond in your back yard, and lend your house to the local chapter of the cult of Thed for their weekend human sacrifice get-together, your feelings cannot be "religious" because you are rather radically severed from the local religion (except in Dorastor!), and therefore from universal Good.
There are, in fact problems with the idea of a universally true value for Goodness in Glorantha ...
> >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.
Not what I meant. I was trying to juggle with two different aspects of the word Creation.
> Thus to suggest that their followers
> (some of which are mystics) do not have True Religious Feeling seems
> IMO to be a value judgement.
I didn't want to suggest this at all.
And value judgements are what I'm trying to get away from, although this is quite
hard.
Perhaps unavoidable. Yup, looks like it.
So, I suppose that the Light and Dark sides of illumination must be culturally defined and relatively meaningless notions, then.
So let's scrap the whole thread then, and thank you for your input.
I dunno, logic seems to be failing here (of course!). The values that are transcended in illumination are cultural ones, but does this make the transcendant state a cultural or a non-cultural state? RW mystics claim that it's non-cultural, I think. Wouldn't Gloranthan Mystics say the same thing?
PS
> 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.
Such is not my answer.
> 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.
This could *also* be transcended, though ...
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