No, what that proves is that shamanism and polytheism produce results that are visible from an external materialist POV. Initiates see the gods walking the earth, outsiders see a picturesque, magically effective ritual.
In crude caricature:
[I keep wanting to rearrange the above, but I don't think it'll get any less wrong. Maybe it'll get the point across though.]
To be slightly less flip, there three ways of relating to something: as a person, as an object, and as a deity. This classification, and a whole bunch of capabilities for dealing with each type of thing, is probably buried pretty deep in either western culture or the forebrain[1].
You can see divisions along these lines in current RW culture. Different people treat different kinds of animal as 'essentially human'[2].
The difference is not in the animal, but in the human: consider a farming family who adopts one pig as a pet, and eats the rest.
Orlanthi probably regard Meldeks[3] as suffering from a disease like autism. The part of the brain/spirit that should be relating to the gods is not working.
In fact, it probably gets burnt out in some kind of hideous sorcerous ritual. Which will have to do as the game-relevant bit of this post.
Richard
[1] The existence of autism would argue for the forebrain, if a
disease can effectively lead to the loss of the ability to relate to people as people. See Oliver Sacks for details, and counter-arguments.
[2] frex, the English generally treat anything with eyes as at least
the equal of a human, whereas the French treat anything edible as potential food.
[3] Emptied ones - one of my favorite Gloranthan words.
End of The Glorantha Digest V6 #74
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