Re: Malkioni Theories

From: Joerg Baumgartner <joe_at_toppoint.de>
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 98 16:33 MET DST


Peter Metcalfe
>>Greg also read (or had Nick read) the Malkioni devolution scheme. By
>>"Higher levels of existance" do you mean lifted to the level of
>>Zzabur and Horal not as persons, but as principal forces?

> I haven't heard the Malkioni devolution scheme (or maybe I have but I
> haven't heard the scheme as it was described at the Convulsion).

I think it's basically in Greg's "Lunar Book", which has been for auction at a couple of cons in the last two years (not Convulsion 4D, though).

Basically, at Convulsion Greg described the Malkioni devolution in terms of the devolution of Malkion.

Malkion seems to have been present in the stages of one (Prime Mover) and two, though I don't recall them right now.

In stage three, Malkion the Prophet, Zzabur the Wizard, Horal the Warrior, Talar the Ruler, etc. [probably including Ehilm the Sun, Humct Deathlord or Worlath the Wind] were immortal beings of equal power and footing. Zzabur of Brithos claims to still belong to this stage. His performance during I Fought We Won on equal footing with Kyger Litor and other deities seems to support this claim [although his performance after Dawn during the Hrestol crisis doesn't (not until his abdication, that is)].

Malkion the Founder is the mortal, of the fourth stage, and Zzabur claims himself to be superior to Malkion the Founder. This is Malkion who led the exodus of the Malkioni from Brithos, or so.

In the fifth stage, Old Man Malkion gathers the non-Malkioni to fight Chaos, and they are destroyed.

(Can anyone with a better memory correct me, please?)

> But I think it would be fair to state that they have their minds
> operate in the higher level of existance.

You know, this sounds like a fair description how Malkioni may experience performing magic.

And how Brithini strife to live.

> Great Wizards like Zzabur etc and
> Saints would have their bodies (and to some extent their surroundings
> and personal effects) also lifted up to this heightened state of
> existance (for additional ompf).

I like this line of reasoning...

>>Peter later clarified that the Higher levels are material in the
>>materialist's worldview. To be expected - apparently the Malkioni
>>know one state of transcendence, and that's Solace.

> No. The Higher Levels of a Materialistic perspective are observable
> in the Material World. The Mystic's Higher Levels are not because he
> seeks them outside the Observable Cosmos.

You put this as an objective truth. I wonder what the Outer Atomic Explorers would have said to this theory (not necessarily Jim Chapin's astronauts, but the theorists).

> Solace* being a product of Materialistic Philosophy is not a
> transcendant state but within the Cosmos.

As materialists, the Malkioni may be aware that their observations may be limited, but "within the Cosmos" or without seems a question of how you define the Cosmos. It may well be possible for a knowledgeable Malkioni to heroquest to the city of Malkonwal, but will it be perfect Malkonwal within Solace, or will it be Malkonwal before its transition (Lunars would call this temportation, I believe)?

> It does not preclude individual sects (such as the Perfecti
> or the Silence) from claiming that the meaning of Solace has been lied
> about and that the real Solace is, in effect, a transcendant state.

I'd bunch in most of the Arkati here. "Deeper secrets _through_ Darkness" might mean - in God Learner cosmology - through Subere's realm and "the Chaosium" into the Void.

> The Malkioni do know of States of Existance outside the
> Cosmos but equate it with the number zero and thus 'prove' to their
> satisfaction that it cannot be reached by mortals.

Can it be reached by Immortals (in Malkioni opinion)?

> Now some Malkioni can be loose with words and describe the entire
> scheme above the material and spirit world as being Solace. Which
> makes a mess of how to describe Saintliness. Since to observe the
> existance of an emanation is to reach it, I do not think that is a
> good definition of Saintliness.

I agree. I need to get back to the definition of spirit world, though: in terms of the cosmology in RQ3 products (IIRC Genertela: Glorantha Book), does this include all the Upper, Lower, Outer World and the spirit plane? All the Other Side?

> Otherwise Sog City Uni would churn out saints by setting an exam
> question 'Prove the ultimate existance of the Invisible God'.

:-) Terrible thing, too, since it is run by Brithini who don't accept saints...

> Hence I think that the status of Saintliness is arrived at by
> purifying the mind and body so as to attain a higher level of
> existance. Most Malkioni aim merely to purify the mind to some
> extent with the result that their mind survives the mortal death
> of the body and the dissolution of the spirit.

Their "mind", or their "soul", or whatever: Is this sort of a "distilled self" they aim to preserve? Do the Brithini have a notion on the nature of this phenomenon?

Nils Weinander:

>>I asked at the Convulsion lore auction if there are
>>transcendental ideas in all world views, to which Greg
>>answered that yes, the goal in _all_ for worldviews is
>>to bring man and the transcendent together. It didn't
>>occur to me to ask the follow-up question "What about the
>>materialists then?" though, so I can't say what form it
>>takes.

> An interesting riddle. It seems that Greg may have using
> transcendance to include matters that most would simply term
> divine (ie higher states within the Cosmos). Since the Malkioni
> can access those states with their viewpoint, they can reasonably
> said to have transcendance in their worldview for some definitions
> of transcendance. However that is not the Standard Lunar Definition
> (as given in Enclosure #1) which states that 'Transcedental entities
> exist outside normal cosmological reality' and that was what I was
> basing my exposition on.

Now the Lunar definition doesn't necessarily apply to God Learned Malkioni - Lunar experience with Malkionism is mostly based on pre-God Learner traditions imported by way of Syranthir and the Carmanians. The Arrolians do pose a problem to various Lunar philosophies, it appears, and their influences needn't have made much of an impression in imperial standard definitions.

IMO the Outer Atomic Explorers set out to prove the Unknowable in a materialist sense. It may have been their findings which made the basis for the Silence movement in Umathela.

BTW Silence: could the idea behind the Silence have been to recreate the state before the world was remade? After all, Zzabur faced the problem of a silence when he participated in I Fought We Won.

> Otherwise Zzabur would be a Saint which is
> denied by the Malkioni in GoG (and I don't think they are
> playing silly definition games either).

Zzabur is recognized as a quasi-"theist divine" immortal, it appears. Obviously this is not what orthodox Malkioni think of saints.

On the other hand, there seems to be nothing to prevent these immortal beings from becoming saints. Malkion did, and various henotheist sects have made their theist deities saints rather than false gods.

How about the minor members of Malkion's offspring? Could we expect Yingar the Messenger (a grandson of Malkion IIRC) to be a saint?


End of The Glorantha Digest V6 #139


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