Many people have written about the putative "soul shortage", most recently Archbishop Cule ...
> I always assume this is so but the number of souls in the world is not
> necessarily zero-sum. I've always assumed (in all my fantasy campaigns that
> feature re-incarnation) that new souls come into existence at a slow but
> measurable rate and that only a few leave by destruction or transcendence.
>
> But the Bat could well be devouring souls faster than they can be naturally
> replenished.
Quite separately from the obvious reductionist God Learner basis for this kind of speculation, all this discussion is assuming something that everyone seems to be taking for granted, but that is probably not true in Glorantha.
"You have a soul, which is a part of you that is eternal. When you die, that is but a part of a journey to the next phace of being" etc etc etc.
This is part of the Christian tradition (or "repressive reactionary bollocks", as is known among us unbiased observers :-). Why has it become Gloranthan orthodoxy (on the Digest, anyway). Who says everyone has an eternal part? Who says souls are recycled?
In Glorantha, there are people with these beliefs, but there are people with widely variant beliefs, as well. And we know that they are all correct, because they can all prove it.
Some people may be confused by the the concept of a spirit, which (in some cases) can be an intangible remnant of a person left behind after their death; but a "spirit" is not necessarily the same thing as a Christian "soul". Spirits can also be forces of nature, nameless feelings of dread associated with a place, the "spirit of learning" that even the most unspiritual person can feel over the local temple of Lhankor Mhy, etc. Even the Spirit of the Age. The metaphorical value of these concepts in the RW just has slightly more weight in Glorantha.
There is a RW belief system that holds everyone has 7 bodies. It's just as sensible as all this stuff about "souls". If they all met, they could have a party!
So we could we avoid talking about souls unless we know what Gloranthan thing we are really talking about?
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End of The Glorantha Digest V6 #149
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