> Forget all this mystical cock about Illumination (like it being some
> transcendental watchamacallit). Think of Illumination as being the
> realisation that everything you've been told isn't quite as black and
> white as you thought.
Yes, but.....
People need the structure and meaning that socially supported beliefs (even the most poisonous and ridiculous) give them. Find yourself discovering that the things you've believed all your life 'ain't necessarily so' and you'll like as not run for the cover of another set of beliefs just as poisonous and ridiculous.
An Illuminate has become in the literal sense amoral. He no longer is confined by the mores of his culture. He has seen beyond them and knows them to be inadequate. If he does not find a code of his own that he can use to make his life make sense, if he cannot become an ethical being then he will most likely become a monster.
I found this (in a Jerry Pournelle book) the other week and immediately thought of Gloranthan Illumination. It's about a pupil of Socrates.
"When a man is freed from the bonds of dogma and custom, where will he run? He has gotten loose, of the soul, if you like the word, or from whatever keeps a man on two feet instead of on four. And now Kritias too is running on the mountain, with no more between him and his will than a wolf has."
Or to quote the old Zen proverb:
"He who acheives supreme Illumination is like an arrow flying straight to hell."
Actor And Genius
AKA Theophilus Prince Archbishop Of The Far Isles Medieval Society
Arms Purpure An Open Book Proper: On the Dexter Page an Alpha Or
On the Sinister an Omega Or. Motto Nulla Spes Sit in Resistendo
(Resistance is Useless). Ask me about the Far Isles:
Better Living through Pan-Medieval Anachronisms.
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