>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.
- -......
>This makes Illumination quite an "enlightened" view for the types of
>culture found in Glorantha and therefore well alien and something to be
>feared by most people. Glorantha is a world of dogma: Anything that
>breaks the dogma is going to be contentious and be feared.
None of which explains why illumination is so powerfull. After all, why should social or religious inclusiveness give personal power? Surely realising that the beliefs and convictions that have been the foundation of your life and that of your whole culture are merely opinions with no moral force should diminish your power through disillusionment, not increase it? Illumination is a personal revelation about one's own place in the cosmos.
Just look at the hoo-ha surrounding The Secret Of The Godlearners. Whatever it is, even if it can bu summarised in a handfull of sylables, you can bet you bottom dollar that everyone would interpret it their own way according to their own preconceptions.
Frank Rafaelsen :
>I think illumination is exactly the opposite of what people thing; you
do
>not trancend the world, you are more deeply immershed in the world.
Then why does illumination free you from so many worldly entanglements?
Secondly, that illumination is a transcendent state is not just what people think, it is what it is defined to be in the sources.
These two opinions display the most common flaw I have seen in discussions of illumination. They are based on a rationalist interpretation of a mystical insight. This is a contradiction. Many people come to glorantha with preconcieved ideas, usualy rationalist and often based on rational humanism, about how everything should work. This dogmatic aproach is doomed to failiure.
Simon Hibbs
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