Does it? What _worldly_ entanglements does it free you from exactly? Surely it can rather be said to free you from the 'supernatural', or unworldly? It doesn't feed your hunger but it makes you immune to spirits of reprisal. Not what I think of as worldly.
> 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.
Fair point. But, this leaves us with illumination that is exactly the same as RuneQuest sight: both claim to give a view of the world as it is, as opposed to how it appears. In this fashion both are positivistic, and I cant see that this makes the insight more 'mystical.'
The point is: illumination is said to give insight into the systemic nature of the world (an example: to realise that your culture defines what chaos is, and what is good/evil is a systemic insight). And because of that it simply can't be said to be outside the system, since that would contradict the fact that everything is systemic. Illumination undermines itself; illumination can only be to realise that 'there is no such thing as illumination.'
But that is no small thing. In the same way that 'Osiris is a dark God' is a boring piece of information for us but earthshattering for the ancient egyptians, I imagine the discovery that illumination is not trancendence is far more important than we can ever understand.
So we are left with a set of powers. Where do they come from? Not from trancendence (IMO). I think illumination is like the thing that happened to Kajabor when he was devoured by Arachne Solara; he was turned into a part of glorantha and thus neutralised.
Now look at two important, illuminated gods; The Red Goddess and Nysalor. What do they have in common? Nysalor was created after time and spent his time walking around in Dorastor. The Red Goddess made herself a body out of material stuff, and is right now hangig in the sky. Terribly materialistic for two gods of trancendence dont you think? In fact I cant think of many gods that have been more immediate 'touchable', reachable.
And finally, I don't think Greg would agree to my view of the importance, or rahter inescapability of history, language and culture. But I'll be bold enough to claim that this is because he doesn't know what he is talking about :)
Hey, I think I deserve a nomination for the prize for biggest flamestarter
Frank Rafaelsen
Homo Ludens
End of The Glorantha Digest V6 #206
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