> When I had the good fortune to meet Greg at GenCon this year.
> he taught me a Gloranthan secret..."Draconic Wisdom and Illumination are
> the *same thing*", he said like a wondrous child. :)
To cop out of this one shamelessly, I'll note that: a) they're both states of advanced mysticism; b) whether such states are Really The Same is almost imponderable for those who haven't achieved them, and difficult for those who have, to communicate them to those that have not. That's why if you ask an mystic a question, he either i) gives you an answer that makes you go "huh?", or ii) gives you a leaflet that outlines easy-payment plans for a course of intensive study in his mystical school. Really, he isn't actually _trying_ to nark you off... Oh, and c) that whether the states are the same, the routes used to reach them certainly differ.
> On my gut level, I seem to feel in me bones a difference between
> Draconic Teaching concerning the Void and Nysaloran/Lunar Illumination.
Trust your feelings, Chris. ;-) At the least, there's a _considerable_ difference in how one gets there. (Or to each respective "there", perhaps.) For actual draconics, it's not so much a school of thought as simply a state of being. No one understands 'newts at the best of times, and between you and me, the more "advanced" they get in their draconicism, the screwier they are! Kralori mystics are somewhat more comprehensible, at least on a good day, of course. Though they and the Dragonewts seem more than willing to abuse each other in print, so how interchangeable their modes of thought really are is yet another question.
To float out my current understanding of Darudism, such as it is, its principal apparent features are:
o freeing oneself from "worldly entanglements", which includes
(and indeed in many ways _especially_ includes) use of magic,
worship of gods, yadda-yadda
o liberating one's own Inner Dragon; this isn't really
much to do with becoming scaley and fork-tongued, but
can readily be (ab)used to do so;
o gaining ultimate Liberation, transcending the bounds of
the individual self, and becoming instead identified with
the Infinite, the Void, the Cosmic Dragon, or Universal
Consciousness, term it as you will.
I'll leave it to others to compare this with the gross appearance of Illumination in Peloria, but my own potted summary as to the general resemblances would be: not much.
> This leads me to thoughts of Lightbringer Mysticism.
I don't think there's much of what would normally be termed "Mysticism" in Orlanthi culture; indeed, my understanding is, that following the debacles with the EWF, and with the Broken Council, they are very, very suspicious of anything that seems overtly "Mystical". _But_, the Lightbringers' Quest clearly requires and involves a degree of Transcendent Understanding that one might be justifiably tempted to call mysticism. (Greg has made this sort of distinction in terminology, I know, though has only made the point that at such in such a state of understanding, mere terminology is both superfluous and inadequate.)
Sl\'{a}n libh,
Alex.
End of The Glorantha Digest V6 #352
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