> However, there is a very real danger IMO of the "Malkioni are
>Right, Stygians are Wrong" being taken as not just culturally true, but
>objectively metaphysically and spiritually true - ie Stygians (and
>Aeolians, etc) should be worse magically, because they are wrong. And I
>think that just sucks.
Once again, the Stygians do not get worse theistic magic because they are wrong. The Carmanians and the Henotheists are even more wrong from the orthodox Malkioni PoV, yet their theistic magic is not weakened.
> Not to mention it doesn't make a whole lot of sense - Arkat, one of
>the greatest heroquesters and most widely knowledgeable magicians ever,
>would teach his loyal followers a particularly sucky form of magic when he
>had several other options? Hmmm....
Arkat's mysteries is very powerful, so powerful that if used by the wrong people, they will succumb to the lure of the deceiver and damn others as well as themselves. The weak magic that most stygians use are mere cantrips by comparison.
The Stygians practice weaker magic to demonstrate to the Hidden Masters their ability to withstand the temptations of the deceiver. Exactly when they graduate is unknown, but mastery of a few gods (a la Crowley) wouldn't be a bad start. IMO many can cast aside these petty restrictions but doing so is giving in to Gbaji, and the more lenient Hidden Masters punish this by a severe snot-kicking.
>I have interpreted some things said lately that the Stygians are
>intrinsically less competent magically than the Malkioni, [...]
>in the sense that the Malkioni are in touch with levels of power
>that the Stygians are not.
Arkat, when he was a hrestoli knight, would have known about the Joy of the Heart which is as close to God as Man can get. I believe this "level of power" is still reachable in Arkat's mysteries, even though a different method is used (destruction of the deceiver). But this is really mystical awareness rather than sorcery.
> Malkioni consider the theist impulse to 'personalise' or
>anthropomorphise (or really deicise, to neologise) the spiritual universe
>as deities very wrong. Stygians, while fundamentally Malkioni, do not seem
>to abhor this practice. There is an issue to reconcile here.
The Stygians do not abhor theism because it is what Arkat did (even if they disagree about the details). He embraced all manners of transformations in order to understand the deceiver better and thus destroy him (and know God in the process).
There is a real danger in that this philosophy can be used to embrace trolls or chaos but such practitioners usually cause immense destruction or social disharmony. Most Stygian churches handwave this dilemma away by saying that (trolls/chaos/etc) is of the essence of the deceiver and should not be experienced. But there's always somebody zealous enough to disregard these strictures...
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