>As I said before, the _precise_ original
>purpose of the camp is likely to be obscure for historical reason,
>but it does, I think, have a basis in some sort of mystic practice.
Perhaps there were mystics who indulged in torture, I have never denied that. It hardly seems like wholesale camps were set up for that purpose alone, with various miscreants from across Kralorela sent there.
I think if it was truly a mystic institution, then like the Gerra cult it would be a handful of people. The mystic path might be real, and might genuinely believe in torture as a path to enlightenment - and for 99% of the inmates, its irrelevent.
>And come to that, it's not
>impossible that the Kralori authorities may have made some less than
>good faith use of the ITCs, sending people there as a de jure
>'religious experience', and a de facto hideous punishment.
Pretty much what I think exactly. Like RW prisons, their ostensible purpose is to reform, and everyone knows that they don't (other than occasionally through pure fear), and everyone knows their primary purpose is to punish. And the state find them terrifically useful, and uses them with enthusiasm.
Martin
>> Their parallel on our world would be the concentration camp, the ethnic
>> cleansing centre, the Khmer Rouge holiday resorts and the Gulag.
The Khmer Rouge probably is a reasonable parallel in some ways - they set up 'reeducation centers'. The torture camps I see similarly as ostensibly to improve the inmates - but actually just a hideous punishment for most of them.
>I think the reverse: it's deliberately a mystical technique, and
>'accidentally' a means of actual, unmitigated suffering, in some cases.
Sure - but to almost everybody, its clearly the reverse in practice.
Peter
>> NB - enlightenment through torture would appear to be a 'short
>>path' type power, a bit like FrenzyPeace, rather than the normal eastern
>>path of gradual detachment.
>
>Sheng Seleris took 100 years to get where he was through the
>instant torture camps. This isn't a 'short path' in anyone's
>book and harsh asceticism _is_ a valid mystical path, whereas
>Frenzypeace isn't.
100 years? Barely a lifetime. Arguably short. But in any case what I meant by 'short path' was left-hand tantra practices - practicing Engagement rather than Disengagement, breaking taboos, indulging the sense, etc. Practitioners where known to associate with scenes of horror and death, as well well as practice sexual licentiousness. Can be regarded as valid, but very dangerous.
Besides - Frenzypeace is regarded as a valid mystical path by its practitioners, like every other Gloranthan philosophy. Like the Stygians, I don't like to see any Gloranthan philosophy treated so dismissively.
And ascetism is a practice, not a path on its own - plenty of ascetism is mystically profoundly wrong.
Cheers David ------------------------------
End of The Glorantha Digest V7 #384
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