> You can't see, smell, hear or eat most sorts of
> spirits, yet Trolls are adept at dealing with them.
> Their shamans are experts at navigating and
utilising
> forces from the otherworld. In the animist world
> view, every phenomenon has a spiritual as well as
> material component and Trolls are animists, not
> materialists.
But the Uz make NO distinction between Physics and Metaphysics, as Keith implies.
> To trolls Fear, Hunger, Love and Pleasure are very
> real personalised forces, but they are certainly
> not material in a physical sense.
But they *are* Manifest.
Id est : they *are* phenomena.
I think that Keith is right, in a very deep and subtle way.
The Uz apprehend reality as Substance.
This would imply that a human Matter/Spirit dichotomy would be intimately meaningless to a troll ; and to discuss Uz Magic according to any RW cultural a priori would be to distort their beliefs far beyond the apparent simplicity (but actually complex synaesthesis) of Uz philosophy.
Julian Lord
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