Re: Red Emperor

From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_cs.ucc.ie>
Date: Thu, 4 May 2000 20:07:43 +0100 (BST)


Nils:
> > > What about extending this a bit so that various institutions
> > > can determine a varying number of soul parts, but that none
> > > of them can determine _all_ of them? That would make it a
> > > lot harder to disprove an impostor, as you would have to
> > > make a number of institutions cooperate.
>
> Alex:
> >
> > This is Only Any Fun if the different Parts actually start off in
> > _different places_, and have to be Reabsorbed somehow...
>
> I thought that was the case: the Egi collect the soul parts
> from various places.

Yeah, different Otherworld places; it wouldn't be normal for them to be manifest in assorted people, though I don't dislike the idea by any means. I'd think this would only happen in 'special circumstances', or if someone were deliberately getting ahead of themselves by trying to incarnate part of his powers, for Some Nefarious Purpose or other...

> Also, I thought it was the case that
> there could be a valid emperor who isn't _the_ Red Emperor.
> I.e. a Dara Happan faction could presumably put up an emperor
> who has the Antirius soul, but not the Takenegi Great Self.

Definitely could happen. Somewhat implies the above, I suppose, if the previous Masks identification with Antririus is total, though I'd more imagine a Pure Dara Happan faction seeking to repudiate the legitimacy of the 'Lunar version', and identify with Antirius (and/or the other portions of Yelm) 'directly'.

> In their current lifetime. Nowhere is there anything said that
> reincarnated souls remember their past lives.

Perhaps because they're reincarnated without the same Bird portion, say, which would be my initial guess as to the seat of memory...

> As very few
> individuals with a seventh part (or the equivalent in another
> culture's terminology) do reincarnate, I thought it rather
> plausible to attribute the memories to the seventh part.
> The more so as that is the "eternal, unchanging" part to
> bring in eastern mystic thinking.

But memories aren't eternal, they're very much temporal, and individuated. They seem much more of a 'small self' thing: my memories are in large part what makes me, _me_, as opposed to what makes We Us.

Peter:
> But most people do not remember stuff from their previous lives.
> That appears to be an attribute of some enlightened people who
> in Pelorian terms would be considered to have a Great Self.

Hurm. I'm not sure what the precise Lunar cosmology of reincarnation is, so I'm on shaky ground here, I confess, but surely by any likely definition, you _do_ share a 7th portion with your past lives (and I'm not at all clear which others), though almost always unawakened. Would simple awakening the 7th portion in itself, if you shared no other portion, and had done nothing to re-identify with your 'old' ones, cause you to regain memories?

Cheers,
Alex.


End of The Glorantha Digest V7 #619


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