But the "Vithelan theists" don't especially disagree with the "Vithelan mystics" in outlook or cosmology, surely, but largely on practice. A Vithelan worshipping the sun isn't doing it as a DHn would worship Yelm, say, but rather on a "what the hey, the guru tells me this reality is conditioned and provisional anyway" basis.
> To get hideously rulesy, reasoning from the four world setup
> presented in HW, saying that the Vithelan Otherworld is mystic
> would imply that the Vithelan theists would have a foreign
> world penalty. I don't think they do. But if I interpret your
> description correctly David, you think that neither do the
> mystics?
I agree that that's hideous, but to call it rulesy seems to give it undue game-mechanical credence. ;-)
It strikes me that the eastern otherworld is "less theistic" than that of the Centre, in that V. theism is explicitly provisional, not even _seeking_ to account for the ultimate truths of the world. Equally, it's "more mystical", because the mystics method of interacting with it has repeatedly been proved to be the best one. Nevertheless I agree with you when you say, in effect, that the manner it's _most often_ interacted with is theistically. This is why I say that "mystic otherworld", or a lack thereof, seem to be in the realm of semantics as much as anything.
> > > Which means you can achieve mystic liberation there. That
> > > does not necessarily make it a mystic otherworld, but there
> > > is no reason to rule out the possibility entirely I guess.
> >
> > I'm not entirely sure what the distinction would mean here, indeed.
>
> You can achieve mystic liberation by a number of means, in
> a number of places. These means and places need not necessarily
> be mystical in nature.
Mystical in nature meaning what? If you gave a moment of satori while chopping a pile of wood, was the wood-pile "mystical", or not?
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