me:
>> I'm not sure I'd classify either of these as writing systems,
though --
>>they are more like mystical notation schemes.
>
>I agree about the first, but the second is intended to explain
>mystical concepts rather than induce them, so it has some
>justification as a (sort of) writing system.
How much explaining can an elaborate diagram really do? It seems more likely that they would remind you of what you already know, perhaps with a function of conjoining symbols that you know but haven't related. The Magical Memory of Bruno was supposed to work like this -- an elaborate system of interrelated symbol sets that not only allow you to remember immense amounts of information but suggest new meanings as your brain organizes them. Which still means that you need to know the whole system (or at least a huge part of it) before you could use any part of it.
As long as I'm on the subject of Western esoterica, a friend of mine who collects Renaissance magical writings was telling me that the hostility of the Catholic Church towards Hermeticism had a great deal to do with the Hermeticists fumblings toward the (eventually Potestant) image of an immediately accessible God. In other words, anyone with the right spirit could approach the Divine directly without the intervention of layers of priests and ritual. There could be key there for tensions between the religious wizards and atheist sorcerors of the West. Another Western approach to mysticism, or sorcero-muysticism, if such a thing is possible....
Simon Bray talks about giant wasps, who could provide a sort of paper to central Genertela. Also, I'm sure all those Gorokki-Bee clans do great business provding the wax that makes up the Lunar Empire's version of a Palm Pilot.
Peter Larsen
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