> They [the Hrestoli] require passage through the wizard class, but not
all Loskalmi
>wizards are necessarily priests in the normal sense (although most are).
>However, priests are not an essential intermediary with the divine, and
every
>man can contact God through prayer.
Well, yes, and a Medieval peasant could pray for rain (although more likely to a saint than God), but the serious business of religion was reserved for the Church. The Hero Wars rules, with little magic available outside the Wizard caste, gives the Malkioni even more of a Medieval high church sort of structure. Farmers, Soldiers, and Lords who become "Holy People" probably have to prove themselves to Church authorities at some point, even in Loskalm (the example of Hrestol nonwithstanding).
I mean, I just don't see the Malkioni indulging in religious "rulership from below" as seen in Protestant low churches. They seem to have a "Farmers farm, their Liturgists pray for them" sort of attitude. So, yeah, Farmers can pray to Saints and even the Invisible God, but if they get spectacular results (and the funny ideas that come with them), the Hrestoli are going to want them to train up, and the Rokari are going to want them to pipe down.
David Cake says:
> Still, the idea of an impersonal god was part of what I was
>getting at when I discussed the Western Esoteric/ Golden Dawn (who
>see the magicians will as the ultimate) vs the traditional Jewish
>Kabballa (who see the magician only as a conduit for the will of the
>divine). The Golden Dawn approach to the Kabbala is certainly
>compatible with both an impersonal conception of god, and a mystic
>approach.
I don't think the Golden Dawn/Crowley/Modern Hermeticism is a very good model for Gloranthan Sorcery, if for no other reason than these systems are very syncratic and the main Western experience with syncratic approaches was Godlearnerism, and we see where that went. Other syncratic approaches (e.g. Stygianism) are hardly better thought of by the orthodox, and for similar reasons.
My early comments about Western mysticism were flawed, I think, by a confusion of a mystical approach and Mysticism as a form of Gloranthan magic. I think Western sorcerors probably do some of what you describe (balancing emotions to focus their Will), which is a mystical practice (and essentially window dressing as far as the game system is concerned), but their magical style is still Sorcery.
Lastly, the Kabbala really should have some presence in the West, if only for the numerological systems it spawned. Logicians, especially, should love this stuff.
Peter Larsen
End of The Glorantha Digest V8 #110
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