> It's largely, I think, a matter of window dressing. I'm not particularly
>fond of the 19th C "fussiness" that inhabits certain areas of Glorantha
>(the old version of Lhankor Mhy, for example), and the "mad scientist"
>model is part of that (at least for me). I think I would rather follow Mr.
>Metcalfe's idea that Zzaburi philosophy resembles that of the Ancient
>Greeks. I don't know enough about Greek philosophy to make any proposals,
>but (as I dimly remember) there was a fair amount of what we would consider
>modern scientific thinking (without the scientific method, though) mixed
>with religious ideas. (Which does not mean that I think they are Theistic;
>they just have to cope with gods.) One advantage of this model is that it
>gives a source for Western Mysticism: Greek philosophy mixed with other
>Mediterranian currents and gave us Plotinus and the Neo-Platonists (as I
>recall, frankly, it's been 15 years...).
Funnilty enough, Neo-Platonism was one of the major inspirations behind Kabbalism. From Kether (Crown) proceed Binah (Understanding) and Chockhmah (Wisdom) and thence the whole tree of life, which map nicely onto the Spirit -> Inteligence -> Soul process of emmanation described by Plotinus. Kabbalism post-dates greek philosophy (considerably), and seems to be an attempt to apply greek philosophical concepts to jewish beliefs, to systematise the practices of the Merkabah mystics.
Check this out from a biography of Plotinus, snipped from :
http://members.aol.com/Heraklit1/plotinus.htm
Some of the quotes on that page are illustrative of what I mean.
# Plotinus was a pantheist of the world-rejecting type. He envisaged God as an # impersonal Unity - infinite, eternal, with no spatial location, and (curious, # but consistent) without thought, knowledge or movement. This conception is # strikingly close to that of Taoism. # # The One created the universe by progressive emanation, first into a purely # spiritual form, Intellect, then into Soul, which in turn animated the physical # world. Soul is present even in the lowest forms of existence, but these are so # far removed from divinity that Plotinus sometimes calls matter evil. Like Plato, # he believed that the body had to be suppressed and overcome before the soul # could attain unity with the One.
Compare and contrast with these analyses of Kabbalism :
http://www.digital-brilliance.com/kab/index.htm and particularly
http://www.digital-brilliance.com/kab/nok/index.htm
Note that the use of the term mysticism with respect to Kabbalism should not be confused with mysticism in it's Gloranthan context. When commentators describe kabbalsits as mystics, what they mean is that they attempt to enter altered states of conciousness. Of course in Glorantha members of all the magical sytems (shamanism, sorcery, theism and mysticism) all have otherworlds that they contact through altering their states of conciousness. Kabbalists do not attempt to refute the world, or realise a Great Self, or follow any of the other goals pursued by gloranthan mystics.
Simon Hibbs
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