Western mysticism

From: Peter Larsen <plarsen_at_mail.utexas.edu>
Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2000 19:28:26 -0600


Simon Hibbs says:

>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 sounds like the Zzaburi's concept of the Creator as it's been described on this list. I suppose Neo-Platonism might serve as a model for the way more mystical ideas can get grafted on the mind-oriented worldview of the Zzaburi to create schools of sorcery with very different feels.

>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.

        I think this is a really important point. Some of my thinking about mysticism in the West was badly corrupted by a failure to clearly separate Gloranthan Mystics from mysticism inherent in the other three "forms." So, are the Perfecti Western mystics or Mystics? (ie do they use sorcery or mysticism rules)?

        Lastly, I notice that the Heortling rune looks like the EWF rune with one line missing. No doubt this is intentional. However, the Heortling symbol also appears in promo material for the band Weezer, which is far more disturbing....

Peter Larsen


Powered by hypermail