Re: Shargash

From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_cs.ucc.ie>
Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 17:32:52 +0100 (BST)


Peter Metcalfe on Tolat's (alleged) fertilisation programme:
> Given that I do believe in MOB's revisionism (I even tried to
> write it into the Glorantha:Intro but the wicked editor excised
> it most foully), I can't give you an example with the criteria
> that you specify.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the revisionism of that particular, sadly, by his own account, semi-retired Gloranthan luminary as much as the next man. But to give him his due, MOB is pretty much even-handedly revisionist about most things, especially when they smack of High Gloranthan Truth... Whether you see Tolat as whacking out his very own personal Enormous Scarlet Column in each and every individual case, doing it via daimon surrogating, or even the ritual having a startlingly "material" component, it's clearly still a function within Tolat's domain, from the PoV of the Trowjangi religion and its rites.

> > > I said nothing of the sort. I said I didn't give a damn
> > > about the philosophical basis of the classification and
> > > simply used it for its utility value. The issue of whether
> > > cultural cosmologies differ from it is a completely different
> > > question from whether the classification system is objective
> > > or subjective.
>
> >On the contrary, that is precisely the same question.
>
> No, it isn't. If the system is subjective (i.e. being the
> cosmology that the god learners arrived at), then cultures
> will still differ from it. If it is objective (i.e. Greg
> has a little piece of paper with the list of the Great Gods
> of Glorantha), then cultures still differ from it. In any
> case, I cannot see why the question of objectivity has any
> bearing on whether cultures can differ from it.

That's not what I mean by subjective vs. objective; had I meant that, I'd have said external vs. internal (or endogenous vs. exogenous, had I been determined to sound like John Hughes). I'm speaking in the sense of whether a single description is universally true, without regard to systematic, cultural or cultic viewpoint.

> > > They don't but see the Shargash rune which does not have chaotic
> > > connotations and is somewhat present in their own runic system
>
> >In other words, the "Core" rune of Annihilation/Void is essentially
> >unknown to the Heortlings, and they blithely "miss" Shargash's
> >allegedly fundamental runic association entirely?
>
> No. They see a fundamental force but do not recognize it in the
> same way as the God Learners do.

Well, that's progress, of a sort...

> > > They have a different perception of the Core Rune but its power
> > > is still the same.
>
> >And this perception is what?
>
> Destruction as opposed to Annihilation/Void.

I don't mean to be "difficult" about this, but I'm really not hearing the difference. How is to Annihilate crucially distinct from to Destroy here? The Heortlings see Shargash as the Great God of a power which includes the utter elimination from the cosmos of souls, and do not see this as chaotic, is that your position? (Or that they don't see him as destroying souls, but still distinguish him from "death"?)


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