Julian Lord:
> Theists do not 'channel' divine power. They're not sorcerors.
You're implying that sorcerors _do_ channel divine power?
> By duplicating the actions of their deity in the Myth Time of Sacrifice
> and theistic Worship, they gain the ability to incarnate that part of the
> god that performs the Feats in question. Crucially, those portions of
> the god are transcendentally "swapped" (if you like) for the Initiate's
> Free Will and Sacrifices. The god gains Free Will to the exact measure
> of the Initiate's use of the Feats in question, which are exactly equal
> to the amount of divinity that is manifest as the Initiate's magic.
This sounds like Heortling-style theism to me. AFAICS, in for example "old time" Dara Happa, this would not have been the method used: emulation of or identification with the deity would have been seen as presumptuous and heretical (Greg has commented that Yelmgatha's schtick was actually "very un-Yelmic" by the contemporary standard). Their method would rather be dominated by ritual, manifest sacrifice, and morality of a "top down" nature. (Do what Yelm says, as opposed to do what yelm did.)
(Then again, there are these new-fangled lunars; are their "adorational" cults just like Heortling emulation? Or something else again? I'd be inclined to suspect the latter, but I have little notion what the official position is here.)
> Not quite : the Initiate actually * doesn't * know how to do the magic
> (except in some forms of weird Lunar sorcery etc, and other rare
exceptions).
>
> Only the god has the knowledge. The gnosis.
Sounds to me that you're citing (an alleged) cosmology here, not either experience, or observable phenomena. I don't think it's useful to cite such notions as "meta game mechanical" (or "world mechanical") arguments.
> > 1) The feat imparts transient knowledge of the Vingan feat/myth to the
> > recipient, allowing them to re-enact it like the Vingan.
>
> No. The Feat is itself a transcendental portion of Vinga.
You're speaking of a feat as if it were an otherworldly entity, which doesn't even seem "well-typed". Say rather that a Feat is _the act of_ manifesting a portion of Vinga. (I'll skip "transcendental", if it's all the same...)
> > 2) The feat creates a sort of mini-wyter or magical 'power armour'
> > around the recipient ...
>
> That's how a God Learner might analyse the magic.
!?! Magical theorists in glass towers...
> The magical procedure is broadly similar to the "Become One" Secret of
> a Great Deity, but a Hero is not fully transcendent (if that makes sense ?),
> and is a _much_ smaller entity, and can therefore Manifest in a Form much
> closer to its "full" Essence than a god can.
Yes; you're being given a "smaller shape" by the otherworld -- thus fully achieving it is both "easier", and can more readily happen in the material world.
Cheers,
Alex.
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