Terra:
> In Auld Enclosure #1 Quotation of Greg's statement:
> [Asceticism: Form of non-worship used by most people who are devoted to
> non-divine concepts, typically mystical philosophies, transcendent
> metaphysics, or transpersonal entities. It includesboth Renunciations and
> Penances. The only acceptable sacrifice is ones own self to the great self".
> Differs from sorcery in that it does NOT attempt to get material results.]
>
> New Greg's categorization, perhaps most of Asceticism is not Mysticism.
If Greg were willing to describe an 'ascetic' system (with a definition along those lines), and boot the term 'mystic' into the long gress, I'd be more than happy.
> Alex's term [innatist] might be applied to most of self-made (not powered
> from outside entities) heroes in movies like Jedi, Neo, or, Harrek the
> Berserk....arkati and illuminates can use three otherworld forces without
> penalty....IMHO....
I don't know if you follow hw-rules, so perhaps I should explain the context of my use of "innatist". Apparently, talents are now considered a type of Common Magic, specifically they are 'innate' Common Magic. Hence I speculated that Taraltarans and Kralori martial artists might be of this sort, in the sense that the 'magic' they're using to perform slice'n'dice and/or spectacular high kicks is basically simply that of their own bodies. Perhaps entirely 'mundane' skills, or something of the flavour of them ol' "ki skills", whatever.
The question remains, though, whether these are in any way distinguishable from "non-mystical" martial artists using "innate skills". I think this comes down to basically two things:
o Their attitudes to 'otherworldly' magic; and o Whether they have access to, and whether they choose to use, "transcendent" power, of any sort.
I think we have, if not well-documented then at least heavily hinted at, examples of 'mystics' that spurn the use of otherworldly magic, but do manifest transcendent power in the inner world. Zolathi, and the like. I think these are (at least some of) what Greg is called failed/bad mystics. This I wouldn't disagree with.
There are perhaps also "mystics" who refuse the use of either otherworldly magic, or of transcendent power. I'd have been tempted to say that the classic 'Zen archer' stereotype was of this sort, as might have been the Taraltarans. In such cases their 'mystical' nature comes down to whether their 'mundane' behaviour is compatible with such, in particular as regards the use of violence.
Then again, there are those that talk some kind of mystical talk, but do manifest 'powers'. If one took them literally, the Jedi would seem to be in the same category as the Zolathi, etc. Another possibility though, and which certainly springs to mind in the case of wire flicks, is that they use otherworldly magic as 'proximate means', over and above using their innate abilities to do so. (We can take arguments over whether this is a good idea or not to the Dalai Lama, perhaps, but clearly it's possible to do this while still having a transcendent _objective_, forlornly or not.)
Antonio Alvarez del Cuvillo:
> But, in Glorantha there are people who use trascendental powers or
> trascendental magic, IMO. Illuminates, draconic magic, Sheng Sheleris, etc.
> It would be good, IMO, to make general rules for this sort of things, and to
> use some general name for that (trascendental magic?). The 'entangled
> mystic' take his understanding of trascendence (or simply deeper but not
> Ultimate levels of reality, you needn't have reached Ouroboros, only the
> True Dragons) to the illusory world. Using this magic, probably pollutes
> mystic's spiritual advancement, because manifestations of trascendence in
> illusory world are illusory (so True Dragons are more true than Dream
> Dragons, but are less true than Cosmic Dragons, etc). But, in fact, nobody
> knows, because the extremes are the same thing in Trascendence (trying to
> achieve trascendence could entangle you because your wish something, and
> your wish is false; or, failing could be the true path, who knows?). Or
> simply, we have not rules for trascendence, and it has no effect in the game
> (the magic has effect, the believing in that magic pollutes your paths
> also). Siddhi powers would be a good RW parallel for these sort of things.
I think it's very tricky to judge the 'correctness' of actions in any of the mundane, otherworldly, or transcendent realms for just these reasons, in fact. Tricky enough to define these things according to the lights of a given tradition, much less trying to do so universally. And it's a deuced hard thing to 'measure' in in any: root mean squared time to liberation from initiation, anyone? Never mind that it may not be possible to tell who became liberated, and who did not, from an external PoV, not all traditions may have 'personal' liberation as their primary goal. (Arhats vs bodhisattvas, again.) Better IMO simply to define each tradition in internal, functional terms, and leave such grand cosmic questions to the accompanying gloss, if not to individual games.
Cheers,
Alex.
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