mixing spirits and gods

From: Labrygon_at_aol.com
Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 08:21:08 EDT


Peter:
> "Heroquesting to prove that two gods are one": Again there's
> no evidence for this. While there was a great deal of
> speculation about what might have happened with respect
> to Yelmalio/Elmal in the 90s, it's pretty much been quashed
> by information in HQ publications that Yelmalio and Elmal
> are distinct Gods (for starters - Elmal's Shining Hall is
> in the Storm Realm whereas Yelmalio's Fortress is at
> the edge of the Solar Realm).
>

I pretty much agree with Peter's conclusions, but think it worth considering the whole thing from a worship point of view - a 'mechanics' of worship, if you like. We would agree that a lot of different people worship the Sun, as an example, a being they recognise as the Sun. My feeling is that part of that sacrifice/ecstatic communion/veneration is directed, in some small way, to all Sun powers. So some portion of that sun worship is tied to some sort of Sun Power, perhaps the Fire/Sky rune, something like that. Other parts of the rituals relate to the Fiery Horseness of the entity, the stalwart defenderness of the being, the elf-friendiness of the incarnation. So, it seems to me that a lot of rituals can be used to effectively worship the wrong deity. I think this is what happened with the Solar rites that corrupted Elmali worship, what the participants of the Goddess Switch did, and possibly what Ice Princess/Inora worshipping oiks are doing.

I'm not sure I'm being very clear here, but anyway.

We have an example in Lokamayadon, of someone who sought to usurp some part of Orlanth worship, but clearly Lokomoko got the initiation wrong somehow. We also have the Arangorf dragon episode where Orlanthi get seduced into dragon worship, which seems to me like some sort of process where the mechanics of worship - the rites and methods used - get changed slightly to somehow worship another entity, although they remain mostly the same.

Human understanding of the gods is clearly limited by human comprehension. Discussing Orlanth's height, for example, misses the point that he is the Storm - the entire wind system that swirls around the enire Lozenge.

I'd better stop, I'm getting less clear.

Keith


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