Except when they don't, e.g. when they manifest in the middle world as ghosts, for example.
> Live people who visit there impose a semblance of time on it, but
>that's temporary and as I said, just a semblance, more a way of
>viewing it than its true nature.
I don't think the afterlife is the same as the mythological ages. The ancestors don't go to the Storm Age, for example. They go to a part of Orlanth's Hall (or wherever) allocated to them, from which the Storm Age can be reached. I think the afterlife does have some experience of time in a recognisable form. Certainly the mythological ages are timeless, as you dscribe.
> Once an ancestor visits the timeless afterlife, he is ALWAYS there,
>even when he reincarnates. Because once you exist in a timeless
>place, you always exist there, barring the action of unnatural
>forces like chaos or God Learners. Think of the nature of time and
>reality as described in _Slaughterhouse Five_. Think of the way that
>encounters in a heroquest can be from any time or place.
I don't agree with this. As for ghosts visiting the middle world, reincarnated ancestors are nolonger in the halls of the dead, and their absence from there might be sued as a clue that something has happened to them (become a ghost, reincarnated, been bound by an enemy, etc.
> I think this holds true for theists and animists.
>
> You could even make a case for one's connection to the spirit world
>being a result of the level of awareness you have of that part of
>you which always exisits in that other realm.
I think the concept of the 'other self', what was called a Fetch, Familiar or Allied Spirit in RQ, is of a different nature.
Simon Hibbs
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