Re: HOW DID ARKAT ATTAIN ILLUMINATION? from Richard Hayes on 2010-06-04 (World of Glorantha)

From: Richard Hayes <richard_hayes29_at_RxokPqYOyw36wirFLO1zSeH-mO5B2P6BfhTIsXDy6tWaaGqf2nNreBFoXkrA>
Date: Fri, 4 Jun 2010 11:56:33 +0000 (GMT)

Chaps,

Arkat's ability to join, use and then cut his ties with cults and move on, certainly looks like (an abuse of) Nysalorean Illumination -- but whether this was because Arkat really was Illuminated or because of something else is another matter.

In some old sources (ToTR 12, iirc), a/the Gift of St arkat was the ability to 'out' Illuminates to others, by making them shine brightly. This power certainly does not need Arkat and Arkati to be illuminated for it to make sense (it makes at least as much sense as a power derived from Arkat's role as the anti-Gbaji), but for one I rather liked the irony of it being able to 'out' Illuminated Arkati as well as Illuminated Gbajists
Richard Hayes

On Fri, 4/6/10, Peter Metcalfe <metcalph_at_15g1Zbou2lWWRhl3ocvbIYqV_FrDsWiNwGycDi0dXkagWOWBgVGW5dDWy_3efgYuvanF29r_zJeN0YPuQ5CyStnxY3Y.yahoo.invalid> wrote:

From: Peter Metcalfe <metcalph_at_15g1Zbou2lWWRhl3ocvbIYqV_FrDsWiNwGycDi0dXkagWOWBgVGW5dDWy_3efgYuvanF29r_zJeN0YPuQ5CyStnxY3Y.yahoo.invalid> Subject: Re: HOW DID ARKAT ATTAIN ILLUMINATION? To: WorldofGlorantha_at_yahoogroups.com
Date: Friday, 4 June, 2010, 12:25

On 6/4/2010 10:23 PM, lurghalos wrote:
> Not at the hand of Nysalor/Gbaji or his Riddlers surely?
>
> Surely not?!

The earliest answer has been at the hands of the elves of Brithos (according to Cults of Terror).

But that dating doesn't work. Arkat was born during the Sunstop and there would have to be a free and unimpeded transmission of ideas from Dorastor to Brithos within 13 years whereas it was anything but.

My guess is that the "Arkat was Illuminated" was a slander put about by the God Learners to defame Arkat - since they couldn't understand either illumination or Arkatism, they declared that both were two sides of the same coin and both had to be eradicated.

At the same time, I believe that the God Learner slander contained an unwitting element of truth. For Arkat was Nysalor's Shadow born during the Sunstop and just as so Nysalor spread light and illumination, Arkat felt compelled to spread gloom and benightenment. In his madness and in his heroquesting, he achieved a metaphysical state of awareness that he taught to others and which the God Learners slurred as Illumination.

--Peter Metcalfe

Yahoo! Groups Links

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]