> Anyway, I've been able to explain pretty much everything about
> everthing else, but explaining veneration and saintly magic seems to
> be beyond me. My friend is now convinced that anything that has to do
> with saints is actually theistic worship. . .
>
> This is what the Glorantha wiki has to say about the subject:
>
> "Veneration: Right method to interact with Essence Plane entities.
> Zzaburi don't "worship" anything in literal meaning, but they interact
> with otlerworlds with abstracted images of scripted book magic."
>
> "Sophism: Sophism is the logical worldview. There are two main schools
> of thought - Zzaburism the philosophy that the creative force is
> impersonal and Malkionism the philosophy that God made the world."
>
> "Sophistic Magic: Magic as practiced by Sophists largely takes the
> form of spells. Venerators can also seek aid from Saints resulting in
> Blessings."
I'm not personally very keen on those descriptions, nor on the use of the word "sophism" as "the" logical worldview.
I would personally treat veneration as a form of meditation, that is to say that you meditate what you know about the Saint, and you are rewarded with insights providing a better understanding of that saint's magic -- among a host of other possible insights not involving magic at all, but moral lessons, insights into the saint's relationship with other saints, Malkion, and the church or order, etc.
However you treat veneration though, what Trotsky is suggesting is of course probably the best way to go -- it's a relationship with knowledge of the saint, and knowledge of how the religion understands and conceptualises the saint, rather than being just a straightforward one-to-one relationship with the saint him/herself.
Julian Lord
Powered by hypermail