Re: How does veneration work?

From: David Cake <dave_at_khrDgkPMdnytqs2sNThDh4-_vfDmdIc2PV5HxHzgX2TQv172dqUOvt8i6ub-XhANeEJ6KAC>
Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2010 11:24:34 +0800


At 1:51 AM +0000 22/12/10, julianlord wrote:
>Todd Gardiner :
>
> > As explained to me by Peter Metcalf, he used the word "sophism" because it
>> was free of the baggage one would get when using "sorcery world view" or
>> "wizardry world view". It was meant to be a very broad category as Theism
>> and Spiritualism are when discussing the overall categories of magic.
>>
>> What would you suggest instead?
>
>A neutral but good set of descriptive terms is obviously going to be
>difficult to come up with...
>
>I've no such problem with Peter's classifying Zzaburism and
>malkionism as philosophies, or philosophical schools, although I
>most point out that most Gloranthan Westerners would not be
>philosophers, which should not prevent them from knowing magic...
>
>The trouble is that sorcery is based on knowledge, but the two most
>obvious words relating to this sort of knowledge are "science" and
>"gnosticism", both of which are heavily loaded words, but even a bit
>less loaded words like dialectics or sophism are not much better...

        Yes, gnostic is the word that springs to mind, but only applicable if it is, in fact, gnostic.

        Analogies to real world religious/spiritual traditions are complex. There certainly are parts of the Western tradition that are gnostic, but not all. It seems likely that Hrestoli Joy of the Heart might be a gnostic tradition, requiring the direct personal experience of Joy, and Irensavalism certainly has strong similarities to real word gnostic traditions (up to specifics such as use of the word demiurge).

        I'm sort of uncertain as to whether Western *higher sorcery* is in fact, gnostic in practice - whether direct personal experience of the Essence planes, an uncommunicable mystic understanding in addition to the rational, is an essential part of becoming an adept/saint. I'm inclined that way, because my ideas about the Gloranthan West tend to draw fairly heavily on the real world Western Esoteric tradition of occult practice, which is one of the obvious inspirations for sorcery, and that tradition is heavily influenced by gnosticism (ie most Western esoteric traditions that use the kabbalah regard knowledge of the realms above the Abyss as gnostic in nature, and identify that with adepthood), but Gregs view of such things may differ at a fundamental level. Zzabur, as exemplar of the 'pure' practice, certainly doesn't seem like he believes there is any knowledge that can't be written down and understood intellectually, just that the rest of us have brains too small to comprehend it as well as he does.

        But I am quite sure that Rokarism, for example, is not a gnostic tradition in any way. They regard is as quite possible to be a good Rokari peasant without ever directly experiencing first hand Joy or Solace or other higher insight, but merely mundanely living a virtuous life. Whether or not there are gnostic elements in Western magical practice, it is certain that the Rokari at least believe gnostic ideas have no place in Malkioni religion. So like the real world, gnostic elements are a point of division, not a point of similarity, in Western magic.

        My feeling is that the spiritual knowledge of a saint IS gnostic in part, and that is why the Rokari are so distrusting of Saintly veneration. And that while gnostic traditions ARE part of the broader Western world view, they are clearly not at its core.

        So if Western world view and magic isn't gnostic, then it must be the other kind of knowledge. So a better word that sophist or logician might be epistemological - the core belief of the Western world view is that magic and spiritual insight CAN be written down and communicated in theoretical, linguistic, terms. Knowing the right way to act is something that can be written down, act that way (without deeper experience) and you will achieve Solace.

        The question, then, to me is whether all Malkioni believe in the spiritual worth of epistemological spiritual knowledge, the sort that can be written down in books. My believe is that even the Hrestoli, who clearly don't believe that such spiritual knowledge is the only kind worth gaining, still believe in its essential value - they still believe virtuous but ignorant and spiritually uninquisitive peasants can attain Solace. So currently, I'm thinking a good word to describe the core Western belief is epistemological - a fundamental belief that the world can be written down and explained. Some Western traditions believe that this is insufficient, but I don't think they believe that is is essentially untrue. Whereas the theists, mystics, and animists would all believe that simply a big pile of written down facts about the world could ever be of real spiritual value on its own (even Lhankor Mhy - LM cultists believe that you can gain spiritual understanding from such facts *if you are like Lhankor Mhy*).

>I dunno, "erudition" in the classical sense would be nice, if that
>weren't so hopelessly antiquated ; though "education" could serve
>that purpose I suppose ? I do feel that the acquiring of knowledge
>is more important generally than logic as such, except for the true
>specialists of course.
>
>My personal feeling is that the type of vocabulary that has been
>used the more successfully in the past is that of medieval
>education, not necessarily of just Western University origin by the
>way, but from the broad mediterranean basin.

        I agree.

>It's possible that the actual problem here is that the methods and
>organisation of magical education in Western Genertela are actually
>so alien to us that we have no adequate vocabulary available in
>English with which to describe it.

        I'm inclined to think in some ways, the problem is almost that they are too familiar - many of the words that were originally most appropriate to discuss the Western tradition have been argued about and overloaded to the point where they have too many inappropriate connotations for us.

	Cheers
		David

           

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