In theistic worship you are trying to invoke the deity, making it a part of you.
In veneration you are attempting to evoke the deity and bring it into being around you.
Of course, this is the distinction in the broadest of philosophical
terms. When you get down to the details of actual practice,
especially when you are dealing with the practices we term magic
(rather than worship*), well then Wakboth is in the details, if you
will excuse the expression. In both cases you become part of the
deity and the deity becomes part of you, and it may appear to be
_very_ similar in nature. That's why it is possible to venerate the
traditional deities as St Orlanth and St Humakt, and probably why it
is also possible to worship the Invisible God (as whatever the
equivalent of Cathari Perfecti are, in all probability). If you are
examining either in terms of the magical effects then an observer
would probably find little to differentiate them when it comes to the
production of overt effects (especially if you use the rule "as
within; so without" in your practice).
[* As gamers we have been much more traditionally interested in the
benefits that worship can bring and thus we tend to concentrate on
those benefits (which we call magic). But in doing so we forget that
these benefits are only the minor fringe of worship, not the core of
it. Probably because it is otherwise quite difficult to measure the
core belief, except in terms of the incidental benefits of that belief
(and that these incidental benefits are what we, as the descendants of
wargamers, need the rules for).
YGWV. Ian
--
Ian Borchardt (iborchar_at_RTCeTUPT3zEODDfarkz42CkLZjGHnD2nIM58hmFLhdrwe5BK4E8Ot5IpAaDZadO9cl8QsLRifurmkA.yahoo.invalid)
Philosoph, Fool, and Magician
"That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange Ians, even death may die."
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