Death is when the Energy and Matter of a person are separated. Of course the Energy part of the dead can be contacted if it exists (and manipulated by sorcery, etc). Solace follows death in due course for those who follow the true faith, but not immediately - Solace comes only after the soul has travelled to the Court of Silence etc (or the local equivalent conception of the underworld). Those dead who have obtained Solace can of course not be contacted.
This should not be understood as death and Solace being separate events - rather, it should be understood as death being the first step of the process of dissolution that can lead to Solace. Just as different techniques, both sorcerous and practical, can slow, change, or accelerate (rarely even stop, or reverse) the dissolution of the Matter of the body by rot and decay, so magical and spiritual techniques can slow the dissolution of the spirit that leads to Solace. But Solace is the natural, normal, result of the death of a devout Malkioni. When Malkioni say that death leads to Solace, they are correct, but they mean that Solace is the end of the process of death, not following immediately on its beginning. For those sects that believe in reincarnation, the connection between death and Solace is more abstract.
There are probably a variety of Malkioni sect variations as to exactly what happens to the souls of the dead on their journey to Solace, and variety of minority beliefs (some probably believe in the intercession of saints, some believe that there is value in learning techniques for the journey like the Tibettan Book of the Dead, to some all ghosts are cursed and lost, to some there may be ghosts that, boddhisatva like, deny themselves Solace to care for those alive). The biggest such variation is the question of reincarnation.
But while Death is a normally a necessary part of Solace, for most Malkioni there is a journey through the underworld before Solace is achieved, sometimes a journey through an entire lifetime.
Malkioni I am also fairly certain believe that the Energy part of a mortal can be trapped in sorcerous spells or devices and thus prevented from reaching Solace (ie in RuneQuest terms, spirits can be trapped in Binding Enchantments). To the God Learners, amoral sorcerers, etc these are just another set of magical techniques to be mastered, but I am sure that many Malkloni regard such techniques as
I'm presuming here that Malkioni do not generally regard it as possible to have a spirit/Energy part that does not contain the soul/consciousness, or at least do not regard it as as a likely or regular thing to happen - I could be mistaken here. Ie I am assuming that Malkioni do not regard ghosts and other spirits of the dead as being soul less energy things, and that they regard mortal beings as being made of two parts (Matter and Energy), not three (Matter, Engergy, Consciousness). There may, of course, be variant beliefs on this issue.
Cheers
David
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