Illumination

[jajagappa]

6 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

They have formal answers?

Booo!

Apparently the Lunar schools thought so.  However, it seems equally likely that there are multiple "correct" answers.

[scott-martin]

6 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Booo!

IMG it serves MGF. Any reasonably alert riddler should realize that a response has "provoked the great doubt" or relief from certainty that triggers the illumination mechanics. The linguistic content (if any) of the response is secondary to the riddler. You're just looking for the existential release. 

However, in the absence of broader experience, the respondent will often fixate on his or her personal "answer" as the key to the epiphany and so can miss the signs when they present in someone else. As noted across this thread, narcissism or at least solipsism is a common byproduct of the illumination crisis, leading many riddlers to become occluded to responses that diverge from their own. It all starts to revolve around the answer, which has been published and so you can cheat your way in. This cheat in itself serves the Nysalor cult as it enters the terminal seventh wane. They reward a kind of false consciousness that a good zen stick would cure in more innocent times.

And this comment in itself represents the riddle associated with the Sense Ambush skill. There are other schools and infinite right answers.

[coffeemancer]

5 hours ago, jajagappa said:

That's a reaction to becoming Illuminated (i.e. you think you can now do whatever you wish).

waaait, so how is it different?

[soltakss]

14 hours ago, coffeemancer said:

what about getting Occluded?

Yes, that is included as well, but that isn't a way of becoming Illuminated, rather a consequence of becoming Illuminated.

[Nick Brooke]

12 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

They have formal answers?

Booo!

It's not that they have formal answers - it's that grokking the answers makes you think. And that opens up the doors of perception in your mind, and lets the doves and the bats take flight through your third eye. Om.

Do you really get Zeno's paradoxes if you've read the answers in a book and can parrot them in a written exam? Do you really get the ideas inherent in a Socratic dialogue if you've skimmed it once?

So also Illumination. The written, teachable, formal answer is a false friend if it stops you thinking through the question for yourself. It should be a spontaneous realisation, a sudden moment of awareness. 

[soltakss]

6 hours ago, jajagappa said:

12 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

They have formal answers?

Booo!

Apparently the Lunar schools thought so.  However, it seems equally likely that there are multiple "correct" answers.

The way that I play it is that there isn't just one Nysalor Riddle for every skill, there are different riddles.

Riddlers wander around and ask people the riddles they know, they might even teach other Illuminates their own riddles.

Lunars, on the other hand, have an established core set of Riddles that they know work and which do not go against Lunar doctrine. these are the riddles that they ask when trying to Illuminate cult members.

Don't forget that New Pelorian is a cult language that was designed to have mystical and magical properties, so it would be able to cope with Nysalor Riddles really well. In fact, I would think that phrasing a Nysalor Riddle in New Pelorian might add something to the riddle, perhaps extra depth or insight.

 

54 minutes ago, coffeemancer said:

6 hours ago, jajagappa said:

That's a reaction to becoming Illuminated (i.e. you think you can now do whatever you wish).

waaait, so how is it different?

Occlusion is the failure to really grasp what being Illuminated means. Sure, you are Illuminated, but you might see it as a means to an end, or just something that allows you to have Kewl Powerz, or to get around cult restrictions. True Illumination is deeper than that.

At least, that is what the Lunars say and who wants to believe them?

[Akhôrahil]

7 hours ago, jajagappa said:

That's a reaction to becoming Illuminated (i.e. you think you can now do whatever you wish).

Although I wonder if not all Illuminates realize that, and the difference is who decides to go for it.

[Sir_Godspeed]

3 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

So also Illumination. The written, teachable, formal answer is a false friend if it stops you thinking through the question for yourself. It should be a spontaneous realisation, a sudden moment of awareness. 

Except that people can get other, equally enlightening answers as sudden realizations. What does the Riddler do then? Tell them to try again? I always thought it was the tension between the unanswereable and the human drive to search for answers which is meant to be the dichotomy-shattering mechanism of the Riddle, like the koan, for example. The question IS the answer. It is a means to deconstruct the world for the absurd facsimile it is, the filtered-down perceptional prison you've been locked inside by social constructs. 

Maybe I got the Riddles wrong, maybe they're not koans, or something akin to Meno, but maybe the different ontology of Glorantha does indeed open for abstract mind-screw questions to actually have answers, or maybe Nysaloreanism is more doctrinally restrictive than I thought, I don't know.

[Akhôrahil]

In Cults of Terror, it's very clear that there are right and wrong answers to riddles (pp. 87-88). You earn your Illumination percentage when it's answered correctly.

Edited September 14, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[Akhôrahil]

3 hours ago, soltakss said:

Occlusion is the failure to really grasp what being Illuminated means. Sure, you are Illuminated, but you might see it as a means to an end, or just something that allows you to have Kewl Powerz, or to get around cult restrictions. True Illumination is deeper than that.

I keep thinking that the Lunar hi-speed conveyor-belt mass-production Illumination method is bound to have less depth than others, but this doesn't seem to be supported. 

Edited September 14, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[jajagappa]

48 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Except that people can get other, equally enlightening answers as sudden realizations. What does the Riddler do then? Tell them to try again?

Assuming the Riddler is Illuminated, they will likely realize whether the response from the individual has helped the answerer along the path or not.  They are not in essence conducting an exam, but prodding and prompting the other with puzzles to continue exploring.

[Sir_Godspeed]

36 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Assuming the Riddler is Illuminated, they will likely realize whether the response from the individual has helped the answerer along the path or not.  They are not in essence conducting an exam, but prodding and prompting the other with puzzles to continue exploring.

Exactly. Making formalized answers superfluous and frankly counter-productive to begin with.

[jajagappa]

36 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Exactly. Making formalized answers superfluous and frankly counter-productive to begin with.

But, in answering the question about what questions exist, I figured it was useful to provide the content available in CoT and GS, which do have specific answers noted (and formal answers referenced).

[Sir_Godspeed]

Oh, absolutely. I realize that I'm arguing against probably 30+ years of established background, so I'm really just arguing the point now. 

I dunno, it just feels like someone looked at Zen Buddhism and thought "but how can I gamify this quantitatively?" which is understandable given that Glorantha is literally a game world, but to me it just feels underwhelming. I'm fine with it just being a IMG thing though.

[scott-martin]

11 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I dunno, it just feels like someone looked at Zen Buddhism and thought "but how can I gamify this quantitatively?" which is understandable given that Glorantha is literally a game world, but to me it just feels underwhelming. I'm fine with it just being a IMG thing though.

If it helps, retranslate the "rightness" of these answers as "historically successful, conventional," much as anyone with the right paperbacks can respond to the question of a dog's buddha nature with "mu" without triggering the illumination mechanics or attracting the riddler's attention. We know that in such and such a time, so and so said a thing and was illuminated. People tell the story and feel spooky. Maybe with the right meditation and lucky rolls even the story can provoke a transformation in consciousness. More likely, nothing changes.

Esoterically there is only one "right" answer in every riddle interaction because only one response will unlock that transformation for any given person at any particular moment. You can say a lot of things and act up in endless ways but unless it clicks, it's not the right answer. The answer that clicked once for someone may not work for anyone ever again. But once it clicks, that's my answer and I carry it with me unless for some reason my understanding evolves toward MGF. Nobody else's answer should matter unless for some reason I've engaged in a personal relationship with that person. Worrying about what works for anyone else is at best a greased rail to occluded vision. The story of Glorantha and the third age in particular is a story of occluded vision.

 

[coffeemancer]

sometimes I wonder if we shouldnt just make a wiki devoted entirely to illumination...

[Akhôrahil]

47 minutes ago, coffeemancer said:

sometimes I wonder if we shouldnt just make a wiki devoted entirely to illumination...

No, several people each writing their own Jonstown Compendium treatment of Illumination.

They will contradict each other, yet all be true.

Now roll for Illumination.

[Nick Brooke]

25 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

No, several people each writing their own Jonstown Compendium treatment of Illumination.

They will contradict each other, yet all be true.

Logically, given a — to all intents and purposes — infinite number of blind men grabbing at thIs particular elephant, one of them must surely have stuck his head up its arse. Looking back over this thread, I have my suspicions as to whom. And, hilariously, I’m sure he has his own. Let’s leave it there.

[g33k]

4 minutes ago, Nick Brooke said:

Logically, given a — to all intents and purposes — infinite number of blind men grabbing at thIs particular elephant, one of them must surely have stuck his head up its arse...

That's an... interesting... take on Occlusion.

 

Please wait here.
The Examiners will be with you shortly.

[Akhôrahil]

7 minutes ago, Nick Brooke said:

Logically, given a — to all intents and purposes — infinite number of blind men grabbing at thIs particular elephant, one of them must surely have stuck his head up its arse. 

I would like to remind everyone that Orunmila, wisest of the Orisha in Yoruba mythology, ascended into Heaven by crawling up into an elephant's rectum and disappearing.

So apparently, enlightenment might be found there also. 

Edited September 14, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[coffeemancer]

it just strikes me as odd how illuminates seldom are better people than occludes

[David Scott]

5 minutes ago, coffeemancer said:

it just strikes me as odd how illuminates seldom are better people than occludes

Which leads to the question of how many actual examples of illuminates do we have?

[metcalph]

6 minutes ago, David Scott said:

Which leads to the question of how many actual examples of illuminates do we have?

Aside from the usual suspects (Argrath etc):

Oddi the Keen (Cults of Terror)

Oakly Gauntest (Devil's Playground adventure in Big Rubble)

Fineman the Broo (also in the Big Rubble lthough this is rather silly and implicitly criticized in Dorastor: Land of Doom)

There is an illuminated vampire in Balastor's Barracks but that just seems to be a label that was slapped onto a monster to make it "interesting".

[David Scott]

So actually we have very few examples to base any behavioural info on.

[Kloster]

Arkat?

All members of the Red Moon cult (though I can't remember of any being described) so all Red Emperors?