CHAT: fiery spirits (was: THE WORLD OF THE JINN)

On Wednesday, October 15, 2003, at 10:16 , Wesley Parish wrote:

> I had read it through the points about the Jinn as fire spirits and
> thought,
> that since elves are often referred to on this list  (Elves who in
> Tolkien's
> world shared a good many features of fire spirits, with the greatest of
> the
> Noldor craftsmen, Feanaro, being named thus for his fiery spirit),
But Tolkien's elves, surely, were not spirits or 'invisible beings' that
could reveal themselves on occasion.  They seem basically flesh & blood,
tho
fairer than us homines sapientes.

> people
> _might_ be interested in reading about such fire spirits from a different
> religious and cultural viewpoint.
Maybe - Paracelsus, I seem to recall, posited beings for each of the 'four
elements'; 'salamanders' (not the amphibians thus names) IIRC were the
fire-spirits,
sylphs the air-spirits, ondines the water spirits and gnomes the earth
spirits.

I would guess all religions (certainly most) have beliefs in spirit beings
of
one sort or another.  They are interesting per_se.

And obviously a parallel non-material universe with intelligent beings is
an
interesting idea for a conworld (or con-universe) and conlanguages.
Presumably
such beings wouldn't speak, at least as we material beings do.  Maybe they
communicate by some form of telepathy. Now that would be something to get
one's
mind around. How do you represent such a language?

> (One which I might add, I do not personally share, being secular, and
> frankly
> not inclined to adopt any religious habit of mind which makes anyone I
> don't
> know, either my open enemy or someone I should pity because they are
> going to
> burn in hell.
And I, being of a religious persuasion, also agree entirely with you on
these
points.

[snip]
> I was evidentally wrong.  My bad.  My apologies.
You weren't wrong about fire-spirits - it was the way the writer was using
the
Jinns: explaining how the rest of us were in error because were deceived
by these
beings etc. and his utter lack of respect, indeed utter contempt, for other
points of view.

> I certainly had no intention of inflicting bigoted ravings on anyone.
I'm sure you didn't - but, well, IME one has to be careful with forwarded
stuff.

> However, since my own GE/M human subspecies, the Lakhabrech, are derived
> in
> character from Grendel, orcs and hyenas, I suppose I should just get a
> thick
> skin.
:))

Of course, gin is a fairly fiery spirit (tho not my favorite).

Ray
===============================================
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
ray.brown@freeuk.com    (home)
raymond.brown@kingston-college.ac.uk   (work)
===============================================

Reply