Re: Constructed Religions

At 11:23 AM 12/31/98 +0100, Kristian wrote:
>Terrence Donnelly wrote:
>>The Kadane are enthusiastic polytheists (3000+ gods so far!)....
>
>The Kadane Gods seem more like spirits and/or "saints" to me than
>gods. Their enormous number, the fact that some of them were once
>mortals. Actually, IMHO, the term "mountain god" is pretty
>misleading. I'd call them saints or something of that nature rather
>than Gods. To me, the term God/s denotes spiritual beings that have
>always been immortal.
The Kadane don't see it that way.  To them, a God is any being which
currently exists in the supernatural world.

>
>You also wrote in your website at
>http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Corridor/2711/kadrel.html
>where you wrote:
>
>-----<quote>-----
>"As we noted, there are three types of gods. Sky Gods are those
>mentioned in the Book of the Sundering War. These are primarily gods
>associated with celestial phenomena (such as Adur, the Sun God) or
>virtues and intellectual faculties (such as Bastis, Goddess of
>Peace, and Mazgda, God of Wisdom). Most of these are well-known from
>the myths contained in the Book of the Sundering War and lesser
>epics, and have well-developed cults. Earth Gods correspond to the
>'elementals' and dryads of Greek mythology. They are primarily gods
>of natural phenomena or special locations. For many, there exists
>only a name, or minor rites of only regional importance. Major
>exceptions are Zyem, the Earth God, and Gurvan, god of wild animals,
>both of whom have extensive rites and many worshippers. Mountain
>Gods are those with a shrine at Wawatranu, Mountain Temple."
>-----<end of quote>-----
>
>To me the only real Gods the Kadane have according to the above
>paragraph would be Zyem and Gurvan because they have extensive rites
>and many worshippers.
These are the only Earth Gods who have extensive cults.  Many of the
Sky Gods do, especially Adur, God of the Sun and of Fire,
Hatwor, Goddess of Love and Sexuality, and Amretat, Goddess of Nature.

There could be more that I'd consider true
>Gods (perhaps the Sky Gods as mentioned in the paragraph) but I'm
>not too learned on the details of Kadane religion. The other
>spiritual beings mentioned in the above paragraph would be either
>spirits or saints (to my understanding) in that they govern natural
>phenomonons and reside in special locations. I understand natural
>phenomenon to mean minor natural occurences like "fever", "plant
>growth", "accidents", etc. and special locations to mean residing in
>places like "in trees", "in clouds", "in lakes", etc. Or am I wrong?
No, that's basically correct.

>With over 3000 spiritual beings in the Kadane religion, it seems
>unlikely that the domain of most of these beings would not be very
>specific. To me, a more specific domain would mean a smaller domain,
>and a smaller domain would mean a lesser importance, and lesser
>importance means less Godly.
>
>I don't mean to nitpick -
No problem!

>I'm just curious how it is at all possible
>to have 3000 gods without having it develop into a situation where
>most of these so called gods are seen as mere spirits instead.
>
The Kadane have only one word to refer to all these types of beings,
/pol/, normally glossed as 'god, goddess', although I guess following
your comments, it could also mean 'spirit, elemental'.  Actually, there
is another class of spiritual being (whose name escapes me), but these
beings are only vaguely pictured.  Their job basically is to carry out
the will of the Gods themselves.  They are almost more of an inferred
principle than actual beings.  Imagine that the Gods are the principle of
magnetism, then these beings would be the actual magnetic fields.
(or, the Gods are the Sun, and these are the photons; the gods are the
message, these beings are the printed letters of the message, etc.)
While there are some esoteric cults that try to manipulate these beings,
most Kadane pay them little attention.  They are seldom given names or
personalities, almost never worshipped, and only mentioned in the
scriptures in a few brief passages.

One point to consider is that the Kadane religion is primarily experiential,
and the Kadane are not big on theological analysis.  Historically, the first
expressions of religious activity were rituals.  It seems that the
ritual life of the Kadane was well developed long before it occured to
anyone to try to categorize the beings which were invoked in the
rituals.  Since there is little difference between the rituals offered
to any /pol/, the ever-practical Kadane concluded that all /polingu/
were essentially the same.  While some have larger spheres of influence
or enjoy more popularity than others, at bottom they are all the same
sort of being.

The Mountain Gods came much later in Kadane history, and were essentially
the invention of a figure named Teacher Po.  He started the cult of the
Emperor Prabaset and began the Mountain Temple.  He also gathered and
codified all the rites practiced up to that time, and extended those
rites to include Prabaset.  Once the notion of one deified mortal was
introduced into the religious system, it became impossible to keep
others out, and the followers of revered teachers would install their
shrine at Mountain Temple and begin to offer the common rites to them, too.
Since there is no central religious authority in Kadane religion, anyone
who inspired sufficient devotion could end up a Mountain God.

There wasn't much theological justification for Teacher Po deifying
Prabaset.  There was a vague tradition of avatars of the Sky Gods, and
Prabaset is sometimes considered an avatar of Arta or Adur, but this
is not a major theme. While a Kadane would probably agree that most
Mountain Gods are an avatar of some Sky God, few are explicitly identified
with one.  Again the Kadane took an experiential approach: deifying the
especially revered seemed somehow proper, extending them the same rites
given to the other gods seemed proper, too, so they must be /polingu/,
too.  This is common enough: a sometime criticism of Catholic saints is
that their cults sometimes seem little different from out-and-out
worship, and it must be admitted that in times past, this was probably true
for some devotees.

Thanks for the opportunity to expound at length about these folks!

-- Terry

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Corridor/2711