(urth) An Old mystery ...

[David Stockhoff]

Witz---

Talk about syncretism!

This line: 
You corpse animators, charcoal burners,
Moulders of wax, adherants to the Seen

reminds me of the villagers Severian and Burgundafara meet, who refuse to look at Severian. ("Look, that you may see me.") Animism and witchcraft seem strong in all ages of Urth (Zama, TUotNS), and these people worship the Demiurge, not the Increate.

I accept your observation about the state religion of the Autarchy. However, the Black Sun must mean SOMETHING. And while I can't prove it except by pointing to what I perceive as a certain absence, I can't imagine this religion as being alive in any way. It might be more accurate to say it's PURELY a "state religion," which is almost the same as calling it dead. The forms survive, but do the people engage with it?

The people of the Commonwealth don't seem to function on faith, but on knowledge (gnosis) and a suspicion of the seen. The people want something more than the Commonwealth can give. Think of the people of Typhon's time who say (I paraphrase), "We keep sacrificing, but the gods are assholes." 

Contrast this with TBotLS, in which religion is more explicitly and closely examined as a means of state control which becomes the means of state dissolution. Silk has faith.




------------------------------

Message: 5
Date: Thu, 04 Dec 2008 18:31:18 +0000
From: "Son of Witz" <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org>
Subject: Re: (urth) An Old mystery ...
To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
Message-ID: <W1483526912154651228415478 at webmail13>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

I'm with you Dave, especially here:

"It's kind of like having a deck of cards celebrating 100,000 years of messiahs, and Number 12 is Jesus."

I do take exception to the part about the state religion.  I don't think the religion of the Conciliator / New Sun is named, but it is clearly the state religion because prayers are made during State sanctioned Executions.  I quoted that in a previous thread.

I have read the Hypostasis of the Archons you linked to, though I don't get all of it.  Secret Chiefs 3 has a song by that title, inspired by such ideas.
I illustrated the album that it is on, Book of Horizons, for what it's worth.
it's a gnarly metal song, but the lyrics are awesome and densly packed:

************



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