Bakker XIV: Star Trek into Darkness that Comes Before

[Larry of the Lawn]

Yeah, I remember that interview (in fact it's the only interview I've seen of RSB). It's the same one where he talks about a big bag of pot and porno being significant influences on his creativity.

Regardless of his so-called systems (or lack thereof), Kishaurim just sounds...kinda dumb. I mean that's probably because I've been internally pronouncing it Sishaurim for the last three years or so, but even so. Sishaurim is just more aesthetically pleasing to me.

ETA: I assume it wasn't a single bag of pot and porno, it was a bag of pot, plus some (presumably) entirely separate porn. Otherwise I want to know who the hell he was buying from, cuz the guy sounds like a godsend for a young teenage boy.

This is some of the only literature I like to read when I'm stoned. As in, I make a beeline for the Bakker when I'm high. :dunno:

[Happy Ent]

Nayur sucks.

He’s a receiver.

[Rhom]

He’s a receiver.

Conphas would disagree.

:smileysex:

[Paxter]

Just getting some thoughts ordered in my head...somebody upthread (maybe HE?) was speculating that the "cycle of souls" works something like:

1) Soul born into the world

2) Worship/sin committed by soul

3) Soul passes to the outside and is dealt with by Gods/Demons according to extent and nature of worship/sin

4) Soul recycled into the world (i.e. back to step 1)

The role of the No-God is apparently to interrupt the cycle after step 3 (every child born during the time of the No-God was stillborn i.e. had no soul).

Does this make sense based on what we know of the metaphysics of Bakker's world?

ETA: I guess the obvious defect is the fact that there is no "eternal" damnation built into the above model.

[jurble]

Yeah, basically samsara or something. Especially Mahayana Buddhism's take on it, at least from a Fanim perspective. Pop into the outside, get distributed to demons or gods based on your karma (or some complicated thing based on who you worshipped, your ancestors, and your sins in the case here), I suppose when you die in the Outside, you can get cycled back into the world, maybe? I wonder if it's possible to cycle back into the outside. Since, at least from what I understand of Mahayana buddhism, you can drop down from a plane above the real world, all the way into a Hell if you mess up your life on that plane significantly enough, and vice versa and so forth. And lifespans in the other planes differ. Based on the punishment of Younger Toguro in Yu Yu Hakusho (my chief source for understandings of the Buddhist afterlife is anime ), the lowest Hell planes you can reincarnate into have lifespans equal to tens of thousands of years. So if the Outside is in anyway similar, the Consult could be trapped for effectively eternity (presumably the Outside ends when the Universe ends).

IIRC, the Fanim goal is to actually escape the Outside, so they're like dudes achieving nirvana and leaving samsara. Kellhus achieved enlightment while being hung from a tree, but he's like some sort of Anti-Bodhisattva in that he wants to mire humanity greater in its misconceptions, because they can't handle the truth, as he says at the end of TTT.

[Kalbear]

There's no textual or extratextual evidence for souls to be recycled, correct? There's textual evidence of souls escaping the Outside by being unnoticed and souls making alliances with ancestors or gods, or being bound to Ciphrang, but none about any of them coming back, right?

No cycle to speak of ever mentioned?

Just curious.

[Sci-2]

I think the cycle is simply:

Souls originate from the Outside

Souls live in World

Souls go back to Outside

There's no actual close circuit where the same souls return, save perhaps those souls that possibly achieved Oblivion and became part of the dream substance that forms the all things Outside and Material Universe.

[so the dreamstuff that made the previous soul goes into a new soul, but there's no continuity of identity.]

(I use "dream substance" b/c of Bakker saying anarcane ground is where God dreams most lucidly.)

[Guest]

Yeah, I don't think there's a cycle if "cycle" means some kind of reincarnation.

I think that souls are simply supposed to go somewhere in the Outside after death, and it appears that Shae's mechanism keeps them from getting there. But it seems that it does so by trapping them in a perpetual purgatory. So the cycle is broken only so long as we understand the cycle to be that souls are supposed to return to the Outside.

ETA: The text strongly suggests against reincarnation by emphasizing the awfulness of damnation for eternity.

[Paxter]

Ah right, thanks for the clarification folks.

Another quick question while I'm at it: I remember in previous threads some speculation that belief among souls in the world could somehow shape or change the outside. Has this theory been debunked now? Most of the discussion in these threads seems to be premised on the idea that the nature of the outside is determined by those who already live there (e.g. Gods, demons), rather than souls who have not yet passed to the outside.

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

I don't think it's been debunked. It's still my favorite theory :)

[Francis Buck]

Yeah I like that theory as well. It just kinda fits neatly in with a lot of other stuff. I don't seem to remember anything directly opposing the idea of it, and in fact for a while I was for some reason taking it as fact until someone pointed out that we don't actually know for sure whether or not it's true. Why else would sin/worship be meaningful though?

[Paxter]

Why else would sin/worship be meaningful though?

The contrasting view is that belief in the "World" doesn't directly shape the Outside so much as appeal to a particular God, and thereby determine your fate after you die. For example, under this theory, adherents believe in and worship Yatwer because they want her to save them, not because their belief actually causes Yatwer and her "heaven" to exist.

ETA: In other words, under the alternate theory, the Gods/Demons exist independently of belief among living souls.

[Castel]

I think it became low-key because there was nothing to back it up? Nothing I can remember at least, beyond a throw-away line from Moe.

Why else would sin/worship be meaningful though?

Because it's delicious and the "gods" are narcissists.

I'd actually like to see a subversion of the Stargate/American Gods model that I see floating around. The gods and their reality don't depend on itty bitty humans at all. They just like munching on us.

[Francis Buck]

The contrasting view is that belief in the "World" doesn't directly shape the Outside so much as appeal to a particular God, and thereby determine your fate after you die. For example, under this theory, adherents believe in and worship Yatwer because they want her to save them, not because their belief actually causes Yatwer and her "heaven" to exist.

Right right, but what of the idea that belief and/or worship (be it compensatory or bellicose or whatever) actually lends power to the gods in question? Like, they exist regardless, but the amount of followers Yatwer has are the main (or at least one of) the contributing factors to why she seems more capable of influence. I still haven't read WLW, but aside from Yatwer the only god to really intervene directly in worldly affairs (to our knowledge) is Ajokli, correct? How "popular" is he?

ETA:

I think it became low-key because there was nothing to back it up? Nothing I can remember at least, beyond a throw-away line from Moe.

Because it's delicious and the "gods" are narcissists.

I'd actually like to see a subversion of the Stargate/American Gods model that I see floating around. The gods and their reality don't depend on itty bitty humans at all. They just like munching on us.

Well yeah, there is that too. But that can also work in-tandem with the "gods are powered by worship" thing. They're hungry for the souls because it gives them power, the more faithful the soul, the tastier it is (or are the sinful ones tastier? Guess it depends on the god).

What is the Stargate/American Gods model?

ETA2: Ah, nevermind, I know what you mean.

[Castel]

Right right, but what of the idea that belief and/or worship (be it compensatory or bellicose or whatever) actually lends power to the gods in question? Like, they exist regardless, but the amount of followers Yatwer has are the main (or at least one of) the contributing factors to why she seems more capable of influence. I still haven't read WLW, but aside from Yatwer the only god to really intervene directly in worldly affairs (to our knowledge) is Ajokli, correct? How "popular" is he?

Or maybe Yatwer gets worshiped more because she is more capable of intervention :cool4: (and she has a better PR department)? Or the other gods don't feel the need to jump in given that Kellhus is already dead (in theory)?

[Francis Buck]

Well I suppose part of this comes from the fact that, in the first few books, the author's intentionally making it seem like the gods aren't real, in order for the twist from TTT to work. But then twenty years later, we see Porsparian or whatever his name is blessing Sorweel like it's no big deal, not to mention the White-Luck Warrior situation. How long has this kind of shit been going on? Was it happening back during the first books (and before that), and we as the audience just weren't being let in on it (kind of like Achamian's apparent knowledge of The Judging Eye, despite it never being mentioned before, or all that rigmarole with soul capturing and such)?

[Castel]

Well I suppose part of this comes from the fact that, in the first few books, the author's intentionally making it seem like the gods aren't real, in order for the twist from TTT to work. But then twenty years later, we see Porsparian or whatever his name is blessing Sorweel like it's no big deal, not to mention the White-Luck Warrior situation. How long has this kind of shit been going on? Was it happening back during the first books (and before that), and we as the audience just weren't being let in on it (kind of like Achamian's apparent knowledge of The Judging Eye, despite it never being mentioned before, or all that rigmarole with soul capturing and such)?

Yeah, I have no idea how active the gods have been. I just assume that they were somewhat dormant before Kellhus.Besides the prophets I don't think that there's ever been anyone with his impact. But I was wrong about them before so *shrugs*. Sorweel isn't really in a normal situation, quite the opposite so he may indeed be the rare case.

[Larry of the Lawn]

Or that none of the gods are real. I mean, Kellhus, sorcerers, the WLW, Porsparian, and the Cishaurim all have god-like abilities, but it doesn't mean the hundred or the one god have to be real. They can just be human ideas that people fixate on to the point that they can manipulate the metaphysics of the world . Yatwer doesn't have to be real, her followers might simply have enough faith to tap into a power similar to that which prevents Kellhus from reading Sorweel's face or allows Porsparian to manipulate earth like sorcerors and Cishaurim manipulate the world. Ditto for the White-Luck Warrior -- maybe he's simply another kind of Kellhus? He kind of follows the Shortest Path. We've seen that the Cishaurim have sorcery without the mark and that their power comes from their faith and fanatical devotion. Could this also be the case for any other god-like powers?

This could tie into the idea that damnation is simply an in-world, Inchi/Nonman/Human construct, but because so many people are fixated on it it takes on the power to destroy nations with Holy Wars and apocalypses and what not..

Just throwing the first part ( about the gods not being real) out there, I guess; although I do think that damnation in the books isn't real.

[Francis Buck]

Yeah, I have no idea how active the gods have been. I just assume that they were somewhat dormant before Kellhus. Besides the prophets I don't think that there's ever been anyone with his impact. But I was wrong about them before so *shrugs*. Sorweel isn't really in a normal situation, quite the opposite so he may indeed be the rare case.

Interesting. Perhaps Kellhus' activities (accidentally?) created a resurgence of faith within the people of Earwa (what with him being the Prince of God and all, as he would serve as "proof" of the divine to them, like we see with Akka), and this resurgence caused an increase of genuine worship, which then stirred the gods, who realized this Kellhus character was starting a whole bunch of ruckus, and now they're stepping in to deal with it?

Dunno, I'm out of my depth now, just spitballing.

[Francis Buck]

This is some of the only literature I like to read when I'm stoned. As in, I make a beeline for the Bakker when I'm high. :dunno:

This actually reminds me, I think the first piece of literature I ever really read while blazed was The Silmarillion. I started from the beginning, with Ainulindalë, and goddamn if that shit didn't blow my mind. It was like reading my own personal bible. Some seriously epic shit that genuinely influenced me for the rest of my life.