[Rq-rules] *** JUNK MAIL ***Re: spirit cults versus religion

[Simon Phipp]

Clive Wickens:

> I was thinking the other day, at what point does a spirit cult become a religion ( in the more formal 
> organised sense) of the word?

> Is it simply a matter of size? i.e. a spirit cult is fairly small, whereas something with a couple of 
> hundred thousand of people is a religion? I think size is important ( despite rumours to the contrary ) 
> but not the whole story. It's perfectly plausible that you might get a whole tribe of thousands of 
> people worshipping a local spirit at a festival.....but equally you might have some obscure religion 
> clinging on with only a few hundred worshippers.



> Is it a matter of civilisation levels ?  i.e.: only 'primitive' peoples worship spirit cults whereas your 
> actual civilised types have formal religions.if so where does that leave sub cults of larger religions 
> and hero cults.

This is more likely to be the case.

In the "new" Glorantha, there is a big split between theist and animist people (something that I don't particularly like), so "primitive" people are more likely to be animist and worship through spirit cults and "civilised" people are more likely to be theist and worship through standard cults.

Of course, that is a generalisation and there would be many examples where it isn't the case.

> Is it a matter of organisation i.e. formal versus informal?

Sometimes. Quite often, a small family or clan will contact a spirit/deity in a very casual way and set up a spirit cult around it. This gives some benefit but not the same as a formal cult. It also means that people could worship deities that are normally seen as hostile to the local culture. So, Sazdorf trolls can worship Humakt in a spirit cult, even though Humakt is an enemy of trolls.

> Is it the form of the worship, i.e. shaman and priests approach the divine/spiritual in fundamentally 
> different philosophical mindsets and this shapes the conduit or path to the spirit they contact.

Perhaps, although I think that the mind-set argument is vastly overrated. People are quite flexible and can fairly easily accomodate different styles of worship. But, a shaman can contact a spirit in several ways. He can gain one-off magic by contacting a spirit and doing a deal. He can get personal magic from his relationship with the spirit. He can arrange a spirit cult that grants magic to casual worshippers. Priests, on  the other hand, worship a deity because they belong to a cult, subcult or associate cult, so are far more closely entwined with the cult rather than with the deity. A shaman's experience is far more intimate and personal than a priest's.

> Why is it that some deities ( notably  trollish ones in Glorantha ) can be contacted both via formal 
> religion and spirit cult worship.yet only grant the full panoply of spells to the 'religion' I mean a god's 
> a god right ? surely a shaman should able to access any divine spell if he/she has contacted the deity 
> on the spirit plane. Is a god just a 'big' spirit ?

Once again, in the new Glorantha, a god is a god and a spirit is a spirit. But, I like to play things a little bit differently. Shamans can access gods and priests could set up divine cults for spirits. It might be a bit harder to do than normal, but it is perfectly possible.

So, Humakt is worshipped as a god in most places but in Prax he is worshipped in the iron man Spirit Cult. 

So, I think that people access the divinities in the way they are accustomed to. Praxians usually access them shamanically, because most of their holy people are shamans. Waha has shamans as priests, as does Daka Fal. In trollish culture, Kyger Litor priests are also shamans, so are priests of Aranea and Gorakiki, so there are a lot of shamans available to contact divinities shamanically. However, there are also many divine cults around and they can access some divinities as subcults or associate deities.

Aldryami can do the same - they have priests and shamans - but their cults are not as well written up. 

In non-Gloranthan settings, it becomes even easier as shamans can access the divine powers as the GM sees fit without thinking of any other consequences.

> All of the above, or none of the above ?.

Both.

See Ya

Simon
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