Sunday, 7 June 2020

Weird Cosmologies

Operation Luna, 39.

Dig it:

Yggdrasil and its nine worlds really exist in another universe;

long ago, "...the sympathetics of human belief kept the connection close and the passage fairly easy between the Nordic region and that universe." (p. 345);

however, the conversion of Northern Europe to Christianity meant that that connection was no longer close;

some dwarves were stranded on Earth;

the passage has become not impossible but difficult.

Thus, a modern multiversal cosmology incorporates aspects of diverse earlier beliefs. It is an interesting intellectual exercise when one system incorporates another. One of my favorite examples is as follows:

in Indian philosophy, the Samkhya system is atheist, acknowledging only beginningless, uncreated matter and reincarnating souls;

Patanjali's Yoga Sutras are based on Samkhya;

however, Patanjali wanted to incorporate theistic practices as bhakti (devotional) yoga;

therefore, he defined "God" as a special kind of soul, never incarnated and the teacher of the earliest human teachers;

this "God" created neither matter nor other souls;

nevertheless, He is an appropriate object of devotion and such devotion is one way to liberation from reincarnation;

thus, Samkhya theory allows theistic practice.

The multiverse incorporates every pantheon and religious practice.

1 comment:

  1. Kaor, Paul!

    The Great Trees we see on Unan Besar in THE PLAGUE OF MASTERS comes to mind. And one of the HARVEST OF STARS books has an O'Neill habitat with a giant tree which I think was described in terms much like that of Yggdrasil.

    Ad astra! Sean

    ReplyDelete