Jefferson Wilson wrote: >In one of the stories in _The Book of Travels_ Feroze is called upon by the >Lord of the Dead (obviously Cedon) to help judge a mortal who claims to follow >Feroze. While the story could be read as simply giving guidelines to the >proper behavior desired by Feroze, Exquaestio prefers a more literal view. > > > Er, Coron is the God of the Dead, not Cedon. Cedon is the God of Travellers and Traders. >In this judgement Feroze brings up ten virtues (Dream, Exploration, Otherness, > Fiction, Learning, Research, Space, Thought, Time, and Truth) and uses them >as measures against the man's life. He dismisses some actions as being the >result of the four limitations (Capability, Communication, Assumption, and >Perception) for which the soul is not responsible. He also states that the >soul can continue to grow and learn even though it is now dead. > >The story ends just before judgement is passed, and the questor is left to >decide what judgement would be appropriate. > > > Coron's decision would depend on what sort of growth the soul remains capable of. An old Cedonian proverb is "Some lessons can only be learned by the living." The difference in perspective between mortal and immortal means that some things can only be truly appreciated by experiencing them as a mortal. Cedonians believe that the purpose of life is to overcome your limitations. Coron and Lucia would not accept as a general rule the proposition that a soul is not responsible for actions that are the result of its limitations. The only exceptions are the mentally retarded and the insane, because the soul is not responsible for the limitations of the material body. Finally, just some quick notes about the Cedonian view of reincarnation. An incarnate soul has no access to memories of its prior lives, except under very, very rare circumstances. Certain aspects of personality do seem to leak over from incarnation to incarnation, as do things like talents, be they artistic, magical, musical, or scholastic. When a soul becomes disincarnate, it regains access to all of its past memories. The soul prior to its first incarnation has no gender, it is totally neuter. The gender of its first incarnation is assigned at random. After the first incarnation, souls, while technically having no physical sexual characteristics, start to develop what might be called a mental gender. Subsequent incarnations are usually in bodies of the same gender as a soul's first incarnation. There are exceptions to this. If Coron and Lucia judge that a soul would benefit from a change in perspective, they will reincarnate it in a body of differing gender. Generally, the soul will adapt to the change, but sometimes, especially after many incarnations as one gender, the soul doesn't 'fit' quite right in the new incarnation. According to Cedonian Church doctrine, this is why there are transsexuals: they are simply souls of one mental gender incarnated into bodies of the opposite physical gender. After achieving final judgment, a soul forms itself a body in the Dreaming. It usually adopts a body of the gender that matches its mental gender, but some souls choose to adopt forms which are neuter or even hermaphrodite, and some prefer to remain disembodied. The gods do not interfere in this choice. Andrew >Jefferson (Exquaestio) >http://www.picotech.net/~jeff_wilson63/rpg/ > >---------------------------------------------------------------- >To unsubscribe, send mail to celandra-off@phoenyx.net. > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, send mail to celandra-off@phoenyx.net.
