From nv91-asa@nada.kth.se Fri Dec 19 16:52:56 1995 Status: RO X-Status: Path: news.kth.se!newsfeed.sunet.se!news01.sunet.se!sunic!mn6.swip.net!plug.news.pipex.net!pipex!dish.news.pipex.net!pipex!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in1.uu.net!news3.digex.net!digex.net!not-for-mail From: mfterman@access5.digex.net (Martin Terman) Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.storyteller Subject: Celestial Chorus Redux Date: 19 Dec 1995 16:52:56 -0500 Organization: Express Access Online Communications USA: 800-969-9090 Lines: 159 Message-ID: <4b7c7o$8le@access5.digex.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: access5.digex.net My take on the Celestial Chorus: The Celestial Chorus in Theory ============================== There is the One, which is refered to under many names in many religions. To the Christians its God, to the Buddists its Nirvana or Enlightenment, and the "white light" of a whole slew of different sects. The ultimate spirital state. Essentially the One is inifinite, but down here it manifests through various spiritual concepts, intellectual concepts, and the material world. All religions are true, and all religions are false, according to the Celestial Chorus credo. Is there Shiva? Depends on your perspective. To a Celestial Chorus memeber, Shiva is but a mask for the aspect of destruction that is part of the One. All gods, goddesses and so forth are merely masks we place between ourselves and the One. We create the masks out of ignorance. Does Shiva exist? Well, enough belief in the mask and the mask takes on power, sitting between the One and ourselves. Many Celestial Chorus members think that the Umbrood sprang into existance in this way. Others feel that the Umbrood are beings who have taken various spiritual paths to the One along specific routes, embracing certain concepts. To the Celestial Chorus member, worshipping the gods is a good first step. Understanding the gods, one grows closer to the One that lies behind all the gods. The more worldly and less spirital masks are easier to approach and deal with. While a Catholic could pray to God for aid, they might as often pray to Mary or to a specific Saint, even though they rank well below God but because they are more approachable. Progression in the Celestial Chorus comes from stripping away the masks. One comes to a deeper understanding of the spiritual forces, and removes the more worldly masks in favor of the more enlightened ones. Ascention occurs when the masks are removed and the One is directly viewed. The masks are placed there by the observer, so the observer removes them in the course of reaching enlightenment. That's the basic unifying creedo of the Celestial Chorus, in my take on it. All gods are merely masks between us and the One. They partake of the One, for the One's power shines down through them. The more enlightened the perception of the deity, the thinner the mask (or its closer to the One) and the more power shines through. The paradigm of the Celestial Chorus member is that the power of the One shines through them. By becoming more and more enlightened, they establish a stronger connection to the One and so the more the power is able to flow from the One through them. Its not so much a distortion of reality as flowing of energies, concepts and forces from the One, which is beyond all the limitations of Statick Reality, into the world. Those in the Celestial Chorus who study the phenomena of True Faith believe this is how mortals who have this power are able to affect the world. They have instinctive or intuitive connections to the One in one form or another (which is why one is able to have True Faith in many religions) and are able to channel the forces of the One into the world. The stronger the True Faith, the bigger the connection and the more power that can flow through into the world. The Celestial Chorus labors to build up spiritual faith in the One, to forge connections to the One in each and every individual. Some feel if enough connections to the One are made in the world, then the One will pour into the world and trigger a mass Awakening or even Ascention for everyone. The Celestial Chorus in Practice ================================ Now in the Celestial Chorus, there is a lot of internal divisions. Only massively enlightened senior Mages, who have burned away most of their connections to most exoteric faiths, manage to keep the whole sect together. Often the senior Mages force the younger Mages to confront these divisions, trapping them inside the divisions until they are able to see past them and transcend the problems. Unfortunately, it doesn't always work out that well. One of the divisions in the Celestial Chorus is the debate about the role of the material world. There is a strong tendency in the majority towards a certain degree of denial of the physical world. Some think its unimportant, some think its an illusion, others think its a trap designed to keep everyone distracted and barred from the One. Others think that the One is everything, and that includes the material world. The material world is part of the One and that any views of the One that do not incorporate the physical world and all the sundry elements of it. Sex is a big point of debate. Is celibacy important or harmful? Its been a subject for many a long debate. Official policy is that it is a valid path, but many feel that its a long and winding road indeed. Incidentally, this is the big point where the Celestial Chorus, a religious faith, differs from the Dreamspeakers and the Verbena, also religious faiths. The Dreamspeakers focus of the Umbra and the spirit world as the focus. The Celestial Chorus thinks the spirit world is closer to the One than the material world, but many feel its an even more seductive trap. The Verbena, who hail the natural, material world as the end all, are stuck in this world and looking away from the One. To the Celestial Chorus, Gaia is but a mask for the One. A particularly potent mask, the focus of the world's belief and powers, but only a front behind the true reality. This belief hacks off the Verbena and the Dreamspeakers to no small end, who feel that Gaia is the sum-all and end-all of reality. The Celestial Chorus feels immensely superior for this belief. Younger Celestial Chorus members are often more entangled with the worldly religions they came from and think the trappings of those religions are important. To the enlightened Celestial Chorus members, the trappings of faith are like the foci they use to work True Magick (often they are one and the same). They are crutches needed by the less enlightened until they can free themselves of them. But being entangled in worldly faiths, they often end up more in rivalries or divisions based on the rivalries and divisions of the worldly faiths. There's also a belief that the worldly religion they have is a better and surer spiritual path to the One, a shorter one to Ascention. Truly enlightened scoff at the concept of distance and paths to the One, the road is purely in the minds of the people perceiving the road. But that sort of believe really pits the monotheists versus the pantheists. Jewish, Christian and Islamic Chorus members are often able to see past the trappings of their individual faiths to see how much they have in common with each other. They also feel that they are closer to the One because they have a view of a single God who can be readily identified with the One. So by believing in a single God they are closer to the One than the pantheists who have fragemented the One along a whole parcel of divinities. For what its worth, many pantheist Chorus members point out all the Saints of the Catholic Church and all the angels and divine servents in general of the monotheistic faiths. They also feel that the belief of God is something of a cul de sac. Sure, they start off closer to the One in many regards, but monotheistic Chorus members find it harder to give up the trappings of God in favor of the One. That the monotheists argue that there is no need to give up the trappings since God is the one provokes another round of debate. But in the end, the belief in some sort of spiritual enlightenment, a transcendance from the mundane world, a connection to the infinite, binds the Celestial Chorus together. All faiths are true, and none of them are. -- Martin Terman, Therapy and Behavioral Counseling for Troubled Computers. Disclaimer: Sticks and stones may break my bones, but flames are just ignored email: mfterman@access.digex.com home page: http://access.digex.net/~mfterman/ "Sig quotes are like bumper stickers, only without the same sense of relevance"