Having some trouble rectifying something, since my English not as good as I want it to be. To be short, is it proper to reflect in a fictional work about the nature of the world's animism being transformed by notions of its own pandeism and vice versa? I ask because the land where the antagonists dwell have accepted this animism with their own brand of metempsychosis and incorporated it into certain religious rites. This religion rejects the authority of the living divinities in the world. It matters because it is the core reason behind the nature of the conflict. The explanation is provided by a lord much like a lesson on the rise of a gestalt pandeism that is independent of the worldly animism that has incorporated ethereal concepts. The nature of metempsychosis is reflected and aided (or perhaps enhanced) by an explanation of a transcendental schemata rooted in a divine/mortal apperception of deism. The construct is debated because the animism instead infers convergence in metempsychosis. The notion is beyond the divines themselves, yet the high priestess appears and explains it in the nature of transcendental impermanence. Thus the lord's schemata is procedural rather than conceptual, for it is constrained by the state of existence afforded to the divines. The nature is instead revealed to be about the belief in convergence and self-realization which sunders reality with spiritual immateriality. That is applied to the known workings of the world to generate three theories about the antagonist's goals. Sorry if this is a tough subject, just wanting some feed back on whether or not the reader would prefer ignorance to an exceedingly convoluted explanation in philosophy and spirituality.
My answer is perhaps not the one you expect, but it's the only one that can be definitive from me. When you present these concepts in your story, you need to drop the register of vocabulary to something approaching mortal climes. I know all of these concepts by simpler terms, save for the term pandeism, which is the only word I know for the idea of Deity using itself as the material from which to form the Universe, thereinafter ceasing to be deity for having been used up in the Creation Event.
I swear I have never seen a post on this or any other forum where I was unfamiliar with so many of the words. I only scored 33% on the title. Depends. Does your reader own the complete Umberto Eco collection or not? I imagine exceedingly convoluted philosophy will give you a rather smaller audience, but some people like that kind of thing.
Cheers for that @Wreybies. Your explanation has saved me having to Google. (I really need to stop using Google as a verb.) @Inks I rather like the ideas you are working with but in order for me to get into it, you'd need to do like Wrey says and dial the vocab down several notches. I would say I'm a fairly average reader. My vocab is decent, and words I'm unfamiliar with I'll never pass over by relying purely on context; I'll look them up and consider it part of my ongoing education. If a fictional work read like an academic paper, I'd likely cut out the middleman and head for the source.
Sadly, I think some of the concepts I am trying to explain do not really have good words - or at least words that I know of in English. In its most basic form, the faction has advanced pandeism as a reactionary movement to resolve differences in ontological and theological ideology. This has in turn been adopted and condensed into a separate cult that claims to control transmigration (very different from metempsychosis). It is not an academic paper in disguise, but I guess it is too much. Already have enough philosophy in the work to begin with....
In Storm Constantine's Wraeththu series, toward the latter half of the novels she delves into the idea of Deity existing by dint of gestalt cogitation and ideation. She takes the idea that "man created god" and literalizes it. The gods are real - very real - in the story-line, but they exist because we make them so, not the other way 'round. She fleshes this concept out to some extensive degree and does this without ever having to use vocabulary that's so esoteric as make the reader have to reach for the dictionary (not too often, anyway). My suggestion would be to take this approach, at least to an extent. The reader needs to understand what you ware trying to get across, and goodness knows I've been guilty of overuse of high register vocabulary myself. It's a comment I often get in my critiques, from various sources, so it's something I figure bears attention.
Hmm.. was unaware of the series and that might be a good one to look into how it is presented. Thanks, I know tough vocabulary is a major turn off for most readers.
Dear Sir/Madam, thanks for sharing this subject that shows your enthusiasm regarding spiritual matters. As for me, the spiritual world is governed by a heavenly authority authorized by a divine power; namely God almighty. Space is filled with mysteries. Some people claim and believe that it is filled with civilizations of high and low intelligence; creatures that possess high technological inventions etc... Some people have proof that they met aliens; humanoids who dwell in planets on space. However, there people on Earth who deny that. So, since matter, according to scientists could not be destroyed but transformed, then metempsychosis or"Reincarnation is possible. Reincarnation is the body and soul being transformed to another body after death. It may reincarnate in an extraterrestrial body. i.e, it takes the form that it deserves according to it's deeds, whether good or bad. This is identified by the person's good or bad deeds on Earth. As Earth is ruled by authorities, so planets are. Even stars are ruled by authorities, since the frequency of the soul may match that of the hot stars; the result, a life similar to that of the earth. So what I wanted to present here is to give the general reader a glimpse of Spirituality and philosophy; a mtter that never contradicts religion, since science and religion go hand in hand. Thanks Mr./Mrs. inks and everybody.
I agree. Reading your post OP was making me dizzy. I think one thing to keep in mind is that you dont want people to be running to dictionary.com while they are reading your work.
The terminology I use in the writing reflects the religious concepts in a way that is purely distinct from "earthly" religion, but I cannot explain the concepts here without extensive back story. The reason for this is because the presence of a spirit and a soul are absolutely known and are able to be confirmed by even "awakened" beings. The Pandeism movement is an attempt to reconcile the two competing views on what happens to the spirit and soul upon death. This movement is being used by the antagonists and posing a threat to both orders because it makes the living divines simply aspects of a fractured "God" from which the universe and all life must have come from. Think about it in this way... what happens to a world in which the spirit and the soul are confirmed to exist? They know the soul is known to dissipate upon death. There is no "Heaven or Hell", but not even the living divinities know for sure what happens to mortals. Though they have reason to fear the pandeism ideology because it brings up the idea of convergence. It is how a mortal ends up outwitting the divine protagonists. The divines are completely overpowered. They are extreme beings capable of annihilating armies and are resurrected if somehow killed. They are also the keepers of the world, founders of civilization and ultimate rulers of law. A mortal turning the table on all of them takes some work, but to do so with just two words is earth-shattering. For it is the ultimate truth.
I don't think what you just said changes the fact that you need to dim down your vocabulary. i use big words sometimes in my writing, but gosh darn, reading the explanation of your story was beyond difficult. I didn't even read it all the way through, to be honest.
It is not an explanation of the story, it is a single scene. The majority of the (useful) words are no longer "English" so I have had to pull the concepts out and try to precisely explain them. Besides... an orcish lord peacefully discussing philosophy and lamenting how the spread of pandeism is polluting his people's animism is probably a bit unsettling for most fiction readers. I do not even want to explain how orcish eunuchs prepare spiritually and artfully balanced meals to compliment the nature's and health of their lords, but it serves a reflection of their deeply religious society. They have taken it to the point that even the arrangement and order of a meal will impact the physical and mental and spiritual well-being of the consumer.
Yeah, I also have a complicated subject in my story which i make simpler for the masses. Metempsychosis is just reincarnation right? Because your concepts are already pretty advanced for the general reader i would choose any simpler or more popular synoym unless there is no other term u can use.
Well.. I do not use metempsychosis or transmigration directly in the text, but I need to use the terms here to be understood. Instead, I use keywords unique to the text to define the specific concepts since their are several different competing theories on metempsychosis. There are several variations, the key being that in animism the spirit and soul dissipates as it returns to the earth. In the pandeism it returns to the true God and the divine-backed theory is transcendence of the soul and only the dissipation of just the spiritual body. Metempsychosis is what I chose for the animism because they believe in the the selection of a new entity as the final act of a manifest will. Transmigration is the practice by the antagonists where they usurp the proper spirit flow and conceive a child to complete the transfer. Reincarnation is the third part of transcendence, but that is still different from resurrection which they define as a soul being reborn in a physically identical body. Only divinities undergo resurrection when killed, recreating their existing body as it is was. These concepts are all very different in nature, but the "Grim Reaper" of the world explains that there are four "states" for a soul after death and that she only facilitates the more difficult cases for children. This knowledge is forbidden even among the divines because it pierces a worldly veil that they (nor the reaper) can actually enter. In the end, even the divines have their own ontology that is their exclusive concern that is continuing to develop alongside mortal ontology. Much like the philosophy of happiness and morality (other major points in the story) the divines come to develop very different definitions than mortals. Even among the mortals, non-humans subscribe to different ideals and each of these have some stark departures from human thought. These all impact daily interactions and the fabric of social life in every possible way.
Yeah im pretty well versed in buddhism, hinduism and the vedas but even for me your wording is a bit much. From what i can tell your epic is reminiscent of stuff like the mahabharata which is a sort of religious philosophical epic for the hindus, dealing with the nature of god but yours has a protag antag feel which is less inherently religious which includes ideas like you can hijack god. Its doable, since stuff like dune has been successful but there are stories which deal with similar concepts which arent so breathy. Example being ff7, where you can essentially become god by injuring the planet and becoming the new core of its soul soup. Since its hard for even me to discern i still think you should simplify terminology. You probably need a character who can act as a rosetta stone for your main story, one who goes this is the same as that in our culture ya know?
There is no simplifying it further for me without eventually having to reproduce the dialectical theology itself... I have been down this road before, but still... it probably is a little too much if I am this concerned about it. Last time I spiked 90,000 words and lost my beta reader, so better to head this off in advance. No one ever cares about "orcs" enough in fantasy works since they are expected to be fodder or antagonists. As physically hideous as they are, the divine heroine deeply loves their leader and enjoys discussing philosophy and world affairs. Considering the heroine is logically the "Dark Lord" in comparison if you were to put a proper lens to her. Besides, there is enough philosophy in it already.
Greetings and respects to all. Just need to mention an important fact. Religion is never meant to put philosophical obstacles in peoples' minds, instead, it came to clear them just like how fire purifies matter. People tend philosophize matters. Metempsychosis is another term for the simple word reincarnation; the transformation of a body after death, to match a good world or a bad world according to it's deeds good or bad deeds; a high spiritual world or a low spiritual world It's as simple as that. We are all human beings who learn step by step. We learn according to what we believe and see logically. Again, reincarnation? Yes Its a fact, many people believe in it. It has nothing to do with human personal philosophical thoughts and ideas. Here what apostle Paul once said: The Resurrection Body …40There are also heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one, and the glory of the earthly is another. 41There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.42So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body;… 1 Corinthians 15:40-42 Christianity never denies the fact of reincarnation but affirms it. Ladies and gentlemen, Thank you.
This is a much better explanation. I hope this is more similar to how you are currently writing your story and i hope you fully explain everything in your backstory.
It really depends on the focus of your book. If your focus is explaining philosophy within your world rather than telling a story in which the philosophies interact through action then you are bound to lose alot of readers. Too much explanation and exposition can really bog down a story. One of the reasons the star wars prequels were not loved was because it delved too much into the politics of the situation. And about no one caring about orcs, It's not true. You can be the one who makes orcs complex characters (and actually the warcraft movie is going this route, making orcs more complex then the fodder they usually are.)
It is not one or the other, but the lack of physical conflict or traveling is probably unappealing to many escapists. More time is spent on analyzing the beauty of botanical art works crafted by the other orc-like race as a movement in expression to reflect their conceptual understanding of everything. From sexuality to spirituality, much is said by their cultivation of sacred flora in respect to their place in society. It leads to really awkward visuals for which the uninformed reader would probably just put the text down and utter a stream of curses. Still, I found a few reasons to leave the 700 word discussion in... for it explains a lot of the terrible darkness surrounding the protagonists. Though I think for comprehension I probably need to remove it.
Well it's really your choice if it's intended for the masses or a very select few. Most people (me included) would rather have action and charged emotional conflict rather than focusing on things like meditation in a story. I don't want to watch or read about a monk mediating for hours on end by managing his zen buddhist garden, realizing the subtle differences states of mind through the shifting of the sand. If I was that type of person I would be doing it, not reading a book about fictional beings doing it so I'm not really seeing any sort of target audience here, instead it sounds like something thats a niche within a niche.
