Steve Jackson Games Forums - View Single Post - House Rules for Working GURPS Cabal With Infinite Worlds

demonsbane · 03-21-2008, 01:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jspade

(...) The Infinite Worlds are all part of Assiah, and are connected through Yetzirah (but the barrier is impermeable on no-mana worlds). Thus, for example, while Oberon withdrew from contact with Assiah in most realities, some parallels may still have a corporeal faerie.

That implies a initial Chain of Being splitting itself "infinitely" at the ontological degree of Yetzirah. Because the Tree of Life is only one and it never expands itself horizontally, that would be incompatible with the Kabbalah.

My purpose in this post is to show Infinite Worlds assumptions don't agree with real world Kabbalistic doctrine nor cosmology, but instead remain entirely inside of the domain of science fiction.

And that is the place of its various inconsistences.

But of course, no one can forbid others from working for their enjoyment a entirely fictional cosmology entirely inconsistent (or lacking of true relation) with any real world beliefs, making the game weirder and funnier if that suits the tastes of the players . . .

BTW, this is extremely fnord.

(1) The Kabbalistic "Tree of Life" corresponds exactly with the chain of Being, the perpendicular Axis mundi or Celestial Ray, and it is a symbolic portion of the hindu sutratma.

(2) The "point" where the golden chain cuts trough is "The Garden", "Eden", "the Paradise", "The Holy Temple" (or Palace), "Holy Land", or the Center of the World. The ontological intersection where the horizontizontal plane is passively touched by the active Celestial Ray or chain is portrayed in Genesis by the four rivers of Eden, being symbolic for the horizontal directions of space (north-south-east-west) along a horizontal plane: "And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads". (Genesis 1:10).
_____"East, West, height, depth, North, South, with the holy temple in the middle, sustaining all things." (Sepher Yetzirah IV:2)
Height and depth are here the two "sections" (upper and lower) of the Chain of Being, constituting between all them the six directions of space (4e Fantasy: Above and Below, p. 40).

(3) And from a metaphysical viewpoint, the very Absolute isn't different of the very Chain of the Being or sutratma (literally "the thread of the Absolute"), being it unique (and never multiple), too: "O Arjuna, there is nothing higher than Brahman. Everything in the universe is strung on Brahman like jewels on the thread of a necklace." (Bhagavad-Gitâ, VII, 7)

(4) Being too the origin of the different cosmic regions or "worlds" vertically strung in it. Again: "Everything in the universe is strung on Brahman like jewels on the thread of a necklace." (Bhagavad-Gitâ, VII, 7). In Kabbalah, the fundamental division of Four worlds along the chain of Being, doesn't excludes the reality of a indefinite number of non-specified "worlds" or ontological states of the being different than the material one.

(5) Unfortunately, that seems to be other of the impossible assumptions of GURPS Infinite Worlds:
_____"While roaming across the Infinite Worlds, both Cabalists and harderheaded Patrolmen have encountered all manner of “gods,” (...). Every so often, they meet a god who meets the more traditional definition – a transcendent entity of immense supernatural power." (IW, "Active Gods" box, p. 69)
_____While "gods" in a polytheistic sense is applicable to all sorts of transcendent beings, devas, angels . . . native to worlds higher than the corporeal and astral one (Briah's spiritual domain), and their multiplicity does implies a degree of relativity being able to match with these paragraph along with Kabbalah (translating "gods" as "angels" due its monotheist language), the same isn't possible to guess about "God" or Atziluth, the "god who meets the more traditional definition - a trascendent entity of inmense supernatural power".
_____A inconsistency here is Infinite Worlds not talking about "the god who meets the more traditional definition", but about people finding different entities of this sort, every so often, implying plurality of Absolutes, hence, "relative absolutes!".
_____BTW, no horizontal exploration of such "Infinite Worlds" by harderheaded Patrolmen could draw them near to that "entity" for "meeting it"; that would need an upwards displacement from Assiah to Yetzrirah, from Yetzirah to Briah, and from Briah to Atziluth or "God", leaving the material body behind, at least trough Proyection.