On Thu, Oct 2, 2014 at 4:00 PM, Freelance Traveller <editor@freelancetraveller.com> wrote:

This leads to two possible views of death - in the first view, the death
of the physical self represents the end of all manifestation of 'self';

<snip>

This leads to a culture which
would mourn death, and which might very well lead to the technologies of
mummification and memorialization, as with, for example, the Nile valley
culture.

I find it difficult to see the second bit following from the first bit. The Nile valley culture practiced mummification because they believed in a physical continuation of the body into the afterlife. If death really is The End - Period - then the body is nothing mroe than so much rotting meat. Right?

In the other view, the death of the physical 'self' represents a new
manifestation of the spiritual 'self' . . . which would likely lead to a dynamic culture
willing to push the limits of knowledge, in a quest to develop beyond
the need for a physical manifestation.

Then the canon Vilani must take the first view, since they don't exactly strike me as an especially dynamic culture,

Of course, there's nothing to say that one can't have non-canon Vilani.

Although my gut feeling says that what follows is more likely with the
second culture than with the first culture,

Yep. So . . . the rest of this applies to some race other than the canon Vilani. Still interesting speculation, though.

it would be possible under
both cultures that development of psi powers - specifically those
dealing with _self_ (the Awareness group, the Clairvoyance group and
teleportation-self) - would be viewed as spiritually favorable,
representing a different level of control over the spiritual 'self' and
therefore its manifestation of the physical 'self' than most people
have.

Ummm. What is controlling the spiritual self? It certainly isn't the body. Did we just transition from a duality to a trinity?

Or am I just reading the above wrong (as seems to be the case, based on the further explication below)?

Other social/religious phenomena that might be expected to
develop would include those that show tolerance for extremes of
conditions or strong control over the physical self - firewalking,
living burial, and so on - many of the things that we normally associate
with Indian fakirs or other forms of mysticism from that part of the
world, whether we believe that they actually happen or not. The modern
intolerance of psi is a result of the psychohistorical experiment that
culminated in the psionics suppressions, and of the association in
dominant Solomani traditions of psi manifestations with 'devil worship',
'sorcery', or 'witchcraft'.

And of the continuing fact that a rather irritating opponent of the Third Imperium (the Zhodani Consulate) has built their entire culture on the understanding and use of psionics.

As a side thought, this could also lead to two different words used to
refer to groups of people that the Solomani occupiers might not realize
are significantly different in their meaning, because of the way they
associate certain sounds with certain meanings - thus, we might have
'bilanidin', an inhabitant of Vland, generically, and 'bilanii',
grammatically and semantically a caste (having religious status,
possibly as priests, gurus, holy men, etc.), those of Vland who have
achieved a certain level of control over their self-manifestations -
what we would call psis.

No need for an additional caste. Simply make psionics part of the shuglii caste. It fits them quite nicely. Better than my own incorporation of Registered Companions into them does, actually.

Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident." Robert A. Heinlein

"A word to the wise ain't necessary -- it's the stupid ones that need the advice." - Bill Cosby

"We know a little about a lot of things; just enough to make us dangerous." Dean Winchester