[H]

Interesting idea.  I think you are on to something there.  I think all the qualities of water are sort of part-and-parcel to what the Pshuke is, a la, flowing, heavy, life-giving, etc.  All those could, at times, be applied to passion.

So, Water isn't divinely given to mortals, but in reality, it is mortals that give it to the Divine?  Fane created the Solitary God with his Water, not the reverse?

[locke]

Interesting idea.  I think you are on to something there.  I think all the qualities of water are sort of part-and-parcel to what the Pshuke is, a la, flowing, heavy, life-giving, etc.  All those could, at times, be applied to passion.

So, Water isn't divinely given to mortals, but in reality, it is mortals that give it to the Divine?  Fane created the Solitary God with his Water, not the reverse?

Would square with serwe making kellhus divine.  And I love the idea that the water rinses away the mark.

[H]

Consider the following quotes:

If the world is a game whose rules are written by the God, and sorcerers are those who cheat and cheat, then who has written the rules of sorcery?
—ZARATHINIUS, A DEFENCE OF THE ARCANE ARTS

Every monumental work of the State is measured by cubits. Every cubit is measured by the length of the Aspect-Emperor’s arm. And the Aspect-Emperor’s arm, they say, stands beyond measure. But I say the Aspect-Emperor’s arm is measured by the length of a cubit, and that all cubits are measured by the works of the State. Not even the All stands beyond measure, for it is more than what lies within it, and “more” is a kind of measure. Even the God has His cubits.
—IMPARRHAS, PSÛKALOGUES

“Think of the way a fire will shroud the world in the course of illuminating a camp. Often the light of what we see blinds us, and we come to think there is one angle and one angle only. Though they know it not, this is why the Cishaurim blind themselves. They douse the fire of their eyes, pluck the one angle they see, to better grasp the many they recollect. They sacrifice the subtle articulations of knowledge for the inchoate profundities of intuition. They recall the tone and timbre, the passion, of the God’s voice—to near perfection—even as the meanings that make up true sorcery escape them.”

I think Kellhus might be wrong, in the sense that Cishaurim blind themselves not to see more, but to literally see less.  The world itself is vulgar in the sense and the Onta is pure, so they see only the purity of their own intention and intuition, not the contradiction between the world they know and the world they see.

This does present the idea that the Mark is self-created.  I'm unsure how to feel about that.

[profgrape]

Would square with serwe making kellhus divine.  And I love the idea that the water rinses away the mark.

And squares with the notion that the "rules" of Earwa are shaped by human beliefs.

[Wic]

They recall the tone and timbre, the passion, of the God’s voice—to near perfection—even as the meanings that make up true sorcery escape them

I think Kellhus might be wrong, in the sense that Cishaurim blind themselves not to see more, but to literally see less.  The world itself is vulgar in the sense and the Onta is pure, so they see only the purity of their own intention and intuition, not the contradiction between the world they know and the world they see.

There may be a hint there, when we think about how Bakker's personal godlessness applies to a universe where a god exists. It may be that the Cishaurim study very little if any of their own powers, because it is borne of faith - which is to say, something that is not at all studied, but merely accepted as is, and that the most powerful Cish are those utterly willing to accept without analyzing even slightly.  The 'meanings that make up true sorcery escape them' because anything more analytical would, by the nature of observation and consideration, diminish the strength of their sorcery. To consider is to diminish.  Moenghus cannot help but to see, even blinded, the mechanisms that allow the Water to flow, and so he is restricted to the most nuanced applications.

[H]

The fact that Moe can use Water at all is also part of what makes me seriously doubt it's Divine source.  If Moe can use it, having no faith, and Titirga, who literally worships Oblivion, might even have used it, it can't actually be anything truly Divine.  Yet, I am still betting it is still linked to Divinity, literally being the 'stuff of the divine.'  We know so little of Fane's story, but we are presented with it as, he was blinded in the desert, which lead him to find the Solitary God, or, I would believe, create the Solitary God.

So, blindness gives you a better view of the Onta?  The Onta is the 'stuff of Divinity' and/or is Water?

[profgrape]

So, blindness gives you a better view of the Onta?  The Onta is the 'stuff of Divinity' and/or is Water?

Based on the RSB quote below (italics mine), it might be the opposite:

Practitioners of the Psukhe blind themselves to see through the what and grasp the how, the pure performative kernel of meaning...

Blindness allows practitioners to see through the Onta (the "what") and grasp the "how" (the Divine). 

[H]

I thought the blinding to the what was the blinding to the physical world and the how they saw was the Onta...

[profgrape]

Ah, gotcha!

In reading up on the Onta, I discovered that it's believed to be the secular analogue to animas, the "moving force of all existance, often analogized as the 'breath of God'". 

We (or maybe just I) don't know how the Onta relates to the physical world exactly.  But could be as simple as: Sorcery directly affects the physical world and in the process, damages the Onta whereas the Psuhke directly affects the Onta and thereby modifies the physical world in the "right" way.

[H]

Yeah, that is basically how I think I had it in my head.  That somehow, the Onta and the physical world are like separate, but connected 'layers.'  The Anagogis perhaps modifies the Onta through the physical world, while the Psûkhe modifies the physical world through the Onta?

That does make me question how a Chorae works though, since in my head I had what was the (certainly mistaken) idea that it 'locked' in place both layers, in relation to each other, i.e. if both frames don't match, nothing will happen.  Perhaps that does still sort of work, even if it most certainly is a fundamentally flawed idea.

Actually, wait, what if the Onta is simply what everything is comprised of?  Then there is no difference between the physical world and the Onta, the former is just the tangible aspect of the latter.  What is difference is the frame of reference.  For the few, they see both the tangible and the fundamental at the same time.  I guess a real-world analogy would be like seeing both as we see now and the quantum-mechanical nature of everything, at the same time.

Perhaps the Mark is the soul's inability to resolve what is and what should be.  So changes to the Onta, to the sighted, are fundamentally wrong, because both frames of reference do not match.  While blind to the tangible, the Cishaurim suffer no dichotomy.  Their soul only 'sees' what should be.  Perhaps this is why it is magic of 'passion?'  Because you must truly believe that what you do is 'how it should be.'

...I'm not even sure what I'm talking about now...

[mrganondorf]

People have been discussing this of late, so I think it is time to reboot this thread.

Let's start with the idea, is Water itself Divine?

It seems like it, since Water doesn't leave a Mark.  However, if that is true, then all Cishaurim are Divine workers.  This doesn't seem correct to me, visa vis, Moe, who despite zero spirituality, can wield the Water nearly as well as anyone.  Also, confounding this, is what is revealed in The False Sun, that Titirga basically can wield the Water, at least in some rudimentary form.  He is also with any, seemingly, Divinity or even Divine guidance.

I think the connection between Water and the Divine is the opposite?  Water isn't Divine.  Divinity flows from Water, so to speak?

I need to think more on that, I am sort of rambling now...

this is cool H!  a possibility: the Water is the harnessed Space Between the Gods?  while we're at it, perhaps the Nonmen and the Cishaurim are worshiping the same thing: the Solitary God is the field that makes the fragments of god possible?  using the Water might be literally spilling God onto the world...

[H]

It certainly is possible, but the Space Between the Gods is described as Oblivion.  Now, that itself really doesn't prove anything, because it is also described as a way to achieve Oblivion, so Water could certainly be the "stuff of the Outside."

This rabbit hole is very deep and we're almost totally in the dark.  The more I think about it, the less I feel I understand, which I think it's what Scott was looking to do...

[Wilshire]

Stare deeply into the abyss.

[H]

Stare deeply into the abyss.

I might not come back out.

Thing is we know so very little about the Onta, so guessing how it is modified is really tough...

[Seökti]

My interest in the subject was piqued by what Bakker had said in an interview on Pat's Fantasy Hotlist:
http://fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com/2011/07/r-scott-bakker-interview-part-2.html

"Unlike the Gnosis or Anagnosis, Psukhe seems to have come from humans directly(instead of Nonmen). Did the nonmen ever have anything to do with Psukhe? Did humans prior to Fane have anything to do with Psukhe?

Prior to Fane, the Psukhe as an arcane art was unknown, though there are legendary hints and mythic innuendos of certain sightless individuals harnessing inexplicable powers in moments of extraordinary anguish.

Everything comes down to meaning in Eärwa. Where sorcery is representational, utilizing either the logical form (as with the Gnosis) or the material content (as with the Anagogis) of meaning to leverage transformations of reality, the Psukhe utilizes the impetus. Practitioners of the Psukhe blind themselves to see through the what and grasp the how, the pure performative kernel of meaning–the music, the passion, or as the Cishaurim call it, the ‘Water.’ As a contemporary philosopher might say, the Psukhe is noncognitive, it has no truck with warring versions of reality, which is why it possesses no Mark and remains invisible to the Few.

This is why the Psukhe never occurred to any of the other more ancient arcane traditions. As the old saying goes, the man with a hammer thinks every problem is a nail. For the bulk of Eärwa’s history, it’s very possibility remained invisible."

For me the suggestion is that the Cishaurim aren't even really sorcerers in the proper sense, instead they come off as something more like a topos.  They train themselves to become fissures in reality allowing the outside to literally spill in.  If sorcery describes what the world is, the psukhe describes why the world is.  This also explains why it turns on emotion as opposed to abstraction, it harnesses the impetus as Bakker says - the reasons why, the intensity of that impulse translating into greater or lesser 'channeling' of the outside.  It also would be markless, as it does not transform or interpret reality but instead offers an alternative reality altogether.  It brings an internal world to a screeching out of body present.