How would Cishaurim train themsevles?

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Seökti

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« on: January 23, 2015, 07:07:48 am »
Greetings.  This is my first post here and I wanted to invite people to speculate on how the Cishaurim may train themselves.  Some of the clearest information is found in an interview Bakker did for Pat's fantasy hotlist here:

http://fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com/2011/07/r-scott-bakker-interview-part-2.html

where Bakker explains:

Quote
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.
[/pre]

This statement also seems to suggest the Cishaurim hold to a process ontology as opposed to the substance ontology of say the Gnosis - a sorcery that turns upon the purity of meanings begotten from abstract logical forms (the end result is the meaning of the form as opposed to the Cishaurim holding the very experience of meaning itself to be desired primarily).

But one has to wonder how one would train for this sort of power.  What exercises would contribute to feeling meaning more intensely?  The first thing to come to my mind is the primacy of the Solitary God for the Cishaurim, who remember are priests as much as or even more than they are sorcerers.  Their art has no mark specifically because it (assumedly) does not overwrite the real with abstraction or analogy, but instead brings the potential meanings already present to a screeching, out of body present.  In other words its almost as if their souls are made into a sort of topos and they don't carry or release the water so much as becoming willing vessels for it.  Their souls then could be understood as fissures to the outside.

So certainly being cast into the desert after being newly blinded might work, but I'm having trouble coming up with decent ideas.  Anyone?

Also if this has been discussed elsewhere please let me know where.
"I went mourning without the sun: I stood up and cried in the congregation."   -Job 30:28

Triskele

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« Reply #1 on: January 25, 2015, 01:42:14 am »
I and others have mentioned this here and on Westeros if memory serves.  It's a really interesting question.  We get a pretty decent bit of background on how both the Gnostic and Anagogic schools identify and train students.  With the Cishaurim, I feel like we really don't.  Do we even ever get explicit knowledge of whether or not they are of the Few?  If not, how are the initiates found? 

I maintain that one of the big unanswered questions in the series at this moment in time is whether the Cishaurim were just an interesting piece from the first series with one interesting bit being prolonged in the form of Meppa or whether the Cishaurim are absolutely instrumental in the whole series and Meppa is going to be our conduit for understanding how. 

Seökti

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« Reply #2 on: February 01, 2015, 09:57:35 am »
What strikes me as important about the Cishaurim is the fact that they have found a way to use sorcery without the mark.  Keeping in mind what we learned in the Judging Eye this is nothing short of a miracle.  I believe that they are of the Few, although this is just speculation, as if they weren't I'm not sure what would keep their numbers so low. 

Meppa is even more of an enigma than the Cishaurim themselves, as even he doesn't seem to remember who he is.  I feel like there is a lot of potential for fan fic with the Cishaurim given a little creative availability.
"I went mourning without the sun: I stood up and cried in the congregation."   -Job 30:28

Garet Jax

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« Reply #3 on: February 01, 2015, 06:10:19 pm »

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« Reply #4 on: February 01, 2015, 10:58:25 pm »
My guess is that the Solitary God is the sum total of all that exists.  Kellhus mentions to the nonman in TWLW that he ventured into the Outside and saw something like God broken into a million warring pieces.  It also makes sense that he would be called the Solitary God, as definitively nothing is beyond him.  The same way that nonmen worship the spaces between the gods or oblivion, the Cishaurim worship the spaces AND the fragments, the whole thing, which really makes it sound like the Thousand Temples gods are ciphrang, hungers from the Outside.
"I went mourning without the sun: I stood up and cried in the congregation."   -Job 30:28

mrganondorf

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« Reply #5 on: May 21, 2015, 08:24:01 pm »
i really like what you said about the Cishaurim being like topoi--i seem to remember somewhere in the first trilogy that the light pouring from the Cishaurim's head was like a window to the outside

that' kind of neat because it makes it sound like Cishaurim magic is way way different than other sorcery.  the gnosis and anagogis overwrite the world, but the psukhe spills the Outside right into Earwa, like the Seal of Cil-Aujus or something

one other thing, i'm still not convinced that Kellhus' interpretation of the psukhe is correct--it could be that the psukhe uses words and IQ stuff just like the gnosis/anagogis.  hell, maybe the secret of the psukhe is that Fane found and understood the first and lost tongue of the nonmen and it makes for pure, undamned magic!

Wilshire

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« Reply #6 on: June 04, 2015, 01:26:02 pm »
Religion is always a great way to turn normal people into fanatics, and to teach people to overrule rational thought with feelings... What do ya know, the Cish are priests. Suppressing intellect may have a compounding effect.

http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=1029.15

Last post on the page.
http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=1029.msg10020#msg10020
This links directly to your post :P.
Click the blue link on the post and it will change the URL to jump to the post.

I and others have mentioned this here and on Westeros if memory serves.  It's a really interesting question.  We get a pretty decent bit of background on how both the Gnostic and Anagogic schools identify and train students.  With the Cishaurim, I feel like we really don't.  Do we even ever get explicit knowledge of whether or not they are of the Few?  If not, how are the initiates found? 

I maintain that one of the big unanswered questions in the series at this moment in time is whether the Cishaurim were just an interesting piece from the first series with one interesting bit being prolonged in the form of Meppa or whether the Cishaurim are absolutely instrumental in the whole series and Meppa is going to be our conduit for understanding how. 
I also think they have to be of the Few. Mentioned above, why else are there so few and how would they be found?

Anyway, I agree that this is a huge question. The entire order of Cishaurim could be crucial or mostly irrelevant. I think the Cish where probably the "good guys" and/or "right" in their philosophies and morality, but that they've been all but destroyed.
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Khaine

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« Reply #7 on: August 10, 2017, 09:09:57 am »
I really liked the whole Cishaurim thing and I think it is a bit of shame their sorcery / philosophy / metaphysics was not explored a little further.

Since there is a clear analogy between Fanimry and one particular monotheistic religion, what would people think if the Cishaurim are like super awesome Sufi monks.

The closer they come to the Solitary God, through acts of transcendence, be it fasting, meditation on the nature of the Solitary God, crazy swirling dancing and so on, the more power they can summon / channel.

I am not big fan of the dichotomy intellect vs religion. Religion under the right conditions is a non scientific way of making sense and explaining a world which defies explanation. Look at the Dunyain or the Inchies for that matter, how depraved their quest for the Absolute (or Salvation) has made them.

Whereas from the little we have seen the Cishaurim are more at ease with themselves. Of course this could not be the case, but there is little else in the text to go by. 
Knowing was the foundation of ignorance. To think that one *knew* was to become utterly blind to the unknown.

R. Scott Baker, The White Luck Warrior, chapter 12.

ἕν οἶδα, ὅτι οὐδέν οἶδα

Wilshire

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« Reply #8 on: August 10, 2017, 06:57:47 pm »
Sorry for aping concepts I am not failure with - I'm not well versed in the study of any religion.

The Cisharium do see very "monk-ian"  to me. Pick any group of extremely devout religious sect you want to compare them to. They are all about their understanding of the universe, god, etc. For the Cish, the more 'holy'/devout, the deeper their power grows (I'm guessing). Something that a dunyain like Moenghus wouldn't be able to achieve. At the same time, there is an emotional piece, ie Meppa, that also plays a role.
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