Cosmology

Christopher Klofft

Hi! I'm new to this forum and attempting a return to Kult. So far our group has only played three sessions: the first 2 parts of a 6-part series and then a single one-shot for a bachelor party(!) In each case, the game was too much for them. So I'm trying to revitalize the idea by starting at a much lower intensity level: there's plenty of monsters among humanity before I have to resort to icky monsters. Also, as I am a doctoral student in Roman Catholic theology with a strong background in mysticism and angelology, I may modify the cosmology somewhat to place a distant but real God into the mix (much as the Christian Gnostics did; however, though I find Gnosticism intellectually interesting, I don't buy it in my own life). Any thoughts? Has anyone else out there flirted with the idea of making God or the Demiurge more present, involved, or generically "good"? Or does that detract too much from the cosmology as offered?

Erik Growen

I don't think a benevolent Demiurge/God quite fits into the Kult cosmology all that well at all. The cosmology as it is presented attempts to avoid such easy black/white, good/evil dichotomies by using such elements as less then helpful Archons (our jailers) and 'evil' Death Angels who are tearing the Illusion, thus in a way helping us. Astaroth/Satan is presented almost sympathetically due to the loss of his 'brother' the Demiurge. There are numerous other examples in the game. The point is that there is no clear cut good or a clear cut evil. To introduce such would require a massive re-writing of the cosmological background presented in the game and would change the flavour of it as well. I do agree with starting characters at a lower intensity level and slowly build it up as they learn more of what is Really going on around them. This allows the later introduction of a higher intensity level without scaring off players right at the start.

Christopher

Thanks for your insightful answer. It helped me and my players a lot. Prior to you portrayal of the Truth, it seemed to me to be a world of black and, well, gray. A little bleak for any long-term play value. However, you have demonstrated that it is basically all gray. This makes for more interesting moral dilemmas. It's still tough for me to get used to a world view that is so utterly foreign to the way me and my players actually view the world, but because of you we have decided to play the game straight without modification.

I'm still interested in just subtly modifying the Kult cosmology to bring it a little more in line with a Judeo-Christian cosmology. This is my latest attempt. I'd welcome some helpful feedback on it. BTW, Erik, welcome back. Did grad school eat you up for awhile? (Of course, I can relate...)

A NEW COSMOLOGICAL SYNTHESIS

In the beginning, there was God and He established all of creation. The angels were the first spiritual beings He made and he endowed them with great power and understanding. Some of them, but only some, chose to exercise their free will apart from the Creator's plan and became angels of death, led by Astaroth. God created humans, another spiritual being like the angels, but different in their physicality. The beauty of creation in its physical form led many more of them, in fact almost all of them, to become trapped and pursue lesser goals within physical creation and forget the mysteries revealed by God. The Illusion was fabricated from this turning away.

God understood that humanity would never again after the Illusion's establishment be able to comprehend Him, so He formed the Tree of Life and manifested as the 10 Sephiroth or, as they eventually came to be called, Archons. Each represented some aspect of the full mystery of God and each was indispensable from the others. Humanity began to recognize these manifestations. From these misunderstood recognitions came the history of the many gods and goddesses throughout human history. Of course, Astaroth soon thought he understood the Creator's plan, chose 10 angels to match the 10 Sephiroth, and began to deceive humanity. Astaroth was mistaken in thinking that God had elevated angels; he couldn't understand that God and cast emanations from His very Self to guide humanity. It can be seen then that throughout all of this, God insisted on the absolute freedom of His created creatures. As humans understood one of the Archons and accepted what it stood for, it grew in power. As others were not recognized, they shrank in power. Thus, contrary to both humanity's understanding and the Archons own self-understanding, the Archons did not control or influence humanity; they merely represented the principles of God and were made stronger or weaker by the beliefs of humanity. God, in his love for His creation, allowed Himself, manifested in the Sephiroth, to be manipulated by humanity in the hopes that they would recognize and follow their True Creator.

In the fullness of time, Messiah, the True God in yet another form, came into physical creation to help humanity back toward integrating the mystery of the Sephiroth into an understanding of the One True God. Very few recognized Him, as He expected, but He remained hidden among humanity to guide them subtly along the way. An extensive religion formed around Messiah, but this was guided by the Archons who, as explained above, were guided by what humanity wanted to believe, not necessarily the Truth of who God was.

By the time of the Enlightenment, belief in God (or gods of any imagining) waned so significantly that God in His fullness, now consistently referred to as the Demiurge by some more-informed human scholars and the Archons in their warped misunderstanding of themselves, was exiled by humanity's lack of belief. Once again, God willingly endured this exile imposed by His own creatures out of absolute love for them. With His departure, the Archon Malkuth lost her understanding of herself as the Shekinah, the Divine Presence among humanity. She lost sight of herself, but not of her mission. She turned away from manifesting among people as a religious and loving presence and turned toward the psychological and the technological, accidentally pushing God further away from humanity. With the Demiurge's disappearance, the Archons came to understand themselves as the minor gods humanity had made them. Humanity, now more lost than ever without God, starting becoming more and more entrenched in the Illusion. Certain aspects of God were so lost among humanity's belief systems that some of the Archons themselves seemed to ceased to be, casualties in what some believed was a "war" among them. Astaroth tried to follow where the Demiurge had went, but as Astaroth was merely a creature and not the Creator, his attempt to follow God into exile threatened to destroy him. Astaroth returned with no understanding of what had occurred, and now presumes God is really dead and that humanity is his for the taking, heedless of the inherent illogic of a creation without a Creator.

Humanity's only hope for ultimate salvation, for themselves as individuals and as a race, is to re-learn what they had forgotten in the formation of the Illusion. They must transcend the purely physical world and re-connect the aspects of God. They must begin with belief again, to transform Malkuth back into the Shekinah, recognize the loss of the four Archons which have vanished to bring them back into being again, and finally bring the Sephiroth back into the One God by understanding them merely as intimately interrelated aspects of God. This eventual unity of belief will far surpass in strength the deceptions of Astaroth, who will not cease to be, but will hold no more power over the world. Messiah will then be able to fully manifest Himself as God among humanity and bring about the spiritual union that was intended by God from the beginning.

I have also recently been thinking of modifying the cosmology off my Campaign world. I rather think that a strictly Kabbalistic view would suit me best. Perhaps even replacing the Archons with the Angels and Death Angels with similar. But since the ten enmanments in the Sephiroth are represented by an Archon, i don't know how to proceed.

You havn't thought of how to incorporate the Angels and Archangels of the Kabbalah? I would be interested in hearing about that.

Yep, I'm back. Got a little hung up with research and what not. You have obviously put a fair amount of time into coming up with this alternative cosmology and it seems internally consistent enough. My only personal problem with it is that it is too dichotomous for my taste. I kind of prefer the grey and slightly confused cosmology presented in Kult (you know, what would initially appear to be the 'good guys' and the 'bad guys' are not necessarily that way). By the way, have you had a chance to see the Steve Jackson game 'In Nomine'? I think you might enjoy it. It brings up a number of interesting theological points, which, if run correctly, could truly have players thinking and not just surviving. The version of cosmology you have outlined could easily be used as a framework for that game. A friend of mine has been running it and has been using parts of the Old Testament as a guide. (i.e. a more vengeful than forgiving God, Jesus as Messiah but not a part of God et cetera) The game has provoked a number of theological debates among the players which have been quite entertaining and thought-provoking. As a group we number amongst us Catholics, Protestants, Presbyterians, Atheists and New Age/ Neo-Pagan types. It is a good thing that we are all friends! Anyway, you might want to give it a whirl.