ORIGINS OF THE MYTHOLOGY

I was reading Jeffrey Burton Russell's book "Satan" or something like that (he has a whole series, "Devil", "Mephistopheles" etc...) and this book was describing the early Apologist Founders and the like, and it was in the section on early Christian Heretics that caught my attention, and I'm sure most of you on this list know that, but it seems that most of the mythology of the Kult background are based on early agnostic thought...I know the phrase Demiurge first appears from one of these groups (agnostics or doceists?). As was the division between good and evil (yeah, I know it first appeared in Zorastrianism), but the Kult brand appears to be from this agnositic tradition. Anyone wanting good ideas should really look into this...Christ or the Messiah from Legions of Darkness was mentioned in the game of being a member of the Qumran church (or something like that) and in the historical sense there was this church and they too believed in the divinity of man or ascendence or something like that (the details are a bit blurry).

Close. most of the mythology stems from Gnostic theology (not agnostic), where the belief in the divinity of man, as well as the duality of creation, is a cornerstone. Many Gnostic traditions say that humanity was cast from heaven to live within this world to relearn their divinity, and to struggle with the good and evil within themselves. (Agnostics, on the other hand, generally feel that there probably is a god, but we will never know, so to search for a god is to suffer in futility). There's a whole lot of interesting history revolving around the Gnostics and their persecution by the Catholic Church. I have led my players down the path to understanding using bits and pieces of this history, and creating my own as well (i.e. the players find information about a cult which was raided by the FBI, during which all members were killed in a gunfight, only to find out that the cult was a group of peacefully worshiping Gnostics, although no evidence will disprove the FBI's case against the cult). My players began to research the Gnostic traditions, and have slowly adopted the faith for themselves. Once they truly believe, and begin to try to worship and reach for their Godliness, hey, who knows. . .maybe they'll get a visit from the FBI, too (evil grin).