Mystical Role Play : Myth Or Reality ?

[J B Bell]

Interesting stuff.

I was "into magic" as they say, during the heyday of my role-playing, at least in terms of quantity.  I drew a lot of similar parallels, likening role-playing sessions to effective ritual activity.  Now, regardless of one's views about whether magical ritual has any potency in terms of acting at a distance, I certainly think that a very intense RPG experience can be transformative in a psychological sense.  (There is a whole psychotherapeutic practice, after all, also called "role-playing.")  Mike's point is well-taken, however.  Having been through two of the cultic initiations he alludes to (Ordo Templi Orientis[1], first degree, if anyone cares, and I'm not really active in it anymore), physicality definitely makes a difference.

A closer parallel really is what is called "pathworkings"--to a non-believer, people simply close their eyes and imagine things; to the person who does believe in it, these imaginings have effects on some super-real plane of being, which in turn has effects that filter back down into "mundane" reality.  These include, but aren't limited to, initiations.

I think that "simulating" activity that has a known intense psychological impact in a game[2] deserves caution and maturity, so I personally would not run a game that included initiations with a lot of versimilitude unless the players were aware of what I felt were possible consequences.  Really it's an odd notion, though, since initiations are generally heavily scripted, while an RPG famously allows a much wider range of things to happen, perhaps especially when dealing with otherwordly forces.

To bring it down to a more anthropological level, while I disagree that gaming provides much in the way of initiation, I do think it's enlightening to regard gaming as an oral tradition.  Ron's remarks on early RPGs as records of existing practice, rather than instruction manuals, tends to reinforce this notion.  So, in answer to the original query, I don't think that young men (or anyone else) playing RPGs can really be said to be participating in any adulthood passage rites; a necessary feature of such a challenge is the social acknowledgment that comes after, and this is lacking even among one's gamer peers.  Adventures are recounted with relish but I don't think I've ever heard anyone say ". . . and Bob survived the Keep on the Borderlands module, so we accepted him into adult life."

--JB

[1] I'm practically hopping up and down with glee wondering if this outfit counts as a "cult" in Mike's book.  It's been just ages since I had any cred as a spooky guy.  BTW, by "allude to" I meant of this kind; not implying that whatever joint Mike was referring to is necessarily the OTO.
[2] My amusing anecdote:  a long time ago, I took a character in GURPS with the Quirk:  Bad With Names.  It was just a quirk, but it was fun to role-play, so I gave it some emphasis.  I have been horrible with remembering names ever since, though I wasn't before.

[clehrich]

Just a couple points from the sidelines, as it were.  I'm deliberately trying to stir the pot, so please, if you take personal offense here, let me know privately and I'll apologize publicly.

1. In terms of a classic Catholic theological mode (one of many, admittedly), you could argue that it's simply a question of intentionality.  Suppose I said I was a priest, and that this new RPG InSpectres, which has this mechanic the "Confessional," will actually work as real confession, i.e. wash away sins, so long as you perform the ritual penances prescribed by me in-game (have your character smacked upside the head, etc.).  Okay, now you believe me, because I really make this sound convincing, and I'm wearing a collar and all.  Okay?  Well, the thing is, it works.  You receive absolution.  The reason is that just because I happen to be a liar who's deceived you doesn't mean that you're screwed automatically, or the first time a silver-tongued Satan came along and told you a lie, you'd go to Hell.  So the "physical reality" thing isn't necessarily the case --- depends on what theology you buy.

2. Emile Durkheim's theory of communal effervescence* would certainly apply to a good RPG session; I think he'd grant that easily.  So from his point of view, there is already a basic connection between RPG play and religion in the first place.  The only question is whether your society chooses to recognize this basically religious behavior within the category that they delimit as religious.  So by that logic, to say RPG's aren't open to ritual efficacy is to say that some versions of religion are now and ever shall be stupid and wrong.  Sounds bigoted to me.

I think that's enough kerosene to pour on myself for one day....

P.S. J.B., I'll call the OTO a cult if you want me to.  Certainly old man Perdurabo would have been hugely amused.

*Basically effervescence is what happens when you get a bunch of people together, all into the same thing, and this social energy bubbles up out of them like magic.  If you've ever seen Triumph Of the Will, you know what this is, but you also see it at every political rally, big sports event, or good rock concert.  It's what the "pep" squad wanted you to do in high school.  Durkheim thinks that religion arises from this same phenomenon.  This is really simplistic, but I'm not going to teach my whole damn course here, and I'll bet you're thankful.

[contracycle]

2. Nobody has a strong preconception about what mystical ritual practices are or should be, and thus we're not going to try to "get there" through extremist Simulation.

3. Everyone seriously believes it can work, it's appropriate, it's moral, it's devout, it's respectful.  They take it really seriously.

I can't see how these two cannot be mutually contradictory.

2. Emile Durkheim's theory of communal effervescence* would certainly apply to a good RPG session; I think he'd grant that easily. So from his point of view, there is already a basic connection between RPG play and religion in the first place. The only question is whether your society chooses to recognize this basically religious behavior within the category that they delimit as religious. So by that logic, to say RPG's aren't open to ritual efficacy is to say that some versions of religion are now and ever shall be stupid and wrong. Sounds bigoted to me.

Hang on hang on - "communal effervescence", yes, but how does this translate into a religious sensibility?  It is precisely becuase it is identical to the pep squad that there is, IMO, not need to assume a religious sensibility; the effervescence can (and indeed most often is) driven by some other form of identification or self-comprehension.

I definately grant that SOME of this behaviour has been ritualised and endowed with supernatural properties, and thereby obtained a religios character, but I'm not sure its reasonable to then extrapolate that all instances of the effervescence are therby proto-religious or potentially so.

Durkheim thinks that religion arises from this same phenomenon. This is really simplistic, but I'm not going to teach my whole damn course here, and I'll bet you're thankful.

Not really, no.  :)  But then I'm presently reading a book on bronze age economics with particular interest in the mechanism by which communal consent and labour are mobilised through ritual activity and the creation of identities.

[M. J. Young]

Je parles un tres petit peux de francais (little enough that I probably got that wrong), but doesn't d'eau mean of the water?

Nevermind; it's not important.

Another aside, although perhaps more practical: when people say to "search the archives" they mean to use the site search engine, not to rummage through all the posts and threads by hand. It works pretty well, but you have to have a pretty good idea of what you're seeking.

The matter of mysticism has gotten entangled into this thread, and someone has raised the issue of whether there is any Christian mysticism. Yes and no, I'd say; or better, it depends on what you mean.

The sort of mysticism Renard seems to be describing is designed to help the seeker escape the evils of physical reality into the good spiritual realm. That concept is inherently foreign to Christian doctrine. It's essentially Platonic, with strong representation in Eastern religions. It's called Dualism. (There are two kinds of Dualism, one a good/evil dualism that assumes co-equal opposite supernatural powers of good and evil, the "Yin/Yang" concept, neither ever dominating the other, and the spiritual/physical dualism that says material things and things of the body are inherently evil and to be escaped and avoided, while spiritual non-physical things are to be embraced. It is this latter form that is connected to mysticism.) Christianity holds that the physical world is created good, and the spirit world also contains evil, thus one is not "better" than the other, and man exists in both.

I'm inclined to agree with those who say that if you organize a ritual with the intent of achieving some sort of mystical escape from the physical world into the spiritual world, you're no longer role playing but developing your own religious practices. If you're pretending these things with no expectation of such an outcome, that's role playing, but you won't achieve any sort of "mystic experience" in that sense.

--M. J. Young

[Daredevil]

So, there seems to be a general consent that a role-playing game utilizing a strong mystical component would be somewhat questionable? I think so, but I don't dismiss the potential value of role-playing activity that could be realized in this, even though I definately wouldn't like to see role-playing games breed any more cult-like activity in a negative fashion.

The matter of mysticism has gotten entangled into this thread, and someone has raised the issue of whether there is any Christian mysticism. Yes and no, I'd say; or better, it depends on what you mean.

The sort of mysticism Renard seems to be describing is designed to help the seeker escape the evils of physical reality into the good spiritual realm. That concept is inherently foreign to Christian doctrine.

I find myself somewhat disagreeing with this.

Though certainly there is variety across the board, the essence of religion is surprisingly similar and a certain mysticism is at the heart of religious experiences. I think Christianity is very much concerned with escaping the "evils of physical reality into the good spiritual realm." The view that we have to suffer through this life to then later manifest into a Heaven of sorts itself seems somewhat similar, but the strict literal interpretation of this may be a current rut of the religion. The notion of "God's kingdom being found within yourself" is very much a part of Christianity and could be considered more than a strong parallel to mysticism.

Anyway, this disccussion is perhaps digressing a bit (as these religioun-in-RPGs discussions seem to), so I'll give this a rest, but will continue this tangent on private messages if anyone is so inclined.

- Joachim -

[clehrich]

Hi.

contracycle,

clehrich wrote:
2. Nobody has a strong preconception about what mystical ritual practices are or should be, and thus we're not going to try to "get there" through extremist Simulation.

3. Everyone seriously believes it can work, it's appropriate, it's moral, it's devout, it's respectful. They take it really seriously.

I can't see how these two cannot be mutually contradictory.

Yeah, I'm being unclear here.  I didn't mean anything much; it's just (2) the people involved have to accept that this can be a ritual practice, i.e. that the division most of us make between play and ritual can be discarded (so it sounds like just about everyone on this thread is out on this point); and (3) nobody's offended by the very idea of this, i.e. thinks that it's contrary to their religious scruples.  If I'm making myself clear, it should be the case that these are not only non-contradictory, but almost identical.

Hang on hang on - "communal effervescence", yes, but how does this translate into a religious sensibility? . . . the effervescence can (and indeed most often is) driven by some other form of identification or self-comprehension.

I definately grant that SOME of this behaviour has been ritualised and endowed with supernatural properties, and thereby obtained a religios character, but I'm not sure its reasonable to then extrapolate that all instances of the effervescence are therby proto-religious or potentially so.

You ought to read Durkheim, contracycle.  You'd be really interested, I think.  He genuinely is claiming that this extrapolation is not only legitimate but actually necessary.  You've hit on the basic fallacy in his argument, too: "self-comprehension" really confuses matters.  In a straight Durkheim take, the only difference between Australian aborigines doing religious stuff and this RPG-mysticism would be that the RPG gang actually understands that when the effervescence thing happens, it's a social phenomenon; for it to be true mysticism, they'd have to agree in advance (and totally believe) that effervescence comes from the metaphysical, e.g. the Divine.  See, he thinks that religious people figure, "Look, this effervescence thing is bigger than us as a group of people, so it must come from somewhere outside the group."  But the sociologist (Durkheim) can see that it doesn't: it's group psychology.  So there's this basic misrecognition, and that's how religion happens.  I think he's wrong; I'm just saying that his theory would absolutely accept the possibility that Renard is interested in.

M.J.,

The sort of mysticism Renard seems to be describing is designed to help the seeker escape the evils of physical reality into the good spiritual realm. That concept is inherently foreign to Christian doctrine. . . . Christianity holds that the physical world is created good, and the spirit world also contains evil, thus one is not "better" than the other, and man exists in both.

I don't think Renard was talking about necessarily perceiving the world as evil, just radically distinct from the Divine.  I think you could argue that apophatic mysticism, a la Pseudo-Dionysius and various extreme ascetics, tries to get "beyond" the physical by cutting away concern for the worldly.  So long as the idea isn't to get away from the evil world, this isn't inherently un-Christian.  And of course, what you're describing is only un-Christian if you accept that the various dualist heresies were heresies, which obviously is a matter of opinion.

Daredevil,

So, there seems to be a general consent that a role-playing game utilizing a strong mystical component would be somewhat questionable? I think so, but I don't dismiss the potential value of role-playing activity that could be realized in this, even though I definately wouldn't like to see role-playing games breed any more cult-like activity in a negative fashion.

I quite agree, actually.  I think it's an extremely worthwhile thought-experiment that Renard has proposed, but in actual practice I think this is a dangerous direction for RPGs.  What one group does on its own is to my mind its own concern, but for RPGs to try to incorporate mysticism as an ordinary possibility seems to me to be asking for creepy things along the lines of what some worried folks from the Christian Right have thought D&D was about.  In particular, the classic GM-player structure could very easily slide into a religious leader / disciple structure.  The hobby has had enough trouble convincing people that it's not a cult thing that we ought to be wary of actually legitimating (or nearly so) that fear.

One final note, though.  As a way of thinking about gaming, I do think that ritual theory could be worthwhile, especially when you're talking about issues like immersion, or about gaming with minimal acknowledged meta-component during session time.  Within Victor Turner's famous liminal model of (especially) initiation rituals, the idea would be to think about the line between non-game and game, e.g. having lunch with the guys and "at 2:00 we're going to start the game," as being a fairly radical shift.  Instead of trying simply to jump from point A to point B, you'd imagine a Transition model, as though you were shifting in-game from one set of GNS priorities to another.  In Transition, you would be in a liminal state; during this time, you would expect to challenge and break a lot of rules of non-game time, but in doing so be thinking creatively about the rules of game time that you're going towards.  You'd experiment with masks (characters) and so forth, as a way of challenging your non-game persona and Transitioning you to your game persona.  Thus one could see this difficult and often unrecognized time (which is often where difficulties arise interpersonally) as a creative space in which to get everyone focused and on the same page about in-game expectations.

You could apply the same model to Transitioning in the GNS sense.  You have a group of players with one set of priorities, but the way play has been going it looks like a new set of priorities ought to be foregrounded.  Now as we know from Ron's model, the new priorities are going to require different mechanics, and "sorta kinda halfway" isn't going to work well --- it's going to be incoherent, and possibly lead to collapse.  So you deliberately construct a Liminal phase in your game.  You make explicit the old rules, and break them pretty violently; you experiment with the new rules, and try to validate their efficacy and interest; and you take symbolic and conceptual chances you wouldn't normally take because in the Liminal phase "time is out of joint," i.e. you and your character and your old world are effectively on hold, even dead, so it's not really you who's taking the chances.  The Liminal model would thus encourage that Transitions be done such that before and after the players are pretty clear, in an abstract and theoretical sense, on where they're going, but during the "initiation" process it's going to be the characters who are effecting the Transition.

Anyway, just something I've been playing with conceptually.  In brief, my point is that I think a really hard split between ritual and RPGs is not necessary, because ritual theory can be valuable in the same way that GNS theory can; at the same time, going beyond ritual theory models toward saying "Let's make our RPG a mystical experience" is asking for trouble, albeit an interesting gedanken experiment.

[Johannes]

I find this topic interesting from my literary criticist point of view. Let me first state that I'm here talking about initiation as a social phenomennon. This is quite a long post.

The idea of gaming as an initiation rite makes a lot of sense to me. Vladimir Propp did great pioneer research into Russian folktales and he came up with the idea that the magical passages  of the protagonists (from mundane world to "faerie" and back again)had their roots in ancient initiation rites. The protagonists would face trials of moral and courage in the "faerie" and beat them and then they would return to the mundane world with a changed identity (for example peasant gets to marry the princess and becomes the King's heir).

Northorp Frye has touched the same thing in his studies of the structures of romance. He sees the plot of a romance as a battle for identity. First the protagonist is in the idyllic world with a stable identity (childhood). The hero loses this identity in a crisis and must face the dangers of the demonic world (puberty) before new stable identity emerges and idyllic world is restored (adulthood). The new identity is not the same as the first one. This corresponds also to the aristotelian beginning-middle-end thing.

When you consider the most common story-types and especially those that are popular among adolecent players (adventures, hack n' slash, etc.) you find precisely this initiation structure. The initiation goes on on many levels: PC adventures (trials) and leveling up (new identity, adulthood) are a projection of the passage of the player. Maybe it really does (I believe it does) respond to the need of an initiation in a secular society. It is of course not the only form of initiation an individual can take in western society. And remember I'm talking on a social level here - not on a religious level.

As an aside: It is also common among more mature gamers to see the dungeon adventure -phase as some kind of rite of passage. Everybody (not actually) has done it when they were young. Passage to "gamer adulthood" begins with this DnD-style of gaming. The trial is to see the more "sophisticated" styles beyond dungeon crawling and reach "adulthood" and full membership of the gaming community. Not all succeed: some quit gaming (leave the community) and other are stuck in "juvenile" adventure gaming (don't reach full membership).  

I too belive that dungeons are one important form of initiation in the gamer community but the value statements above are not mine. They are just how I see many (elitist) people think.

[simon_hibbs]

For what it's worth, I've heard of the driving test being refered to as our
modern culture's initiation ritual.

Initiation rituals are transformative, they change us. They also involve personal commitment to the ideals and principles of the society (or religions) in which we initiate. Roleplaying an imaginary person doing so wimight perhaps teach us a bit about initiation, perhaps explore the theme of initiation at a hypothetical level. That's not the same thing as doing it.

Having said that, roleplaying does have a social dimension - we could talk about initiation into gamer culture. Perhaps running your first game might be an initiation of sorts. However that's not the same thing as initiation in-game, or in-character.

Also note that it is quite possible to fail an initiation, and that this failiure can have non-trivial consequences.


Simon Hibbs

[Mike Holmes]

For what it's worth, I've heard of the driving test being refered to as our
modern culture's initiation ritual.

Yeah, I've heard that, too. One could argue that most rites of passage are accidentally constructed. But it's a sad commentary, I think, when the gateway for acceptance into adulthood is determined by the ability to operate one form of heavy machinery. Certainly there's an element of responsibility involved, but very little other moral weight involved, I think. When I think of rites of passage, I personally think of more spiritual designs.

I mean, what's the mythic value behind the Driving Test initiation?

Anyway, I agree with you, and this is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. The transformative effect of the Driving Test, such as it may be, can only be felt when one recieves one's liscence. Simulating this, up to and including LARPing the test is insufficient. One actually has to take the test, physically, to prove their actual merit as a person. And as long as you're doing that, why not do it at the DOT, and actually get your liscence? What possible value could simulating it have over actually doing it?

Mike

[clehrich]

Mike just hit the nail on the head, conceptually --- this is what I was trying to get at.

What possible value could simulating it have over actually doing it?

But who said gaming is simulation?  That's one model, not all.  One could certainly simulate all sorts of ritual behaviors, including initiation, but why is that the limit of how RPGs can function as social structures?

If immersion were taken as a goal in a given game, for example, "getting into character" involves shifting into a liminal phase: your old persona dies, and you take on the new one.  This is a central part of initiation ritual.  You see this kind of structure drawn on heavily in method-acting models, esp. early Stanislavky [let's not get into a debate about acting in RPGs, okay?].  So I do think that ritual theory can be of considerable value in thinking about what RPGs are and do.  Given that as a model, it's certainly possible, getting back to the base of the thread, for an RPG to serve a mystical function --- the issue is whether you'd want to do so.

[contracycle]

Hmm.  There are threads about the Forge in which I have argued that immersion is a trance-like state, and that under immersion there is in effect no conscious suspension of disbelief; I have drawn analogies to RW ritual practice too.   But I have also argued that this is IMO a good reason to avoid subjects that may be functionally traumatic to the player; I don't do torture and similar unpleasantness to the characters in any depth or with significant graphic description because I am wary of how this may be internalised.  Call me paranoid if you wish, but I'm very cautious of pushing too far in this direction.

[clehrich]

Hey Contracycle,

You're paranoid.  (Well, you asked.)  No, actually I think you're entirely correct: to encourage immersion into the group and character experience and then provoke a major emotional effect is extraordinarily dangerous.  At the least, it's likely to lose you friends, but I think we can all see that this can go a lot farther in a lot of really ugly directions.

This is why I said that if you really wanted to use RPGs for mystical purposes, everyone would have to have agreed on this in advance.  You could not, ethically speaking, insert that direction with unsuspecting players.  Evangelizing or proselytizing is one thing, but manipulating people who have voluntarily made themselves emotionally vulnerable is quite another.

And this is exactly where the Durkheim idea becomes problematic: from his perspective, a completely self-conscious evocation of effervescence would not have a religious effect, because you would know where the "energy" was coming from.  But again, I think he's wrong anyway.

[clehrich]

Incidentally, Renard, you still out there?  Are we totally off-topic, or is any of this helping you?

[simon_hibbs]

But who said gaming is simulation?  That's one model, not all.  One could certainly simulate all sorts of ritual behaviors, including initiation, but why is that the limit of how RPGs can function as social structures?

Because your character is not you, and you are not doing the things or making the commitments your character is. I think in this discussion we're using simulation in a different sense than it's usualy used in GNS analysis.

Having said that, some initiatory rituals are structured as you suggest. For example (and I only have a rudimentary understanding of this) Jesuits imagine themselves going through the trials of christ (crown of thorns, lashing, being nailed to the cross, etc) as part of their training. Imagine isn't realy the right word. They attempt to re-live the experience, playing it through in their minds to the point that it becomes as real to them as a remembered personal experience.

In a funny way, I think this proves the point though. If you're immersing yourself in your characetr to such an extent that you yourself are entering a trance state and undergoing a psychological transformation you are nolonger roleplaying someone else doing those things. You are doing it yourself, and IMHO that's not roleplaying.

You see this kind of structure drawn on heavily in method-acting models, esp. early Stanislavky [let's not get into a debate about acting in RPGs, okay?].

I'm with Laurence Olivier. When Dustin Hoffman explained The Method to him, Olivier said "But my dear fellow, why don't you just act?". Why not just roleplay?

So I do think that ritual theory can be of considerable value in thinking about what RPGs are and do.  Given that as a model, it's certainly possible, getting back to the base of the thread, for an RPG to serve a mystical function --- the issue is whether you'd want to do so.

I'd like to know first of all precisely what you mean by 'mystical', since it's already been conflated with 'religious' by one poster and I think we need to be clear what we're talking about.


Simon Hibbs

[clehrich]

Let me propose an alternative example, which may help clarify what I'm talking about.

In a number of forms of alchemy, notably late Paracelsian alchemy, the Great Work of transmuting base metals into gold is a mystical process.  The alchemist recognizes an analogy between himself and the material in the crucible, comparing his necessarily base soul with (for example) lead.  This analogy is quite specific: the crucible is a microcosm of the universe, just as man is a microcosm.  Therefore as the base metal is transmuted into gold, so too is the soul transmuted into perfection and purity.  This is part of why such alchemy wasn't just mucking about with chemicals: the alchemist could not effect the transmutation without himself undergoing the transmutation, because the analogy was bi-directional.  To change lead into gold requires a miracle, because it changes the substance (as well as the accidents) of the material; in order to get this miracle to happen, you can't just heat things in the lab, but must open yourself to the transforming power of God.  The analogy to transubstantiation in the Catholic Mass is deliberate: the fact that the wafer and wine are transmuted into the body and blood of Christ establishes a precedent, by which God tells the alchemist that such transmutation is not only possible but also holy.  This grounds the practice of alchemy theogically.  So here you have a brief precis of one classic form of mystical alchemy (on which see Mircea Eliade, The Forge and the Crucible, orig. French Forgerons et alchymistes if you really want the details).

Okay, now C. G. Jung also noticed this process, and thought that it could be done through psychotherapy, by walking through the archetypal structures of the Great Work in imagination.  This idea was in turn picked up by Campbell at the Eranos conferences, leading in part to his idea of "creative mythology" as a transformational experience (which is where Renard started this thread).

So think RPGs.  If you think purely alchemically, the game is the crucible, and your character is the lead.  By effecting a transmutation of the PC, you effect a transmutation of your own soul.  I very much think Campbell would support this, and probably Jung, and the advantage of looking at it their way is that you don't have to have God involved: the transmutation is psychic or psychological, rather than a process of divine intervention.

As I've said before, I'm very leery of such a model as a "good thing," because it seems to be very open to abuse.  But I simply do not see why this is not possible or plausible.