Religion and magic---are they inextricably linked?

[Sol Invictus he/him]

Granted, I'm still a Cosmere novice, but what I've noticed is that on many Shardworlds, the Shards are worshipped as gods (which is appropriate, since without them, Investiture stops working). Is magic a religious matter throughout the Cosmere?

For instance:

[Nalthis]The Returned are worshipped as incarnate deities.

[Roshar]Honor is worshipped as a deity.

[sel]Elantrians were worshipped as living gods by the people of Arelon.

And so on.

My point being, is magic in the Cosmere linked to religious belief? Or do (pardon the phrase) 'secular' magic-users exist.

[Sol Invictus he/him]

....and, as a subsidiary question, what DO we know of the Spiritual Realm, by which I mean the actual dimension itself. I understand the Cognitive Realm is immensely important throughout the Cosmere, but what of the third realm?

And can someone explain "sDNA" to me, as I'm not entirely sure what the word is referencing, other than its "spiritual DNA".

[Moogle]

Well, Mistborn aren't worshiped, so does that count?

 

As to the Spiritual Realm, I may as well quote Shai:

“All things exist in three Realms, Gaotona. Physical, Cognitive, Spiritual. The Physical is what we feel, what is before us. The Cognitive is how an object is viewed and how it views itself. The Spiritual Realm contains an object’s soul— its essence— as well as the ways it is connected to the things and people around it.”

 

We know little enough about it. There's a recent WoB in the AMA thread, essentially implying that it would be a good way to think about it in terms of mathematical graphs (with nodes/edges).

 

As to sDNA, sDNA is like DNA but in the Spiritual. It's something encoded on you which expresses certain traits. You can pass it on to your children, and it seems a little less restricted than normal DNA. Mistborn have sDNA which lets them burn metals, for example. Shardblades might give you sDNA causing your eyes to change color. People born on certain planets have sDNA saying they were born there, etc. Hemalurgy can steal this sDNA.

[Sol Invictus he/him]

At! I've not yet read Mistborn! So far, all I've read is Elantris, The Emperor's Soul, Warbreaker and "Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell". I'm also reading through the Coppermind all the time, but there's a LOT for me to go through!

[Moogle]

There's certainly a lot to get through. Sorry if I accidentally spoiled anything in here for you - Cosmere Theories generally has no spoilers for any books.

[Oudeis he/him]

Well, Mistborn aren't worshiped, so does that count?

 

By Steel Ministry doctrine, allomancy is a power granted by God (The Lord Ruler) to his chosen allies and their descendants. They're not exactly worshipped, but the power is considered divine.

 

Spiritwebs (aka sDNA) are a mystery, but we know that they include wherever you were born, we know hemalurgic spikes steal or transmit parts of them.

 

As for the realm, I personally suspect that we've seen it; I think it's where Stennimar was when he died the first time, saw the world, and was offered the chance to Return. This is entirely baseless, just a gut feeling.

[Sol Invictus he/him]

No problem! I'm one of the rare few who'll still read a book or see a movie even if it's spoiled for me. Spoilers are, by nature, bare-bones descriptions; the novel or movie is the actual meat. Ergo, I'm not worried!

[Moogle]

By Steel Ministry doctrine, allomancy is a power granted by God (The Lord Ruler) to his chosen allies and their descendants. They're not exactly worshipped, but the power is considered divine.

 

This is an interesting point. I suppose the most 'secular' power you're going to get would be Feruchemists, then? Even still, I wouldn't say magic is an intrinsically religious matter in the Cosmere.

[Green Hoodie Mistborn he/him]

I would say the only secular magic user we see so far in the Cosmere is Hoid. It's hard to worship something who you knew as a person before they became divine.

I wouldn't say either that magic is intrinsically religious, but it is human nature to deify and build religion around things which are "supernatural". So by default I think you'll see religion and magic intertwined throughout the Cosmere in the same way that Earth myth/superstition/religion almost invariably have supernatural elements to them.

[Oudeis he/him]

Well, unlike the "Greek Gods" of the Shards, I've always gotten the impression that the full Adonalsium itself actually was God, if perhaps not a fully omnipotent one. Still, Investiture is called the Power of Creation. The case could be made that it is inherently divine. The other question is, does every shardworld incorporate it into their religion (which may or may not have any connections to Adonalsium). The Arelish, for example, actually worshipped the Elantrians themselves, not as avatars of Devotion and Dominion but as self-contained Gods.

 

Feruchemy is prolly the most secular "magic" of Scadrial. I wonder about hemalurgy, though... The head of hemalurgy on Scadrial was the Lord Ruler who knew more about Ruin and Shards than we the fans do. Did he worship Ruin? Did he know he was a God? It's kind of up-in-the-air how "divine" he thought hemalurgy was.

[Voidus]

This is an interesting point. I suppose the most 'secular' power you're going to get would be Feruchemists, then? Even still, I wouldn't say magic is an intrinsically religious matter in the Cosmere.

Mistborn spoilers:

Well given that the Terris religion recognized Ruin and Preservation as gods I think they're actually the closest to following the other planets in theology and magic.

Well I'd point out that Jasnah is an avowed atheist so there are certainly secular users of magic, but in general I think it's just an example of Sanderson naturally building coherent societies around his magic systems. If magic did exist it's pretty natural that people would develop religious beliefs about it, I don't think this necessarily implies that there must be a religion for the magic to develop. After all, no one could worship Returned before the Returned appeared, no one could worship Elantrians until after the first Elantrian.

[natc]

It takes as little as showing up to the Americas with a caucasian complexion and strange technology for people to assume you are divine.

Having magic powers probably helps cement that assumption.

[Sol Invictus he/him]

Thanks, everyone! Who is Jasnah, by the way? And how can you be an atheist in a world where the supernatural is blatantly true. In the Cosmere, there's even a Realmatic Theory depicting the Spiritual Realm which very easily function as an afterlife. In the real world, lack of evidence of any sort paves the way for atheism and skeptic, but evidence of such things abounds in the Cosmere!

[Guest]

Thanks, everyone! Who is Jasnah, by the way? And how can you be an atheist in a world where the supernatural is blatantly true. In the Cosmere, there's even a Realmatic Theory depicting the Spiritual Realm which very easily function as an afterlife. In the real world, lack of evidence of any sort paves the way for atheism and skeptic, but evidence of such things abounds in the Cosmere!

Don't get me going... at first, I was excited to see a well written and intelligent Atheist, but then I realized that within the book she's wrong and ignoring reality so now it just annoys me.

She's a character in Stormlight Archive.

[Green Hoodie Mistborn he/him]

Thanks, everyone! Who is Jasnah, by the way? And how can you be an atheist in a world where the supernatural is blatantly true. In the Cosmere, there's even a Realmatic Theory depicting the Spiritual Realm which very easily function as an afterlife. In the real world, lack of evidence of any sort paves the way for atheism and skeptic, but evidence of such things abounds in the Cosmere!

 

Jasnah is one of the main characters in the Stormlight Archive books. Just because there are magical powers doesn't necessarily mean that there are gods. In her case, though perhaps accidentally so, her atheism is at least semi-right. Who her religion teaches are gods aren't actually, and the shard repsonsible for them isn't around anymore either. 

[Sol Invictus he/him]

Does it matter if a God was once mortal? Shards fit the bill quite handily. I've read that on Scadrial, the Lord Ruler used a Shard to move Scadrial, radically terraform the planet, genetically modify the entire human race, and other insane feats. How is that not a god? And the "dying-and-resurrected God" is very common throughout real world religions---the most notable of which is Christianity. The fact that Honor is dead now might not faze his worshippers.

[natc]

She doesn't actually deny that something probably existed that spawned the religion. She just hates the notion of worshipping the thing, and in her usual scholarly attempts at just making the assumption that the simplest answer is likely true dismisses just how powerful this being once called Honor in ancient times (now the Almighty) could potentially be. As she does with Cultivation and the master of the Voidbringers.

She does at least believe these beings are legit. She just underestimates them due to lack of data pointing otherwise. In a way, she's right, but also so very wrong.

Oh, and while the resurrecting god thing might be common on Earth, this isn't the case here. Shards stay kaput when they go kaput. They are still technically people, and as anime will gladly inform you, people die when they are killed.

Edited June 29, 2015 by natc

[Oudeis he/him]

So in the future, when we have the technology to terraform planets, will we be Gods? Jasnah's point is, just because someone is powerful does not make them an object of worship. Should the people on Sixth of the Dusk worship the Ones Above? They can do all manner of things the backwater people cannot.

 

Compared to the Christian God I believe in, the Gods of Olympus aren't all that terribly powerful. What, fundamentally, makes something a God rather than a being who simply possesses abilities you do not?

[Moogle]

Thanks, everyone! Who is Jasnah, by the way? And how can you be an atheist in a world where the supernatural is blatantly true. In the Cosmere, there's even a Realmatic Theory depicting the Spiritual Realm which very easily function as an afterlife. In the real world, lack of evidence of any sort paves the way for atheism and skeptic, but evidence of such things abounds in the Cosmere!

 

The Spiritual Realm is not the afterlife. WoB with spoilers edited out:

Brandon Sanderson

So, it has implications, but they're not exactly the ones that you're assuming. In the Cosmere, there is dead, and mostly dead, okay? And this has been shown several times. So, once someone dies, there is a period before they transition. Right? Does that makes sense? Post transition, you're going to have to ask the philosophers, and the theologians, who are the ones that, that talk about the.. that. So there's an afterlife, and there's an after-afterlife.

(source)

 

Shards exist in all three Realms, and we know from WoB that they can't see the afterlife (edited again for containing massive spoilers):

Brandon Sanderson (16 October 2008)

And there is an afterlife, but it's probably not what you're thinking. In other words, [the Shard in question] has not touched Heaven or Hell, and actually doesn't yet know what the final beyond contains. [This Shard] has, however, run into some people who have been sticking around something of a middle place. It's related to the larger cosmology, and I'm afraid that I'll need to RAFO anything further.

(source)

 

---

 

Does it matter if a God was once mortal? Shards fit the bill quite handily. I've read that on Scadrial, the Lord Ruler used a Shard to move Scadrial, radically terraform the planet, genetically modify the entire human race, and other insane feats. How is that not a god? And the "dying-and-resurrected God" is very common throughout real world religions---the most notable of which is Christianity. The fact that Honor is dead now might not faze his worshippers.

 

A technologically advanced alien race could accomplish much the same. That doesn't mean someone is moved to worship them. In the case of Jasnah, she recognizes that the Shards exist (though she's more than a little wrong on the extent of their power - give her a break, if she was any more competent she'd single-handedly solve the entire story), but she doesn't give them any moral authority or see them as worthy of worship.

[Sol Invictus he/him]

I understand Mr Sanderson himself is religious and I respect that, but....atheism isn't about hatred or holding a grudge. All it is is lack of belief. I apologize if I've inadvertently touched upon a topic that is so sensitive, as it wasn't my intent to promote or debate actual religion, in the real world. I apologize if that's how it came across. My questions were solely pertaining to the nature of the Cosmere's magic system and the Cosmere's belief systems:

[WeiryWriter he/him]

 

[signing Line - 00:52:15]

Questioner

I really enjoy the systems of religion and the religious questions that you bring up and so I was wondering--  Well first whether in your worlds there is a relationship between the efficacy of religion and the efficacy of magic?

Brandon Sanderson

There is but the relationship is not a direct one-to-one parallel. In other words the beings that are worshiped have an influence over the magic. Whether they are actually God is disputed by various people. And there are people who worship things that are not the various beings the magic is--  Does that make sense?

 

(source)

 

But something to keep in mind is that the cosmere operates under different laws of reality than our universe does.  So while there are obviously things that /we/ would consider supernatural people from the cosmere wouldn't view them as such.  Take the spren of Roshar, Rosharans don't view them as supernatural entities like we do, they are just a simple fact of life.  So it's not like Jasnah is being willfully ignorant, she acknowledges that there are powerful entities she just doesn't believe they should be worshiped as gods.

 

I also wouldn't say Jasnah "hates the notion of worshipping" she just doesn't agree that things should be worshiped.  She really has no issue with others worshiping the Almighty, it's just not something she personally does.  Brandon tried very hard to portray her atheism in a legitimate way.

[ljósmóður she/her]

I think that until you've read the Stormlight Archive, you aren't going to get a sense of what an amazing and well-rounded character Jasnah is (and, indeed, the others who populate the novels). I heartily recommend you get to it as soon as you can. All Sanderson's cosmere works are brilliant but SA is his most mature writing to date and it's much more overtly cosmere than his earlier works.

 

But to answer your question simply (as someone who is also relatively new to the cosmere), yes, they are inextricably linked although it's not always a simple "magic therefore worship" proposition.

[Sol Invictus he/him]

Ah, ok!

[ParadoxicalZen he/him]

I agree with the aforementioned view, in terms of the Cosmere, where there is a major Investment/appearance of magic/supernatural occurrences and happenings, you could probably expect some form of worship to arise; especially if they don't know the whats, the whys, the hows and the huhs or aren't made aware of the specifics by someone more versed in it but that isn't to say it will always be the case.  

[The Honor Spren she/her]

I understand Mr Sanderson himself is religious and I respect that, but....atheism isn't about hatred or holding a grudge. All it is is lack of belief.

That is pretty much how she is. You will understand better once you actually read the book.