Forntian Conceptions of Rebirth

Rebirth refers to a process whereby beings go through a succession of lifetimes as one of many possible forms of sentient beings, each running from conception to death.

The Forntian Idealist Perspective

The Forntian Conception of Rebirth Differs slightly from the Forntian Realist Conception of Rebirth in various ways. Forntian Idealists believes that reasoned beings conventionally exist as indeterminate entities made up of constantly changing parts. Beings upon death therefore are entangled by the web and the parts which make up the person are separated and change into a wholly new being. According to Forntianism there ultimately is no such thing as a being that is separate from the web of law, therefore dissolution of the conventional being is accepted as inevitable upon death. Rebirth in subsequent existences must be understood as the continuation of a dynamic, ever-changing process of transformations determined by the will and the law rather than that of one being, transmigrating or incarnating as the same being from one form to the next. Each rebirth takes place within Myriad planes of existence.

Defining Types of Beings

There are two major types of beings to a Forntian Idealist. There are Reasoned beings, and Sentient Beings.

Sentient Beings

Sentience is not merely understood as the ability to feel, perceive, reason, be conscious, or to experience subjectivity, it is also a metaphysical quality of things that require respect, guardianship and care. By this perspective the entire universe can be said to be sentient, and that Forntian Idealists believe in variant forms of animism.

Reasoned Beings

Reasoned beings are sentient beings that possess the unique ability to reason and have awareness of self and qualia. They are also made up of several different parts that are constantly changing. Reasoned Beings are made up of Psycho-Physical aggregates which are different schema and phenomenon determined and filtered by the mind in different ways. Material Forms, Sensations, Perceptions, Mental Formations, and Consciousness.

Material form

Material form is made up of the states of matter which take shape with the different elemental properties of water(liquid), air (gas), fire (plasma), earth (solids), metal (nonliving matter) and wood (living matter). These forms are constantly transforming through the principles within Physics, Biology, Chemistry, and other natural sciences.

Sensation

Sensation is made up of our feelings, emotional and physical, and our senses: seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling. Understanding of material forms and transformation is limited by the individual's ability to sense Qualia, and is constantly changing.

Perceptions

Perception, takes in most labeling: conceptualization, cognition, reasoning depends on this. This also includes the recognition that occurs when a sensory organ comes into contact with an object. Perception is the tool by which reasoned beings create schemas.

Mental Formation

Mental formations are schema and models by which reasoned beings base their attitudes toward identified objects. Mental formations include habits, prejudices and predispositions toward objects. Will is part of mental formations, as are attention, faith, conscientiousness, pride, desire, vindictiveness, and many other mental states both virtuous and not virtuous. The causes and effects of will are especially important to rebirth.

Consciousness

Consciousness is subtle awareness of or sensitivity to an object, but without conceptualization. It is the subconscious awareness of existing perceived/labeled objects, which recognizes the object and assigns a specific concept-value to it, and is the base that ties the experience of personhood together.

Impersonal Rebirth

Since there is no persisting or unchanging self either inside or outside of dependent conditions of material form, feelings, thoughts, mental forces, and consciousness, rebirth is understood to be impersonal. There is no permanent, unchanging self persisting in death and rebirth through successive lives, nor is there a self which is eternally destroyed after death. Rebirth is then seen as a law of nature in which existence in life has arisen as a result of ethically significant acts of will in the past, and present. Both acts of will give rise to existence in the future but does not determine one's particular acts in the next life. What one is now is thus not the same as what one once was in a past life, and is instead a new life with a different body, different feelings and so on, but neither is it entirely separate from what it once was, since what one is in the present is a result of decisions made in the past.

Planes of Existence

There are said to be innumerable realms of existence and planes where life continuously cycles from and between. The below planes are some of the most familiar among Forntians.

• The Prime Material Plane: The plane where all humanity and and animals live on.

• The Ethereal Plane: A parallel plane from the Prime Material Plane and is said to be from which magical energy originates. Also called Mistfell.

• The Void: A formless plane where nothing exists, and nothing can exist. Those there are in permanent stasis. Considered to be the origin of all things.

• The Astral Plane: A plane independent of time and space where rules of the universe are said to emerge and disappear from. It is constantly in flux.

• The Celestial Plane: A joyous and radiant plane where the Holy Gods dwell. It is a place of pleasures, joy, and peace.

• The Abyssal Plane: The Plane of Chaotic Shadows and where shadow gods exist. It is a neutral place and is sometimes known as the land of sighs.

• The Twilight Plane: The Dreamlike realm of the fade where people go when they dream is called the twilight plane. It is also where strange demonic entities may reside.

• The Summerland Plane: The Plane Stuck inbetween existences, it is where ghosts,ghouls, and spirits dwell. Also called the Jade Passage and the shadow plane.

• The Infernal Plane: Is a blazing realm of hate where demonic entities, titans, evil gods, and devils are bent on one another's destruction and increasing their dominion over the other planes.

• The Feywild Plane: A pleasant place of limited suffering and delight from where nature beings and spirits reside and draw their vitality.

• The Frozen Plane: A desolate cold hellwaste where ice giants, trolls, and ice dragons are said to originate.

• The Spirit World A plane where shaman and intoxicated spirits reside. There is a constant furor and debauchery here.