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This is probably too late to do any good, but as far as introducing the ideas of Archetypes, Avatars, and Godwalkers, how about having them meet an addle-brained mystic professor type of person, someone friendly, pedantic, and a bit manic. (Think of a young Robin Williams playing Einstein or Frankenstein, and trying to do it straight, but overdoing it.) The Crazy Old Professor loves to talk philosophy, specifically ideas related to the difference between the real world we perceive through our senses and the world of idealized forms and perfect examples we "intuitively" create in our imaginations (at least until we train ourselves to stop thinking that way). He'll talk about paradoxes in physics and mathematics, then veer off into Gnostic and Hindu theology, and end his spiel by citing a recently-published paper in clinical psychology. He's tireless, but there are two ideas he keeps coming back to (though he always takes the long way around). The first, put simply, is that just because we can deduce ways of treating the universe so that it does what we want, doesn't mean that we're right about what the universe *is*. What if the earth really is flat and it's space that's warped, producing the same effect? Is that any harder to believe than the idea that the universe is constantly expanding, but isn't expanding *into* anything, because there's nothing except the universe? The second idea is the human concept of perfection. Not reaching a perfect standard that everybody wants to live up to, but becoming perfect according to your own type. (He cites a study showing that school bullies are among the happiest of children, and argues that it's because the bullies have achieved perfection in their own way.) He talks about Jungian archetypes, and suggests that people are most happy and successful when trying to live up to be a specific "platonic ideal". That's the problem with modern life; too much data, too many options, too few limits. Only limits create identity, only by understanding your limits can you determine where your true self stops. People are subconsciously rebelling against all the modern postive-thinking, New Age crap that tells them they can be anything, when most people just want to be good at what they are. "A man should never turn down an opportunity to be an excellent janitor so that he can be a lousy CEO." These idealized forms, these Jungian Archetypes, have been ignored. Maybe, the C.O.P. suggests, they're lonely, and need some human contact. He suggests to the PC's that they write down their ideas on what they would be if they were characters in a Disney movie, or a historical novel, or the perfect version of their own lives. What's the thing similar in all the cases? The Crazy Old Professor is probably a nearly-ascended Godwalker himself, embodying the Mad Artist or Mystic Vionary types, but with some respect for the aged thrown in. OK, pretty long-winded, that, but what do you think?
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