I was inspired to askt his question after Luagar's Acceptable Blasphemes thread, because I've always been curious about it. Behold http://www.imperial-library.info/mwbooks/lessons.shtml#29, Sermon 29:

1. The Dragon Break, or the Tower. 1
2. The Enantiomorph. 68
3. The Invisible Gate, ALMSIVI. 112
4. The Corners of House of Troubles. 242
5. The Corners of the World. 100
6. The Walking Ways. 266
7. The Sword at the Center. 39
8. The Wheel, or the Eight Givers. 484
9. The Missing. 11
10. The Tribes of the Altmer. 140
11. The Number of the Master. 102
12. The Heavens. 379
13. The Serpent. 36
14. The King's Cough. 32
15. The Redeeming Force. 110
16. The Acceptable Blasphemes. 12
17. The Hurling Disk. 283
18. The Egg, or Six Times the Wise.
19. The Provisional House. 258
20. The Lunar Lattice. 425
21. The Womb. 13
22. Unknown. 453
23. The Hollow Prophet. 54
24. The Star Wound. 44
25. The Emperor. 239
26. The Rogue Plane. 81
27. The Secret Fire. 120
28. The Drowned Lamp. 8
29. The Captive Sage. 217
30. The Scarab. 10
31. The Listening Frame. 473
32. The False Call. 7
33. The Anticipations. 234
34. The Lawless Grammar. 2
35. The Prison-Shirt. 191
36. The Hours. 364

What I'd like to know is what some of these words are supposed to mean in reference to the sermon number, such as the King's Cough or the Hollow Prophet. Some are fairly obvious, e.g. the Anticipations, the Serpent, or Corners of the World. Shall we discuss....or will this just be ignored and shoved to the back of the boards?

Awww, what's with the sad faces?

Since I don't understand the sermons, I can't hope to make you smile except with a bit of encouragement, like so: I don't believe the words are random. Even if they were assigned to each sermon through a seemingly random process of free association, I bet you could uncover a pattern beneath them by considering some of their less obvious meanings.

Well, of course.

I've done some reading in the sermons (not enough yet, I'm sure), but i still can't find any others out, like the womb. I don't know how to apply numerology to ones such as those.

WARNING: All of the following guesses are entirely speculation and based on little-or-none supporting evidence.



The Dwemer immediately came to my mind on this one. I don't think it's an accident that the number 11 is immediately after this entry, either.



Perhaps the number of bloodlines in Altmer society? Seems too literal, though.



I thought of Thu'um in this case, specifically as it relates to Tiber Septim using it to win over the Nords.



The 16 Acceptable Blasphemies has the number "12" after it. Not sure what to make of that, but I felt it should be pointed out.



I don't know.


Brings to mind Mankar Cameron's speech about Nirn actually being a Realm of Oblivion.


I thought of the Twin Lamps; they're "secret" in that they're an underground organization freeing slaves and ferreting them back to their homelands, and "fire" would be be an allusion to the lights that lamps give off. I don't see why a reference to the Twin Lamps would be in the Sermons, though.

Perhaps the "Secret Fire" is Red Mountain itself, and the secret that lies within it (the "secret" either being interpreted literally as Lorkhan's Heart, or the "secret" of the Tribunal's accession to Godhood that occured there). :shrug:


Scarabs are an important symbol in Morrowind, though I forget why. Isn't it Nerevar's family crest or something like that? I forget. I'm also reminded of "The Scarab that Transforms into the New Man."


That's all that I can wrap my head around now. I'm probably way off on all of them, but at least it's a starting point for discussion if nothing else.

I remember a speculative thread on this years ago, but I don't know if it's still available. Hopefully one of the forumites can track it down.

9's easy. Lorkhan AKA the Missing god. I also don't think the number behind it has anything to do with the meaning. That's just the Sermon Zero stuff to me. 16 Blasphemes are easy, especially considering the recent thread: that's the Daedric Lords.

The Rogue Plane thing is interesting. But I don't know how the number 26 relates to that. And there is a Scarab god in Egyptian mythologe that rolls the sun up the sky at dawn. The correlation to Lorkhan is obvious.



I think I'll do a search

Back in the day, I had this headache-inducing grand idea to try to get all of the numbers down to their basic values and possible other values (Not exceeding 36, of course.) to see if the phrases corresponded to the Sermons in that way. Like: 27) The Secret Fire, 120.
"The Secret Fire" reminds of the poem in the books:

'The fire is mine: let it consume thee,
And make a secret door
At the altar of Padhome,
In the House of Boet-hi-Ah
Where we become safe
And looked after.'

which is from Sermon Three. (1+2+0=3) But, then again, it could also be 12+0=12, (All possible values not exceeding 36, remember?) and there's no mention of secret fire in that one, as far I can tell. (Which isn't very far.)

'To be affixed to a symbol is too, too certain.'

It might be mockingly fitting The Sermon of The Numbers names itself "the Captive Sage."