So in European Apologist Maaga would old Pagan gods and certain nature spirits brought into the heterodox mythos be considered Anatta, or reformed/reborn Vinnana?
Totally vinnana. Not so much reborn, but vinnana who just happened to be born as gods and higher spirits. Never anatta. No one worships a robot.
Also, what's the ultimate experience for the average day Maagist? It seems like, in orthodox Maagist societies, the average day would consist of working with 'upper castes' of Vinnana, 'middle-class' and slave Anatta, and relating all evil or ill fortunate to Asavas or Braah.
There are no castes in Maaga society, or if they are everyone is still considered vinnana. Only some societies would have people dubbed anatta in a social position, and those mostly slave-holding societies (in Central Asia and Eastern Europe, I expect). Evil does get blamed on asavas and Braah.
The ultimate experience? Well, likely festivals and mass rituals for yuddka. A lot of practices that in OTL became known as sorcery or witchcraft will instead be consolidated as yuddka spiritual warfare techniques.
Another question that springs to mind; what of 'Satanism' Maagist? That is, afaik, Satanism as an actual religion simply holds Lucifer as a greatly misunderstood liberator, and Yahweh as the great tyrant and liar. Would a similar situation arise within Maaga, that is heretical Maagist which hold Braah to actually be a force of good (similar to OTL I suppose), and the actions of orthodox Maagist to actually threaten to undo reality?
I expect that there will be a bit of Braah worship going on. In early periods, this will be simply in the form of surviving pockets of Brahman-worship and the remnants of the Vedic religion. Later in history it will crop up again, as contrarian thinkers influenced by foreign monotheism start saying things like "What if Braah really is God?" Later, if there are the equivalents of Aleister Crowley or black metal bands within the Maaga cultural sphere, I imagine Vedic teachings and imagery will appear.
That said, there will be a lot more accusations of Braah-worship going on than actual Braah worship. Accusing someone of worshipping Braah is bad, but not as bad as accusing someone of being asava (in the former, you're at worst a traitor and at best a fool, but in the latter you're essentially a demon in human skin). I expect certain groups who get too powerful and dangerous to be purged with accusations of worshipping Braah (like how the Templars were accused of worshipping Baphomet in OTL.)
And it should go without saying that the worshippers of Ahura Mazda, Yahweh and Cronus in the Middle East and Mediterranean will be considered Braah-worshippers one and all. The God-Emperor in China will probably be considered as an asava in human form, though.
We haven't had an alternate religion-focused thread since Tomb's alternate Tengriism one. This sounds similarly well thought out. Go for it!
Thanks! Alternate religions are one of my favorite AH thought experiments.
That works. This is something like what I was speculating would be an answer: Basically, at first the early leaders are relatively unclear about who is an automaton. Perhaps, they might say that anyone who hears and believes the 'truth' is obviously not an automaton, because an automaton would be incapable of understanding.
Yep, pretty much. In fact, I'd say that the "some humans are anatta" position is actually a minority belief, mostly one that comes up when there is a social or military desire to dehumanize a group of people to fulfill some other end. In Orthodox Maaga it would be heterodox and dangerous.