Or "relissens" as I just got the EotW autobook.
All that bits and piecing together evidence that "The Light" refers to the Creator, and come to find...
"And it came to pass in those days, as it had come before and would come again, that the Dark lay heavy on the land and weighed down the hearts of men, and the green things failed, and hope died. And men cried out to the Creator, saying, O Light of the Heavens, Light of the World, let the Promised One be born of the mountain, according to the prophecies, as he was in ages past and will be in ages to come. Let the arm of the Lord of the Dawn shelter us from the Dark, and the great sword of justice defend us. Let the Dragon ride again on the winds of time."
... The Creator is called such literally right before the first chapter of EotW. >_>
Rand is capable of making a sword out of pure "God", confirmed. lol
Which in turn means that the OP is almost certainly from the Creator. As aside from the whole counterbalance of the TP factor, it would be unlikely to be able to make something out of "The Light" otherwise.
Which... Really says a lot about the Creator. That it is less about "not interfering" so much as "letting them do as they will". A new channeler-to-be has a moment of immense need, subconsciously reaches out the Creator, and... It gives them some of it's power. Regardless of what the "need" is. A matter of life and death, or mind controlling daddy into buying you a new bracelet. Devout or Darkfriend, the Creator makes no judgments. Simply "do as you will".
More importantly though... For a culture that is normally thought of as so non-religious by readers, they refer to the Creator a lot throughout the books.
They do indeed, but I don't know that they ever really think of the creator in the way we think of a God. I always got the impression that most people in WoT thought of the Creator as a all encompassing power, not necessarily as a sentient being that was out there judging their actions. Obviously there are the groups such as the White Cloaks and to some degree the Aes Sedai who clearly believed that the Creator was sentient and even had some level of ritual following, but the general population seemed to have little interest in the Creator.
I do think the very obvious reality of the OP in day-to-day life played a large role in this ... given that 2-3% of the population (in theory) could actually "touch" the Creator in some way it seems like most people simply took the Creators existence (and the DO for that matter) for granted. They were focused on the current life and rebirth rather than an endless afterlife. Even the limited belief systems most followed were pretty clear that rebirth was pretty much a foregone conclusion even for those with pretty dark deeds in their current life. Seems an individual needed to be pretty extreme to not get another chance at life. Might be why Balefire was such a scary prospect (aside from the obvious damage to the Wheel). Being Burned from the Pattern seems like a fate worse than death to a society that believes in the never ending cycle of reincarnation.
