From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at home.com>
Re: the unreproducible Planaraian worm experiment:
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Wolfe may have had these experiments a bit in mind, but he's mainly dealing with the Christian sacrament of Holy Communion, which links believers with Christ and through Him with the whole body of saints, dead and alive, as believers in a mystery eat the flesh and drink the blood of their Savior. There are also a whole slew of baptisms in the New Sun books, beginning with young Severian's first death and resurrection. So actually, in context of the book, these are the main miracles.
I think it's both, and I think that the fact that it's both is pure Wolfe. I was similarly shot down by Dan'l when I offered a physicalist/AI treatment of the abosrption of Maytera Rose into Maytera Marble, Dan'l preferring a straightforward "soul residing in inanimate objects" reading. Feh. Wolfe's not just a Catholic, but he's also an engineer/tech writer at heart, never forget it. This is the guy who wrote a story ("Westwind") about people talking to God on walkie-talkies for goodness sake! Maybe this is why some hard SF people can't stand Wolfe.
D