{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/376", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 376, "subject": "3 Tiered Universes", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "1998-02-16T21:20:36+00:00", "last": "1998-02-18T11:58:21+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "m.driussi", "address": "m.driussi at genie.geis.com" }, "date": "1998-02-17T02:47:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 3 Tiered Universes", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Umm...\n\nIf you read the recently quoted lecture Baldanders gives (V, ch. 42):\nBriah is neither the lowest nor the highest cotemporaneous universe\n(which is only a half surprise, since we know the name of hyperspace\nis \"Yesod\" but we don't have much of a lead on subspace); a Briahtic\nblack hole leads upstairs to Yesod; a white hole in Briah can only be\nfrom a black hole in subspace downstairs.\n\n(I write \"contemporaneous\" to avoid confusion with the past/future\nuniverses of different manvantaras: subspace/Briah/Yesod are all in\nthe same manvantara, or \"period between Big Bang and Grand Gnab\"; the\nHieros, those who made the Hierogrammates in their own image, were\nborn in--and died in--the \"Briah\" of an earlier manvantara; the\nHierogrammates escaped the death of their universe by colonizing\nYesod [which in turn suggests that Yesod is actually independent of\nBriah, rather than being tied to the same cycle that Briah is].)\n\nThe name of subspace is probably \"Abaddon\" (III, ch. 12).\n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jim Jordan", "address": "jbjordan at gnt.net" }, "date": "1998-02-16T21:20:36+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) 3 Tiered Universes", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 02:47 AM 2/17/98 GMT, you wrote:\n\n[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]\n\nUmm...\n\nIf you read the recently quoted lecture Baldanders gives (V, ch. 42):\nBriah is neither the lowest nor the highest cotemporaneous universe\n(which is only a half surprise, since we know the name of hyperspace\nis \"Yesod\" but we don't have much of a lead on subspace); a Briahtic\nblack hole leads upstairs to Yesod; a white hole in Briah can only be\nfrom a black hole in subspace downstairs." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tAre you certain that this is so in the Urth world/s? I had associated the\nfountain with the river that flows from Yesod to Briah, and\ntheo-symbolically with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit -- so that the\nregenerating power is coming from heaven. I'd be inclined to reverse your\nscenario, and say that hell is syphoning off Briah through the black hole." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "(I write \"contemporaneous\" to avoid confusion with the past/future\nuniverses of different manvantaras: subspace/Briah/Yesod are all in\nthe same manvantara, or \"period between Big Bang and Grand Gnab\"; the\nHieros, those who made the Hierogrammates in their own image, were\nborn in--and died in--the \"Briah\" of an earlier manvantara; the\nHierogrammates escaped the death of their universe by colonizing\nYesod [which in turn suggests that Yesod is actually independent of\nBriah, rather than being tied to the same cycle that Briah is].)\n\nThe name of subspace is probably \"Abaddon\" (III, ch. 12)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tSure. Heaven, Cosmos, Hell. (Abaddon is one of the names of Satan, the\nlord of the pit of hell, in Revelation 9.)\n\tIn terms of SF scenario, we have a previous Briah, whose \"saints\" are now\nin Yesod (heaven) and, like angels, oversee the current Briah (via their\nbig scarab-machine). All this makes sense at the theo-symbolic level also,\nexcept for the notion that the Hieros of the preceding cycle made the\nHierogrammates, who now occupy Yesod. This would imply that the Hieros, or\ntheir spirits, have gone to a plane higher than Yesod.\n\tI did ask Wolfe about the Kabbalistic worlds, and he indicated to me that\nhe had just picked the words Yesod and Briah to designate these two realms,\nwithout intending to imply the entire gnostic hierarchy of worlds of\nKabbalism.\n\tAt any rate, the notion that the angels of the present cosmos are not the\nmen of the previous one, but rather creatures fashioned by those men, is\ncurious, and I wonder if there is more info to be teased out of the books\nabout the whole matter. Any thots?\n\tYesodim as angels: Tzadkiel should mean \"God Is My Justice,\" but Wolfe\nsaid he intended it to mean \"Angel of Justice,\" which is also possible.\n\tTsedeg = justice, righteousness\n\tTsaddiq = just, righteous\n\tTsidqi = my justice\n\tTsidqiel = God/Angel is my justice\nProperly, in Hebrew, \"Angel of Justice\" should be El-Tsedeq.\nBut then again, this is Briah, not Earth!!\n\nNutria" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tony.ellis at futurenet.co.uk" }, "date": "1998-02-18T11:58:21+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: 3 Tiered Universes", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " 18/02/98\n 10:02\n RE>3 Tiered Universes\n\nMantis, I envy you your clear vision of the relationship in time and\nspace between Yesod and Briah! Personally, I have always found\nthis perhaps the single most confusing and opaque area in all the\nfive books. Here are some of the problems I have:\n\nYou say that the White Fountain can't come from Yesod, citing\nBaldanders' explanation in V, Ch 42 that the white fountain is\nthe irruption of energy from a lower universe (ie not Yesod) into\nour own. But in Ch 23 we actually get to see creation of \nSeverian's White Fountain. He's in Yesod, and it's a black hole.\nHe passes through it into our universe, and it's a white fountain.\nLater, in Ch 25, Severian himself wonders how he could have \nlooked back and seen Apheta's face leaning out of it, and \nconcludes \"May it not be that the White Fountain is a window\nto Yesod after all?\"\n\nHow, then, do we explain Baldanders' explanation? Can Yesod\nbe simultaneously higher than our universe and lower? Perhaps:\nlike Blake, Wolfe loves to show us that two opposing views of a\nfact can be equally valid. Baldanders puts his faith in cold science,\nand doesn't believe in the Claw: to some extent he is Severian's \nantithesis - perhaps for him the world of Yesod IS lower than\nours; he sees a hell where we see a heaven. Severian tells the\nprophetess \"'He has told the truth, as well as you.'\"\n\nI mistrust your 3-tiered universe idea. I'm not aware of anything\nin the novels that suggests universes come in packs of three.\n\nYour idea that Yesod is \"hyperspace\" I like a lot more. It's\none explanation of how Yesod can be a \"higher\" universe than\nour own: Severian tells us that Briah is one of an endless series\nof dying and re-blossoming universes, and I've always assumed\nthat \"higher\" meant that Yesod must be the universe to suceed \nours. Now I have better mental picture: an endless, linear series\nof Briahtic universes, all existing within the outer, meta-universe\nof Yesod.\n\nI don't think that Yesod dies with the Grand Gnab, however. To\nmy new way of thinking, Yesod exists outside of ordinary\ntime\\space - destruction and rebirth is just something that \nhappens to other universes. " } ] } ] }