Subject: (urth) InsideOut&Down

From: m.driussi <m.driussi at genie.geis.com>
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 05:04:00 +0000

[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]

Reply:  Item #7417663 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET00#

Nutria,

Re: three universes not just two, and the direction of black holes
and white holes, well, that's the word from the text from Baldanders.

I understand that you would like to have hell syphoning off Briah,
but it just doesn't seem to be working that way.  Would you find it
more acceptable if the boon of the white fountain from subspace were
the reward for the harrowing of hell?

Or, to get very convoluted, what if the "interior" of the worldship
Yesod, the place with all the noise and the "abandon all hope" sign
at the front, the place with your scarabs running around, the place
where all the work really gets done (according to the people there,
who only go to the "surface" for vacations) is actually somehow
a pocket universe, the third universe, the subspace called Abaddon?
Because we know that the magic mirrors lead to Yesod; yet we also
know that most of the witnessed critters from the magic mirrors are
definitely =not= angelic, suggesting that Yesod contains both angelic
and demonic . . . (or does it just mean that the mirrors are as
one-way as the black-hole to white-hole teleports--i.e., that
anything appearing in a magic mirror on Briah must be coming from
subspace, anything entering a magic mirror on Briah will enter Yesod?
Well, if =that= is the case, then how to explain the Fish, one of the
earliest forms in the magic mirrors?)

The magic mirrors create an image, an echo, which then causes the
echo object to materialize (since, as they put it and I paraphrase,
"a reflection cannot exist without the object it reflects (and the
observer seeing)."  I'm bringing this up now because it turns out to
be very important with regards to the Hierogrammates: they are the
echoes of the Hieros; they are struggling to uplift Briahtic humans
to the level of the Hieros.  So that the Briahtic neo-Hieros will, in
turn, make neo-Hierogrammates.

The Hieros are not just human, they are optimized humans; they are
completed humans; they are a stage beyond the human race of the Green
Man (who already seems rather angelic).  They made the Hierogrammates
in their own best image and then either moved upstairs to Yesod+1 or
merged with the Increate, or whatever happens.

I don't think that the Hierogrammates are the "saints" of previous
Briah who now act like angels to Briah, I think they really =are=
"angels" in the sense that they are sub-creations, godlike in some
ways but inferior to humans in many crucial ways, for which they
must bow to humanity.  The "saints" of previous Briah would be the
Hieros themselves (and true, having saints manufacture angels out of
animals, or gods out of dogs, is theologically odd--unless we include
some Hindu stuff along with Jewish mysticism).

Re: white fountain as related to the river that flows from Yesod to
Briah.  Are you referring to the Brook Madregot?  I don't think it is
connected to the white fountain in the way you seem to be suggesting.
But I agree with you that it connects various universes: Yesod, the
corridors of time, Briah, the ship Tzadkiel.  It is also the
banishment place for little (mischivous) Tzadkiel, if you recall.

=mantis=

---

From: Kieran Cleary <kierannwn at tinet.ie>
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 14:56:13 +0000

mantis writes:

>Because we know that the magic mirrors lead to Yesod...

Do we? My impression was that they lead to other locations on Briath. Jonas
uses them to return to the stars, Burgandofora (?) laughs at the idea that
the ship-sails, acting in the same manner, snatch important personages from
other worlds. The apports appear to be neither demonic nor angelic. Just odd
(mortal) creatures from different planets. When the Old Autarch opens the
mirrored book inthe House Absolute, he shows Severian an image of Tzadkiel,
but not necessarily in Yesod.

Kieran C.

North West Labs
Finisklin Industrial Estate
Sligo
Republic of Ireland

Tel. +353 71 69441
Fax. +353 71 69451
email: kierannwn at tinet.ie