Subject: (urth) TWK: 7 world cosmology

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2005 09:57:39 +0000

In my previous post I forgot to mention that the "servants" of God in Kleos
had his ear, but those who went down to Skai to kill Ymir no longer had it.
This forced the latter to petition the former to intercede for them (W, 47),
thus establishing the pattern of praying, sacrificing and otherwise
worshiping the inhabitants of the next higher level for all the remaining
lower levels.

Humans are native to the fourth level, Mythgarthr, having been "raised" up
from animals by God. Scattered references in the story make it clear that
Art came from modern America, in our world. Our world can exist only in one
of the several worlds said to be on the fourth level. Proper religious
practice is defined in the story as the devotions due the collective
inhabitants of the next higher level by the inhabitants of the level
immediately below it. Stated bluntly: humans are supposed to worship the
inhabitants of Skai.

We all know there is a wide and deep religious underpinning to Wolfe's work.
I don't recall any overt, specific Judeo-Christian references in TWK, but
it's in the background; certainly it's in Art's background. The first time I
read TWK and realized the way people were prescribed to worship, I fully
expected the hammer to fall, sooner or later; that people would be set
straight before the story was done. It never happened, and I don't
understand why it didn't.

Why did Wolfe write a story in which people are expected to pray to and
worship Norse gods, in direct violation of the First Commandment, beings to
whom God had specifically turned a deaf ear? In which a man, hero or not,
becomes an object of worship for humans?

To say that it is "just a story" isn't good enough, not for Wolfe. He could
have left the High God out of this cosmology and avoided the issue, maybe.
Then it would have been "just a story". There were "gods" in the Sun cycle,
too, but God was always around the corner, never out of touch. I recall no
instances of prayer, not even an oath, directed to God in TWK. The concept
doesn't even seem to exist, and there are two levels of beings between man
and God. Am I missing something?

-Roy

---

From: Stanisław Bocian <sbocian at poczta.fm>
Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2005 13:50:53 +0000

Saturday, December 10, 2005, 10:57:39 AM, Roy C. Lackey wrote:

RCL> In my previous post I forgot to mention that the "servants" of God in Kleos
RCL> had his ear, but those who went down to Skai to kill Ymir no longer had it.
RCL> This forced the latter to petition the former to intercede for them (W, 47),
RCL> thus establishing the pattern of praying, sacrificing and otherwise
RCL> worshiping the inhabitants of the next higher level for all the remaining
RCL> lower levels.

RCL> Humans are native to the fourth level, Mythgarthr, having been "raised" up
RCL> from animals by God. Scattered references in the story make it clear that
RCL> Art came from modern America, in our world. Our world can exist only in one
RCL> of the several worlds said to be on the fourth level. Proper religious
RCL> practice is defined in the story as the devotions due the collective
RCL> inhabitants of the next higher level by the inhabitants of the level
RCL> immediately below it. Stated bluntly: humans are supposed to worship the
RCL> inhabitants of Skai.

RCL> We all know there is a wide and deep religious underpinning to Wolfe's work.
RCL> I don't recall any overt, specific Judeo-Christian references in TWK, but
RCL> it's in the background; certainly it's in Art's background. The first time I
RCL> read TWK and realized the way people were prescribed to worship, I fully
RCL> expected the hammer to fall, sooner or later; that people would be set
RCL> straight before the story was done. It never happened, and I don't
RCL> understand why it didn't.

RCL> Why did Wolfe write a story in which people are expected to pray to and
RCL> worship Norse gods, in direct violation of the First Commandment, beings to
RCL> whom God had specifically turned a deaf ear? In which a man, hero or not,
RCL> becomes an object of worship for humans?

RCL> To say that it is "just a story" isn't good enough, not for Wolfe. He could
RCL> have left the High God out of this cosmology and avoided the issue, maybe.
RCL> Then it would have been "just a story". There were "gods" in the Sun cycle,
RCL> too, but God was always around the corner, never out of touch. I recall no
RCL> instances of prayer, not even an oath, directed to God in TWK. The concept
RCL> doesn't even seem to exist, and there are two levels of beings between man
RCL> and God. Am I missing something?

RCL> -Roy

Why do you expect all Wolfe's books to be Christian? When pagan gods
do fit into Christianity? This is the best
orthodox neoplatonism. According to it, any contact between two levels
needs mediators.

That belief influenced also Christianity, especially Pseudo-Dionysius
hierarchy of angels. (See eg Annunciation. In pseudodionysian scheme
archangels are the second lowest of 9 hierarchies of angels.) Those
influences are stronger in Catholicism and Orthodoxy than in
protestant Churches.

Of course, in Christianity direct contact between
man and God does happen - but very seldom. Only regular contact
that happens through Christ - and this is greatest miracle in the whole Christian theology.

Men can pray to God, but to whom does God answer Himself?

-- 
    Stanis?aw Bocian

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From: thalassocrat at nym.hush.com <thalassocrat at nym.hush.com>
Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2005 14:21:12 +0000

On Sat, 10 Dec 2005 01:57:39 -0800 "Roy C. Lackey" 
<rclackey at stic.net> wrote:
>In my previous post I forgot to mention that the "servants" of God 

>in Kleos
>read TWK and realized the way people were prescribed to worship, I 

>fully
>expected the hammer to fall, sooner or later; that people would be 

>set
>To say that it is "just a story" isn't good enough, not for Wolfe. 

>He could
>instances of prayer, not even an oath, directed to God in TWK. The 

>concept
This vaguely Zoroastrian or Gnostic or whatever hierarchy of powers 
permeates Wolfe's fantasy works. I can't see it as anything but 
deeply, deeply unorthodox. These beings are not just members of a 
hierarchy of angels; they are, in fact, gods - imperfect, perhaps 
wayward, but neverthless beings who stand above humans. 

If they have strayed, they are to be "respected but not 
worshipped", as SilkHorn says of the Mother. If they haven't, they 
are to be in fact worshipped - Michael, Art himself after his 
return from Skai (excpet that he is travelling "incognito").

Similarly unorthodox, his God-heroes: Severian is, in fact, an 
enormously powerful God. Latro is at least an avatar of Mars & I 
wouldn't be surpirsed to find in the concluding works that he is 
something even higher than that. We have a large number of hints 
that Art is at least an avatar of Thor, in some sense the son of 
the Valfather, and (especially with the conclusion) perhaps also 
something higher.

I find it impossible not to read them as Jesus-types within a 
fundamentally Arian (and Adoptionist) setting. They are creatures, 
they come after the Highest God, they may in fact be chosen from 
the ranks of mortals, but they develop into a godhood with a 
trajectory of development which will in the end bring them to the 
Empyrean, as very high gods.

I don't read Wolfe this way because it's the way I happen to 
believe - fundamentally, as metaphysics, I actually think it's kind 
of silly. But I think it must be Wolfe's belief, because if not, 
why write these stories in this way?

One "heresy" which Wolfe is not "guilty" of: Manicheanism. There is 
no independent God of Evil. Evil is just a mistake, a separation 
from God, not a positive thing in its own right. The Most Low God 
in TWK is the closest to a real Lord of Darkness, and his claim 
that God is Janus-faced is the closest thing to Manicheanism I can 
recall in Wolfe. But I think it's reasonably clear that this being 
is just the dross cast off by God -  a mere creature. (And he flees 
Art, and Art "harrows" his realm - once again, a Wolfean 
Arian/Adoptionist Jesus-type.)

I think one of the clearest statement of what I really believe to 
be WOlfe's cosmology is in the first Latro book, where he discusses 
the subject with Cleomenes. There is a hierarchy of powers; we can 
aspire to commune with the lowest rung; the God of Light does not 
require a God of Darkness.

but I think it's clear that even he is just the dross cast off by 
God

Why do I say unorthodox? Because

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2005 16:31:36 +0000

>and God. Am I missing something?

Acts 17:29-30
"Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that
the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's
device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commands all
men every where to repent."

What's my point? That even if Wolfe would *not* write a story set in a world
where the worship of created beings was not only accepted but required (and
I doubt he would not), Mythgarthr and above might exist during such a "time
of ignorance" in which God "winks" at such things.

On the other hand, before humans in Mythgarthr were "raised" from animals,
they presumably did not worship anything at all. So now they worship the
Overcyns. When they are further "raised" to Skai, they will worship Parka
and Michael, and when they are further "raised" they will worship The Most
High God. Disiri was also "raised" from gathered detritus.

++++++++++++++

Probably, the reason I don't find the theology of TWK troubling as you do,
is that I don't believe that the Seven Worlds exist in the same categorical
sense that ours does (or in the sense that Urth is presumed to).

For example ONE: There might have been an Arthur who led a temporary and
failed alliance in the area around Hadrian's Wall in the 5th or 6th century,
but the King Arthur we know of from Le Mort d'Arthur et al is not that
Arthur. HE is an 11th century king, and the stories surrounding him are of
mythological and cosmological origin and predate him. He has been "raised"
to another level beyond mundane history.

For example TWO: I still believe that Art Ormsby is in that ambulance Able
saw. The Seven Worlds exist in a world of metaphor in which, Wolfe *might*
be illustrating, we ALL partake; so possibly, it "pre-existed" Art's
abduction (if pre-existed is the right word for a place outside of Time and
"Reality") . It is not just *in* Art, but it is *in* Art for the purposes of
this story.

It is not Narnia. It is not Oz. It more like Alice's rabbit hole, and it is
at least more like Tolkien's Middle Earth, which is described as existing in
human Earth's pre-history, but an utterly implausible history.

In conclusion, the physics of the connection between the Seven Worlds and
ours are those of "Story and Poetry."

(all of which doesn't explain Mag and Mother and such, but I think it might
help avoid wandering down some blind alleys)

J

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2005 20:56:51 +0000

>High God. Disiri was also "raised" from gathered detritus.

I took the bit about humans being "raised" up from animals as just a nod to
Darwin.

As for this upward evolution of humans and Aelf ever nearer to the High God
that you propose, it's just not in the book, and I see no indication that
it's even theoretically possible according to the internal logic of the
cosmology. There are only two instances in the story where an individual is
raised up to the next level, Disiri and Able. Disiri's lot is unique among
the Aelf, as I said before. Able's lot may not be unique among humans, but
it is certainly exceptional. He was one of the "chosen slain", picked for
his fighting abilities to sit at the Valfather's table and wait for
Ragnarok. The average human in Mythgarthr is *never* going to get to Skai,
dead or alive.

-Roy

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2005 21:20:18 +0000

Stanis?aw Bocian wrote:

> do fit into Christianity?

As I've said before, Wolfe's major project since at least _tBotNS_
seems to be creating situations in which a non-Christian cosmology
is embedded into a larger, ortho-Christian context. The most blatant
example of this is _tBotLS_: the _Whorl_ is a perfect Gnostic kosmos,
embedded into a larger Universe in which there is only one true God
of Christianity (whom Silk knows as 'the Outsider'). We know this
because in Silk's "enlightenment" vision at the beginning of
_Nightside_ he  is shown the Gospel, though he can only understand
the theoanthropos as "a man who has been both enlightened and
possessed by the Outsider."

> This is the best

Actually, it isn't so much Neoplatonic as Pagan (in my etc.). It is a
deliberate representation of the world-Ash of Norse myths, with its
higher worlds and its lower worlds, in the form of the later Edda
(which was influenced by both Christianity and Neoplatonism, and
had a High God above all). Similarly, the world of Latro is an
embedding of the Greek myth-world into a larger Christian
context.

--Dan'l

--
I do not fear Satan half so much as I fear those who fear him.
                        -- St Teresa of Avila
http://www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2005 02:17:39 +0000

>I took the bit about humans being "raised" up from animals as just a nod to

I don't think it is "just" a nod to Darwin. He *chose* to use the word
"raised" afterall.

>cosmology.

Well, you admit that Disiri was raised to human status and at the end of the
book, she is on her
way to Kleos.

It doesn't have to be universally *done* for that to be the overall plan. In
evolution, hominids aren't one day *made* human. It is a gradual process
that occurs in generations rather than to a particular creature. The vast
majority of genes threads do not survive, and only a remnant continue.
Disiri has done it. Others will as well.

In a sense Garsecg and his sister (I forget the name) become Aelf and then
human as well in the form of Arnthor and Morcaine. Albeit, they do it in a
backward manner that is presumably unacceptable to the MHG.

>The average human in Mythgarthr is *never* going to get to Skai,
>dead or alive.

Dying first seems to be the standard procedure for raising humans to Skai.

As for the "average human" getting to Skai:

Mat 7:13 Enter through the narrow passage: for wide is the passage, and
broad is the road, that leads to destruction, and many there are that go
that way.

J

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 06:56:34 +0000

I wrote:
>Michael didn't meet Able in Kleos, so clearly he had come down from his
high
>place. Presumably he was able to return, unlike his brother servants/angels
>who went down to Skai. What's the difference?

hartshorn wrote:
>I suspect the thing that bound the descended angels to Skai was probably
the
>slaying of Ymir and the shedding of Ymir's blood.

That's the answer I was looking for and the direction I wanted to take this
thread. People seem to accept the idea that the inhabitants of Kleos are in
fact angels of one stripe or another; at least none have argued against it.
The exact wording in the text regarding those descended angels is "they
could never go back." The question then becomes, *why* couldn't they go
back?

Was there something related to the shedding of blood that physically (if
such a word applies to angels) prohibited them from getting back to Kleos,
or was it that they were not *permitted* to return, presumably by the
Highest God? I suspect the latter.

Why would God punish them for doing what they did? Remember, they were
trying to cast out the inevitable imperfection of the world God had created
for them, to make that world as near as possible to God's perfection. And
they did succeed in casting out much of the imperfection, personified as
Ymir in Skai.

Able was a hero, a man who sacrificed his life in the course of killing a
monster, Grengarm. He was rewarded by being elevated to Skai and becoming a
god to men. Some angels voluntarily gave up their places in Kleos to go down
and kill a monster, Ymir. They were punished by being demoted permanently to
Skai and forced to accept their brethren who stayed at home as gods. What's
the difference? Why was the one rewarded and the other punished for doing
the same basic thing?

-Roy

---

From: Andy Robertson <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 08:40:12 +0000

Roy C. Lackey writes:
What's
> the difference? Why was the one rewarded and the other punished for doing

Because the Angeloi had started higher, and had descended of their own will, 
to kill Ymir? 

Because their actions in so doing shaped and created a yet lower realm to 
which they were then bound as gods?   Bound by the results of their action, 
which changed their being? 

Remember, this is a gnostic cosmos.  God just Is, in a primum-mobile way, 
and pays very little attention to anything but his own glory.  It's not a 
case of  rewarding or punishing, but of things necessarily resulting. 

 - hartshorn

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 12:21:23 +0000

>>Roy C. Lackey writes:
>>What's
>> the difference? Why was the one rewarded and the other punished for
>>doing the same basic thing?

>hartshorn writes:
>Because the Angeloi had started higher...

Able was in the same situation after he "fell" from Skai (I think there is a
deliberate parallel to Lucifer there) and used his Skai-powers in
Mythgarthr. He was either prohibited or unable to return to Skai. It is not
impossible that both are true: That he was unable because what he had done
was prohibited and it was prohibited because it would prevent a being from
returning to from where he powers came.

J

---

From: Maru Dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 15:28:06 +0000

> the difference? Why was the one rewarded and the other punished for doing

Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't they descend from perfection? If they
go from perfection
to imperfection, then it is not hard to believe that it would be impossible
to ever get back....
without the aid of the MHG. Reminds me of the doctrine of the Fall, that
perfection once lost
is impossible to regain with merely mortal/imperfect/sinful efforts, and
that only the intercession
of Jesus and his blood can we be lifted up to perfection.

~Maru
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From: stilskin <acronus at yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 16:48:21 +0000

> of Jesus and his blood can we be lifted up to

But it's unlike the Fall in that these angels
voluntarily sacrificed their claim to perfection in
order to deal with the problem of Ymir, knowing that
they couldn't return.

I also wonder if Able is not a kind of dividing line,
like Christ, a new dispensation or the way toward a
new dispensation.  He is at first bound by all the
strictures that bind other denizens of the various
levels, but only until he breaks through them --
again, just as Christ had to die before he could
demonstrate the defeat of death through resurrection. 
It seems to me that Wolfe sees Able as a Christlike
figure in this cosmos -- not strictly analogous to
Christ but pointing the way to the MHG.

http://www.sff.net/people/stilskin

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From: Chris <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 18:42:47 +0000

Are we sure that the banishment is permanent, or could there be some process 
of redemption unique to that realm?

I cannot help but think that there is an element of "gathering the sparks" 
here. Once you've gathered enough "goodness" on a lower level, when its 
concentration reaches a high enough level you can uplift it to the next, 
more pure, level. And the inhabitants there are presumably trying to gather 
enough to uplift them to an even higher level of purity.

One possible wrinkle to this, though, is that there is a certain atemporal 
nature to this whole process. That is, in a sense, the slaying of Ymir is 
*always still happening*. The descent and uplift are contemporaneous, and so 
from a strictly temporal perspective the inhabitants of Kleos will appear to 
be static.

>_______________________________________________
>Urth Mailing List
>To post, write urth at urth.net
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---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2005 09:03:00 +0000

I have to quibble with the Gnostic view of the cosmology of TWK that
hartshorn and others have championed. I don't see it that way because I
don't think it satisfies the most important criterion.

I agree that the Sun Cycle can (perhaps should) be viewed as Gnostic. The
Increate, aka the Outsider, is known of and referred to by the authors of
the several manuscripts concerned. That is not the case, however, with Art's
manuscript. In the Seven World cosmology, the deity at the top of the heap,
in Elysion, is labeled variously as the High God, the Highest God and the
Most High God, but they all refer to the same entity. There is no mention,
direct or otherwise that I am aware of in TWK, of any overarching "one true
God" outside of or otherwise apart from the Seven Worlds.

In the absence of any contravening internal evidence, I see no reason to
believe that "Highest God" and "Most High God" mean anything other than what
normal superlative usage would imply. MHG cannot mean second fiddle, cannot
refer to the Demiurge.

Able isn't very smart; I don't think he has the guile, even if he had a
motive, to deceive his brother by writing him a letter in which he
deliberately concealed his knowledge of the true creation and operation of
the universe, if he thought or had reason to believe that it was something
other than what he reported it to be, the Seven World cosmology. I don't
think Able qualifies as another of Wolfe's unreliable narrators, at least
not in the sense that he had something to hide. His narrative omissions are
due primarily to a lack of discernment. And no other character in the story
gives the reader any cause to believe that there is any deity outside the
Seven Worlds.

On a more practical level, I just can't see Michael as working for the
Demiurge. And the entire notion of upward spiritual migration loses its
appeal if it brings people closer to the Demiurge. If the "one true God"
isn't running the Seven World cosmology, what hope have the people of
Mythgarthr for salvation of any sort, spiritual betterment, transcendent
love (Able for Disiri), or any of the other finer, higher sentiments and
aspirations commonly associated with 'true believers'?

-Roy

---

From: Chris <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2005 18:46:59 +0000

I agree with Roy's take on the purported Gnosticism in TWK. If this is being 
based off of the scene with the Most Low God where he claims that if you saw 
his back you would see the Most High God, I think that it is clear that he 
is lying in that scene.

The cosmology seems to be much more of a synthesis of Norse mythology with a 
sort of qabbalism.

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2005 22:11:20 +0000

>his back you would see the Most High God, I think that it is clear that he 

Right. Because we *see* his back and it is only maggots and such.

However, there is a progression demonstrated toward the both gods (Most Low
and Most High) that is at first glance indistinguishable. What is the difference 
between Disiri's elevation to humanity and Able's elevation to Skai versus Garsecg's 
elevation to Setr (and the implied elevation to Arnthor)?

It is said that Garsecg devoured Setr, but that's not *entirely* the case. Setr,
didn't cease to be. Instead he became Garsecg at least as much as the other
way around. Morcaine *became* a dragon of Muspel (or was in the process of
becoming one) and the same was true of Arnthor. They started out as half-Aelf
and were in the process of ever-*sinking* toward the Most Low God.

J

---

From: Andy Robertson <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Date: Fri, 03 Feb 2006 19:54:42 +0000

<----------- 

 From "The Norsemen" by H.A. Guerber 

The Giants' Ship 

A North Frisian tradition relates that the giants possessed a colossal ship, 
called Mannigfual, which constantly cruised about in the Atlantic Ocean. 
Such was the size of this vessel that the captain was said to patrol the 
deck on horseback, while the rigging was so extensive and the masts so high 
that the sailors who went up as youths came down as gray-haired men, having 
rested and refreshed themselves in rooms fashioned and provisioned for that 
purpose in the hugh blocks and pulleys. 

 -------> 

A little bit of lore that may possibly have conributed to UOTNS?????

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Sat, 04 Feb 2006 00:49:58 +0000

hmmm...

Yes. There is definitely a deliberate connection. Of that I have no doubt.

J

---

From: Transentient <transentient at gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 04 Feb 2006 03:40:17 +0000

Maybe Free Live Free, too.