{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4681",
    "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": 4681,
    "subject": "E&G- the need for Ushas",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2006-08-02T12:16:31+00:00",
    "last": "2006-08-02T12:16:31+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<BAY103-F27DA40F4EDD34F192A2B81D7520@phx.gbl>",
      "from": {
        "name": "b sharp",
        "address": "bsharporflat at hotmail.com"
      },
      "date": "2006-08-02T12:16:31+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) E&G- the need for Ushas",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I promised Dan'l I'd say why I think Wolfe finds Ushas necessary so this is \nmy best stab at it.  I think the answer is found most clearly (hah!) in the \nplay Eschatology (study of final days) and Genesis.\n\nA long time ago in this archive, Alice Turner, Tony Ellis and other early \ntitans were discussing Dr. Talos' play.  Some names  from Persian mythology \nwere noted, and I think Meschia, Meschianne and Jahi were correctly \nidentified as Urth counterparts to Adam, Eve and Lilith.  Further, I think \nthe giant Nod was correctly identified with the Nephilim of Genesis 6:4.  \nThe discussion petered out after that, and I don't think it was ever \nresumed.  But I think there is something important there, worth exploring.\n\nThe Kabbalistic myth about Lilith suggests God initially made man and woman \nas separate simultaneous creations but Lilith (made partially from filth) \nwouldn't accept a submissive role with Adam (especially sexually, i.e. \nmissionary position).  She ran off and mated with demons and which \neventually resulted in lamia, vampires, human child stealing, improper \nseduction and other evils. She also managed to escape the mortality of \nhumanity and lived on and on in various guises.  Later, Eve, produced \n(cloned?) from Adam's rib, was a more acceptable product.\n\nSince Domnina and Father Inire's mirrors were recently discussed I have to \ninclude this side myth which I think is pertinent:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "\"Now the daughter of Lilith who made her home in that mirror watched every \nmovement of the >girl who posed before it. She bided her time and one day \nshe slipped out of the mirror and took >possession of the girl, entering \nthrough her eyes. In this way she took control of her, stirring her >desire \nat will.... So it happened that this young girl, driven by the evil wishes \nof Lilith's daughter, >ran around with young men who lived in the same \nneighborhood.\"  From \"Lilith's Cave,\" Lilith's >Cave: Jewish tales of the \nsupernatural, edited by Howard Schwartz (San Francisco: Harper & Row, \n1988)"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "In Genesis 6:4, the Nephilim giants appear after Adam and Eve and their \ndescendents have become fruitful and multiplied and covered the earth.  \nApparently certain \"Sons of God\" looked down from heaven and found Earth \ngirls to be attractive and came down and mated with them (Genesis 6:2).  \nNephilim is derived from the Hebrew verb \"to fall\" and thus these giants \nseem to be the product of matings of humans and fallen angels (demons).  Of \ncourse two demons also appear in Eschatology and Genesis.\n\nIn the earlier part of E&G, both Jahi and Nod, knowing destruction and \nre-creation are near, hope to interact with Meschia in reproductive fashion \nso as to be represented in the future.  Meschianne identifies Jahi as \nvampiric, recognizes she messed up the first creation and eventually punches \nher in the mouth.  Later, the tender but manipulative Contessa needs care \nfor an unexplained minor injury. The Contessa also hopes to mate with \nMeschia.  Since both are played by Jolenta, it seems clear the Contessa is \nJahi in disguise.  Jahi (like Lilith) never really left, but has been a \ncorrupting influence on humanity all along.\n\nIn Genesis 6: 5-7  God soon recognizes the corruption and evil on earth \nrepresented by the Nephilim (and Lilith?) and decides to destroy the whole \nthing. But then he found Noah and his family....Hence, Ushas.\n\nWe never get to the Genesis portion of E&G except for the demonic prediction \nof Ushas, but I think we are meant to understand that Urth is like Earth; \nthat humanity on both worlds has been corrupted and must be purified.  This \ncorruption isn't a vague pandoric cloud of evil but very specifically \nintroduced by matings between humans and demons/fallen angels.  I think \nWolfe's choice of sailors from Tzadkiel's ship to re-populate Ushas \nrepresents an earlier sample of humanity, like Noah's family, which had not \nbeen corrupted by demonic interbreeding.\n\nI'm pretty convinced that Wolfe identifies the pagan gods of Greece, Rome, \nEgypt, Persia etc., the early competitors to Judeo-Christianity, with these \ndemons/fallen angels on Earth. The demons/fallen angels on Urth are not \nexplicitly identified as such but I think they can be spotted.\n\n-bsharp"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}