# Gnosticism in BotNS?

*The Urth list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 09 Apr 2009*

<https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/5403>

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### David Stockhoff
*09 Apr 2009, 17:51*

I was just going to comment that the term could simply be interpreted as "relating to hidden knowledge," or even just "knowledge," since most knowledge in Severian's world seems to be hidden. But "occult" is even better.

Which leaves open the question "what knowledge"?

> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 8
> Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 00:31:42 -0400
> From: John Watkins <john.watkins04 at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: (urth) Gnosticism in BotNS?
> To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
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> 	<93d4039f0904082131u50ae9013u7448738c3903322d at mail.gmail.com>
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> Remember, it's Wolfe's future vocabulary.  "Gnostic" here, at least to
> Severian, is probably synonymous with "occult"--the symbols are mysterious,
> understood or intelligible only to an initiated few.
> 
> Of course, *Wolfe *probably wants to evoke Gnosticism even though Severian
> has no such thought.
> 
> On Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 11:24 PM, Lane Haygood <lhaygood at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> Which makes one wonder where Severian learned a word like "gnostic,"
> since his world seems to be rather unitary in terms of religious
> diversity.

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