# Digest whorl.v001.n076

*The Whorl list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 07 Apr 1997*

<https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/166>

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### Kieran Mullen
*07 Apr 1997, 01:46*

> From: "Alice Turner" <al at interport.net>
> Subject: Silk vis a vis God
> Date: Sun, 6 Apr 1997 12:05:17 -0400
> 
> With regard to the identity of the Outsider, let me remind you of Lake,
> 285, where Silk is telling Crane about his enlightenment:
> 
> "Voices...One spoke into each ear most of the time. One was very
> masculine--not falsely deep, but solid, as if a mountain of stone were
> speaking. The other was feminine, a sort of gentle cooing; yet both voices
> were his...I believe, too, that the Outsider has a great many more voices
> as well. I could hear them in back of me at times, although indistinctly.
> It was as if a crowd were waiting behind me while its leaders whispered in
> my ears; but as if the crowd was actually all one person, somehow: the
> Outsider...."
> 
> If that isn't Severian, I'll eat my mouse.

    How would you like it cooked?

    "Cooing" seems more like a reference to the Holy Spirit, in RC tradition.
It has sometimes been thought of as the feminine part of the Trinity.  
I can't see how you could get Severian to have the voice of a mountain of
stone.  

    In Genesis, God often refers to him/herself in the plural.  (This in
itself has sparked much discussion).  This seems to me to be Wolfe's take
on this metaphor/image/idea.

              Kieran Mullen

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