{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/251",
    "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": "whorl",
  "thread": {
    "id": 251,
    "subject": "Driussis",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1997-04-03T00:03:13+00:00",
    "last": "1997-04-03T00:03:13+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0004-0289@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Jim Jordan",
        "address": "jbjordan at gnt.net"
      },
      "date": "1997-04-03T00:03:13+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) Driussis",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Having receive Mantis's latest three pamphlets (which you should all get):\n\n\t1. On history of Urth. I still have not found the passage I remember about\nthe flipping of Urth on her axis. But, on 2:83 (hc) Vodalus does say that\nthe men of Urth once leapt \"from galaxy to galaxy.\" Intergalactic travel,\nwith ease, implies a very long chronology. So does the reddening of the sun.\n\tSo do the layers of previous civilizations found on the mountains carved\nby previous tyrants. The process is explained in geology as:\n\ta. Many thousands of years of civilizations at the mouth of a river.\n\tb. Submerging of the delta under weight of silt, etc.\n\tc. Mountain uplift as mantle pushes back.\nAll of this, in terms of present-day understanding, would take millions of\nyears. \n\n\t2. Silk's enlightenment:\n\ta. The beetle that looks like jewelry but lays its eggs in the dung is the\nEgyptian dung-beetle or scarab (thus jewelry). The Scarab rolls its dung\nalong in front of it, in a ball. The Great Scarab similarly pushes the sun\nin its path across the sky. Severian catches a glimpse of such scarabs\nrunning the suns of the universe as he departs from Yesod.\n\tb. The man on the scaffold is Christ, and His mother is Mary.\n\tc. The man on the horse honored with palm branches is Christ at His\ntriumphal entry. Note the next sentences (3:413): \"Would Echidna and her\nchildren kill the Outsider too? With a flash of insight, he felt sure they\nwere already trying.\" For Wolfe, of course, the Outsider incarnate was\nJesus. Thus the association in Silk's mind. Note also Silk as\n\"Christ-figure\": it is as they honor him that he recalls these things. This\nevent shortly precedes Silk's own death, burial, and resurrection (on which\nsee my ancient post on gospel parallels).\n\td. Is the enlightenment caused by a brain clot, the Whorl computer, or the\nTriune God? The answer in Christianity, and especially in Roman\nCatholicism, can readily be: all three, in term of primary and secondary\ncausation.. Given, however, that Pas sought to suppress the original\nCatholic religion of Viron, I don't see that the Whorl computer would have\nbeen programmed with the information about Christ. Idolatry is a theme in\nWolfe, in \"There Are Doors\" especially, and Gene's comment to me was that\nthe Long Sun would largely concern idolatry. So, I think we should let\nGene's religion play a hand here.\n\n\t3. The foot wound. Surely Claudius is a factor, as well as the Bible. But\nfoolish me, to have forgotten that Wolfe had polio as a child! There's lots\nof autobiography in Wolfe (in \"Peace\" especially, of course). See also \"The\nHero As Werewolf(e),\" one of Gene's directly lupine tales.\n\n\t4. Chrasmological comes from Greek: oracular speech, or oracular words. I\nthink we can be 99.44% certain of this.\n\nNutria\n\n\nQuestions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}