Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod

Lee Berman · 12 Aug 2010, 03:44 · from 2010-August.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 23:44:29 -0400
Subject: (urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod
Message-ID: <SNT123-W20FD63770FB961FD78444BCF970 at phx.gbl>

>Tony Ellis- Lee, I've drunk a whole can of beer now, and I still don't understand
>what point you're making.

Tony I'll give it one more shot.  I've been looking through the text and found evidence 
which supports both your and my views. 

I think most agree that Malrubius' story is our first real introduction to BotNS's 
cosmology. We are told that universes are born, flower and die, to be reborn as a new 
flower,  an endless sequence. Malrubius discusses the origin of the Hierogrammates and 
that a race cognate to Severian's created them. The Hierogrammates wished to be escaped 
from the destruction of their universe and opened a passage to Yesod, the "universe higher 
than our own".

Severian goes on to muse about Hierogrammates: 

"*perhaps it was we who shaped them*- or our sons - or our fathers, Malrubius said he 
did not know, and I believe he told the truth".

I don't think it would be mentioned unless it was a strong possibility that it WAS
Severian's human race which created the Hierogrammates. 

Given the flowering metaphor given just previously, I take Yesod being described as the 
"universe higher than our own" to mean the next "flower" in succession, as #48 is higher 
than #47. And I think when Malrubius and others from Yesod discuss a "past manvantara" they 
are speaking of Briah.

I am discovering that many have ignored the flowering metaphor in the text and choose instead 
to see Yesod and "higher" in Kabbalic architectural terms as a sort of second story, or balcony
to Briah. Yesod is a Kabbalic term so I don't see how we can pin one view as correct and the 
other as wrong. Depends on if you favor texual context or naming as more important.

Moving ahead.  As Severian on the Ship leaves Briah he sees the "birth of a new universe". I
always assumed that was the birth of Yesod.  Then he sees a big clump of stars forming a
disk, edges streaked and old. Sounds like a Grand Gnab which I always took to be the death of
Briah. This woud make sense if the Ship is moving forward in time. But if, as you argue, the
Ship is moving backward in time, perhaps what Severian sees is the birth of Briah and the death
of Yesod. I don't know.

Apheta says the Ship is moving back in time. But she also says the Ship has travelled to the end
of Briah (not the beginning). Perhaps Wolfe is purposefully writing about things incomprehensible 
to the human mind in a way that is not quite comprehensible to our human minds. (we are after all,
as Tzadkiel says, pawns who can only observe time in one direction at a time).

But it is Tzadkiel's words which come as close as possible to crystalizing my thoughts on the situation.
He says that Severian's race IS the one that shaped his, and I am willing to believe he is more
knowledgeable than Malrubius.  Tzadkiel speaks of Severian as a legendary folk hero to him, placing
Severian and his Briatic life in Tzadkiel's cosmologic past, thus placing Yesod in Briah's cosmologic
future.

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