(no subject)

David Stockhoff · 14 Jan 2011, 13:00 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2011 08:00:21 -0500
Subject: (urth) (no subject)
In-Reply-To: <SNT123-W41ADA5418C765FB3D9B887CFF30 at phx.gbl>
References: <SNT123-W41ADA5418C765FB3D9B887CFF30 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <4D3048E5.7090001 at verizon.net>



On 1/13/2011 10:23 PM, Lee Berman wrote:
>
>> (The connection between "lame" and "castrated" is the theory that when a
>> hero in literature is wounded in the "thigh," that really means he's
>> been rendered, er, drastically impotent---or at least that the two are
>> related by proximity. A king who cannot ride and fight may still be able
>> to sire an heir, but he's still cursed. BTW, has anyone wondered why
>> Severian and Valeria never had an heir?)
>
> The mythic connection between lame and castrated is something I've never encountered before. Thank
> you David!!!
Sure! That's straight from /The Golden Bough/, a book of sheer nonsense 
that is sure to set your brain on fire. Keep a small fire extinguisher 
handy. ;)
>
> I have wondered more than once in these annals about the lack of pregnancy in Valeria. I guess we
> could think of it as a pre-castration condition for the New Sun (what if he failed and faced castration;
> he can't have already had a child).
Yes, that kinda makes sense, and yet kinda doesn't quite explain it. Was 
Severian simply informed that any heir he produced would be killed?
>    [snip]
> Some say there were some other people around for Adam and Eve's kids to mate with, in Nod, east of Eden.. But,
> as Dr. Talos' play implies, that gets into the Nephilim and fallen angel matings and stuff like that, which led
> to a Flood. There ARE some necessary dark sides to Creation and incest is one of them. 		 	   		
>
I think gnosticism and alchemical principles such as holy incest are 
closer to the core of the---what to call it, religious system?---in 
BOTNS. But gnosticism had no obsession with torture or death or force; 
those features are purely medieval Christian. Taken together, it's 
almost as though the Incarnation was dimly perceived but was responded 
to incorrectly---was terribly misunderstood.

How this dim perception might have occurred is another question.


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