Typhon's nature

Lee Berman · 17 Oct 2011, 02:11 · from 2011-October.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Sun, 16 Oct 2011 22:11:04 -0400
Subject: (urth) Typhon's nature
Message-ID: <SNT123-W34352E460F7CCA1FA549FDCFE40 at phx.gbl>

>David Stockhoff: Two-in-one divinity takes one right back to divine incest, 

>of course. A hermaphroditic Deity represents an ideal union of what here on 

>Earth is forever divided. A self-pollinating "God" would fit right in, in Briah, 
>with its perpetual, cyclical regeneration.  Remind you of anyone, Lee?

Wow, that is insightful, David. In pondering the Sun series over the past years

I came to be aware of perhaps the most important aspect of monotheism.  We can 

recognize that the Greek and other pantheons of ancient gods were not really immoral in 

their incestuous relationships because, who the heck else could they mate with?

But, with a nod to Gerry, it is a human (and even mammalian) trait to avoid incest and

we humans can't fully respect gods who participate in that (not to mention the "bestiality" 

of their matings with humans). And it is pretty clear from the mythologic stories that 

the Greeks really didn't respect their gods very much.

Monotheism provides a God we can respect, especially among those prudish Middle Eastern types.

I hadn't considered that a hermaphroditic "self-pollinating" god might solve that problem

in a different way. 

David, were you hinting at Tzadkiel (who appears in male and in female form and would seem to 

have something to do with universal reproduction)? Tzadkiel has a son, Venant, and those such

as Apheta are the "larvae" of the hierogrammates.  But we are not given enough information to

know how such offpring are reproduced. Self-pollination..hm...I tellya, it might make sense.

Hard to imagine Tzadkiel performing the sex act in the usual human way with some other. And

Tzadkiel compares himself to a sponge animal...

...okay Just did a little zoology refresher and sponges are monoecious. They can reproduce

asexually by budding but sexually they are not self-fertilizing. They reproduce sexually 

through being *sequential hermaphrodites*, producing sperm for one time period and eggs

during a later time period. DAMN! Tzadkiel really is a freaking sponge!

Well, anyway, we have the long Biblical tradition of understanding angels to be hermaphroditic 

or di-sexual beings. And likewise for Dionysus. And an understanding that Dionysus and other 

Greek deities have been conflated with angels and demons by Christian and gnostic sects. And 

then Gene Wolfe comes along and adds some invertebrate biology to that mix. Hallelujah! I didn't 

think my level of awe for this story could get any greater but it just did.

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