why the problem with astral travel?

maa32 · 18 Apr 2001, 08:53 · from whorl-v0012.mbox · original

This is the message as the crawl holds it, before anything here touched it. What the conversation shows has been through ingest: transfer encodings decoded, attachments dropped, quote markers repaired, and the archiver’s ? resolved into quotation marks and dashes. Those repairs are judgements and some of them are wrong, which is what this page is for. Email addresses are obscured here as they are everywhere else on the site, so it is before our repairs rather than byte for byte.

From: maa32 <maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu>
Subject: (whorl) why the problem with astral travel?
Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 08:53:29
Message-ID: <whorl-v0012-0630 at digest.urth.net>
X-Urthmirror-Source: http://www.urth.net/whorl/archives/v0012/0630.shtml
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

I really don't see why some are so distraught over Wolfe's use of a really =
big=20
Godling or astral travel.  Severian's relationship with the new sun seems=20
equally mysterious.  How can a man freely travel back and forth in time jus=
t=20
because he has some affinity with a star?  without mechanical "SF"=20
enhancement, how does Wolfe really explain Severian's connection?  How abou=
t=20
silk's auto-resurrection at the end of Calde of the Long Sun?  I really don=
't=20
think that access to the corridor of time is any different than travelling=20
through space with a mental projection.  The sorceror in Sword of the Licto=
r=20
is clearly a psionicist.  Is his mental fortitude any different than magic =
or=20
astral projection?  Does a device or genetic alteration allow him to use hi=
s=20
mental powers?  I don't think so.  According to A.D. + D., astral projectio=
n=20
is a well established psionic ability, as is conjunction with another mind.=
 =20
The godlings might very well be mechanical.  who cares?

*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.
*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.moonmilk.com/whorl/
*To leave the list, send "unsubscribe" to whorl-request at lists.best.com
*If it's Wolfe but not Long Sun, please use the URTH list: urth at lists.best.=
com

An unofficial mirror of a public mailing list · about & removal requests · download the archive · before the list · original archive at urth.net