fluff and nonsense

Dan Rabin: We have recently been discussing whether the identity of Severian, the New Sun, and the Conciliator is deducible from The Book of the New Sun.

``I, knowing no prayers, spoke without sound to someone who seemed at times within me and at times, as the angel had said, infinitely remote.''

Michael Straight: I don't think this bit says much about Severian's identity. It sounds to me like the way many people might describe their experience of prayer, but few if any would mean by it that they are themselves Jesus. It seems to me more an expression of the paradox of God's immanence and transcendence.

Matthew Freestone wrote: Or, as someone (Russell?) once put it, "I know that I am God, because whenever I try to pray, I find I'm talking to myself."