From: Jim Jordan <jbjordan@gnt.net>
Subject: Re: (urth) 3 Tiered Universes
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 21:20:36 


[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]

At 02:47 AM 2/17/98 GMT, you wrote:
>
>[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]
>
>Umm...
>
>If you read the recently quoted lecture Baldanders gives (V, ch. 42):
>Briah is neither the lowest nor the highest cotemporaneous universe
>(which is only a half surprise, since we know the name of hyperspace
>is "Yesod" but we don't have much of a lead on subspace); a Briahtic
>black hole leads upstairs to Yesod; a white hole in Briah can only be
>from a black hole in subspace downstairs.

	Are you certain that this is so in the Urth world/s? I had associated the
fountain with the river that flows from Yesod to Briah, and
theo-symbolically with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit -- so that the
regenerating power is coming from heaven. I'd be inclined to reverse your
scenario, and say that hell is syphoning off Briah through the black hole.

>
>(I write "contemporaneous" to avoid confusion with the past/future
>universes of different manvantaras: subspace/Briah/Yesod are all in
>the same manvantara, or "period between Big Bang and Grand Gnab"; the
>Hieros, those who made the Hierogrammates in their own image, were
>born in--and died in--the "Briah" of an earlier manvantara; the
>Hierogrammates escaped the death of their universe by colonizing
>Yesod [which in turn suggests that Yesod is actually independent of
>Briah, rather than being tied to the same cycle that Briah is].)
>
>The name of subspace is probably "Abaddon" (III, ch. 12).

	Sure. Heaven, Cosmos, Hell. (Abaddon is one of the names of Satan, the
lord of the pit of hell, in Revelation 9.)
	In terms of SF scenario, we have a previous Briah, whose "saints" are now
in Yesod (heaven) and, like angels, oversee the current Briah (via their
big scarab-machine). All this makes sense at the theo-symbolic level also,
except for the notion that the Hieros of the preceding cycle made the
Hierogrammates, who now occupy Yesod. This would imply that the Hieros, or
their spirits, have gone to a plane higher than Yesod.
	I did ask Wolfe about the Kabbalistic worlds, and he indicated to me that
he had just picked the words Yesod and Briah to designate these two realms,
without intending to imply the entire gnostic hierarchy of worlds of
Kabbalism.
	At any rate, the notion that the angels of the present cosmos are not the
men of the previous one, but rather creatures fashioned by those men, is
curious, and I wonder if there is more info to be teased out of the books
about the whole matter. Any thots?
	Yesodim as angels: Tzadkiel should mean "God Is My Justice," but Wolfe
said he intended it to mean "Angel of Justice," which is also possible.
	Tsedeg = justice, righteousness
	Tsaddiq = just, righteous
	Tsidqi = my justice
	Tsidqiel = God/Angel is my justice
Properly, in Hebrew, "Angel of Justice" should be El-Tsedeq.
But then again, this is Briah, not Earth!!

Nutria