From: "Alice K. Turner" 
Subject: Re: (urth): Azoth misc
Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2002 22:16:59 -0500

From Jason Ingram:

You're right on the money. I borrowed these books from the library (together
with Frances Yates's -Theater of the World-) because of the year of
researching Crowley I have done with Michael (mantis). But I had read "in"
(as Pierce would say) Gershom Scholem's -The Kabbalah-; it is a favorite of
Harold Bloom, who is to a degree my guru. Our anthology of essays on Crowley
(not just by us but by many others--Bloom introduces it) will come out in
April, and had we known you were a devote, we might have pressed you into
service to write something. I was turned onto them by a very interesting
Crowley essay (which is in our book) by James Hynes, which you can read at
http://bostonreview.mit.edu/BR25.6/hynes.html.

-alga

> Those titles sound interesting.  I've been researching related topics
> (which are more pertinent to John Crowley, but still relevant to
> Wolfe), and fictional accounts should help to sustain interest.
>
> One more tangent:
>
> The Abyss also can refer to a barrier between lower and higher Sefiroth,
> around a 'secret sefira' called Daleth.  Serious Kabbalist scholars such
> as Gershom Scholem tend to denigrate the vision of the Kabbalah
> developed within Western magical traditions, the source of that use of
> "the abyss."  However, it might relate to Yourcenar's approach.
>
> Sepia
>
> On Tuesday, February 12, 2002, at 08:30 AM, Alice K. Turner wrote:
>
> > Thank you for this--it is particularly interesting to me as I have just
> > finished reading THE ABYSS, by Margaret Yourcenar, an account of a
> > fictional
> > 16th c. intellectual/astrologer/philosopher named Zeno, who is clearly
> > based
> > on Paracelsus. I had mildly wondered why the book had that title--it
> > might
> > have been explained somewhere but if so it went right by me. I have also
> > recently read THE CHYMICAL WEDDING, by Lindsay Clarke. which is very
> > much up
> > the same path (though a contemporary novel). so a post like this is a
> > real
> > pleasure.
> >
> > -alga
>
>
> --
>



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