Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2002 01:28:26 -0800
Subject: Re: (urth): Azoth misc
From: Jason Ingram 

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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