the Qlippoth, walking shells of the Dead

[Alan Westrope]

On Mon, 24 Feb 1997, Eric Alan Weinstein <E.A.Weinstein at qmw.ac.uk> wrote:

>Is there some brave soul, (un)wittingly 
>turned demon or remaining one of gravity's
>angels, who understands something of 
>the context of Pynchon's use of the Qlippoth, and
>who thinks they can discuss this as bit?

>yours wayyy humble,

>Eric 

Wayyy beyond my competence, except to note that Gottfried's Imipolex-G
outfit and the 00000 are also, in a sense, "shells of the Dead."  Foax
could do worse than check out the Kabbalah FAQ at

http://www.digital-brilliance.com/kab/faq.htm

which states:
============================================================================
Q2.4 : What are the Qlippoth?

The word "qlippah" or "klippah" (plural "qlippoth") means "shell" or "husk".

The idea of a covering or a garment or a vessel is common in Kabbalah, where
it used, at various times and with various degrees of subtlety, to express
the manner in which the light of the En Soph is "encapsulated". For example,
the sephiroth, in their capacity of recipients of light, are sometimes
referred to as kelim, "vessels". The duality between the container and the
contained is one of the most important in Kabbalistic explanations of the
creative moment.

The word "qlippah" is an extension of this metaphor. A qlippah is also a
covering or a container, and as each sephira acts as a shell or covering to
the sephira preceding it in the order of emanation, in a technical sense we
can say the qlippoth are innate to the Tree of Life. Cut a slice through a
tree and one can see the growth rings, with the bark on the outside. The
Tree of Life has 10 concentric rings, and sometimes the qlippah is equated
to the bark. The word is commonly used to refer to a covering which contains
no light: that is, an empty shell, a dead husk.

It is also the case that the qlippoth appear in Kabbalah as demonic powers
of evil, and in trying to disentangle the various uses of the word it
becomes clear that there is an almost continuous spectrum of opinion,
varying from the technical use where the word hardly differs from the word
"form", to the most anthropomorphic sense, where the qlippoth are evil
demonesses in a demonic hierarchy responsible for all the evil in the world.

One reason why the word "qlippah" has no simple meaning is that it is part
of the Kabbalistic explanation of evil, and it is difficult to explain evil
in a monotheistic, non-dualistic religion without incurring a certain
complexity....
============================================================================

BTW, check out RedBug's site for the new graphics, especially the GR one!

Sorry I can't be more helpful,

-- 
Alan Westrope     PGP public key:  http://www.crl.com/~awestrop
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