Osmosis & P's Gnostic Cosmoses

[Terrance]

I don't disagree with Paul M's comments on most of this. P
probably did not read Scholem and Jonas prior to writing V.
and yet the seeds of his Gnostic cosmos are present in his
short stories. P has some sympathy for the Gnostics, not
doubt about it, but not for their cosmogony, their disdain
for the Earth. Fowler would go so far as to say that P has
sympathy for Lucifer,  like the Romantics reading Milton,
for Lucifer's  rebellion against a despotic King and God,
and again it is clear that P does sympathize, even if this
analogy doesn't quite work.