Spiders' Webs In Scripture And Literature

(As noted before, the gym and the swimming pool are inspirational places for blogging because the mind wanders while the body exercises.)

What a grandiloquent post title! This post will refer to only one scripture and to only two works of fiction. In each of these three texts, the web is a powerful image of interconnection.

An Upanishad compares the Eternal and the universe to a spider and its web. Holmes compares Moriarty and his organization to a spider and its web. Guion of the Time Patrol compares all the world lines in the continuum to a spiderweb. (Scroll down.) However, Guion seeks the source not of the web but of disturbances within it. He speaks of tracing a disturbance up the threads and then breaks off, frightening Wanda.

"'...that source perhaps does not exist in our yet, our reality.'" (The Shield Of Time, PART THREE, p. 135)

Tracing the threads, the Patrol might find a Moriarty-like time criminal arriving from another reality or an uncaused event, a quantum fluctuation. The spiderweb conveys the sense not only of interconnected events but also of a hidden threat.