Four Cathedrals

Poul Anderson rises to new heights when describing large religious buildings.

In a divergent timeline:

"...he spied Notre Dame. But it wasn't the cathedral he remembered. It seemed to cover nearly half the island, a mountain of soot-gray stone soaring up and up and up, tier upon tier, tower above tower, like a Christian ziggurat, till the topmost spires raked heaven a thousand feet aloft. What ambition had replaced the lovely Gothic with this?"
-Poul Anderson, The Shield Of Time (New York, 1991), PART SIX, 1980alpha A. D., p. 286.

In the city of Domkirk on the planet, Freehold: 

"...the bishop's seat was raised two centuries ago, in a style already ancient. It was all colored vitryl, panes that formed one enormous many-faceted jewel, so that by day the interior was nothing except radiances - and even by moonlight, the outside flashed and dim spectra played."
-Poul Anderson, "Outpost of Empire" IN Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 1-72 AT p. 20.

In the Cathedral of St. Clement in the city of Zorkagrad on the planet, Dennitza:

"Evening sunlight slanted through windows and among columns, filtered to a domed ceiling, brought forth out of dusk, remote upon gold and blue, the Twelve Apostles and Christ Lord of All."
-Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, 2012), XVIII, p. 576.

In the goetic timeline:

the Johannine Cathedral soars;
its flat, white walls go "...up and up and up..." (Operation Chaos, XXV, p. 181);
its roof climbs even further to "...the vast central cupola..." (p. 182);
a stained-glass Mandala fills half of the west wall;
the Eye of God fills half of the east wall;
the single tower leaps  "...into the stars." (ibid.)

Neither Peter Nor John But Paul

Operation Chaos, XXV, p. 179.

Another Biblical passage quoted:

²⁰ Then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following; which also leaned on his breast at supper, and said, Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee?
²¹ Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do?
²² Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me.
²³ Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die: yet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die; but, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?
²⁴ This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true.
-copied from here.

In the goetic timeline,the exoteric "Petrine" (Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant) Churches are confronted and challenged by the upstart esoteric "Johannine" Church. However, I think that the "Petrine" Churches should be called "Pauline."

Peter is important because he was:

the chief disciple;
the first to recognize Jesus as Messiah while he was alive;
the first to proclaim the Resurrection after Jesus' death.

Thus, Peter founded Christianity as the combined belief that Jesus is Messiah and was resurrected. The belief that someone was resurrected can only have been founded after his death, therefore cannot have been founded by him. Thus, Jesus is the hero, not the author, of the story. However, what Peter founded was a new Jewish sect, confined to Jerusalem and worshiping in the Temple. Paul relaunched Christianity as a Gentile religion by allowing baptism without circumcision. Even Paul had not completed the break from Judaism since he was arrested making an offering in the Temple.

Luke, influenced by Paul, wrote Acts in which Peter hears God, who had previously declared certain foods unclean, accusing him, Peter, of wrongly calling those foods unclean! This rationalizes Christian departure from Jewish dietary laws.

Infiltrating Hell

Operation Chaos, XXIII.

In Robert Heinlein's Magic, Inc, when the narrator and his friends are fighting demons in Hell, one demon suddenly changes sides and helps them to win. Later, he introduces himself:

"'Let me introduce myself,' he said in English. 'I'm Federal Agent William Kane, Bureau of Investigation.'"
-Robert Heinlein, Magic, Inc IN Heinlein, Waldo and Magic, Inc (London, 1975), 110-204 AT p. 201.

So the FBI has infiltrated Hell. Poul Anderson's Operation Chaos is what I call a conceptual sequel: same concept; different story-line. His Hell is not so habitable:

"'The Army's made several attempts to probe [the hell universe], with no better success than the Faustus Institute had thirty years ago. Men returned in states of acute psychic shock, after mere minutes there, unable to describe what had happened. Instruments recorded data that didn't make sense.' (p. 168)

One theory is that space-time there is non-Euclidean with geometry changing from place to place. This is similar to Magic, Inc. In the Half World, as Heinlein calls it:

custom, not natural law, persists;
up and down are matters of opinion;
directions might be in days or colors instead of miles;
there are a formless greyness and ever-changing mazes;
the ground twitches and pulsates.

However, the explorers experience all this without going into shock.

The Director And The President

Operation Chaos, XXIII.

An FBI Agent tells the Matucheks:

"'I'm going to report straight to the Director, who I'm sure will report straight to the President...'" (p. 168)

(For the Director in question, see the attached image.)

This bears out a previous point that we are only ever at a few removes from those in power. See Targovi IV.

Again, this piece of dialogue would fit in a fictional work of any genre. The Director deals with spies or demons, depending on which timeline he is in. And what a range of topics we cover by attending to details in Poul Anderson's texts. 

Esotericism

Operation Chaos, XXIII.

"'Esotericism has always been associated more with the Low than the High.'" (p. 167)

Christianity and Buddhism are preached to everyone. Regarding the latter:

"I have taught the truth without making any distinction between esoteric and exoteric doctrine; for in respect of the truth Tathagata has no such thing as the closed fist of teacher who keeps something back."
-quoted from here.

So why are there sometimes "secret doctrines"? It is certainly true that there can be deeper levels of understanding of known texts. Also, some teachers want to preserve a practice from distortion or dilution by insisting that it be taught only by those who are fully qualified. I can describe zazen but, if you want instruction in practice, then I will refer you to a monk or a lay minister.

John Blofeld advised us to disregard books purporting to describe esoteric Tibetan rituals because their authors are either betraying a confidence or lying. When a Marist brother addressed some primary school pupils, including me, about the Secrets of Fatima, he merely warned us to beware of the word, "secret," on the ground that it comes more from the Devil than from God. To my utter confusion, another pupil afterwards insisted that the brother had said that there were no secrets. This was my first introduction to a certain phenomenon:

someone hears x;
he interprets x to mean or imply y;
he insists that he has heard y.

I could recount many tales of miss-communications and cross-purposes but that is another subject.

A Scientific Rationale For Changelings

Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword is a heroic fantasy about a changeling. Anderson's Operation Chaos, XXIII, presents a scientific rationale.

"'Fairy changelings have always been considered a legend. Nothing in our data suggests any motive for nonhuman intelligences to steal a child...nor any method by which they could if they wanted to, assuming the parents take normal care...and certainly no reason for such hypothetical kidnapers to leave a sort of golem in its place.'" (p. 160)

However, although the uncertainty principle allows psychic influences (temptations, visions, inspirations etc) between universes, the conservation laws prevent material transferences unless the transferred object is replaced:

"'...with an identical amount of matter, whose configuration has to be fairly similar to preserve momentum.'" (p. 165)

Outstanding. But I am not sure about the next sentence:

"'You may remember Villegas suggested this was the reason angels take more or less anthropomorphic shapes on earth.'" (p. 165)

Each angel appearing on Earth has displaced a human being? But could they not have displaced matter corresponding more to whatever is their real shape?

Closed Rooms II

See Closed Rooms.

Time has at least two features in common with a fourth spatial dimension.

(i) To define a point in 4D space, four spatial coordinates are necessary. To define a point in space-time, four coordinates, three spatial and one temporal, are necessary.

(ii) It would be possible to enter a closed room by moving through the Fourth Dimension. A time traveler, standing in front of a locked front door, would be able to travel pastward to a time before the house was built, step forward, then travel futureward to the time when his younger self is standing outside the house.

Time is relevant in the Matuchek's case. Although Valeria has been taken to Hell, her parents, after taking as much time as necessary to make their preparations, will be able to arrive in Hell before her and rescue her on arrival.

Imagine a universe where it is possible to have that kind of interaction with supernatural realms.

Closed Rooms

Operation Chaos, XXIII.

The Flatland house (see the first image) can be entered:

through the large men's door;
through the small women's door;
from above;
from below -

- although Flatlanders, unable to move in the Third Dimension, can use only the doors.

In the Matuchek's three dimensional house:

no door or window has been broken or forced;
no lock has been picked;

the guardian signs and objects are undisturbed;
nothing has flown down the chimney;
nothing has oozed through a crack;
nothing has dematerialized past the walls;
no one compelled the babysitter to let them in.

"'It came in from the hell universe.'" (p. 164)

The kidnapper entered by the Fourth Dimension.

A Human Response

I was taught Aesthetics by Professor Frank Sibley and Yossi, my granddaughter, came across his ideas when studying Art. Sibley remarked in a seminar that, in fantasy fiction, human characters experience fantastic events but must display normal human reactions to them. (I was also taught by Professor John Benson and have just spotted that he is named as an Editor of Sibley's collection.)

In Poul Anderson's Operation Chaos, XXIII, Steve and Virginia's three-year old daughter, Valeria, has been kidnapped:

"'You really ought to eat,' I said for the ?-th time. 'Keep your strength.'
"'Same to you,' she answered, not looking at me or at anything I could tell.
"'I'm not hungry.'
"'Nor I.'
"We returned to the horror." (p. 159)

This dialogue would fit in fiction of any genre.

Stress is one great way to lose weight. A couple of times, I have been under such pressure at work that I did not eat for days. There were no bad physical effects and one hell of a lot of weight came off.

Crosstemporal Commentary

(Is that Henry Ford in the car?)

Operation Chaos, XXII.

We have remarked on how an author can obliquely comment on our history by describing an alternative history, e.g., see Eutopia, Westfall And America. Poul Anderson does this again in Operation Chaos:

"I went back to the generator and started the motor, leaving the circuits open. It stuttered and shivered. The vile fumes made me glad we'd escaped dependence on internal combustion engines. I've seen automobiles, as they were called, built around 1900, shortly before the first broomstick flights. Believe me, museums are where they belong - a chamber of horrors, to be exact." (p. 154)

In fantasy and sf, the author should not invent new rules as he goes along but does Anderson do that here? -

"The surge of current through the coils on the generator threw out enough magnetism to cancel every charm, ours and theirs alike, within a hundred-yard radius." (ibid.)