Tsuwm's wwftd is "empyrean", too beautiful a word to have been used in the quote he gives:
"Then in 1962 [Karpinsky] joined the empyrean of the
adult Communist world. He was promoted to Pravda's
editorial board heading the department of Marxism-
Leninism. He had made it."
- David Remnick,
Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire

A much more suitable word would have been "tartarean" = "infernal"

http:///home.mn.rr.com/wwftd/

in the context of Karpinsky's goals (at that time), it perfectly captures his state of mind; and empyrean has a noun sense, whereas Tartarean is only an adj. but I get your meaning.

here's a link that works:
http://home.mn.rr.com/wwftd/

Oh, tsuwm, I completely agree with Dr. Bill in that "empyrean" is a beautiful word. I have no idea which of you is correct as to the subtleties of its usage, but I think that I have now found the perfect word that was missing from a favorite poem I wrote last spring that just didn't seem right in a particular line or two.

And that was my day 1 of wwftd!

Thanks for that,
m