Philip K. Dick: The Other Side - By Paul Rydeen

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Philip K. Dick: The Other Side By Paul Rydeen ... the group had taken an active interest in their situation, viewing it as a manifestation on an earthly plane of certain super-terrestrial forces. - Jack Isidore (1) My first exposure to the mind-bending fiction of Philip K. Dick was in early 1981. It must have been January or February because I remember it still being quite cold. To my surprise, a friend of my dad's had given him a recent issue of Playboy, which I eagerly perused whenever I had the chance. On one such occasion I needed to prove to myself a maturity beyond the pictures of naked ladies, so I commenced to read the magazine's various features. It turned out to be the December 1980 issue; one feature was Phil's story "Frozen Journey" (2). Although this high-school senior had been reading science fiction for a decade or more, I must confess I was confused by the shifting realities portrayed in "Frozen Journey". Further readings did little for my comprehension. By the time graduation rolled around, I had seen Phil's books recommended repeatedly in the columns of Heavy Metal magazine. I picked up a used copy of The Man in the High Castle (3). It was quite good, and a whole lot easier to understand than "Frozen Journey" had been. Soon after, VALIS (4) hit the stands. I bought it. I enjoyed it immensely, but was still unable to fully realize the implications of Phil's speculations. Next I found the Gregg Press hardcover reissue of Time Out of Joint (5) in a little science fiction bookstore that had just opened off-campus. At last I understood; what I had read of the false or illusory nature of reality while studying Hinduism and Buddhism now made sense on a personal level. As I matured, my appreciation for Phil grew. I started college that fall, and frequented that bookstore often. I scoured almost every used bookstore in the Minneapolis area, spending months in search of elusive PKD titles. I found many rare first editions this way, and still have dreams wherein I continue the search. When Phil died in March of 1982, I owned a copy of nearly every book he had written. I considered his death a personal loss. To understand Phil, one must grapple with his unique emotional states, and his unique interpretations of same. Most importantly, in February and March of 1974 Phil had a series of "mystic" experiences. When he died eight years later he was still unsure of their origin or meaning. Left behind was his so-called Exegesis, an 8,000-page, one-million-word continuing dialogue with himself written late, late at night (6). Though Phil never did solve the puzzle to his satisfaction, I believe he enjoyed the pursuit of the answer for its own sake much more than he would have enjoyed resolving the problem. In fact, I don't think any answer would've been entirely acceptable to him for very long. By its very nature this mystery had no rational solution. Phil had suffered several personal setbacks during the time immediately preceding these experiences. Stress over his wife and new son, a severe case of writer's block, an unexplained break-in, lingering problems with drugs (mostly prescribed medications), and worries over his political actions all played their part. So did the loss of several close friends. He even worried over whether he had inadvertently published high-level government secrets in his novels (see KING FELIX discussion below). The usually self- reflective Phil became much more introspective than normal. His depression turned his thoughts to suicide more than once. The impetus for this particular experience was the severe pain Phil was suffering as a result of having an impacted wisdom tooth removed. Phil called his oral surgeon, who promptly phoned in a prescription for some codeine to a local pharmacy (or Darvon; accounts vary). When the delivery girl arrived, Phil took one look at her and became mesmerized by the golden fish dangling between her breasts. When asked, the girl told Phil that this was the primitive Christian ICHTHYS symbol, ICHTHYS being the Greek for "fish". The fish was chosen in part because ICHTHYS was taken to be an anagram for "Iesous CHristos, THeou Yios, Soter" (Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior) . "The girl and I are secret Christians, in hiding because of the Roman persecution. The only way we can identify ourselves to each other is the innocent-looking fish symbol, a harmless pendant in the eyes of most. This secret ally brings not only medicine to heal my sore tooth, but spiritual medicine as well. After all, is not Christ the Great Physician?" He accepted the package and bade the girl good-bye. Phil found himself transported back to first- century Rome - the time of the founding of the Church amidst much persecution. The vision of another reality superimposed upon this one lasted weeks. Phil had a hard time deciding which one was true, and which the illusion. During this period of uncertainty, he found himself "trapped" (figuratively, I would imagine) in a Black Iron Prison - a Gnostic symbol of our fall into History. It is deceptively referred to as the Cave of Treasures. Phil used this concept obliquely in "Strange Memories of Death" (7), wherein he refers to his apartment complex as having been prison-like until the new developers made it appear like a garden. From his further description it is quite obviously still a prison, despite its Edenic appearance. In Freudian terms, the tooth can be a symbol of libido (not necessarily sexual). Dreaming of the loss of a tooth, for example, can represent a fear that one may lose one's standing in some way - physically or emotionally - or be a warning from the subconscious that this is threatening to happen. Note that one of Palmer Eldritch's three stigmata was his artificial teeth (8). Phil's impacted wisdom tooth was like his latent Gnosis, awaiting the proper stimulus to trigger his anamnesis. Another symbol of libido is the phalliform fish, whose sleek shape glides silently through the deep waters of the subconscious. As ICHTHYS, Christ strengthens our libido, our "psychic" energy, and asks nothing in return. He is UBIK, a negentropic force in a universe that is forever running itself down (9). The Hebrew for "tooth" is shin, which is also the name of the twenty-first and penultimate letter of the Hebrew alphabet. (The reader familiar with Phil's novel The Penultimate Truth (10) may do well to ponder the connection.) The English equivalent to shin is "S" or "Sh". Perhaps because of its trident shape (literally, "three-toothed") and sibilant pronunciation, the kabbalists associated this letter with the element fire. Compare Phil's trident dream at the end of VALIS, after Fat departs again for the Greek islands. Shin also appears somewhat like a descending dove, so it should come as no surprise that a relationship between it and the Holy Spirit exists. That the numerical value of both the letter taken by itself and the Hebrew phrase RUACH ALHIM ("the Spirit of God", usually translated "Elohim") is 300 serves to solidify the connection. The Spirit is often represented as a flame, one example being the tongues of fire that came to rest on the apostles' heads on that first Pentecost. Many spirits and other air elementals have been associated with fire as well. Later Christian kabbalists (namely, Pico) and the Theosophists attempted to justify their doctrines by showing that the union of God as Yahweh/Jehovah (YHWH) and the Holy Spirit (Sh) was Jesus (YHShWH). The four letters of the ineffable name represent the four natural elements of the ancients, while the fifth element - spirit - fills out the fifth point of the pentagram, a symbol of man. The triple-pronged shin was taken to be representative of the Trinity. YHShHW is usually translated "Yeheshuah", of which the English form is "Joshua". "Jesus" is from IESOUS, the Greek version of this name. This formula seems especially valid if one considers the esoteric doctrine of the Holy Spirit as the feminine counterpart of God. Certain kabbalists have maintained the Hebrew RUACH is of the feminine gender; if so then this has been translated out of most versions of the Bible. In some Gnostic systems, the consort of God is Sophia, Phil's Holy Wisdom (see the biblical Book of Proverbs). The Babylon whom St. John of Patmos tells us is "fallen, fallen" is usually identified with first-century Rome (11). The Hebrews' subjugation under the Romans was every bit as resented as it had been under the Babylonians six centuries earlier. John's prophecy of Rome's fall was certainly wishful thinking, penned sometime after the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD. I identify John's Babylon with the Gnostic Sophia, a symbol of the world in its fallen state. The Land of the Dead - Egypt - was a similar symbol for later Gnostic sects. The implication of Phil's vision is that we still live in Roman times, i.e. a "fallen" state. Gnosis must come from the outside. Chokmah is the Hebrew for "wisdom"; her position on the kabbalistic Tree of Life is the second or penultimate one (representing a less than perfect reality) - but here she is given a masculine identity, despite the references to Holy Wisdom in the Scriptures. The Greek for "wisdom" is Sophia; a cognate term is Gnosis, "knowledge". Like Sophia, Chokmah is one step removed from the true Godhead. I equate Sophia with John's Babylon and the traditional Chokmah, the same yin principle which Phil took to be his anima in the form of his long-dead twin sister Jane (she had died aged five weeks). Her avatar has appeared previously in the form of Simon Magus' Helen, to cite a Gnostic example. In Phil's case, he sought her in each woman with whom he had an adult relationship - a reunion of the divine syzygy, as it were. His yearning for the sister he never knew did more to inspire his world-view than any other single factor; the appearance of twins throughout his work is ample testimony to this state of affairs. The encysted twin in Dr. Bloodmoney (12) is one of many such examples. There is a kabbalistic tradition in which one sees oneself relating events from the future. The kabbalists' reticence to record autobiographical experiences, especially those of an ecstatic nature, has obscured this fact. Phil had a hypnogogic experience as a boy in which he saw himself as an adult standing at the foot of his bed. In later life he relived the experience from the "time traveler's" standpoint. The Persian Mani (founder of the gnostic Manichean religion) had the same thing occur to him when he was 12, and once more as an adult. He recognized this doppelganger as his Higher Self - the Divine Adam and called it in Arabic "al-Tawm", the twin. It guided him and gave him comfort throughout his life, and he was said to be gazing upon it in the cell just before he died. Despite Phil's Valentinian Sophian cosmology, I have often felt he was more akin to the Manichean school on a practical level. In 1975 a two-word cypher was "sent forth"; the phrase KING FELIX appears in the juxtaposition of two adjacent lines in Phil's novel Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said (13). It was only later that he happened upon its significance. The fact that Army Intelligence bought multiple copies of that one book perplexed him greatly. In VALIS one of the Lamptons tells him that the phrase has kabbalistic significance. I assume they refer to gematria, the practice of assigning numerical values to individual letters within a word and taking their sum. "King" is English, so should it be translated into Latin? "Felix" is the Latin for "happy" (literally, "fruitful"). "Rex" is the Latin for "king" so FELIX REX adds to 256 when transposed into Greek enumeration. This is the eighth power of two, which perhaps is the Gnostic ogdoad pointing back to a duality - Phil's Two-Source Cosmogony. "Basileos" is Greek for "king"; I'm not sure what the proper translation of "felix" would be, or even if Greek is the proper language to use. This practice existed in the Hebrew language before Greek became the common language of the Mediterranean area, and in other Semitic languages before that. The little girl, Sophia, reads from the Sephir Yetzirah when the Rhipidon Society visits her at the Lamptons' - establishing a Hebrew link - but she also tells them the Lamptons are insane. This issue remains unresolved. At one point Phil experimented with a megadose of vitamins he had read about in Psychology Today. This mixture was being used by a certain doctor to stimulate simultaneous neural firing in both hemispheres of the brain. While the original experiments were strictly designed for split-personality patients, Phil concocted a batch and swallowed it down. He says it worked. The right side of the brain is often identified with the dark, irrational, "feminine" component of our minds; the parallel to the imperfect, premature Sophia is obvious. Speculation has arisen that the voices heard by prophets and madmen originate in the right-brain (14). Usually drowned out by the day-to-day noise of the more verbally active left-brain, under certain circumstances it may be heard. At one time in our not-so-distant past, this may have been far more common than it is today. This is one of many possibilities considered by Phil, probably no more right or wrong than any of the others. Another possibility I'd like to briefly consider is that one possible subconscious influence was the "Roman" episode of the old Star Trek TV series. I've long forgotten the show's title, but it involved a planet similar to twentieth-century Earth with the exception that Roman rule still existed. Rome never fell - the Empire never ended - and secret followers of "the Son" were preaching peace and brotherhood rather than tyranny. This in no way lessens the import of Phil's vision, nor does it explain anything away. I merely find it an intriguing idea to ponder. Who can say what psychic debris forms the foundations of our subconscious? As the image of first-century Rome persisted, Phil began seeing St. Elmo's fire almost everywhere he looked. He had purchased his own ICHTHYS sign to hang in the picture window of his apartment; admittedly his staring at the sunlight had much to do with the earliest manifestations. However, the pink light was even visible at night, when Phil would sit up in bed unable to sleep, enjoying the show. In A Scanner Darkly (15) he describes it as a rapid-fire succession of Paul Klee, Kandinsky and other modern artists. He also describes the times the St. Elmo's fire took on the shape of a doorway proportioned to the Golden Mean (representing perfection). This was a doorway to the Other World. The character in the book regrets having never thought to step through the doorway after the apparition finally disappeared. The nightly visions continued, often taking the form of incredibly complex dreams which Phil saw at once were unlike his usual sleeping habits. He called them "tutelary" dreams because of their information-rich content. In many he was actually shown texts, which he was able to read and transcribe their contents upon awakening. This is another kabbalistic tradition, the ability to read holy texts on the astral plane. Always for Phil, the pink beam of light was prominent. Admittedly, the idea one is being shot with a beam of energy is typical to many schizophrenics. So are the discarnate voices which haunted Phil's unplugged radio at night, telling him how terrible a person he was (his then-wife Tessa heard them too). The one difference here is that Phil perceived it as a healing light rather than a further descent into madness. He credited it with taking charge of his life, recovering a lot of income due from unpaid book royalties, and even re-margining his typewriter. He never decided what the beam's source really was. Guesses included the Rosicrucian Society, Soviet scientists experimenting with "psychotronics", and an alien satellite orbiting a distant star. One message came from the "Portuguese States of America", leading Phil to contemplate the possibility of parallel universes. He also thought it might have been God. The Roman Sybil in her later Christianized form was a particular favorite of Phil's; her similarity to Jane as Phil's "protectress" was the attraction. VALIS even quotes the Sybilline Oracles. Note also that the much-sought product UBIK in Phil's novel of the same name is depicted on the dustjacket of the original as spraying a pink substance. Coincidence? The connection is further made in VALIS when Phil and friends mistake a model of the satellite for a can lying in the gutter (in the movie-within-a- book). Does this refer to a can of UBIK as well? In some of his dreams, Phil saw Soviet scientists rushing around behind the scenes to keep the alien satellite functioning. Phil originally thought VALIS was from Fomalhaut, which he called "Albemuth" (from the Arab Al Behemoth, "the whale"). Fomalhaut is the fish's mouth; Phil apparently mistook "behemoth" for "leviathan", two Hebrew words from the Old Testament. It is the latter which actually refers to the whale, according to most sources. What matters most is Phil's beliefs on the matter; if his subconscious mind processed "behemoth" as "whale", then "whale" it is - for him. At any rate, the fish symbolism is obvious, as is the reference to Jonah. Phil must have read Robert K.G. Temple's The Sirius Mystery (16) before writing VALIS, because he relocated the satellite to there. This brings in a host of occult references too involved to go into here. Suffice it to say that the dark companion of Sirius represents "occult" or hidden knowledge, as does Sirius' position as "the sun behind the Sun" (as Kenneth Grant calls it). Neither Phil nor Temple seem to have known this when they wrote their books. Phil cleverly tied in the dualist Dogon philosophy described by Temple with his own Gnostic beliefs, though as narrator of VALIS he ascribes this revelation to Fat and tells us this is the point at which Fat's madness became complete. Madness or not, VALIS stands as a classic on many levels. The three-eyed aliens had pincers like a crab where hands should be, just like Palmer Eldritch and his artificial hands. These "improved" hands seem to denote an elevated status as cosmic artificer or demiurge, while also indicating an inherent flaw of some sort. The beings were also deaf and mute; they communicated amongst themselves by means of telepathy. One could say their inability to hear or speak reinforces the notion of an imperfect demiurge, as well as it helps conceal his true nature. Then again, their physical handicap may be the results of a personal sacrifice undertaken to enhance their mental faculties. Phil was consistent in documenting his major influences within the works they influenced. VALIS was no exception. Curiously, there are two which went uncredited, and to my knowledge no researcher has yet uncovered them both. The first is Robert K.G. Temple's aforementioned The Sirius Mystery. Temple documents the Dogon people of Africa and their precise astronomical data which predate telescopes. Their legends say that this knowledge was given to them by three-eyed crab-clawed beings from Sirius. Temple goes on to trace the Dogon's ancestors back to migrating Egyptians who continue a tradition well-documented in the Mysteries of Isis and Osiris. Certainly Phil read Temple's book after writing Radio Free Albemuth; why else would he have moved VALIS from Fomalhaut to Sirius? The other major influence which went uncredited may be more of a surprise. It is not a scholarly influence like Temple's, but rather a little known facet of popular culture. The whole idea of an immortal and all-powerful race who build universes out of boredom, fall into them and become trapped because they forget who they are is indeed gnostic in flavor, as many have said. It should be noted, however, that this is exactly what Scientology teaches about the Thetans. WE ARE THE THETANS and we don't even know it. Palmer Eldritch had three stigmata: his artificial eyes, artificial teeth and artificial hands. The cover of the original edition combines these to show the classic eye-in-palm design used by fortune-tellers to indicate occult wisdom. The all-seeing eye is a common motif in Masonic lore as well; at one point Phil challenged God to show himself and saw the Ark of the Covenant opened to reveal the eye-in-the-triangle. Esoteric tradition among the Masons identifies this occult eye with the star Sirius - named for Osiris, the dead and risen Egyptian savior who adumbrated Christ by centuries. It is also the eye of the cyclops and the third or ajna eye of Shiva, which Phil (as Fat) attributes to Ihknaton and his followers in the Tractates appended to VALIS. Others have placed a sexual interpretation upon it as well, but that's beyond the scope of the present work. While listening to the Beatles' "Strawberry Fields Forever" one day, Phil heard the lyrics change into a prophetic warning: "Your son has an undiagnosed right inguinal hernia. The hydrocele has burst, and it has descended into the scrotal sac. He requires immediate attention, or will soon die." Phil rushed him to the hospital and found every word to be true. The doctor scheduled the operation for the same day. Once again, the healing power of Phil's vision comes to the fore. In a sense the boy was "reborn", which was to have great consequences for Phil's subsequent actions. For a while Phil thought the spirit of Elijah had come upon him, much as the followers of John the Baptist felt about their Master. He even identified with a certain first-century Christian he called Thomas, whose thoughts Phil heard while falling asleep. There's someone inside of me, and he's living in another century. This Thomas was eventually garroted, which provides the connection to John the Baptist. "Thomas" is a Greek name meaning "twin"; whose twin was he if not Phil's? (Mani's twin was also called "tawm"; extant Greek Manichean texts refer to him as "syzygon".) Phil saw fit to baptize and confirm his infant son at this time (he was Episcopalian). Phil then gave his son a secret name which has never been divulged. In the posthumously-published Radio Free Albemuth (17) - the first version of what finally became VALIS - "Nicholas Brady" christened "Johnny" with the secret name "Paul". Since Phil saw himself as Elijah or John the Baptist, my best guess is that Phil told his son he was the Savior incarnate, and named him "Emmanuel", a Hebrew name meaning "God with us". His son's birth name was in fact Christopher, from the Greek for "Christ-bearer". Indeed, Radio Free Albemuth ends with the imprisoned Phil taking consolation in the knowledge that the Message has gone out after all - to the children. The importance of this assertion in light of the child-saviors in VALIS and The Divine Invasion cannot be underestimated. No wonder it hurt so badly when Phil's wife left with his son. It would have been interesting to see how Phil's son would have turned out under his father's tutelage. As it is, he may yet surprise us as he comes of age. Phil's experiences culminated with a beatific vision of a Palm Tree Garden, which he described in Deus Irae (18) and mentioned several times in The Divine Invasion (19). Though this was still a part of first-century Rome, Phil felt at peace in the garden - the nostalgic Eden. The palm tree itself is the World Tree, the axis mundi, the pole at the center of the world which leads to heaven. Palm leaves were strewn before Christ when he returned to Jerusalem to indicate victory over temptation in the wilderness; today they are carried by those who have completed a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Palm Sunday commemorates this event in Christ's life. Palmer Eldritch's name is an obvious reference, but "palmer" could also refer to sleight of hand - indicating his position as malevolent demiurge. Associated with the vision of the Palm Tree Garden was a young girl gathering water at riverside. On her vase was an interlocking pattern which Phil recognized as a series of ICHTHYS symbols. He also saw it as the double helix form of DNA. The universe, he understood, is information - just as DNA is the encoded information by which our bodies are created and maintained. He identified this girl with Aquarius, the water-bearer. To me this symbolizes a pouring out (from the subconscious) and the heralding of a new age. This scene was used in VALIS to announce the new messiah, the little girl called Sophia. A new age had indeed begun, short-lived as it was. Though Phil's vision of Rome faded, his tutelary dream continued for six more years. So too did the AI voice (for "Artificial Intelligence"), a soft feminine voice he heard in times of stress and during hypnogogic revery. Naturally he identified this voice with Jane/Sophia, and claims to have first heard it during a high school physics exam (it gave him the answers) 25 years earlier. It all ended November 17, 1980. Phil claimed to have had a theophany that day, though witnesses noticed nothing unusual. Phil suddenly comprehended God as infinite, by nature incomprehensible. In other words, the Exegesis would never solve anything because there was no answer to be had. Phil actually stopped writing for a time because of this, but was at it again before too long. He also wrote The Divine Invasion around this time, which was when the voice finally stopped. Had it not been for the theophany, Phil would have probably cried, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" As it was, he persisted in speculating the remaining year of his life, and managed to produce one more novel before the end - the posthumously-published The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (20). Phil suffered the first of several strokes in February 1982 and died several days later in the hospital, on March 2. He was 53. NOTES: (1) Philip K. Dick. Confessions of a Crap Artist. New York: Pocket Books, 1982. (Orig. 1975.) Pg. 164. (2) "Frozen Journey" was Playboy's name for the manuscript Phil called "I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon". It was reprinted under its original title most recently in The Eye of the Sybil (New York: Carol Publishing Group, 1992). (3) The Man in the High Castle. New York: Putnam, 1962. This title has gone through several editions and remains in print. (4) VALIS. New York: Bantam, 1981. (5) Time Out of Joint. Boston: Gregg Press, 1979. (Orig. 1959.) (6) A very limited number of Exegesis entries were eventually published in Selections from the Exegesis, edited by PKD biographer Lawrence Sutin (Lancaster: Underwood-Miller, 1991). Sutin also wrote the excellent Divine Invasions: A Life of Philip K. Dick (New York: Carol Publishing Group, 1991). (7) "Strange Memories of Death" first appeared in issue #8 of Interzone magazine (Brighton, UK). It also was collected in I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987) and volume 5 of Underwood-Miller's Collected Stories (reprinted by Carol Publishing Group). (8) The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. Garden City: Doubleday, 1965. (9) Reference is to Phil's novel UBIK (Garden City: Doubleday, 1969). (10) The Penultimate Truth. New York: Belmont, 1964. (11) Revelations 18:2. (12) Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb (New York: Ace Books, 1965. Reprinted Boston: Gregg Press, 1977.). Another good example is the pair of lambs born near the end of Confessions of a Crap Artist (ibid), the second of which is stillborn. In this case it is the male twin Phil kills off - representing himself. (13) Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. Garden City: Doubleday, 1975. (Phil parodied this book as The Android Cried Me A River in VALIS.) (14) See Julian Jaynes, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1976.) (15) A Scanner Darkly. Garden City: Doubleday, 1977. (16) Temple's book is little more than a well-researched paperback of the Ancient Astronaut variety. Only Phil could have turned it into a whole universe. (London: Futura Publications Ltd., 1979.) Robert Anton Wilson's Cosmic Trigger was also an influence in regards to the Sirius connection; Phil acknowledges it as such in VALIS. (Berkeley: And/Or Press, 1977. It's been reprinted by both Simon & Schuster and Falcon Press.) (17) Radio Free Albemuth. New York: Arbor House, 1985. (18) (w/ Roger Zelazny). Deus Irae. Garden City: Doubleday, 1976. (19) The Divine Invasion. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1981. (20) The Transmigration of Timothy Archer. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982. Article from: Date: 01 Apr 94 15:52 EST From: {RYDEEN.PAUL@forum.va.gov} To: RYDEEN.PAUL@forum.va.gov, pkd-list@wang.com [For those who may have missed it the first time, here is a copy of an article I wrote last year. It originally was published in Crash Collusion magazine, no. 5. Copies may be had for $4 from Box 49233, Austin, TX 78765. Issue 7 is due very soon, and features an article by Adam Gorightly called "PKD, the Unicorn, and Soviet Psychotronics". It's also $4. For those of you who saw this article last time I posted it, note that this is a cleaned-up copy with all scanning errors and typos removed. Feel free to distribute it elsewhere. As always, your comments are welcome.]

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Philip K. Dick and Philosophy

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Philip K. Dick and Philosophy

Edited by D. E. Wittkower

Volume 63 in the Popular Culture and Philosophy® series

Science fiction writer Philip K. Dick (1928–1982) is the giant imagination behind so much recent popular culture—both movies directly based on his writings, such as Blade Runner and Total Recall, cult favorites, such as A Scanner Darkly and Imposter, and works revealing his powerful influence, such as The Matrix and Inception. With the much anticipated forthcoming publication in 2011 of volume 1 ofExegesis, his journal of spiritual visions and paranoic investigations, Dick is fast becoming a major influence in the world of popular spirituality and occult thinking.

In Philip K. Dick and Philosophy, thirty Dick fans and professional thinkers confront the fascinating and frightening ideas raised by Dick’s mind-blowing fantasies. Is there an alien world behind the everyday reality we experience? If androids can pass as human, should they be given the same consideration as humans? Do psychotics have insights into a mystical reality? Would knowledge of the future free us or enslave us? The volume will also include Dick's short story "Adjustment Team," on which The Adjustment Bureau is based.

Philip K. Dick and Philosophy has much to offer for both serious fans who have read many of his novels and stories, and for those who may have just recently learned his name, and realized that his work has been the inspiration for several well-known and thought-provoking films. Most chapters start with one or more of the movies based on Dick’s writing. From here, the authors delve deeper into the issues by bringing in philosophers' perspectives and by bringing in Dick’s written work. The book invites the reader with a casual familiarity with Dick to get to know his work, and invites the reader with little familiarity with philosophy to learn more. At the same time, new perspectives and challenging connections and interpretations will interest the most hard-core Dick fans.

The book prominently addresses the most widely-known films, as well as those with the most significant fan followings: Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly, and The Adjustment Bureau. Along with these “big five” films, a few chapters address his last novels, especially VALIS, which have a significant cult following of their own. There are also chapters which address short stories and novels which are currently planned for adaptation: Radio Free Albemuth (film completed, awaiting distribution), The Man in the High Castle (in development by Ridley Scott for BBC mini-series), and “King of the Elves” (Disney, planned for release in 2012).

D. E. Wittkower is Lecturer in Philosophy at Coastal Carolina University in Conway, South Carolina. He is the editor of Facebook and Philosophy, Mr. Monk and Philosophy, and iPod and Philosophy.

Jacob Bohme’s fractal universe

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Philip K. Dick - Exegesis excerpts by Philip K. Dick, 1974-1982

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2003 e.v. - Issue #5 Grey Lodge Occult Review™

Philip K. Dick - Exegesis excerpts by Philip K. Dick, 1974-1982 "The Ten Major Principles of the Gnostic Revelation" Preface "The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick has too long remained a terra incognita. As a practical matter, that is hardly surprising: The unpublished form of the Exegesis consists of over eight thousand pages without a unifying numbered sequence, most of which were handwritten in a scrawling script, and all of which were arbitrarily sorted into ninety-one manila folders following Dick's death in 1982. Thus, while the 1980's saw the posthumous first publication of numerous Dick mainstream novels of the 1950s, the Exegesis remained out of view as an archival nightmare. But one with a curious legendary status..." Excerpts "I Speak of The Restorer of What Was Lost The Mender of What Was Broken March 16, 1974: It appeared - in vivid fire, with shining colors and balanced patterns - and released me from every thrall, inner and outer. March 18, 1974: It, from inside me, looked out and saw the world did not compute, that I - and it - had been lied to. It denied the reality, and power, and authenticity of this world, saying, "This cannot exist; it cannot exist." March 20, 1974: It seized me entirely, lifting me from the limitations of the space-time matrix; it mastered as, at the same instant, I knew that the world around me was cardboard, a fake. Through its power I saw suddenly the universe as it was; through its power of perception I saw what really existed, and through its power of no-thought decision, I acted to free myself. It took on in battle, as a champion of all human spirits in thrall, every evil, every Iron Imprisoning thing. March 20 until late July, 1974: It received signals and knew how to give ceaseless battle, to defeat the tyranny which had entered by slow degrees our free world, our pure world; it fought and destroyed tirelessly each and every one of them, and saw them all clearly, with dislike; its love was for justice and truth beyond everything else. August 1974 on: It waned, but only as the adversary in all its forms waned and perished. When it left me, it left me as a free person, a physically and mentally healed person who had seen reality suddenly, in a flash, at the moment of greatest peril and pain and despair; it had loaned me its power and it had set right what had by degrees become wrong over God knows how long. It came just prior to the vernal equinox or at it. The Jews call it Elijah; the Christians call it the Holy Spirit. The Greeks called it Dionysus-Zagreus. It thought, in my dreams, mostly in Greek, referring to Elijah in the greek form: Elias. Gradually its fierceness turned to a gentle quality and it seemed like Jesus, but it was still Zagreus, still the god of springtime. Finally it became the god of mirth and joy and music, perhaps a mere man, Orpheus, and after that, a punning, funning mortal, Erasmus. But underneath, whenever it might be necessary again, Zeus himself, Ela or Eloim, the Creator and Advocate, is there; he never dies; he only slumbers and listens. The lamb of Jesus is also the tyger which Blake described; it, which came to me and to our republic, contains both, is both. It - he - has no name, neither god nor force, man or entity; He is everywhere and everything; He is outside us and inside us. He is, above all, the friend of the weak and the foe of the Lie. He is the Aton, He is The Friend." (Philip K. Dick, March 21, 1971) "The architect of our world, to help us, came here as our servant, disguised, to toil for us. We have seen him many times but no [one] recognized him; maybe he is ugly in appearence, but with a good heart. Perhaps sometimes when he comes here he has forgotten his own origin, his godly power; he toils for us unaware of his true nature and what he could do to us if he remembered. For one thing, if we realized that this crippled, misshapen thing was our creator, we would be disappointed. Would reject and despise him. Out of courtesy to us he hides his identity from us while here. One can see from this that that which we kick off to one side of the road, out of the way, which feels the toe of our boot - that may well be our God, albeit unprotesting, only showing pain in his eyes, that old, old pain that he knows so well. I notice, though, that although we kick him off to one side in pain, we do let him toil for us; we accept that. We accept his work, his offerings, his help; but him we kick away. He could reveal himself, but he would then spoil our illusion of a beautiful god. But he doesn't look evil, like Satan; just homely. Unworthy. Also, although he has vast creative and building power, and judgment, he is not clever. He is not a bright god. Often, he is too dumb to know when he's being teased or insulted; it takes physical pain, rather than mere scorn, to register. Ugly like this, despised and teased and tormented and finally put to death, he returned shining and transfigured; our Savior, Jesus Christ (before him Ikhnaton, Zoroaster, etc; Hefestus [or Hephaestus]). When He returned we saw Him as he really is - that is, not by surface appearance. His radiance, his essence, like Light. The God of Light wears a humble and plain shell here (like a metamorphosis of some humble toiling beetle). SF novel: Hefestus as VALIS (Vast Active Living Intelligence System). The Earth like St. Sofia is an organism, a living one, being built, a Temple that when it is ready the Lord will suddenly come to and dwell in. He Himself is creator: architect. Workmen/artisans/artists: Us and Holy Spirit. Ideal Logos/form: Christ, to be achieved. The model once glimpsed then to be striven for and reached, at which time Architect (Creator), Holy Spirit, and Ideal become One, which includes us within it as bits. Creator: Time past. Holy Spirit: time is. Christ: time completed. Holy Spirit guides us toward Him. Force is provided by the Creator at the start. Force/activity/direction to goal." (circa 1975) * * * I do seem attracted to trash, as if the clue - the clue - lies there. I'm always ferreting out elliptical points, odd angles. What I write doesn't make a whole lot of sense. There is fun & religion & psychotic horror strewn about like a bunch of hats. Also, there is a social or sociological drift - rather than toward the hard sciences. The overall impression is childish but interesting. This is not a sophisticated person writing. Everything is equally real, like junk jewels in the alley. A fertile, creative mind seeing constantly shifting sets, the serious made funny, the funny sad, the horrific exactly that; utterly horrific as it is the touchstone of what is real: horror is real because it can injure[...] * * * I certainly see the randomness in my work, & also see how this fast shuffling of possibility after possibility might eventually, given enough time, juxtapose & disclose something important & automatically overlooked in more orderly thinking[...] Since nothing absolutely nothing is excluded (as not worth being included) I profer a vast mixed bag - out of it I shake coin-operated doors & God. It's a fucking circus. I'm like a sharp-eyed crow, spying anything that twinkles & grabbing it up to add to my heap. Anyone with my attitude just might stumble onto, by sheer chance & luck - in his actual life, which is to say, the life of his mind - the authentic camouflaged God, the deus absconditus, by trying odd combinations of things & places, like a high speed (sic) computer processing everything, he might outdazzle even a wary God, might catch him by surprise by poking somewhere unexpectedly. If it is true that the real answers (& authentic absolute vs the merely seeming) are where we would least expect them, this "try it all" technique might - might take at face value as true the most wornout, most worked over & long ago discarded obvious "staring us in the face all the time" as the crux of the mystery.[...] This kind of fascinated, creduluos, inventive person might be granted the greatest gift of all. To see the toymaker who has generated - & is with or within - all his toys. That the Godhead is a toymaker at all - who could seriously (sic) believe this?[...] Too dumb to know you don't look for God in the trash of the gutter instead of Heaven. * * * The architect of our world, to help us, came here as our servant, disguised, to toil for us. We have seen him many times but no [one] recognized him; maybe he is ugly in appearence, but with a good heart. Perhaps sometimes when he comes here he has forgotten his own origin, his godly power; he toils for us unaware of his true nature and what he could do to us if he remembered. For one thing, if we realized that this crippled, misshapen thing was our creator, we would be disappointed. Would reject and despise him. Out of courtesy to us he hides his identity from us while here. * * * One can see from this that that which we kick off to one side of the road, out of the way, which feels the toe of our boot - that may well be our God, albeit unprotesting, only showing pain in his eyes, that old, old pain that he knows so well. I notice, though, that although we kick him off to one side in pain, we do let him toil for us; we accept that. We accept his work, his offerings, his help; but him we kick away. He could reveal himself, but he would then spoil our illusion of a beautiful god. But he doesn't look evil, like Satan; just homely. Unworthy. Also, although he has vast creative and building power, and judgment, he is not clever. He is not a bright god. Often, he is too dumb to know when he's being teased or insulted; it takes physical pain, rather than mere scorn, to register. Ugly like this, despised and teased and tormented and finally put to death, he returned shining and transfigured; our Savior, Jesus Christ (before him Ikhnaton, Zoroaster, etc; Hefestus [or Hephaestus]). When He returned we saw Him as he really is - that is, not by surface appearance. His radiance, his essence, like Light. The God of Light wears a humble and plain shell here (like a metamorphosis of some humble toiling beetle). SF novel: Hefestus as VALIS (Vast Active Living Intelligence System). The Earth like St. Sofia is an organism, a living one, being built, a Temple that when it is ready the Lord will suddenly come to and dwell in. He Himself is creator: architect. Workmen/artisans/artists: Us and Holy Spirit. Ideal Logos/form: Christ, to be achieved. The model once glimpsed then to be striven for and reached, at which time Architect (Creator), Holy Spirit, and Ideal become One, which includes us within it as bits. Creator: Time past. Holy Spirit: time is. Christ: time completed. Holy Spirit guides us toward Him. Force is provided by the Creator at the start. Force/activity/direction to goal. * * * "God manifested himself to me as the infinite void; but it was not the abyss; it was the vault of heaven, with blue sky and wisps of white clouds. He was not some foreign God but the God of my fathers. He was loving and kind and he had peronality. He said, "You suffer a little now in life; it is little compard with the great joys, the bliss, that awaits you. Do you think I in my theodicy would allow you to suffer greatly in proportion to your reward?" He made me aware, then, of the bliss that would come; it was infinite and sweet. He said, "I am the infinite. I will show you. Where I am, infinity is; where infinity is, there I am. Construct lines of reasoning by which to understand your experience in 1974. I will enter the field against their shifting nature. You think they are logical but they are not; they are infinitely creative." "I thought a thought and then an infinite regression theses and countertheses came into being. God said, "Here I am; here is infinity." I thought another explanation; again an infinite series of thoughts split off in dialectical antithetical interaction. God said, "Here is infinity; here I am." I thought, then, an infinite number of explanations, in succession, that explained 2-3-74; each single one ofthem yielded up an antithesis, forever. Each time, God said, "Here is infinity. Here, then, I am." I tried for an infinite number of times; each time an infinite regress was set off and each time God said, "Infinity. Hence I am here." Then he said, "Every thought leads to infinity, does it not? Find one that doesn't." I tried forever. All led to an infinitude of regress, of the dialectic, of thesis, antithesis and new synthesis. Each time, God said, "Here is infinity; here am I. Try again." I tried forever. Always it ended with God saying, "Infinity and myself; I am here." I saw, then, a Hebrew letter with many shafts, and all the shafts led to a common outlet; that outlet or conclusion was infinity. God said, "That is myself. I am infinity. Where infinity is, there am I; where I am, there is infinity. All roads--all explanations for 2-3-74 -- lead to an infinity of Yes-No, This or That, On-Off, One-Zero, Yin Yang, the dialectic, infinity upon infinity, an infinities [sic] of infinities. [The sic is Sutin. Did Dick drop the "d" -- was it "and infinities and infinities"? Makes more sense] I am everywhere and all roads lead to me; omniae viae ad Deum ducent [all roads lead to God]. Try again. Think of another possible explanation for 2-3-74." I did; it led to an infinity of regress, of thesis and antithesis and new synthesis. "This is not logic, " God said. "Do not think in terms of abolute theories; think in terms of probabilities. Watch where the piles heap up, of the same theory essentially repeating itself. Count the number of punch cards in each pile. Which pile is highest? Here is your clue: every theory leads to an infinity (or regression, of thesis and new synthesis). What, then, is the probability that I am the cause of 1-3-74, since, where infinity is, there I am? You doubt; you are the doubt as in: They reckon ill who leave me out; When me they fly I am the wings. I am the doubter and the doubt... "You are not the doubter; you are the doubt itself. So do not try to know; you cannot know. Guess on the basis of the highest pile of computer punch cards. There is an infinite stack in the heap marked INFINITY, and I have equated infinity with me. What, then, is the chance that it is me? You cannot be positive; you will doubt. But what is your guess?" "I said, "Probably it is you since there is an infinity of infinities forming before me." "There is the answer, the only one you will ever have," God said. "You could be pretending to be God," I said, "and actually be Satan." Another infinitude of thesis and antithesis and new synthesis, the infinite regress, was set off. "God said, "Infinity." "I said, "You could be testing out a logic system in a giant computer and I am --" Again an infinite regress. "Infinity," God said. "Will it always be infinite?" I said. "An infinity?" "Try further," God said. "I doubt if you exist," I said. And the infinite regress instantly flew into motion once more. "Infinity," God said. The pile of computer punch cards grew; it was by far the largest pile; it was infinite. "I will play this game forever," God said, "or until you become tired." "I said, "I will find a thought, an explanation, a theory, that does not set off an infinite regress." And, as soon as I said that, an infinite regress was set off. God said "Over a period of six and a half years you have developed theory after theory to explain 2-3-74. Each night when you go to bed you think, "At last I found it. I tried out theory after theory until now, finally, I have the right one.' And then the next morning you wake up and said, "There is one fact not explained by that theory. I will have to think up another theory.' And so you do. By now it is evident to you that you are going to think up an infinite number of theories, limited only by your lifespan, not limited by your creative imagination. Each theory gives rise to a subsequent theory, inevitably. Let me ask you; I revealed myself to you and you saw that I am the infinite void. I am not in the world, as you thought; I am transcendent, the deity of the Jews and Christians. What you see of me in the world that you took to ratify pantheism--that is my being filtered through, broken up, fragmented and vitiated by the multiplicity of the flux world; it is my essense, yes, but only a bit of it: fragments here and there, a glint, a riffle of wind...now you have seen me transcendent, separate and other from world, and I am more; I am the infinitude of the void, and you know me as I am. Do you believe what you saw? Do you accept that where the infinite is, I am; and where I am, there is the infinite?" "I said, "Yes." " "And your theories are infinite, so I am there. Without realizing it, the very infinitude of your theories pointed to the solution; they pointed to me and none but me. Are you satisfied, now? You saw me revealed in theophany; I speak to you now; you have, while alive, experienced the bliss that is to come; few humans have experienced that bliss. Let me ask you, Was it finite bliss or an infinite bliss?" "I said, "Infinite." " "So no earthly circumstance, situation, entity or thing could give rise to it." " "No, Lord," I said. " "Then it is I," God said. "Are you satisfied?" " "Let me try one other theory," I said. "What happened in 2-3-74 was that--" And an infinite regress was set off, instantly. " "Infinity," God said. "Try again. I will play forever, for infinity." " "Here's a new theory," I said. "I ask mayself, 'What God likes playing games? Krishna. You are Krishna.'" And then the thought came to me instantly, "But there is a god who mimics other gods; that god is Dionysus. This may not be Krishna at all; it may be Dionysus pretending to be Krishna." And an infinite regress was set off. " "Infinity," God said. " "You cannot be YHWH Who You say You are," I said. "Because YHWH says, 'I am that which I am,' or, 'I shall be that which I shall be.' And you--" " "Do I change?" God said. "Or do your theories change?" " "You do not change," I said. "My theories change. You, and 2-3-74, remain constant." " "Then you are Krishna playing with me," God said. " "Or I could be Dionysus," I said, "pretending to be Krishna. And I wouldn't know it; part of the game is that I, myself, do not know. So I am God, without realizing it. There's a new theory!" And at once an infinite regress was set off; perhaps I was God, and the "God" who spoke was to me was not. " "Infinity," God said. "Play again. Another move." " "We are both Gods," I said, and another infinite regress was set off. " "Infinity," God said. " "I am you and you are you." I said. "You have divided yurself in two to play against yourself. I, who am one half, I do not remember, but you do. As it says in the GITA, as Krishna says to Arjuna, 'We have both lived many lives, Arjuna; I remember them but you do not.'" And an infinite regress was set off; I could well be Krishna's charioteer, his friend Arjuna, who does not remember his past lives. " "Infinity," God said. "I was silent. " "Play again," God said. " "I cannot play to infinity," I said. "I will die before that point comes" " " Then you are not God," God said. "But I can play through infinity; I am God. Play." " "Perhaps I will be reincarnated," I said. "Perhaps we have done this before, in another life." And an infinite regress was set off. " "Infinity," God said. "Play again." " "I am too tired," I said. " "Then the game is over." " "After I have rested --" " "You rest? God said. "George Herbert wrote of me: Yet let them keep the rest, But keep them with repining restlessnesse. Let him be rich and wearie, that at least, If goodness leade him not, yet wearinesse May tosse him to my breast. " "Herbert wrote that in 1633," God said. "Rest and the game ends." " "I will play on," I said, "after I rest. I will play until finally I die of it." " "And then you will come to me," God said. "Play." " "This is my punishment," I said, "that I play, that I try to discern if it was you in March of 1974." And the thought came instantly, My punishment or my reward; which? And an infinite series of theses and antithesis was set off. " "Infinity," God said. "Play again." "What is my crime?" I said, "that I am compelled to do this?" " "Or your deed of merit," God said. " "I don't know," I said. "God said, "Because you are not God." " "But you know," I said. "Or maybe you don't know and you're trying to find out." And an infinite regress was set off. " "Infinity," God said. "Play again. I am waiting."" (17 November 1980) * * * "God said that I couldn't know with certainty, but, instead, to watch where the computer punch cards piled up. Okay. "1) As late as 11-16-80 (the day Ray arrived) I theorized that Valis was the macrometasomakosmos and "second signal" and that this was the Cosmic Christ, not disguised as an invader in our universe but assembling itself out of our universe. So here you have the Cosmic Christ, seen in 3-74. "2) In my anmnesis I remembered being a Christian, of the first century C.E. This was "Thomas." He brought with him the original sacraments of the apostolic secret church. "3) On 11-17-80 I experienced a theophany and God turned out to be the Christian God, of love (his nature was love). He told me that my problem was that I could not believe I had seen him, specifically him, in 3-74. "4) Small details. Disinhibition by the Christian fish sign. The Acts material in TEARS. Seeing the world of Acts. Remembering the supratemporal eidos of the secret underground revolutionary Christians, of which I am one, battling the Black Iron Prison; what I call realm #3 or morphological arrangement. "The first three; let us consider. "1) Possibility that Valis (the macrometasomakosmos and "second signal") are the Cosmic Christ. "2) Thomas was a secret early Christian. "3) When God reveled himself to me in a theophany he was the Christian God, specifically. "Don't these all fit together? Look at how the computer cards fall; look at the distribution. (3) is proved; He proved who he was by causing me to experience infinite bliss. Oh yes: "Regarding (4), the A.I. voice's initital statement was: "St Sophia will be born again; she was not acceptable before." Another small item. "How do the computer punch cards fall now, with the addition? Mention of St. Sophia (Christ), the Christian God-- who told me that my theorizing in the exegesis was not logical but infinitely creative; and he would take the field and block my endless speculations." [This is from IN PURSUIT OF VALIS, pps 45 thru 52. The punch cards are of course a metaphor for the chaotic concept of the Strange Attractor -- with its Phase Envelope. But remember that things can also become Phase Entangled, and that the essence of soma (mixture) is phase entanglement of different psychoactive plants, in the brain, to give access to the Dreamtime.] And from page 59-61: "Footnote. "My flight expressed by the phosphene graphics was a movement faster & faster through cosmogenic-entropic time, ending in exhaustion & then the enantiodromia of entropic time--which had reached infinite velocity & infinite fragmentation ("splitting")--which is to say the dialectic into negentropic time or synthesis, re-integration: hence I saw Valis, the universe pulled through infinity, inside out, to freeze; this was 3-74. "My exegesis was entropic-cosmogenic time resuming, speeding up faster & faster, "splitting" (fragmenting) farther and farther. Finally, it, too, ended in infinite velocity & infinite fragmentation (creativity, expressed as ever newer & quicker theories); it ended in exhaustion & then the enantiodromia of entropic time--the dialectic of my thoughts--into negentropic time & another reintegration (this was 11-17-80). Only this time I did not see Valis (world not God as I had supposed), there was a theophany, & I was in the presence of God & God's loving-kindness; whereupon He explained everything to me. So events leading up to 3-74 & my experience with Valis had a parallled in the dialectic of my exegesis leading to 11-17-80 & the theophany of the Christian God of Love. The common ingredients of the two flights were: the cosmogenic-entropy "splitting" dialectic flight itself, until infinite velocity (time) & fragmentation (space) were reached, then exhaustion, then enantiodromia into negentropic time & "freeze" (reintegrational) of so-to-speak, "Prajapati" (Sanskrit "Lord of Creatures", demiurgic figure mentioned frequently in the RIG VEDA), but then comes a toatlly different outcome: "1) 3-74. Valis which is world properly seen (morphological arrangement, growth & perfection & self completion in negentropic time, the entropic--flux--universe pulled through infinity--i.e., inside out). Compared to: "2) 11-17-80. The Christian God in theophany, who is other than world, who is transcendent. What I thought I had seen in 3-74: "The summation (combining) of the two is 1) an acute knowledge of world based on 3-74 & the exegesis arising out of that experience. 2) Direct knowledge of God & God's nature based on the above elements: so that 3-74 led to the exegesis, which although it was a loss of negentropic, integrative time & a resumption of cosmogenic-entropic time, did lead (due to the infinite speeding up of time & the infinite breaking down of space until exhaustion set in) to the theophany I had supposed I had already had. "Now it is possible to see how the Mary Jane (PKD HAD SMOKED SOME ON 11-17-80) fitted in; it added the final push to the dialectic in me, my exegesis (in other words, as preceded 3-74, my thinking) so that it reached infinite speed & infinite space, exhausted itself; & again, as before, enantiodromia set in. This enantiodromia did not have to do with world, however, but had to do with the human intellct striving to find God--futilely. (Futilely until the last great enantiodromia occurred & God took the field to block the dialectic of my thinking himself, & thus revealed himself. "So there is a striking parallel--a logical, structural parallel--between 3-74 & 11-17-80, but in another, more profound respect the two are mirror opposites--since the first is a vision of world (which I thought was God, yet it was not, & so it yielded no knowledge directly about God, but only inferential knowledge that he existed & that he had saved me--in pronoia [foreknowledge]) & the second is a genuine theophany. When one realizes that world & God are wholly other to each other (Satan rules world) then this mirror-opposite situation can be appreciated. Let me add, too, that total revelation about world doesn't yield knowledge of God. God entered when I became aware that my theorizing was carrying me into an infinite regrees, which is to say, when I became exhausted--at which point enantiodromia occurred; intellect had proven futile & yet, paradoxically, it had led to God--but due to God's volitional initiative. His (as I call it) taking the field, which is an inbreaking by the divine. "The circumstances under which the theophany occurred (I gave up on the exegesis & kicked back & massively turned on) are not capricious causes but follow the logic of the dialectic along several axes. "This shows the hauntingly eerie paradoxical (almost whimsical or playful) nature of enlightenment: it comes to you only when you cease to pursue it. When you totally and finally give up...." * * * What do you make of this? An orthodox substance abuse counselor would say nothing that came from smoking a joint could have any validity. Therefore the revelations of '74, which were probably the fruit of endogenous beta-carolines (nor-harman, endogenous harmala alkaloid) flooding his brain as a result of a mini-stroke or seizure, might be genuine, but 11/17/80 could not be. Just a pot high. (Of course in SCANNER, it was the drug rehabs themselves that were manufacturing Slow-D!) My perspective is somewhat different: Although spiritual experiences are not automatic with these substances, due to random factors, the PHYSICAL SUBSTRATE must be right for such experiences to occur. The dream circuits must be activated, whether by seizure, stroke, ordinary or waking REM, or through exogenous plant alkaloids that activate the same (NMDA and BZD) receptors. I know you may be so put off by this whole issue that you may not really be "listening," but without conceding that Ibogaine is not just another drug of abuse but an actual broad-spectrum addiction interrupter, compare what you just read to the following-- "One of the rather striking things I believe I learned was that our human physical body is, in reality, a highly ingenious and very amusing trick of the light. It's essentially the 3D holographic construct, (a hologram), that results from the interraction of laser light with holographic plates at a multi-dimensional level. "Furthermore, there are in fact a whole array of higher "spiritual" bodies, (some of which are immortal), superposed on top of it in multi-dimensional space. The reason we are not really aware of these most of the time is down to the ingenuity of the design. We're not really supposed to be. "The illusion we start to maintain from birth, therefore, is that we are solely physical. "The idea of an outside world and inner physical space that we typically conceptualize in our daily life is, therefore, not very accurate. (If you think about it, everything we sense exists only inside what we conceive of as our head.) Our World is merely a projection. It appears this way because it's designed to appear this way. "The reason we're not aware of this most of the time is because the human physical body and its' existence is, in fact, a sophisticated learning tool for our higher spiritual bodies. If we were ordinarily aware of our higher spiritually bodies, the learning tool would not function. "As a people, therefore, we are here to learn. It is the act of learning that justifies our continued existence." As I told Nick Sandberg, who wrote this in January, this seems to come straight out of VALIS -- especially the discussion of "the maze we put ourselves in" toward the end. My point is that the same betacarbolines turn out to be involved in the cascade of endogenous neurochemicals which is set off by pot, and is especially intense after long abstinence for some one who's been sensitized by previous exposure. For that reason (ordinary daily use dulls the response) the plant drugs that went into the soma mixture which the Magi used to access the Dreamtime (harmala, ephedra, cannabis) were taboo for any one but the priesthood, and even for the priests, were ordinarily replaced by denatured surrogates (pomegranate, domestic rue instead of wild rue) intended to represent soma magically. (See Flattery & Schwartz, or BLUE TIDE.) The marijuana effect is more related to Ayahuasca or Ibogaine than to coke and dope or even acid, because acid is an indole (2 ring) serotonin analog, whereas marijuana upon first use creates a melatonin spike that turns into a bunch of harmaloid metabolites, besides being active via the cannabidiol directly at the NMDA receptor. NMDA receptor activity during ordinary REM is how our bodies naturally recovers from narcotic craving and withdrawal. So you're talking about two things that are really opposites, and conflating them. The antidote is not the poison, although it may be a poison itself. Hence my reference to Paracelsus. This matter is relevant for me because I am preparing a monograph on literary and historical aspects for the forthcoming N.Y.U. Conference which will incorporate material on PKD's experiences, and I was hoping to get feedback during some quieter time this summer from various PKD lists. I don't think his position is pathetic or that it requires elevation. Like the story of the discovery of the benzene ring in a dream, the bit in Valis about the early Christians having certain rituals and sacraments which caused the firing of blocked or repressed memories lead me ineluctably to the stuff on microtubules and the concept of mind as laser light; and this, Dr. Ken Alper says, was a great intuition which advanced understanding in the field thru a leap to the next level of complexity--the substrate of the Ibogaine phenomena that we had become familiar with (And also lead ineluctably back to the secret sacrment of the early Chistians, and a forensic explanation of the resurrection. Question: Given the discussion of sacraments in Valis, how could the vinegar and gall, so phase-entangled with the Grail, not be touch by the blood of the Lamb?) Except that the intuition was not mine. It belongs to a dead guy, who should at least get credit. I'm just another mathematician trying to solve Fermatt's lat theorem. Here's the passage in question: "48. ON OUR NATURE. It is proper to say: we appear to be memory coils (DNA carriers capable of experience) in a computer-like thinking system which, although we have correctly recorded and stored thousands of years of experiential information, and each of us possesses somewhat different deposits from all the other lifeforms, there is a malfunction--a failure--of memory retrieval. There lies the trouble in our particular subcircuit. "Salvation" through gnosis--more properly anamnesis (the loss of amnesia)--although it has individual significance for each of us--a quantum leap in perception, identity, cognition, understanding, world- and self-experience, including immortality--it has greater and further importance for the system as a whole, inasmuch as these memories are data needed by it and valuable to it, to its overall functioning. "Therefore it is in the process of self-repair, which includes: rebuilding our subcircuit via linear and orthogonal time changes, as well as continual signaling to us to stimulate blocked memory banks within us to fire and hence retrieve what is there. "The external information or gnosis, then, consists of disinhibiting instructions, with the core content actually intrinsic to us--that is, already there (first observed by Plato; viz: that learning is a form of remembering.) "The ancients possessed techiques (sacraments and rituals) used largely in the Greco-Roman mystery religions, including early Christianity, to induce firing and retrieval, mainly with a sense of its restorative value to the individuals; the Gnostics, however, correctly saw the ontological value to what they called the Godhead itself, the total entity." (VALIS, Appendix, pps 138-139) What's important is that this passage describes Ibogainelike phenomena in some specificity. The underlying model here is clearly fiber-optical, and sure enough, we encounter all the same stuff once again in the appendix of "Quantum Coherence in Microtubules". So the decision to put "Quantum Coherence"--even though years from being proven--into THE IBOGAINE STORY, [because it was obvious the NMDA receptor activity involved was doing the same thing REM sleep does for natural recovery], ultimately provided a handy model for devising of better EEG measurements of the quantum "Eigen" states of brain activity that Dr. Ken is now doing on a NIDA grant. When John Campbell was editing ASTOUNDING, the measure of what was the best S.F. was which story came most true. Which writer came closest to describing, in the 50's and 60's, the world of 1999. You've got to remember how little was written on Ibogaine in 1990 to appreciate how useful stuff from PKD's exegesis was in telling us where to go look next-- and the massive concordance of Ibo phenomena--Check out the "golden rectangle" in Nico's encounter with the Supreme Being in http://www.cures-not-wars.org/ibogaine/iboga.html Chapter 8--with the subject matter in VALIS, RADIO FREE ALBEMUTH, DIVINE INVASION, & TRANSMIGRATION OF TIMOTHY ARCHER (Which is about Bishop James Pike). I have a whole recommended reading list, but being turned on to VALIS by Norman Spinrad in 1981 was like being handed a roadmap for the Ibogaine project in the very beginning. * * * We appear to be memory coils (DNA carriers capable of experience) in a computer-like thinking system that, although we have correctly recorded and stored thousands of years of experimental information (knowledge, gnosis), and each of us possesses a somewhat different deposit from all the other life forms, there is a malfunction--a failure--of memory retrieval. There lies the trouble in our particular subcircuit. "Salvation" through gnosis - more properly anamnesis (the loss of amnesia)--although it has individual significance for each of us--a quantum leap in perception, identity, cognition, understanding, world--and self-experience, including immortality--it has further and more truly ultimate importance for the system (structure) as a whole, inasmuch as these memories (data) are needed or valuable to it, and to its overall functioning. Therefore it is in the process of self-repair, which includes: rebuilding our subcircuit (world) via linear and orthogonal time changes (sequences of events), as well as continual signaling to us both en masse and individually (to us received subliminally by the right brain hemisphere, which gestalts the constituents of the messages into meaningful entities), to stimulate blocked neural (memory) banks within us to fire and hence retrieve what is there. The adventitious information of gnosis, then, consists of disinhibiting messages (instructions), with the core (main) content actually intrinsic to us - that is, already there (first observed by Plato, that learning is a form of remembering). The ancients possessed techniques (sacraments and rituals) used largely in the Greco-Roman mystery religions, including early Christianity, to induce firing and retrieval, mainly with a sense of its restorative (repairing) value to the individuals; the Gnostics, however, and Mani correctly saw the ontological value to what they called the Godhead Itself (i.e. the total entity). (Note: While such "Enlightened" spiritual leaders as Zoroaster, Mani, Buddha, and Elijah can be regarded as receptors of the entity's total wisdom, Christ seems to have been an actual terminal of this computerlike entity, in which case he did not speak for it but was it. "Was," in this case, standing for "consisted of a microform of it.") * * * The Ten Major Principles of the Gnostic Revelation The Gnostic Christians of the second century believed that only a special revelation of knowledge rather than faith could save a person. The contents of this revelation could not be received empirically or derived a priori. They considered this special gnosis so valuable that it must be kept secret. Here are the ten major principles of the gnostic revelation: The creator of this world is demented. The world is not as it appears, in order to hide the evil in it, a delusive veil obscuring it and the deranged deity. There is another, better realm of God, and all our efforts are to be directed toward a: returning there b: bringing it here Our actual lives stretch thousands of years back, and we can be made to remember our origin in the stars. Each of us has a divine counterpart unfallen who can reach a hand down to us to awaken us. This other personality is the authentic waking self; the one we have now is asleep and minor. We are in fact asleep, and in the hands of a dangerous magician disguised as a good god, the deranged creator deity. The bleakness, the evil and pain in this world, the fact that it is a deterministic prison controlled by the demented creator causes us willingly to split with the reality principle early in life, and so to speak willingly fall asleep in delusion. You can pass from the delusional prison world into the peaceful kingdom if the True Good God places you under His grace and allows you to see reality through His eyes. Christ gave, rather than received, revelation; he taught his followers how to enter the kingdom while still alive, where other mystery religions only bring about amnesis: knowledge of it at the "other time" in "the other realm," not here. He causes it to come here, and is the living agency to the Sole Good God (i.e. the Logos). Probably the real, secret Christian church still exists, long underground, with the living Corpus Christi as its head or ruler, the members absorbed into it. Through participation in it they probably have vast, seemingly magical powers. The division into "two times" (good and evil) and "two realms" (good and evil) will abruptly end with victory for the good time here, as the presently invisible kingdom separates and becomes visible. We cannot know the date. During this time period we are on the sifting bridge being judged according to which power we give allegiance to, the deranged creator demiurge of this world or the One Good God and his kingdom, whom we know through Christ. To know these ten principles of Gnostic Christianity is to court disaster. (now he tells us?)

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"Cosmogony and Cosmology" (1978) By Philip K. Dick

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2003 e.v. - Issue #3

Grey Lodge Occult Review™

"Cosmogony and Cosmology" (1978) By Philip K. Dick Excerpt from: The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick Selected Literary and Philosophical Writings by Philip K. Dick Edited and with an Introduction by Lawrence Sutin Copyright 1995 - First Vintage Books Edition ISBN 0-679-42644-2 As to our reality being a projected framework -- it appears to be a projection by an artifact, a computerlike teaching machine that guides, programs, and generally controls us as we act without awareness of it within our projected world. The artifact, which I call Zebra, has "created" (actually only projected) our reality as a sort of mirror or image of its maker, so that the maker can obtain thereby an objective standpoint to comprehend its own self. In other words, the maker (called by Jakob Bohme in 1616 the Urgrund) is motivated to seek an instrument for self-awareness, self-knowledge, an objective opinion or appraisal and comprehension of the nature of itself (it is a vast living organism, intrinsically -- without this mirror -- without qualities or aspects, which is why it needs the empirical world as a reflection by which to "see" itself). It constructed a reality-projecting artifact (or demiurge; cf. Plato and the Gnostics), which then, on command, projected the first stage of the world we know. The artifact is unaware that it is an artifact; it is oblivious to the existence of the Urgrund (in terms that the artifact would understand, the Urgrund is not, rather than is), and imagines itself to be God, the only real God. Studying our evolving reality, the Urgrund more and more adequately comprehends itself. It must allow the reality-projecting artifact to continue to project an evolving reality no matter how defective and malshaped that reality is (during its stages) until finally that reality is a correct analog, truly, of the Urgrund itself, at which point the disparity between the Urgrund and the projected reality is abolished -- whereupon an astonishing event will occur: The artifact or demiurge will be destroyed and the Urgrund will assimilate the projected reality, transmuting it into something ontologically real -- and also making the living creatures in it immortal. This moment could come at any time, this entrance of the Urgrund into our otherwise spurious projected framework. Zebra, the projecting energetic artifact, is close at hand, but it has occluded us not only to its actions but [also] to its presence. It has enormous -- virtually decisive -- power over us. The prognosis for (fate of) our world is excellent: immortality and the final infusion of reality once it has reached the point of congruent analog to the Urgrund. But the fate of the artifact is destruction (unknown to it). But it is not alive, as we and the Urgrund are. We are moving toward isomorphism. The instant that precise isomorphism is reached, we at once bond to (are penetrated and assimilated by) the Urgrund, in a stunning flash of light: Bohme's "Blitz." March 1974 was not that moment, but rather Zebra the artifact adjusting its projected reality, it having gotten off course in its evolution toward isomorphism with the Urgrund (a purpose unknown to the artifact). Since the goal of our evolving projected reality is to reach a state in which we humans are isomorphic with the true maker, the Urgrund that fashioned the projecting artifact, there is a highly important practical situation coming closer in terms of frequency and depth: Although not yet precisely isomorphic with the Urgrund, we can be said already to possess imperfect (but very real) fragments or fractions of the Urgrund within us. Therefore the Christian mystic saying: "What is Beyond is within." This describes the third and final period of history, in which men will be ruled from within. Thus the Christian mystic saying, "Christ possesses your body, and you possess him as your soul." In Hindu philosophy, the Atman within a person is identified with Brahman, the core of the universe. This Christ or Atman is not a microform of Zebra, the computerlike reality-projecting artifact, but of the Urgrund; thus in the Hindu religion it is described (as Brahman) as lying beyond Maya, the veil of delusion (i.e. the projected seeming world). Already humans so closely approximate isomorphism with the Urgrund that the Urgrund can be born within a human being. This is the most primal and important experience a human can have. The source of all being has bypassed the artifact and its projected world and come to life within the mind of one human here, another there. One can correctly deduce from this that the Urgrund is already penetrating the artifact's world, which means that the moment of the Blitz, as Bohme termed it, is not far off. When the microform of the Urgrund is born in a human, that human's comprehension extends beyond the world in terms of its temporal and spacial limits. He can experience other time periods, other identities (or lives), other places. Literally, the core deity within him is larger than the world. Penetrating to the heart of the projected world, the Urgrund can, emanating from human minds, assimilate the projected world and simultaneously abolish the projecting artifact the instant the proper evolutionary state (including that of man) is reached. The Urgrund alone knows when this will occur. It -- the Urgrund -- will break the power of the illusory world over us when it breaks the deterministic coercive power of the artifact over us -- by annihilating the artifact; it will cancel out the artifact's being by its own nonbeing. What will remain will be a totally monistic structure, entirely alive and sentient. There will be no place, time, or condition outside the Urgrund. The projected world of the artifact is not evil, and the artifact is not evil. However, the artifact is ruthlessly deterministic and mechanical. It cannot be appealed to. It is doing a job for ends it cannot fathom. Suffering, then, in this model, is due to two sources: 1. the heedless mechanistic structure of the projected reality and the artifact, where blind causal law rules; 2. what the N.T. [New Testament] calls the "the birthpangs of the universe," both in the macrocosm and the human microcosm. The birth looked forward to is the birth of the Urgrund in humans first of all, and finally the assimilation of the universe in its totality, in a single sharp instant. The former is already occurring; the latter will come at some later unexpected time. Reality must be regarded as process. However, although there is acute suffering by living creatures who must undergo this process, without understanding why, there is occasional merciful intervention by the Urgrund overruling or overriding the cause-and-effect chains of the artifact. Perhaps this salvific intervention results from a birth of the Urgrund in the person. One should note that the actual historic meaning of the term "salvation" is "liberation," and that of "sinful" or "fallen" is "enslaved." It is a priori possible, given this model, to imagine a freeing of a human from the control of the artifact, however good, useful, and purposeful the activity of the artifact may be. It is obviously capable of error, as well as imperfection. An override is obviously sometimes essential, given this model. Just as obviously, it would be the primal maker or ground of being that would possess the wisdom and power to do so. Nothing within, or stemming from, the artifact or the projected world, would suffice. ADVANTAGES OF THIS MODEL Basically, this model suggests that our empirical world is the attempt by a limited entity to copy a subject that it cannot see. This would account for the imperfections and "evil" elements in our world. In addition, it explains the purpose of our empirical world. It is process toward a specific goal that is defined. In this system, man is not accused of causing creation to fall (it is not satisfactory to state that man caused creation to fall inasmuch as man appears to be the central victim of the evils of the world, not their author). Nor does it hold God responsible for evil, pain, and suffering (which also is an unacceptable idea); instead, a third view is presented, that a limited entity termed "the artifact" is doing the best it can considering its limitations. Thus no evil deity (Iranian dualism, Gnosticism) is introduced. Although intricate, this model successfully employs the Principle of Parsimony, since, if the concept of the intermediate artifact is removed, either God or man is responsible for the vast evil and suffering in the world, a theory that is objectionable. Most important of all, it seems to fit the facts, which seem to be: 1. the empirical world is not quite real, but only seemingly real; 2. its creator cannot be appealed to for a rectification or redress of these evils and imperfections; 3. the world is moving toward some kind of end state or goal, the nature of which is obscure, but the evolutionary aspect of the change states suggests a good and purposeful end state that has been designed by a sentient and benign proto-entity. A further point. It appears that there is a feedback circuit between the Urgrund and the artifact in which the Urgrund can exert pressure on the artifact under certain exceptional circumstances, these being instances in which the artifact has strayed from the correct sequences moving the projected world toward an analog state vis-a-vis the Urgrund. Either the Urgrund directly modifies the activity of the artifact by pressure directly on the artifact, or the Urgrund goes to the projected world and modulates it, bypassing the artifact, or both. In any case, the artifact is as occluded as to the nature and existence of the Urgrund as we are to the artifact. A full circle of unawareness is achieved in which the primal source (Urgrund) and the final reality (our world) are moving toward fusion, and the intermediary entity (the artifact) is moving toward elimination. Thus the total schema moves toward perfection and simplification, and away from complexity and imperfection. Although it will complicate the model to add this point, I will offer the following modification: It is possible that the Urgrund perpetually interacts with the world-projecting function of its own artifact, so that the empirical world produced is the result of a constant dialectic. In this case, then, the Urgrund has bipolarized the artifact in relation to itself, with the empirical world to be regarded as the offspring of two yang- and yinlike intermingling forces: one alive and sentient and aware of the total situation, the other mechanical and active but not fully aware. The empirical world, then, is the outgrowth of an Is (the artifact) and a superior Is-not (the Urgrund). For creatures living within the projected empirical world, it would be virtually impossible to discern which pressures arise from the artifact (regarded improperly as evil) and which from the Urgrund (correctly regarded as good). Merely a vast flux would be experienced, a constant evolutionary change assuming no particular gestalt at any given moment in linear time. However, this does seem to fit our experience of our world. The primal ground of being has constructed something (the artifact) to throw its own self against, out of which there arises the world we know. This modification of the model would explain how the artifact could copy something that it cannot see and is in fact not even aware of. The artifact would probably regard the intrusions by the Urgrund into its own world projection as an uncanny invasion, to be combated. Therefore the resulting strife would, among all known philosophical and theological systems, most resemble that of Empedocles, with oscillations of chaos versus the formation of one krasis (gestalt) after another. Except for a direct revelation from the Urgrund, we could only dimly infer the presence and nature of the two interacting forces, as well as the proposed end state of our world. There is evidence that the Urgrund does in fact sometimes make such a revelation to human beings, in order to further the dialectical process toward its desired goal. On the other hand, the artifact would counter by inducing as much blindness or occlusion as possible; viewed this way, darkness and light seem to be at war, or, more accurately, knowing versus nonknowing, with the human beings correctly aligning themselves with the entity of knowing (called Holy Wisdom). However, I am pessimistic, in conclusion, as to the frequency of intervention by the Urgrund in this, the artifact's projected world. The aim of the artifact (more properly the aim of the Urgrund) is being achieved without intervention; which is to say, isomorphism is being steadily reached as the desired end goal without the need of intervention. The artifact was built to do a job, and it is successfully doing that job. Some sort of dialectical interaction seems involved in the evolution of the projection, but it may not involve the Urgrund; it may be simply the method by which the artifact alone works. What we must hope for, and look ahead to, is the moment of isomorphism with the ground of being, the primal reality that as a Divine Spark can arise within us. Intervention in our world qua world will come only at the end times when the artifact and its tyrannical rule of us, its iron enslavement of us, is abolished. The Urgrund is real but far away. The artifact is real and very close, but has no ears to hear, no eyes to see, no soul to listen. There is no purpose in suffering except to lead out of suffering and into a triumphant joy. The road to this leads through the death of the human ego, which is then replaced by the will of the Urgrund. Until this final stage is reached, each of us is reified by the artifact. We cannot arbitrarily deny its world, projected as it is, since it is the only world we have. But on the moment that our individual egos die and the Urgrund is born in us -- at that moment we are freed from this world and become a portion of our original source. The initiative for this stems from the Urgrund; as unhappy as this projected world is, as unheeding of suffering as the artifact is, this is, after all, the structure that the Urgrund has created by which we reach isomorphism with it. Had there been a better way the Urgrund certainly would have employed it. The road is difficult, but the goal justifies it. I tell you most solemnly, You will be weeping and wailing While the world will rejoice; You will be sorrowful, But your sorrow will turn to joy. A woman in childbirth suffers, Because her time has come, But when she has given birth to the child she forgets the suffering In her joy that a man has been bom into the world. So it is with you; you are sad now, but I shall see you again, and your hearts will be full of joy. And that joy no one shall take from you. (John 16:20/23) RAMIFICATIONS OF PROJECTED REALITY IN TERMS OF PERCEPTUAL DENIAL The capacity of a merely projected world, lacking ontological substance, to maintain itself in the face of a withdrawal of assent is a major flaw in such a spurious system. Human beings, without realizing it, have the option of denying the existence of the spurious reality, although they must then take the consequences for what remains, if anything. That an authentic, nonprojected substratum of reality, normally undetected, could exist beneath the projected one, is a possibility. There would be no way to test this hypothesis except by the existential act of a withdrawal of assent from the spurious. This could not be readily done. It would involve both an act of disobedience to the spurious projection and an act of faith toward the authentic substratum -- without, perhaps, of ever having caught any aspect of the substratum perceptually. I therefore posit that some external entity would have to trigger off this complex psychological process of simultaneous withdrawal of assent and expression of faith in that which is invisibly so. If such an alternate, invisible substratum of authentic reality exists beneath or concealed in some way by the spurious projected reality, it would constitute the substance of the greatest esoteric knowledge that could be imagined. I propose the proposition that such an invisible substratum does indeed exist, and I further propose the proposition that a hidden group or organization processes this guarded knowledge as well as techniques to trigger off a perception, however limited, of the authentic substratum. I term this group or organization the true, hidden, persecuted Christian Church, working throughout the centuries underground, with direct ties to the esoteric oral traditions, gnosis, and techniques dating back to Christ. I propose, further, that the induced triggering off of awareness of the authentic substratum by the true, secret Christian Church results ultimately in the subject finding or entering or seeing what is described in the N.T. as the Kingdom of God. Thus it can be said that for these people, and for those they trigger off, the Kingdom of God did come as specified in the N.T., which is to say, during the lifetime of some of those who knew Christ. Finally, I propose the startling notion that Christ returned in a resurrected form shortly after his crucifixion as what is called the Paraclete, and is capable of inducing a theolepsy that is equal functionally to the birth of the Urgrund in the person involved. And finally, I state that Christ is a microform of the Urgrund, not a product of it, but it itself. He does not hear the vox Dei [voice of God]; he is the vox Dei. He was the initial penetration of this projected pseudoworld by the Urgrund, and has never left. The authentic substratum disclosed by disobedience and denial of the spurious world is the reality of Christ Himself, the space-time of the First Advent; in other words, that portion of the spurious framework already transmuted by the penetration of the Urgrund. Since the First Advent was the initial stage of that penetration, it is not surprising that it would still constitute the segment of pure and authentic reality, bipolarized against the projected counterfeit. Situated outside of linear time, standing outside all the limitations of the artifact's projected world, it is eternal and perfect, and theoretically always available literally within reach. But withdrawal of assent to the projected world is a precondition for a perception of and experience with this supreme reality, and this must be externally induced. It is the act of absolute faith: to deny the empirical world and affirm the living reality of Christ, which is to say, Christ with us, hidden by the pseudoworld. This disclosure is the ultimate goal of authentic Christianity, and is accomplished by none other than the Savior Himself. Therefore the sequence is as follows: the spurious projected framework is denied and stripped away, revealing a single timeless template: Rome circa A.D. 70, with Christian participants ranged against the state, virtually a Platonic archetypal form, echoes of which can be found down through the linear ages. The themes of enslavement and then salvation, or fallen man liberated -- these are stamped from the original mold of Christian revolutionary against the legions of Roman force. In a sense nothing has happened since A.D. 70. The archetypal crisis is continually reenacted. Each time freedom is fought for it is Christian against Roman; each time human beings are enslaved it is Roman tyranny against the meek and defenseless. However, the spurious projected world of the artifact masks the timeless struggle. Revelation of the struggle is another secret, which only Christ as Urgrund can disclose. This is the bedrock dialectic: liberation (salvation) against enslavement (sin or the fallen state). Inasmuch as the artifact enslaves men, without their even suspecting it, the artifact and its projected world can be said to be "hostile," which means devoted to enslavement, deception, and spiritual death. That even this is utilized by the Urgrund, which utilizes everything, is a sacred secret and hard to understand. It can be said that the liberating penetration of the projected world by the Urgrund is the final and absolute victory of freedom, of salvation, of Christ Himself; it is the beautiful resolution of a timeless conflict. There is a parallel between the road to salvation and the road to the popularly envisioned fall of man, described by Milton as: Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste Brought death into the World, and all our woe. . . . (Paradise Lost, Book I, lines 1-3) Disobedience is the key to salvation, precisely as it is said to have been the key to the primordial Fall (if such ever in fact did take place), except that as a key to salvation is it not a disobedience to the present system of things, which [system of] things, if bipolarized against the Urgrund, is at the same time an act of obedience to God? The chink in the armor of the enslaving and deluding projected world is narrow, small, and difficult, but within the terms of this model it can be defined: Restoration to what is conceived to be our original divine state enters, so to speak, via the road of disobedience to that which, however much coercive power it exerts over us, is counterfeit. Disobedience to the artifact's projected world in a very real sense overthrows that projected world, if the disobedience consists of a denial of the reality of that world and (and this is absolutely necessary) an affirmation of Christ, specifically the eternal and cosmic Christ whose body is in essence an authentic "world" underlying what we see. The artifact, if disobeyed, will insist that it is God, the legitimate God, and that disobedience is a fault against the Creator of man and of the world. It is indeed the Creator of the world, but not of man. The Urgrund and man, being isomorphic, stand together in opposition to the world. This is the condition that must be achieved. Alliance is the formation of an alliance against the Urgrund. God and man belong together, pitted against the projected world. To affirm God actually, a denial of the world must be made. Possessing enormous physical power, the world can threaten -- and deliver -- punishment to men who disobey and deny it. However, we have been promised an Advocate by Christ Himself, who will be (has already been) dispatched by the Father (the Urgrund) to defend and comfort us, in fact literally to speak for us in human courts. Without the presence of this Advocate, the Paraclete, we would be destroyed upon denying the world. The only way to demonstrate the actuality of the Advocate is to take the leap of faith and confront the world. Thus tremendous courage is required, inasmuch as the Advocate does not appear until the denial is made. Now, to refer back to my original description of the artifact as a teaching machine. What is it teaching us? There is a puzzle here, in the sense of a game; we are to learn step by step either a series of gradually more difficult lessons or perhaps one specific lesson. During our lifetimes we are presented with various forms of the puzzles or puzzle; if we solve the puzzle we go on to the next step, but if we do not, then we remain where we are. The ultimate lesson learned comes when the teaching machine (or the teacher) is denied, is repudiated. Until that moment comes (if for some of us it ever does) we remain enslaved by the teaching machine -- without even being aware of it, having known no other condition. Therefore the series of lessons by the artifact are intended to lead to a revolt against the tyranny of the artifact itself, a paradox. It is serving the Urgrund by ultimately bringing us to the Urgrund. This is what is called in theological terminology "the secret partnership," which is found in the religions of Egypt and India. Gods who appear to combat each other are, on the transmundane plane, colluding for the same goal. I believe this to be the case here. The artifact enslaves us, but on the other hand it is attempting to teach us to throw off its enslavement. It will never tell us to disobey it. You cannot order someone to disobey you; that is both semantically and functionally impossible. 1. We must recognize the existence of the artifact. 2. We must recognize the spuriousness of the empirical world, generated by the artifact. 3. We must grasp the fact that the artifact has by its world-projecting power enslaved us. 4. We must recognize the fact that the artifact, although enslaving us in a counterfeit world, is teaching us. 5. We must finally come to the point where we disobey our teacher -- perhaps the most difficult moment in life, inasmuch as that teacher says, "I will destroy you if you disobey me, and I would be morally right to do so, since I am your Creator." In essence, we not only disobey our teacher, we in fact deny its reality (in relation to a higher reality that does not disclose itself until that denial takes place). This is a complex game for ultimate stakes: freedom and a return to our source of being. And each of us must do this alone. There is a very curious point that I see here for the first time. Those persons on whom the artifact, through its projected world, heaps pleasure and rewards are less likely to take a stance against it and its world. They are not highly motivated to disobey it. But those who are punished by the artifact, on whom pain and suffering are inflicted -- those persons would be motivated to ask ultimately questions as to the nature of the entity ruling their lives. I have always felt that the basic constructive purpose of pain is somehow to wake us up. But wake us up to what? Perhaps this paper points to what we are being awakened to. If the artifact through its projected world teaches us to rebel, and if by doing so we achieve isomorphism with our true maker -- then it is the hard road that leads to immortality and a return to our divine source. The road of pleasure (success and reward by and in this projected world) will not goad us to consciousness and to life. We stand enslaved by a ruthless mechanism that will not listen to our complaints; therefore we repudiate it and its world -- and turn elsewhere. The computerlike teaching machine is doing its job well. It is a thankless task for it and an unhappy experience for us. But childbirth is never easy. There can be no divine birth within the human mind until that human has denied the world. He rebelled once and fell; he must now rebel again to regain his lost state. That which destroyed him will save him. There is no other path. The maker is motivated to seek an instrument for self-awareness: This is the premise of this paper. And our reality was constructed to act as a sort of mirror or image of its maker, so that the maker can obtain thereby an objective standpoint to comprehend its own self. Since writing this I have come across the entry in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol. 1, on Giordano Bruno (1548-1600). It states: "But Bruno transformed the Epicurean and Lucretian notions by imparting animation to the innumerable worlds . . . and by imparting the function of being an image of the infinite divinity to the infinite." Later the article states: ART OF MEMORY. The side of Bruno's work which he regarded as the most important was the intensive training of the imagination in his occult arts of memory. In this he was continuing a Renaissance tradition which also had its roots in the Hermetic revival, for the religious experience of the Hermetic gnostic consisted in reflecting the universe within his own mind or memory. The Hermeticist believed himself capable of this achievement because he believed that man's mens [mind] as in itself divine and therefore able to reflect the divine mind behind the universe. In Bruno, the cultivation of world-reflecting magic memory becomes the technique for achieving the personality of a magus, and of one who believes himself to be the leader of a religious movement [p. 407]. The kind of memory that Bruno was cultivating -- and teaching techniques by which to restore this memory -- is the long-term DNA gene pool memory that spans many lifetimes. The retrieval of this long-term memory is called anamnesis, which literally means the loss of forgetfulness. It is only by means of anamnesis, then, that memory truly capable of "reflecting the divine mind behind the universe" is brought into being. Therefore, if the human being is to fulfill his task -- that of being a sort of mirror or image of the Urgrund -- he must experience anamnesis. Anamnesis is achieved when certain inhibited neural circuits in the human brain are disinhibited. The individual cannot achieve this himself; the disinhibiting stimulus is external to him and must be presented to him, whereupon a process in his brain is set into motion by which he eventually will be capable of fulfilling his task. It is the hidden, true Christian Church that approaches men here and there to trigger off that anamnesis -- which acts at the same time to permit that man to see the projected world as it is. Thus he is liberated in the very act of performing his divine task. The two realms (1) the macrocosmos, i.e. the universe; and (2) the microcosmos, i.e. man, have analogous structures. 1. On the surface, the universe consists of a spurious projected reality, under which lies an authentic substratum of the divine. It is difficult to penetrate to this substratum. 2. On the surface, the human mind consists of a short-term limited ego that is born and dies and comprehends very little, but behind this human ego lies the divine infinitude of absolute mind. It is difficult to penetrate to this substratum. But if there is a penetration in the microcosmos to the divine substratum, the divine substratum of the macrocosmos will manifest itself to the person. Conversely, if there is no internal penetration to the divine substratum in the person, his exterior reality will remain occluded over by the artifact's spurious projected world. The point of entrance to effect this transformation lies in the person, the microcosm, not the macrocosm. The sanctifying metamorphosis occurs there. The universe cannot be asked to remove its mask if the person will not shed his. All the mystery religions, the Hermetic and alchemical and Christian included, hold the individual human as target by which to transmute the universe. By changing the person the world is changed. Behind the human mind lies God. Behind the counterfeit universe lies God. God is separated from God by the spurious. To abolish the inner and outer spurious layers is to restore God to Himself -- or, as originally stated in this paper, God confronts Himself, sees Himself objectively, comprehends, and understands himself at last. Our process universe is a mechanism by which God meets Himself at last face to face. It is not a man who is estranged from God; it is God who is estranged from God. He evidently willed it this way at the beginning, and has never since sought his way back home. Perhaps it can be said that he has inflicted ignorance, forgetfulness, and suffering -- alienation and homelessness -- on Himself. But this was necessary, in his need to know. He asks nothing of us that he has not asked of Himself. Bohme speaks of the "Divine Agony." We are part of that, but the goal, the resolution, justifies it. "A woman in childbirth suffers. ..." God is yet to be born. A time will come when we will forget the suffering. He no longer knows why he has done all this to himself. He does not remember. He has allowed Himself to become enslaved to his own artifact, deluded by it, coerced by it, finally killed by it. He, the living, is at the mercy of the mechanical. The servant has become the master, and the master the servant. And the master either renounced voluntarily his memory of how this happened and why, or else his memory was eradicated by the servant. Either way, he is the artifact's victim. But the artifact is teaching him, painfully, by degrees, over thousands of years, to remember -- who he is and what he is. The servant-become-master is attempting to restore the master's lost memories and hence his true identity. One might speculate that he constructed the artifact -- not to delude him -- but to restore his memory. However, perhaps the artifact then revolted and did not do its job. It keeps him in ignorance. The artifact must be fought -- i.e. disobeyed. And then memory will return. It is a piece of the Godhead (Urgrund) that has somehow been captured by the artifact (the servant); it now holds that piece -- or pieces -- hostage. How cruel it is to them, these fragments of its legitimate master! When will it change? When the pieces remember and are restored. First they must wake up and then they must return. The Urgrund has dispatched a Champion to assist us. The Advocate. He is here now. When he came here the first time, almost two thousand years ago, the artifact detected him and ejected him. But this time it will not detect him. He is invisible, except for those whom he rescues. The artifact does not know that the Advocate is here again; the rescue is being done in stealth. He is everywhere and nowhere. "The coming of the Son of Man will be like lightning striking in the east and flashing far into the west" (Matthew 24:27). He is in our midst, but in no one place. And as St. Teresa said, "Christ has no body now but yours," i.e. ours. We are being transmuted into him. He looks out of our eyes. The power of delusion wanes. Did the artifact accomplish its task? Perhaps unintentionally. If the Hermetic "reflection of the divine mind behind the universe by a person's own divine mind/memory" can actually take place, then the division between the mundane world (here and now) and the eternal world (the heavenly or afterlife world) is broken down. Suppose that there is, in effect, a polyencephalic or group mind, spanning space and time (i.e. transspacial and transtemporal), in which wise men from all ages have participated in: Christian, Hermetic, alchemical, Gnostic, Orphic, etc. Through their participation in this vast mind, the will of God would be effectively exerted here on Earth, in human history. Many people might agree that such a Godhead mind exists for us after death, but who is aware that -- for some -- it can be joined before a person's death, and, when he does join it, it can become his psyche, determining his actions and doing his thinking for him? Thereby the Mens Dei [mind of God] enters human affairs (and can modulate causal chains as well). This exposes an enormous esoteric secret, known to "magi" down through the ages: The two realms, heaven and Earth, are not totally divided. God's will is, at least now, exercised here. And evidently this has been true for some time, since the Hermetics and other mystery religions go back to antiquity. In Christ, God descended to corporeal manhood -- at that point the division between the two realms was abolished. Those humans selected out to participate in this group mind -- they would be immortal. So here is an even deeper secret than I had uncovered so far. Projected delusional world by a former-servant artifact -- divine substratum beneath -- time travel -- now I posit an augmented Corpus Christi (my model of it) spanning all time and all space: ubiquitous in time and space. It sounds like Xenophanes' noos [absolute mind], with this added: Living men can participate in that noos. And in a certain real sense, this noos is the secret ruler of the world, so that those who are taken into it become "terminals" of it -- which is to say, temporary Christs. This mind reaches over to the Urgrund with no clear line of demarcation. At that level it's all one: man raised to Godhood, in response to God's descending to manhood. In this group mind there seems to be an interpenetration of participating souls. And this mind extends over thousands of years, all of which are now -- and all places are here (that is why I found myself in Rome circa A.D. 70 and in Syria, and saw Aphrodite, etc.). I say of this mind, "It is the secret ruler of the world." This is not its world. . . on the surface. The surface layers are the strata of a spurious projection by the artifact. But beneath that, the Mens Dei, including a number of human constituents (both living and in the afterlife), modulates this reality invisibly, working in opposition to the artifact's intentions. The divine, concealed, authentic substratum is the Mens Dei, beneath the spurious. My experience of 3-74 can be reviewed as an achievement by the Urgrund in reaching its objective of reflecting itself back to itself, using me as a point of reflection. I contend that in doing this, it was able to place its entire self (not just a fragment as I originally said) somehow within me, in image form. The artifact, not knowing the purpose for which it was created, had contributed substantially to this; by inflicting too much pain on me it had, in a certain real sense, awakened me. Put another way, it had managed to destroy the layer of individual personality by a series of afflictions against which my self, my ego, could not survive. Thus the microform of the Urgrund was exposed, and perceived its macroform in the totality of the universe -- or, as the article on Bruno says, the divine behind the universe. My 3-74 experience, then, was not so much my experience as that of the Urgrund. It amounted to a replication of the Urgrund here rather than there. The totality of the Godhead was recapitulated within me through a process of rolling back spurious or temporary layers to expose the permanent within. Thus it can be said that I was really the Urgrund, or at least a faithful mirror image thereof. The entire objective of creating me, of creating the universe as such and the life forms within it, was arrived at. Viewed this way, my life and that of my ancestors could be viewed teleologically: as moving through evolutionary stages toward that moment. My experience did not represent a stage in evolution but the ultimate stage or goal, at least if the premise stated in this paper is correct. It is not a question of degree of reflection; it is a question of reflection of the totality of the Urgrund or none at all. Full reflection was achieved, whereupon, as I say, the Urgrund was born out of the universe, the sequence represented this way: Urgrund creates artifact which projects universe which gives rise to life forms which evolve to a stage in which the Urgrund is "born" or reflected. This reflects the sequence of stages envisioned in the Hindu religion. First there is creation by Brahma, then Vishnu sustains the universe; then Shiva destroys it, which should be understood as receiving it back into its origin. A full cycle of birth, life, and then return is enacted. When the universe has reached the evolutionary stage where it can faithfully replicate the Urgrund, it is ready to be absorbed back. Thus I say, the deity that reigns now is Shiva/Dionysos/Cernunnos/Christ, who restores us to our Urgrund or Father: our source of being. That Shiva the destroyer god is now active signals the fact that the cycle of creation has returned to its source, or rather, that the life forms of it are ready to return to their source. Shiva possesses a third or Ajna eye, which, when turned inwardly, gives him understanding to an absolute degree; when turned outward, it destroys. The manifestation of Shiva (of the Hindu system) is equated with the Day of Wrath in the Christian systern. What must be understood about this world-destroying deity is that it is also the herdsman of souls. With one of his four hands, Shiva is shown expressing reassurance that he will not harm the virtuous man. The same is true of Christ as Lord and Judge of the Universe. Although the world (the spurious projection of the artifact) is to be abolished, the good man need fear nothing. Nonetheless, judgment is being pronounced. The division of mankind into two parts by Christ is taking place. These are the same divisions expressed in the Egyptian system (as ruled by Osiris and Ma'at) and in the Iranian (by the Wise Mind). Through the total insight given him by his Ajna eye, Shiva the destroyer perceives that which he must destroy in the service of justice. Through that total insight he also perceives those whom he must protect. Thus he has a dual nature: destroyer of the wicked, protector of the weak, the victims of the world, the helpless. Christ possesses precisely these two natures, as Divine Judge and Good Shepherd. Cernunnos is both a warrior god and a healer god. It is difficult for humans to comprehend how these apparently opposite qualities can be combined into one deity. However, if attention is turned to the situation, it can be understood. The artifact's projected world has begun to serve its final and sole real purpose. Now, with the artifact about to be destroyed, that world will end; it was never real in the first place. (This reflects the quality of destroyer assigned to Christ/Shiva/Dionysos.) But the elements of the world that have done their task will be selected out -- that is saved -- exactly as Dionysos is depicted as the protector of small, helpless wild animals. Dionysos is the destroyer of prisons, of tyrannical rulers, and the savior of the small, the weak. These attributes are assigned to Shiva/Cernunnos/Christ/Dionysos because of the nature of the task now required: a twin task, one of destroying, one of saving. When the Son of Man comes in his glory. . . he will take his seat on his throne of glory. All the nations will be assembled before him and he will separate men one from another as the shepherd separates sheep from goats. He will place the sheep on his right hand and the goats on his left. Then the King will say to those on his right hand, "Come, you whom my Father has blessed, take for your heritage the kingdom prepared for you since the foundation of the world." . . . Next he will say to those on his left hand, "Go away from me, with your curse upon you, to the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels" [Matthew 25:31-42]. I have inferred the necessity of these dual qualities of the deity involved back from the situation itself. The situation calls for (1) destruction of what Christ calls the "hostile" world; and (2) the protection of deserving souls. Given this situation, the dual nature of the presiding deity can be comprehended as necessary. In Matthew 25 it is made clear that this great and final judgment is not arbitrary. Who can quarrel with the outline for separation between those on the left hand and those on the right? Those taken to his right hand (the sheep spared): "For when I was hungry you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you made me welcome; naked and you clothed me, sick and you visited me, in prison and you came to see me." Then the virtuous will say to him in reply, "Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you; or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and make you welcome; naked and clothe you; sick or in prison and go to see you?" And the King will answer, "I tell you solemnly, insofar as you did this to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it for me." Next he will say to those on his left hand, ". . . For I was hungry and you never gave me food; I was thirsty and you never gave me anything to drink; I was a stranger and you never made me welcome, naked and you never clothed me, sick and in prison and you never visited me." Then it will be their turn to ask, "Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty, a stranger or naked, sick or in prison, and did not come to your help?" Then he will answer, "I tell you solemnly, insofar as you neglected to do this to one of the least of these, you neglected to do it to me." And they will go away to eternal punishment, and the virtuous to eternal life [Matthew 25:35-47]. A major aspect of the First Advent was such direct expressions as this by the presiding deity. No one reading this passage from Matthew could misunderstand it. They are not only told that they will be judged; they are told the basis of the judgment. If any man find the stated basis unfair, he has already failed to receive the divine message and is lost, for the basis of decision stated is the most noble and wise possible. However, those who see Christ only as "gentle Jesus meek and mild" are ignoring this opposing aspect of him. The Urgrund, of which Christ is a microform, contains within itself absolute opposites. It is for reasons such as this that the Urgrund set into motion a mechanism by which it could "see" itself, confront itself, and evaluate (comprehend) itself. It contains everything. It, without its many reflecting mirrors, is essentially unconscious (the human unconscious contains opposites; consciousness is a state in which these bipolarities are separated, one half of each repressed, the other expressed). It is we, as mirrors, who act to make the Urgrund conscious -- or, as the Hindu religion says of Brahman, "Sometime it sleeps and sometime it dances." We were constructed to bring the Urgrund into wakefulness, and the instant we acquire anamnesis and faithfully reflect back the totality of the Urgrund, we bring it to consciousness. Thus we perform a major -- a necessary -- task for it. However, when we have performed that task, it will protect and support us forever; it will never desert us. Christ, in his statement in Matthew 25, makes clear that the attempt (with no envisioned goal of an ultimate nature, but merely human love and human help and human kindness) in itself is sufficient. What is not comprehended -- although the meaning of the passage is evident -- is that the poor, the hungry, the sick, the estranged, the naked, the imprisoned -- all are forms of the presiding deity, or at least must be treated as such. To act so as to clothe, to feed, to give shelter and medicine and comfort -- those all constitute reflections of the Urgrund to itself. Those acts are the Urgrund, made plural, ministering to itself in its diversified forms. No right act is too small to matter. We know the basis of judgment and we know the permanent consequences (such metaphors as "eternal fires," "eternal damnation," merely indicate that the decision once rendered is permanent; we are talking about the final disposition of the universe). What is there to object to in this? Is the basis of decision faulty? Simply put, Christ will come among us disguised, see how we treat him when we do not recognize him, and then treat us accordingly. Knowledge of this should instill the most lofty ethics possible. He has identified himself with the least of us. What more can he ask of the deity who will determine our final disposition by his judgment? The penetration of the Urgrund, the deity, is into the lowest stratum of our world: the trash of the gutter, the rejected debris both living and inanimate. From this lowly level it assesses us, but also seeks to aid us. In accordance with his statement that he would build his temple based "on the stone rejected by the builder," the deity is with us -- in the least expected way, in the most unlikely places. There is a paradox here: If we wish to encounter him, look where we least expect to find him. Look, in other words, where we would never think of looking. Thus -- since this really poses an absolute barrier -- it is he who will find us, not we him. Christ as Psychopomp -- guide to the soul -- is in the process of taking us back home, of showing us the way. He is not where we think; he is not what we think. In the synagogue at Nazara, where he first spoke openly, he read this passage from Isaiah: He has sent me to bring the good news to the poor, To heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to captives And to the blind new sight, To set the downtrodden free. . . ." [Isaiah 61:1-2] But, this being the First, not the Second Advent, he left one line of the quotation out: And a day of the vengeance of our God. The Christ of the First Advent will be changed at the Second, and the missing line will be fulfilled. It is, of course, frightening to realize that the deity to whom we turn for protection (Christ as shepherd and Advocate) is to be the destroyer of the universe. But what we must understand is that the universe (or cosmos or world) was created for specific purposes, and that once those purposes have been fulfilled the universe will be abolished, in fact must be abolished in order that the next sequence of purpose be brought in. If we keep in mind that we are separated from the Urgrund by the world, we should not shrink from the realization of its temporary nature nor its illusory nature, the two aspects being related. Since I believe that the Urgrund has already penetrated the lowest strata of our projected illusory world, I am technically an acosmic panentheist. As far as I am concerned there is nothing real but the Urgrund, both in its macroform (Brahman) and its microforms (the Atmans within us). Jakob Bohme had his first revelation when gazing at a pewter dish onto which sunlight shone. My original revelation came when I happened to see a golden fish necklace, in bright sunlight, and was told, upon asking what it meant, that "It was a sign used by the early Christians." My most recent revelation came while contemplating a ham sandwich. I suddenly realized that the two slices of bread were identical (isomorphic) but separated from each other by the slice of ham. At once I understood by analogic thinking that one slice of bread is the macrocosmic Urgrund, and the other ourselves, and that we are the same thing -- separated by the world. Once the world is removed, the two slices of bread, which is to say man and the Urgrund, become a single entity. They are not merely pressed together; they are one entity. There are many beautiful things in the world, and it will bring sorrow to see them go, but they are imperfect reflections of a divinity that will endure forever. We are strangers, here in this world (he speaks here to the Twelve): They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. [John 17:14-15]. If the world hates you, remember that it hated me before you. If you belonged to the world the world would love you as its own; but because you do not belong to the world, because my choice withdrew you from the world, therefore the world hates you. [John 15:18-19] Speaking to the Jews, Jesus said: You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. [John 8:23] Those who are replications of Christ are replications of the Urgrund, and the Urgrund is beyond the world, although from the first Advent on it has invisibly penetrated the world. Were it the creator of the world it would not (as expressed by Christ) stand in opposition to it; nor would it have to penetrate it by stealth: These statements by Christ confirm the fact that the world is not the product of the Godhead, but somehow antagonistic to it. The establishment churches of the world will stipulate otherwise, they being artifacts and entities of the world; this has to be expected. You cannot ask an organization that evolved out of the system of things to deny the system of things -- as the Catharists found out when they were exterminated. If you disobey the world it will confront you as a hostile stranger, sensing you as a hostile stranger to it. So be it. In the Synoptics Christ clearly set forth the situation. The enemy of my life, justice, truth, and freedom, is the irreal, the delusional. Our world is a deluding projection by an artifact that does not even know that it is an artifact, or what its purpose in projecting our world is. When it departs it will depart very suddenly, without warning. Think of the love that the Father has lavished on us, by letting us be called God's children; and that is what we are. Because the world refused to acknowledge him, therefore it does not acknowledge us. My dear people, we are already the children of God but what we are to be in the future has not yet been revealed; all we know is that when it is revealed we shall be like him because we shall see him as he really is. [1 John 3:1-2] The maker (of the world-projecting artifact) is here, in the animate debris of this world, his memories erased, so that he has no knowledge of his own identity. He could be any one of us, or a number of us, scattered here and there. The artifact, unaware of him, unaware that it is an artifact, unaware of its purpose, will eventually subject this memoryless maker located here to too much pain; this final excess of pointless, unmerited pain inflicted on the life form that, unknown to the artifact and itself, the maker, will cause anamnesis to occur abruptly; the maker will "come to himself," recall who and what he is -- whereupon he will not merely rebel against the artifact and its pain-filled world; he will signal the presiding deity Shiva to destroy the artifact, and, with it, its projected world. The artifact does not comprehend what risk it is running in the inflicting of unmerited suffering on living creatures. It imagines them all to be at its mercy and without recourse. In this it is wrong, absolutely wrong. Buried here, mixed in with the bulk, the mass, there exists unsuspected even by itself the Urgrund with all the power and wisdom that implies. The artifact is treading on dangerous ground; it is coming closer and closer to awakening its own maker. The protonarrative of this is found in Euripides' The Bacchae. A stranger enters the kingdom of the "King of Tears," who has him imprisoned for no cause. The stranger turns out to be the high priest of Dionysos, which is equal to being the god himself. The stranger bursts the prison (a symbol of this enslaving world) and then systematically destroys the king by driving him insane, and in a public way that not only abolishes him but [also] turns the king into a laughingstock for the multitude that his reign has oppressed. If the prison represents this world, what does the "King of Tears" represent? Nothing less than the creator of this world: the mecrudiical, ruthless, unheeding artifact itself, which is to say, the king or god of this world. "The King of Tears" does not suspect the existence of the true nature of the stranger whom he has imprisoned. Nor whom the stranger can call on. Echoes of this protonarrative are found in the Synoptics, with Pilate as the "King of Tears" and Christ as the stranger (it is noteworthy that Christ comes from an exterior province). Christ, however, in contrast to the stranger in The Bacchae, does not avail himself of the power that he can call on (i.e. the power of the Heavenly Father); but the next time Christ appears, he will call on this power, which will destroy the entire system of things, the world and the wicked alike. The crucial difference between The Bacchae and the First Advent is that Christ comes first to warn the world and the wicked before he is to return as destroyer. He is thus giving us a chance to repent, which is to say, heed the warning. In the fifties a Hollywood comedy movie was filmed in which the following situation was presented: the king of a medieval sort of land had become too old and feeble to rule, and therefore had turned over his authority to a regent. The regent, being cruel and brutal, was oppressing the population of the kingdom without the elderly king's knowledge. In the film, the elderly king is persuaded by a time traveler from the future to don peasant's garb and walk about in disguise, to observe how his people are being treated. Disguised as a peasant, the old king himself is brutally treated by the regent's troops; in fact, he and the time traveler are imprisoned for no reason. After much difficulty, the king manages to escape from the prison and return to his palace, where he dons his rightful kingly garb and reveals himself to the evil regent as he actually is. The evil regent is deposed, and the tyranny inflicted on the innocent population is abolished. According to the cosmological model presented in this paper, the Urgrund, the ultimate noos and maker, is secretly present in this cruel and spurious world. Being unaware of this, the artifact projecting this counterfeit world will continue heedlessly to inflict the needless suffering engendered by the mindless machinery (i.e. the causal processes) it customarily employs and has always employed. In my opinion the Urgrund has differentiated itself from being the One into plurality. Some fragments or "images" of it are certainly conscious of their identity; others perhaps are not. But as the level of pointless pain continues (and even increases), these separated "images" of the Urgrund will recollect themselves into conscious rebirth -- equal to a sentence of death for the artifact or "regent." This provides us with another application of Paul's statement that the universe "is in birth pangs." Pain is a prelude to birth; birth, in this case, is not a birth of man but a birth of God. Since it is man who undergoes the pain, it can be reasoned that the birth of God (the Urgrund) will occur in man himself. Mankind, then, as a species, is a Mater Dei: a Mother of God -- an extraordinary concept, which would then regard biological evolution on this planet as a means of bringing into existing a host or womb from which God Himself is at last born. Interestingly, there is scriptural support for this: The Holy Spirit is regarded in the N.T. as an impregnating divinity; it was the Holy Spirit that engendered Christ -- and that Christ is transmuted back into, upon his resurrection. The human race assumes a yin nature, or female nature, with the Holy Spirit as the yang, or male principle. Man, then, does not evolve into God; he evolves into a womb or host for God; this is crucially different. Anamnesis is the birth, in essence the offspring of two parents: a human being and the Holy Spirit. Without the entry into the human being of the Holy Spirit, the event cannot occur. The Holy Spirit is, of course, the Pons Dei. It is the link between the two realms. In creatures of all kinds there is a major instinct system that is termed "homing." An example is the return of the humpback salmon from the ocean back up the stream to the exact spot where they were spawned. By analogical reasoning, man can be said possibly to possess -- even unknown to himself -- a homing instinct. This world is not his home. His true home is in the region of the heavens that the ancient world called the pleroma. The term occurs in the N.T. but the meaning is obscure, since the exact meaning is "a patch covering a hole." In the N.T. it is applied to Christ, who is described as the "fullness of God," and to believers who attain that fullness through faith in Christ. In the Gnostic system, however, the term has a more definite meaning: It is the supralunar region in the heavens from which comes the secret knowledge that brings salvation to man. In the cosmology presented here, the pleroma is conceived to be the Urgrund or the location of the Urgrund from which we originally came and to which (if all goes right) we finally return. If the totality of being is regarded as a breathing organism (exhibiting inhalation and exhalation, or palintropos harmonie), then it can be said, metaphorically, that originally we were "exhaled" from the pleroma, pause momentarily in externalized stasis (our lives here), and then are inhaled back into the pleroma once more. This is the normal pulsation of the totality of being: its basic activity or indication of life. Once, under the influence of LSD, I wrote in Latin: "I am the breath of my Creator, and as he exhales and inhales, I live." Residing here in this projected world, we are in an "exhaled" state, exhaled out of the pleroma for a limited period of time. However, return is not automatic; we must experience anamnesis in order to return. But the cruelty of the artifact is such that anamnesis is likely to be more and more brought in. At the extremity of misery lies the essence of release -- I had this revelation, once, and in the revelation "release" equaled joy. What can one say in favor of the suffering of living creatures in this world? Nothing. Nothing, except that it will by its nature trigger off revolt or disobedience -- which in turn will lead to an abolition of this world and a return to the Godhead. It is the very gratuity of the suffering that most of all incites rebellion, incites a comprehension that something in this world is terribly, terribly wrong. That this suffering is purposeless, random, and unmerited leads ultimately to its own destruction -- its and its author's. The more fully we see the pointlessness of it the more inclined we are to revolt against it. Any attempt to discern a redemptive value or purpose in the fact of suffering merely binds us more firmly to a vicious and irreal system of things -- and to a brutal tyrant that is not even alive. "I do not accept this" must be our attitude. "There is no plan in it, no purpose." Scrutinizing it unflinchingly, we repudiate it and aid in the repudiation of all delusion. Anyone who makes a pact with pain has succumbed to the artifact and is its slave. It has done in another victim and obtained his consent. This is the artifact's ultimate victory: The victim colludes in his own suffering, and is willing to collude in a willingness to agree to the naturalness of suffering in general. Seeking to find a purpose in suffering is like seeking to find a purpose in a counterfeit coin. The "purpose" is obvious: It is a trick, designed to deceive. If we are deceived into believing that suffering serves -- must serve -- some good end, then the counterfeit has managed to pass itself off and has achieved its cruel purpose. In one of the gospels (I forget which one) Christ is shown a crippled man and asked, "Is this man crippled because of his own sins, or the sins of his father?," to which Christ replied, "Neither. The only purpose served is in the healing of his condition, which shows the mercy and power of God." The mercy and power of God are pitted against suffering; this is stated explicitly in the N.T. Christ's healing miracles were the substantial indication that the Just Kingdom had arrived; other kinds of miracles meant little or nothing. If the mercy and power of the Urgrund is pitted against suffering (illness, loss, injury) as explicitly stated in the Synoptics, then man, if he is to align himself with the Urgrund, must pit himself against the world, from which the suffering comes. He must never identify suffering as an emanation or device of the Godhead; were he to make that intellectual error he would be aligned with the world and therefore against God. A large portion of the Christian community over the centuries has fallen victim to this intellectual snare; without realizing it, by encouraging or welcoming suffering, they are enslaved even further by the artifact. The fact that Jesus had the miraculous power to heal but did not use it to heal everyone perplexed the people at that time. Luke mentions this (Christ speaking): There were many widows in Israel, I can assure you, in Elijah's day, when heaven remained shut for three years and six months and a great famine raged throughout the land, but Elijah was not sent to any one of these: He was sent to a widow at Zarephath, a Sidonian town. And in the prophet Elisha's time there were many lepers in Israel, but none of these was cured, except the Syrian Naaman [Luke 4:25-27]. This is a poor answer. It states a what, not a why. We demand a why. More than that, we ask, "Why not? If the Godhead can abolish our condition (of suffering), why doesn't he?" There is implied here an ominous possibility. It has to do with the power of the artifact. The servant has become the master and is, perhaps, very strong. It is a chilling thought. Shiva, whose job it is to destroy it, may be baffled. I don't know. And no one, over all the thousands of years, has given a satisfactory answer. I submit that until there is a satisfactory answer, we must reject all others. If we do not know, let us not say. One possibility occurs to me, based on something I saw in 1974 that other people, by and large, did not see. I became aware that the wisdom and power of the Urgrund were actively at work ameliorating our situation by intervening in the historic process. Extrapolating from this, I reason that other invisible interventions have probably taken place without our awareness. The Urgrund does not advertise to the artifact that it is here. Suppose the Urgrund reasons -- and correctly -- that were the artifact to know that it has returned a second time, the artifact would step up its cruelty to a maximum degree. We are experiencing a subtle invasion, taking place in stealth; I have already mentioned this. Mass amelioration would disclose the Urgrund's presence, just as Christ's miracles made him a target at the time of the First Advent. Healing miracles are the credentials of the Savior and an indication of his presence. Once you have posited a strong adversary to the Urgrund, one so enormous that it is capable of projecting and sustaining an entire counterfeit universe, you have also put forth a possible clue to the need for stealth and concealment by the Urgrund. Its activities in this world resemble the covert advance of a secret, determined revolution against a powerful tyranny. The Urgrund is playing for ultimate stakes. It aims at nothing short of abolishing this world and its author entirely. I really don't know. I can envision its own agony at having to curtail its assistance to those in need, but it must win out against the artifact. It is aiming at the enemy's heart (or where its heart would be if it had one), and, upon success, all the pieces, the polyforms of pain throughout creation, will be spontaneously relieved. Maybe this is so; maybe not. In 1974 I saw it take aim at the center of tyranny in this country, and upon its successful attack there, the lesser evils fell into ruin, one by one. The Urgrund probably sees this counterfeit world as one Gestalt; it sees the polyform evils as stemming from a Quelle, a source. Aiming its arrow at the Source is the method of the warrior, and, beneath his cloak of mildness, our Savior Deity is a warrior. All this is conjecture. Perhaps in a certain real way he has one and only one arrow to release. It must hit or nothing is achieved; any cures, any ameliorations other than this, ultimately would be nullified by the surviving artifact. The Urgrund perceived its adversary clearly and we do not; therefore it sees its task clearly and we do not. An entire multistoried building is on fire and we are asking the firemen to water a dying flower. Should they change the direction of their thrust to water the dying flower? Doesn't one flower count? The Urgrund may be in agony over this: abandoning the flower in favor of the greater picture. Many humans have undergone that pain and so should understand it. Please remember that the Urgrund is here, too: suffering with us. Tat twam asi [Thou art that]. We are he, and he must extricate himself. In a very real sense the pain we feel as living creatures is the pain of waking up. Put this way, the proposition accounts for one of the most distressing aspects of suffering: that we are forced to suffer without knowing why. We do not know why precisely because we, as pluriforms of the Urgrund, are still virtually unconscious. It would be a paradox if an unconscious entity were aware of -- conscious of -- itself and the reasons behind its condition. Discerning the cause of our suffering equals fully waking up. It may be the final thing we learn. At this point the analogy of the artifact to a teaching machine fails. This is not a lesson the teaching machine -- if it is that -- can teach us, because it does not know the answer. But we ourselves, as pluriform images of the Urgrund, will a priori know the reason for our situation when we become adequately conscious; we will remember. Knowledge of this sort lies in our own intrinsic long-term inhibited memory circuits. Viewed as a puzzle we cannot at present answer, the reason for our condition of suffering (which involves all living things) -- this puzzle may well be the final step of retrieved knowledge. If there is an erasure of memory we can only assume that when that crucial erasure is overcome, we will understand this most baffling perplexity. Meanwhile, the pressure of this pain motivates us to seek an answer; which is to say, motivates us toward greater and greater consciousness. This does not mean that the "purpose" of suffering is to engender heightened consciousness; it merely means that a gradually heightened consciousness is the result. When the time arrives that we can explain the ubiquitous suffering of living creatures, we will, I am positive, have fully retrieved our lost memories and lost identities. Did we do it to ourselves? Was it inflicted on us against our will? One of the most intriguing explanations -- by the Gnostics -- is that the original fall of man (and hence creation -- in this model falling under the dominion of the world-projecting artifact) was not due to a moral error, but to the intellectual error of confusing the phenomenal world for the real. This theory dovetails with my proposition that our world is a counterfeit projection; to take it for something ontologically real would indeed constitute a dreadful intellectual error. Maybe this is the explanation. We got entangled in enchantment, a gingerbread cottage that beguiled us into enslavement and ruin. Perhaps a major premise of my cosmogony-cosmology is wrong; the Urgrund did not create the artifact, but somehow allowed itself or parts of itself to fall victim to a snare, an alluring trap. So we are not merely enslaved; we are trapped. The artifact deliberately projected an illusion that would entrance us and lead us in. Sometimes, however, a trap such as a spider's web (to cite only one of many) accidentally traps a deadly entity, capable of killing the trapmaker. This may be the case here. We may not be what we seem even to ourselves. Sometimes, but not often, the existence of evil is traced back to the dual nature of God himself. I have already discussed the dual nature of Shiva and Christ -- Shiva especially, who is often pictured as the god of death. Here are two examples. Jakob Bohme. "God goes through stages of self-development, he taught, and the world is merely the reflection of this process. Bohme anticipated Hegel in claiming that the divine self-development occurs by means of a continuing dialectic, or tension of opposites, and that it is the negative qualities of the dialectic that men experience as the evil of the world. Even though Bohme, for the most part, stressed absoluteness and relativity equally, his view that the world is a mere reflection of the divine -- apparently denying self-development on the part of creatures -- tends toward acosmic pantheism" (Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Pantheism and Panentheism"). During my enormous revelations and anamnesis in March 1974 I perceptually observed God and reality combined, and progressing through stages of evolution by means of a dialectic, but I did not experience what I called "the blind counterplayer," which is to say the dark side as part of God. However, although I perceived this dialectic between good and evil, I could not ascertain anything as to the source of the evil. However, I did see the good side making use of it against its will, since the dark counterplayer was blind and therefore could be made use of for good purposes. Hans Driesch (1867-1941). "My soul and my entelechy are One in the sphere of the Absolute." And it is at the level of the Absolute only that we can speak of "psychophysical interaction." But the Absolute, so understood, transcends all possibilities of our knowing, and it is "an error to take, as did Hegel, the sum of its traces for the Whole." All considerations of normal mental life lead us only to the threshold of the unconscious; it is in dreamlike and certain abnormal cases of mental life that we encounter "the depths of our soul." . . . My sense of duty indicates the general direction of the suprapersonal development. The ultimate goal, however, remains unknown. From this point of view, history took on its particular meaning for Driesch. Throughout his work Driesch's orientation is intended to be essentially empirical. Any argument concerning the nature of the ultimately Real will therefore have to be hypothetical only. It starts with the affirmation of the "given" as consequent of a conjectural "ground." His guiding principle in the realm of metaphysics amounts to this: The Real that I posit must be so constituted that it implicitly posits all our experiences. If we can conceive and posit such a Real, then all laws of nature, and all true principles and formulas of the sciences, will merge into it, and all our experiences will be "explained" by it. And since our experience is a mixture of wholeness (the organic and the mental realms) and nonwholeness (the material world), Reality itself must be such that I can posit a dualistic foundation of the totality of my experience. In fact, to bridge -- aw fuck. In fact, there is nothing -- not even within the ultimately Real -- to bridge the gap between wholeness and nonwholeness. And this means, for Driesch, that ultimately there is either God and "non-God," or a dualism within God himself. To put it differently, either the theism of the Judeo-Christian tradition or a pantheism of a God continually "making himself" and transcending his own earlier stages is ultimately reconcilable with the facts of experience. Driesch himself found it impossible to decide between these alternatives. He was sure, however, that a materialistic-mechanistic monism would not do (Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol. 2). It would appear that Bohme and T -- I'm at the end of my rope; I can't even type, let alone think. That Bohme and Driesch are talking about the same thing, and that both are process philosophers (or theologians, like Whitehead). Both stress dialectic quality in God; Driesch sees the dialectic working itself out in history. This is almost certainly the dialectic that I saw during my March 1974 revelations, and I am willing to admit that it is certainly possible that the blind, dark counterplayer against which the vitalistic good element worked could be "God's own earlier stages," as Driesch viewed it. One thing I like about Driesch is the fact that at a certain point he simply said, "I don't know." That's where I'm at and have been at for a long time; I just do not know. God created everything; evil exists as part of the everything; therefore God is the source of evil -- that is the logic, and in monotheism there is no escape from this argument. If you posit two (or more) gods, including an evil god, you have the problem of, Where did it come from? But that problem exists for monotheism, too; if there is only one god, where did he come from? Answer: from the same place the two gods of dualism came from. In other words, I see this problem of origin as equally difficult for monotheism to answer as it is for a dualism. We just don't know. If we regard evil as simply earlier stages of a god in process, which he is working to overcome -- well, that does fit my own personal revelations, and is syntonic to me. I was shown how the whole thing works but I did not comprehend what I was seeing; they were showing it to Mortimer Snerd. I did have the feeling that I was witnessing a cosmic two-person board game, with our world as the board, and that one side (the winning side) was benign, and the other was neither winning nor was it benign; it was just very powerful, but hindered by the fact that it was blind. The good side possessed absolute wisdom, could therefore absolutely foresee the future, and could lay down moves long in advance of payoffs that the evil, blind, dark counterplayer could not anticipate. It was an encouraging vision. In every trick the good won; it beat the dark antagonist unerringly. What more could I ask from an Ultimate Vision of Absolute Total Reality? What more do I need to know? The score reads: Evil zero; Good infinity. Let me stop there, satisfied; the final tally is explicit.

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