[p. 13 - Q-1]

There are two absolutely brilliant correct guesses in “Valis”: now it seems they are (1) true; and (2) decisive.

1) All the saviors—even Gods—are the same person—“the immortal one”—who returns again and again and again, who uses the human—e.g. Elijah, Jesus—as a host but leaves him “and is never killed or caught.” And in some sense “we are that immortal man.”

2) Spurious time. “Real time stopped.” In connection with this I now say that real time has started up again, and hinting that it did so in 1974 because Armageddon took place and was won.

3) In connection with real time resuming, I should add the Empire, which is conceived of as having secretly ruled for millennia but invisibly and which was dealt “a decisive defeat” in 1974. Thus it would seem as if I am saying that Armageddon took place and was won by what I call “the forces of light.” And now the savior comes.Item #2, spurious time, is a necessary concept if the eternal horizontal tracking

and retracking is to be understood. Hence counterfeit time is the instrument by which the prison is maintained.—

I’m sorry; I’m doing another enantiodromia and I know it. Valis is YHWH (hence the dangerous radiation, “the carrier”). Here’s what: When I looked up photo to reread about φιλανθροπια (my giving to Covenant House was this, and hence in accord with the Torah, YHWH’s law) I discovered that my “vertical spatial axis, the pulley of rope net that

[p. 14 - Q-2]

suddenly lifts you up” is an exact description—literally exact—of Philo’s idea of pronoia, how YHWH governs the world directly. Before Philo, pronoia was equated with the regular causal laws—e.g. the Stoics equated pronoia and heimarmene. But for Philo, God intervenes by miracle on the behalf of “deserving persons for their safety or welfare by suspending natural causal law.” I had forgotten that my “pulley” hypnopompic vision incuded my reading “the Guide to the Perplexed,” and that God (YHWH) had found me “to be a worthy and pious man”—and that I saw myself—not as I normally do—but as he sees me. And Philo fully accepted Plato’s Forms doctrine; Philo’s λογος was “the pace of the Forms, the ‘Kosmos Noetos,’ an ‘intelligible world.’” So it is all there in Philo!

1) Plato’s Forms doctrine.2) Philanthropia. (Derived from the Torah.)3) Pronoia as miraculous direct intervention as a contravening of natural law—i.e.

the “machinery of retribution.” Pronoia “for individuals deserved of it” which has to do with (2), as I construe it re “the pulley” vision.Note: the whole social justice kerygma of Sharia, that B. Krem speaks of re the

Maitreya is one sublime global φιλανθροπια: “Giving to—rendering aid to—those in need.” It is the moral basis of my life and it stems from the Torah. And since it stems from the Torah, YHWH is pointed to.

I don’t see how (if at all) Gnosticism can be fitted in with pronoia, esp. if pronoia is equated with the government

[p. 15 - Q-3]

of the world. By definition, the God of Gnosticism is transmundane, acosmic or even anticosmic and plays no role whatsoever in the government of the world. Now, pronoia in the sense of a suspension or overruling of regular natural law when it (the regular law) threatens the safety or welfare of a deserving individual, is part of the government of the world: any and all conceptions of pronoia involve the government of the world, either directly—as with Philo and his concept of miracle—or indirectly, as with the Greco-Roman view of pronoia and heimarmene being one and the same.

Also, I am told by revelation that the intervention of 2-3-74 (and it was intervention) was due to my own later act re Covenant House. But the transmundane Gnostic deity has no interest in Torah or/and social justice, and surely my act had to do with Torah and/or social justice, these stem from YHWH the Creator. If God is able to suspend natural law—if he is the God of providence—he is de facto active in the government of the world. He exerts his mercy, wisdom and power here.

Perhaps the key word is the Greek term used by the AI voice: Ditheon.(1) Not “Ditheism” but “Ditheon,” as in dialectic. This is Boehme’s God, and Schelling’s: God is a dialectic, with an irrational destrcutive will versus the “bright” or λογος side—and the latter always wins. 2-3-74 was the latter. The λογος.

(1) That is, it is one God (theon) but “di” (the dialectic). This

[p. 16 - Q-4]

term, then, revealed to me by the AI voice, is the crucial concept I need.

————————————————————————

[p. 19 - L-18]

I have it now:

Buckman Jason AlysClaudius Hamlet GertrudePentheus ZagreusPilate JesusTears JoyOld YoungUsurper Rightful kingTyrant Liberator

What is being studied? A usurper is on the throne. The rightful king (who is younger) appears as a madman, criminal or fool; he is mysterious; his nature and origins

are uncertain. He is arrested and tried. (I should say falsely arrested.) Interrogated by the old king (usurper). He is charged with a crime he did not commit. The resolution varies; sometimes he is acquitted and assumes the throne; sometimes he is killed. The white-haired old king on horseback may be the murdered father of the young man who is the rightful heir to the throne; he returns to seek justice: punishment of the usurper; the son placed on the throne. This story is told and retold. Why? What are we supposed to learn? That the ostensible ruling power of this world is illegitimate? The “King” is not in fact the true king? and the “fool” is not mad or a fool or a criminal but is the rightful king? My analysis: everything we see is a 180° mirror opposite of the truth. The ostensible “king” is not only not the true king, he also has no actual power: despite appearances

[p. 20 - L-19]

his power is illusory. All true power belongs to the “fool” who is the true king (vide “The Bacchae”). This is all some sort of play—which “Hamlet” very clearly alludes to. We are to guess the riddle: who is the true king? (And hence who really rules, i.e. who has power?). This strikes me as some sort of religious pageant or initiatory rite or ritual into a hidden truth deliberately concealed from the many. Only what are called “the elect” are let in on the true state of affairs. Who, then, qualifies as one of “the elect”? Perhaps one who before (i.e. without) knowing the truth, reveals his own true nature; that is, faced with a moral choice, even though he is deliberately misled as to the actual situation—that is, who holds power, who does not—he chooses correctly nonetheless. Once he has so chosen, the masks are dropped and the true state of affairs is revealed to him. Power—awesome and absolute—belongs to the “fool”; contrarily, the power of the pretend king is illusory: he only has seemed to possess the power to compel and punish. What the person has in effect done is test this ostensible power to compel and punish, by this correct moral choice.

If this analysis is correct, our world is in fact the Zoroastrian sifting bridge

[p. 21 - L-20]

or Ma’at and her feather. It is the dividing of the souls between the saved and the damned; viz.: “the court sat, and the books were opened”—which is to say, were reality seen clearly—when and if it is seen as it truly is—it is the apocalypse (Daniel, Revelation) here and now, but hidden, disguised. Hence, when the masks drop, the apocalyptic world of Daniel/Revelation is suddenly revealed to sight. King. Throne. What does this suggest in Xtian religious terms? Daniel and Revelation: the Ancient of Days, the eschatological judging. And does the Ancient of Days appear in “Tears”? Yes: in the dream.

So the solution is: our world is cryptically (stegenographically) an unending apocalypse, specifically the eschatological judging. And this is exactly what I saw (comprehended) in 2-3-74. (What I call the “Acts” world.) Christ, then, is somehow present, for it is he who judges. Did I see him in 3-74? Yes: as Valis. Is he in “Tears”? Yes, as the cypher, which is his living blood, the “plasmate.” Did I myself in fact perform a crucial right act, a specifically moral act? I am told yes: my giving to Covenant House

for the reasons I did. And what did this result in? The revelation of (1) the actual but hidden situation (i.e.

[p. 22 - L-21]

the masks were dropped) and an awesome display of the power, presence, the pronoia, of God, which saved me. I even saw my name entered in the Book of Life: the Lamb’s Book. And my actual literal physical life was long-extended; that is, the power of fate over me was broken, and I was given life instead of death, health instead of illness.

I have known since 3-74 that the truth about 3-74 lay in “Tears”; I think that at last I have figured it out. There is a secret and invisible kingdom here, 180° opposite to the ostensible world (what I call “coaxial realities working off a common essence”) and it holds the true power. Those who are judged to be Christ’s sheep are transferred there, as I was (what I call the PTG vs. the BIP). The cypher in Psalm 46 is part of the covert info traffic of this “other” coaxial kingdom coexisting with the ostensible one.

As I say, it is a court. And it judges. The white-haired old king on horseback in the dream in “Tears” is indubitably the eschatological judge. And he holds the keys to life and to death.

Restudied, the 2-74 meta-abstraction was not only an ultra cognitive act that led to a perception of the actual situation (in 3-74) but a full and utter perception of the two coaxial worlds right then and there—in one sudden total leap.

[p. 23 - L-22]

I saw that two 180° opposite worlds could coexist in the same space-time but that in fact they did—and more. I perceived the nature of the secret ones, opposite to the ostensible one. With all the value-signs reversed. This is the “realized eschatology[”] of John, I guess. Well, there is no getting around it; Christ has returned; the Parousia is here. And this is the topic—the common element—of all 3 books of the Valis trilogy. He is here; he rules; he judges—and we don’t see it because (as I say) there are the two (coaxial) worlds. And although he judges in this world, he rules visibly only in the other; here, in this one, we cannot distinguish him as I did; I saw him camouflaged. And transubstantiating the universe invisibly into himself. And—I said so, in Valis”?

Hence the statements by the AI voice, esp. the mention of St. Sophia. It all fits together, now: and it is the apocalypse.

Oh Dio—I just put together several extraordinary theological ideas. On 11-1 when I had that psychotic anxiety and had to have Tess and Christopher come over—I realized then that hell consisted of a state of absolute self-awareness of what you had done—forever; that is, you accused yourself and found yourself guilty—and then had to live with and as that guilty

[p. 24 - L-23]

self forever. Last night I dreamed about Harlan Ellison and realized that about him: he’d have to exist throughout all eternity with and as Harlan Ellison.

But now, suddenly, the significance of justification occurs to me; in the light of the above it assumes the absolute quality that Paul and the Reformers assigned to it. Justification is, as it were, the sole, the real, solution to—the saving you from—hell, precisely as Paul and the Reformers taught. Since hell as a state is absolute, and justification is absolute.

Well, this idea is not new or original but, rather, my first understanding of sin, hell, salvation, grace and justification! As orthodoxy regards all these. Justification saves the person who otherwise is doomed; he does not save himself (e.g. by good works): the power to save lies in God. Thus, if indeed it is the case that in 2-3-74 I was justified, then though my own conscience accuse me, I am not merely called justified but am, through God (God’s grace) saved in fact—I mean, justified in fact; I am changed through Christ. Jesus Christ, then, is paradigmatic of the saved/justified person, who was often called by the Reformers “a Christ” and I think correctly: it is almost a technical term, not just a compliment. So much more than pronoia and astral determinism was involved in 2-3-74; they were, but far beyond that lay justification stemming from the same source: charis: God’s saving grace.

If we are indeed here in this world, as I suspect, to be fashioned and shaped, to

[p. 25 - L-24]

become (our einai established forever) then justification is the finishing of this, the sudden perfecting, and is the logical outcome of what we are here for. God has judged, closed the books; the person has been made by God acceptable, in the twinkling of an eye. Now my statement that “PKD now (12-81) is very much what Thomas was in 3-74[”] suddenly tells me that it is all okay: Thomas was my justified, perfected self, and thus I evolve (thank God!) toward becoming him more and more: he was the future.

I do not believe that, once God has justified you, you can fall from that state, for it would mean God had erred. Since you are justified by God and not by your own good works, it follows that you can neither acquire nor lose that state by what you do. God has pronounced you justified and the books are closed. To think that justification by God through grace can be temporary or provisional is profoundly to misunderstand the absolute nature of justification. It is, then, in a sense to reject it and to reject, then, God. It was not acquired by merit; it cannot be lost by lack of merit. It is divine and total and everlasting; it is eschatological judgment and that is, by definition, the last judgment, as Paul calls it, “the last trumpet.” And I did see the world as the apocalypse, which serves to verify this contention. Time for me fulfilled itself in the form of eschatological judgment; I saw my name entered in the Lamb’s Book of Life. Those entries are eternal.

[p. 26 - L-25]

I guess this is why I saw world as the apocalypse: because I was under eschatological judgment. The two go together, are indeed one: judgment (justification) and the end times. I never realized this before.

I think my realization, here, that the justification—being the eschatological judgment—and my seeing the world as the apocalypse are two halves of a single whole—this is the utter comprehension of 2-3-74: the end times. Hence the Parousia: Christ as

eschatological judge, as time, for me, speeded up to infinity and then ran out, my name entered in the Lamb’s Book of Life, everything: realized eschatology, as in the Fourth Gospel. To speak, then, of justification without the apocalypse, or the apocalypse without the eschatological judgment (justification) and Christ as the judge—all parts must be understood. Yes, it is absolute, final judgment and cannot be reversed, added to or taken away from. Hence the crucial statement by the AI voice, “you have been adopted” plus the mention of my giving to Covenant House. It all adds up and it all makes sense and it all is based on charis: God’s grace. I know what I saw and, more importantly, why (the “why” is the justification, and this in turn is linked to pronoia).

Then when the bedroom lit up with the pale white light everywhere—Death came for me, but Christ in the form of Pinky sacrificed himself in my place, and I was spared. This is why I saw Pinky as the crucified Christ.

[p. 27 - L-26]

He was the paschal lamb offered, to avert the angel of Death: Passover re-enacted, to save my physical life. So this, too, in addition to my spiritual salvation was involved. “The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.”

————————————————————

[p. 36 - L-35]

I just remembered (5:45 P.M.) a right-hemisphere graphic image in hypnagogic sleep last night: I had been thinking about the two coaxial worlds in which one—hidden—is Christ’s kingdom. All of a sudden I saw a network of red threads forming a vascular system, as in our bodies; at the same time this was also; a growing [arboring?] vine constnatly becoming more and more intricate; and it was like the mycelia of a mushroom. This intersticing [arboring?] network (I realized when I saw it) grows invisibly within our world, and this is what I saw as the plasmate, Christ’s blood as living information—literally saw. But here now I beheld it as a network, a structure so-to-speak “invading” or internally penetrating our reality invisibly, and ever growing and becoming more complex. This is both Christ and his kingdom, and in 3-74 I had done a set-ground discrimination of it—this is what Jesus meant when he referred to himself as the “true vine” and it is the vision I had that day at the dentist’s. And this fits with Valis here (i.e. Christ) camouflaged in our reality.

Then all portions of the plasmate form one organism or entity, and the living information does not pertain to it but is it, is Christ.

I remember (also) thinking recently, “I did not see Christ in a vision or as an anthropomorphic figure but somehow involved with and as transubstantiation” and this is all very well—I was thinking about Valis—but that does not take into account the plasmate—

Oh Dio—recently I figured out that the “cypher” King Felix not only refers to Christ but, more, is Christ! Which the “vine” vision verifies.

So in a sense “Christ’s kingdom” is Christ himself, the Corpus Christi; this fits the “organic” model Paul puts forth in the captivity letters.

[p. 37 - L-36]

“Information metabolism” is, then, probably close to the mark, and this is its own internal negentropy: its internal organization (structure).

——————————————

[p. 47 - 3-1]

He—the Savior—is for the creatures who don’t understand, so that they will understand (reversing cognitive estrangement); hence he is logos, wisdom, the part-whole compatibility pattern of cosmos. This was 2-3-74. And why I feel I got suddenly smarter, i.e. I understood (above and beyond knowing and thinking); understood—not knew—is the key word. (“Understand” here equals “penetrate the mystery” or “shrewdly guess the riddle [of “Tears”].)

Another passion—mercy.Viewed through the “lens” of Xtianity, in particular Xtian apocalypse—

everything makes sense—not just to me and for me but as such; it is the key that explains the mystery of reality (creation), i.e. cosmos is why this lens is used. This is not merely personal and subjective on my part: it is objective face. Last night as I reflected on the beautiful and Karen (nepioi and ptochoi) I realized this, whom God loves in this world and how and where he acts, in elation to them; she is one and so am I. She more than I: in her I see myself.

Late last night I realized that “Tears,” in Buckman vs. Jason, expresses the two different ways, man relying on himself and man relying on God: viz.: “Heaven protects the innocent (or just) man”—that is, the nepioi, the ptochoi. And this must be the case since, without the guile and power and tactics of the world at their disposal, the innocent would all perish, did heaven not protect them. Much of what Jesus taught addresses this issue, it is basic.

[p. 48 - 3-2]

This is the great secret of the Judeo-Xtian religion, first found [in?] Judaism and then brought to its peak—fulfillment—by Jesus’ teachings. The proud man relies on his own powers and abilities (e.g. Buckman): the nepioi and ptochoi rely on their heavenly father. This is what explains 2-3-74: it is an instance of this last principle which involves God’s love—hence both pronoia and theodicy. The ultimate expression of this is to “have a tutelary spirit” and “to be adopted (sons of God” which as to do with the kingdom or kingship of God). This is it: to be one of the nepioi and to be adopted by God, hence to enter the kingdom; this secret is concealed from the proud. (I.e. hubris is the opposite state from relying on God: hence it is the ultimate sin or folly.) The motto: “In God we trust” expresses absolute faith in God’s love, hence his protection. 2-3-74 verifies that one can so do. In a sense for me to guess the answer to the riddle of “Tears” is to understand the essence of Xtianity (and also Judaism), as well as to explain 2-3-74. The innocence of the nepioi is a return to—or a real never departing from in the first place—

the primordial innocence of original man. In viewing Karen I see myself and esp. see myself as God must see me: defenseless and innocent, both needing and deserving the aid of heaven (“and found in heaven a friend”), hence the theme of the holy fool in Christ (e.g. Parsifal). It is like a secret law of physics: how the world-order works (but in terms of morality, of being in the world but not of it). Thus in “Tears” Jason and the rabbit are shown to be the same: the creature that does not know what to do. Viewed this way, Jesus’ entire system of teachings boils down as it were to: being (or becoming) one of the nepioi/ptochoi and as a result being protected by God. If indeed—as 2-3-74 proves it to be the case—this is so as a law of the world-order, Jesus’ teachings are practical,

[p. 49 - 3-3]

for they evoke this law (it functions lawfully, based on due cause, as the AI voice explained to me; it is not arbitrary!). One has put himself in a direct relationship with the God above (as it were) the stars (heimarmene), the supreme power in the universe. Thus Jesus stressed his role as the good shepherd.

It may be that the way I saw world in 3-74—for instance the animals, as in a nativity scene, or like the Good Friday spell—is the way God sees us all, ourselves and our world, and this indeed is the way it is; and this would apply to the apocalyptic reality in toto. Hence I say: the dimension of eternity entered: God and the viewpoint of God, which is an absolute viewpoint. The holy nature of reality was disclosed.

Absolute trust in God—in contradistinction to one’s own powers—is, think, the quintessential spiritual enlightenment, for it ushers in the comprehension of the nepioi and ptochoi and their relation to heaven (and to the world-order and to themselves as well). Thus two bipolarized divisions or categories of men are disclosed: Buckman who relies on his own abilities and powers (called by Paul hubris) and hence who is destroyed, and Jason (one of the nepioi or ptochoi; that is, he becomes one in the alternate world) who, being innocent and defenseless, is placed by heaven (God) under its/his protection. Thus I solve the riddle of “Tears” and see it as N.T. scripture; I arrived at this by increments but would never really have grasped it except by understanding Karen and contrasting her to everyone else and seeing myself in and as her—and thus I fathom 2-3-74 as the kingship of God. In loving her I love God her protector, and at last love and understand myself.

[p. 50 - 3-4]

What is expressed in all this is God not as creator but as sustainer. The nepioi and ptochoi have a direct relationship to God even if they are not consciously aware of it. It is not world that sustains them; it is God even contra world, God overpowering world for their sake, as his adopted sons. Whether God contra world points to Gnosticism I don’t know. But it does point to the infinitely distant point of the mystery relgions: either transcendent or transmundane: “above the stars” and ruler of them, able to overrule them. That it is God contra world means that it is heaven contra world: “matter is plastic in the face of mind.” It is a freeing of the nepioi from world expressed as heimarmene, so probably it is Gnostic by and large—as against especially Spinoza, hence “perturbation in the reality field”—from beyond it, i.e. outside. It is, too, perhaps, the inbreaking of the rational, for

it is pure mind (Valis’ mind in mine). That was the kingship of God, in which he inscribed his law on my heart; this realization—and fact—is very important. The kingdom is not quite a place (i.e. kingdom as we use the term), it is this place, here and now, but radically transformed by the kingship

[p. 51 - 3-5]

of God (my set-ground) (and coaxial worlds); it is God disclosed as here and in fact as reality (set) in the form of the cosmic Christ enfusing and permeating mundane reality and rendering it holy. Thus it is transformed into a different sort of world entirely, but in this place and at this time.

Now, what does the second coming amount to in terms of all this (the nepioi and ptochoi, the ethical system of Jesus)? Why, very simply an overt disclosure of the true state of affairs, in contrast to the ostensible state: a vast mystery is revealed: the nepioi and ptochoi—who by definition are the powerless and weak—are contained in, expressed in and rendered invincible by the absolute might of God—which is to say, this hidden law—that heaven protects then and not the proud—is revealed, and an extraordinary disclosure occurs: Christ rules (that is, he comes as king and judge) and this means that all that we see or think we see is not the case; conversely, what we see as not the case in fact somehow is the case, as if world reversed its sign-values (pertaining to majesty and power) by 180°. This is precisely what is meant by “Christ returning in glory”; he does not return, he “returns in glory” and in this transformation from suffering servant to lord and judge the nepioi and the ptochoi are transformed—reversed, as it were, with him. And what relationship if any does this have to 2-3-74, in particular the sudden understanding that I call “the meta-abstraction”? The two are precisely one: I comprehended in an instant that Christ rules, rules absolutely, and yet we see this not; we see the contrary (hence my notion of two coaxial worlds with 180° sign values). There is no visible

[p. 52 - 3-6]

indication to the unaided eye whatsoever of this power, this kingdom, this rule, and yet I saw it. (That is, in 2-74 I understood it and in 3-74 I literally saw it and for a year lived in that world or kingdom, even though no one else could se it at all; and I equate my comprehension of this and then literal perception with an order of reason so high as to bear no name). Now, what is the difference between what I understood (2-74) and saw (3-74 to 2-75) and this “terun of Christ in glory?[”] (A point: were Christ not to return in glory the true state of affairs, 180° from what we unaided see would be limited like Plato’s Forms to the region of speculation, faith and hope, but the return in glory seals (by virtue of revealing) this with the stamp of indubitable fact capable of being known and known absolutely; thus the return in glory, the second coming, is logically necessary to the very premise on which all Christ’s teachings are based, for he did not just teach that it was virtuous to be of the nepioi and ptochoi but—and this is different—they will be raised up, and the proud will fall. And this—both sides/halves of this—is exactly what I understood and saw. (The question, why did I understand and see it? is not as correct a question as, why do we not see it, since it is in fact the true state of affairs? I do not have

an answer to this, but I say that what I first understood and then saw is that Christ and the true Xtians in secret absolutely rule, in and as a kingdom coaxial to our mirror opposite world, and this is the Parousia as precisely defined and that when I understood and saw it in no way did I know enough to have possibly “guessed the riddle of ‘Tears,’” as I put it; that is, to have fathomed what I now discern to be the ultimate declaration of Xtianity which subsumes and also explains as logical and natural and practical all else: that heaven protects and sustains the nepioi and ptochoi—and, conversely, destroys the proud—these “physical facts” being totally, not just relatively concealed from us in terms of empirical knowledge and experience with world (that is, this cannot be inferred by

[p. 53 - 3-7]

world as it is or even was, and yet Jesus declares this in fact to be the case—which makes of Xtianity a revealed religion.

3-74 was both a revelation of the true state of affairs generally (what I call the Acts coaxial world) and also in the specific an instance pertaining to me personally in my real, actual and immediate peril of this axiom, this law so-to-speak in operation. 3-74, then, divides up into two portions that verify and reinforce and complete each other: (1) I was rescued; and (2) the power that rescued me is a ubiquitous kingdom or kingship operating thusly in all cases despite what our senses report: my case is not unique, then, not even unusual (as with pronoia or miracle per se) but a lawful, regular event built into and stemming from what I term a “covert physics” as real and as universal as any physics. It is, then, not at all the suspension of natural law—and, as it were, physical due process—but proof that we do not really know what the laws governing our world really consist of once the area of Xtian teaching is treated.

“The return in glory” is, then, a disclosure of true reality more than an event, although it is necessarily linked to the event of the existential execution of the lawful “physics” that we simply cannot see; by this I mean that its operation on your specific behalf (the particular instance) and the 180° opposite coaxial domain (the universal true state of affairs concealed from us) cannot be separated; if heaven acts on your behalf you of necessity will see the universal situation (reality) and conversely. (This is not cause-and-effect; it is two sides of one thing.) I therefore say that I encountered the “return of Christ in glory” in that not only did heaven act on my behalf but moreover I saw the obtaining domain in which this action is lawful and logical, and this is the Parousia. But we are told in the synoptics that indeed the secret is kept from the many and revealed to the few; this is explicit. As the operation of heaven is for the nepioi and ptochoi

[p. 54 - 3-8]

and not for the proud (i.e. all others) it follows that only the former will ever know that the answer to the “Tears” riddle is the case. Here is why: if all people understood that by following Jesus’ teachings—which seem to be self-sacrifice absolutely—one acquires the support of the absolute power of heaven, then self-interest not morality would impel men, all men, to follow the way, and summarily the moral aspect would be engulfed by the pragmatic and practical, and an ethical system would succumb to the degradation of personal ambition. Thus the “secrecy theme” is simply unavoidable. There just plain is no

other way that it can be done. Hence the stegenography, the veiling, is essential to the situation to a degree that by the very essence of logic admits of no mitigation or compromise. The way not will seem folly but must inexorably and inevitably seem so. Thus the apparent failure of Jesus and of Xtianity and the apparent non-occurrence of his return in glory—this fiction has to obtain. The prophecy and promise of the return in glory (1) had to be made; and (2) appear not to be fulfilled. Then the fact that it is always and eternally in fact fulfilled is the ultimate secret of the way, second only to the answer to the riddle posed in “Tears.” and the very rejection of faith in—belief in—the truth of Jesus’ victory and the veracity of his teachings serves the essential purpose of those very teachings and victory, for the real issue is moral (viz: in Judaism, the parent of Xtianity, it is most clearly and fully in the domain of morality that God’s presence is found and disclosed). The search for God, then, is successful—or not successful—due to certain moral acts (or the lack thereof) which acts in turn are based on appraisals that pertain to the ontology of the person: what he is at the utmost level—and this leads us back to the eschatological judging, and, then, the apocalypse itself.

[p. 55 - 3-9]

So this all turns out to be a coherent, vast, logical, lawful system in which ontology generates morality, morality generates certain acts, these acts lead to the inevitable operation of heaven on behalf of the person, and finally there occurs Gnosis, knowledge of the situation, enlightenment: one acts first and then understands (i.e. the true situation is revealed to him). So, as I say, it can be no other way. Paradoxicaly, the freedom of true moral choice can and does only occur when the person does not know the truth (actual situation, which is to say real consequences). Thus for inevitable reasons, moral choice and knowledge are bipolarized. This is very strange, and yet it can be understood. The true issue in moral choice; this is where ontology and freedom obtain. And knowledge suppresses all this. And so it can only come as consequence: as the final step in a long and crucial sequence, each step of which must [time?] precisely right. It would always have been this way, be this way, and in the future remain so. Hence when the AI voice speaks of St. Sophia’s approaching—or fulfilled—return it tells the truth, and yet this return never seems in fact to occur. This was true 1900 years ago, is true now, and, I suspect, will always be the case. And the fact that this is universally not realized has to be the case (for the reasons I have given: the case cannot be otherwise now, in the past, or ever, at least until the literal end of this planet and all life on it). To reprise, “Christ’s return in glory” is a disclose rather than a historical event, and the ubiquitous false notion that Jesus failed, his ethics do not work and he did not return not only must be the case but in fact serves as a top-level agency, agent and instrument of the very system that is doubted. The doubt is necessary to it, serves it, is subsumed by it, even generated by it. The system is in absolute control, and utilizes this disbelief—

[p. 56 - 3-10]

and this disbelief can only be abolished as a result of moral action and never before that essential moral action; it is not just allowed. It is (I think) imposed as a necessary condition that the moral act be possible. Thus it is hopeless for me to expect to convince

anyone of the truth of my revelation in “Valis” because this is not how it works. This is not how it should work. This is not how it can work. My error is to reason: (1) knowledge of the truth. (2) then as a result, right conduct. But (2) would have ceased to be based on free choice, true ethical decision and would be merely smart. The act would be done for tangible reward, and this has nothing to do with morality and ethics. Right action must bear the stamp of folly, self-sacrifice and, finally, madness itself. For the first time in my life I understand the necessity of what I have long identified as a vast, deep and powerful cognitive and perceptive occlusion.

—————————

[p. 57 - 5-4]

—I realize suddenly that in my letter to Isa I say we are saved through faith—utter faith, absolute faith in the for of recognition of our absolute and utter dependence on God; and this is truly the Pauline insight and position—and I did not realize this when I wrote the letter! (I.e. that I reaffirm Paul’s essential doctrine of salvation through fait—a faith that I rigorously define: I do not use the term vaguely but in the precise sense of the Reformers. My position (credo) is precisely that of esp. Luther: total reliance on God in contrast to reliance on one’s own powers: faith, then, as utter trust in God, as utter turning to God—to which God responds by justifying that person; again the Pauline Luther position regarding salvation! What also is implicit here is the view of the total worthlessness of man in terms of his capacity to save himself, and his utter inefficacy. (This is the other side of the utter faith in God which is an act: the act of turning to God, termed by me as a calling to God for aid, to which God responds. Probably my position is congruent with such 20th century existential Protestant theologians as Paul Tillich; beyond doubt! Esp. in view that man must act; he must do something: faith, then, is expressed existentially, not a belief in something but the act of calling out to

[p. 58 - 5-5]

God for help; and my whole scheme depends on, relies on, the Holy Spirit—again a Protestant position contra the Roman Catholic.

What is perhaps unusual—heterodox—in my position is that I assert that man, not God, must take the first step; it is God who responds to man, not man to God, and this runs counter to the whole orthodox view of grace both Catholic and Protestant. But this only reveals my position as thoroughly existential; salvation hinges on a human decision and act based on that decision; God will not respond unless the person chooses, and he chooses entirely of his own free will. Despite the Pauline-Luther basis, my position is radical, and very modern. Man bears primary responsibility for setting in motion the machinery of his own salvation. Faith, then, pistis, is viewed by me as primary, existential, based on choice—which in turn is based on free will—and thus man takes an active role, an essential role, in his own salvation. He must come to a very great realization about himself and about God if he is to be saved. First, he must acknowledge

his own total powerlessness (this is indeed a Protestant position!). He must then acknowledge his total dependence on God

[p. 59 - 5-6]

and he must ask for help (I deduce this from the word “Paraclete” itself). This goes far beyond petitionary prayer: man has faced and accepted the fact that the way has ended for him in terms of his own abilities and powers, then efficacy to save and preserve and sustain him; without God, he will cease to exist utterly: he will not be. Ontologically, this is as radical a Protestant-existentialist-Pauline theology as is possible: God is everything; man is nothing and exists only because of God, by God, out of God’s own being (that is, man’s being is totally derived from that of God). And, moreover, this act (resulting in justification, another basic theme in Protestantism) ocurs once and only once in a person’s lifetime: at the moment of ontological, existential crisis, as described by Heidegger.

Now, my views derive from my “solving the riddle of ‘Tears,’” do they not? Which therefore again points to the Holy Spirit as the author of the scriptural material in “Tears.” (I.e. Acts, “the Gospel of the Holy Spirit”).

What, I think, is most beautiful in my (sic) theology here is the concept of

[p. 60 - 5-7]

God as the absolute guarantor of man’s being—i.e. God as absolute friend and protector of man, i.e. God the Father who compltes his original work of creating man with this final act of justification. And, in addition, man and God are reunited (with man seeking God, and God seeking man). Everything is in terms of absolutes: absolute faith, absolute being conferred on man by God.

But there is an original component in this system, here: the absolute cry by man to God. The call for help; man does not just absolutely trust that God will help him but must call out for that help; that is, man must act. Man bears, then, a responsibility so decisive as to be an absolute responsibility. He participates crucially in his own salvation. God does not impose salvation on him; man must ask for it, and ask for it predicated on an absolute realization of his dependence on God. There are no conditions or qualifications here. The concept “fate,” man’s fate, is newly comprehended by man as “fate as the power of God to save”; thus fate ceases to be a property or power of world and is seen as the power of God as distinguished

[p. 61 - 5-8]

from world. Man’s fate is in God’s hands, not world’s. “Fate,” then, now means something totally other (than heimarmene). It has to do with God. Fate has been assimilated to providentia! “Fate” as contrasted to providentia has been conceptually abolished; the term has no meaning other than providentia, so that before world loses its power over man actually (in terms of causal law) it has already been conceptually obliterated—nullified—and replaced entirely by a realization of the absolute and total power of God (as Pantocrator). This, then, is a severe and major element making up faith

per se, this reassessment of what “fate” signifies as a term, a concept. Man, having reconceived fate in this way, is now dealing with God; all transactions defining man’s existence have to do with God and not with world. Thus a vast conceptual transformation occurs in the mind, soul, and heart of man even before providentia and justification occur. And this of course causes me to reconsider the meta-abstraction, and in a new light.

Thus “Tears” is not indubitably Xtian scripture but, more precisely, consists of a very specific strain or thrust of Xtian thought: Protestant existential Pauline

[p. 62 - J-9]

doctrines of the Holy Spirit, justification—in short, Luke. It also suggests Joachim’s third status. The authorship and authority of the Holy Spirit in “Tears” now seems to me to be beyond question. And yet, in this absolute faith in God, I see a return—not to the Torah as code-ethics—but to the essence, the absolute and fundamental spirit of Judaism. It is Judaism restored to its single premise, that man is in the final analysis totally dependent on God. And the recognition of this is per se a refinding of God and in fact a restoration of the original lost direct relationship between man and God that obtained before the Fall… and perhaps this is precisely the purpose, here: not a return to Moses and Sinai but to Eden! And this would equate 3-74 and the 180° coaxial world as both kingdom of God and the lost original paradise before the Fall, which is to say restoration of man’s original innocent condition. And this correlates exactly with what I say in my letter to Isa about the unheimlich world versus the heimlich. This is what we are precisely talking about, and I make this clear in that letter. Thus Heidegger, drawing his ontological categories from Gnosticism, enables me to erect a new and radical notion of the real purpose of the messianic mission.

—————————————

[p. 86 - Y-2]

The irrational against λογος: this is the Dialectic. In the synthesis, achieved by λογος, λογος wins. This is the topic of “Valis.” 3-74 was victory by logos in me and over me.

From Hegel’s standpoint, to meta-abstract historical constants would be the epiphany of absolute spirit, since it is realized in history.

There is something very strange here. History, the Dialectic—why, my God, the intervention in 1974 to overthrow Nixon. Necessity operating on and in me: Valis. The key is: history. My sense at the time that a historic transformation was taking place: e.g. “Tears.”

“Yahweh is the God of history.”The most important conception—possibility—is the one dealt with in “Valis”:

The dialectic within God, perceived by Boehme, in which the irrational or prerational or even demonic will—the dark side—combats the bright side, God’s reason, specifically λογος, and the latter always (sic: always, as was revealed to me) wins (at the conclusion of the sequence, thus gaining for itself the whole sequence).

Although in “Valis” I conceive of two Gods, this dramatic “device” does not blur the true picture, for the two sides in the dialectical combat are correctly characterized; in fact the term “λογος” is specifically employed, and shown as victor. Thus λογος converts, as it were, the prerational will into λογος (although Schelling used a third term for this synthesis).

In “Valis” this dynamic process occurs in all reality (macrocosm) and in Horselover Fat (microcosm).

[p. 87 - Y-3]

Now, what I must never forget is that this Dialectic, the nature of the two differing sides, the inevitable victory in each sequence by λογος, came to me as absolute revelation (as it did for Boehme).

Then the 2-74 meta-abstraction, although quite likely noesis, was (in terms of this Dialectic) the synthesis by λογος: its victory in me and equatable to/with sanity (or, equally, a quantum-leap in intelligence).

There is nothing I can possibly come up with that is more important—concerning 3-74—than this. And it is the topic of “Valis,” clearly and dramatically presented.

Now, there is, then, a curious and curiously important thing about “BTA”—I mean Angel Archer. She is λογος in me, beyond doubt. She—and here the novel itself—is the fruit of 2-3-74: the outcome. Paradoxically, she denies the validity of the very reality (event) that created her.

The perception of Valis in world (externally) by me (in 3-74) and assigned in “Valis” to Horselover Fat is a perception of the macroform of the inner vision of the victory by λογος. Both (as I have always said) are Valis, but both (I see now for the first time) are precisely the Dialectic! And the victory by λογος in the Dialectical struggle. This means that I saw God in and as world (as well as in and as me): dynamic process in world (if indeed world can be distinguished from God, at this point). This, the “transubstantiation of the universe into the body of Christ/ λογος,” is Boehme’s vision of the Dialectic in God himself. This means that I very correctly

[p. 88 - Y-4]

interpreted what I saw when I saw Valis externally, in and as world: I saw dynamic and in fact Dialectic process. Such an interpretation was either very brilliant or supernaturally inspired. I not only saw logos—and logos as the rational per se—but I saw it winning; and I recognized this as the absolute and basic dynamic process underlying all phenomena, all reality, all flux, process and change.

This is enormously, radically, and decisively other than the classical static view of logos as the principle of world-reason! I would even go so far as to say that although it has links to Boehme, Schelling, Hegel, Teilhard, Whitehead, Heartshorne, it is a new revelation concerning God, the human and world; and it is a theophany indubitably. Although “logos” refers to Christ (and is so treated in “Valis”) it also describes God’s reason (Hagia Sophia). Thus my vision is of the divine ground of being itself.

—————————————————

[p. 90 - Z-2]

I had the strangest insight after seeing “The Elephant Man” that for some reason I failed to write down. Viz.: we are not linked to world directly as:

[DIAGRAM: Self——World]

but rather:

[DIAGRAM: Self——God——World]

That is, there is world, objective and substantial and ral, but between us and it there is god, so that we receive world through God. This makes it possible for God to control and arrange how we experience world, what in world strikes us forcefully—that is, God acts as a medium of selection in our apprehension of world so that for each individual person world is not only experienced uniquely (differing from person to person) but unique in purposeful ways: certain elements stressed, others suppressed—this especially has to do with information patterns that impinge compellingly (or, conversely, not at all). Now, this resembles Malebranche’s epistemology somewhat, and yet is crucially different. Viz.: God and world are clearly distinct.

What emerges here (in this theory0 is a totally new explanation of 2-3-74. Either there was massive selecting (for a time) or I became aware of massive selecting, that is, aware of the medium as interface between me and world (i.e. such massive selection always goes on, but we know it not, supposing all we experience to be properties of world and applying to the encounter with world by all persons uniformly.) Now, a powerful but by no means invincible argument can be offered that due to my meta-abstraction in 2-74 (that is, due to a sudden titanic insight) I comprehended something about world that makes it possible for me on my own to fathom the presence of this selecting interface. The meta-abstraction would (perhaps) then have been

[p. 91 - Z-3]

that there was a pluralized signal system at the point of origin (world) but that only one set normally reaches me, which says a lot about world, but also presumes a selecting interface. Thus “world” is radically redefined but, more, the interface is realized and its selecting (suppressing, enhancing) activity, and this is God (Valis). So what comes of this meta-abstraction pertains to epistemology (“ti to on?” in terms of world) but yields up by implication a much more radical notion—that in fact world qua world is less an issue than the interface itself that lies between us and world and passing the power selectively to determine what of world impinges on us and what, contrarily, is suppressed—whereupon (I think) I found myself dealing with the interface itself, and this is theophany. As if, upon my becoming aware of it, it could then “speak” as it were explicitly, by means of open enhancing-suppression patterning, which clearly did not emanate from and in world but existed between world and my percept system.

It is possible that world qua world consists of eternal constants, and the interface modulates our reception in extraordinary ways and to extraordinary degrees. (e.g. your “being” in AD 70 in Syria or USA 1974 depends only on the interface, on its selecting. World and interface, then, are quite distinct. Malebranche’s epistemological premise, then, is quite the case: “We see all things in God.”—

A strange insight last night (hypnagogic). The person who—there is some relation between intelligence and the empathic facility. But when I was tormenting the beetle and understood—that understanding (which I have called satori) was due to God’s grace. For that knowledge cannot in fact be known. There is no active (rational) way that I can know how that beetle feels or even that it feels; I know by the grace of God; it is a gift conferred on me, as were the later satoris. This is the activity of salvation. The prison of the isolation of the atomized individual is burst through the grace of

[p. 92 - Z-4]

God by this knowledge. And he who has this not is not evil but deprived. And he on his own cannot change his situation, for there is no rational way—only a supernatural way—that this knowledge can be obtained. I must not blame someone who possesses not this knowledge, for there is no way he can obtain or acquire it on his own; he is totally dependent on the grace of God. Here is where the original satori is as the 2-74 meta-abstraction was. But this shows that although the 2-74 meta-abstraction had to do with cognition it was given to me from outside, which brings me to the issue of Socrates vs. Jesus that Tillich speaks of. Reminding the person (Socrates’ route) and what is already in him; or Jesus’ way (midwife, as Tillich puts it).

It is not probably that the meta-abstraction was truly an intrinsic (internal) cognitive act on my part—either viewed in isolation or in relation to the sequence of earlier satoris. All one knows is that one now knows what one did not know, but not due to ratiocination, due rather to some element outside. And this is the key clue: outside. But I figured out last night that we do not know world directly but through God as lens link interface. So the stimulus in outside reality affords God the interface the opportunity (to use Malebranche’s term) (no: his term is occasion) to transfer knowledge pretextually, as it were. This is in conformity with my whole conception of clutch, selection, enhancement and suppression and not a special [situal?], only—as Joyce calls it—an epiphany of regular conditions. It is as if the pretext is clearly only pretext. Effect—that which is known—far exceeding its ostensibly cause. As to the transfer of information regarding Christopher’s birth defect, the situation is clearly and explicitly such that it is palpably impossible than insentient plural objects can give rise to the information, in which case something is there that I have always spoken of as camouflaged in and as ordinary plural insentient objects.

[p. 93 - Z-5]

These various situations that I denote here are differing versions of one enduring underlying stable situation that by its very ubiquity escapes our notice. Thus beetle, meta-abstraction, and Valis informing me of Chrissy’s birth defect are in fact one and the same

experience along an axis of revelation as follows: (1) with the beetle there is no reason to suspect that the knowledge does not arise naturally (unaided) from the ostensible situation; cause (the situation) and effect (the knowledge) seem commensurate. (2) In the meta-abstraction the effect exceeds the cause/the situation outside me, but it is not at all clear where the knowledge is internally retrieved in me (Plato’s anamnesis) or transferred from outside. (3) But in the situation regarding Chrissy’s birth defect there is now no dobut that the information (knowledge) cannot arise from or be accounted for by the situation (i.e. the Beatles’ song, etc.). In this case the satori I experienced regarding the ending of “The Elephant Man” is a satori concerning satoris: not only is it perfectly clear that the knowledge is transferred from outside (it is external in origin, and a free gift) but that the source is not in world but as-it-were between me and world so that I am dealing with world indirectly but dealing with the interface (by definition) directly. This precisely agrees with Nicholas Malebranche. What is now disclosed was in fact the state all the time, but behaving so as to conceal itself and in fact its existence.

At this point it is clear that there is now the resolution to my total lifelong epistemology which strove from the start to resolve the issue of δοκος. It reaches the conclusion that while world exists it is per se unknowable to us, but on the other hand we immediately know God—which is Malebranche’s contention. Now, a verification of this is the infinitude of space that I experienced in 3-74: I was encountering not the physical world in space (extension, res extensae) but the infinitude of God. but here the problem and issue of epistemology collapses into the matter of grace.

[p. 94 - Z-6]

Because the power to bestow and withhold knowledge of what is truly there (the answer to “ti to on?”) is to say God, and no activity on our part will in itself ever unravel the mystery. (The nature of the situation dictates this, and kant seems to be the first thinker systematically aware of this.) If on our own we try to plumb—or even discern—the interface we enter an infinite regress—as I’ve discovered for almost 8 years: since the interface is not so much [DIAGRAM: Self—Interface—World]but:[DIAGRAM: Interface encompassing Self and World]

Which is to say that the interface is somehow in us and in world; so the interface simply recycles our own mind back to us over and over again; the prison gate of isolation—of the atomized self—closes once more (this is dealt with in “Frozen Journey”). Thus we know others only through the grace of God (as in the beetle satori), and this pertains of salvation: to know others—just as hell pertains to isolation. Then knowledge of God as other is knowledge of ultimate other and is the triumph and consummation of the axis of salvation that began, for me, with the beetle satori. If αγαπη equals empathy then there is only one road to salvation; in its partical form it deals with and pertains to finite creatures (but is real): in its complete form (absolute, realized form) it pertains to God; this is an axis. What and who one has loved in world (“love” here being αγαπη) has always pertained to God; it was always God who was loved, so that in the end all that was lost—all that was known and hence loved—is resotred in and as God.

I never would have come to these realizations except for Malebranche. Then upon seeing the film “The Elephant Man” figuring out the interface. Then, last night, realizing that all my satoris, back to the first, the beetle one, are due to grace and involve knowledge—correct knowledge—that by its nature can only be revealed; whereupon I now

[p. 95 - Z-6]

see one vast axis of disclosure from the first (the beetle), culminating in 2-74 and then 3-74, and then tapering off in subsequent revelations. 2-3-74—and specifically Valis itself, in me and in external reality, centering around the transfer of information about Chrissy’s birth defect—then is the quintessential moment in a pattern of revelation predicated on grace and involving salvation stretching out across my entire life. What, then, I have viewed as a preoccupation with epistemology turns out to be a search for—and a finding of—God.

————————————————

[p. 142 - D-70]

Dio. Eureka. I found the—Christic Institute. All the way back to “Tears”: the Acts material, the dream, the

King-Felix cypher. Karen Silkwood.The Parousia is here and the holy mother church knows it. My 2-3-74 to 2-75

experience (back to ’70 if you include “Tears”) has to do with the Parousia. Eleven years and at last I hold it in my hands and it does have to do with Pere Teilhard. My Tagore vision is authentic; Christ is here. Point Omega.

“Portuguese States of America” represents the Roman Catholic Church. As does the posse in the “TearS’ dream (it also represents the KKK).

It’s all true—the plasmate, everything. Covenant House! The eschatological sorting has begun.

I have linked up with the true, secret Xtians. Christic Institute, a subform of the Catholic Church.

Holy wisdom.When I read the Karen Silkwood literature originally that day I saw

[p. 143 - D-71]

in it the convergence—at last—of my political involvement and my religious experiences right up to my Tagore vision; now today I get verification—that National Catholic Reporter and Christic Institute (founded in Nov. 1980). It is all true, and the new radical theology is ecotheology linked to radical political action, as we have here (i.e. with Silkwood). And it is the Roman Catholic Church—or rather a subform of it: the true secret Xtians. My vision in 2-3-74 of Acts was indeed a—the—Xtian apocalyptic vision (i.e. Revelation). The holy power of God is established here covertly, pitted against Satan and political reaction. It (the Holy Spirit) operates through the Roman Catholic Church:

my intimations have been correct all the way back to 3-74 when the stegenographic covering was removed from “Tears” and I read what is there. I have been a Befahlträgen. Now I am a Geheimnisträgen: I know and understand the message that I have carried (as expressed primarily in “Tears” and then in “Valis, “D.I.” and “BTA” and the Tagore vision—everything.

What—I think—is the most exciting is that due to 2-3-74, my Tagore vision, what Victor Ferkis has said and Christic Institute I can now discern—albeit dimly—the outline of a new theology, rooted in

[p. 144 - D-72]

the epoch we are moving into. It is a Xtian-Buddhist neo-pantheism very close to Pere Teilhard’s christocentric point omega, but having specifically to do with the unitary ecosphere—and for me, closely related to Malebranche’s Cartesian pantheism which of course goes back to Augustine and Pauline mysticism—and may also include the new physics and field theory, a merging of science and theology in defense of a palpably living universe. (There may also be an information and a Platonic component).

I feel confident now that my 2-3-74 experience is not reactionary but is carrying me into the future—a vast quantum leap from political action to one colossal metaview of reality that embraes the political and the spiritual, the scientific and the religious: what for me personally may be the quintessential summation of my entire life of inqury and worldview; for me and for mankind a new age is opening in which the holy, expected from the top, so to speak, returns at the bottom, at the trash stratum of the alley, humble and noble, beautiful and suffering and alive and conscious, personified in and by my Tagore vision.

If indeed it is the triumph of Xtianity to dignify the lowly, here now is a whole new

[p. 145 - D-73]

leap along that axis: the lowly snail darter becomes identified with suffering ubiquitous Christ and by being assimilated to him is glorified as if nature itself—and the electronic environment of info and signals and message traffic—is able to perish and be resurrected as and with the cosmic Christ (Jesus patibilis) of Pere Teilhard. Thus Christ extends even beyond the reality of the organic to bits of newspaper and song lyrics and random pages of popular print: one vast entity that evolves and thinks and has both personality and consciousness. It perfects itself and includes us all, subsuming and incorporating progressively more and more of its environment into arrangements of information—which is to say negative entropy: this is, in fact, a runaway positive feedback loop of greater and greater complexity and organization.

Malebranche is not only compatible with this neo-pantheism—more: it is a highly sophisticated modern-day version of how God can be here—all around us—and we be yet unaware: that is, he is everywhere yet unseen. Malebranche’s mystical pantheism is the philosophical explanation of ecotheology. In other words, Malebranche is the how and ecotheology the what.

—————————————

[p. 156 - D-84]

Thus what I have been trying to do in the exegesis—and which exhausts me—is deliberately on my own part again to do what I did in 2-3-74! But that was sparked by the messenger, and now I have him not. Hence I simply become more and more weary as world becomes more and more powerful over me. I seek to regain, to recapture, the Liberator of 2-74 to 2-75—whereupon world regained its power over me: the vision was lost and I fell back. I do not seek to gain Gnosis and liberation but to regain it; I had it and lost it! This is why trying to write “Owl” broke me: it is this that is the topic of “Owl”! Although my effort seems cerebral (having to do with thinking) it is really existential—but failing.

Cerebral = knowledge = Gnosis; typically Faustian, as in Goethe’s “Faust” part one.

“Valis”: built the maze and fell into it. The maze changes because it is alive.It is alive because it draws on and from the very thoughts of the creation trapped

in it; his efforts to solve it are thoughts, and it is these thoughts that “fuel” it—i.e. it is one vast Chinese finger trap; the harder I try to get out, the more powerful world becomes. Hence Hex 47: my increasing exhaustion. What, then, should I do?

[p. 157 - D-85]

The solution does not lie in ratiocination but in the meta-abstraction. So last October and last February represeted genuine victories—but I can’t seem to follow them up!—

I was treated to a demonstration of YHWH: thought, word and reality were one, with no ideation separate from the word and no difference between the word—what I said—and the deed; it was the deed. Moreover, there was absolute a priori knowing (about S., about Tess). And this unitary “thing” (thought, word, act) is his power (omnipotence). He willed it so, by the use of Holy Wisdom, a separate hypostasis who is never apart from him.

And what he knew, I intuited (only); which explains how I’ve felt Fri, Sat and today.

Her letter is a lie.Again it has to do with a letter! As on 3-20-74!Now I know what my anxiety was about when I was in Balboa on thurs. (St.

Sophia.)God lent me his absolute knowing and (without ratiocination) for a second time—

no: 3rd, when you count my physics test. Not only did he extricate me but (again) he revealed himself to me: his nature, not just that he exists.

[p. 158 - D-80]

He gave me the missing cognitive part of the emotional state I’ve been in since her call from LAX. Plus the anxiety attack on Thurs, when she didn’t invite me for dinner. She was expecting someone.

Then the “not 2 mothers but 1 mother twice” meta-abstraction was YHWH as Holy Wisdom.—

The really extraordinary thing that although I was terror-stricken I experienced absolute lucidity; I saw and understood my total situation perfectly, without degree and without reasoning it out. It was utter knowledge. I was—had been—destroying that which was of most value to me in the world: Tessa and Christopher: they are all I have. However good or bad Sandra is intrinsically: that was secondary and tangential: God summoned me back to what was morally right and what existed: it was right and it was real. I had been occluded and severely jeopardized this most precious element in my life. This was no vague intimation; YHWH summoned me back from the lip of the abyss. What I stood to lose by my wrong actions was that which my very physical life depended on. I was on the brink of literal doom, yet indirectly so: Sandra would destroy me not by what so: Sandra would destroy me not by what she did but by what I did. There was in this

[p. 159 - D-87]

a vast moral summons, for in Judaism, God and morality are one and the same. This was the Lord God of Israel, not just a vague God but YHWH—and I knew it. This was the God of the Torah summoning me back to moral reality, with no choice; he willed it; he commanded me to return to life and what was right (in him and by him the two are one and the same). Thus morality and that which gives and sustains life stood bipolarized to immorality (sin) and that which takes life. Sin and death, then, were one. I sinned and I died. Abandoning Tessa and Christopher meant my death. Moreover, he gave me words to express all this to them (rather than just an understanding of it) so deed was conjoined to knowledge: what I knew I did—act and cognition being one, as morality (the law of God) and life were one.

I knew, said things I never knew, said before. My stipulated stand has no precedent in my life. Secondarily, I was to abandon my relationship with Sandra—secondarily (because it was destroying my relationship with Tessa and Christopher). What was primary was what I sad, did with Tessa and Christopher. Having said, done this, the matter of Sandra would de facto take care of itself. It would be seen for what it was, that is. The effect it was having on my life and the lives of Tessa and Christopher.

This was the resolute carried to the absolute; here God compelled assent not just to the real but to the moral as well.

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It was 3-74 all over again, but with moral overtones. Carried beyond the irresistable to the terrifyingly irresistible in this case I had fallen into mortal sin (this was not the case in 3-74; there I was in peril but not in peril of mortal sin; I could, then, lose my freedom or life, but here I lost my soul; I not only doomed myself—I damned myself. Here, power

and wisdom prevailed; in 3-74 knowledge and love prevailed: this yesterday was YHWH, not Abba.

The situation was intricate, unstable, ambiguous. There was a single night choice and it had to be made then and no later. God made it for me, based on his wisdom, power, and because it involved morality, goodness (as exemplified by the law). Thus, having justified me in 2-3-74, he forbade me from sinning any further; he intervened absolutely. He prevented me from falling from my state of grace by making my moves for me: regarding Tessa and Christopher and regarding Sandra. Also, but I think secondarily, he saved my life. It was the moral fall into sin that was the primary issue. He is the Lord and his will is law. As I wrote last night, at the time, I was presented with an indubitable demonstration of the power, the wisdom and the goodness of God. It was more convincing even than 2-3-74, and yet followed it up… there is the common theme of a dangerous lying letter from a woman that requires that I act—act immediately—in a certain way—

[p. 161 - D-89]

a way I would not act on my own (because of weakness, folly and lust). (And just plain ignorance.)

Never before have I understood what Spinoza knew so well: “His will is law,” as inexorable as physical causal law. Thus he rules the universe and wills all that is.

There is no way now that I can believe in Gnosticism. What I experienced is what I had just been reading in the notes on “Sepher Yezirah,” that for God, “thought, word, writing of word and work (object) are one.” This unity I had understood a little, and in an intellectual way, but then last night I experienced it. The unitary nature of it surpasses intellectual understanding, because for us, thought, word and act are separate and sequential. Nor do they possess (1) absolute force or (2) are based on absolute a priori knowing. For God, to know (thought) and to act (will, power) are one. Our knowledge is dim and our acts feeble; we never know truly and never achieve perfection in choice or execution of the act based on the knowing (and the knowing and the acting are separate; we know and then act in sequence). God abolished the basis of my whole erring life—literally abolished it so it ceased to be. This was the apotheosis of 3-20-74, its utter culmination, yet of the same nature. Terrifying as it was (after all, it induced absolute terror in me) I thank him from the bottom of my heart, in two regards:

1) the extrication and solving of my problem whichh I had not the wisdom or strength or moral insight to solve on my own.

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2) Even more important, the revelation of his wisdom, power and goodness (which of course certifies his existence as active God, Lord of creation—not God, but YHWH, the God of Israel). And this was not just a display of power but of moral power—it is this unity of wisdom, power and morality that invincibly argues for YHWH.

Here is the difference between this and 3-74. Any number of divine entities could have extricated me from that trap. But here, this time, I experienced the moral force that is unique to Judaism. (In which the nature of god fixes the law as its first necessity

regarding man; that is, YHWH discloses himself to man in and as the law.) Now it is possible to add this theophany to 2-3-74 and perceive that it was YHWH then and Hagia Sophia; then it was loving, but here it was angry. Yet both are YHWH: in 2-3-74 mercy, here justice. Yet this was also for a benefit, to save me (but as I say, from damnation more than from death; the peril was the peril of sin and death, whereas before I was a victim). (Here I was the guilty transgressor.)—

I just realized something. Until my terror last night I actually believed that I should have—and pursue—a relationship with Sandra, over and above the issue of my enjoying it (i.e. wanting to). I had been told I should have “an affectionate” relationship;

[p. 163 - D-91]

suddenly (last night) I had absolute knowledge that it was wrong—and why it was wrong (because of Tessa and Chris). There was no ratiocination leading to this insight; the insight was wordless and infinite and absolute and 180° from what from the beginning I had believed I should do (to create balance in my life, etc., a whole bunch of reasons, very complex and intricate, but spurious). And this was no enantiodromia. This was an invasion of my psyche by absolute knowledge. It bore no relation to what I had up to that moment believed, wrongly believed. There was not even a sense of insight, of satori: it was pure knowledge, like a sort of seeing: a vision of the situation as it actually was. And it was primarily a moral seeing. Absolute moral rectitude occurred in me. It simply took place. All at once it was. I guess I saw it as God saw it. And how different that was! And absolute! It was not a viewpoint. It was knowing. —

What I have been calling “the meta-abstraction” is in fact knowledge—the act of knowing—as God knows (i.e. knows what is, i.e. world). In 2-74 and more fully later in 3-74 I saw as God sees and understood as god understands, that is, absolutely and a priori, in which what is known is exactly the same as what is; they are assimilated to each other.

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That the mind of God was at that time in my mind—I experienced that as Valis in my mind. All that I saw (Xtian apocalyptic world, the plasmate, set to ground, the prison, the secret Xtians, the abolition of time—i.e. coaxial reality and the conception/perception of eternal constants)—this is how God sees; I did not see this or understand this; God saw and understood this, and, as I say, I saw and understood because he bloomed in my mind like cold white light (hence I experienced an infinitude of space).(1) I realize this due to Sunday night when the same absolute knowing by God in my induced a realization of my practical and moral jeopardy. Again there was certitude—total, unconditioned knowing—but what I knew this time was dreadful and lethal to me practically and spiritually. Once again the unitary fusion of knowing and doing occurred because for God there is no distinction between what he knows and what he does. Ratiocination—logic itself, thinking itself—does not occur because it is not required; God does not figure out; he does not reason because he does not need to reason.

(1) Augustine teaches this: the divine illumination, later picked up by Malebranche.

It was—both times—as if my mind expanded into infinity (conceived as spatial infinity). The sense one gets is that one’s mind contains all reality, and this is because all reality is known a priori and absolutely, not sensibly and contingently.

So this experience last sunday revivifies and

[p. 165 - D-93]

explains 2-3-74. In that case the awareness was involved with awareness and imminent danger which suggests providentia and grace; in this case there, too, was imminent danger. Hence providentia and grace, but with the added element of my awareness of my own sinning—an element not present in 2-3-74. This time God saved me from myself and not from an external threat, and this time the threat was spiritual, rather than just lethal.

Also, what I was taught Sunday night is that the moral law is as real and actual as causal physical law. So in a sense the Gnostics are right about heimarmene: causal and the Mosaic law combined into one. This explains karma; the moral law has literal physical consequences—effects—like causal physical law. And this explains why Christ’s sacrifice was necessary: it took an actual literal act to break the power of retribution. Xtianity can only be understood (ransom, the “nailing up of our death warrants[”]) if this is understood first.

And now (Tuesday night) I can truly say, “His will is my peace”—after I had for a time rebelled. To understand (1) that there is the Lord who governs all; and (2) that this order is moral order with the force of physical causal law: what extraordinary discoveries! He did not force me to do the right thing as if I were an object in motion; he granted

[p. 107 - D-94]

me his absolute knowledge of the situation so that my actions sprang rationally from the moral nature of reality, a reality that all at once I understood. My horror (yes, that is the word; not terror but horror: at seeing the true situation and my peril and what I had done) stemmed from total insight; I was anything but a robot: I recoiled in boundless horror at my own sins and at the peril I faced, and what I had done to Tess and Chris—and sought to remedy it, because at that point if I acted swiftly it could be remedied. Now I can say, “free at last!” I was enslaved and was destroying myself and others, exactly like Faust. If the universe were not moral in nature, it would have been okay, but (I see now) God’s moral laws are built into the very physical basis of reality itself, inseparable from the actual; hence my sins caused me discomfort and a vague, dim unease that continually grew. I have never been aware of sin before; now it is real to me, sin in myself. And yet, was I not doing to Greg what Honor Jackson did to me? And God condemned him to death.

This is the missing part of the moral equation: Sandra is married. This is adultery. The Decalogue forbids it. I repented in horror at what I had done, just before there was no

drawing back. I guess for a moment I was plunged into hell and discovered what it consists of: one is given absolute moral insight into one’s own sinful nature,

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and there is no way it can be rectified; it is now too late; hence hell is eternal. This is clearly and obviously the just punishment and the logical punishment: absolutely (by the knowledge of God’s own mind) to see what one has done, illuminated by the divine light that reveals all. This is total knowledge of the situation and of oneself. It can be awful. By this divine illumination one’s cognition/perception condemns one; this is absolute self-condemnation not based on arbitrary rules but on total comprehension of what, really, is structural and how one has fitted into this structure and changed it by one’s deeds. The harmony and order of the cosmos are disrupted by what one has done. It was not guilt that I experienced; it was understanding. This is more terrible than any guilt. Guilt admits of degree; this was boundless.

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These revelations that took place Sunday night tell me a great deal about God, wisdom, morality and the Torah, and the order and sustaining of the cosmos—understandings I never had even an inkling of before. I see how correct moral laws function in the divine government and are inseparable from the physical laws that regulate reality itself; moreover, this being the case (the homologizing—logically—of physical law and moral law in sustaining the cosmos, i.e. order) shows why God as cosmocrator is ontologically the source of morality as his primary attribute or manifestation (as Judaism teaches): and as I say, the Gnostics are correct: heimarmene combines causation and the Mosaic dispensation because both are essential in the divine government. God’s will, then, which (as Spinoza rightly says) is physical law, is based on Holy Wisdom who informs the creator of what is, and in a certain real sense the absolute comprehension of what is (omniscience) determines what should be.

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Thus (as I say) wisdom and morality and the preservation of the cosmos—universal rules—become one. My radical new comprehension stems from sharing God’s view of reality and morality as a unitary “thing”; they only become unitary—one and the same—when Holy Wisdom is involved so that absolute a priori knowing exists.

The key term is being (Sein, esse, einai); this is what is preserved because this is what Holy Wisdom knows. Hence the role of God as creator is stressed. (I did manag to deal with some of this in “D.I.”) I can now see clearly why and in what way Hagia Sophia is the primary agent in creation.

All this (based on Sunday night) is probably one of the greatest leaps in my theology-epistemology-worldview-ideology. There is nothing radical in it; it is fundamental: the O.T. itself. And yet, significantly, I was already moving in this

direction, in my thinking (as expressed in “D.I.”) and in my life (conservatism, preservation, accrual and building/creating). (And, very important, stability.) What epitomizes all this is not idealism but the rational (as Rabbi Hertz and others point out regarding Judaism). One could say that Sunday night absolute rationality invaded my mind and totally possessed it. (Apollo, then, in contrast to Dionysus or Faust.) Yes, ever since 2-74 I have venerated and sought out St. Sophia, for it was she of whom the AI voice spoke. I see myself is intoxiacted up to Sunday night; whereupon I became sober; I came to my senses very suddenly—at the last moment.

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This means that my lifetime search in plumbing the depths of suffering in order to unravel its mysteries has proven successful (this relates to the rat, the beetle, the burning Japanese soldier, the Galapagos turtle; this has to do with empathy—my empathy—which is another word for agapē: and agapē is the greatest of the Xtian virtues, as Paul tells us: it is the true way of the Xtian. But why? Because it is good, i.e. a virtue? Not

[p. 167 - D-116]

exactly. Agapē is a road along which one travels in imitation of Christ, to penetrate to the core—deepest ontological layer—of suffering (his passion and crucifixion), and there, if you follow that road—and that road only—you arrive at the secret: the Resurrection—which is the miraculous conversion of suffering into ecstasy, which is uniquely the Xtian miracle; this is how Xtianity and Xtianity alone solves the problem of suffering. This solution is not a philosophical, intellectual understanding (e.g. why there is suffering) but an event: the dramatic conversion of suffering—not into mere stoic apathy, the mere lack of suffering—but into its affective and ontological bipolar opposite: ecstasy—and here, precisely, Dionysus-Zagreus enters; Jesus “is” Dionysus-Zagreus as a solution to suffering; this is not just ecstasy but, more, ecstasy as the conversion of suffering (this conversion is not found in the Dionysian-Orphic system; ecstasy is sought for its own sake[)].

There is, then, no exulation in suffering per se, here; suffering, as in Buddhism, is to be solved (thus Jesus addresses the same problem that Buddhism and Stoicism address, but solves it quite differently. If Buddhas can be called victors, certainly, then, the Xtian (who goes all the way to the end of the road of agapē) is even more a victor, for he is not merely liberated from

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suffering—he experiences ecstasy. Why? My perception is: he remembers Christ the bridegroom having just been here and anticipates his imminent return, and is now as bride preparing for that return; the Xtian is right now making the wedding preparations in this the tiny interval between Christ leaving and his anticipated imminent return; this is the Dasein of the true Xtian, and this is joyful, in fact ecstatic. I know because I

experienced it. There is memory of Christ (anamnesis) and anticipation (eschatology), and, most of all, the sense of oneself as the bride of Christ (which is, as soul, which is female). This hierogamy is consummated by the birth in the Spirit, the purpose of the messianic mission; and I do speak of this in “Valis.” All time and all space collapse into this: the memory, the anticipation, and the understanding of oneself as the intended bride—which is literally (not just symbolically!) fuliflled by the birth in the spirit which occurs now: it is not anticipated but occurs.

Yet the road to this is through suffering, and it is not just actual (involuntary) suffering, such as is imposed on all creatures, but, rather, the vicarious and voluntary ontological suffering of agapē. In imitation of Christ one voluntarily takes on all suffering, but as means, not end.

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To say that it extends into infinity does not imply immense physical size; it enters into infinnite implications, significance, meaning, which is to say it is as I saw in 2-3-74: it is typological (or archetypal). This is precisely the 2-74 meta-abstraction, for it has a permanent and ubiquitous ramification. Thus many places and times work off it. It applies over and over again. It is into this attribute that scripture taps. This is how sacerdotal performance works. The significance axis [is] always the same.(1) (For each paradigmatic [thi]ng, event, act, situation). (1) By “same” [wha]t is meant is: unitary. The key term is [word?] rather than resembles or is identical to. “Not 2 mothers once but one mother seen twice” is a realization of this. Surely this [is] what Plato surnamed eidē. If what is involved here is that which is signified (by a thing, event, act, situation) then there is a sign-to-object relationship between the word and writing of word mode

[p. 197 - D-147]

and object: the word (info) which we take to be the object—thing signified—does not in itself contain the significance that is in the true thing but only refers to it (the word “dog” does not itself have hair, feet, a tail). Thus when we see info as object it lacks the significance that the infinity attribute (true object) possesses, analgous to hair, feet and tail on particular dog. Now, in a sacerdotal act (a sacrament) the significance “in” the act is precisely what is sought for; the object and what is said and done in connection with the object is summoned deliberately—so in a sacerdotal act what I call the infinity attribute is apprehended, or at least the attempt is made to apprehend it—that is the entire point. Well, this is precisely what happened to me in 2-74 in seeing the golden fish sign: an object (that was really only an informational sign pointing to an object) was comprehended by me in this sacerdotal sense—which from a liter liturgical sense [is] comprehensible; but what is not compre[hens]ible is that I saw all reality this way: [as] sign not thing, whereupon (by definition) reality became a sacrament, every building, [per]son, event. No conventional theological [ex]planation will account for this (since such a transformation should be limited to designated sacerdotal objects and acts). What

is obvious is that what is done—sought for—with the sacraments (and often achieved) is equally true for any thing, act, situation,

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event: all reality viewed collectively as an aggregate of plurality; that is, as reality per se. This should not be possible. And, moreover, ordinary reality taken as such without this enhancement becomes “mere” information. So two things have happened: ordinary reality can now be viewed as a sign (information, word, writing) pointing to another kind of reality (object) entirely that is primarily defined—not by its trans-spatial and trans-temporal quality—but by its meaning. It is a significant reality in which meaning is everything, like a sacred drama. Now, this is not Plato’s eidē. This is something else. This means that everything extends into this dimension, but that the attempt to summon it, being confined to stipulated sacerdotal objects and acts, does not reveal this to us. What I claim for this dimension or mode or attribute is meaning or significance, and this definition when scrutinized really asserts that that which truly is is revealed; viz.: the [me]aning is not implied, referring to something [e]lse, as in a symbol or sign that has been [giv]en a referal value; the meaning is in the [di]mension now perceived and this meaning is self-authenticating and self-revealing: it discloses its own “story” by itself, requiring no interpretation or analysis: it is “open.” In fact, it is “open” in the precise way that the ordinary object is not when it is taken to be a sign signifying something; with the sign the meaning must be explained: it is not there.