[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.
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[p. 19 - L-18]
I have it now:
BuckmanJasonAlys
ClaudiusHamletGertrude
PentheusZagreus
PilateJesus
TearsJoy
OldYoung
UsurperRightful king
TyrantLiberator
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.”
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[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.