So if you experience world as continuum, noös or God or Logos or Tao or Brahman would naturally flow back in, as it were; whereas in the atomists’ discontinuous world of atoms and void this is logically of necessity excluded. And yet in this century—and only just now!—modern theoretical physics has verified the continuum view—and sure enough, some of the physicists involved are noting how the Tao or Brahman (Noös?) fits in.
The ecosphere is a continuum, and the apperception of it as a unitary whole is tied to this vast transformation in worldview found in physics. And it is alive and thinks.
[56:H-25] To hold the continuum view of the Eleatics satisfies two quite different criteria: (1) it is a return to Heidegger’s unity of noein and einai before “the darkening,” i.e., to Parmenides’ worldview, so it is authentic Sein; and (2) it is in accord with modern physics, so it is verified, and it is not abreactive.46 Then the “darkening” is ending (and I see in this the “third dispensation” regarding the ecosphere, a concept only possible in the “continuum” worldview). [ . . . ]
The void-atoms view is the decomposing cosmos that Christ reunites (in and as the ecosphere continuum view).
The atoms-void “cosmos” is not a cosmos at all.
Continuum—idealism—God/Noös
Discontinuous—materialism—blind necessity
I saw the new cosmos.
[56:J-6] He has ensouled the biosphere as a whole. The logos, penetrating it, endows it with reason; thus it now uses language (logos = word = language). This is the greatest evolution since creation—Genesis—itself; man as a species now ascends to a totally new level of intelligence, such as I experienced in 2-3-74. This will permit an articulation by the ecosphere that we will hear. This has never been the case before. I am saying that we will hear the voice of the ecosphere and we will enter into dialogue with it; Dio! “The voice of the ecosphere”! “We will hear it.” This is Pere Teilhard’s noösphere; could this be the AI voice? The biosphere? It is not a disembodied voice or mind but speaks for all the creatures; this is Tagore. Is the AI voice, then, Tagore? Or, put another way, when I saw Tagore did I see the source of the AI voice?➊ This may be a new entity, since prior to this the ecosphere had no voice, for it did not possess the logos. The logos penetrates it, ensouls it with reason, and it (the ecosphere) speaks; to repeat my insight of Saturday night: the creator has now granted speech to the animals—i.e., the ecosphere. Then can it be said that Tagore is the ecosphere?
He has ensouled the biosphere with reason. Thus it can now speak, to him and to us; this is Tagore. It can enter into dialogue with us and with him.
The conflagration of the world foretold as its eschatological fate (“last time water, next time fire”) is what I saw; but God out of mercy sends his son into the world once more, to enter the ecosphere and to plead for the world, that it not be burned up; thus the world is to Tagore as man was to Christ! It (mankind) faced destruction but God intervened, and both times in the same way: as voluntary sacrifice and surrogate, taking the burns as stigmata upon his own body so that the world will be spared as, the time before, man was spared. Thus Tagore is world’s advocate as Christ was man’s; God sees not the lowly earthworm, but sees Tagore, his son, and hears Tagore’s voice which is the voice of the earthworm, the ecosphere itself. This is why the animals have been ensouled with reason: so they can ask for help. They have been given the gift of speech so that they can artic ulate their needs and plight to the creator. Then it is not just we (humans) who hear Tagore but God hears him, too; God primarily. He (Tagore) is mediator between the biosphere and God, in his role as logos.
The attempt by the animals to speak that I saw in 3-74 is fulfilled in and by Tagore. This is an evolution primarily of great mercy by God for the creatures (and it does show up in DI in the scene with the dying dog).
The dog run over and dying in DI is Kevin’s cat in VALIS—here lies the ultimate enigma and the solution. This is what God must respond to, and he does so by sending Tagore. Tagore, then, is the solution to the axial problem formulated in VALIS. I have received my answer and it is not theoretical; he is here: the AI voice said so.
➊ The AI voice may be a new voice, not Ruah and not the Holy Spirit, but Tagore, the biosphere, who is Tagore, whose voice we hear and whose voice God hears; what I hear, then, when I hear the AI voice is what God hears. It addresses me and it addresses God. It is to God as Jesus is to God, him and yet not him. Tagore exists separately in his own right, as Jesus did.
[56:J-29] We are embedded in a tremendously elaborate biosphere or even noösphere (as Teilhard calls it) already, but cannot discern it due to our discontinuous view of reality, our materialist-atomist blindness. Were it to signal us we would most likely experience—or rather seem to experience—the sort of uncanny “one-way” information intrusions such as occur in Ubik. It is aware of us and our involvement in it, but we are not; thus, where it deliberately signals us we would note the signal and react appropriately but have no notion—nor even perception—what—if anything—had done the signaling. Thus (probably) we would experience what Bishop Berkeley speaks of as the impression that objects seen are “in” our eyes rather than spatially removed. [ . . . ] It would be as if the visible (or anyhow palpable) signal came out of an invisible yet tangent—i.e., immediate—source. But the problem stems from the very basis of our “discontinuous” worldview; signals and especially information would seem to arise (1) out of nothing; and (2) immediately at hand; as I say, as if “in” our own percept systems, yet at the same time partaking of Other, of the external. It would be a paradox, and one only solvable at the most fundamental ontological level of world experience; we would have to learn to see (or “see”) what is in fact there in what I call the “Eleatic continuum” worldview in which the void is denied: viz: there is no such thing as “nothing.”
You could even reason that it would be this impinging of signals and information at the sense organ itself, out of (apparently) nothing that would be our clue to the inadequacy of our fundamental apperception of reality, like the frogs KW speaks of bopping against what for them is an invisible wall—because they have no template for “wall.”
How if at all would this differ from an hallucination? I believe that hallucinations appear organized in space-time; they are governed by the Kantian categories. They are projected sources. But here, information arises at the sense organ minus a palpable source. One supposes that one sees X or hears Y, but in what I’m talking about this is precisely what is missing; therefore the signal or information is de facto uncanny, being causeless. The problem is not that you see and hear but that you do not. There is a blind spot, an omission.
The “logic” of the discontinuous reality system denies that there can be anything there: only the void is there—hence, as I say, the stimulus seems as if it arises at the sense organ or in it or directly tangent to it (and not in space-time). Not only is there no way to tell what the signal (stimulus) is arising from. There isn’t even a where.
[56:J-34] Πρόνοια (Pronoia): affectionate behavior by world. Αγάπη [Agape]: strange orthogonal thought, following the sudden thought, “all this—my research—is sterile (i.e., cold, devoid of feeling).”
[56:1a] 2-3-74 was: I was not just in contact with God—I was in the mind of God, Kosmos Noetos47: world “became” the preexistent eternal ideas. Then I realized myself to be equally eternal—an eternal notion in that mind.
This is the whole explanation. [ . . . ]
The exegesis was not a waste of time; I came to understand noesis, the use and the cognitive function, the pre-existent ideas, the basis of it all being mind, intellect, forms, logos, idea, ideas—eternal and unchanging including myself—in God’s mind,➊ hence world to be truly known must be intelligibly known, because it is an interlocking set of ideas in God’s mind. This is the key to it all.
➊ This is where anamnesis and meta-abstraction become (revealed as) one and the same operation: (A) pertaining to world; (B) pertainin
g to me as an equally eternal and unchanging idea in God’s mind.
[56:19a] The intellect—as opposed to the senses—can know the true nature of world—not because of some occult power in the intellect—but because the true nature of world is intelligible in itself (as the Pythagoreans taught: ratio and mathematical truth, not a substance but structure). There is, then, a one-to-one correspondence between the human intellect and the true nature of world, and this explains the meta-abstraction: why it re vealed the true nature of world to me (and my own nature to myself). The true structure of the universe is cognate to human reasoning, and this is the paradigm of Pythagoras and his insight upon hearing the anvil struck. Thus my exegesis with its emphasis on the reasoning faculty, the meta-abstraction, the overcoming of “cognitive estrangement” is by no means a waste of time or a blind alley but is pure Platonism, the meta-abstraction being noesis acquired through anamnesis. One might even say that the meta-abstraction is not only a revelation of how the universe is constructed but that it is an intelligible structure and that the human reason is able to comprehend it—and it is precisely this that overcomes “cognitive estrangement” by yielding up cognitive comprehension as the final yield pertaining both to self and world: the part-whole relationship. Thus it is taught by Plato that there is a spark of the divine in the human soul.
[56:1b] December 12, 1981
Though he seeks to sell his (Satan’s) power fantasies (Blade Runner) he unknowingly promulgates the Third Kerygma: the ecosphere (animals) is now ensouled: holy. [ . . . ]
My god, this movie is the greatest defeat (what was done to the book) and victory (the Tagore kerygma promulgated); the first is ostensible, the latter cryptic. Oddly, the first appears ostensibly to be a victory but is really a defeat; nonetheless a real victory lurks secretly under it, but it is not the victory that people will think the making of a movie from my book is. They will say, “It is a great victory to have your book made into one of the biggest movies of all time,” but they will not know why; it doesn’t have to do with what is in the movie, etc.; it has to do with what is in the novel. [ . . . ]
The beetle I was tormenting back when I was in the third grade—I saw it as holy, as Christ. Later the turtle was Christ. The rat who screamed was Christ, and appears as such in Tears; this is the revelation in Tears by means of the dream: the rat ensouled and now King Felix: Christ. The crippled lamb who lagged behind. Pinky as pink sheep humiliated and killed. It’s all in Androids, and finally the Tagore vision explicates what was already in Androids as doctrine, and in Tears as revelatory cypher. The movie is defeat; the novel victory, ostensible vast loss, secret good shining almost invisibly from beneath this defeat, these fascist power fantasies they’ve made it into. Evil has served good; evil appears to win but it is good that actually does. [ . . . ]
The Tagore vision is a summation of all that has gone before. Looking at Pinky there toward the end and seeing the passion, seeing Christ humiliated and dying—that was not one vision among many; that was not an aspect of a vision: that was the core of it, the beating heart of it all; when that is coupled with the revelation of the Logos in camouflaged form invading reality (the ecosphere) and transubstantiating it—add these two together, and there it all is. This is not quite the same as Jesus Patibilis; it is a new revelation of something dynamic: a process of conquest. Ah; last night I saw in my mind the Godhead moving into the animal kingdom, and I saw the vast joy that the Godhead experienced in receiving that fallen, lower kingdom (domain) back; not the joy of and by that kingdom, but the joy of and by the Godhead; the Godhead moved into that lower kingdom and inhaled it, drew it back in by it—the Godhead—advancing into that lower, fallen kingdom long separated from the Godhead; and what beauty! The colors, the love; bliss itself, by the Godhead, to receive back that domain with all the life in it. This was a vision of what I had seen in 3-74 of Valis (the Logos) invading reality; there I saw it with my outer eyes, externally, but last night it was an inner vision, and I had forgotten it until this moment; I experienced the joy and love on the part of the Godhead to do this thing, not what was done for the animal kingdom but what the Godhead felt. Colors, as Dante describes the Trinity in Paradiso: the varicolored rings of light; I saw that like rings of Saturn advancing into the animal domain. “The love that moves the sun and the other stars”—it had regained the lost animal kingdom; and this is my vision going back to the beetle I was tormenting in the third grade; it is one vision extended over all my life. And I found it in Act III of Parsifal, the Good Friday Spell. [ . . . ] As the EB says, To see in an old dilapidated bum the Christ; that is the Christian Dispensation. But I see in the sick, humiliated, dying animal the Christ, literally saw; and this is the Third Dispensation, the cat crapping and wild, and then all of a sudden tame and wise, like a saint; it was the Christ and this is a new dispensation, Tagore’s. Before it was, Where the man is, there is Christ. Now it is, Where the animal is, there is Christ. To see this and understand this: for this I was fashioned from the beginning; for this I was made. My original satori regarding the beetle was the true one; everything else only amplifies. [ . . . ]
A strange and mysterious strategy: to put the new kerygma in a novel published in the late sixties but then disclosed to me only now, toward the end of 1981, but just at the time that we get the signed contract with the Blade Runner people to rerelease the novel in conjunction with the film—as if the VALIS trilogy has diverted everyone’s attention, my own included, like when the thought came to me that the true message was in “Frozen Journey” and not in VALIS! The true message is not in VALIS, but it is, I now think, in Androids and it will have the greatest circulation—probably—of all. Viewed in terms of God’s strategy, Blade Runner has been used as a means to an end, the end being the kerygma in Androids. Thus to have suppressed Androids and either written or authorized the novelization based on the screenplay would have been to hand over victory to evil, but this did not happen. The fully executed contract between Blade Runner and me regarding the rerelease of Androids was waiting for me in my post office box on Friday, the day I was up in Venice and learned the truth.
To share—experience—the joy by the Godhead as it invades—expands into—the animal kingdom, lost to it all these many millennia! The repair to the damaged Godhead! Yes, it is a self-repair, a reinhaling, a recovery of part of its lost self. Christ reknitting the decomposing cosmos and restoring it to God. Christ moves lower and lower, deeper and deeper into the decomposing cosmos, down layer by layer, starting with man. Thus the vision of Christ at and in the trash layer (stratum) is a vision of ultimate and final repair.
Why am I so joyful? I am celebrating a victory and can now stop work—finally—and relax. Why? Because I did my job and I know it. What was the job? To get the third dispensation in print, and I did so in Androids—I need do nothing else in my life. The Tagore vision: the Godhead expanding into the ecosphere (animal kingdom).
Okay: there are other aspects. I didn’t sell out to Hollywood: (1) do the novelization or (2) permit the novelization; (3) suppress the original book. And in view of what the film is about, it would have destroyed me for two reasons, not one: (A) the Tagore vision in Androids; (B) the Heinlein power fantasies in Blade Runner. These are antithetical: and they express the opposing kingdom’s Christ (Androids) and Satan (Blade Runner). Look what it would have done to me spiritually and psychologically and politically. My soul is safe, and it was in jeopardy. This is why I see victory despite the vast defeat.*
Folder 55
December 1981
[55:L-18] I have it now:
Buckman | Jason | Alys
Claudius | Hamlet | Gertrude
Pentheus | Zagreus
Pilate | Jesus
Tears | Joy
Old | Young
Usurper | Rightful king
Tyrant | 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 na
ture 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-degree mirror opposite of the truth. The ostensible “king” is not only not the true king, he also has no actual power: despite appearances 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.