[ . . . ]
Oh Dio—I just put together several extraordinary theological ideas. On November 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 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 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.
[55: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 arborizing vine constantly 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.
[55:3-2] 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 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.48 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 now will seem folly but must inexorably and inevitably seem so. Thus the apparent failure of Jesus and of Christianity 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.
[ . . . ]
To reprise, “Christ’s return in glory” is a disclosure 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—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.
[55:X-4] Last night at Juan’s the God told me: “You are now permitted to be happy (Felix) at last.” The God brings joy into the world and overthrows the reign of the old, former King of tears; it is the procession of the ages from iron—Pentheus and the BIP—to gold: Zagreus-Jesus in the Garden and the animals. The newborn King who “will wipe away every tear.” As I realized, Christianity is secretly a religion of ecstasy, and that was my turning point.
There is a thematic link between Tears (the NT and Dionysus story), Deus Irae (Christianity), Scanner (two personalities), VALIS (two personalities, Christianity), DI (the Savior, Judaism) and BTA (Christianity and two personalities, Bill and Tim, if not three: Christ also, and the Dionysus story). Six novels linked together. The most interesting link is the two personalities link in Scanner, VALIS and BTA. People will see this, but few will see that it also begins with and in Tears. If you study these six novels as a unity—and this is my third period—you discern a fascinating story not really clarified until BTA when at the end Christ emerges explicitly. (One could even argue that Confessions is part of this in that Jack Isidore and Bill resemble each other—whereupon it is at once clear that a fortiori Androids enters via J. R. Isidore—which takes us at once to the sacredness of the animals and Mercer.) This last is important. The nature of the truly human stands, then, in this complex eight volume meta-novel as a midpoint between the android (e.g., Rachel Rosen) and the divine (Mercer, Bill at the end of BTA). What strikes me most forcefully is the very great importance that Androids had in this eight volume meta-novel: what if we had not reissued it? It is an absolutely essential component, perhaps the most important of all, but in itself alone not in any way expressing the full meaning; only when linked up with BTA does the meaning become clear (and vice versa in terms of BTA); that is, BTA only assumes its full stature in significance when viewed in conjunction with Androids: the theme of the madman and the holy fool in the love for and care of animals all at once stands out sharply. (When we first encounter Bill, he is
the 180-degree mirror opposite of the Rachel Rosen and the spider scene in Androids and linked to it necessarily through J. R. Isidore.) Amazing. [ . . . ]
Perhaps most important of all, if one traces the holy fool from Confessions to Androids to BTA we see him at last, at the very end, reveal his true nature and identity as that of Christ: it is not at all there in Confessions; it is somewhat there in Androids—in which he meets the Savior, Mercer; but in BTA the long-awaited revelation at last comes. Who and where is the anticipated Savior spoken of in VALIS? In and as the holy fool first brought to our attention in Confessions, just as the fool, with no religious overtones. In Androids the holy enters, in and as Mercer (linked to the animals); and in BTA the supreme mystery is revealed: we had him—the Savior—with us from the start, as Jack Isidore. The link—absolutely necessary—between Confessions and BTA is Androids and again I say, what if we had suppressed it? Had we done so, the intact story would never have been told: from fool (nut) to holy fool (loving and innocent) to Christ himself. This is a vast theme and very complex, but also very clear: it is quite coherent.* [ . . . ]
But there is a point I am missing that is substantial and crucial: the axis of fool–holy fool–Christ completes itself not by evolution but by virtue of the fact that the fool, proven holy, is seized by Christ entering from outside—as perfectly expressed in the John Donne sonnet that Angel thinks of—significantly!—when she first sees Bill (“. . . unless you ravish me”). Christ enters the holy fool and takes full possession of him, consuming him utterly, and this is the explanation and the event both that is the 3-part axis. Bill is not Christ; Bill is seized on by Christ and taken over by Christ; for a while there are two selves, Bill’s and the extrinsic “intruder.” And, at last, only Christ. This clearly relates to Dionysus, but that seems of lesser importance to me now. To repeat, the holy fool neither is Christ or becomes Christ; he is invaded by Christ as the Holy Spirit, and this is the miracle, and this it is that is the end state of what we saw in Confessions with no hint that it would end this way! Now, the trick starting this would be if one read Confessions, Androids, BTA and then VALIS, for having absorbed the idea of this axis and seizure, what would one now make of what VALIS narrates? Why, this very seizure that is put forth rather sparingly at the end of BTA! The total analysis and presentation of the mechanics of it, as it were. The seizure step-by-step with all its ramifications, appears in VALIS—and so, to put it another way, we now understand what VALIS is all about, then! And after all it really was the purpose of BTA to explain VALIS. But there is a thematic link between VALIS and BTA I’ve failed to note: Bill is insane, and Horselover Fat is insane; so Fat is another avatar explicitly of the fool, holy fool, madman, Christ. But if VALIS is viewed after one has studied Confessions, Androids, and BTA the results are amazing as to what VALIS really depicts—and it, more than the other novels, is clearly autobiographical, and perhaps not a novel, not fiction, at all.
[55: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:
but rather:
That is, there is world, objective and substantial and real, 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 uniquely 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 theory) 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 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 A.D. 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 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 probable 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 situation, 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 ostensible cause. As to the transfer of information regarding Christopher’s birth defect, the situation is clearly and explicitly such that it is palpab
ly impossible that 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.
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 doubt 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 Nicolas 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 (dokos). 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.