[54:L-3] The maze can never be solved in terms of “horizontal” space, only “vertical” space (involving conversion of time into space).* This is ostensibly Celtic, but below that, as it were, lies pan-Indian thought about karma and maya and most of all compassion—expressed in Parsifal as “pity’s [i.e., compassion’s] highest power”; the significance of Mitleid in the statement in Parsifal is now explained to me: compassion’s highest power is the only power capable of solving the maze, and the recognition of “compassion’s highest power” is the essence of Buddhism, i.e., the bodhisattva or Buddha-to-be. VALIS, then, is Celtic (Parsifal, the maze) and Indian (Buddhism), by way of Crete (the dream of the plate of spaghetti and the trident and the elevator)—this last representing vertical ascent or descent: the fourth spatial axis is spiritual space: to rise vertically is to ascend to heaven which also signifies spiritual ascent or enlightenment.
[54:L-5] Dio. The “here, my son, time turns into space” in Parsifal refers to (1) the maze; and (2) is a solution to the maze. It all comes together in Parsifal, which secretly deals with bodhisattva: Mitleid, hence the Buddha. And karma and Maya. What was precisely not solved in VALIS (“pity’s highest power”) is at last solved at the end—as the end—of BTA: compassion as the bodhisattva or Buddha to be: viz: one attains Nirvana—release from the maze via the pulley—due to compassion—i.e., Mitleid, which solves the horizontal maze. Pity is the fourth spatial axis. This can be expressed best by: the way back into the maze—what the bodhisattva chooses (to do)—is, paradoxically, the way—the only way—out of the maze.
And my point is: this was to be the theme of Owl in which he is trapped in the maze and only escapes, actually, rather than seemingly, when he decides voluntarily to return (to resubject himself to the power of the maze) for the sake of these others, still in it. That is, you can never leave alone; to leave you must elect to take the others out; thus Christ said, “Greater love hath no man than that he give up his life for his friend”; this is the cryptic utterance of the soul’s solution to the maze, and is the essence of Christianity. Christianity, then, is a system of solution to the maze. Had I written Owl I would have expressed this solution which I had already formulated on a supra-conscious level.
It is almost all there in VALIS but the specific, crucial solution itself (VALIS states the problem) is at the end of BTA, so the problem is in VALIS and the solution to the problem (as I recently realized) is held back till BTA and then only at the end.
[54:L-7] So perhaps the truest statement in VALIS is by Lampton when he says that the purpose of Valis is to fire subliminal info/instructions to you as to how to get out of the maze. Deconstructed, this pertains to all the avatars, Christ included. But Gautama most especially in the bodhisattva concept regarding compassion specifically expressed as: voluntarily returning to the maze; that is, the ultimate paradox of the maze, its quintessential ingenuity of construction, is that the only real way out is a voluntary way back in (into it and its power), which is the path of the bodhisattva. The maze, then, is one colossal and absolute Chinese finger trap.
[54:L-9] Dio—this means that (as I intended to say in Owl) when you think you are out of the maze—i.e., saved—you are in fact still in it. You only actually get out when you seem to be out, think you are out, and voluntarily decide to return! You have to get outside of the maze to get outside of the maze; hence I say that both the maze (the occlusion) and the solution to the maze are self-winding. So in a sense there is no solution once you are in the maze. In a sense the solution is (1) impossible; and (2) acausal.
And everything is there, but only when all 3 volumes are read.
If the final paradox of the maze is that the only way you can escape it is voluntarily to go back in (into it), then maybe we are here voluntarily; we came back in. Hence release—to nirvana—consists of: anamnesis. We who are here—or at least, some of us—were once in it before (in my case as Thomas), but we—or I—came back in and am here now. Thus my voluntary return to the maze has already happened, and 2-3-74 was true release. And hence for these reasons came in the form of restored memory—the loss of forgetfulness. Then I did not solve the maze this time; I had already solved the maze by voluntarily coming back in as PKD—and I remembered in 2-74. Thus my salvation was assured not by what I did in this lifetime but by this lifetime as such.
[54:M-1] So there are two equally correct ways to view the maze:
(1) it leads out (to Paradiso/nirvana)
(2) it leads in (to the Grail)
In case (1) your mystagogue is in the upper realm—i.e., heaven; he has already obtained nirvana himself but returns as a bodhisattva to aid those such as you.
In case (2) Christ’s blood in the Grail speaks to you in dreams; it calls you to it and explains the way.
[ . . . ]
Total moksa: the mystagogue not only is yourself (out of the maze) but has to be yourself, logically. This is salvador salvandus. It is also my realization that I am becoming Angel Archer who has foreknowledge. But as I move through life, more and more of her foreknowledge becomes hindsight and hence my knowledge; upon my death, Angel and I will be one.
I cannot retrieve the reasoning that led me to my moksa that not only is the AI voice myself out of the maze but is me necessarily; it has to do with (1) voluntarily returning to the maze in order to be—get—outside the maze; that is, the Chinese finger trap quality of the maze is overcome. And (2) this is how a self-causing (acausal) escape from a self-winding situation not only can occur but must occur; you must be able to do this—advise yourself in the maze from outside the maze—or a fortiori you will never get out. Hence anamnesis. Hence the AI voice. Hence salvador salvandus. Hence I become progressively more and more Angel Archer (the “bright” side of the dialectic: the rational) and less and less H. Fat, the irrational side.
[54:M-3] VALIS—especially the ending of BTA—is close, but it will take Owl really to nail it down, where he gets out of the maze, voluntarily goes back in—and finds out that his later act of going back in caused his former (prior) release. And if he does not go back in voluntarily, that former, prior release will not—will not have occurred. This explains why my later act vis-à-vis Covenant House changed my former, prior destiny/karma. For under the aspect of eternity, cause-and-effect can, does, and in fact must work this way. So the giving to Covenant House causing a previous event to change (i.e., 2-3-74) is paradigmatic of the closed loop continuum and perturbation of continuum that is built into the two self-winding situations of damnation (lost in the maze forever, i.e., horizontal tracking endlessly) and salvation (the vertical axis or pulley).
[54:M-8] I just now looked over DI. As I recently realized about VALIS, the dialectic that is the inner life of God—as revealed to Boehme and explicated later by Schelling—and commented on by, e.g., Tillich—is presented as the very basis of the book. In VALIS it is expressed dramatically as world-order in which the irrational confronts the “bright” or rational, designated (properly) logos. In DI this same dialectic reappears and this time is stated to be the two sides of God (rather than world order; that is, in DI it is now correctly seen to be within God himself!): It is now (in DI) between Emmanuel who is the terrible, destroying “solar heat” warring side—and Zina who is loving, playful, tender, associated with bells and flowers; and what unifies the two at last (by the way, it is she who takes the lead in restoring memory and hence unification; Emmanuel is the side that has forgotten—i.e., is impaired; she has not and is not impaired) is play. She plays, and Emmanuel has a secret desire to play.
So both novels basically deal with the dialectic that I experienced as the nature of Valis and which I construe to be the dynamic inner life of God. If you superimpose both books, then, you get this equation:
Really, then, DI simply continues the fundamental theme of VALIS—but does not seem to do so—not unless one perceives this theme and what it is (the dialectic that is the dynamic inner life of God). DI is not so loose a sequel to VALIS as it might seem (
by, e.g., the shift from Gnosticism, the present, realism, to Kabbala, the future, fantasy).
[54:M-11] An incredible beauty lies over DI; it is simply wonderful—love and dance and color. I have revealed the beauty of God—ah! And thus: I am of the Sufis!
DI is at its absolute basis Sufi—and this passes right over to BTA—this is what links DI to BTA. So the dialectic hence YHWH links VALIS to DI, but beauty—Sufism—links DI to BTA. So there is internal order to all three books:
(1) God.
(2) Beauty. And when the beauty shows up in BTA is especially in connection with Dante in his vision of God: light and color.
The pink rose. Pink. Valis.
[54:M-12] The Tagore vision, it being published, will release the marathon runners—start them out with the Godspell, the good news—because it— in contrast to the VALIS trilogy—contains the social justice part which has to do with the “we all survive together as a planet or we all die together,” which is the Age of Aquarius doctrine of the Maitreya. The essence of the third dispensation is thus unity and indivisibility of the life of the planet, and, as I say, it is not found in the trilogy.
[54:M-24] Galactic Pot-Healer shows the very real possibility of encroaching madness. The archetypes are out of control. Water—the ocean itself —which is to say the unconscious, is hostile and rises to engulf. The book is desperate and frightened, and coming apart, dreamlike, cut off more and more from reality. Flight, disorganization: the way has almost run out. Those elements dealt with in earlier novels—ominous elements —now escape my control and take over. What Brunner said, “That one got out of control,” is correct and has vast psychological significance.
And yet I did not become psychotic. Why not? What happened?
Very simply, the meta-abstraction was the birth of higher reason in me, specifically and precisely logos. It was noesis, but, more, it was logos itself. And logos—not just as reason, although it is that—but Christ: Christ as the power of the rational principle itself.
The dialectic that I experienced in 3-74 was between the irrational and the rational, in me, in world, in God. The rational won.
The issue is properly stated in VALIS, which shows not only a return of control but is an account of victory—in the form of rationality, of logos itself—over madness; I am not only rational, I also depict as open autobiography, this battle in me and this victory. Ursula is both right and wrong. “Phil Dick is moving toward madness” does not apply to VALIS but to Galactic Pot-Healer; already with Tears and then more so in Scanner reality has reentered; I am again in touch with the real. Judging from the dream in Tears, the archetype of the wise old man (the King) saved me, and he is or represents God. So for me, religion and rationality—that is, the divine in the real, the truly real—are one. It is Christ and it is the rational; it is exactly what I say it is in VALIS: the inbreaking of the rational principle, the logos, into the irrational. But I am talking about my own mind, not world.
VALIS is, then, the return from madness or near-madness, an account of a prior inner struggle and not a symptom of that struggle still going on. By the time I wrote VALIS the battle had been successfully won; and the proof of this is DI and, most of all, BTA in which Angel Archer is (as I’ve already realized) the rational principle in me, which is logos, that is to say, Christ itself speaking; the victory by the “bright” side in me is total. Thus I was saved by Christ as the inbreaking of the rational principle, logos or reason itself.
* * *
[54:M-26] Ursula is right to see me—my mind—as threatened by ominous encroaching madness, but VALIS is a lucid postmortem, a deliberate and rational study, of this issue, this battle, and the victory of the rational in me (expressed as Valis, logos or Christ). The one who sees precisely all this—the battle and the victory and even the cause of the ominous issue or problem (a decade of intense suffering and trial)—is John Clute writing in the Post. I came through it and emerged victorious: but just barely.
[54:M-29] I guess my realization came (last night) when, after reading Pot and realizing that I did become psychotic, I then picked up Scanner and read here and there. The appalling horror of that book! To go into that from psychosis; that is, how terrible a fate awaited me. What saved me was my love for those people: Luckman (Ray Harris), Jerry Fabin (Dennis) and Donna (Kathy), which ties in with Tears and the scene at the all-night gas station.
Thinking back to when I wrote Pot: I felt so strongly—and correctly— at the time that when it came time, in writing the book, to have the theophany occur (i.e., for Glimmung to show himself) I had nothing to say, nothing to offer because I knew nothing.65 Oh, and how I sensed this lack of knowledge! And now this is precisely what I do know because now I have experienced it (2-3-74).
In a way I better depict the 3-74 theophany (of Valis) in DI than in VALIS itself. In any case if you superimpose the two novels it is there—precisely what I lacked when I wrote Pot—and knew I lacked, as a human, as a writer; I had no ideas about the theophany at all, and yet by the time I wrote DI it came easily, that which would not and could not come with Pot; thus in writing Pot that exactly was where I reached the end—wore out and died as a writer; scraped the bottom of the barrel and died creatively and spiritually. What misery that was! Paisley shawl, hoop of water, hoop of fire; how wretched it was; how futile.
Strange that later (1974) I experienced what I had yearned to know so that I could continue the logical, organic growth and forward development of my writing. That was where I wore out: trying to depict a theophany. And that is what I legitimately later on (in the VALIS trilogy) could do. But oh the years of suffering! And yet—if I became psychotic in writing Pot—if Pot shows signs of psychosis, and it does—it is not because I experienced and knew God but precisely because I did not. And thus the Valis books are the opposite, are sane, are grounded in experience and in reality because by then I had experienced God; hence my creative life (not just my spiritual life) resumed; and with it my sanity. Thus in a very real sense my sanity depended on my experiencing God, because my creative life logically demanded it—and as Eugene said, my sanity depends on my writing.
What I knew therein, when I tried to depict Glimmung, was my own finiteness, and this boundary and sense of boundary withered my soul and killed me; this is not just a creative crisis alone; it was a total crisis of homo sapiens man who knows. I did not know and began to die.
And at last—in ’74—I came back to life as a human because I then did know. And all the humor and wit and sheer inventiveness of Pot only makes the pain greater. For me, psychosis lay in not knowing God. Conversely, sanity came in knowing God.
Thus Valis made me acutely, suddenly, and for the first time sane.
[54:M-32] This, precisely, is the psychosis that manifests itself in Pot: the effort by a finite creature to suppose the divine without actual experience of the divine ends in disorder and incoherence and, as I so realized last night, the truly desperate. Glimmung is absurd and in fact a travesty and I knew it at the time; never was anyone ever so aware of the unbridgeable gap between the finite and the infinite. And this is it; this states it: the finite creature attempting to suppose the infinite and, in failing, becoming deranged. Thus I say now, my psychosis, expressed in my writing, did not enter it from outside the writing; it began in and with the writing itself, for it was in the writing that I reached my limit and could not go on.
[54:M-34] Here, perhaps, is the distinction between “idios kosmos” and “koinos kosmos.” The human mind cannot generate out of itself the infinite, in which case “finitum capax infiniti” is not the proper formulation. The infinite must break in! And this lies within the power of the infinite self: the infinite must take the initiative. Thus the VALIS trilogy represents the inbreaking of the infinite into my life, my mind, my soul and my writing.
[54:M-35] I am saying, then, several things: first, that the finite creature’s hunger for the infinite is such that it will drive itself mad in its search; second, I am saying that this is the
cause of my psychosis that began to take over and lasted until 2-74; that (third) I was psychotic until 2-74, as I suspected, but now I see why; and last, that the inbreaking of the infinite “sobers the landscape”; that is, the madness is abolished for what I construe as logical reasons. Drugs did not cause my psychosis; Nancy and Isa leaving did not; normal schizophrenia did not; anxiety and danger and suffering (in particular ’71) did not; poverty did not. It was generated by (a) a hun ger for the infinite; and (b) the necessary impossibility of the finite creature discovering the infinite: it can only receive the inbreaking of the infinite.
[54:M-37] This is really what VALIS is all about, thematically. Then I am saying that the condition normal to us generates a sort of normal madness that I have already and for some time studied: it has to do with a recirculating closed loop in which the mind simply monitors its own thoughts forever and so only knows itself, never really knowing the truly other. Then “infinite” and “truly other” signify one and the same thing; the reason I could not imagine infinite deity is the reason I could not imagine the math-color axis in place of our math-music axis. All this, then, is ultimate epistemology, no more, no less. The meta-abstraction amounts to an authentic comprehension about something other than myself, and it may represent, for me, the first time what I have always called “world” was truly world at all rather than a dubious image emanating from my own psyche. [ . . . ]
In any case the conception of Glimmung and the meta-abstraction are antitheses. They are mutually exclusive. The former is nothing more than that which I as finite thing can suppose: the latter is bona fide knowledge of that which is truly other. In becoming psychotic I simply showed the prisonlike nature of self-generated knowledge and what it is like for the inquisitive mind to discover that all it knows is itself over and over again. The realization that it is de facto in hell (cf. my supra theory that hell and the atomization of the lowest ring spatiotemporal world are one and the same; conversely, the “part-whole compatibility” solution that is true cosmos stands as remedy to this, for now the atom comprehends itself within a structure transcending it and thus effectively gets out of itself—abolishes its boundary—and this leads at once back to the meta-abstraction and what it accomplishes).