So here we have my psychosis defined as “the lethal damage done by the inquiring mind” by the fact that—and its awareness of the fact that (the second point is necessary!)—it knows only itself and seemingly is condemned to know only itself forever, itself and nothing more. This is epistemological hell. Knowledge other than self-knowledge is de facto impossible. Here we see the culmination of years of epistemological doubts—doubts about the nature of—even the reality of—world; suddenly a radical shift occurs: it is not world that is dubitable and tenuous but knowledge of world; the Cartesian premise has set in, and, upon doing so, the mind realizes that it is doomed never to know world. This, then, may be what the BIP symbolizes: the prison of the utter atomization of the spatiotemporal world. At this point the mind despairs and psychosis sets in as the mind frantically seeks to formulate “in the dark” an image, a representation, of the infinite. (Which is impossible; as Malebranche showed. The infinite—God—can only be known directly; there is no such thing as a representation of God/the infinite.) For me, decades of epistemological activity have ended not only in failure but in recognition of failure. And since epistemology is the very basis of my creative, spiritual, artistic and professional life, then I am destroyed . . . but, the flip side of this is the meta-abstraction, which not only confers sanity but life itself inasmuch as it reverses the death-dealing condition of ignorance—and here precisely is the ontological value assigned to the diametric categories of ignorance and gnosis in Gnosticism!
[54:M-40] That Ursula should regard my moment of failure as the moment of my greatest success shows me that it is possible for an intelligent, educated adult to enjoy the prison of atomization we are in; after all, if all you ever experience is yourself you are consummately safe, and I think safety is the summum bonum for Ursula. And, conversely, for her VALIS, in which the prison of Pot is successfully burst, is threatening and offensive and suggests to her madness or the imminent threat of madness. But it is Pot that is either insane or threatened by the engulfing tide of insanity: the dismal ocean depicted in the novel itself: the tomb world of absolute decay. Ursula, then, erred twice, not once, but the errors logically interlock: if she saw Pot as sane, she will see VALIS as insane.
[54:N-15] Dio—Is VALIS ever a complete success! In terms of articulating the mysteries revealed to me by (1) 2-74–2-75 and (2) the AI voice.
And I was absolutely right to choose Gnosticism primarily and also Buddhism!
And it’s all predicated on my epistemological suspicions going back to the fifties: That somehow our world is fake.
[54:N-18] Glancing briefly over the “Tractates” I note two interesting things:
(1) All the statements in it by the AI voice now at last make sense; that is, I understand them.
(2) Moreover, they fit into one coherent system and it is an extraordinarily important one. And also:
(3) The system is a revealed one; on my own (employing both a priori reason and empirical observation) I never would have arrived at it. Therefore:
(4) I think that this is Gnosticism. That is, not only (sic!) the meta-abstraction but also all that the AI voice has said; without its state ments, on the basis of the meta-abstraction alone, I would never have understood. Therefore:
(5) When I say, “The AI voice is myself, myself as perfected, realized self, outside of the BIP,” what I am referring to is specifically and clearly and very movingly the salvador salvandus. Which again tells me that this is indeed Gnosticism. So I am a spark of the Godhead that got captured by the Dark Kingdom; as I say in the “Tractates”:
“We did not fall because we sinned; our error—which caused our fall—was an intellectual one: we took the phenomenal world—i.e., the 4-D world with its defective space and its spurious time—to be real.”
Salvation, then, initiated by the salvador salvandus who outwits the wardens (the archons) and ventures here from the King of Lights, is to remember—our true nature. And this messenger, this salvador salvandus, is of course who and what I saw and experienced as Valis. It is both my own unfallen self, and it is the Gnostic Christ.
[54:N-20] I am probably too far into Gnosticism to turn back: the single term “mystagogue” points indubitably to it, and, then, to salvador salvandus. Which in turn fits in with my “bootstrap” view that is a revolutionary reappraisal of what “cause and effect” really signify, that “being saved” means “remembering” (your true identity and true situation and true history)—this at first seems to be Plato’s anamnesis but is really Gnostic in the widest sense, knowledge regarded as ontologically primary both in terms of the fallen individual and, more, in terms of cosmic repair. And here, indeed, is the essence of Gnosticism, as H. Jonas says: not that the gnosis saves but, rather, the ontological value and meaning of it, that it is absolutely primary as the real thing, second to nothing. Thus in the final analysis Gnosticism assigns the utmost priority to knowing and thus regards epistemology as equal to the divine; for the Gnostic, epistemological inquiry is in itself—as a search—truly divine, and is the highest basis of and for spiritual life—and this is my view of epistemology a fortiori. To me, nothing is more important.* Thus for me Gnosticism is the inexo rable goal because the premise of Gnosticism is the premise on which my mental life is grounded; so for me to say that “Gnosticism is the solution” is in fact for me to utter a tautology, but it is a meaningful one; it is tautological only in the sense that (upon close inspection) it turns out to be an analytical proposition and not a synthetic one. So for me spiritual, mental life, Gnosticism, epistemology, rationality (in contrast to the irrational) and knowing are all one. And the search is as worthy as the goal; the search is the dynamic life of the mind. It amounts to a procession of mounting growth stages in personal evolution and hence is essential to negentropy, to life itself. To know is to be: not “I think therefore I am” but “I learn therefore I am”: there is a difference: learning involves the absorption of negative entropy into oneself from the environment (negentropy expressed as information). And this, maybe, is the heart of the matter. “I write, I learn, I evolve and grow; therefore I am.” This, for me, is Gnosticism. Hence this exegesis. It is the very dynamism of my life.
Folder 57
February 1982
[55:O-8] 66 I just now glanced over the tractate. In a sense the novel VALIS was a means to get the tractate published—originally I supposed only a private and tiny printing, e.g., by Roy Squires, but because of VALIS it—the tractate—is in mass circulation in the U.S., the U.K., France and possibly Germany. I did it. VALIS is true; Gnosticism is true; what the AI voice says is true; thus I am compelled to believe absolutely and for the first time that, all else proving to be true, the soteriological prophecies must be true, also; so the 5th savior is here: “he has been transplanted and is alive.”
[57:Q-7] Okay. The one billionth fresh start. All of it—2-74–2-75—and what the AI voice has said, and all the revelations and visions—it’s all indubitably this: soteriology. That is clear.*
(1) 2-3-74 per se was soteriological (pronoia and miracle, intervention).
(2) The “messenger” vision deals with soteriology.
(3) The “Covenant House” AI statement is soteriological.
(4) The “pulley” vision is soteriological.
(5) All the prophecies are soteriological.
(6) The “parousia and Holy Mother Church” dream is soteriological.
So whereas the theological structure remains vague (monotheism, or bitheism, Christianity or Judaism or Gnosticism), one thing (as I say) is indubitable: everything that has happened and that I have been shown, told, every revelation—it’s all one vast soteriological engine/program.
(7) Valis itself is. Σωτηρ (Soter).67
Okay. Then that’s it. I can’t discern the big picture—God (theology) and the universe (epistemology)—but there is palpable and indubitable (1) individual soteriology directed at me that saved my life, saved me; and (2) general soteriological disclosures involving mankind a
nd Savior.
So probably the Savior—the 5th Savior—is indeed here. And he will explain the rest.
[57:Q-10] Because of the reverence for all life that permeates my developing spiritual doctrines, I think I will settle on Buddhism and upon doing that I will assume that the fifth Savior is the Maitreya. Do I not have my Tagore vision?
[57:Q-14] 2-74: light (sunlight reflected off the golden fish sign).
3-74 (Valis) light (“beam of pink light” is what I always say, but it was sunlight, as in 2-74, only this time it was the sticker of the fish sign in the living room window.
The upsilon became a palm tree. The pink part was the phosphene after-image of the fish sticker.)
So fish sign both times: in 2-74 (the meta-abstraction); and 3-74, Valis, the info about Chrissy.
It’s Christ. In 2-74 there was no pink light as such. But sunlight. Fish sign and light.
Like Boehme. And Mr. Tagomi.*
[57:Q-17] I am interested in only one thing: instead of society molding me, I mold it: (1) in my writing; (2) in what I do with the money; (3) in interviews; (4) in the movie—which links back to my writing, i.e., Androids. Vast thematic doctrines are emerging: agape, compassion, care of the weak by the strong, the imminent coming of God as Savior; that is, the kingship of God. This is what the whole opus adds up to: anticipation of the coming kingship of God.
[57:Q-24] The total Kosmos is somehow “in” each part, which is a diagram I drew years ago:
Now I see how this works. The Hermetics were indeed onto this, and the Taoist alchemists, and Leibniz (because of his involvement in Rosicrucianism).
Interface half in the part (person), half in the whole (world), and thus modulates each to the other: advocate for the person in terms of what he does (acting toward the whole) and how he experiences world (the whole acting on him). In this case the part is not directly engaged with the whole but indirectly, and this is what I felt to be the case when Jeannie was on the phone. This fits Malebranche’s model. It is related (as a model) to Cartesian epistemology having to do with world experienced as representation. This would seem to imply that what Kant calls “the transcendent self”—which maintains the ontological ordering categories—has been seized and occupied (by what we call Σωτηρ the Holy Spirit, the Maitreya, Christ). This would de facto create cosmos. It would be total soteriological victory: it would possess the parts and create out of them the whole; thus individual salvation and restoration of the cosmos become one and the same thing and pertain directly to my 2-74 meta-abstraction (an instance of it).
This gives a very precise account of what salvation and restoration consist of and also how it is done; and, moreover, it is (not “resembles” but is) 2-74.
And this interface would be precisely the “Acts”-Tears—i.e., Apocalypse—lens-grid. So: QED. This is why when I saw world transformed—2-74 itself—although it was radically changed, it was absolutely comprehensible, and this is the whole point; world as it had been was enigmatic and in fact Fremd; world changed was both comprehensible and familiar: it was “my” world. Hence I say part-whole compatibility. But could this be a purely cognitive act and if so is it νωησιss (noesis)? [ . . . ] Because it looks to me that this is a purely cognitive act, it does create part-whole compatibility which leads via the “two mirror self-correcting sequence of ever more precise approximations”—a positive runaway!—to part-whole isomorphism, whereupon info of the whole arises parallel and acausally in the part: self-generating info as the basis of structure—negentropy—itself, by which the whole maintains itself as kosmos in the true sense: unified by affinity, not coercion or violence. The “universal language” is of course heard directly in (side) the mind of the person; this is the crucial index of part-whole isomorphism expressed in terms of info—info pertaining to the structure and not to anything outside it; thus the info pertains to itself; it is not only self-generating, it is the “thing” that it describes. This is precisely what The Book of Creation notes say: “With man, word and thought refer to object, but with God, thought, word, writing of word and thing are one and the same.”68 And this is of course the plasmate! It is info, but it as info does not pertain to—point to—anything other than itself; thus King Felix does not point to the Savior; it is the info-stage of the life form “Savior” itself, just as St. Luke is the info stage of the world (the world of “Luke-Acts”).
I’m hot on the trail right now—since nothing exists outside of cosmos by definition, all info in it pertains to itself and permeates it and is self-causing. And identical throughout all loci. Then the info is eternally and ubiquitously retrieved and retrievable—as in Ubik.
[ . . . ]
AI voice and plasmate: one and the same. “Info metabolism.”
My God, the plasmate does crossbond with the human and replicate. But it’s not an info life form; it’s the metabolism of the whole (i.e., the true kosmos; this is how it can be kosmos). The plasmate is not in reality; no: reality is info. There’s a crucial difference. This is why the mutual arrangement of objects is info or language.➊ Dynamically, in terms of activity, things are info—changing info. “The whole of him thinks,” as Xenophanes said.
VALIS is a very valuable book. Even though it doesn’t explain why the universe is info it does say that it is (the why is: by being info it maintains its negentropy-level, i.e., its structure, expressed—as always—as/by info. It is true kosmos so it must maintain negentropic structure—hence info—throughout; if it ceases to, it ceases to be true kosmos and unity is lost in favor of atomized plurality. It is unitary precisely because it is info). So since we can’t see the info we can see the structure, so we see plurality; when I saw Valis I saw unity, structure, hence info; what I was ulti mately seeing was kosmos (as field, as opposed to the atomists’ discontinuous matter, which is anti-cosmos). This is both Plato and Pythagoras and totally Greek. It was lost (became “extinct”) after Parmenides—hence the fall. So the statement by the AI voice, “Extinct true kosmos and it still there,” is crucial.
In a sense, to see kosmos—i.e., unity—you must see arrangement syntactically, as I noted ultra supra. The linguistic connectives, not “causal” connectives.
But by this analysis, the AI voice’s statements about the Savior must be veridical, since the statement (info) is the reality it pertains to; it is oxymoronic to speak of the possibility of this kind of info as “false”!
➊ My “groove to music” leap.
[57:Q-33] With the return of the Eleatic continuum reality—instead of the discontinuous matter one—we will again be able to see God, literally; and this is the point of my exegesis. And I know that the continuum one is true—and the discontinuous matter one is not—because the AI voice said, “A perturbation in the reality field.” [ . . . ]
When I was very little I used to see and experience space as real, palpable, “thick.” It scared and oppressed me, because I did not understand how motion was possible. I used to squeeze it (as, e.g., when I was sick in the bathroom). It took effort to bring my finger and thumb together. And it was artificial and difficult for me to render space into void.
So my continuum view was natural to me and had to be trained out of me, or else I saw that things did not in fact move (change) but “only look different”—i.e., no time had passed, in other words, I experience God and eternity, but had to learn to experience world and time instead, because everyone (else) said, “That’s what’s there.” I had no words for what I saw (God), nor did I understand it. Or even like it.
But it was the correct way of seeing, but I knew not what it was, and it oppressed me.
[57:Q-34] It is the interface that is God, in Malebranche’s system. God is not “in” the writing exactly, although the writing is Scripture (Torah). God is here already. Between. This is what happened with Luke that time, and with Tears when I saw the two word cypher, and with Jeannie. In a sense, then, this is not incarnation of all, but also it is: it is the universal language, as at Pentecost. To understand
how it works you must know Malebranche. This of course is also how the “Acts” lens-grid worked, producing part whole compatibility and restoring true cosmos. I’ve solved 2-3-74, including the two word cypher.
[57:Q-36] Hypnopompic: pronunciation mark in dictionary: (based on the three S’s: service, etc.) “For pain. For hope.” “He is out there somewhere.”
I see a synthesis higher than anything I have ever seen before: the spirit—the finest parts—of Marxism, Christianity, Buddhism—and yet it is above all this; and out of me it draws the most noble drives and aspirations, the mystical and the urgently practical combined. It is as if the dialectic has achieved new heights, like nothing I have ever seen before. And he gives voice to and codifies the best in me, that up to now was inchoate. I never knew myself before now; my own nature was to me obscure. Everything in me at last takes shape. I utterly repudiate the policies of the regime but I turn—not inward—but to something so beautiful that I could not have imagined it. “For pain, for hope”; that says it all. This is a fortiori the two dialectical antitheses of the new synthesis! Pain (the suffering of people) and my caring (agape) about their suffering, and the hope that Maitreya brings forth a radical transformation in our and their lives. This synthesis—pain and hope—is above tragedy and is absolute beauty; it is grounded in human pain and the need to relieve that pain, and the hope—and conviction—that it can be relieved through the Maitreya and his program. The terrible side is pain, the salvific side is hope; out of these two comes action and the will to act, to change the world. Pain and hope are the two mutually exclusive primary realities that unify and become the ultimate, new synthesis for our age; we must feel both to experience this new synthesis that is serving, simplicity, and sharing; pain without hope is miserable, but hope without pain is empty and futile.