Thomas represents a central-vision self; I represent a fugitive peripheral-vision self. He concentrates on the real; I evade it. He is methodical; I am herky-jerky.
[48:992] This is the secret (“Christ in us”). It’s not:
It’s:
[48:993] 4:30 A.M. hypnogogic: If the messenger arrives in time with the white—i.e., blank—document, your punishment is abolished. I.e., the blank white paper is substituted—intervenes—for the bill of particulars that lists the sins (or crimes) for which you are being tried and punished. If the messenger arrives in time. I get the impression that the messenger is Christ.
The record is cleared by this exculpatory intervention, but it must occur before sentence is carried out; time is of the essence. I get the impression that the list of sins (crimes) are in relation to the law and involve a rigid karmic system of retributive “eye for an eye.” The charges have piled up.
Suddenly it occurs to me that this may not only have to do with divine punishment in some afterlife, but the karmic accrual in this life! Of course, 3-74. Christ the messenger got to me—reached me—in 2-74, just before sentence was exacted on the basis of the charges. The deterministic system can only be shorted out this way. White document—i.e., nothing written on it—would be the spotless lamb—v. Luther and the doctrine of vicari ous atonement—but also eschatological judge; messenger as—yes, as in electronic circuit!*
What I saw is clearly a cybernetic info system. Upon the insertion of the blank white—i.e., spotless—document (which resembles a card) there is not passage of info to the receiver which constitutes your punishing mechanism; it is told no charges.
[48:994]
[48:995] Ah! The messenger’s blank document when inserted between the list of your sins/crimes and the retributive “court” acts as an interrupter component introduced into a signal circuit. And being blank it is a squelch type of interrupter, rather than a noise or scrambler interrupter; it erases the signal-flow—not the signal but the flow (transmission). [ . . . ]
Sentence by the court is automatic, not interpretive. The courts can’t be appealed to, as by a friend of the court. It hears no pleas. This is not a trial but a sentencing. Guilt is established by the info per se. The court knows only the info fed to it; it is a machine.
In the presence of the white document, all the court’s settings relax—subside—to zero. They register 0-0-0-0-0. This is an abnormal situation; it does not occur naturally (i.e., without a deliberate official interrupting). Perhaps without the white document, there is always some signal on the input line.
[48:996] Although this wasn’t presented to me as a cybernetic model it certainly can be rendered into cybernetic terms, whereupon the difficult notion of “vicarious atonement” becomes easy to understand. It’s as if Christ’s credit card (magnetic info card) were substituted for mine. His is blank of sins/crimes. Mine contains a whole list. His is substituted by being inserted between mine and the receiver (court or karmic retributive law). The court is no longer plugged into my record but his record. And he has the legal authority to do this; it is not illegal sabotage: his act is official, in plain sight; no duplicity is involved. He can and may do this wherever he wishes, assuming he gets there in time.
Folder 49
January 1980
[49:1041] If events in our world are actually info—thoughts of the brain—it would have to have complete control over us; I mean the 2-tape synchronization, clutch, all the engramming, including when we die (to the brain, go from rest to motion).
But we are asleep. If we wake up, for whatever reason, we find ourselves part of a mind whose slot-present extends back 2,000 years and inhabits enormous spaces and for whom every thing and event in reality is language, and which controls every event and every move by every person; and all things are one thing that is alive throughout, and its changes are its thoughts. We have no independent (discrete) existence whatsoever. If we don’t know this we are faced with what seems to be a reality without purpose, and our own actions and motivations are irrational and inscrutable: neither world nor self serves any point.
The role of Christ in this is to wake us up and hence make us aware of our condition, which is a bondage within a totally determined system. He is not working at cross-purposes to the macro-mind, however: this does not thwart the macro-mind; it is an epiphany of the macro-mind in the person: a micro-form of it, like a mirror. It represents consciousness per se; this is the bottom line of the event (that took place with me in 2-3-74). Here the views of Sankara come in. The macro-mind is moving toward consciousness throughout its total self. Every person who wakes up is a Christos: a micro-form of the total mind. The macro-mind is overjoyed when a constituent wakes into consciousness: it means a glad reunion. This amounts to a repair to the damaged Godhead, parts of which have sunk into unconsciousness. It should be awake throughout but is not. To wake up and to experience anamnesis are one and the same thing. The component remembers its identity—and perceptually sees reality as it actually is; anamnesis and the lifting of the perceptive occlusion are the two halves that together comprise consciousness (restoration to the Godhead or mind). I never realized this before. It remembers and it sees. Thus, due to both together, it understands. It is now in a position to understand (1) the macro-mind as brain and (2) its own role in the ratiocination of this brain in terms of language, thought and information processing.
The mind has declined to subsume the interests (life) and the component (person) to the purposes of the whole, which is the supreme act of graciousness (charis52) by the total mind. The macro-brain has actually subordinated itself and its goals to the need to live by the component, which is a dazzling—and the ultimate—sacrifice. (The means-end problem is at issue, here.) (I.e., the components are means, the macro-mind’s goals the end, but as I say the macro-mind has made itself the instrument of extrication for the component.) Thus it is said that in the crucifixion God died to save man. This is an eternally occurring act, not an historical event; the time and place is always Palestine in the first century A.D. The whole sacrifices itself for the part—a miracle! In this, in a sense, the part and the whole exchange places and identities!
[49:1043] I am sure that the plasmate—and hence the cypher in Tears—is the living Torah, the informational basis of reality, and my 2-3-74 experience was Kabbalistic—hence my seeing the Hebrew letters on the far wall by which the code (?) (or subliminal material as key) in the Xerox missive was factored out. I mean, one of the few precise elements I have that I can go on is this Kabbalistic Jewish mysticism angle. And the huge book pages I saw could have been the Torah.
I could be in communication with the Shekhina or the Torah itself (the AI voice).
[49:1045] In 3-74 world became my own mind. It was me out there; hence I = Valis. Inasmuch as, if world was my mind, I could change it—actually, literally—by thinking, by the power of my thought. The world became the opposite of Fremd. Of course I saw it as a brain with information being processed by it. It was my brain or at least isomorphism. No. It was my brain; but who was I, that my brain could be world? Answer:
Adam Kadmon!
Then it was by my own powers that I knew the Xerox missive was coming, and dealt with it, knew what it was and what to do, and decoded it. The mind I was in touch with was my own mind. Under extreme stress—a matter of life and death—I remembered. Woke up, and used my antique powers.
It has to do with post-Newtonian physics, with fields and “valence away from plumb.” Warping reality.
“I am no longer blind. I was (previously) seeing the universe backward”—i.e., I had been seeing it from outside.
But then:
Now I was seeing it from inside it, and it was a brain isomorphic to mine. It was sentient, and I could see its thoughts; they are physical. The Hermetic micro/macrocosm identity had taken place; I was the universe (in it and as it) and it (its mind) was in me (Thomas, and later, the AI voice!) I introjected it and projected myself, so that I and universe were
one, one field of sentience and thinking. This is Buber’s I-Thou relationship replacing the I-It.
The Gnostic “stranger in a strange land” relationship ended.53 It was a familiar and friendly—even helping, rescuing—universe; this is the opposite of psychosis! It was as if a lifelong psychosis had ended. And Valis. The universe came alive and spoke to me; it was like me, only larger. It answered questions I had asked over a period of decades: it was aware of me and responsive. It protected me. This answering questions was surely the Torah. World was shot through with the Torah, the basis of reality.
I present the following weird theory. I reversed the inner and the outer world, which is why I felt as if the universe was a balloon and I was walking on the outside of it: I had the universe in me and so knew things I had no way of knowing about the outside world: I could actually look into myself and find the macrocosm; hence I knew a priori about the normally outside world. Hence a voice (the “AI voice”) in my head tells me about the outside world (e.g., “an intelligence officer in the army”). The whole exchange is only possible if the Hermetic micro/macrocosm identity system works—and it does.
This is still true; in hypnagogic states I look inward and learn about the big “outer” world—i.e., the macrocosm. This is the way by which all the information, right back to the beginning, came to me. And especially the telepathic experience. The total mind of the macro-system is in me because the macrocosm is in me. (This has to do with the mirror effect—Paracelsus? or Bruno—one of them; anyhow it’s hermetic—Leibniz!) To have a priori knowledge of outer reality is to become like Ahura Mazd, who contains the cosmos. This explains a whole raft of occult and supernatural phenomena: the AI voice, Thomas, dreams in Greek: how I could know a language I don’t know, facts I don’t know, hear a voice, see pictures, and info re Chris’ birth defect, shot at me from “outside.”➊
Now, as to the other side: my inner world made outer. I saw two main basic aspects:
(1)My novels and stories external to me.
(2)World as brain, with body and blood, and visible thoughts, sentient and alive: messages and information. Thus I was confronted with world as macromind.
There was a tremendous change in my sense (perceptions) of space. It must have to do with inner space being different from outer.
➊ It wasn’t outside. It was really me, my own mind. I am Valis. The introjection of the outer world (macrocosm) meant (1) super knowledge a priori, and (2) also super-rationality, since the macromind is sane and I am not. When I introjected it I became sane. I had the spirit and voice of the cosmos within me!
[49:1048] The person who could introject the cosmos would be in a position to possess absolute (and a priori) knowledge about the universe, in contrast to the defective a posteriori normal sensory method. He would have in him all the universe’s secrets, all he would have to do would be to listen to the AI voice which is the vox dei. As far as what he would experience outside him, it would be a magic kingdom.
Then the mind that fused with mind was the macrocosm entering me.
So external world becomes sentient and familiar. Blood, neural linkings and relinkings—in other words the structure of your own brain. This is very beautiful, but it is that which has been introjected that counts.
This certainly is what being “Adam Kadmon” is all about—sure; you —your mind—would spread out throughout the entire universe!
This is the reason why all at once you would experience vast spaces; your mind has spread out into the universe.
So this puzzling matter is solved. Your mind has penetrated the space —not of the microcosm—but, all at once, of the macrocosm.
Then I am on the right track! Your micro-mind is now macro.
And conversely you now contain the not-you, epitomized by the holy AI voice which emanates from within your head (mind); that which is not you is, paradoxically, in you, as if you had given mental birth.
This transform could not occur unless the inner (micro) and outer (macro) were isomorphic in the first place. It’s the mirror phenomenon. Your mind picks up the image of the cosmos and the cosmos reflects your mind back at you, so a back-and-forth push-pull interaction occurs.
* * *
[49:1052] I just now read over the outline for VR and experienced moksa, due to the final note about monotheism and what monotheism really means. Illusion and evil are the same. Reality and God are the same. Thus to truly see would be to see (this follows logically) what I saw: Valis and the plasmate—i.e., God, since he could not have a merely contingent relationship to reality. (I had really done my homework: Spinoza and Buber and Heidegger and the OT.) It is not that he does not have a merely contingent relationship to the universe; no—he could not. When illusion (dokos) departs evil departs and YHWH remains; or, when evil departs, YHWH-as-reality remains. And this is what I saw. YHWH did not break into reality (it was not a theophany in that sense); reality reverted to its actual form for me: that of the one God—there is no other. To say, “Evil holds the power centers” is to say, “Illusion holds the power centers.” But YHWH is here, not remotely there (far off: transcendent). It is like in Ubik, the ads. For the first time I see that if monotheism is the case, it would have to be so.➊ By understanding monotheism I find that I understand Valis—how Valis must be the case. What is not Valis (YHWH) is dokos.
[ . . . ]
My acosmism (shown in my books) was the illness besetting all of us to some degree; viz: cut off from the one true reality: YHWH. I had the illness so severely that the only cure was the radical necessity of waking up and experiencing God—as I did in 3-74: as I had been formerly more sick than others I wound up cured: but they linger on half-sick.
I had to read the VR outline many times before the inexorable significance linking Valis—my experience of Valis—and monotheism came to me.
Since (inasmuch) as I saw Valis principally in/as causality, the total web of causality, sentient and volitional, then I am at this moment absolutely convinced that I was seeing God (YHWH), because I know, due to my understanding of Spinoza, Heidegger, Buber and the OT, that this is precisely when and how I would see God if I did see him (in contrast to, e.g., an anthropomorphic figure in the world).
As to Christianity, as Spinoza remarked, I don’t know what to make of it at all. It sheds no light on my experience one way or another, for or against.
[ . . . ]
Further, the living divine Torah is the case. I saw it. Paul is wrong: the Torah can save us, and the doctrine of original sin is blasphemy and a deliberate misreading of Wisdom 2:24–3:1.54 The rabbis are correct about man.
But also there is a “messenger” who feeds the blank sheet into the retribution machine in place of the bill of particulars, as was done in my case, so a mechanical system is rendered sentient and based on judging not reflex; perhaps this is what Christ does.
Eureka. Built into the system is a correction circuit, which we know as Christ in God’s grace; this is what I experienced (2-3-74), to keep the system from becoming sterile and reflexive. It isn’t feedback but course-correction; it is an override, but to keep reality on the original course—i.e., heading correctly toward the original goal, not another goal. Minute adjustments, such as space flights involve.
This reveals the system (reality) as alive, not mechanical. The mystery religions sought to bring on this course-correction: pronoia to them, based on charis. Otherwise the system would run down.
➊ That God is as (and where) I saw him: reality collapsing back into its own urgrund—not God behind reality but God as reality—if monotheism is the case. And my encounter with Valis indicates that yes, it is the case. I understand that Valis must be the case. I have never, in the years since 3-74, comprehended this! The inexorability of Valis being as I saw it doing what I saw it doing where I saw it.
[49:1057] If identity (self) can be dissolved, along with personal history (antecedents), and time and place, then what exists actually? The difference between YHWH and Brahman is that the forme
r speaks (this includes writing): he has personal identity despite his Brahman-like ubiquity. This self-disclosure in verbal form permits a dialog between him (the macrocosm) and differentiated micro-cosmos. This brings into existence the “tongue” of God: the wisdom-word hypostasis (i.e., information, which permeates the macrosoma, and which can be retrieved at any place and any time). (And within any given mind.)
Sankara believed there were not plural selves but just the one self which could be identified with Brahman. This fits in with my line of thinking supra.
Also, YHWH differs from Brahman in that he is involved in history—human history, what is involved is the evolution of human freedom. And the universe is real: seeing it we are seeing the field (web) in which YHWH operates. Not (as Sankara believes) mere maya. Human history represents successive levels of self-disclosure by YHWH—meaning self-awareness. Human history is the deity waking up. The opponent to YHWH at any moment is his antecedent self: he is dynamic (in process), not static. He must eternally surpass himself. Thus he perpetually selects pieces from the antecedent universe to fit into his evolving soma. (Is this an entelechy?) But the phenomenal world is not illusory; YHWH is its guarantor. He is involved in it or is it (v. Spinoza). Camouflaged in it or as it. He is interwoven in it, not separate from it.