The Shifting Realities of PK Dick

Part Six. Selections from the Exegesis

All of the selections are published here for the first time. Two of these selections were given titles by Dick -- a rarity in the Exegesis as a whole.

"Outline in Abstract Form of a New Model of Reality Updating Historic Models, in Particular Those of Gnosticism and Christianity" (1977) is credited, by Dick, as being the joint work of himself and his friend SF writer K. W. Jeter. Jeter recalls that while the ideas emerged in the course of conversation between them, the writing is by Dick alone.

The final selection herein -- "The Ultra Hidden (Cryptic) Doctrine: The Secret Meaning of the Great System of Theosophy of the World, Openly Revealed for the First Time" -- is the longest Exegesis entry published to date. It is atypical from most Exegesis entries in possessing an essaylike structure and in having been typed out. Very likely it was intended as a summary of findings, as was "Cosmogony and Cosmology" (1978), included in a previous section. Was Dick serious about the title? In all probability, yes. Was he also satirizing his very efforts at comprehending Truth? Almost certainly.

The Exegesis is a free-roaming affair -- as a nightly journal devoted to the expression of one's inmost (and ever-changing) thoughts on the largest and most perplexing issues of life would naturally be. Careful selections serve it well, for there is within it much repetition, much fretful worrying over past crisis moments in his life, many futile stabs at insight, and occasional bouts of pettiness and spleen. At its best, however, the flights of the Exegesis through impossibly possible worlds are remarkable.

From the Exegesis (c. 1975)

The architect of our world, to help us, came here as our servant, disguised, to toil for us. We have seen him many times but no [one] recognized him; maybe he is ugly in appearance, but with a good heart. Perhaps sometimes when he comes here he has forgotten his own origin, his godly power; he toils for us unaware of his true nature and what he could do to us if he remembered. For one thing, if we realized that this crippled, misshapen thing was our creator, we would be disappointed. Would reject and despise him, but of courtesy to us he hides his identity from us while here.

One can see from this that that which we kick off to one side of the road, out of the way, which feels the toe of our boot -- that may well be our God, albeit unprotesting, only showing pain in his eyes, that old, old pain that he knows so well. I notice, though, that although we kick him off to one side in pain, we do let him toil for us; we accept that. We accept his work, his offerings, his help; but him we kick away. He could reveal himself, but he would then spoil our illusion of a beautiful god. But he doesn't look evil, like Satan; just homely. Unworthy. Also, although he has vast creative and building power, and judgment, he is not clever. He is not a bright god. Often he is too dumb to know when he's being teased or insulted; it takes physical pain, rather than mere scorn, to register.

Ugly like this, despised and teased and tormented and finally put to death, he returned shining and transfigured; our Savior, Jesus Christ (before him Ikhnaton, Zoroaster, etc; Hefestus [or Hephaestus]). When He returned we saw Him as he really is -- that is, not by surface appearance. His radiance, his essence, like Light. The God of Light wears a humble and plain shell here (like a metamorphosis of some humble toiling beetle).

SF novel: Hefestus as VALIS (Vast Active Living Intelligence System].

The Earth like St. Sofia is an organism, a living one, being built, a Temple that when it is ready the Lord will suddenly come to and dwell in. He Himself is creator: architect. Workmen/artisans/artists: Us and Holy Spirit. Ideal Logos/form: Christ, to be achieved. The model once glimpsed then to be striven for and reached, at which time Architect (Creator), Holy Spirit, and Ideal become One, which includes us within it as bits. Creator: time past. Holy Spirit: time is. Christ: time completed. Holy Spirit guides us toward Him. Force is provided by the Creator at the start. Force/activity/direction to goal.

c. 1976

The victory of Christ (as Lord of the Cosmos) over astral (planetary) determinism is better expressed, for us today, by saying, It is the coming into being of a thinking cosmos replacing a merely deterministic, causal, unthinking mechanism of fate or blind chance. Thus the characteristics of this new "body" or organism would be that, if perceived by one of us, it would seem to be a living creature of cosmic size, wisdom, scope, and power, infiltrating the natural (i.e. deterministic) order of nature. This, when I saw Valis or Zebra, is precisely what I saw. Therefore it is evident i that the process of transubstantiation of the deterministic "astral" mechanism into a living body or entity is far progressed. What I saw, then, was none other than the cosmic Christ. Beneath their unchanged outward appearances, natural processes (i.e. causal processes) are to some extent, a decisive extent, purposeful, conscious, and benign, and organized to fulfill a coherent plan. The palpable revelation of this is the supreme revelation. For instance, it intervened decisively in human history in 3-74 on. 'All that remains is for the second incarnation to occur; i.e. the veil to ; drop, God's Wisdom to appear openly here, that all may be aware of it and acknowledge it. Perhaps what I saw was a preview, and eventually everyone will see as I saw, and what I saw, in 3-74.

He will not merely rule the universe; he will also be the universe.

What I saw, then, was an apocalypse (disclosure) of the invisible Parousia, the Presence that is now here. At this point, an apocalypse is still needed, because the Parousia is still hidden.

The role in my life of the whole CP, Soviet thing was that it was, for me, the "astral" of deterministic power, which Christ broke by his intervention.

Could it be said that in 3-74 Christ interfered with the generic coding that had programmed me to die at that time? That this (genetic coding) is a modern term for at least one aspect of (astral) determinism? My gene-pool (DNA) memory fired -- opened up; I know that. And I am reasonably sure I was programmed, at least internally, to die (of cardiovascular problems). There also may have been external deterministic death-dealing factors that he aborted as well. This is a modern model for what the ancients called "sublunar" or "planetary" or "astral" influences. This would explain my retrieval of long-term (gene pool) memory; the whole system either opened up or was opened up. My sense that it (the Xerox letter) had happened before shows the karmalike quality of such genetic programming. The technical theological term for this is God's grace. But to appreciate the value of God's grace, this entire deterministic structure must be properly understood, and its magnitude -- and power over us -- comprehended. It is a vast, nearly all-encompassing system from which few are extricated during this lifetime.

The part of my March 18, 1974 experience that precisely delineates it as having been of Christ, as compared to God or to the Holy Spirit, was (1) that it took place at the vernal equinox, and (2) most of all, the sound of the "Easter" or Magic bells, which are specifically identified with Christ.

It was induced by the Holy Spirit, and did show the Kingdom of God, with the presence of God. But the honeycombed corpus that I found myself within -- that was Corpus Christi, the mystical body of which Christ is the head, and we of the congregation the parts. This is also Hagia Sophia and also the King (who is coming to rule). Hence I thought the other day, "I am part of the King." Vide Collosians 1:13 or whatever that citation is [1:13-14], Christ as maker and lord of (Pantokrator) the universe. Hence I felt joy when I realized I'd seen transubstantiation of the objects (of the alley) around me; I was on the right track: Christ's invisible (normally) body. Hence the dream of the Mandarin old Chinese king, wise but lacking power. This contrasts Christ versus God; the dream was to clarify this distinction (vide doctrine of the Trinity). That was not an image of God, who would have power, but rather an image of the wise, powerless king, who is Christ.

Nonetheless, I think Spinoza is correct in his concept of God as immanent, that the universe is alive, that God possesses the attribute of physical extension, that mind, matter, and energy are three attributes or modes of His Being... there is no problem for me because I am a Trinitarian. It is only more precise to say that I found myself within, as a part of, the mystical body of Christ, rather than of God. Also, we know from Scripture that there is such a mystical body (Collosians, supra). No radical theology would be required, only this knowledge. No wonder it seems senseless to me when someone says, "Christ was a man, like ourselves." Also, no wonder I am attracted to Pere Teilhard de Chardin's concept of the "plasmatic" Christ (Corpus Christi).

Too, this may be why my final phosphene set-ground experience was the Golden Rectangle or pylon-entrance doorway. "I am the way." It would appear that the ICC is correct, that the written text of the New Testament is incomplete. You are baptized. The Spirit comes to you. What then? Then you experience yourself as part of the mystical Corpus Christi, which Paul speaks of in Collosians. Reunited with Christ, with His growing resurrected light-body. Taken into it (which is not the same as the Kingdom of God arriving on Earth, the Parousia). This was the "secret of secrets," and was forgotten after the Romans killed them and destroyed the oral tradition. One could commune with Christ again (or Hagia Sophia, vide Spinoza). One important difference that suggests itself to me between being part of the body of God (as in Spinoza) and part of the "mystical Corpus Christi" is that the first would be pure mystical perception, and that everything truly, if perceived right, belongs to it; this is an elevation of perception only, however important. But the latter is, so to speak, "by invitation only," belonging only to "the congregation." It is more than perception, it is an entering in which not all (I presume) share in. Perhaps that's why that -- the latter -- would seem more valuable; it would mean not just that I saw with the "Wisdom of God" but that I was taken by His yoke, so to speak, to join His (Christ's) mystical body, which is more; the first just states actually what is, one is not welcomed, everything is. One has not been judged or sought out. But I saw the "hotel register" where my name was written and so forth. I was judged; I felt that. And I now think brought into the Corpus Christi. Also, to perceive an immanent God, that the material universe is the soma [Greek: body] of God, and there is Mind behind it as well -- this doesn't supply any basis for believing in an afterlife, for anything next or beyond in that direction; whereas the mystic Corpus Christi does. It is a demonstration of the reality of the resurrection, which the former isn't; the former is great, though, inasmuch as it demonstrates the reality of God and theological purpose; it must not be put down. The latter gives more personally.

This would be why I felt I was receiving from a hidden (occult) brotherhood, represented by armed knights... the knights of the grail, so to speak. And the content of my experience: I was shown specifically the Christian brotherhood toppling Rome, now. The siege of us prisoners being lifted by the body of armored knights on horseback at the outer walls. The "mystical body of Christ" of which we are parts and he is the head -- this would be a sort of midway concept of the source, standing between pure mystical perception of immanent God (a la Spinoza) and a strictly human wisdom (gnostic, AMORC, Roman Catholic, etc.) brotherhood. The head is divine (theos), the members are of the human congregation. Its presence is actually here (now), in and on our world, in our society, making changes (the rock torn not by human hands and hurled at the statue, as in Daniel). (And I did hear, hypnogogically, "I am part of the King.")

Palmer -- crossed palm trees. Palm trees are a Christian symbol of the Holy Land; what I saw in 2-75, then, is a vision of the Holy Land. I did not go (journey) to it; it came to me. I was already seeing a palm tree (like the Afrika Korps palm tree emblem) in the FISH sign, months before. The palmer sign, perhaps. In hoc signo, etc. [In hoc signo vinces: In this sign we conquer.] Again, we have here symbols specifically of Christianity, rather than of God per se (as distinguished from). Also, a building in the Holy Land, with Romanesque arches. Memory of the Sacred Other, from its "former life"? A building where the White Brotherhood (etc.) met? The significance of my seeing this might be: My search is over. I had reached my destination, the end of my journey. (And, very soon after, the voice of St. Sophia dimmed away entirely from my mind. The one full year, from vernal equinox to vernal equinox, had evidently ended.) It all must be regarded as a searching for and a finding of (vide the quest represented in my various novels).

c. 1976

I Am a Living Animal, Tied to a Dying Soul.

-- PKD

1. The Greeks considered reality veiled (by dokos [Greek: deception], e.g. Parmenides).

2. The Hindus consider reality veiled (by Maya, which we generate ourselves, but which also Kali spins) (cf. Heinrich Zimmer [noted Indologist]).

3. Calvin considered us blinded, that once we could see what is really there, but were punished (this dovetails a little with Empedocles and with Castaneda, with shamanism in general, and hence with the mystery religions, e.g., Dionysos).

4. Augustine considered the City of God mingled with the City of Earth so as to make them indistinguishable to us now; but at the Parousia, they will be separated (to our senses).

5. Zoroaster believed as 4. Good (Ahriman and Ahura-Mazda, the light and dark blended; but at the Final Day, the two portions would be visibly separate).

All are dealing with the problem of phenomenology of accident versus essence: Kant's Ding-an-sich [thing in itself]. "This crumbling pageant."

6. I once saw appearance, then briefly (five days) assimilated the objects of perception (noetically) and then returned to ordinary perception of appearance, the "reflection" of reality (Plato, Paul, etc.). My experience proves that all views that we see only "a reflection from the bottom of a polished metal pan" are correct, FOR WHATEVER REASON, the latter being in doubt only. I did not see; then I saw; then I did not see again (exactly as Paul says). Why the first? Why the second? Why the return of the first? Teilhard's view of an evolutionary step forward? Or anamnesis, restoration of lost faculties (Calvin)? Or coiled, cyclic time? Moebius strip time?

Is change (Dionysos, metamorphosis) real? Heraclitus/Christ Teilhard

Or: Is unchange (Apollo, the healers) real? Parmenides, Jahweh

Is the search itself the goal (as is said)?

My Gollancz speech ["Man, Android, and Machine" (1976), included in this volume] is insane but true. And I knew more then, noetically; what I've read since bears it out. The madman speaks the moral of the piece.

If we deceive ourselves, why? If someone/something else deceives us, then why and also who? Wacht auf! [Wake up!] Brahmin (it, not he). It dreams, and now wakes, or it was awake, and now falls asleep; I think it is waking. The universe-organism of the Greek philosophers: It wakes and sees. Cells, forming a Great Brain. Bees in a hive. Rising now to consciousness. Of what? Itself? There are no answers, only mysteries (not questions but mysteries: secrets. Sacred secrets, not disclosed to us. But not by whom? Well, when I woke, those five days, change was real: a process. Cosmogenesis (Teilhard). Toward. Omega.

Outline in Abstract Form of a New Model

of Reality Updating Historic Models,

in Particular Those of Gnosticism and

Christianity (1977)

It is proper to say: We appear to be memory coils (DNA carriers capable of experience) in a computerlike thinking system that, although we have correctly recorded and stored thousands of years of experiential information (knowledge, gnosis), and each of us possesses a somewhat different deposit from all the other life forms, there is a malfunction -- a failure -- of memory retrieval. There lies the trouble in our particular subcircuit. "Salvation" through gnosis -- more properly anamnesis (the loss of amnesia) -- although it has individual significance for each of us -- a quantum leap in perception, identity, cognition, understanding, world- and self-experience, including immortality -- it has further and more truly ultimate importance for the system (structure) as a whole, inasmuch as these memories (data) are needed or valuable to it, and to its overall functioning.

Therefore it is in the process of self-repair, which includes: rebuilding our subcircuit (world) via linear and orthogonal time changes (sequences of events), as well as continual signaling to us both en masse and individually (to us received subliminally by the right brain hemisphere, which gestalts the constituents of the messages into meaningful entities), to stimulate blocked neural (memory) banks within us to fire and hence retrieve what is there.

The adventitious information of gnosis, then, consists of disinhibiting messages (instructions), with the core (main) content actually intrinsic to us -- that is, already there (first observed by Plato, that learning is a form of remembering).

The ancients possessed techniques (sacraments and rituals) used largely in the Greco-Roman mystery religions, including early Christianity, to induce firing and retrieval, mainly with a sense of its restorative (repairing) value to the individuals; the Gnostics, however, and Mani correctly saw the ontological value to what they called the Godhead Itself (i.e. the total entity).

PHILIP K. DICK

K. W. JETER

12/7/77

SANTA ANA, CALIFORNIA

(Note: While such "Enlightened" spiritual leaders as Zoroaster, Mani, Buddha, and Elijah can be regarded as receptors of the entity's total wisdom, Christ seems to have been an actual terminal of this computerlike entity, in which case he did not speak for it but was it. "Was," in this case, standing for "consisted of a microform of it.")

Late 1972 letter found amongst c. 1977 Exegesis papers

I almost became a sincere tool of a conspiracy consisting of myself.

There goes the John Birch Society sincerely trying to save this country from the John Birch Society -- from itself.

Prototype: Pooh and Piglet following the woozle footprints around and around the tree. There are more all the time.

I blew up my own house and forgot I did it. [The reference here is to an episode in November 1971 when Dick's house and files were broken into, possibly with the use of explosives; his list of suspects for this unsolved crime included himself.] But why did I forget I did it? So I'd think I had an actual enemy so I wouldn't have to face the fact that I'm paranoid, i.e. crazy. I blew up my house to convince myself I was sane. Anyone who would go to that much trouble must really be nuts. So as soon as those who thought I was imagining that people were after me saw that my house had been blown up, they realized that I was far more paranoid than they had suspected. Their paranoid suspicions about me are now much greater. Sensing their paranoid suspicions about me, I realize etc.

Why is everything is short supply? Because everyone is hoarding. Why are they hoarding? Because everything is in short supply.

We all wind up isolated, suspicious of each other, each of us trying to figure out what is going on, which means, who is doing it? Who is our enemy? The fact that we can't figure out what's going on overloads our brains, overworks our minds; we wear out fast, get exhausted and confused. And still we can't locate the enemy. Because we are confused we begin to act in an ineffectual way, so our behavior becomes erratic. Others who notice our erratic behavior wonder what we are up to. Actually we are up to nothing, are merely in the process of burning out over the problem of trying to figure out what other people are up to, inasmuch as their various behaviors are becoming more and more perplexing. Each of us assumes everyone else knows what HE is doing. They all assume we know what WE are doing. We don't. They ask us, What are you doing? We can't give a coherent account because we don't know, but our failure to give a coherent account convinces them that we are lying, and the only reason we would lie is because what we are really (doing) ought to be concealed. This confirms their fears and mistrust, and they intensify the interrogation. The false premise is, You must know what you're doing and if you won't tell me, then you must be lying in order to conceal something I wouldn't approve of, which is probably directed at me to hurt me. Each person winds up more and more confused, having wasted his time and exhausted himself interrogating other persons as confused as himself on the false assumption that they know what's going on. Nothing is going on and nobody knows what it is. Nobody is concealing anything except the fact that he does not understand anything anymore and wishes he could go home.

c. 1977

"Actualities are somehow plucked from a greater sea of possibilities that also form part of the truth." This means that the actuality is not true versus possibilities that are false; it just means that the actuality is more true; the possibilities are less true but also true. This involves the principle of emergence, how a thing comes into being. It is a question of degree, not either-or. Possibly the force that selects one possibility and makes it the actuality is the pressure on reality -- this greater sea of possibilities -- of the human mind. It selects out the actuality by assessing it as more probable. Or it is a subtle interaction, a feedback between the sentient mind and this greater sea: Pressure is exerted until one possibility among many becomes growingly distinct, which causes the pressure to select it out to become more firm. The actuality is merely a particular possibility that acquires form and shape and can be discerned. Actualization is a gestalting process, and gestalting takes place primarily in the human mind. The mind exerts a subtle and continual pressure on certain events and things to be, and on others not to be; it shapes reality directly by some field similar to gravitational waves, very weak but always there, and in the end effective. Without the presence of human minds and the pressure they exert there would be no actualization of anything, and only the greater sea of possibilities, of half truths, would exist as a multitude of semiforms, contradicting one another but existing side by side. Without real time or space.

c. 1978

Through anamnesis you can move retrograde in time, go back and burn up or unweave your karma, be born anew to a higher state -- but is this all an interior psychological process? It must be; Tessa [Dick's wife who lived with him during the 2-3-74 experiences] didn't see Rome c. A.D. 70. But I saw Valis outside me modulating reality. Ah; but that was a projection (cf. Jung). Projection explains it, the Magdeburg hemispheres. It was my own mind that I was seeing external to me. I traveled down into the phylogenic (collective) unconscious. God had nothing to do with it. Right?

Then what about the messenger who comes in time and bilks the retribution machine by withholding from it the bill of particulars against you? Is the messenger an archetype of the unconscious? And the AI voice [Artificial Intelligence voice -- Dick's name for the hypnogogic voice he heard frequently in 1974-75 and intermittently thereafter until his death]; that is my anima?

c. 1978

I have it; I advance the following bold theory. Out of the dialectical antithetical interaction between the Empire and its enemy, Valis is created, Valis as kosmos. The war provides the stockpile of parts -- ever newer and different -- that Valis fits into place to form its own soma [body]. Valis is the result and purpose of this contention; the contention so to speak generates wreckage -- chaos -- and this is Valis's raw material, which it must have, have access to, if it is to complete itself, if it is to continue to grow.

This fits in with Empedocles' theory that combat is the basis of reality, that antithetical combat is necessary for reality to exist (i.e. for there to be einai).

Thus Valis comes into existence in the midst of this battle, not as an accident, a by-product, but as the ultimate purpose; the battle is the means and Valis the end. So one kind of reality -- dialectical war -- gives rise to a perfect structure in equilibrium, a harmonious fitting together of the beautiful. I saw Valis here. Valis arises from the ceaseless dialectic that was revealed to me. I might say that the dialectic is one form of universe and Valis another; and in our ontogenic world we see neither. So history is the means and Valis the goal -- at least for Valis; it may prey off this combat! The combat may not have come into existence for this purpose. Valis uses the combative dialectic for its own purposes. Wow.

Then Valis is the goal of history. Sacred (phylogenic) history: history revealed, as in Judaism.

What is Valis, then? Why, it is the Cosmic Christ, Point Omega. I have seen what Teilhard de Chardin wrote about, although I had never read any of his writing. I am sure that this is what Valis is; my reading of Paul's letters had already half convinced me. But this clinches it. The goal of history... and the agent active in this process is the Paraclete, working backward from the end of time, entering into good men to make them saints and prophets.

c. 1978

The Gnostic Christians of the second century believed that only a special revelation of knowledge rather than faith could save a person. The contents of this revelation could not be received empirically or derived a priori. They considered this special gnosis so valuable that it must be kept secret. Here are the ten major principles of the gnostic revelation:

1. The creator of this world is demented.

2. The world is not as it appears, in order to hide the evil in it, a delusive veil obscuring it and the deranged deity.

3. There is another, better realm of God, and all our efforts are to be directed toward

a. returning there

b. bringing it here.

4. Our actual lives stretch thousands of years back, and we can be made to remember our origin in the stars.

5. Each of us has a divine counterpart unfallen who can reach a hand down to us to awaken us. This other personality is the authentic waking self; the one we have now is asleep and minor. We are in fact asleep, and in the hands of a dangerous magician disguised as a good god, the deranged creator deity. The bleakness, the evil and pain in this world, the fact that it is a deterministic prison controlled by a demented creator causes us willingly to split with the reality principle early in life, and so to speak willingly fall asleep in delusion.

6. You can pass from the delusional prison world into the peaceful kingdom if the True Good God places you under His grace and allows you to see reality through His eyes.

7. Christ gave, rather than received, revelation; he taught his followers how to enter the kingdom while still alive, where other mystery religions only bring about anamnesis: knowledge of it at the "other time" in "the other realm," not here. He causes it to come here, and is the living agency of the Sole Good God (i.e. the Logos).

8. Probably the real, secret Christian church still exists, long underground, with the living Corpus Christi as its head or ruler, the members absorbed into it. Through participation in it they probably have vast, seemingly magical powers.

9. The division into "two times" (good and evil) and "two realms" (good and evil) will abruptly end with victory for the good time here, as the presently invisible kingdom separates and becomes visible. We cannot know the date.

10. During this time period we are on the sifting bridge being judged according to which power we give allegiance to, the deranged creator demiurge of this world or the One Good God and his kingdom, whom we know through Christ.

To know these ten principles of gnostic Christianity is to court disaster.

c. 1978

The belief that we are pluriforms of God voluntarily descended to this prison world, voluntarily losing our memory, identity, and supernatural powers (faculties), all of which can be regained through anamnesis (or, sometimes, the mystical conjunction), is one of the most radical religious views known in the West. But it is known. It is regarded as the Great Blasphemy: replication of the original sin mentioned in the First Book of Adam and Eve and in Genesis. For this pride and aspiration (we are told by orthodoxy) our original fall and exile and punishment, our being taken from our home the gardenland and put into the prison, was inflicted on us. "They wish to be equal to -- like -- us," the Elohim say, and toss us down. Yet I have reason to believe that this, "the Great Satanic Blasphemy," is true.

First, we are here voluntarily. We did not sin and we were not punished; we elected to descend. Why? To infuse the divine into the lowest strata of creation in order to halt its decomposing -- the sinking of its lower realm. This points to a primordial crisis in creation in the total macrocosm (hexagram 12). The yin form two (dark, deterministic) part was splitting away from the light or yang or form one.

In conventional terms, heaven (upper realm) and earth (lower realm) were separating, carrying the lives within the lower away from their form one (upper) counterparts (this can be viewed as the Godhead itself falling apart, into its yang and yin two halves, with the lower form universe as God expressed physically in time and space). The solution was for the divine (yang, light, form one) to follow the lower realm down, permeating it and thus reuniting the cosmos into one totality. To do this, elements (in ancient terms, sparks) of light advanced (descended) into the dark kingdom, the immutable prison world; upon doing so they shed (and knew they would shed) their bright nature, memory, identity, faculties, and powers, and fell under the dominion of the delusion that the dark kingdom is real (which when severed from the upper realm it is not; i.e. the world we presently live in doesn't exist). There they have lived as prisoners of the master magician, lord of the dark realm who poses as the creator (and who may not know of the light god, the true creator, his other half). But the light god and his pluriforms, the descending (invading) sparks, have cunningly distributed clues in the dark realm to recall to the drugged and intoxicated sparks of light their true nature and mission (and true source of home). Upon encountering these cryptic clues the forgetful sparks of the upper realm, now prisoners in and of the lower realm, remember, regain their powers and faculties, and link back up with the upper realm and the light god; they are the light god in pluriform, his way of invading the lower realm in disguise. The light god (the divine) has now crucially occupied critical stations in the sinking lower realm, and begins the reannexing of it back into the totality composed of both realms. The sinking ceases; the master magician is stripped of his autonomy and assimilated to the yang part of the Godhead as its passive counterpart, and once more there is one macrocosm ruled by the yang or active (creative) light god assisted by the now receptive yin (dark) side. The divine has triumphed at all levels; the prison is burst, and the vast, light-filled garden kingdom restored as the home of all creatures. These now whole creatures, composed equally of yin and yang, are what I term homoplasmates: The yin part is home (as we know ourselves to be now, only), and the light or yang part is the plasmate or energy part (vs. the physical). Thus renewed and complete microcosms mirroring the renewed and complete macrocosm are achieved. Reality is imparted to the otherwise irreal lower realm, and the upper realm now extends physically into the realm of matter. The integrity of the Godhead is restored; its two halves function in harmony; and the primordial split (or crisis) is resolved -- healed.

This is a view compounded of Zoroastrianism, Brahmanism, Gnosticism, Taoism, the macro-microcosmos of Hermes Trismegistus and other mystery religions, and not very much of orthodox Christianity. Christianity can be added if the pluriform microsparks of light are considered plural saviors or Christs comprising a single mystical corpus that is distributed widely in time and space in the dark realm but possessing only one psyche that is somehow also God, the yang or light god.

I have read the above cosmology over, and find no fault in it. In fact, I am amazed. It is in a sense acosmic, and certainly Gnostic, but the Taoist overlay is novel and pleasing; the Taoist overlay redeems it from the flaws of conventional dualist religions and the problems therein. Instead of stressing moral aspects ("good vs. bad"), it stresses epistemological ("real vs. irreal," which I can understand). The lower realm sinks not because it is corrupt or evil or somehow has rebelled but because, as shown in hexagram 12, it is the nature of yin to sink, as it is the nature of yang to rise. The pre-Socratics (and Plato in "Timaeus") were aware of this; v. the model of the winnowing fan and the concept of the vortex. Yang must assimilate yin to keep the totality intact; i.e. yang must renounce its natural tendency to rise and must descend. It cannot expect yin to rise, because yin is not wise; it is only noos that can understand that it must compensate against its own natural tendencies, and do what is unnatural to it. Yin is, so to speak, thick, unthinking, not noos [mind] but soma [body]; noos and soma (or psyche and soma) are the total universe organism. Descending into the yin realm is a sacrifice on yang's part, which through its bright or wise nature it realizes it must make, but it pays a great cost in terms of suffering: loss of memory and identity, abilities, and faculties: It becomes pseudoyin, literally disguised in the yin realm as if it were actually yin, even to the point of forgetting (until reminded), that it is not. This is the agony we face here in this irreal and dense yin realm, we yang traces: This is not our home. We are voluntary exiles here, alienated and alone, violating our own natures for a salvific purpose -- a necessary purpose. Yin would not understand this, and until anamnesis sets in for us, we in our distress do not understand the reason either. Eventually it will be revealed to us; meanwhile we ache with longing for our proper home, dimly remembered but deeply felt for. Thus we suppose we are being punished; it feels like punishment, and [we] make the error of assuming we have sinned. On the contrary; we have renounced joy now, to produce a greater joy later, for the good of all creation; we are the Godhead itself suffering the need to be what it is not, to ensure the ultimate stability of krasis (as Empedocles termed it): the unity of love.

Lest any Christian reject this, let him now read the Fourth Gospel in connection with this, and see for himself the similarities.

Lest any Taoist reject this, let him now see that hexagram 12

has turned to hexagram 11, Peace:

The upper trigram, in descending, has forced the lower trigram to rise. Disorder no longer reigns; heaven and earth are not pulling apart. There is harmony.

Moral: It is the ethical requirement placed on the yang traces by their own bright nature to abandon their natural tendency to rise, to escape what is heavy and dark and sinking; they must go in pursuit of the falling part of the cosmos, for the benefit of those and that which otherwise would be lost. This is the highest law: to violate one's own nature for another's good. And the most difficult -- and painful -- law to fulfill. Because of this need there is distress in the cosmos, distress for the innocent especially. My cosmology simply presents it as a fact. To escape it we would have to allow the cosmos to decompose. Could we do that? The tragedy is that by the very nature of the sacrifice we make we are occluded from knowing why. This is part of our sacrifices: our yang understanding. We must take on the dullness of yin to save the cosmos; we sacrifice the knowledge of why we sacrifice, and assume guilt -- spurious guilt -- in its place. This is asking a lot.

But consider who we really are. Or once were and will be again. Who else can do it? There is no one else. There is only yin, which does not know. The part of the organism that knows must help the part that doesn't know, but this means abandoning its own knowing. It becomes what it helps, a dreadful irony, one that hurts. But it is only temporary, just for a little while. And then we go home for all eternity.

The Ultra Hidden (Cryptic) Doctrine:

The Secret Meaning of the Great System of

Theosophy of the World, Openly Revealed

for the First Time (March 2, 1980)

So to explain 2-3-74 I draw on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Orphism, Gnosticism, Neoplatonism, Buddhism, esoteric Christianity, and the Cabala; my explanation sources are the highest -- which is good and which makes sense. But put another way, starting at the other end, I have synthesized all these high sources and derived a single sensationally revolutionary occult doctrine out of them (which I was able to think up due to the addition of my 2-3-74 experience); the distillate expressed theoretically is, We are dead but don't know it, reliving our former lives but on tape (programmed), in a simulated world controlled by Valis the master entity or reality generator (like Brahman), where we relive in a virtually closed cycle again and again until we manage to add enough new good karma to trigger off divine intervention, which wakes us up and causes us to simultaneously both remember and forget, so that we can begin our reascent back up to our real home. This, then, is purgatorio, the afterlife, and we are under constant scrutiny and judgment, but don't know it, in a perfect simulation of the world we knew and remember -- v. Ubik and Lem's paradigm [see "The Android and the Human," included herein]. We have for a long time been dying brains/souls slipping lower and lower through the realms, but the punishment of reliving this bottom-realm life is also an opportunity to add new good karma and break the vicious cycle of otherwise endless reliving of a portion of our former life. This, then, is the sophia summa of the six esoteric systems -- seven if you count alchemy -- of the entire world. Eight if you count hermeticism. We are dead, don't know it, and mechanically relive our life in a fake world until we get it right. Ma'at [an Egyptian goddess who weighed the souls of the dead in the balance to determine their virtue] has judged us; we are punished, but we can change the balance... but we don't know we are here to do this, let alone know where we are. We must change the "groove" for the better or just keep coming back, not remembering, not reascending.

Judaism enters, too, since the change in the "groovE" [sic] that introduces the right new good karma restores us to Eden, to our phylogenic original unfallen state. It may be a small act on our part that adds the good karma, a small decision, but this reminds me of the story told of Moses and the lamb that wanted to drink at the stream (Moses, upon finding that the lamb had laboriously made its way to the stream, said, "Had I known that thou wert thirsty I would have carried thee hence myself," to which a voice from Heaven replied, "Then thou thyself art fit to be the shepherd of Israel").

The reason why a small good act may tilt the scales is that you will be reenacting the good deeds that you acted out before, and some may be huge, but they in toto were not enough to tip Ma'at's scale to provide you with adjudication of release to reascend. So the small act is new; it is an addition, but you are not aware that you are on tape, that this small, good act did not occur before; this time you have decided differently in a given situation: done the right thing this time. And a small act may reveal character even more than a vast one regarding which you have made a weighty and long-pondered decision. Spontaneity may be a crucial factor as an index of character.

In this synthesized occult system the maximum statement is the first: We are dead. Then: We have been made to relive a portion of our former, actual life as a punishment that is also an opportunity; hence this is not hell, because the possibility exists of performing a new act (in what is virtually a closed system) that will change the balance of the scale on which Ma'at weighs us. Also there is a complex picture of anamnesis and reascent, but this is well known from Plato and other sources.

There is an odd paradox in this earning new good karma situation by introducing a novel deed, however small. You must not know the scheme of things, because if you knew the scheme of things (i.e. the theoretical system put forth herewith) your good deed will be contaminated by the knowledge of the likely payoff for you; that is, it is no longer disinterested. Therefore Valis must, if the salvific mechanism of deed and then judgment is to work, keep himself totally and absolutely concealed, and the nature of the situation concealed, i.e. rerun of the actual world and the fact that we are being appraised for the introduction of a novel good deed that is an index of spontaneous character, which is to say, real nature of character.

So of course Valis does not disclose himself to us; and the quality (aspect) of simulation is likewise concealed. We are not to know where we are nor why. Valis must be able to observe us through a one-way screen. For example, there is no way I can add to my good karma store now because I know the situation.

The books on me then must be closed; they have to be. Once Valis discloses itself the situation is over; you are bound for heaven or hell, but the midrealm of purgatorio is shut to you forever.

Therefore it can be reasoned that Valis will show as few times as possible, and, if he does reveal himself to a person, Valis will becloud the situation so that the person cannot make the knowledge he has -- hence the real situation -- generally well known. (NOTE: This system makes use of my ten-volume meta novel. This is valuable to me.)

Also, I wasn't granted release (salvation) because I handled the Xerox missive right; I handled it right because I had been saved, and by another and unrelated act -- a future act -- entirely.

Further: I was saved by an act of free will on my part that occurred after I was granted salvation; cause and effect occurred backward (retrograde) in time.

You know, in this system (understanding) there is the basis of a teaching of salvation having to do with the entirely gratuitous good act, done out of unpremeditated and hence spontaneous free will, in contrast to programmed works of deterministic duty; there is an obvious Zen quality to it. No formula can be located for the performance of these acts; they would have almost a contrary quality, contrary to your normal way of being in the world. They would literally set you apart -- off -- from yourself, the self that failed to pass Ma'at's scale. They would emanate from the not-you (the normal not-you), from another and more real you, as if from another personality locked up within you and alluded to only by these acts. Thus the single personality becomes reborn; two selves exist, one of which is the old, the programmed, the not-saved. Yes; you would have to act contrary to your own nature; you would get outside yourself. Suddenly I think, This sounds like "Thomas" [an early Christian personage who, Dick sometimes speculated, had crossbonded with him during the events of 2-3-74]! Why, it would be; "Thomas" did precisely what he/I did not do the first time around -- then this verifies my system, for this system posits the need, the absolute need, of a "Thomas" to break heimarmene [deluding power of the spurious world] and hence damnation. Only this not-you act or acts could save you, actions without a history. QED! For it was with "Thomas" that the new and unprogrammed veered off from what happened the first time, and there indeed was a first time. I am saying, we in purgatorio to be saved must do what we would not do if we are to be saved, because doing what we would do damned us to this place. Yet how does a person become "born again" and do what he would not do? This is a mystery; obviously IT MUST BE DONE TOTALLY WITHOUT THE NORMAL USUAL ANALOGIC IDEATION (RATIOCINATION), AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED WITH "THOMAS": HE ACTED TOTALLY WITHOUT IDEATION, AND DID WHAT I WOULD NOT HAVE DONE, AND I SAID, THIS IS NOT ME: HERE IS ANOTHER PERSON IN ME. And this continued for some time.

Thus there is literally a second birth, and ex nihilo.

Thus from these facts I can correctly ascertain that indeed "Thomas's" actions were not programmed, not part of the original world and life. They were an ideationless overpowering, as if located only in my motor centers. "Thomas" was not born in my brain but born in my body, e.g. my hands and tongue; he moved and spoke, but in my brain there were no ideas or thoughts or intentions; he was intentionless, and yet had absolute purpose. Purpose without intent! Plan without plan! Or rather goal without plan. Truly it was Zen. Yes; indeed it was. So my theory (herewith) demands/predicts salvation by a not-you ideationless self acting at the moment of crisis when the taped world (or track of heimarmene) branches off into the new and free, and upon retrospective analysis we find "Thomas," precisely that. I can now rule out Pigspurt forever. It branches off into the new and free precisely because this not-you ideationless act occurs; these are the two sides of the same thing. After that, heimarmene never sets in again; it is broken forever, since you are not reliving your actual life but living your actual -- new and free -- life; so only during the subsequent new and free period could I perform a freewill act, such as I did, that gained me good additional karma and hence salvation (release). So this has to be the sequence: First the not-self not-you ideationless ex nihilo act that abolishes the replay determinism, the tape, and then (and only then) are you free to perform a new act. The first should have a technical name, and also the second.

We will call the first: groove override. Or GO.

We will call the second: new free merit-deed. Or NFMD.

If you do GO, but subsequently fail to do NFMD but instead do evil, you will gain new bad karma. All that GO gives you is the freedom to act; it does not guarantee more merit (good karma); that must be done later and separately. So you could get the GO without the NFMD. You could have a new free demerit-deed or NFDD, and as a result you would again fail Ma'at and be sent back yet another time, perhaps forever; you would have lost your chance for release. GO can be done without NFMD but not vice versa. Yet this is not quite so, since the divine forces (Christ, the Buddha) are working to save you. They (apparently) will not grant you the GO situation unless through their omniscience they see NFMD lying ahead along the linear time axis. But I can't say for sure that if there is GO it means they know for sure there will be NFMD in the future; if you do it by free will -- well, I can probably never settle this, but being omniscient they probably know how to grant you GO only if NFMD lies ahead of you based on your own free choice. Put another way, they do not grant you actual freedom unless they know in advance that you will put it to a wise use, so then there is reverse cause and effect, effect (NFMD) operating as cause retroactive in time to GO, to cause GO.

Wait. I'm saying GO is causally the effect of NFMD. And I'm saying that NFMD can't happen without GO. So it's an up-by-his-bootstrap situation, a self-causing situation—then truly it is ex nihilo (no wonder there was no ideation!). This is a time-travel paradox. Both GO and NFMD are generated within a close [sic] system out of nothing and enter from nowhere; that is, from outside the system. GO is dependent for its existence on NFMD, and NFMD on GO, so which is cause and which is effect? Answer: Each is the cause of the other and the effect of the other. Consider the original groove-tracking situation. How do you get out of it? Answer: You have to be out of it to get out of it; look to the Tao of physics ([Fritjhof] Capra) and the bootstrap theory for the answer; I knew I was dealing with field theory and quanta when I dealt with Valis. Put even more simply, How can you do something you would not do?, which is required for salvation in my system (disregarding the temporal factor the paradox still remains). There would have to be a psychological (mental) death and rebirth as someone different; but where did it come from? Hence "Thomas," who knew not the dog, car, nor cat [i.e. was unfamiliar with basic aspects of Dick's life]. It is possible that the only event that could make this possible would be abasement, suffering and pain and apprehension and tension so great that it would break down the historical self and literally assassinate it. In the absence of when, thereupon, an ex nihilo new self would come onto [sic] existence, like a newly granted second soul. This brings me back to my shamanist analysis of the crucifixion, the Passion of Christ story, as a secret method of overcoming the world (as Jesus put it); viz.: The world overcomes you; you die; a new self is born; it is ipso facto in a GO situation, for, being new, it will not track the old groove; the twin tapes simply won't work, since the outer tape remains but not the inner. The way to destroy synchronization is to destroy the self (you can't very well destroy the world), and the best way to destroy the self is to bilk the world into doing it. But this is a tricky business because you must not physically die; you must be alive to perform the NFMD. The early Christians themselves soon got it wrong and began to leap under Roman chariot wheels, upon which they physically died, making NFMD impossible. That they failed is shown by the fact that they did not rise from the dead in three days; they were never seen again. The field for right action is in this world, not the next.

I'm going to put forth a very strange idea. I think that if either GO or NFMD is to be considered cause, NFMD -- which comes second in linear time -- is cause, so what is needed is an ability to make time run backward, or, if this is putting it better, to be able, oneself, to move retrograde in time (if this latter is the correct formulation, I or "Thomas," whichever, moved retrograde in time back to 3-74 from the future; which accounts for my experiencing a mind-moving retrograde in time, a mind that fused with or entered mine that came from the future). But this would not be me in this world/life, say, me in 1977 or '78, when I gave to Covenant House [a charitable institution for homeless children]. It would be the me who originally fucked up the Xerox missive and lived to regret it, because only the me on that time track, that groove, would have ever found out what it was and hence could tell me in this time track as the AI [Artificial Intelligence] voice that it was "from an intelligence officer in the Army." It would be the me in the original real world. This is eerie. Presumably he (I) paid for fucking up (fucking up unless there was help would be natural; after all, it was a trap). Is this, then, a paranormal talent involving time on the [order of] Pat Conley's psi talent in Ubik or the girl's in Clans? [Dick's novel Clans of the Alphane Moon (1964).] The ability to change the past? Anyhow, time is involved. Anyhow, "Thomas" is not on this track, in this world, but in that world on that track where the Xerox missive was not handled, where there was no override by "Thomas"; i.e. the original time.

Then did "Thomas" engineer himself out of existence? No; my earlier formulation in this article suggests that "Thomas" is now in the process of reascending to the pleroma [heavenly realm of the Gnostics]. He still exists, because I still hear the AI [Artificial Intelligence hypnogogic] voice (assuming it is "Thomas"; well, it's very complicated, but probably it is "Thomas"). But in any case I'm saying that 3-74 can't be understood except by including as fundamental a reverse cause-and-effect sequence, the effect coming first, the cause probably years afterward. I may (if this formulation holds) someday decide that it represents a paranormal talent on my part and not adventitious intervention. A talent allied to my precog talent: stupendously escalated due to the lethal stress of the Xerox missive situation [a mysterious letter received in March 1974, as to which Dick posed numerous theories]; I may have actually literally caused time to run backward. And everything else hinges on this fact. This would explain why in 3-74 I had information at my disposal -- essential information -- that could not be known until much later. This is the bare bones of a deep phenomenal shift somehow related to quanta, to quantum field mechanics and field activity that is little understood today; this would fit in with the modulating or "warping away from valence" that I saw, so it would render what I call "Valis" as an expression of my own warping of reality in terms of time, space, and causality.

My God; can I now subsume several phenomena (foreknowing about the Xerox missive coming, "Thomas" and "Thomas" handling it; having information that could not be developed until later; getting out of synch with reality so that I reacted [to] the stimuli before they occurred; and Valis itself) under one basic syndrome? This is scientific method! This is the way the modern rational mind deals with theory formation! And my sense of being in touch with a mind moving retrograde in time. Did I warp time so that it ran backward? And out of this one factor the above (and perhaps other) several phenomena were observed to take place?

As I said in my UK speech ["Man, Android, and Machine," included herein]: "Maybe we're seeing the universe backward." Also, I tend --

Oh; and the double superimposition of worlds. Two "tracks," which is to say alternate worlds. Alternate worlds involve time; every SF author knows that.

Oh my god.

Yes, and the koine [commonly spoken Greek of era of Christ; Dick believed that he heard words in this language during his hypnogogic experiences]. A time disturbance, caused by me. Alternate worlds, information from the future sucked back to the present; information from the past; and another me. Plus the breakdown of causal synch. Valis -- the modulations; that's causality. Set to zero, as I put it; due TO A CHANGE IN THE PAST.

All time disturbances. And quantum field like.

And my future NFMD affecting and effecting the GO. So non-GO (which is to say groove tracking) is just a way of talking about normal time and normal causality.

Is there anything that happened, starting with the material in "Faith of" ["Faith of My Fathers" (1967)] and TMITHC [The Man in the High Castle (1962)] and Penultimate [The Penultimate Truth (1964)] going to now and the AI voice that does not actually some way involve time? Certainly the material in the writing (especially Tears [Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (1974)]) seems to involve time. I may find out that I have a chronic low-grade precog power that simply went off the scale into a basic qualitative change in 2-3-74 due to the Xerox missive, disjoining me from normal causal temporal reality entirely, both in terms of the past (anamnesis) and the future (moving retrograde in time and precognition). Something on the order of what I described in "World of Talent" ["A World of Talent" (1954)].

Now let's try this theory. The ability to make time run backward gets you out of your programmed groove ("groove tracking") and renders you free. This ability and only this ability frees you from an otherwise airtight [sic] tyranny that dooms all mankind. All life forms, in fact. Thus this is a stunning and probably new survival talent, an evolutionary new ability that advances the individual up the ladder of homeostasis to a stage where he is a whole other higher organism entirely. It is equal in terms of the evolution of life to the development of the opposable thumb, the eye, the lung, the wing, the large cerebral cortex, standing upright, etc. Upon the perfection (so to speak field operation) of this ability the human has become higher than the angels and all that implies. He is operating in a supratemporal dimension, and this has vast implications for knowledge; for overcoming causality -- if he can affect the past he can modulate the present (what I called "Valis"), and if he can draw information to him from the future he can problem-solve like a crazy thing. This is not just phylogenic memory, as I supposed; it isn't limited to drawing on the distant past. The crucial information related to 3-74 was information drawn from the future. He can set up alternate worlds, so in effect he is trans-world, spans not only time but world tracks.

Now, this raises the question as to whether there exists a vast meta-mind (as I conceive Valis to be) who is encouraging the development of this time-disruption faculty in order to evolve the human species further; or, put another way, the human being who has this faculty and makes use of it (for example, under vast stress, as I was under in 3-74) is an expression of this meta-mind. I am sure of it. I was not alone in what happened; it was as if angels -- divine and partially visible -- powers were present. There may be a species mind stretching back into the past and into the future where evolved humans (imaged as the three-eyed people?) may exist already using this faculty. When you start disrupting time you may be operating in the realm of a supratemporal composite discorporate mind -- I think I was; this is what I call Valis. But it seems to me that the intrinsic nature of the sort of talent I'm discussing would cause to come in existence a meta-mind by itself, in that it would hop across expanses of time that lie outside its own lifetime, which would de facto make it a meta-mind; I mean it would be unlocked from the time span of its physical body. For one thing (here is Jung's intuition function) he would exist (his mind would exist) in alternate worlds, and this alone implies a lot; by affecting the past he would then find himself shifting across laterally (orthogonally) in time... which would explain my subcortically remembering that it had just been cool, high, and moist a climate. So the mind with this talent would in itself become a meta-mind, outside of causality, spanning alternate worlds, able to modify his own present reality by changed actions in the past, thus setting up alternate worlds; he would be the cause and would in turn be affected by himself as cause -- again the bootstrap phenomenon. Such a mind could act as cause to its own effect, affecting itself as if from outside like a feedback circuit, and, upon having successfully affected itself, the self as cause would eliminate itself as if it had never existed, which again is the ex nihilo or bootstrap paradox of time travel. Minds or versions of the mind, foci of the mind, would come into existence, influence the mind, and upon success render itself never having existed in the first place; but the mind would sense an adventitious other mind operating on itself in its behalf. Could it not then become its own AI voice, its own tutelary spirit? It would continually monitor its own status as if in a heuristic process; yes, it would be process, not hypostasis. You would have a mind that itself would evolve the way a species evolves.

It would be itself and not itself continually. It could correct a faulty solution to a problem after the faulty solution had been applied, a sort of "smart typewriter" erase circuit, again a heuristic process where it gets to apply the best solution it has; the solution proves faulty; the mind repeats the situation -- runs it by again -- with a different solution made better by knowledge derived from the faulty solution (i.e. the solution failed but it yielded knowledge as to what should have been done). It applies a solution. The solution is defective, but knowledge is derived. The mind then goes back in time and applies solution B based on solution A plus the knowledge derived from solution A (despite its failure). Solution B works, so the mind continues on in linear time.

For its B solution (which works), the mind draws on the vestigial A solution (which did not work); so underlying the B solution is the phantorn record of the A solution. Sequentially, the mind was surprised by the problem and employed the A solution but now it has gone back and overridden the A solution with knowledge based on this initial failure. So on some level the mind knows of the A solution and hence perforce is bicameral. The part of the mind that employed the A solution and that possesses the knowledge derived from the A solution (and knowledge that the A solution did not work) informs the conscious part that is employing the amended solution; so the mind has its own self for a guide, speaking out of a ghostly realm where what is is also what is not. The mind is split but not split, since both parts are working for a common goal. Rather, it is chambered. So the ratiocination for the B solution simply isn't there because in place of ratiocination there is certitude without sequential logical reasoning. No analytical steps are employed. The mind when it comes to employ the B solution does not have to think. The thinking took place in a realm or track that has been abolished; when that realm was erased the thinking was erased with it, leaving only the motor and speech centers active. The mind, when it employs the B solution, is its own machine, its own slave instrument, acting out a solution that was not the primary one.

Put another way, during solution A the mind was cause and so had to think, but when it returned to reedit and employ solution B it was the effect of solution A and the knowledge belatedly acquired in connection with solution A. Put a third way, suppose a normal person wishes to know what is in the Book of Acts. He must locate a copy and read it. But this meta-mind simply knows the contents of the Book of Acts (if he is to know it at all). How does it know it? Because he found that he had written it, and thus read it. Then he checked with a copy of the Book of Acts to corroborate that it is indeed the Book of Acts. But when and where and how did it originally enter his mind? There is no answer to that; it is ex nihilo: without cause. There is only effect, because the causal element has been erased. The meta-mind in its finished stage is dependent upon the meta-mind in its initial staging, which it knows nothing directly about, but only indirectly, the way characters in a Beckett work deduce the existence of other people.

If he finds Acts or material based on pre-Socratic thinkers in his novels he must assume that his own primary heuristic scanning device read and absorbed knowledge of these matters in the usual way, but that this track has been erased, although it leaves its marks on the extant meta-mind. By what he knows that he shouldn't know (so to speak) he can make certain deductions about the original scanning, the original normal intake of information. He did not take in more information than any other person but he can apply it retroactively and there is his advantage.

Then essentially this theory about time disruption replaces the theory I put forward earlier here, that we are dead and don't know it; what I seem to be saying is that heimarmene or determinism depends on causality and that in turn depends on time, and an ability to disrupt time amounts to an ability to gain power over causality itself -- the result of which is the abolition of the twin-tape synch system that makes of us little more than DNA robots. We are not dead but we are as if dead; we are enslaved, and in a prison. The ability to disrupt time -- i.e. to make it run backward -- brings freedom of a sort that no living creature on Earth has ever had before. And I think that this is the cryptic doctrine that is the basis of my title here: The great esoteric systems are systems in which this human ability is cultivated and brought to bear. Certainly this is true in Gnosticism, in Buddhism -- and if Buddhism then probably in The Tibetan Book of the Dead. There is no way a human can perceive that he is twin-tape programmed until he begins to break that programming, because the mechanism of determinism and occlusion is so good that until the person disrupts it he can't even tell that it is there.

But the power to disrupt time discloses the deterministic system as somehow unreal, a fiction. How can it have power and be a fiction? Its power depends on the ignorance it produces, the occlusion and (perceptual and in terms of memory) being only one element. Basically, the person is enslaved because he cannot detect the machine that enslaves him; it deprives him of crucial information. There is a constant flow of information traffic around him and he can't see it, literally. Yet the information programs him. It seems to be the purpose of this machine to maintain structure (cosmos) but at the expense of the welfare and lives of the individual life forms involved.

My subcortical memories of a higher, cooler, moister climate indicate that really major erasure and reinscription can take place; the time-disrupting faculty can be very powerful. Again, it was not done by me but by myself, who lived through to the end of my life, died, and returned to an earlier stage of my life, but now under taped conditions. Yet the taped conditions are a combination of servitude and opportunity, the latter if properly handled, the former if botched. Whether it will be endless repetition of prison or whether it will be, instead, self-liberation depends on what I call the NFMD: the new free merit-deed that tilts the scales under the altered conditions achieved by the GO situation. I cannot really abandon this theological concept in the service of upholding an explanation that relies on a belief in the paranormal powers of the individual involved. There is a cosmic dimension, and one of deity. The person has failed his first time around and is sent back. He is as ignorant the second time as the first... or is he? Doesn't his own bicameral voice whisper to him to liberate himself by an act of kindness, of kindness unmerited by the recipient? There is a phantom of solution A that did not work. Has the person really learned nothing? Then again he is destroyed by the instruments that destroyed him originally. This is unlikely. Surely there is a high probability that he will employ his time-disturbing power to save himself. This is how evolution is achieved: by making use of latent powers, making them actual. The B solution is a feedback system that monitors the failure of A with the absolute wisdom of hindsight; knowledge that was crucial but contingent is now a priori and it is there, but buried in the person in the form of his original self grown old and then dead and then restored without memory: like Parsifal or Siegfried he does not know his own identity and must be told -- only it is he himself, not Kundry or the Forest Bird who tell him. He is his own sibyl; he is in fact his own anima, watching over him as psychopomp, hence now changed in sex to female, in accordance with Zoroaster's observations about one's spirit of religion.

It would not be correct to say that the second time around, things are different from the first time around; both times are the same time, through an orthogonal intervention of needed information. Another axis of reality has to be imagined; first and second occur simultaneously in linear time. Which is to say, solution A abolishes itself as it fails and not after it fails; it is not attempted and then erased but both attempted, erased, and a second and superior solution employed simultaneously. This is as mysterious to us as the third dimension is to the flatland person.

What has happened is that the correction is not separated from that which it corrects, either by time or space, hence not by causality. The person is rescued by the merit of an act that he will not live to commit -- an impossible situation from the normal standpoint. Perhaps it can be understood if solution A, which does not work, is supposed as occurring in a falsework or hypothetical, not actual, universe: a sort of tentative sketch off the canvas. Or what if it is supposed that no linear time elapses within the period in which solution A takes place; solution A occurs at a point rather than a line. The correction does not lag; it is as fast as the faulty solution that it overtakes. In other words, the faulty solution is overrun as it unfolds. This is impossible, but it is the case. It is like a spider who can only toss a web strand across a distance between bushes if he has already tossed a stand across that distance. The solution must precede the problem, and therein lies the mystery. How can it be? But it is so; the solution to the Xerox missive of 3-74 shows up in novels and a story I wrote as much as ten years earlier [most likely "Faith of Our Fathers"]. The problem is formulated; the right solution is formulated (especially in Penultimate Truth, and for all I know, it shows up elsewhere in my writing as well, places I have not as yet looked). The mind that is retracking its life has plenty of leisure time in which to formulate the problem and develop a successful answer.