In further research I discover that Apollo was the god of the sun, the builder of cities, of music and art, and healing through his son Asklepios, who is the patron god/saint of health, and to whom the Hippocratic Oath is taken. Also, I learn that the strong Pythagorean medical views entering the Greek healing schools after Asklepios held that harmony within and among all parts of the body constituted health. I learn, too, that the Greek Orthodox Priests in Asklepios’ hometown still maintain sanitaria and heal as the patients’ forerunners were healed 2,600 years ago. This is no quaint, obscure person, Asklepios; only unknown to me. I can think of no more valuable intrusion into my psyche than that of the father and founder of western healing. It is just what I need. And, behind him, the civic strength of Apollo, the brother of Athene.
This would explain the “photo” I saw briefly: the ancient seated goddess with arms out that were coiled around with snakes; those are associated with all these healing deities. From Egypt, probably by way of Mycenae.
Footnote: The original display of dazzling graphics which I saw, which inaugurated all of this, were characterized by their balance, not what shapes they contained. They were, like much of Kandinsky’s abstract art, modern esthetic elaborations, in color, of the ancient a priori geometric forms conceived by the Greeks, which even in their time passed over into esthetics by way of Pythagoria, e.g., the Golden Section becoming the Golden Rectangle.* Certainly this would indicate that even the start of this contained the hallmark of Apollo: the balance, the harmony—I remember noting that in all the tens of thousands of pictures what was continuous in them was this perfect balance, illustrating a fundamental principle of art. It was that aspect which caught my attention and eye and told me they had great worth. In a sense, since all were rectangles, they were permutations of the Golden Rectangle, which I saw today in its original abstracted, empty form, so calm, so enduring, so restful, reminding me of Apollo’s basic virtue: syntonos. I didn’t even know the word then; it came to me in sleep. Healing me, as was done 2,600 years ago and never quite ceasing.
By the way, the town where Asklepios’ sanitarium existed, I read now, is up in the mountains. Probably the climate was and is cool and moist; I read it’s heavily wooded. I bet the stars are quite visible there. It’s the place I yearn for. Out of memory.
[4:58]10
Letter to Claudia Bush, July 22, 1974
[4:68]
Dear Claudia,
I think I’ve solved what’s been in my head at night.
I’m seeing all the books and writing tablets, all the written material night after night: the Qumran Scrolls.
Gee. It finally fits together, all this stuff.
They’re what people call the “Dead Sea Scrolls.” I’ve been doing more research. I’m positive. Hundreds have been unjarred and opened and translated recently. In England and Israel. The Qumran community were Essenes. Here, before the scrolls were found, is Will Durant’s description of the Essenes:
. . . possibly they were influenced by Brahamic, Buddhist, Parsee [which is Zoroastrianism, PKD], Pythagorean and Cynic [search for the honest man, PKD] ideas that came to the crossroad of trade at Jerusalem. . . . They dwelt in homes owned by their community . . . [i.e., communistic ideas of property: “A rich man is a thief,” PKD] . . . they hoped that by piety, abstinence and contemplation they might acquire magic powers and foresee the future. Like most people of their time they believed in angels and demons, thought of diseases as possession by evil spirits, and tried to exorcise these by magical formulas; from their “secret doctrine” came some parts of the Cabala. They looked for the coming of a Messiah who would establish a communistic egalitarian Kingdom of Heaven on earth;. . . they were ardent pacifists and refused to make implements of war.11
The Romans wiped them out.
Well, so the contents of the Qumran Scrolls would contain all the elements I’ve been entertaining in my mind, and scrolls equal books, and the Essenes were into prophecy, or anyhow wanted to be. It’s all there: the numbers (Pythagoreanism), the weird semi-words (Cabala). This is exactly what Jim Pike was into, therefore. All of the above. See, Claudia?
The Essenes sent teachers to the various cities; these teachers concealed their Essene background and training. Jesus Christ is the best known example. (The Qumran Scrolls indicate he was indeed a “secret Essene.”) Another example would be Appolonius of Tyana (died 98 A.D.).12 Look him up, Claudia; you’ll see what I mean. These Essene secret teachers fanned out into the Roman Empire and so-to-speak subverted it with their doctrines. After the Essene Community was wiped out around 70 A.D. such secret teachers as Appolonius of Tyana continued to spread their doctrines. These underlie—covertly—our world.
Nobody knew the source of these teachings until the Qumran Scrolls were recently found; no wonder Jim Pike and other theologians went crazy with excitement—saw Christianity in an entirely new light. It isn’t a Jewish heresy but based on the sources I quote from Will Durant above. And they were into cypher (Cabala) and prophecy—and lots and lots of what probably are prophetic books (the scrolls).
And since Jim’s death many more’ve been dug up and translated (which also means deciphered). Query: If the Essenes were successful prophets, not just trying and failing, did they anticipate their being wiped out, and anticipate leaving their entire doctrines and views and information as sort of time-bombs which would remain hidden until today? Is it possible? Very possible, I think. They hid all their stuff to be found later—much later. Once more to be reintroduced into the world, as it was—their original effect on our world—fading out, finally. To revive it.
Jesus Christ, Claudia. Doesn’t this fit together? I know it’s true; I mean, I know now that what I’ve been seeing which I assumed was many sources, many doctrines, was and is the worldview and knowledge, the gnosis and secret wisdom, of the Essenes who favorably informed and educated and directed and influenced society from 2 A.D. on, and even before. A synthesis of all the really useful stuff from the Antique Classical Past—now alive again, e.g., in my head at night; it’s in my head because I was Jim’s friend and so forth, as I’ve said. From the Qumran Scrolls he got all this synthesis of the wisdom of Antiquity and then he died and then he “came across” to me and so now I’ve got it.