I said, “I will find a thought, an explanation, a theory, that does not set off an infinite regress.” And, as soon as I said that, an infinite regress was set off. God said, “Over a period of six and a half years you have developed theory after theory to explain 2-3-74. Each night when you go to bed you think, ‘At last I found it. I tried out theory after theory until now, finally, I have the right one.’ And then the next morning you wake up and say, ‘There is one fact not explained by that theory. I will have to think up another theory.’ And so you do. By now it is evident to you that you are going to think up an infinite number of theories, limited only by your lifespan, not limited by your creative imagination. Each theory gives rise to a subsequent theory, inevitably. Let me ask you; I revealed myself to you and you saw that I am the infinite void. I am not in the world, as you thought; I am transcendent, the deity of the Jews and Christians. What you see of me in world that you took to ratify pantheism—that is my being filtered through, broken up, fragmented and vitiated by the multiplicity of the flux world; it is my essence, yes, but only a bit of it: fragments here and there, a glint, a riffle of wind . . . now you have seen me transcendent, separate and other from world, and I am more; I am the infinitude of the void, and you know me as I am. Do you believe what you saw? Do you accept that where the infinite is, I am; and where I am, there is the infinite?”
I said, “Yes.”
God said, “And your theories are infinite, so I am there. Without realizing it, the very infinitude of your theories pointed to the solution; they pointed to me and none but me. Are you satisfied, now? You saw me revealed in theophany; I speak to you now; you have, while alive, experienced the bliss that is to come; few humans have experienced that bliss. Let me ask you, was it a finite bliss or an infinite bliss?”
I said, “Infinite.”
“So no earthly circumstance, situation, entity or thing could give rise to it.”
“No, Lord,” I said.
“Then it is I,” God said. “Are you satisfied?”
“Let me try one other theory,” I said. “What happened in 2-3-74 was that—” And an infinite regress was set off, instantly.
“Infinity,” God said. “Try again. I will play forever, for infinity.”
“Here’s a new theory,” I said. “I ask myself, ‘What God likes playing games? Krishna. You are Krishna.’ ” And then the thought came to me instantly, “But there is a god who mimics other gods; that god is Dionysus. This may not be Krishna at all; it may be Dionysus pretending to be Krishna.” And an infinite regress was set off.
“Infinity,” God said.
“You cannot be YHWH who You say You are,” I said. “Because YHWH says, ‘I am that which I am,’ or, ‘I shall be that which I shall be.’ And you—”
“Do I change?” God said. “Or do your theories change?”
“You do not change,” I said. “My theories change. You, and 2-3-74, remain constant.”
“Then you are Krishna playing with me,” God said.
“Or I could be Dionysus,” I said, “pretending to be Krishna. And I wouldn’t know it; part of the game is that I, myself, do not know. So I am God, without realizing it. There’s a new theory!” And at once an infinite regress was set off; perhaps I was God, and the “God” who spoke to me was not.
“Infinity,” God said. “Play again. Another move.”
“We are both Gods,” I said, and another infinite regress was set off. “Infinity,” God said. “I am you and you are you,” I said. “You have divided yourself in two to play against yourself. I, who am one half, I do not remember, but you do. As it says in the Gita, as Krishna says to Arjuna, ‘We have both lived many lives, Arjuna; I remember them but you do not.’ And an infinite regress was set off; I could well be Krishna’s charioteer, his friend Arjuna, who does not remember his past lives.”
“Infinity,” God said. I was silent. “Play again,” God said.
“I cannot play to infinity,” I said. “I will die before that point comes.”
“Then you are not God,” God said. “But I can play throughout infinity; I am God. Play.”
“Perhaps I will be reincarnated,” I said. “Perhaps we have done this before, in another life.” And an infinite regress was set off.
“Infinity,” God said. “Play again.”
“I am too tired,” I said.
“Then the game is over.”
“After I have rested—”
“You rest?” God said. “George Herbert wrote of me:
Yet let him keep the rest,
But keep them with repining restlessnesse.
Let him be rich and wearie, that at least,
If goodness leade him not, yet wearinesse
May tosse him to my breast.
“Herbert wrote that in 1633,” God said. “Rest and the game ends.”
“I will play on,” I said, “after I rest. I will play until finally I die of it.”
“And then you will come to me,” God said. “Play.”
“This is my punishment,” I said, “that I play, that I try to discern if it was you in March of 1974.” And the thought came instantly, my punishment or my reward; which? And an infinite series of thesis and antithesis was set off.
“Infinity,” God said. “Play again.”
“What was my crime?” I said, “that I am compelled to do this?”
“Or your deed of merit,” God said.
“I don’t know,” I said.
God said, “Because you are not God.”
“But you know,” I said. “Or maybe you don’t know and you’re trying to find out.” And an infinite regress was set off.
“Infinity,” God said. “Play again. I am waiting.”
[1:282] So Satan served me up a sophisticated world in accord with my epistemological expectations (as expressed in my 10 volume meta-novel), and I took this to be God and worshipped it, which is not only delusion—although a subtle delusion—but blasphemy; but in doing this
(1) Satan revealed to me a great deal about world (although he led me to believe it was God, not world); and
(2) Because of the infinitude of my theorizing I reached God anyhow—and this is an example of the triumph of God the wise horn of the dialectic; so:
(3)The dialectic revealed to me is the entropic world-process; but also:
(4)The dialectic is God in combat with Satan and God always wins; winning me (as expressed in 11-17-80) is an example: Satan’s delusions led me to God in the end (through the “infinity” route; viz: as God said, “Where there is infinity, there is God; where there is God, there is infinity”).
Thus my exegesis has been futile, has been delusion, and: has been a hell-chore, as I was beginning to realize, but God delivered me from it, from my own exegesis; and he pointed out the one truth in it: the infinity expressed in it was—but this was overlooked by Satan who does not possess absolute knowledge—a road to God, and did lead there; but only when I recognized the exegesis as futile and a hell-chore and delusion. Hence God permitted this deluding by Satan, knowing when it would end. So I wind up knowing a lot more about world—world as we will later experience it, the world-experience of the future; and I no longer suppose that I was discerning God, and realize that I was discerning world instead; and I was at last led to God. But not by my intellect, not by Gnosis, not by myself at all; it was due to God’s initiative due to his loving-kindness; and what was proved was (once again) that all roads/ways/routes if pushed far enough lead to God. Hence (as I say) here is an example of how God the wise horn of the dialectic defeats its stupider foe inevitably in the end—this was an enantiodromia. It occurred when I realized that all that I had seen of God in 2-3-74 was a glint of color and a ripple of wind in the weeds of the alley, acting on reality; that Valis was not God but rather world (“the reality field”) perturbed (from beyond creation) by God; but this did not yield knowledge of God direct, but only by inference; and that in fact 2-3-74 was not a theophany, but was a more sophisticated experience of world: creation pulled through infinity by reaching the end of (exhausting) its creative/entropic “splitting” (disintegrating; differentiating) dialectic process: entropic time converted into negentropic time. But this was still world, and Satan caused me to worship it . . . to fall victim to it, ensnared by it; taking it to be God; until I found that I had pushed my exegesis to infinity without result! And then I focused on the very infinitude of my theories and saw (recognized) this as an instance of cosmogenic entropy; and, at last exhausted, prayed for release; and God did appear to me in theophany and took the field and blocked each and all theories, and ended my exegesis, not in defeat but in logical discovery of Him (which Satan had not foreseen). Thus intellect and knowledge on my part led to exhaustion and to destruction of that intellect and a recognition of the futility of what I was doing; I knew I knew nothing; and then God took the field and made his move that resulted in the enantiodromia that led me to him anyhow, as if I had wandered that way by chance; but it was by his plan all along. And this was an instance of the dialectic that I had seen. Finally I wind up with Y = Ȳ viz: Both these 2 following statements are true: