Okay, finally, in the exegesis, I realized that I had seen nothing of what I had in 2-3-74 assumed I had seen, which is to say, God. It was world, and world is by my own definition and analysis irreal and delusive. I was, without knowing it, even more embroiled in world than ever, than the most ordinary average person is! And I construe this as Satan’s wiles, the a posteriori horn of the dialectic; God gave him free reign. Satan could not see where it was leading. But God with his a priori knowledge could. It led me to God in this way: on 11-17-80 God actually manifested himself and presented me with logical arguments and analysis as to how I could know I had this time in truth experienced him. His argument lay in one line: the argument “to infinity.” Would I accept an equation between God and infinity? (We had to agree on a premise, some postulate or other, some definition.) He said, “I can provide you with an infinitude of bliss; not just great bliss but infinite bliss. And this infinite bliss that you (will) feel derives from my personality and essence of loving-kindness (agapē). Will you accept that only God possesses an essence (einai) of agapē that would cause you an infinitude of bliss?” I agreed, and it came to pass; I experienced his personality and essence of agapē. I felt infinite bliss. There were no complexities, no enigmatic epistemological puzzles, no enchantment or magic: only a wise, loving old man, an individual human—except that everything about him extended into infinity along all axes! Wisdom, love, power, personality, intimate gentleness yet firmness, and eternity, unchanged simplicity. He concealed nothing from me, he played no games. He explained the relation between my life in this world and what it would be in the next, in terms of his theodicy (this was another and fundamental absolute: his theodicy). It, he said, is a promise from which we can draw conclusions, rather than starting elsewhere (e.g., in world) and reasoning to it. It is structurally—i.e., logically—related to his nature: agapē (i.e., anything but theodicy, absolute theodicy, would be incommensurate with infinite agapē).
A major point that he made was that I was not employing analytical logic vis-à-vis 2-3-74 but was, instead, engaging in creative speculation—which led to infinite regresses, over and over again. Thus (as I say) he offered as a substitute (1) an agreement on one premise, and then (2) logical deductions from the one agreed-upon premise; he taught me to analyze and not speculate.
And he was (I should remind myself) he who is customarily meant by the term “God,” i.e., the transcendent, loving, wise God of my fathers both (1) wills; and (2) allows—i.e., allows error, i.e., independence to his creatures: free will; and this is logically deducible from his nature (agapē), because he would never infringe on the integrity and autonomy, which is to say the essence, of his creatures; if he only willed and did not allow he would de facto rob them (us) of their (our) einai! So this, too, logically stems from his nature, and my realization of this is not speculation, creative speculation.
My exegesis, then, is both a delusion in which I am trapped and, in addition, a delusion I am creating for others—i.e., in VALIS—but he allows this in order to protect my integrity (einai).*
Thus (to summarize) delusion—super sophisticated Satanic delusion—(i.e., 2-3-74) led to a futile exegesis, a hell-chore (punishment that he allowed Satan to inflict on me)—but: okay. “A chicken is an egg’s way of producing another egg.” Viz: the primary delusion (enchantment) of 2-3-74 led to the further delusion (second delusion) of the futile exegesis; I was totally trapped in Maya, led there by my own original suspicions—ironically!—that what we see is delusion! But: the second delusion—the exegesis—exhausted itself finally (“glint of color, ripple of weeds, in the alley”), whereupon a true and self-authenticating theophany did then occur—and it bore no resemblance to 2-3-74 whatsoever. Obviously, if the God of 11-17-80 were genuine (and as I say this theophany was self-authenticating based on [1] premise; and [2] logical deductions from the premise) then 2-3-74 was something else. Well, it was enchantment and magic; it was a spell; and enchantment magic and spell do not reveal, but, on the contrary, addle the wits; I was (as I say) fed what (1) I would most likely believe, and (2) wanted to believe—a bad combination that does not lead to the truth—i.e., to God.
However, Satan had to generate a reality I’d accept, to reveal a great deal about reality to me. But he took the risk knowing I would confuse it with God. (Which I did.) Basically what he revealed is that my 10 volume meta-novel and its basic acosmism is correct: what we call “reality” is some kind of projected hologram and not real at all. We can be made to see anything and believe anything. Viz: in 2-3-74 I decomposed—desubstantialized “reality,” which is an epistemological victory, but then I completely believed in what I saw instead! I said, “World, which is irreal, and which I suspected all along is irreal, broke down and conceded that it is irreal; so what I see now instead must be real—but it wasn’t—must be that which I define as reaclass="underline" God.” It was not. It was just a more sophisticated delusion. My years of skepticism turned into naïve credulity. “I saw God!” I said for over 6½ years, but in fact I did not. All I really saw was the projection machine and the projection broke down, whereupon it compensated by devising another and better projection—to which I should have said, “Aha—it tricks me further,” but instead I said, “Aha: now I see what is really there: God, immanent God, probably Brahman.” I was not applying logic, deductive logic (e.g., “If it can project first one reality—USA 1974—and then another—‘Acts’—it can project anything”—that “anything” being Valis).
Epistemologically, what I really know is all negatives: that what we see is not real, and that we cannot by our own efforts outwit the projection machinery. It can serve up one thing after another, ever more cunning and psychomorphic (“I am as you desire me”). VALIS is a hodgepodge of superstition and sensational nonsense—and yet “mixed in with the inferior bulk Sophia has inserted—without Satan knowing it—certain truths.” I.e., “We fell into the maze, and the maze is alive; it changes” (thus rendering null and void all speculation as to the real nature [morphology] of the maze, if you think about it). (And this insertion was added after I was done, due to something Pat Warrick suggested!)
Where I started to wise up vis-à-vis 2-3-74 in terms of my exegesis was when I remembered that in the Bardo Thödol trip your own prior thought-formations come back to you as world—which I wrote about in “Frozen Journey” and that was based on ideas of Lem’s!