[88:68] December 21, 1980
Very important insight. 3-74 was a massive enantiodromia for which it was responsible. Its purpose: it was put here to regulate hence guide and control human history. (This view is halfway between theology and conspiracy.) This means it is not God but also it is not a—
construct?
Yes, it is a construct. It can be thought of in S-F terms.
The Torah as a construct
One and the same. But what?
=> Ubik
Like: trash Torah.
Hierarchically arranged reality: with it (Valis) as apex (we’re not), and, in addition, it itself arranges; so it is self-generating—it is a UTI and it is not conquering us; it is subordinating and unifying us hierarchically in terms of the ecosphere—life—of this planet; but this is not God. If anything, it inspires us (rather than limiting us). But it does coordinate us. It is a brain and not a mind. In a peculiarly literal way, we do its thinking for it. The arrangements of our information are not a result of its thinking but are its thinking.
Of this I am certain. Everything about Valis must be made with this discriminatory realization. So it is as if this planet is alive. But this is a perfect description of the Alexandrian-stoic logic: world reason but not God!
It is Christ and he literally is becoming the physical world—by literal transubstantiation, as logos becomes flesh. That’s it: “the word made flesh”! [ . . . ] Yes: Valis is a penetration of the physical (matter as field) by spirit. This is different from pantheism, so physicists will find that reality behaves more and more like Brahman and in Taoism, but this is a dynamic ongoing process, I know! I saw it.
Suddenly I see it alclass="underline" “The logos became flesh,” and this set off a logos-ization of reality itself, a strategy. No longer was Hagia Sophia outside of creation but at its physical core! It is Christ (if one understands that Christ is the Logos).
[ . . . ]
One thing is certain: Valis is no mere spirit; Valis is physically real.
Christ is here in this world on this side of the grave. Apparently God is not.
Hence we speak of the logos as world reason.
[88:76] Okay, I loved Parsifal in high school—and nothing satisfied me in life thereafter, in comparison. Q: where do you go next from Act III of Parsifal? A: There is only one place, one next step, one answer: to Christ himself.
This is it. Nothing else ever made me happy because nothing else ever logically followed Act III of Parsifal, along any axis—aesthetically, logically, epistemologically, spiritually, topically, etc. I wanted more. There is no more, except in knowing Christ, which means: to have him born in you—hence the nativity; it’s all modeled on the “Good Friday spell,” part of Act III. I knew what I wanted at 15 years old: the next step after “the Good Friday spell.” And I knew what that is, and, finally, I found it, (2-3-74) and I have it yet. But I found, then, the next step, unsuspected: 11-17-80. From the Son as gate I made my way to the Father!
Parsifal deals with the Son, it is penultimate, which I did not suspect. From salvation, blood and the cross to—agapē. From this world (2-3-74, the crucifixion) to the next (the Father and his love, not world).
The blood and the cross are the highest point of this world (2-3-74). Then tears—“of the repentant sinner”—turn to agapē, as in Tears; the tears has to do with sin and atonement and Christ and the cross. But all this (sorrow) is a gate to: love (v. Tears!). And love (agapē) equals ecstasy; so tears of sorrow—the cross—are converted into the opposite: joy. Through agapē, this is the goal and mystery of Christianity, this conversion: utter sorrow (Mitleid) to bliss (agapē).
This is “pity’s highest power,” it leads to bliss since agapē links pity (compassion) to joy—compassion becomes or even is (!!) agapē, and agapē ushers in joy because it (starting as Mitleid) ends up in God, since agapē is his einai.
So compassion (Mitleid) is the road from this world to God; hence the crucifixion and the feelings engendered lead to God the Father because of the common element of agapē: this is the miraculous healing of Amfortas’ wound.
You cannot feel Mitleid without feeling agapē, and you cannot feel agapē without entering into and sharing God’s esse.
This is what happens at the ending of Tears, based on my experience in ’70, of sorrow becoming compassion becoming love, and, in 3-74, joy; and in 11-17-80 reaching God and his pure agapē nature.
Somehow my action vis-à-vis Covenant House fits into this sorrow-compassion-agapē-joy-God sequence.82 So it’s all based on my earlier sorrows, circa 1970! When I was writing Tears!
Compassion (Mitleid) is a blend of sorrow and love. Thus it is the nexus between sorrow and joy—joy entering because love leads to God. So I now know what “Mitleids Hichteit Macht”83 refers to. Sorrow to compassion to agapē to God to bliss. The way of the cross now makes sense to me. I understand why Jesus had to die and in the way he did, if he was to be a gate (way) to the Father.
The transfiguration in me occurred when I had the dream: punishment (death) exacted on Peterson as justice for what he had done (the fallow law).84 But, seeing this (the OT) I felt compassion (which I experienced as sorrow). This took me from the era of justice to the era of mercy, and out from under the law of justice in my own case; it also led me eventually to God through Christ. The old king in the dream is YHWH and the OT, exacting justice; but, through compassion (Mitleid) I opted for the NT in place of the law, I mean agapē and that God, or that era, maybe: 3rd Torah.* So mercy was later (3-74) applied to my case. But it took the dream to convert my sorrow to Mitleid—upon seeing the sentence of justice imposed: death.
Without the dream my sorrow (at the loss of Nancy) would have stayed simply sorrow; and the dream was based on the rat experience, which roused vast compassion in me and was the root moksa/religious experience! And it, in turn, was based on the beetle incident when I was in the 4th grade! And in the ’60s the Galapagos turtle compassion. At which point the AI voice spoke to me! So my whole development was guided along over the decades since childhood. The first episode was my throwing the cat down the stairs—and feeling sorrow for it. “The slayer sees himself in what he slays”: tat tvam asi.
[88:79] That 2-3-74 and 11-17-80 were genuine I cannot now doubt, having perceived this life history (of progressive moksa) of stages of loss of striving and self (the two are the same). Both Christianity and Buddhism—Brahmanism leads to the same goal, because both are based on compassion. (For India this means the loss of self; for the Christian it means experiencing agape hence God, since agape is his nature.) Hence I can now link Christianity with pan-Indian thought through the “slayer and the slain” compassion-identification; this is one road and it does lead to release. It leads specifically to the perception of reality as one total sentient field, i.e., Valis (Brahman or the cosmic Christ) of which you are a part. So Valis is Brahman, but also yourself and also—hence—Christ, since your self now has given birth to the Godhead, i.e., Christos in you. [ . . . ] Thus my entire life led up to 3-74 and seeing Valis, and this in turn led logically to 11-17-80: Christian nirvana. To meeting God (the Christian God of love; viz: 3-74 was Brahman, i.e., Eastern; 11-17-80 was Western and Christian; both are true, and both are reached by the one route of compassion). So 3-74 rep resented the final extinction of my individual self and a return to Brahman (God) and it is the culmination of a lifetime of moksa—compassion experiences that finally released me from karma and Maya; and I saw the God-field.