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.