Echoes of this protonarrative are found in the Synoptics, with Pilate as the "King of Tears" and Christ as the stranger (it is noteworthy that Christ comes from an exterior province). Christ, however, in contrast to the stranger in The Bacchae, does not avail himself of the power that he can call on (i.e. the power of the Heavenly Father); but the next time Christ appears, he will call on this power, which will destroy the entire system of things, the world and the wicked alike. The crucial difference between The Bacchae and the First Advent is that Christ comes first to warn the world and the wicked before he is to return as destroyer. He is thus giving us a chance to repent, which is to say, heed the warning.
In the fifties a Hollywood comedy movie was filmed in which the following situation was presented: the king of a medieval sort of land had become too old and feeble to rule, and therefore had turned over his authority to a regent. The regent, being cruel and brutal, was oppressing the population of the kingdom without the elderly king's knowledge. In the film, the elderly king is persuaded by a time traveler from the future to don peasant's garb and walk about in disguise, to observe how his people are being treated. Disguised as a peasant, the old king himself is brutally treated by the regent's troops; in fact, he and the time traveler are imprisoned for no reason. After much difficulty, the king manages to escape from the prison and return to his palace, where he dons his rightful kingly garb and reveals himself to the evil regent as he actually is. The evil regent is deposed, and the tyranny inflicted on the innocent population is abolished.
According to the cosmological model presented in this paper, the Urgrund, the ultimate noos and maker, is secretly present in this cruel and spurious world. Being unaware of this, the artifact projecting this counterfeit world will continue heedlessly to inflict the needless suffering engendered by the mindless machinery (i.e. the causal processes) it customarily employs and has always employed. In my opinion the Urgrund has differentiated itself from being the One into plurality. Some fragments or "images" of it are certainly conscious of their identity; others perhaps are not. But as the level of pointless pain continues (and even increases), these separated "images" of the Urgrund will recollect themselves into conscious rebirth -- equal to a sentence of death for the artifact or "regent."
This provides us with another application of Paul's statement that the universe "is in birth pangs." Pain is a prelude to birth; birth, in this case, is not a birth of man but a birth of God. Since it is man who undergoes the pain, it can be reasoned that the birth of God (the Urgrund) will occur in man himself. Mankind, then, as a species, is a Mater Dei: a Mother of God -- an extraordinary concept, which would then regard biological evolution on this planet as a means of bringing into existing a host or womb from which God Himself is at last born. Interestingly, there is scriptural support for this: The Holy Spirit is regarded in the N.T. as an impregnating divinity; it was the Holy Spirit that engendered Christ -- and that Christ is transmuted back into, upon his resurrection. The human race assumes a yin nature, or female nature, with the Holy Spirit as the yang, or male principle. Man, then, does not evolve into God; he evolves into a womb or host for God; this is crucially different. Anamnesis is the birth, in essence the offspring of two parents: a human being and the Holy Spirit. Without the entry into the human being of the Holy Spirit, the event cannot occur. The Holy Spirit is, of course, the Pons Dei. It is the link between the two realms.
In creatures of all kinds there is a major instinct system that is termed "homing." An example is the return of the humpback salmon from the ocean back up the stream to the exact spot where they were spawned. By analogical reasoning, man can be said possibly to possess -- even unknown to himself -- a homing instinct. This world is not his home. His true home is in the region of the heavens that the ancient world called the pleroma. The term occurs in the N.T. but the meaning is obscure, since the exact meaning is "a patch covering a hole." In the N.T. it is applied to Christ, who is described as the "fullness of God," and to believers who attain that fullness through faith in Christ. In the Gnostic system, however, the term has a more definite meaning: It is the supralunar region in the heavens from which comes the secret knowledge that brings salvation to man.
In the cosmology presented here, the pleroma is conceived to be the Urgrund or the location of the Urgrund from which we originally came and to which (if all goes right) we finally return. If the totality of being is regarded as a breathing organism (exhibiting inhalation and exhalation, or palintropos harmonie), then it can be said, metaphorically, that originally we were "exhaled" from the pleroma, pause momentarily in externalized stasis (our lives here), and then are inhaled back into the pleroma once more. This is the normal pulsation of the totality of being: its basic activity or indication of life.
Once, under the influence of LSD, I wrote in Latin: "I am the breath of my Creator, and as he exhales and inhales, I live." Residing here in this projected world, we are in an "exhaled" state, exhaled out of the pleroma for a limited period of time. However, return is not automatic; we must experience anamnesis in order to return. But the cruelty of the artifact is such that anamnesis is likely to be more and more brought in. At the extremity of misery lies the essence of release -- I had this revelation, once, and in the revelation "release" equaled joy.
What can one say in favor of the suffering of living creatures in this world? Nothing. Nothing, except that it will by its nature trigger off revolt or disobedience -- which in turn will lead to an abolition of this world and a return to the Godhead. It is the very gratuity of the suffering that most of all incites rebellion, incites a comprehension that something in this world is terribly, terribly wrong. That this suffering is purposeless, random, and unmerited leads ultimately to its own destruction -- its and its author's. The more fully we see the pointlessness of it the more inclined we are to revolt against it. Any attempt to discern a redemptive value or purpose in the fact of suffering merely binds us more firmly to a vicious and irreal system of things -- and to a brutal tyrant that is not even alive. "I do not accept this" must be our attitude. "There is no plan in it, no purpose." Scrutinizing it unflinchingly, we repudiate it and aid in the repudiation of all delusion. Anyone who makes a pact with pain has succumbed to the artifact and is its slave. It has done in another victim and obtained his consent. This is the artifact's ultimate victory: The victim colludes in his own suffering, and is willing to collude in a willingness to agree to the naturalness of suffering in general. Seeking to find a purpose in suffering is like seeking to find a purpose in a counterfeit coin. The "purpose" is obvious: It is a trick, designed to deceive. If we are deceived into believing that suffering serves -- must serve -- some good end, then the counterfeit has managed to pass itself off and has achieved its cruel purpose.
In one of the gospels (I forget which one) Christ is shown a crippled man and asked, "Is this man crippled because of his own sins, or the sins of his father?," to which Christ replied, "Neither. The only purpose served is in the healing of his condition, which shows the mercy and power of God."