Tagore teaches that when the ecosphere is burned, God himself is burned, for the Christ has invaded the ecosphere and invisibly assimilated it to himself through transubstantiation -- which is the great vision Horselover Fat has in my novel Valis. Thus Christ and the ecosphere are either one or rapidly becoming one -- much as Teilhard de Chardin describes in The Phenomenon of Man. The ecosphere does not evolve into the Cosmic Christ, however; Christ penetrates it, which is exactly what Fat saw and that so amazed him. Thus Christ now speaks out -- not just for the salvation of mankind or certain men, "the elect" -- but for the ecosphere as a whole, from the snail darter on up. This is a systems concept and was beyond their vocabulary in apostolic times; it has to do with the indivisibility of all life on this planet, as if this planet itself were alive. And Christ is both the soma [the body] and psyche (the head) of that collective life. Hence the ultimate statement by Tagore -- expressed by his voluntary passion and death -- is, He who wounds the ecosphere wounds God, literally. Thus a macrocrucifixion is taking place now, in and as our world, but we do not see it; Tagore, the new incarnation in human form of the Logos, tells us this in order to appeal to us to stop. If we continue we will lose God's Presence and, finally, we will lose our own physical lives. The oceans especially are menaced; Tagore speaks of this most urgently. When each canister of radioactive waste is dumped into the ocean, a new stigma appears on Tagore's terribly burned, seared legs. Fat was horrified by the sight of these burns, the legs of the savior drawn up in pain. Fat did not see Tagore's face, only his tragically burned body, and yet (Fat tells me) there was an ineffable sweetness about Tagore "like music and perfume and colors," as Fat phrased it to me. Burned as he is, wounded and dying as he is, Tagore nonetheless emits only loving beauty, absolute beauty, not relative beauty. It was a sight that Fat will never forget. I wish I could have shared it, but I had better things to do: watch TV and play electronic computer games. All that good stuff by which we fritter away our lives, while the ecosphere, wounded and in pain and in mortal danger, cries out for our help.
Part Six. Selections from the Exegesis
All of the selections are published here for the first time. Two of these selections were given titles by Dick -- a rarity in the Exegesis as a whole.
"Outline in Abstract Form of a New Model of Reality Updating Historic Models, in Particular Those of Gnosticism and Christianity" (1977) is credited, by Dick, as being the joint work of himself and his friend SF writer K. W. Jeter. Jeter recalls that while the ideas emerged in the course of conversation between them, the writing is by Dick alone.
The final selection herein -- "The Ultra Hidden (Cryptic) Doctrine: The Secret Meaning of the Great System of Theosophy of the World, Openly Revealed for the First Time" -- is the longest Exegesis entry published to date. It is atypical from most Exegesis entries in possessing an essaylike structure and in having been typed out. Very likely it was intended as a summary of findings, as was "Cosmogony and Cosmology" (1978), included in a previous section. Was Dick serious about the title? In all probability, yes. Was he also satirizing his very efforts at comprehending Truth? Almost certainly.
The Exegesis is a free-roaming affair -- as a nightly journal devoted to the expression of one's inmost (and ever-changing) thoughts on the largest and most perplexing issues of life would naturally be. Careful selections serve it well, for there is within it much repetition, much fretful worrying over past crisis moments in his life, many futile stabs at insight, and occasional bouts of pettiness and spleen. At its best, however, the flights of the Exegesis through impossibly possible worlds are remarkable.
From the Exegesis (c. 1975)
The architect of our world, to help us, came here as our servant, disguised, to toil for us. We have seen him many times but no [one] recognized him; maybe he is ugly in appearance, but with a good heart. Perhaps sometimes when he comes here he has forgotten his own origin, his godly power; he toils for us unaware of his true nature and what he could do to us if he remembered. For one thing, if we realized that this crippled, misshapen thing was our creator, we would be disappointed. Would reject and despise him, but of courtesy to us he hides his identity from us while here.
One can see from this that that which we kick off to one side of the road, out of the way, which feels the toe of our boot -- that may well be our God, albeit unprotesting, only showing pain in his eyes, that old, old pain that he knows so well. I notice, though, that although we kick him off to one side in pain, we do let him toil for us; we accept that. We accept his work, his offerings, his help; but him we kick away. He could reveal himself, but he would then spoil our illusion of a beautiful god. But he doesn't look evil, like Satan; just homely. Unworthy. Also, although he has vast creative and building power, and judgment, he is not clever. He is not a bright god. Often he is too dumb to know when he's being teased or insulted; it takes physical pain, rather than mere scorn, to register.
Ugly like this, despised and teased and tormented and finally put to death, he returned shining and transfigured; our Savior, Jesus Christ (before him Ikhnaton, Zoroaster, etc; Hefestus [or Hephaestus]). When He returned we saw Him as he really is -- that is, not by surface appearance. His radiance, his essence, like Light. The God of Light wears a humble and plain shell here (like a metamorphosis of some humble toiling beetle).
SF noveclass="underline" Hefestus as VALIS (Vast Active Living Intelligence System].
The Earth like St. Sofia is an organism, a living one, being built, a Temple that when it is ready the Lord will suddenly come to and dwell in. He Himself is creator: architect. Workmen/artisans/artists: Us and Holy Spirit. Ideal Logos/form: Christ, to be achieved. The model once glimpsed then to be striven for and reached, at which time Architect (Creator), Holy Spirit, and Ideal become One, which includes us within it as bits. Creator: time past. Holy Spirit: time is. Christ: time completed. Holy Spirit guides us toward Him. Force is provided by the Creator at the start. Force/activity/direction to goal.
c. 1976
The victory of Christ (as Lord of the Cosmos) over astral (planetary) determinism is better expressed, for us today, by saying, It is the coming into being of a thinking cosmos replacing a merely deterministic, causal, unthinking mechanism of fate or blind chance. Thus the characteristics of this new "body" or organism would be that, if perceived by one of us, it would seem to be a living creature of cosmic size, wisdom, scope, and power, infiltrating the natural (i.e. deterministic) order of nature. This, when I saw Valis or Zebra, is precisely what I saw. Therefore it is evident i that the process of transubstantiation of the deterministic "astral" mechanism into a living body or entity is far progressed. What I saw, then, was none other than the cosmic Christ. Beneath their unchanged outward appearances, natural processes (i.e. causal processes) are to some extent, a decisive extent, purposeful, conscious, and benign, and organized to fulfill a coherent plan. The palpable revelation of this is the supreme revelation. For instance, it intervened decisively in human history in 3-74 on. 'All that remains is for the second incarnation to occur; i.e. the veil to ; drop, God's Wisdom to appear openly here, that all may be aware of it and acknowledge it. Perhaps what I saw was a preview, and eventually everyone will see as I saw, and what I saw, in 3-74.