These are a few of my favorite books

Robert Anton Wilson - Prometheus Rising: awesome manual on how to deprogram & reprogram.

Robert Anton Wilson - Cosmic Trigger: fascinating biography

Robert Anton Wilson & Robert Shea - Illuminatus! Trilogy: Funny and intriguing conspiracy story featuring Hagbard Celine and his golden submarine (the Leif Ericson) vs the Illuminati.

Philip K. Dick - Valis & The Divine Invasion: PKD wrote "revelation" disguised as sci-fi, he didn't really understand what was going on in his head, a quote by him: "After all if you're a buddha, you should be able to figure it out for yourself."

Terence McKenna - True Hallucinations: my favorite orator goes into the Amazon with his brother to trip on psychedelics and things get weird. (The audiobook has great production, music and sound effects that really add to the experience.)

Lewis Carrol's Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking glass for the wonderful lifehacks. (Lesser imaginative conspiracy theorists, this obviously means I am a mind controlled puppet of the illuminati.)

Rick Strassman - DMT The Spirit Molecule: fascinating musings and reports of his experiments on test subjects with the psychedelic DMT, specifically the weird alien encounters.

Herman Hesse's Steppenwolf: visit the Magic Theatre!

Lon Milo DuQuette - Low Magick It's All in Your Head You Just Have No Idea How Big Your Head Is: my favorite occult author, great humor and explanations.

John Lilly - Simulations of God: Great exposition of different reality tunnels and human motivations.

Anything from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series: Hilarious fantasy humor, only read a handful so far but enjoyed each one, reading "Guards! Guards!" now. Small Gods is my favorite so far, I'm still wondering if Terry Pratchett is in fact a master magician in real life or just really clever at life.

Favorite Comic Books are The Invisibles by Grant Morrison and Promethea by Alan Moore. 

Finished PKD's The Divine Invasion

Linda Fox said, "Each person on Earth will have to choose between his yetzer ha-ra and

his yetzer ha-ru. You choose me and so I saved you . . . you choose the goat-thing and I

cannot save you. In your case I was the one you chose. The battle is waged for each soul

individually. That is what the rabbis teach. They have no doctrine of fallen man as a

whole. Salvation is on a one by one basis.

He woke up in the morning with the Fox against him, her hair brushing his face, and he

said to himself, This is actually so; it is not a dream, and the evil goat-creature lies dead

on the roof, my particular goat-thing that came to degrade my life.

This is the woman I love, he thought as he touched the dark hair and the pale cheek. It is

beautiful hair and her lashes are long and lovely, even as she sleeps. It is impossible but

it is true. That can happen. What had Elias told him about religious faith? 'Certum est

quia impossibile est." "This is therefore credible, just because it is absurd." The great

statement by the early Church father Tertullian, regarding the resurrection of Jesus

Christ. "Et sepultus resurrexit; certum est quia impossibile est.'' And that is the case here.

What a long way I have gone, he thought, stroking the woman's bare arm. Once I

imagined this and now I experience this. I am back where I began and yet I am totally

elsewhere from where I began! It is a paradox and a miracle at the same time. And this,

even, is California, where I imagined it to be. It is as if in dreaming I presaw my future

reality; I experienced it beforehand.

And the dead thing on the roof is proof that this is real. Because my imagination could

not give rise to that stinking beast whose mind glued itself to my mind and told me lies,

told me ugly stories about a fat, short woman with bad skin. An object as ugly as itself-a

projection of itself.

Has anyone loved another human as much as I love her? he asked himself, and then he

thought, She is my Advocate and my Beside-Helper. She told me Hebrew words that I

have forgotten that describe her. She is my tutelary spirit, and the goat-thing came all the

way here, three thousand miles, to perish when she put her fingers against its flank. It

died without even a sound, so easily did she kill it. She was waiting for it. That is-as she

said-her job, one of her jobs. She has others; she consoled me, she consoles millions; she

defends; she gives solace. And she is there in time; she does not arrive too late.

 Did you realize that? That the Fox has known you totally, for a very long time?"

"The goat-creature didn't surprise her," he said.

"Nothing surprises the yetzer ha-toy of a human being," Emmanuel said.

"Will I ever see you again?" Herb Asher asked.

"Not as you see me now. Not as a human figure such as yourself. I am not as you see

me; I now shed my human side, that derived from my mother, Rybys. Zina and I will

unite in a syzygy which is macrocosmic; we will not have a soma, which is to say, a

physical body distinct from the world. The world will be our body, and our mind the

world's mind. It will also be your mind, Herbert. And the mind of every other creature

that has chosen its yetzer ha-toy, its good spirit. This is what the rabbis have taught, that

each human-but I see you know this; Linda has told you. What she has not told you is a

later gift that she holds in store for you: the gift of ultimate exculpation for your life in

its entirety. She will be there when you are judged, and the judgment will be of her

rather than you. She is spotless, and she will bestow this perfection on you when final

scrutiny comes. So fear not; your ultimate salvation is assured. She would give her life

for you, her friend. As Jesus said, 'Greater love has no man than that he give up his life

for his friends.' When she touched the goat-creature she-well, I had better not say.

"She herself died for an instant," Herb Asher said.

"For an instant so brief that it scarcely existed."

"But it did occur. She died and returned. Even though I saw nothing."

"That is so. How did you know?"

Herb Asher said, "I could feel it this morning when I looked at her sleeping; I could feel

her love."

When the poor cripple by the pool did lie

Full many years in misery and pain,

No sooner he on Christ had set his eye,

But he was well, and comfort came again.

I finished this amazing book by visionary Philip K. Dick and was blown away, I decided to do a one card tarot reading and drew the Seven of Cups.

I opened my book on the Tarot (Renée Maas - Tarot: An Open Book) to find its meaning, but I arrived on the page which had the title "The Tarot and the Kabbala" first. Pretty awesome since PKD talks about the Torah throughout the book. Many meanings for any card, this translation suits my interpretation best: In general this card points to a need to narrow your focus. When it appears, you are probably trying to do too much, and doing most of it not very well. BRB, studying everything about the Torah and Kabbalah. What's funny is, while I was opening the Tarot Book I heard someone outside on the street yell GODDAMMIT in flemish (Godverdomme!).

Philip K. Dick's the Divine Invasion - FUBAR

Had to take a break from reading this one even though it's brilliant. On the one hand I stopped posting excerpts cause I felt I could be posting everything from a certain point on. On the other hand all the Christian/Hebrew symbolism annoys me to no end, I have little tolerance for the monotheistic religions.

What a tragic realm this is, he reflected. Those down here are prisoners, and the ultimate tragedy is that they don't know it; they think they are free because they have never been free, and do not understand what it means. This is a prison, and few men have guessed. But I know, he said to himself. Because that is why I am here. To burst the walls, to tear down the metal gates, to break each chain. Thou shalt not muzzle the ox as he treadeth out the corn, he thought, remembering the Torah. You will not imprison a free creature; you will not bind it. Thus says the Lord your God. Thus I say. They do not know whom they serve. This is the heart of their misfortune: service in error, to a wrong thing. They are poisoned as if with metal, he thought. Metal confining them and metal in their blood; this is a metal world. Driven by cogs, a machine that grinds along, dealing out suffering and death . . . They are so accustomed to death, he realized, as if death, too, were natural. How long it has been since they knew the Garden. The place of resting animals and flowers. When can I find for them that place again?
There are two realities, he said to himself. The Black Iron Prison, which is called the Cave of Treasures, in which they now live, and the Palm Tree Garden with its enormous spaces, its light, where they originally dwelt. Now they are literally blind, he thought. Literally unable to see more than a short distance; faraway objects are invisible to them now. Once in a while one of them guesses that formerly they had faculties now gone; once in a while one of them discerns the truth, that they are not now what they were and not now where they were. But they forget again, exactly as I forgot. And I still forget somewhat, he realized. I still have only a partial vision. I am occluded, too.

Why should I help any of them? he asked himself. They do what is right only when forced to, when there is no alternative. They fell of their own accord and are fallen now, of their own accord, by what they have voluntarily done. My mother is dead because of them; they murdered her. They would murder me if they could figure out where I am; only because I have confused their wits do they leave me alone. High and low they seek my life, just as Ahab sought Elijah's life, so long ago. They are a worthless race, and I do not care if they fall. I do not care at all. To save them I must fight what they themselves are. And have always been.

"What is this for?" he said. "They are what they are. I grow more and more weary. And I care less and less, as I begin to remember. For ten years I have lived on this world, now, and for ten years they have hunted me. Let them die. Did I not say to them the talion law: 'An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth'? Is that not in the Torah? They drove me off this world two thousand years ago; I return; they wish me dead. Under the talion law I should wish them dead. It is the sacred law of Israel. It is my law, my word."

Zina was silent. "Advise me," Emmanuel said. "I have always listened to your advice." Zina said: One day Elijah the prophet appeared to Rabbi Baruka in the market of Lapet. Rabbi Baruka asked him, "Is there any one among the people of this market who is destined to share in the world to come?" . . . Two men appeared on the scene and Elijah said, "These two will share in the world to come." Rabbi Baruka asked them, "What is your occupation?" They said, "We are merrymakers. When we see a man who is downcast, we cheer him up. When we see two people quarreling with one another, we endeavor to make peace between them." "You make me less sad," Emmanuel said. "And less weary. As you always have. As Scripture says of you:
Then I was at his side every day, his darling and delight, playing in his presence continually, playing on the earth, when he had finished it, while my delight was in mankind.
And Scripture says: Wisdom I loved; I sought her out when I was young and longed to win her for my bride, and I fell in love with her beauty. But that was Solomon, not me. So I determined to bring her home to live with me, knowing that she would be my counselor in prosperity and my comfort in anxiety and grief. Solomon was a wise man, to love you so." Beside him the girl smiled. She said nothing, but her dark eyes shone. "Why are you smiling?" he asked. "Because you have shown the truth of Scripture when it says: I will betroth you to Me forever. I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and in justice, in love and in mercy. I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness, and you shall love the Lord. Remember that you made the Covenant with man. And you made man in your own image. You cannot break the Covenant; you have made man that promise, that you will never break it." Emmanuel said, "That is so. You advise me well." He thought, And you cheer my heart. You above all else, you who came before creation. Like the two merrymakers, he thought, who Elijah said would be saved. Your dancing, your singing, and the sound of bells. "I know," he said, "what your name means."

"Zina?" she said. "It's just a name. "It is the Romanian word for-" He ceased speaking; the girl had trembled visibly, and her eyes were now wide. "How long have you known it?" she said. 'Years. Listen:
I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows;
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight;
And there the snake throws her enamell'd skin,
Weed wide enough

I will finish; listen:

To wrap a fairy in.

And I have known this," he finished, "all this time." Staring at him, Zina said, "Yes, Zina means fairy." "You are not Holy Wisdom," he said, "you are Diana, the fairy queen." Cold wind rustled the branches of the trees. And, across the frozen creek, a few dry leaves scuttled. "I see," Zina said. About the two of them the wind rustled, as if speaking. He could hear the wind as words. And the wind said:
BEWARE!
He wondered if she heard it, too.

But they were still friends. Zina told Emmanuel about an early identity that she had once had. Thousands of years ago, she said, she had been Ma'at, the Egyptian goddess who represented the cosmic order and justice. When someone died his heart was weighed against Ma' at's ostrich feather. By this the person's burden of sins was determined. The principle by which the sinfulness of the person was determined consisted of the degree of his truthfulness. To the extent that he was truthful the judgment went in his favor. This judgment was presided over by Osiris, but since Ma'at was the goddess of truthfulness, then it followed that the determination was hers to make. "After that," Zina said, "the idea of the judgment of human souls passed over into Persia." In the ancient Persian religion, Zoroastrianism, a sifting bridge had to be crossed by the newly dead person. If he was evil the bridge got narrower and narrower until he toppled off and plunged into the fiery pit of hell. Judaism in its later stages and Christianity had gotten their ideas of the Final Days from this. The good person, who managed to cross the sifting bridge, was met by the spirit of his religion: a beautiful young woman with superb, large breasts. However, if the person was evil the spirit of his religion consisted of a dried-up old hag with sagging paps. You could tell at a glance, therefore, which category you belonged to. "Were you the spirit of religion for the good persons?" Emmanuel asked. Zina did not answer the question; she passed on to another matter which she was more anxious to communicate to him.
In these judgments of the dead, stemming from Egypt and Persia, the scrutiny was pitiless and the sinful soul was de facto doomed. Upon your death the books listing your good deeds and bad deeds closed, and no one, even the gods, could alter the tabulation. In a sense the procedure of judgment was mechanical. A bill of particulars, in essence, had been drawn up against you, compiled during your lifetime, and now this bill of particulars was fed into a mechanism of retribution. Once the mechanism received the list, it was all over for you. The mechanism ground you to shreds, and the gods merely watched, impassively.
But one day (Zina said) a new figure made its appearance at the path leading to the sifting bridge. This was an enigmatic figure who seemed to consist of a shifting succession of aspects or roles. Sometimes he was called Comforter. Sometimes Advocate. Sometimes Beside-Helper. Sometimes Support. Sometimes Advisor. No one knew where he had come from. For thousands of years he had not been there, and then one day he had appeared. He stood at the edge of the busy path, and as the souls made their way to the sifting bridge this complex figure-who sometimes, but rarely, seemed to be a woman-signaled to the persons, each in turn, to attract their attention. It was essential that the Beside- Helper got their attention before they stepped onto the sifting bridge, because after that it was too late.
"Too late for what?" Emmanuel said.
Zina said, "The Beside-Helper upon stopping a person approaching the sifting bridge asked him if he wished to be represented in the testing which was to come. "By the Beside-Helper?"
The Beside-Helper, she explained, assumed his role of Advocate; he offered to speak on the person's behalf. But the Beside- Helper offered something more. He offered to present his own bill of particulars to the retribution mechanism in place of the bill of particulars of the person. If the person were innocent this would make no difference, but, for the guilty, it would yield up a sentence of exculpation rather than guilt. "That's not fair," Emmanuel said. "The guilty should be punished." "Why?" Zina said. "Because it is the law," Emmanuel said. "Then there is no hope for the guilty." Emmanuel said, "They deserve no hope." "What if everyone is guilty?" He had not thought of that. 'What does the Beside-Helper's bill of particulars list?" he asked. "It is blank," Zina said. "A perfectly white piece of paper. A document on which nothing is inscribed." "The retributive machinery could not process that." Zina said, "It would process it. It would imagine that it had received a compilation of a totally spotless person. "But it couldn't act. It would have no input data." "That's the whole point." "Then the machinery of justice has been bilked." "Bilked out of a victim," Zina said.' 'Is that not to be desired? Should there be victims? What is gained if there is an unending procession of victims? Does that right the wrongs they have committed?" "No," he said.
"The idea," Zina said, "is to feed mercy into the circuit. The Beside-Helper is an amicus curiae, a friend of the court. He advises the court, by its permission, that the case before it constitutes an exception. The general rule of punishment does not apply." "And he does this for everyone? Every guilty person?" "For every guilty person who accepts his offer of advocacy and help." "But then you'd have an endless procession of exceptions. Because no guilty person in his right mind would reject such an offer; every single guilty person would wish to be judged as an exception, as a case involving mitigating circumstances." Zina said, 'But the person would have to accept the fact that he was, on his own, guilty. He could of course wager that he was innocent, in which case he would not need the advocacy of the Beside-Helper." After a moment of pondering. Emmanuel said, 'That would be a foolish choice. He might be wrong. And he loses nothing by accepting the assistance of the Beside-Helper." In practice, however,' Zina said, most souls about to be judged reject the offer of advocacy by the Beside-Helper."
'On what basis?" He could not fathom their reasoning. Zina said, 'On the basis that they are sure they are innocent. To receive this help the person must go with the pessimistic assumption that he is guilty, even though his own assessment of himself is one of innocence. The truly innocent need no Beside- Helper, just as the physically healthy need no physician. In a situation of this kind the optimistic assumption is perilous. It's the bail-out theorem that little creatures employ when they construct a burrow. If they are wise they build a second exit to their burrow, operating on the pessimistic assumption that the first one will be found by a predator. All creatures who did not use their theorem are no longer with us." Emmanuel said, It is degrading to a man that he must consider himself sinful." 'It's degrading to a gopher to have to admit that his burrow may not be perfectly built, that a predator may find it."
'You are talking about an adversary situation. Is divine justice an adversary situation'? Is there a prosecutor?"
'Yes, there is a prosecutor of man in the divine court: it is Satan. There is the Advocate who defends the accused human. and Satan who impugns and indicts him. The Advocate, standing beside the man, defends him and speaks for him: Satan, confronting the man, accuses him. Would you wish man to have an accuser and not a defender? Would that seem just'?"
"But innocence must be presumed." The girl's eyes gleamed. "Precisely the point made by the Advocate in each trial that takes place. Hence he substitutes his own blameless record for that of his client, and justifies the man by surrogation."
"Are you this Beside-Helper'?" Emmanuel asked. "No," she said. "He is a far more puzzling figure than I. If you are having difficulty with me, in determining-"
"I am," Emmanuel said. He is a latecomer into this world," Zina said. "Not found in earlier aeons. He represents an evolution in the divine strategy. One by which the primordial damage is repaired. One of many, but a main one. Will I ever encounter him?" You will not be judged," Zina said. "So perhaps not. But all humans will see him standing by the busy road, offering his help. Offering it in time-before the person starts across the sifting bridge and is judged. The Beside-Helper's intervention always comes in time. It is part of his nature to be there soon enough." Emmanuel said, "I would like to meet him." Follow the travel pattern of any human," Zina said, "and you will arrive at the point where that human encounters him. That is how I know about him. I, too, am not judged." She pointed to the slate that she had given him. "Ask it for more information about the Beside-Helper." The slate read: TO CALL
"Is that all you can tell me?" Emmanuel asked it. A new word formed, a Greek word:
PARAKALEIN
He wondered about this, wondered greatly, at this new entity who had come into the world . . . who could be called on by those in need, those who stood in danger of negative judgment. It was one more of the mysteries presented to him by Zina. There had been so many, now. He enjoyed them. But he was puzzled. To call to aid: parakalein. Strange, he thought. The world evolves even as it falls more and more. There are two distinct movements: the falling, and then, at the same time, the upwardrising work of repair. Antithetical movements, in the form of a dialectic of all creation and the powers contending behind it. Suppose Zina beckoned to the parts that fell? Beckoned them, seductively, to fall farther. About this he could not yet tell.

FUBAR comes to mind...

Robert Anton Wilson Lecture - The H.E.A.D. Revolution

Oh haven't seen this before! My day is made! (update: though seemingly I've posted it also last november, blast my memory!!!)

The HEAD Revolution - Hedonic Engineering And Development - began with the psychedelics and bio-feedback machines of the 1960's, then graduated to Lilly float tankes, scientific study of yoga, and neo-reichian body relaxation and neuro-awareness teques. Describing the latest brain-change machines, Dr. Wilson argues that Hedonic Engineering has come of age and we are the first generation in history to have the capacity to tap the full potentials of our brains and graduate from humanity to superhumanity.

RAW lecture given on 03/04/1988, at the First Unitarian Universalist Church in Paradise Valley, Arizona.

See the comments for the explanation of the above image. I took a test http://www.selectsmart.com/RELIGION/ about which religion/BS i subscribe to, and I can't really express in words just how funny and apt I find it that I crashed the application!

Philip K. Dick's The Divine Invasion ~ Sacred Writings disguised as Science Fiction #2: Of the Mother and the Child

The three of them sat together drinking tea. Rybys's face had an embittered, stark expression on it, a look of fury; she said almost nothing.

"What bothers you the most?" Elias Tate said. "The fact that Yah was driven off Earth, that he was defeated by the Adversary, or that you have to go back to Earth carrying him inside you?"

She laughed. "Leaving my station."

"You have been honored," Elias said.

"Honored with illness," Rybys said; her hand shook as she lifted her cup to her lips.

"Do you realize who it is that you carry in your womb?" Elias said.

"Sure," Rybys said.

"You are not impressed," Elias said.

"I had my life all planned out," Rybys said.

"I think you're taking a small view of this," Herb Asher said. Both Elias and Rybys glanced at him with distaste, as if he had intruded. "Maybe I don't understand," he said, weakly.

Reaching out her hand, Rybys patted him. "It's OK. I don't understand either. Why me? I asked that when I came down with the M.S. Why the hell me? Why the hell you? You have to leave your station, too; and your Fox tapes. And lying all day and night in your bunk doing nothing, with your gear on auto. Christ. Well, I guess Job had it right. God afflicts those he loves."

"The three of us will travel to Earth," Elias said, "and there you will give birth to your son, Emmanuel. Yah planned this at the beginning of the age, before the defeat at Masada, before the fall of the Temple. He foresaw his defeat and moved to rectify the situation. God can be defeated but only temporarily. With God the remedy is greater than the malady."

"'Felix culpa,' "Rybys said.

"Yes," Elias agreed. To Herb Asher he explained, "It means 'happy fault,' referring to the fall, the original fall. Had there been no fall perhaps there would have been no Incarnation. No birth of Christ."

"Catholic doctrine," Rybys said remotely. "I never thought it would apply to me personally."

Herb Asher said, "But didn't Christ conquer the forces of evil? He said, 'I have overcome the world.'"

"Well," Rybys said, "apparently he was wrong."

"When Masada fell," Elias said, "all was lost. God did not enter history in the first century C.E.; he left history. Christ's mission was a failure."

"You are very old," Rybys said. "How old are you, Elias?

Almost four thousand years, I guess. You can take a long-term view but I can't. You've known this about the First Advent al this time? For two thousand years?"

"As God foresaw the original fall," Elias said, "he also foresaw that Jesus would not be acceptable. It was known to God before it happened."

 "What does he know about this now?" Rybys said. "What we are going to do?"

Elias was silent.

"He doesn't know," Rybys said.

"This-" Elias hesitated.

"The final battle," Rybys said. "It could go either way. Couldn't it?"

"In the end," Elias said, "God wins. He has absolute foresight."

"He can know," Rybys said, "but does that mean he can- Look, I really don't feel well. It's late and I'm sick and I'm worn out and I feel as if. . ." She gestured. "I'm a virgin and I'm pregnant. The Immigration doctors will never believe it."

Herb Asher said, "I think that's the point. That's why I'm supposed to marry you and come along."

"I'm not going to marry you; I don't even know you." She stared at him. "Are you kidding? Marry you? I've got M.S. and I'm pregnant- Damn it, both of you; go away and leave me alone. I mean it. Why didn't I take that bottle of Seconax when I had the chance? I never had the chance; Yah was watching. He sees even the fallen sparrow. I forgot."

"Do you have any whiskey?" Herb Asher said.

"Oh fine," Rybys said bitterly. "You can get drunk but can I? With M.S. and some kind of baby inside me? There I was"- she glared hatefully at Elias Tate-' 'picking up your thoughts visually on my TV set, and I imagined in my deluded folly that it was a corny soap opera dreamed up by writers at Fomalhaut -pure fiction. Arachnids were going to decapitate you? Is that what your unconscious fantasies consist of? And you're Yahweh's spokesperson?" She blanched. "I spoke the Sacred Name. Sorry."

"Christians speak it all the time," Elias said.

Rybys said, "But I'm a Jew. I could be a Jew; that's what got me into this. If I was a Gentile Yah wouldn't have picked me. If I'd ever been laid I'd-" She broke off. "The Divine Machinery has a peculiar brutality to it," she finished. "It isn't romantic. It's cruel; it really is."

 "Because there is so much at stake," Elias said.

"What is at stake?" Rybys said.

"The universe exists because Yah remembers it," Elias said.

Both Herb Asher and Rybys stared at him.

"If Yah forgets, the universe ceases," Elias said.

"Can he forget?" Rybys said.

"He has yet to forget," Elias said elliptically.

"Meaning he could forget," Rybys said. "Then that's what this is about. You just spelled it out. I see. Well-" She shrugged and then reflexively sipped at her cup of tea. "Then I wouldn't exist in the first place except for Yah. Nothing would exist."

Elias said, "His name means 'He Brings into Existence Whatever Exists.' "

"Including evil?" Herb Asher asked.

"It says in Scripture," Elias said, "thus:

So that men from the rising and the setting sun

May know that there is none but I:

I am the LORD, there is no other;

I make the light, I create darkness,

author alike of prosperity and trouble.

I, the LORD, do all these things."

 "Where does it say that?" Rybys said.

"Isaiah forty-five," Elias said.

'Prosperity and trouble,' " Rybys echoed. " 'Weal and woe.'

"Then you know the passage." Elias regarded her.

"It's hard to believe," she said.

"It is monotheism," Elias said harshly.

"Yes," she said, "I guess it is. But it's brutal. What's happening to me is brutal. And there's more ahead. I want out and I can't get out. Nobody asked me originally. Nobody is asking me now. Yah foresees what lies ahead but I don't, except that there's more cruelty and pain and throwing up. Serving God seems to mean throwing up and shooting yourself with a needle every day. I am a diseased rat in a kind of cage. That's what he's made me into. I have no faith and no hope and he has no love, only power. God is a symptom of power, nothing else. The hell with it. I give up. I don't care. I'll do what I have to but it will kill me and I know it. OK?"

The two men were silent. They did not look at her or at each other.

Herb Asher said finally, "He saved your life tonight. He sent me over here."

"That and five credpops will get you a cupee of Kaff," Rybys said. "He gave me the illness in the first place!"

"And he's guiding you through," Herb said.

"To what end?" she said.

"To emancipate an infinitude of lives," Elias said.

"Egypt," she said. "And the brick makers. Over and over again. Why doesn't the emancipation last? Why does it fade out? Isn't there any final resolution?"

"This," Elias said, "is that final resolution."

"I am not one of the emancipated," Rybys said. "I fell along the way."

"Not yet," Elias said.

"But it's coming."

"Perhaps." The expression on Elias Tate's face could not be read.

As the three of them sat, there came a low, murmuring voice which said, "Rybys,

Rybys."

Rybys gave a muffled cry and looked around her.

"Fear not," the voice said. "You will live on in your son. You cannot now die, nor even

unto the end of the age."

Silently, her face buried in her hands, Rybys began to cry.

---

Late in the day, when school had ended, Emmanuel decided to try the Hermetic transform once again, so that he would know the world around him.

First he speeded up his internal biological clock so that his thoughts raced faster and faster; he felt himself rushing down the tunnel of linear time until his rate of movement along that axis was enormous. First, therefore, he saw vague floating colors and then he suddenly encountered the Watcher, which is to say the Grigon, who barred the way between the Lower and Upper Realms. The Grigon presented itself to him as a nude female torso that he could reach out and touch, so close was it. Beyond this point he began to travel at the rate of the Upper Realm, so that the Lower Realm ceased to be something but became, instead, a process; it evolved in accretional layers at a rate of 31.5 million to one in terms of the Upper Realm's time scale.

Thereupon he saw the Lower Realm-not as a place-but as transparent pictures permutating at immense velocity. These pictures were the Forms outside of space being fed into the Lower Realm to become reality. He was one step away, now, from the Hermetic transform.

The final picture froze and time ceased for him. With his eyes shut he could still see the room around him; the flight had ended; he had eluded that which pursued him. That meant that his neural firing was perfect, and his pineal body registered the presence of light carried up its branch of the optic conduit.

He sat for a little while, although "little while" no longer signified anything. Then, by degrees, the transform took place. He saw outside him the pattern, the print, of his own brain; he was within a world made up of his brain, with living information carried here and there like little rivers of shining red that were alive. He could reach out, therefore, and touch his own thoughts in their original nature, before they became thoughts. The room was filled with their fire, and immense spaces stretched out, the volume of his own brain external to him.

Meanwhile he introjected the outer world so that he contained it within him. He now had the universe inside him and his own brain outside everywhere. His brain extended into the vast spaces. far larger than the universe had been. Therefore he knew the extent of all things that were himself, and, because he had incorporated the world, he knew it and controlled it.

He soothed himself and relaxed, and then could see the outlines of the room, the coffee table, a chair, walls, pictures on the walls: the ghost of the external universe lingering outside him. Presently he picked up a book from the table and opened it. Inside the book he found, written there, his own thoughts, now in a printed form. The printed thoughts lay arranged along the time axis which had become spacial and the only axis along which motion was possible. He could see, as in a hologram, the different ages of his thoughts, the most recent ones being closest to the surface, the older ones lower and deeper in many successive layers.

He regarded the world outside him which now had become reduced to spare geometric shapes, squares mostly, and the Golden Rectangle as a doorway. Nothing moved except the scene beyond the doorway, where his mother rushed happily among tangled old rosebushes and a farmland she had known as a child; she was smiling and her eyes were bright with joy.

Now, Emmanuel thought, I will change the universe that I have taken inside me. He regarded the geometric shapes and allowed them to fill up a little with matter. Across from him the ratty blue couch that' Elias prized began to warp away from plumb; its lines changed. He had taken away the causality that guided it and it stopped being a ratty blue couch with Kaff stains on it and became instead a Hepplewhite cabinet, with fine bone china plates and cups and saucers behind its doors.

He restored a certain measure of time-and saw Elias Tate come and go about the room, enter and leave; he saw accretional layers laminated together in sequence along the linear time axis. The Hepplewhite cupboard remained for a short series of layers; it held its passive or off or rest mode, and then it was whisked over into its active or on or motion, mode and joined the permanent world of the phylogons, participating now in all those of its class that had come before. In his projected world brain the Hepplewhite cabinet, and its bone china pieces, became incorporated into true reality forever. It would now undergo no more changes, and no one would see it but he. It was, to everyone else, in the past.

He completed the transformm with the formulary of Hermes Trismegistus: Verum est . . . quad superius est sicut quod inferius et quad inferius est sicut quad superius, ad perpetrando miracula rei unus.

That is: The truth is that what is above is like what is below and what is below is like what is above, to accomplish the miracles of the one thing.

This was the Emerald Tablet, presented to Maria Prophetissa, the sister of Moses, by Tehuti himself, who gave names to all created things in the beginning, before he was expelled from the Palm Tree Garden.

That which was below, his own brain, the microcosm, had become the macrocosm, and, inside him as microcosm now, he contained the macrocosm, which is to say, what is above.

I now occupy the entire universe, Emmanuel realized; I am now everywhere equally.

Therefore I have become Adam Kadmon, the First Man. Motion along the three spacial axes was impossible for him because he was already wherever he wished to go. The only motion possible for him or for changing reality lay along the temporal axis; he sat contemplating the world of the phylogons, billions of them in process, continually growing and completing themselves, driven by the dialectic that underlay all transformation. It pleased him; the sight of the interconnected network of phylogons was beautiful to behold. This was the kosmos of Pythagorias, the harmonious fitting-together of all things, each in its right way and each imperishable.

I see now what Plotinus saw, he realized. But, more than that, I have rejoined the sundered realms within me; I have restored the Shekhina to En Soi. But only for a little while and only locally. Only in microform. It would return to what it had been as soon as he released it.

"Just thinking," he said aloud.

Elias came into the room, saying as he came, "What are you doing, Manny?"

Causality had been reversed; he had done what Zina could do: make time run backward.

He laughed in delight. And heard the sound of bells.

"I saw Chinvat," Emmanuel said. "The narrow bridge. I could have crossed it."

"You must not do that," Elias said.

Emmanuel said, "What do the bells mean? Bells ringing far off."

"When you hear the distant bells it means that the Saoshyant is present."

"The Saviour," Emmanuel said. "Who is the Saviour, Elias?"

"It must be yourself," Elias said.

"Sometimes I despair of remembering."

He could still hear the bells, very far off, ringing slowly, blown, he knew, by the desert wind. It was the desert itself speaking to him. The desert, by means of the bells, was trying to remind him. To Elias he said, "Who am I?"

''I can't say," Elias said.

'But you know."

Elias nodded.

"You could make everything very simple," Emmanuel said, "by saying."

"You must say it yourself," Elias said. "When the time comes you will know and you will say it."

"I am-" the boy said hesitantly.

Elias smiled.

Philip K. Dick's The Divine Invasion ~ Sacred Writings disguised as Science Fiction

Through the port of his dome he made out a bent figure shuffling across the frozen wasteland. An autochthone gripping a meager bundle; it was on some errand.

Pressing the switch of the external bullhorn, Herb Asher said, "Step in here a minute, Clem." This was the name the human settlers had given to the autochthons, to all of them, since they all looked alike. "I need a second opinion."

The autochthone, scowling, shuffled to the hatch of the dome and signaled for entry. Herb Asher activated the hatch mechanism and the intermediate membrane dropped into place. The autochthon disappeared inside. A moment later the displeased autochthon stood within the dome, shaking off methane crystals and glowering at Herb Asher.

Getting out his translating computer, Asher spoke to the autochthon. "This will take just a moment." His analog voice issued from the instrument in a series of clicks and clacks. "I'm getting audio interference that I can't shut off. Is it something your people are doing? Listen."

The autochthon listened, his root-like face twisted and dark. Finally he spoke, and his voice, in English, assumed an unusual harshness. "I hear nothing."

"You're lying," Herb Asher said.

The autochthon said, "I am not lying. Perhaps your mind has gone, due to isolation."

"I thrive on isolation. Anyhow I'm not isolated." He had, after all, the Fox to keep him company.

"I've seen it happen," the autochthon said. "Domers like you suddenly imagine voices and shapes."

Herb Asher got out his stereo microphones, turned on his tape recorder and watched the VU meters. They showed nothing. He turned the gain up to full. Still the VU meters remained idle; their needles did not move. Asher coughed and at once both needles swung wildly and the overload diodes flashed red. Well, the tape recorder simply was not picking up the soupy string music, for some reason. He was more perplexed than ever. The autochthon, seeing all this, smiled.

Into the stereo microphones Asher said distinctly, " '0 tell me all about Anna Livia! I want to hear all about Anna Livia. Well, you know Anna Livia? Yes, of course, we all know Anna Livia. Tell me all. Tell me now. You'll die when you hear. Well, you know, when the old cheb went futt and did what you know. Yes, I know, go on. Wash quit and don't be dabbling. Tuck up your sleeves and loosen your talktapes. And don't butt me- hike !-when you bend. Or whatever-'"

"What is this?" the autochthon said, listening to the translation into his own tongue. Grinning, Herb Asher said, "A famous Terran book. 'Look, look, the dusk is growing. My branches lofty are taking root. And my cold cher's gone ashley. Fieluhr? Filou! What age is at? It saon is late. 'Tis endless now senne- "The man is mad," the autochthon said, and turned toward the hatch, to leave.

"It's Finnegans Wake," Herb Asher said. "I hope the translating computer got it for you. 'Can't hear with the waters of. The chittering waters of. Flittering bats, fieldmice bawk talk. Ho! Are you not gone ahome? What Thom Malone? Can't hear-'The autochthon had left, convinced of Herb Asher's insanity. Asher watched him through the port; the autochthon strode away from the dome in indignation.

Again pressing the switch of the external bullhorn, Herb Asher yelled after the retreating figure, "You think James Joyce was crazy, is that what you think? Okay; then explain to me how come he mentions 'talktapes' which means audio tapes in a book he wrote starting in 1922 and which he completed in 1939. Before there were tape recorders! You call that crazy? He also has them sitting around a TV set-in a book started four years after World War I. I think Joyce was a- The autochthon had disappeared over a ridge. Asher released the switch on the external bullhorn.

It's impossible that James Joyce could have mentioned 'talk- tapes" in his writing, Asher thought. Someday I'm going to get my article published; I'm going to prove that Finnegans Wake is an information pool based on computer memory systems that didn't exist until a century after James Joyce's era; that Joyce was plugged into a cosmic consciousness from which he derived the inspiration for his entire corpus of work. I'll be famous forever. [He's not just talking about Joyce, but himself as well.] What must it have been like, he wondered, to actually hear Cathy Berberian read from Ulysses? If only she had recorded the whole book. But, he realized, we have Linda Fox.

His tape recorder was still on, still recording. Aloud, Herb Asher said, "I shall say the hundred-letter thunder word." The needles of the VU meters swung obediently. "Here I go," Asher said, and took a deep breath. 'This is the hundred-letter thunder word from Finnegans Wake. I forget how it goes." He went to the bookshelf and got down the cassette of Finnegans Wake. "I shall not recite it from memory," he said, inserting the cassette and rolling it to the first page of the text. "It is the longest word in the English language," he said. "It is the sound made when the primordial schism occurred in the cosmos, when part of the damaged cosmos fell into darkness and evil. Originally we had the Garden of Eden, as Joyce points out. Joyce-"

His radio sputtered on. The foodman was contacting him, telling him to prepare to receive a shipment. "...awake?" the radio said. Hopefully.

Contact with another human. Herb Asher shrank involuntarily. Oh Christ, he thought. He trembled. No, he thought. Please no.

---

"Oh, then that soap opera isn't a soap opera." She turned to the screen of the TV. "I've been intercepting a psychotronic information-transfer. I must have plugged in the wrong cable. Damn. Well, what the hell. I thought it was on the air an awful lot of the time."

---

"I do remember some things, then," Emmanuel said.

"You'll remember more. You see, you set up a disinhibiting stimulus that would remind you before-well, when the right time came. You're the only one who knows what the stimulus is. Even Elias doesn't know it. I don't know it; you hid it from me, back when you were what you were."

"I am what I am now," Emmanuel said.

"Yes, except that you have an impaired memory," Zina said, pragmatically. "So it isn't the same.

"I guess not," the boy said. "I thought you said you could make me remember."

"There are different kinds of remembering. Elias can make you remember a little, and I can make you remember more; but only your own disinhibiting stimulus can make you be. The word is .. . you have to bend close to me to listen; only you should hear this word. No, I'll write it." Zina took a piece of paper from a nearby desk, and a length of chalk, and wrote one word.

HAYAH

Gazing down at the word, Emmanuel felt memory come to him, but only for a nanosecond; at once-almost at once-it departed. "Hayah," he said, aloud.

"That is the Divine Tongue," Zina said.

"Yes," he said. "I know." The word was Hebrew, a Hebrew root word. And the Divine Name itself came from that word. He felt a vast and terrible awe; he felt afraid.

"Fear not," Zina said quietly.

"I am afraid," Emmanuel said, "because for a moment I remembered." Knew, he thought, who I am.

But he forgot again. By the time he and the girl had gone outside into the yard he no longer knew. And yet-strange!-he knew that he had known, known and forgotten again almost at once. As if, he thought, I have two minds inside me, one on the surface and the other in the depths. The surface one has been injured but the deep one has not. And yet the deep one can't speak; it is closed up. Forever? No; there would be the stimulus, one day. 

His own device.

Probably it was necessary that he not remember. Had he been able to recall into consciousness everything, the basis of it all, then the government would have killed him. 

There existed two heads of the beast, the religious one, a Cardinal Fulton Statler Harms, and then a scientific one named N. Bulkowsky. But these were phantoms. To Emmanuel the Christian-Islamic Church and the Scientific Legate did not constitute reality. He knew what lay behind them. Elias had told him. But even had Elias not told him he would have known anyhow; he would everywhere and at every time be able to identify the Adversary. What did puzzle him was the girl Zina. Something in the situation did not ring right. Yet she had not lied; she could not lie. He had not made it possible for her to deceive; that constituted her fundamental nature: her veracity. All he had to do was ask her.

---

"Yah made me sick?" Rybys said. After a pause Elias nodded.
"What is this?" Rybys said furiously. "A coup of some kind? You're going to smuggle-"
Interrupting her, Elias said in a low, harsh voice, "The Roman X Fretensis."
"Masada," Rybys said. "Seventy-three C.E. Right? I thought so. I started thinking so when a Clem told me about the mountain deity at our Station Five."
"He lost," Elias said. "The Tenth Legion was made up of fifteen thousand experienced soldiers. But Masada held out for almost two years. And there were less than a thousand Jews at Masada, including women and children."
To Herb Asher, Rybys said. "Only seven women and children survived the fall of Masada. It was a Jewish fortress. They had hidden in a water conduit." To Elias Tate she said, "And Yahweh was driven from the Earth."
"And the hopes of man," Elias said, "faded away."
Herb Asher said, "What are you two talking about?"
"A fiasco," Elias Tate said briefly.
"So he-Yah-first makes me sick, and then he-" She broke off. "Did he start out from this star system originally? Or was he driven here?"
"He was driven here," Elias said. "There is a zone around Earth now. A zone of evil. It keeps him out."
"The Lord?" Rybys said. "The Lord is kept out? Away from Earth?" She stared at Elias Tate.
"The people of Earth do not know," Elias Tate said.
"But you know," Herb Asher said. "Right? How do you know all these things? How do you know so much? Who are you?"
Elias Tate said, "My name is Elijah."

---

More excerpts on the way... In other news, PKD's Man in the High Castle will be adapted to TV, there are some good people working on it though it's for SyFy so it might go either way.
Also check out 42 Minutes fascinating interview with Anthony Peake on "VALIS as Daemon? PKD and the VALIS-Loop." 01.29.13 Episode 69: Anthony Peake. Chapter 25 of The Sync Book Vol. 2. Visit: AnthonyPeake.com. Listen to Anthony's own podcast, The Peake Experience: The Anthony Peake Consciousness Hour.

Maybe Valis

Alex Jones is getting so desperate

Alex Jones claims the ruling elite is taking DMT and the machine elves are an evil influence, lmao. This youtube audio clip is so retarded I can't even embed it, the man obviously has no clue what DMT is about, clearly hasn't read Strassman's work and is just ranting like a crazy man again. Even using PKD in his stupid rant. Terence Mckenna is laughing so hard at this somewhere. I honestly don't know what drives professional liars and how much they believe their own B.S., and I don't want to know either. So sad. He should take some DMT and experience his ego death, what an explosion that would be lol.

Philip K. Dick

"What I was sensing was the manifold of partially actualized realities lying tangent to what evidently is the most actualized one, the one which the majority of us by consensus agentium agree on." PKD

Philip K. Dick's "Beyond the Door"

Philip K. Dick's "Beyond the Door" An adaptation of the short story of the same name

~ Did you ever wonder at the lonely life the bird in a cuckoo clock has to lead—that it might possibly love and hate just as easily as a real animal of flesh and blood? Philip Dick used that idea for this brief fantasy tale. We're sure that after reading it you'll give cuckoo clocks more respect. ~

Larry Thomas bought a cuckoo clock for his wife—without knowing the price he would have to pay.

That night at the dinner table he brought it out and set it down beside her plate. Doris stared at it, her hand to her mouth. "My God, what is it?" She looked up at him, bright-eyed.

"Well, open it."

Doris tore the ribbon and paper from the square package with her sharp nails, her bosom rising and falling. Larry stood watching her as she lifted the lid. He lit a cigarette and leaned against the wall.

"A cuckoo clock!" Doris cried. "A real old cuckoo clock like my mother had." She turned the clock over and over. "Just like my mother had, when Pete was still alive." Her eyes sparkled with tears.

"It's made in Germany," Larry said. After a moment he added, "Carl got it for me wholesale. He knows some guy in the clock business. Otherwise I wouldn't have—" He stopped.

Doris made a funny little sound.

"I mean, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to afford it." He scowled. "What's the matter with you? You've got your clock, haven't you? Isn't that what you want?"

Doris sat holding onto the clock, her fingers pressed against the brown wood.

"Well," Larry said, "what's the matter?"

He watched in amazement as she leaped up and ran from the room, still clutching the clock. He shook his head. "Never satisfied. They're all that way. Never get enough."

He sat down at the table and finished his meal.

The cuckoo clock was not very large. It was hand-made, however, and there were countless frets on it, little indentations and ornaments scored in the soft wood. Doris sat on the bed drying her eyes and winding the clock. She set the hands by her wristwatch. Presently she carefully moved the hands to two minutes of ten. She carried the clock over to the dresser and propped it up.

Then she sat waiting, her hands twisted together in her lap—waiting for the cuckoo to come out, for the hour to strike.

As she sat she thought about Larry and what he had said. And what she had said, too, for that matter—not that she could be blamed for any of it. After all, she couldn't keep listening to him forever without defending herself; you had to blow your own trumpet in the world.

She touched her handkerchief to her eyes suddenly. Why did he have to say that, about getting it wholesale? Why did he have to spoil it all? If he felt that way he needn't have got it in the first place. She clenched her fists. He was so mean, so damn mean.

But she was glad of the little clock sitting there ticking to itself, with its funny grilled edges and the door. Inside the door was the cuckoo, waiting to come out. Was he listening, his head cocked on one side, listening to hear the clock strike so that he would know to come out?

Did he sleep between hours? Well, she would soon see him: she could ask him. And she would show the clock to Bob. He would love it; Bob loved old things, even old stamps and buttons. He liked to go with her to the stores. Of course, it was a little awkward, but Larry had been staying at the office so much, and that helped. If only Larry didn't call up sometimes to—

There was a whirr. The clock shuddered and all at once the door opened. The cuckoo came out, sliding swiftly. He paused and looked around solemnly, scrutinizing her, the room, the furniture.

It was the first time he had seen her, she realized, smiling to herself in pleasure. She stood up, coming toward him shyly. "Go on," she said. "I'm waiting."

The cuckoo opened his bill. He whirred and chirped, quickly, rhythmically. Then, after a moment of contemplation, he retired. And the door snapped shut.

She was delighted. She clapped her hands and spun in a little circle. He was marvelous, perfect! And the way he had looked around, studying her, sizing her up. He liked her; she was certain of it. And she, of course, loved him at once, completely. He was just what she had hoped would come out of the little door.

Doris went to the clock. She bent over the little door, her lips close to the wood. "Do you hear me?" she whispered. "I think you're the most wonderful cuckoo in the world." She paused, embarrassed. "I hope you'll like it here."

Then she went downstairs again, slowly, her head high.

Larry and the cuckoo clock really never got along well from the start. Doris said it was because he didn't wind it right, and it didn't like being only half-wound all the time. Larry turned the job of winding over to her; the cuckoo came out every quarter hour and ran the spring down without remorse, and someone had to be ever after it, winding it up again.

Doris did her best, but she forgot a good deal of the time. Then Larry would throw his newspaper down with an elaborate weary motion and stand up. He would go into the dining-room where the clock was mounted on the wall over the fireplace. He would take the clock down and making sure that he had his thumb over the little door, he would wind it up.

"Why do you put your thumb over the door?" Doris asked once.

"You're supposed to."

She raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure? I wonder if it isn't that you don't want him to come out while you're standing so close."

"Why not?"

"Maybe you're afraid of him."

Larry laughed. He put the clock back on the wall and gingerly removed his thumb. When Doris wasn't looking he examined his thumb.

There was still a trace of the nick cut out of the soft part of it. Who—or what—had pecked at him?

One Saturday morning, when Larry was down at the office working over some important special accounts, Bob Chambers came to the front porch and rang the bell.

Doris was taking a quick shower. She dried herself and slipped into her robe. When she opened the door Bob stepped inside, grinning.

"Hi," he said, looking around.

"It's all right. Larry's at the office."

"Fine." Bob gazed at her slim legs below the hem of the robe. "How nice you look today."

She laughed. "Be careful! Maybe I shouldn't let you in after all."

They looked at one another, half amused half frightened. Presently Bob said, "If you want, I'll—"

"No, for God's sake." She caught hold of his sleeve. "Just get out of the doorway so I can close it. Mrs. Peters across the street, you know."

She closed the door. "And I want to show you something," she said. "You haven't seen it."

He was interested. "An antique? Or what?"

She took his arm, leading him toward the dining-room. "You'll love it, Bobby." She stopped, wide-eyed. "I hope you will. You must; you must love it. It means so much to me—he means so much."

"He?" Bob frowned. "Who is he?"

Doris laughed. "You're jealous! Come on." A moment later they stood before the clock, looking up at it. "He'll come out in a few minutes. Wait until you see him. I know you two will get along just fine."

"What does Larry think of him?"

"They don't like each other. Sometimes when Larry's here he won't come out. Larry gets mad if he doesn't come out on time. He says—"

"Says what?"

Doris looked down. "He always says he's been robbed, even if he did get it wholesale." She brightened. "But I know he won't come out because he doesn't like Larry. When I'm here alone he comes right out for me, every fifteen minutes, even though he really only has to come out on the hour."

She gazed up at the clock. "He comes out for me because he wants to. We talk; I tell him things. Of course, I'd like to have him upstairs in my room, but it wouldn't be right."

There was the sound of footsteps on the front porch. They looked at each other, horrified.

Larry pushed the front door open, grunting. He set his briefcase down and took off his hat. Then he saw Bob for the first time.

"Chambers. I'll be damned." His eyes narrowed. "What are you doing here?" He came into the dining-room. Doris drew her robe about her helplessly, backing away.

"I—" Bob began. "That is, we—" He broke off, glancing at Doris. Suddenly the clock began to whirr. The cuckoo came rushing out, bursting into sound. Larry moved toward him.

"Shut that din off," he said. He raised his fist toward the clock. The cuckoo snapped into silence and retreated. The door closed. "That's better." Larry studied Doris and Bob, standing mutely together.

"I came over to look at the clock," Bob said. "Doris told me that it's a rare antique and that—"

"Nuts. I bought it myself." Larry walked up to him. "Get out of here." He turned to Doris. "You too. And take that damn clock with you."

He paused, rubbing his chin. "No. Leave the clock here. It's mine; I bought it and paid for it."

In the weeks that followed after Doris left, Larry and the cuckoo clock got along even worse than before. For one thing, the cuckoo stayed inside most of the time, sometimes even at twelve o'clock when he should have been busiest. And if he did come out at all he usually spoke only once or twice, never the correct number of times. And there was a sullen, uncooperative note in his voice, a jarring sound that made Larry uneasy and a little angry.

But he kept the clock wound, because the house was very still and quiet and it got on his nerves not to hear someone running around, talking and dropping things. And even the whirring of a clock sounded good to him.

But he didn't like the cuckoo at all. And sometimes he spoke to him.

"Listen," he said late one night to the closed little door. "I know you can hear me. I ought to give you back to the Germans—back to the Black Forest." He paced back and forth. "I wonder what they're doing now, the two of them. That young punk with his books and his antiques. A man shouldn't be interested in antiques; that's for women."

He set his jaw. "Isn't that right?"

The clock said nothing. Larry walked up in front of it. "Isn't that right?" he demanded. "Don't you have anything to say?"

He looked at the face of the clock. It was almost eleven, just a few seconds before the hour. "All right. I'll wait until eleven. Then I want to hear what you have to say. You've been pretty quiet the last few weeks since she left."

He grinned wryly. "Maybe you don't like it here since she's gone." He scowled. "Well, I paid for you, and you're coming out whether you like it or not. You hear me?"

Eleven o'clock came. Far off, at the end of town, the great tower clock boomed sleepily to itself. But the little door remained shut. Nothing moved. The minute hand passed on and the cuckoo did not stir. He was someplace inside the clock, beyond the door, silent and remote.

"All right, if that's the way you feel," Larry murmured, his lips twisting. "But it isn't fair. It's your job to come out. We all have to do things we don't like."

He went unhappily into the kitchen and opened the great gleaming refrigerator. As he poured himself a drink he thought about the clock.

There was no doubt about it—the cuckoo should come out, Doris or no Doris. He had always liked her, from the very start. They had got along well, the two of them. Probably he liked Bob too—probably he had seen enough of Bob to get to know him. They would be quite happy together, Bob and Doris and the cuckoo.

Larry finished his drink. He opened the drawer at the sink and took out the hammer. He carried it carefully into the dining-room. The clock was ticking gently to itself on the wall.

"Look," he said, waving the hammer. "You know what I have here? You know what I'm going to do with it? I'm going to start on you—first." He smiled. "Birds of a feather, that's what you are—the three of you."

The room was silent.

"Are you coming out? Or do I have to come in and get you?"

The clock whirred a little.

"I hear you in there. You've got a lot of talking to do, enough for the last three weeks. As I figure it, you owe me—"

The door opened. The cuckoo came out fast, straight at him. Larry was looking down, his brow wrinkled in thought. He glanced up, and the cuckoo caught him squarely in the eye.

Down he went, hammer and chair and everything, hitting the floor with a tremendous crash. For a moment the cuckoo paused, its small body poised rigidly. Then it went back inside its house. The door snapped tight-shut after it.

The man lay on the floor, stretched out grotesquely, his head bent over to one side. Nothing moved or stirred. The room was completely silent, except, of course, for the ticking of the clock.

"I see," Doris said, her face tight. Bob put his arm around her, steadying her.

"Doctor," Bob said, "can I ask you something?"

"Of course," the doctor said.

"Is it very easy to break your neck, falling from so low a chair? It wasn't very far to fall. I wonder if it might not have been an accident. Is there any chance it might have been—"

"Suicide?" the doctor rubbed his jaw. "I never heard of anyone committing suicide that way. It was an accident; I'm positive."

"I don't mean suicide," Bob murmured under his breath, looking up at the clock on the wall. "I meant something else."

But no one heard him.

Philip K. Dick and the Illuminati

Philip K. Dick and the Illuminati:
Monday night he [Dick] called me and said that the night before - Sunday - he'd been smoking some marijuana that a visitor had left, and felt himself entering that by-now-familiar state in which he had visions (generally not dope-related - unless you count Vitamin C as dope), and he said, "I want to see God. Let me see you."

And then instantly, he told me, he was flattened by the most extreme terror he'd ever felt, and he saw the Ark of the Covenant, and a voice (Voice?) said, "You wouldn't come to me through logical evidence or faith or anything else, so I must convince you this way." The curtain of the Ark was drawn back, and he saw, apparently, a void and a triangle with an eye in it [emphasis added], staring straight at him. (How prosaically I put all this down, especially when I pretty much believe it's true!) Phil said he was on his hands and knees, in absolute terror, enduring the Beatific Vision from nine o'clock Sunday evening until 5 A.M. Monday. He said he was certain he was dying, and if he could have reached the telephone he'd have called the paramedics. The Voice told him, in effect, "You've managed to talk yourself into disbelieving everything else (more gentle and suited for human consumption) I let you see, but this you'll never be able to forget or adapt or misrepresent."

Phil said that during the ordeal he said, "I'll never do dope again!" and the Voice said, "That's not the issue."

Later in the article the author talks about Phil seeing the vesica pisces on a girl's pendant, the day after I read that passage for the first time in VALIS I synchronistically saw an otherwise unmarked car with the symbol on it.

Read the entire article here

Flow my tears, the police man said. (final post)

THE THEORY CHANGES THE REALITY IT DESCRIBES.

He turned, then, to face Jason. "I see something about you that didn't show up in your 4-D photo. It never does, It's always a complete surprise, at least to me. You're a six, aren't you?"
Waking to full alertness, Jason half rose, said, "You're also a six, General?"
Smiling, showing his gold-capped teeth - an expensive anachronism - Felix Buckman held up seven fingers.

In his career as a police official, Felix Buckman had used this shuck each time he had come up against a six. He rlied on it especially when, as with this, the encounter was sudden. There had been four of them. All, eventually, had believed him. This he found amusing. The sixes, eugenic experiments themselves, and secret ones, seemed unusually gullible when confronted with the assertion that there existed an additional project as classified as their own.
Without this shuck he would be, to a six, merely an 'ordinary.' He could not properly handle a six under such a disadvantage. Hence the ploy. Through it his relationship to a six inverted itself. And, under such recreated conditions, he could deal successfully with an otherwise unmanageable human being.
The actual psychological superiority over him which a six possessed was abolished by an unreal fact. He liked this very much.
...
"Why a 'Seven?' Alys had said. "As long as you're shucking them why not say eight or thirty-eight?"
The sin of vainglory. Reaching too far." He had not wanted to make that legendary mistake. "I will tell them, " he had told her grimly, "what I think they'll believe."

Reality denied comes back to haunt.

"There's a cafetaria in the (police) building," (police chief) Buckman said at last, as he drank down a glass of imitation Tang. "But the food there is poisoned. All the help must have relatives in forced-labor camps. They're getting back at us." He laughed. Jason Taverner did not.

I wanna post so much more but I'd spoil the entire thing lol. Check out the earlier posts.