Monday, November 28, 2011

Religion and Madness in Valis


Quotes lifted from Palmer Eldritch again

I'm not sure God did anything at all for him; in fact in some ways God made him sicker.

Fat was certain that God had healed him completely. That is not possible. There is a line in the I Ching reading, "Always ill but never dies." That fits my friend.

There is no door to God through dope; that is a lie peddled by the unscrupulous.

After he had encountered God, Fat developed a love for him which was not normal.

We enjoyed baiting Fat into theological disputation because he always got angry, taking the point of view that what we said on the topic mattered - that the topic itself mattered. By now he had become totally whacked out.

"God is either powerless, stupid or he doesn't give a shit. Or all three."

During the years - outright years! - that he laboured on his exegesis, Fat must have come up with more theories than there are stars in the universe. Every day he developed a new one, more cunning, more exciting and more fucked.

"There's something in the Bible about falling sparrows," Kevin said. "About his eye being on them. That's what's wrong with God; he only has one eye."

You cannot say that an encounter with God is to mental illness what death is to cancer.

How are we to distinguish a genuine theophany from a mere hallucination on the part of the percipient?

A lot can be said for the infinite mercies of God, but the smarts of a good pharmacist, when you get down to it, is worth more.

For Fat, total psychosis was a mercy.

"Many claim to speak for god, but there is only one god and that god is man himself."

"Madness has its own dynamism; it just goes on."

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