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latter view makes more sense, except for the theophanies, rare though they be. All that is required is one absolutely verified theophany and the latter view is voided.
    The vividness of the impression which a supposed theophany makes on the percipient is no proof of authenticity. Nor, really, is group perception (as Spinoza supposed, the entire universe may be one theophany, but then, again, the universe may not exist at all, as the Buddhist idealists decided). Any given alleged theophany may be a fake because anything may be a fake, from stamps to fossil skulls to black holes in space.
    That the entire universe -- as we experience it -- could be a forgery is an idea best expressed by Heraclitus. Once you have taken this notion, or doubt, into your head, you are ready to deal with the issue of God.

    "It is necessary to have understanding (
noö
s
) in order
    
    
    to be able to interpret the evidence of eyes and ears.
    
    
    The step from the obvious to the latent truth is like the
    
    
    translation of utterances in a language which is foreign
    
    
    to most men. Heraclitus... in
Fragment 56
says that
    
    
    men, in regard to knowledge of perceptible things, 'are
    
    
    the victims of illusion much as Homer was.' To reach
    
    
    the truth from the appearances, it is necessary to interpret, to guess the riddle... but though this seems to
    
    
    be within the capacity of men, it is something most men
    
    
    never do. Heraclitus is very vehement in his attacks on
    
    
    the foolishness of ordinary men, and of what passes for
    
    
    knowledge among them. They are compared to sleepers
    
    
    in private worlds of their own."

    Thus says Edward Hussey, Lecturer in Ancient Philosophy at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of All Souls College, in his book THE PRESOCRATICS, published by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1972, pages 37-38. In all my reading I have -- I mean, Horselover Fat has -- never found anything more significant as an insight into the nature of reality. In
Fragment 123,
Heraclitus says, "The nature of things is in the habit of concealing itself." And in
Fragment 54
he says, "Latent structure is master of obvious structure," to which Edward Hussey adds, "Consequently, he (Heraclitus) necessarily agreed... that reality was to some extent
    '
    hidden.'" So if reality "[is] to some extent 'hidden,'" then what is meant by "theophany"? Because a theophany is an in-breaking of God, an in-breaking which amounts to an invasion of our world; and yet our world is only seeming; it is only "obvious structure," which is under the mastery of an unseen "latent structure." Horselover Fat would like you to consider this above all other things. Because if Heraclitus is correct, there is in fact no reality but that of theophanies; the rest is illusion; in which case Fat alone among us comprehends the truth, and Fat, starting with Gloria's phonecall, is insane.
    Insane people -- psychologically defined, not legally defined -- are not in touch with reality. Horselover Fat is insane; therefore he is not in touch with reality. Entry #30 from his exegesis:
    The phenomenal world does not exist; it is a hypostasis of the information processed by the Mind.
    #35. The Mind is not talking to us but by means of us. Its narrative passes through us and its sorrow infuses us irrationally. As Plato discerned, there is a streak of the irrational in the World Soul.
    In other words, the universe itself -- and the Mind behind it -- is insane. Therefore someone in touch with reality is, by definition, in touch with the insane: infused by the irrational.
    In essence, Fat monitored his own mind and found it defective. He then, by the use of that mind, monitored outer reality, that which is called the macrocosm. He found it defective as well. As the Hermetic philosophers stipulated, the macrocosm and the microcosm mirror each other faithfully. Fat, using a defective instrument, swept out a defective subje
    c
    t, and from this sweep got back the report that