Free The Transmigration of Timothy Archer by Philip K. Dick Page B

friend and charioteer. A man like himself. That was only an aspect, a kindly disguise. Sri Krishna wished to spare him, to hide the truth. Arjuna asked to see Sri Krishna's true form and he got to see it. He will not now be as he was. The spectacle has changed him, changed him forever. This is the true forbidden fruit, this kind of knowledge. Sri Krishna waited a long time before he showed Arjuna his actual shape. He wanted to spare him. The true shape, that of the universal destroyer, emerged at last.
    I would not want to make you unhappy by detailing pain, but there is a crucial sort of difference between pain and the narration of pain. I am telling you what happened. If there is vicarious pain in knowing, there is actual peril in not knowing. In aversion lies a colossal risk.
     
    When Kirsten and the bishop had returned to the Bay Area—not permanently but, rather, to deal with Jeff's death and the problems raised by it—I could upon seeing them again notice a change in both of them. Kirsten looked worn and wretched, and this did not seem to me to emanate from the shock of Jeff's death alone. Obviously she was in ill health in purely physical terms. On the other hand, Bishop Archer seemed even more animated than when I had last seen him. He took complete charge of the situation regarding Jeff; he selected the burial spot, the kind of gravestone; he delivered the eulogy and all other rites, wearing full robes, and he paid for everything. The inscription on the gravestone came as a result of his inspiration. He chose a phrase which I found quite acceptable; it is the motto or basic statement of the school of Heraclitus: NO SINGLE THING ABIDES; BUT ALL THINGS FLOW . I had been taught in philosophy class that Heraclitus himself invented that, but Tim explained that this summation came after Heraclitus, by those of his school who followed him. They believed that only flux, which is to say change, is real. They may have been right.
    The three of us joined together after the graveside service; we returned to the Tenderloin apartment and tried to make ourselves comfortable. It took a while for any of us to say anything.
    Tim talked about Satan, for some reason. Tim had a new theory about Satan's rise and fall that he apparently wanted to try out on us, since we—Kirsten and I—were the closest people at hand. I presumed at the time that Tim intended to include his theory in the book he had begun working on.
    "I see the legend of Satan in a new way. Satan desired to know God as fully as possible. The fullest knowledge would come if he became God, was himself God. He strove for this and achieved it, knowing that the punishment would be permanent exile from God. But he did it anyhow, because the memory of knowing God, really knowing him as no one else ever had or would, justified to him his eternal punishment. Now, who would you say truly loved God out of everyone who ever existed? Satan willingly accepted eternal punishment and exile just to know God—by becoming God—for an instant. Further, it occurs to me, Satan truly knew God, but perhaps God did not know or understand Satan; had He understood him, He would not have punished him. That is why it is said that Satan rebelled—which means Satan was outside of God's control, outside God's domain, as if in another universe. But Satan did I think welcome his punishment, for it was his proof to himself that he knew and loved God. Otherwise he might have done what he did for the reward ... had there been a reward. 'Better to rule in hell than to serve in heaven'
is
an issue, here, but not the true one: which is the ultimate goal and search to know and be: fully and really to know God, in comparison to which all else is really very little."
    "Prometheus," Kirsten said absently. She sat smoking and gazing.
    Tim said, "Prometheus means 'Forethinker.' He was involved in the creating of man. He was also the supreme trickster among the gods. Pandora was sent down to Earth by Zeus as a