Cosmic Puppets, Chapter 11

Chapter 11

This book took SUCH a hard left turn, y’all. Like, I’m kind of amazed that this book was marketed with the whole “cosmic invaders from beyond the stars!” type of marketing. It’s so clearly not, and I’m actually seeing a lot of things that I know Dick explored later (namely Gnosticism) emerging here pretty readily.

So Ted and Christopher arrive at the hospital where Doc Meade is wondering where Mary is (oh please no). Then things almost immediately start becoming strange when Ted tells Meade about the whole park-changing fiasco and Meade’s reaction is so muted that it becomes immediately apparent that he knew more than he was letting on. Suddenly, a Wanderer appears and speaks with Doc Meade, informing him that Mary has died, and Doc Meade just launches into a complete recontextualization of the book.

It turns out that The Change which came through eighteen years ago was, as the characters have suspected, a sort of glamer or illusion that has been placed over the true town (DEMIURRRRGGEEE…..) and the Wanderers are the original inhabitants of the town. The Wanderers go around with their eyes (I’m assuming figuratively) closed, which allows them to maintain their transient forms. When they open their eyes, they are transported into the same illusion world that the characters are inhabiting. Ted then gets the idea to go find wherever the headquarters is and team up with them in order to bring back the town that they all must collectively remember.

Then Doc Meade throws out a gigantic load of a topic for Ted and Christopher to consider (though notably, Christopher is still really muted in his own reaction to Doc Meade’s words). It seems that Doc Meade came into existence after The Change, as did Mary and a number of other people in the illusion-Millgate. He begins to wonder aloud whether many people will help Ted, as it’s possible that they won’t exist after the change occurs, and they want to keep on existing.

This actually really gets into one of the big points of argument that I’ve talked about with The Matrix. Ted, and the heroes/directors of that movie both seem to hold a sort of unwarranted veneration for the “real” world. Ted’s whole argument of why they should want to get rid of the illusion-Millgate is because it isn’t real, as though that would matter at all to the beings whose existence is entirely predicated upon the continuation of this illusionary town.




This whole argument is unfortunately not gone into very much, I suppose the novel is still under the auspices of an action plot rather than a philosophical meditation. However, then Meade drops another bomb on Ted (either Christopher isn’t reacting or we just aren’t getting it, so I’m not including him). The giants that comprise the two “sides” of the town are the cause of The Change, and their names are Ohrmazd and Ahriman…..

So here’s what I know about Zoroastrianism. I know I am approaching this from a Western lens and only a casual interest in world religions (though I’m hoping to do more study with them in my career), so if anyone has more familiarity with this religion feel free to chime in.

1)Ohrmazd, or Ahura Mazda, is the sort of supreme deity figure of the religion
2)There’s a sort of dualism, and the opposing figure is Ahriman
3)All sorts of things tend to be ascribed to these two figures, but generally they are large cosmological beings, and, from what I understand, there’s less of a definite winner in their struggle as there is in the two “sides” of Christian theology.
4)The religion is heavily concerned with the four elements
5)It is a very old religion that influenced much of the Abrahamic religions (in particular some of the mystical branches of Judaism and Christianity).
6)Ahriman would later show up as a figure in Rudolf Steiner’s conception of anthroposophy, this time as a dualist force compared to Lucifer. This anthroposophy is still the guiding principle of Waldorf schools.
These two gods, and I’m just going to call them gods now, are doing their battle over Millgate, which is pretty hilarious.

And it seems like things are about to get MASSIVELY out of hand.

Peter is pleased with the fact that Mary has been killed, and begins to walk through the town, noticing that one of the gods, Ahriman, is stirring. Peter is very excited for this, it seems, and as he wanders through the towns he finds that his golems die if they enter into the park which Ted and Christopher reformed. Die seems to be the wrong word, actually. It’s more like they are somehow obliterated.. “ungolemed” is the term the book uses, seeming to convey that this unmakes them in a much more total manner.

Peter is perplexed by this but quickly becomes happy, as he sees a ring of fire morphing around the town (fire, I’m going to assume, is associated with Ahriman). Peter heads into the flame, to what end I am not sure, but I don’t imagine it to be good.

This is so fucked up.