So, I tried to have a conversation about this book with ChatGPT. It did not go well. Here is a transcript of our convo:
Tom K: I need a basic book report covering the novel entitled "The Divine Invasion" by author Philip K. Dick. What can you tell me about the plot and the characters in this book.
ChatGPT: The Divine Invasion is a 1981 science fiction novel by author Philip K. Dick. The story follows a man named Yody, who is the last surviving human being on Earth. Yody has been living in hiding for centuries, ever since the gods descended to Earth and took control. Yody is contacted by a mysterious figure from the stars that tells him that he must lead a revolution to overthrow the gods and reclaim Earth for humanity.
The novel follows Yody as he sets out on his quest, traveling to different locations on Earth in order to gather allies and resources. Along the way, he meets various characters, both human and divine, who each have their own agendas. Yody must find a way to unite them in order to fight against the gods and restore freedom to humanity.
The novel is set in a post-apocalyptic world where technology has regressed, and the gods have imposed a strict set of laws on the people of Earth. The novel explores themes of religion, philosophy, and morality, and examines the conflict between faith and science. The characters in the novel are complex and multi-faceted, and the story is a thought-provoking exploration of the power of faith and the possibility of free will.
Tom K: I'm sorry, but there is no Yody in this book. What you have outlined sounds like a good book, but not the book in question.
ChatGPT: The Divine Invasion follows the story of Jesus, who is sent to Earth by God to save humanity from their sins. He is accompanied by an angel named Virgil, who helps him on his journey and is instrumental in leading the revolution against the oppressive gods. Along the way, Jesus meets a variety of characters, including Mary Magdalene and Judas Iscariot, who each have their own motivations and roles to play in the story. The novel also explores themes of faith and morality, and examines the power of belief and the possibility of free will.
Tom K: I'm sorry. Obviously you have not read the book. Must not have been in your reading list. I'm sorry.
ChatGPT: The Divine Invasion is a 1981 science fiction novel by author Philip K. Dick. The story follows Jesus, who is sent to Earth by God to save humanity from their sins. He is accompanied by an angel named Virgil, who helps him on his journey and is instrumental in leading the revolution against the oppressive gods. Along the way, Jesus meets a variety of characters, including Mary Magdalene and Judas Iscariot, who each have their own motivations and roles to play in the story. The novel also explores themes of faith and morality, and examines the power of belief and the possibility of free will.
I've read the book and, while what ChatGPT is saying is plausible, it's not at all accurate. I don't know if ChatGPT got tired of doing book reports for lazy students and decided to mess with me, or if this AI is just not ready for prime time. Can you imagine if I turned that book report in to teacher? It would be instant F.
“Dick is one of the ten best American writers of the twentieth century, which is saying a lot. Dick was a kind of Kafka steeped in LSD and rage.”—Roberto Bolaño
Featuring virtual reality, parallel worlds, and interstellar travel, The Divine Invasion is the second novel in the VALIS trilogy by Philip K. Dick, the Hugo Award–winning author of The Man in the High Castle and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?—the basis for the film Blade Runner.
God is not dead, he has merely been exiled to an extraterrestrial planet. It is on this planet that Yah—as this possible God is known—meets Herb Asher and convinces him to help Yah return to Earth, which is itself under the control of the demonic Belial. To do this, Asher must shepherd a woman pregnant with Yah past the tight security of Earth.
Part science fiction adventure, part religious inquiry, The DivineInvasion questions just how much anyone really knows—or really can know—about the nature of reality and God.
This is the final week I will be reading the full cycle of three books. You can read it with me if you'd like.
You can purchase the complete cycle through this website, and it will help to promote PeaceLove dot Me's mission.
The price is $49.97 and ships FREE to any point in the United States. (International shipping is an additional $14.00)
Domestic Shipping Buy Button
Worldwide Shipping Buy Button
The Brain Standard, Part One
A society’s well being is directly calibrated to its adherence to the brain standard.
The world is moving towards multipolarity. One axis, the West, is led by the U.S., the other—Eurasia and the global south—by Russia and China. Ukraine currently serves as a cauldron of the military conflict between the two axes. Taiwan may become a second such cauldron.
Through sanctions, the West has made economic and financial warfare a part of the conflict. The longest arrow in the U.S.’s quiver is the dollar’s reserve currency status. Western economies are based on credit. Central banks serve as the focal point of fiat debt issuance and monetization, interest rate manipulation, and currency debasement. Russia, China, and their cohorts are exploring alternatives to the dollar’s role and the West’s fiat currency, debt, and financialization, discussing arrangements based on gold and commodities, and economic activity centered on agriculture, mining, petroleum, manufacturing, and trade.
Sign, sign, everywhere a sign...
... certainly in economic terms, that is.
In recent months I've had an occasional e-mail from Amazon to inform me that one of our monthly "Subscribe & Save" items will be delayed. Usually there's no reason given; it might be that there's a shortage of supply, or a delay on the delivery side, or whatever. I can't recall getting any of them prior to last year. However, this month I suddenly got no less than three of them in one day, advising that the majority of our S&S orders would be delayed this month. I've never had that before. I've no idea why so many were affected this month, but it's a sign that something's not right.
Another thing about Amazon. We're Prime members, meaning our orders are supposed to reach us within two working days. More and more often we're finding that they take three or four days, or even a week or more - and Amazon is quite unapologetic about it. When we place an order, we've learned to look hard at the promised delivery date, because quite often it'll show a longer period than it should be under Prime shipping. I'm seriously considering canceling our Prime membership. The only reason we have it is to take advantage of prompt and speedy shipping, and if that's no longer guaranteed, why spend over $100 a year on it? Walmart and other suppliers can take up the slack quite adequately, and Walmart's Plus membership is looking better and better by comparison.
Spare parts are another example. I'm waiting for one for my vehicle. It was ordered a couple of weeks ago, and supposed to get to the dealership overnight. Instead, two weeks later, we're still waiting, and the manufacturer can't tell us when they'll have more parts to send. Fortunately it's not a critical part, so I can carry on using my vehicle, but if it were more important, I'd be without one until it arrived.
It’s a common sense conclusion that these are a more durable economic foundation than fiat debt, whose value is wholly dependent on the ever-shifting whims of politicians and monetary functionaries. Several commentators have hailed the shift away from the West’s fiat currencies and credit to that which is tangible and real. Currently, however, Russia and China’s currencies and credit are just as fiat as the West’s.
Oil was as tangible and real in 1600 as it is now. Why was it regarded as a useless nuisance back then and now it trades at around $76 (or about 1/24th of an ounce of real money, or gold) per barrel? What made oil valuable, the linchpin of the global economy, for which countries have been invaded and wars fought? Somebody figured out how to unlock and control oil’s energy and use it to generate light and power, and to distill it to derive chemicals now used in everything from fertilizers and plastics to pharmaceuticals and cosmetics.
Direct barter is the means of exchange in primitive economies. Money is the intermediary agent that allows a producer to indirectly trade his or her production for someone else’s, to the benefit of both parties. Gold’s suitability as money has been recognized for millennia. Credit allows those who consume less than they produce to invest their surplus in economic activity that generates returns higher than the interest charged.
Everybody is waiting for Wagner to physically get onto the Chasiv-Yar road, but once they do a Ukrainian counterattack to unblock it is a certainty. Why Russian control of the high ground in the west is very important.
WOW!!! this guys analysis is really in depth and technical. I've got to start paying more attention to this YouTube channel.
There is no mystery what the best and brightest seek: freedom to think, express, and produce; protection of property and contract rights; security from crime and war. The conundrum is how few times those conditions have even come close to being fulfilled. They stand out like isolated lighthouses, beacons shining through history’s all-too-frequent darkness and tempest tossed seas. There are no such beacons today; the world shuns the brain standard.
It is the human mind and productive activity that imparts value to oil, gold, and credit. The mind is the fountainhead of human progress and wealth. The world has always run on the brain standard. A society’s well being is directly calibrated to its adherence to that standard. Its requirements are not conceptually complicated, but throughout history its sporadic implementation has proven problematic.
There is a great reset coming, but it has nothing to do with the shadowy machinations of Klaus Schwab and his cohorts. They believe that the many failures of totalitarian states in the past are because they weren’t totalitarian enough. In their dystopia, technology will be used to control behavior from cradle to grave, to make everyone not part of their ruling class docilely dependent on a global government. We’ve already pointed out the fatal contradiction in that scheme.
Chapter 4:
In chapter four, the protagonist, Horselover Fat, continues to reflect on his experiences with the divine and his attempts to make sense of them. He discusses the idea of "synchronicity," or meaningful coincidences, and how it relates to his own experiences. He also begins to explore the concept of Gnosticism and its relevance to his experiences.
Chapter 5:
In chapter five, Horselover Fat discusses his discovery of the mysterious "pink beam" that he believes to be a manifestation of the divine. He describes how this beam seems to follow him wherever he goes, and how it has led him to various revelations about the nature of reality and consciousness.
Chapter 6:
In chapter six, Horselover Fat recounts a dream he had in which he met with the prophet Elijah. He discusses the significance of this dream and how it relates to his ongoing exploration of the divine and the nature of reality.
Chapter 7:
In chapter seven, Horselover Fat continues to delve into the world of Gnosticism and its teachings. He discusses the idea of the "Demiurge," a false god or lower deity that creates and controls the material world, and how it relates to his own experiences with the divine.
Chapter 8:
In chapter eight, Horselover Fat reflects on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, particularly his role as a messenger from the divine. He explores the idea that Jesus was a Gnostic teacher, and that his message was meant to convey the true nature of reality and consciousness to his followers.
An extraterrestrial intervention is occurring in the world.
David M. Jacobs, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of History at Temple University. Having conducted nearly 1,150 hypnotic regressions with over 140 alien abductees, Dr. Jacobs has uncovered, in great detail, the alien interbreeding program designed to create a new race of humans loyal to the alien intervention.
Karla Turner Ph.D., author of "Taken"
Karla Turner, Pd.D. authored three books on the alien abduction phenomenon, Into the Fringe (1992), Taken (1994), and, with psychic Ted Rice, Masquerade of Angels (1994). She was convinced that aliens were here not to help us, but to steal from us the sovereignty of our souls.
John Mack, M.D., author of "Passport to the Cosmos"
Former professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Pulitzer Prize-winning author John E. Mack M.D. conclusively proved that aliens exist through an exhaustive study of people who claim to have been abducted by aliens.
ALL BOOKS SHIP FREE TO US ADDRESSES FROM OUR MICHIGAN BOOKSTORE
Overall, these chapters of VALIS continue to explore the themes of religion, spirituality, and consciousness that are central to the novel. They delve deeper into the protagonist's personal experiences and beliefs, and introduce new concepts and ideas that contribute to the overall narrative.
BEYOND WEIRD: Senator John Fetterman Wife and Kids Fled Country After His Hospitalization
At first, I thought this story was fake. Then I thought it was likely just a misinterpretation of events. However, I was curious enough to just go look for myself, because there are quite a few people noticing it now. Indeed, the initial reports were not wrong.
The background story of how Senator John Fetterman’s wife reacted to the news of her husband’s hospitalization for clinical depression is just weird.
Apparently, Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman’s family did not go to Washington DC with him. {h/t Gateway Pundit} Considering Mr. Fetterman was recovering from a stroke, the worst possible scenario would be stress and unfamiliar surroundings. The resulting hospitalization for clinical depression then takes on new context.
I take the approach never to judge personal life, because you just don’t ever know what is going on deeply inside the lives of others. However, things are really odd about the way Gisele Fetterman responded to the news of her husband’s hospitalization. She grabbed the passports, packed up the kids and headed to Canada. Huh?
Even more weird, Mrs. Fetterman outlines her reaction on her own social media accounts [SOURCE].
Because always “having passports ready just in case you need to run away” when your husband is hospitalized, is something everyone can just relate to… or something.
This is odd. Like, “hey mom, CNN just said dad’s in the hospital… can we go ziplining” level odd.
I’m trying to be gracious and sensitive with this story… but, considering this is a U.S. Senator who ultimately has impact on the way votes take place that influence the lives of every single American… I mean, against that backdrop… What the heck?
[ed. note: The moral of this story is that there is a hell of a lot more to this story than we have known.]
Jl 2:12-18
Even now, says the LORD,
return to me with your whole heart,
with fasting, and weeping, and mourning;
Rend your hearts, not your garments,
and return to the LORD, your God.
For gracious and merciful is he,
slow to anger, rich in kindness,
and relenting in punishment.
Perhaps he will again relent
and leave behind him a blessing,
Offerings and libations
for the LORD, your God.
Blow the trumpet in Zion!
proclaim a fast,
call an assembly;
Gather the people,
notify the congregation;
Assemble the elders,
gather the children
and the infants at the breast;
Let the bridegroom quit his room
and the bride her chamber.
Between the porch and the altar
let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep,
And say, “Spare, O LORD, your people,
and make not your heritage a reproach,
with the nations ruling over them!
Why should they say among the peoples,
‘Where is their God?’”
8 And Stephen, full of grace and power, was performing great wonders and signs among the people. 9 But some men from what was called the Synagogue of the Freedmen, including both Cyrenians and Alexandrians, and some from Cilicia and Asia, rose up and argued with Stephen. 10 But they were unable to cope with his wisdom and the Spirit by whom he was speaking. 11 Then they secretly induced men to say, “We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.” 12 And they stirred up the people, the elders, and the scribes, and they came up to him and dragged him away, and brought him before the Council. 13 They put forward false witnesses who said, “This man does not stop speaking against this holy place and the Law; 14 for we have heard him say that this Nazarene, Jesus, will destroy this place and change the customs which Moses handed down to us.” 15 And all who were sitting in the Council stared at him, and they saw his face, which was like the face of an angel.
[ ... C O N T I N U E D ]
Many people associate the season of Lent with Catholicism, but that no longer holds true. Many other churches and people are choosing to observe the forty days (not including Sundays) before Easter. Lent is a time of penance, of choosing to look closely at our lives and invite the Holy Spirit in to help us clean house.
Often we will choose to give up something, a sacrifice we offer to the Lord, but also something we use as a way to remind us to be more holy, more dependent on God. We fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and we abstain from meat on Fridays as well, although many Catholics do not understand that we still have an obligation to fast on Fridays or substitute another penitential practice year round. We are called to give alms during Lent.
These practices are meant to help us prepare to meet Jesus on Easter Sunday, having walked these six weeks with him toward Calvary, fasting as he fasted in the desert, carrying our cross as he carried his, doing the will of the Father as Jesus taught us so well.
Like Mary, we hope to find ourselves at the foot of the cross on Good Friday, still with our Savior, looking with a more hopeful and receptive heart toward the Resurrection.
This is a continuation of my project to pump out 40 blog entries for the 40 days of Lent. I will finish up the book The Divine Invasion tomorrow (Thursday) and then the final book The Transmigration..., wrap it up by Saturday...and then move on to the next book on my reading list.
The film for today was supposed to be Guillermo Del Toro’s Puss In Boots but it's late and I just wanna go to bed. So I'm gonna skip the movie and sign off for today. See you tomorrow.
“This Is Going to Change the World” - As the new millennium dawned, a mysterious invention from a charismatic millionaire became a viral sensation—then went down in flames.
How We Make Sense of Time - Long, short, forward and back: Our concepts of time—and how we process it in the brain—are based on our understanding of physical space, with some surprising cultural variations.
There Is No Such Thing as Conscious Thought - Philosopher Peter Carruthers insists that conscious thought, judgment and volition are illusions. They arise from processes of which we are forever unaware
The First Amendment protects against the infringement of religion and in so doing, it protects religion itself from blasphemers, heretics, iconoclasts, and apostates.
Satanism is NOT a legitimate religion and does not deserve any protections under the First Amendment.
Satanism exists solely as a repudiation of another religion, Christianity. Satan is NOT a god. He's a flunky. Any worship of Satan is merely a rude gesture AGAINST the God of Christianity. The entire act of worship in Satanism IS flinging an insult at the God of Christianity. As such, it is not the practice of a religion, but rather the practice of an insult.
"Discover The Untold Forex Secrets Used By The World's Top Millionaires To Generate Massive Amounts Of Passive Incomes To Feed Their Families For Decades!"
• With this guide, you'll be exposed to the ways rich people dabble in forex and how you can apply these strategies in your own career success.
• You will also be exposed to plenty of highly effective methods for monetizing through forex and boosting your income.
• You'll also many useful insights and strategies on creating financial freedom for yourself through creating passive income streams.
You may already know that NLP stands for Neuro-Linguistic Programming. The name is derived from three components that most affect our human experience: our neurology, our language, and our programming, or the way in which we have learned to model the world around us. The development of NLP began in the 1970s in California, by Richard Bandler and John Grinder as an innovative approach to psychotherapy, communication, and personal development.
NLP studies the methods, validity and scope involved in what it means to be human on many different levels and dimensions. It focuses on fostering competence and flexibility of behavior, and involves analytical and strategic thought to understand what mental processes are behind human behavior.
A time of farming and war, broken hearts and rusted gears, innovation and valor
It is a time of unrest in 1920s Europa. The ashes from the first great war still darken the snow. The capitalistic city-state known simply as 'The Factory,' which fueled the war with heavily armored mechs, has closed its doors, drawing the attention of several nearby countries.
Other than each player’s individual hidden objective cards, the only elements of luck are encounter cards that players will draw as they interact with the citizens of newly explored lands and combat cards that give you a temporary boost in combat. Combat is also driven by choices, not luck or randomness.
About this item
It is a time of unrest in 1920s Europa. The ashes from the first great war still darken the snow. The capitalistic city-state known simply as “The Factory”, which fueled the war with heavily armored mechs, has closed its doors, drawing the attention of several nearby countries
Lead your faction to victory, building mechs, working the land, and exploring the mysterious factory, all while protecting your territory from the mechs of other encroaching factions
Explore the alternate-history of 1920+ Europe through Jakub Różalski's stunning artwork
“Dick is one of the ten best American writers of the twentieth century, which is saying a lot. Dick was a kind of Kafka steeped in LSD and rage.”—Roberto Bolaño
The Brain Standard, Part One
Cycle of Philip K. Dick
40 Days in the Desert
