Ali Sina - Understanding Muhammad

Understanding Muhammad
apparently, a void and a triangle with an eye in it, staring straight at him. Phil said he
was on his hands and knees, in absolute terror, enduring the Beatific Vision from
nine o'clock Sunday evening until five o’clock Monday morning. He said he was
certain he was dying, and if he could have reached the telephone he'd have called the
paramedics. The Voice told him, in effect, ‘You've managed to talk yourself into
disbelieving everything else. I let you see, but this you'll never be able to forget or
adapt or misrepresent.’ 226
Dick, who died prematurely at the age of 54, wrote millions of words. His
biographer Sutin quotes one of his writings in which he explains his mystical
experience:
God manifested himself to me as the infinite void; but it was not the abyss, it was
the vault of heaven, with blue sky and wisps of white clouds. He was not some
foreign God but the God of my fathers. He was loving and kind and he had
personality. He said, ‘You suffer a little now in life; it is little compared with the
great joys, the bliss that awaits you. Do you think I in my theodicy would allow you
to suffer greatly in proportion to your reward’ He made me aware, then of the bliss
that would come; it was infinite and sweet. He said, ‘I am the infinite. I will show
you. Where I am, infinity is; where infinity is, there I am… They reckon ill who
leave me out; When me they fly I am the wings. I am the doubter and the doubt.’ 227
Other Cases of TLE
On October 23, 2001 PBS television aired a documentary on TLE. One
of the persons interviewed was a man with temporal lobe epilepsy, John Sharon.
Also present at the interview were Sharon’s father and V. S. Ramachandran, a
neurologist with the University of California-San Diego. It is interesting to read
his case and compare it to what we know about Muhammad. This could shed
more light on the Prophet’s state of mind and his illness.
John Sharon: The seizures involve my person and my soul and my spirit, all of it.
When I get one of those feelings my whole body just tingles and I just, oh...that's
that.
226 Divine Invasion , A Life of Philip K. Dick by Lawrence Sutin, p.264, published _____
227 Ibid. p.269
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