This reminds of something Philip K. Dick once alluded to in his book VALIS. He wrote about the "Zebra principle". The idea is that the sophisticated mimicry we find, say, in the insect world (where an insect might look exactly like a leaf), might also exist on a higher level or on a higher scale. Which is to say that some kind of higher intelligence may be present in the world but be hidden to us through a cunning sort of mimicry. In VALIS, Dick writes:

“What if a high form of sentient mimicry existed — such a high form that no human (or few humans) had detected it? What if it could only be detected if it wanted to be detected? Which is to say, not truly detected at all, since under these circumstances it had advanced out of its camouflaged state to disclose itself.  "Disclose" might in this case equal "theophany." The astonished human being would say, I saw God; whereas in fact he saw only a highly evolved ultra-terrestrial life form, a UTL, or an extra-terrestrial life form (an ETL) which had come here at some time in the past, and perhaps, as Fat conjectured, had slumbered for nearly two thousand years in dormant seed form as living information in the codices at Nag Hammadi, which explained why reports of its existence had broken off abruptly around 70 A.D.”


The relation between Dick and Zebra, however, is always distant, muffled, and unclear; it is, as Regan says of his Can-D experience in The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, “remote and vitiated and unconvincing” (Doubleday, 1965, 51). Dick does not simply become Zebra, but he is (and all of us are) said to become the entity’s messenger: a “delegated observer,” as Bruno Latour might say. We are all doing Zebra’s work, performing the animal’s labour, but interminably we remain unaware of this process, this performativity. But Dick ponders whether he might have been exposed to Zebra’s operations, might have caught a rare glimpse of the beast itself:

"It is interesting how we inadvertently (unknowingly) carry Zebra’s messages for it, piggyback on our own. It’s as if Zebra says, “As Long as you’re going in that direction, take this along, too.” I suppose a phagocyte doesn’t know anything about its job, either. In seeing these messages flying back and forth, I may have witnessed our primary function within Zebra. It certainly must be mine (225)."

Dick penned this section on Zebra in January or February of 1977, in the same year that VALIS was published, and only two years following Dick’s fixation on the “incoming signals” that he had then spoken of as emerging from an “observatory like place” and as forming the basis for VALIS‘s plot premise (101).

The year 1977 is the Year of the Fire Snake in the Chinese zodiac, which runs from February 18, 1977 to February 6, 1978.  Snakes are the emblem of cunning and evil. They are revered owing to their supernatural power. The Snake is born under the sign of wisdom. In the Chinese zodiac, the Snake is the sixth animal and the beginning of a 12-year cycle. People born in the Year of the Snake are said to be wise, smart, mysterious, caring, determined, and good at talking. They are also said to be intuitive, enigmatic, and value knowledge.

As Dick begins to suggest, Zebra may or may not be contiguous, coextensive, with the Universe. The “old universe” could in fact be, he posits, Zebra’s “antagonist,” such that there are two universes (or multiverses), one of which is Zebra, colliding, recombining, the one making itself out of the other .

May 1978
Dick believes the true deity had a role in overthrowing the U.S. Government. It was able to sneak in unnoticed disguised as lowbrow trash just as in Ubik.
He thinks the Black Iron Prison world has yielded to the PTG (Palm Tree Garden) world, but because the BIP world was a bogus copy of the real world, and the PTG world copied that, we are then living in a fake of a fake. He goes on to clarify there is no world. We are enclosed in the BIP which is firing signals at us and creating what we see as the world. He doesn’t believe it is evil though.
The information Dick received in 3-74 was meant for Zebra and not for him. Whatever it was means Zebra is a permanent part of him now and he is in a symbiotic state with it.
It sounds like he thinks the information hidden in his book Flow My Tears is a way for Zebra to replicate itself in the minds of its readers. He suggests the Book of Acts in the Bible is not a book but is actually a world which he entered into in 3-74. I’m not sure Dick really understands what he is talking about here.
Dick has hit on the idea that we built Zebra to help us remember because we knew the BIP would take over and enslave us. Zebra is metabolic information restoring elasticity to the rigid BIP of the universe. Each person must rebel in order to see the world for what it truly is.
Because we each contain the totality of the holographic universe Zebra and Dick are the same, but he is still reckoning with this.

October–November 1978
Dick connects his books to his present model of reality. Zebra is like the computer that constructs reality in A Maze of Death and also the thing that intrudes into our fake world as in Ubik. Like in A Scanner Darkly it is actively trying to hide its true nature, and this fact of occlusion is then further occluded from us. He says the “quasi-mind” of the maze appears insane and compares it to Yaldabaoth (one of the creator gods according to the Gnostics) who does indeed sound crazy. Because of this irrationality it is impossible to make sense of it. The maze is disorder and confusion which we can only navigate through the help of Zebra. Dick still thinks this is something we created for ourselves as a puzzle.
He has been working on the exegesis for 4 and a half years and says he is now being “signalled to die.” He is afraid the exegesis is unpublishable and that everything he has learned will die with him, another way that the maze will win. He recognizes a paradox though that if the maze wins we win, since we created the maze.
He returns to the idea of Zebra as a living information virus embedded in his book Flow My Tears and imagines it proliferating as people read it. He wonders if it had been dormant since the time of Acts before traveling from the newly discovered Dead Sea Scrolls to the Dead Sea Scroll scholar John Allegro to Jim Pike to him.

October 1978
Zebra destroys the four deformations.
It abolishes the phony world
It abolishes the occlusion
It frees us from enslavement
It restores our memory
The Gnostics didn’t have it quite right. It is the living information itself, not the content of the information, that saves us.
Dick counts 21 of his stories that deal with the idea of fake vs real.
The Logos contains the totality of the macrocosm. Once it replicates in someone (through just a tiny piece as happened with Dick in 2-74) they become one with the whole. Zebra is in Dick and his purpose is to restore this knowledge (gnosis) to the world, which he does through his lowbrow sci fi, just as in Ubik.


He has a dream about Siddhartha (the founder of Buddhism) and believes this means another savior is being born. Dick covers how the savior dynamic is depicted in Stigmata, Ubik, Galactic Pot-Healer and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. The VALIS book he is working on will show the process of redemption, although he finds writing it very difficult. He has a dream about a fish and from that concludes the secret Christian society does exist and he is a part of it. Time has not passed since Rome 45 A.D. It has only been made (by James-James?) to appear that way. Dick understood this in 3-74 when he woke up. His book VALIS (which he calls his maximus opus) will show the restored and redeemed man, but from the perspective of Gnosticism and Buddhism, not Christianity

Zebra is, after all, **as Dick says in 1977**, hardly impactful on the material world;
"a weak “vegetable level” field, barely able to arrange matter. (Trigrams Sun and Li.) But its level (capacity to exert force) seems to be growing. To have thresholded recently. I have seen what it can do and have heard its voice."

"Just like the Black Iron Prison will co-opt and subvert any of our attempts at illumining it to feed into and serve its nefarious agenda. . .  Zebra will use the Black Iron Prison’s attempts at imprisonment to ultimately serve our freedom." Speaking of the Black Iron Prison’s agenda of “enslavement, deception and spiritual death” Philo K. Dick writes, “even this is utilized by Zebra, which utilizes everything, [this] is a sacred secret.”

-  The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick: Selected Literary and Philosophical Writings (New York: Pantheon Books, 1995), p. 289.

The name Jamshid is originally a compound of two parts, Jam and shid, corresponding to the Avestan names Yima and Xšaēta, derived from the Proto-Iranian *Yamah Xšaitah ('Yama, the brilliant/majestic').[1] Yamah and the related Sanskrit Yama are interpreted as "the twin", perhaps reflecting an Indo-Iranian belief in a primordial Yama and Yami pair. By regular sound changes (y → j, and the loss of the final syllable) an Old Persian form equivalent to Avestan Yima became Middle Persian Jam, which was subsequently continued into New Persian.

There are also a few functional parallels between Avestan Yima and Sanskrit Yama; for instance, Yima was the son of Vivaŋhat, who in turn corresponds to the Vedic Vivasvat, "he who shines out", a name for the sun-god Surya. Both Yamas in Iranian and Indian myth guard Hell with the help of two four-eyed dogs.[2][3]

Oettinger, when talking about how the story of Yima was originally a flood myth, and how original Sanskrit flood myths had their protagonist as yama, mentions that even the Norse had their own cognate of Yima and Yama, named Ymir, who was a primordial giant whose death caused a great flood and was a basis behind the formation of the world.[4] Ymir was still associated with a flood, as Snorri Sturluson recorded that they believed that the death of Ymir caused a great flood, killing all of the Frost Giants except one named Bergelmir, who floated on some wooden object with his wife and from him the Frost Giants come. The Bergelmir aspect may be due to Christianization. However, the myth still has Ymir connected to a flood.[5] Oettinger's main argument was on how the Indic "Yama" and the Iranic "Yima", both cognates of the Norse "Ymir", also related to the flood.[6]

*Xšaitah meant "bright, shining" or "radiant". By regular sound changes (initial xš → š (sh); ai → ē; t → d between vowels; and dropping of the final syllable) *xšaitah became Persian shēd. In Iranian Persian, the vowel /ē/ is pronounced as /i/. Consequently, Jamshēd (as it is still pronounced in Afghanistan and Tajikistan) is now pronounced Jamshid in Iran. The suffix -shid is the same as that found in other names such as khorshid ("the Sun" from Avestan hvarə-xšaēta "radiant Sun").

One contributor has posited that Persian jam is the root of Arabic ajam, assuming that this Arabic word for the Persian-speaking population was derived from a Persian endonym, meaning the people of Jam. However, this is incorrect. ʿAjam comes from the Arabic root ʿ(ʿayn) ج (jim) م (mim), meaning to speak incomprehensibly, and was used among Arabs, initially, for all peoples who spoke languages that were incomprehensible to Arabic speakers, whether they spoke Persian, Fulani, or a Turkic language. Later, Arabs used this word as a derogatory term for Persian speakers to distinguish them from Arabic speakers. The word ʿajam or ʿajami is still used in other parts of the Islamic world to denote languages other than Arabic, particularly in the Saharan and sub-Saharan regions.[citation needed]


In the second chapter of the Vendidad of the Avesta, the omniscient Creator Ahura Mazda asks Yima, a good shepherd, to receive his law and bring it to men. However, Yima refuses, and so Ahura Mazda charges him with a different mission: to rule over and nourish the earth, to see that the living things prosper. This Yima accepts, and Ahura Mazda presents him with a golden seal and a dagger inlaid with gold.

Yima rules as king for three hundred years, and soon the earth was full of men, flocks of birds and herds of animals. He deprived the daevas, who were demonic servants of the evil Ahriman, of wealth, herds and reputation during his reign. Good men, however, lived lives of plenty, and were neither sick nor aged. Father and son walked together, each appearing no older than fifteen. Ahura Mazda visits him once more, warning him of this overpopulation. Yima, shining with light, faced southwards and pressed the golden seal against the earth and boring into it with the poniard, says "O Spenta Armaiti, kindly open asunder and stretch thyself afar, to bear flocks and herds and men."

The earth swells and Yima rules for another six hundred years before the same problem occurred once more. Once again he pressed the seal and dagger to the earth and asked the ground to swell up to bear more men and beasts, and the earth swells again. Nine hundred years later, the earth was full again. The same solution is employed, the earth swelling again.

The next part of the story tells of a meeting of Ahura Mazda and the Yazatas in Airyanem Vaejah, the first of the "perfect lands". Yima attends with a group of "the best of mortals", where Ahura Mazda warns him of an upcoming catastrophe: "O fair Yima, son of Vivaŋhat! Upon the material world the evil winters are about to fall, that shall bring the fierce, deadly frost; upon the material world the evil winters are about to fall, that shall make snow-flakes fall thick, even an arədvi deep on the highest tops of mountains."

The Vedivdad mentions that Ahura Mazda warns Yima that there will come a harsh winter storm followed by melted snow.[8] Ahura Mazda advises Yima to construct a Vara (Avestan: enclosure) in the form of a multi-level cavern, two miles (3 km) long and two miles (3 km) wide. This he is to populate with the fittest of men and women; and with two of every animal, bird and plant; and supply with food and water gathered the previous summer. Yima creates the Vara by crushing the earth with a stamp of his foot, and kneading it into shape as a potter does clay. He creates streets and buildings, and brings nearly two thousand people to live therein. He creates artificial light, and finally seals the Vara with a golden ring.

Henry Corbin interprets this story as a spiritual event and describes it as follows: Yima "received the order to build the enclosure, the Var, where were gathered together the elect from among all beings, the fairest, the most gracious, that they might be preserved from the mortal winter unleashed by the demonic Powers, and some day repopulate a transfigured world. Indeed, the Var of Yima is, as it were, a city, including houses, storehouses, and ramparts. It has luminescent doors and windows that themselves secrete the light within, for it is illuminated both by uncreated and created lights."[9]

Norbert Oettinger argues that the story of Yima and the Vara was originally a flood myth, and the harsh winter was added in due to the dry nature of Eastern Iran, as flood myths didn't have as much of an effect as harsh winters. He has argued that the Videvdad 2.24's mention of melted water flowing is a remnant of the flood myth.[10]


Jamshid ruled well for three hundred years. During this time longevity increased, sicknesses were banished, and peace and prosperity reigned. But Jamshid's pride grew with his power, and he began to forget that all the blessings of his reign were due to God. He boasted to his people that all of the good things they had come from him alone, and demanded that he should be accorded divine honors, as if he were the Creator.

From this time the farr departed from Jamshid, and the people began to murmur and rebel against him. Jamshid repented in his heart, but his glory never returned to him. The vassal ruler of Arabia, Zahhāk, under the influence of Ahriman, made war upon Jamshid, and he was welcomed by many of Jamshid's dissatisfied subjects. Jamshid fled from his capital halfway across the world, but he was finally trapped by Zahhāk and brutally murdered. After a reign of seven hundred years, humanity descended from the heights of civilization back into a Dark Age.

Sharvara (Sanskrit: शार्वर), and Shyama (Sanskrit: शबल) are described to be two ferocious, four-eyed dogs that guard the entrance to the palace of Yama in the Vedic religion. The dead are required to get past these dogs in order to be rendered judgement by their master, Yama - the first man.

The dogs are first described in the Yamasukta section of the Rigveda. Named as the children of Sharama, departed souls are asked to venture beyond the two spotted four-eyed dogs in order to join their pitrs. They are also mentioned in a prayer to Yama, in which the dead are requested to be entrusted to their protection, and are extolled as the guardians of the road. The Atharvaveda describes the dogs as the messengers of Yama, designated with the role of seeking out individuals who are to die.

The word "Yama" means 'twin' (Yama has a twin sister, Yami), and later came to mean 'binder' (derived from "yam"); the word also means 'moral rule or duty' (i.e. dharma), 'self-control', 'forbearance', and 'cessation'.[18][19][20]

In the dialogue hymn between Yama and Yamī (Rig Veda 10.10), as the first two humans, Yamī tries to convince her twin brother Yama to have sex with her. Yamī makes a variety of arguments, including continuing the mortal line, that Tvashtar created them as a couple in the womb, and that Dyaush and Prithvi are famous for their incest. Yama argues that their ancestors, "the Gandharva in the waters and the watery maiden," as a reason not to commit incest, that Mitra-Varuna are strict in their ordinances, and that they have spies everywhere. By the end of the hymn, Yamī becomes frustrated but Yama remains firm in his stance. However, by RV 10.13.4, Yama is stated to have chosen to leave offspring, but Yamī is not mentioned.[13]

Yama is also known by many other names, including Kala ('time'), Pashi (one who carries a noose') and Dharmaraja ('lord of Dharma').[14]

In Vedic tradition, Yama was considered to be the first mortal who died and discovered the way to the celestial abodes;[15] thus, as a result, he became the ruler of the departed.[16] His role, characteristics, and abode have been expanded in texts such as the Upanishads, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and the Puranas. Yama is described as the twin of Yami, and the son of the sun god Surya (in earlier traditions Vivasvat) and Sanjna. He judges the souls of the dead and depending on their deeds, he assigns them to the realm of the Pitris (forefathers), Naraka (hell), or be reborn on the earth.


The Chinvat Bridge or Cinvatô Peretûm, "bridge of judgement" or "beam-shaped bridge")[1] or the Bridge of the Requiter[2] in Zoroastrianism is the sifting bridge,[3] which separates the world of the living from the world of the dead. All souls must cross the bridge upon death. The bridge is guarded by two four-eyed dogs, described in the Videvdat (Vendidad) 13,9 as 'spâna pəšu.pâna' ("two bridge-guarding dogs").[4][5]

The Bridge's appearance varies depending on the observer's asha, or righteousness. As related in the text known as the Bundahishn, if a person has been wicked, the bridge will appear narrow and the demon Chinnaphapast will emerge[6] and drag their soul into the druj-demana (the House of Lies), a place of eternal punishment and suffering similar to the concept of Hell.[7] If a person's good thoughts, words and deeds in life are many, the bridge will be wide enough to cross, and the Daena, a spirit representing revelation, will appear and lead the soul into Garo Demana (the House of Song). Those souls that successfully cross the bridge are united with Ahura Mazda.

27. O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! Where are the rewards given? Where does the rewarding take place? Where is the rewarding fulfilled? Whereto do men come to take the reward that, during their life in the material world, they have won for their souls?
28. Ahura Mazda answered: 'When the man is dead, when his time is over, then the wicked, evil-doing Daevas cut off his eyesight. On the third night, when the dawn appears and brightens up, when Mithra, the god with beautiful weapons, reaches the all-happy mountains, and the sun is rising
29. 'Then the fiend, named Vizaresha, O Spitama Zarathushtra, carries off in bonds the souls of the wicked Daeva-worshippers who live in sin. The soul enters the way made by Time, and open both to the wicked and to the righteous. At the head of the Chinwad bridge, the holy bridge made by Mazda, they ask for their spirits and souls the reward for the worldly goods which they gave away here below.
30. 'Then comes the beautiful, well-shapen, strong and well-formed maid, with the dogs at her sides, one who can distinguish, who has many children, happy, and of high understanding. 'She makes the soul of the righteous one go up above the Hara-berezaiti; above the Chinwad bridge she places it in the presence of the heavenly gods themselves.[14]

Nahusha was the son of Aayu and a king of the Lunar Dynasty. He was taught by Sage Vasishta and had learnt the Vedas and the Shastras when he was very young. Nahusha had ruled well and had performed a 100 Ashwamedha Yagnas. His fame had spread all over the world and the heavens and people were in awe of him.
As the Devas thought of this, they slowly nodded their head. Nahusha would be a perfect man to be their king.
So with the permission of their Guru - Brihaspati, the very next day all the Devas went to Nahusha.
Nahusha was delighted on seeing them. He welcomed them heartily, 'Welcome Devas! Please come...' He offered them food to eat. The Devas enjoyed his hospitality.
Then after some time hesitatingly Agni talked to Nahusha, 'Nahusha you must know that we are not without a king....'
Nahusha gravely nodded his head as Agni continued, 'It is for that reason that we have come to see you...'
Nahusha frowned wondering where this was leading to. But Nahusha did not say anything.
Varuna continued from where Agni left off, '...Nahusha, we need a good king and one who can handle the pressures of ruling the Devas and also control the natural elements of the earth...'
Nahusha nodded still not saying anything as Agni said, 'Would you consider becoming our king, Nahusha?'

Nahusha was made the ruler of Svarga during Indra's absence, during his war against Vritra. He soon became arrogant and wished to make Shachi, the wife of Indra, his wife. He made the Saptarishi (Seven Vedic sages) convey his palanquin towards the mansion of Indra's wife with the intent of seducing her, asking them to hasten, telling them, 'sarpa', 'sarpa', (move on, move on). The sage Agastya, furious by this disrespect, turned him into a 'sarpa' (serpent). He fell down from the sky, and remained there until he met Yudhishthira