Rigorous Intuition recently did an excellent piece on the Maitreya, a New Age figure who some say is the next coming of Jesus. (Also check out Fantastic Planet’s recent brief mention of the Maitreya.) RI’s post is a phenomenal place to get a grasp of the whole thing, but I just wanted to elucidate an interesting connection that wasn’t brought up.

First off, here is a piece which highlights a little bit about the title “Maitreya” in Buddhism. Apparently the Maitreya is seen as a bodhisattva, or as heir-apparent to the Buddha. Maitreya means “Loving One” and here are some photos of historical Maitreya statues.

Aside from that though, the connection I wanted to explore in more detail was Philip K. Dick’s alleged connection to the Maitreya. First, I’d like to start off with an item from his Tractates Cryptica Scriptura:

7. The Head Apollo is about to return. St Sophia is going to be born again; she was not acceptable before. The Buddha is in the park. Siddhartha sleeps (but is going to awaken). The time you have waited for has come.

This comes from his the exegesis to his novel VALIS. In this novel, Dick is contacted by a divine intelligence, which leads him to a group of secret Christians and a series of clues, at the end of which he locates the second coming of Christ in the form of a little girl. He also explores this same theme in a different way in the excellent Radio Free Albemuth.

Certain events in these books are oddly similar to the official accounts of the Maitreya’s spokesman, Benjamin Creme:

Creme was visited by a man sent to tell him he was going to be contacted. On Jan.3, 1959 he received the first telepathic message and was told to travel to a bridge over the Thames in London where he would receive further communication. When he went he met a group of people in a car and recognized one of them as the man who previously contacted him. […] He said “the people he met in the car from that day were space people”.

After his death, a letter or an interview or something was published by one of Dick’s friends, Gregg Rickmann, in which he talks about the Maitreya. I guess it was published as a book under the title Philip K. Dick: the Last Testament (I think that’s the one). I’ve never read it, but here is an article about it.

Dick goes deeply into his philosophical, religious and political attitudes and ideas. A large section of the book is devoted to his ideas about the presence of Maitreya, the World Teacher, which, while not entirely parallel to Benjamin Creme’s information, nevertheless lend support in general terms.

That page also includes some selected quotes from the book which were supposedly highlighted for use by Share Intenational, the organization behind the Maitreya movement. Unfortunately, I can’t find verification of this on their site, and I’ve never actually seen the Philip K. Dick book this is all supposed to be based on. Nevermind the fact that it was published posthumously, so it’s difficult to totally validate its authenticity.

I’m personally pretty skeptical that Dick would align himself with a seemingly creepy New Age movement such as this. Also, I seem to vaguely recall him writing somewhere that he did believe Christ had come back and was with us in the modern world, but refused to disclose his location or avatar. Myself, I’m more inclined to stick by the interpretation that Philip K. Dick outlined several other places: that the
contemporary world is holographically overlaid on the Biblical world, and that time is illusory. In this scenario then, Jesus never really died in the first place, or if he did, it was only a temporary thing as the Holy Spirit/plasmate acquired a new form, and worked among the early secret gray-robed Christians. I’d also suggest that PKD, by all accounts, always stood for questioning everything, even the fundamental nature of yourself and reality, and he was never into surrendering your authority to groups or control structures.

Aside from the dubious Philip K. Dick connections, there is also a similarity to another conspiracy theory afoot: Project Blue Beam. According to my understanding of this supposedly plot, scientists are currently building holographic projection technology which will be used to cause apparitions to appear in the skies worldwide. Remote microwave mind control technology will be used to simultaneously transmit verbal messages to people in all languages announcing the need for a unified One-World religion.

This is pretty similar to the Maitreya’s “Day of Declaration,”

From Share International: “At the earliest possible moment, Maitreya will demonstrate His true identity. On the Day of Declaration, the international television networks will be linked together, and Maitreya will be invited to speak to the world. We will see His face on television, but each of us will hear His words telepathically in our own language as Maitreya simultaneously impresses the minds of all humanity. Even those who are not watching Him on television will have this experience. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of spontaneous healings will take place throughout the world. In this way we will know that this man is truly the World Teacher for all humanity.

An even whackier strain of this theory suggests that the figure of Princess Diana will be used as sort of a Virgin Mary/Goddess Diana figure, and will be the central pillar of this unified religion.

And anyone left wondering just why power elites would want to create a unified world religion might want to start checking out my Story-Systems site. I just put up a post today on the importance of shared context provided by religious stories, and plan to do one tonight on religion’s use as a social control mechanism.