The Godmakers

Once a psi, always a psi. Once a god, you can be anything you choose. I give you the proper obeisance, Reverend Abbod, for your kindness and your instruction. Humans get so conditioned to looking at the universe in terms of little labeled pieces they tend to act as though the universe really were those pieces. The matrix through which we perceive the universe has to be a direct function of that universe. If we distort the matrix, we don’t change the universe; we just change our way of seeing it. As I told Stet, it’s like a drug habit. If you enforce anything, including peace, you require more and more of that thing to satisfy you. With peace, it’s a terrible paradox: You require the contrast of more and more violence, as well. Peace comes to those who’ve developed the sense to perceive it. In gratitude for this, I will keep my promise to you: humankind has an open-ended account in the Bank of Time. Anything can still happen.

—LEWIS ORNE to the Abbod Halmyrach