Anamorphous Omni-Source From:the womb? To:1969

Manifestation: A soft play of brilliant colors; although, this may be a primal memory of watching 2001 while sucking my mother's teat.

Positives: Everywhere all the time. Beyond good and evil.

Negatives: Can't remember her/him/it too well. Too vague.

Reason for Leaving:The Apollo 11 mission (see below).

Astronaut God From:1969 To:1973

Manifestation First occurred to me at the age of 1 year while watching the Apollo 11 mission blast off from my neighborhood in Orlando, Florida. All my neighbors were gathered with their faces turned to the sky in amazement as a burning jewel appeared and streaked across the night. Everybody listened with devout attention as a distant voice crackled over the radio. Since I'd heard that "God" was a man-in-the-sky, I assumed that God was an astronaut. Positives: Benevolent and clean-shaven. Impressive costume.

Negatives: Helpless to change anything on Earth. All he could do was orbit and observe.

Reason for Leaving: Exposed to Christians.

Jehovah From:1973 To:1980

Manifestation: Allegedly a bearded Caucasian man of enormous heft; semi-gaseous and/or luminous.

Positives: He was always watching. His rules were straightforward, as explained by neighborhood Southern Baptists. Offered cosmic Good Behavior reward.

Negatives: Punitive; impersonal. Was getting ready to destroy the world with fire.

Reason for Leaving: Never answered my prayers. My requests were modest: I wanted the power to shrink down to the size of a mouse, or grow to the size of a giant, at will.

Jesus Christ From:1980 To:1982

Manifestation Male Caucasian hippy in a white robe.

Positives: Not as mean as his father Jehovah. Revolutionary pacifist credo made me feel better about getting my ass kicked on the playground.

Negatives: Kooky followers. Inconsistencies in logic. Made me feel guilty for masturbating.

Reasons for Leaving: Read books by Mark Twain and Thomas Jefferson. Listened to Black Sabbath. Played Dungeons & Dragons and was exposed to the concept of religious relativity. Learned to reason for myself. Realized people like Pat Robertson and Oral Roberts were full of shit.

Anamorph 2.0 (aka "Einstein's God")

From:1982 To:1987

Manifestation: Pure " I AM "

Positives:A god of free will. No sins. Anything was possible. A good god for a teenage secular-humanist intellectual.

Negatives: Dry and abstract. Too vague.

Reason for Leaving:Wanted a God who would give me magick occult powers and/or help me get laid.

Outer Gods? From:January, 1987 To:April, 1987

Manifestation: Flickering green hallucinations projecting onto my retinas after drinking too much caffeine and looking into a computer monitor too long. Looked like Hieronymous Bosch paintings animated on an old Apple II monitor. Positives:Interesting to look at.

Negatives: Weird. Creepy. I decided I was going crazy. I searched through psychology textbooks trying to figure out where these came from.

Reasons for Leaving: Reduced my caffeine consumption. Switched to an amber monitor.

The Great Tao From:January, 1987 To:April, 1987

Positives: Simplistic and binary. Thought they jibed with certain aspects of quantum physics.

Negatives: Impersonal. Self-negating. Too symmetrical.

Reasons for Leaving:Developed an unhealthy dependence on I Ching hexagrams.

Magna Mater From: April 1987 To: Jaunuary 1988

Manifestation: The DNA intelligence Herself

Positives: Proof of Her work was everywhere. Got to hang out with covens of cool Wiccan babes and perform nude rituals. Finally understood the pagan roots of Christmas and Easter.

Negatives: Said rituals got boring after a while.

Reason for Leaving: Took up shamanistic practices. Had to give her up as "illusionary" belief system.

Chief Spirit/Manitou From:January 1988 To:June 1994

Manifestation: A Native American god, whose energy radiated into the human body through the solar plexus, conceptually manifest as The Seven Arrows: (flexibility, fluidity, balance, strength, grace, stability, and sacred will).

Positives: Made me do things I never did before. Strange enough to be interesting. Got me into good physical shape.

Negatives: Overdose of superstitions. Punitive in His/Her/Its own way. Didn't allow for sex, drugs, or fun. Demanded rigorous rituals.

Reason for Leaving: Decided to go back to Anamorph 2.0

J.R. "Bob" Dobbs From: July 1988 To: January 1989

Manifestation: 1950's Caucasian businessman

Positives: Condones slack and self-indulgence. Got me through some difficult times in my life. Motto is "Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke!"

Negatives: His servants, the Church of the SubGenius, are ruthless, money-grubbing charlatans and nerds.

Reason for Leaving: He never actually left. Sometimes he comes back, asking for money.

Curvaceous Intelligence From: March 1993 To: present

Manifestation: A more potent version of Magna Mater. Feverish upwelling of fecund "life energy" opening like a hydrothermal vent somewhere "below." Definitely female.

Positives: Others have felt/experienced/verified Her existence. Manifests as a "third mind" during sexual intercourse. Inspired lots of cool artwork.

Negatives: Where do I go from here?

Reason for Leaving:Still active.

Monkey God From: July 1994 To: October 1994

Manifestation: Resembled one of the androgynous monkey-people from Hindu mythology. Shined forth a living light.

Positives: Beamed bliss directly from the heart of the cosmos

Negatives: Only appeared once.

Reason for Leaving:Don't know... a temporary manifestation.