What's the real punchline here? ... Hari's creating a 2nd Foundation, the psychic one, on Helicon vs some secret location on Trantor, as in the books.
And then, he realizes that Gaal's got "psychic" abilities and could help the 2nd Foundation. Hello?! Who was he recruiting to begin with?! People with extraordinary gymnastic abilities? Sure, add another psychic to Wanda's club (assuming that Wanda from the book is around) but now, the Mule doesn't even have to search very hard. Look no further than Hari's home planet for the psychic clubhouse.
As far as the Emperor goes, I'm suppose to be believe that a walk through a desert w/o food and water is suppose to conjure 'galaxy shattering' visions. Guess what? That happens to people, when they're mildly sleep deprived nevermind the whole desert visionquest which is as old as the times before the Old Testamount on our own earth. Almost anyone on a desert trip gets lightheaded and delusional, esp in face of the heat and dehydration.
And having visions or hallucinations doesn't say anything about the condition of one's soul given the fact that stories about 'Trinities' call it Osiris, Isis, and Horus in ancient Eqypt, Brahma, Atma, Vishnu in ancient & present-day India/Hinduism, Father, Son, & Holy Spirit in Christianity. It's called a universal archetype, if you're into Jung et al. Any signs of the symbol of 3 or even better, 7, which encompasses the deadly sins, the etheric bodies, the chakras, etc. If the Emperor saw three dancing elephants wrapped around seven gorillas then as far as I'm concerned, he's explained the essence of Kundalini Yoga through a metaphor. Congrats, he's now Guru Cleon the 13! Eat your heart out Dalai Lama, there's a new Bodhisattva in town!
If this is the religion of 10000 years from now, then I'll stick with earth's denominations.
And the jump ship piece was just dragged out from the prior episode. Nothing new here except that I think Farra and Salvor won't be becoming friends in the future.
BTW, I did speak to a practicing Mahayana Buddhist about this topic and her response was that the best meditation was not that of visionquests or even unconscious memories/dreams playing out but that of quietude and a still mind.
Interesting to note, Cleon's lack of vision in that pond was actually to closer to what she was looking for than the 3 petaled flower.