The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick

by Philip K. Dick

  Theorem: That which we call "illusion" or "not real" is simply that which is still incomplete. Not yet what it is. There is a lot of this. On all sides of us, and in us.

  You see, they couldn't keep the universe vacant and closed until it was finished; where were we supposed to live until then? (Like a new exhibit at Disneyland which isn't opened until finished, until complete.) We're living in an in-progress place, because there is nowhere else for us to go; this is the only exhibit.

  [5:67] When I look back on those first days in 3-74 when I saw Rome around me, not Fullerton, and specifically the Rome of the period of Christ's time, and saw its angry military hostility, I was equally aware (and this is what I tend to forget) of my own identity standing in opposition to it; hence its hostility toward me—the scurrying of its agents were specifically hostile toward me, and I had to work in stealth, e.g., in baptizing Christopher et al. The other end of the dipole was my own new identity, not merely the "new" identity of my environment (Fullerton made into Rome); I had become a Christian and a very special kind, different from what I had been as Fullerton had been to Rome; I was a member of a secret group which Rome was dedicated to destroy; this made me part of the Fish sign secret society, killed on identification and disclosure. No sense can be made out of my seeing Fullerton turn into Rome until the other hemisphere of the Magdeburg jars67 is taken into account: what I had turned into. I can infer it from the hostility of my Roman environment (the ir leg, for instance), but more so I can infer it from what I did (the baptism) and my knowledge of the original Christian practices. The change had been wrought in me; Fullerton metamorphosing into Rome came as a result of that. Thus, what I saw externally in terms of transformation ratifies what I knew from an inner awareness to be the case; the two fit perfectly. What was Rome of that period hostile to? The authentic early Christians. Also, I tend to forget that in addition to the secretiveness of my actions, due to my knowledge of what the Romans would do to me, was my anticipation of the Savior to come. [...]

  What is involved is a restoring, a new life which is the igniting by means of the penetrating of the solar spermatikos68 of what had lain dormant, asleep over two thousand, maybe five to ten thousand years; it could not wake itself up—like the root or bulb called to by spring (by the healing warming Sun of Righteousness) it had to be summoned. If new birth or new life refers to a restoring (which it does) then at one time that Healing Sun was present and somehow withdrew, at which time the higher life in us fell asleep, in the darkness (vide the pineal body secreting the hormone melatonia, in darkness, which impedes the expansion, the growth, the coming into activity, of the latent form or entelechy). The very idea of "Wake up" implies winter time and the slumbering during winter time of all life. In some fashion, however, we once were awake and then fell asleep, which is what the Greeks meant by Lethe, by forgetfulness; forgetfulness is equated with falling asleep, and waking up with anamnesis. I guess the nourishing and feeding by the solar spermatika is understandable when one realizes that all life is "fed" by sunlight per se; this is an analog of that. It cannot wake unless fed; the first impulse rouses it from slumber, as when I felt that an Essene or someone holy who had been slumbering in me thousands of years and who possessed Sophia Pistis had awakened; the shock was of such enormity as to be beyond words to express; I can see why. [...]

  I awoke abruptly to find myself with my Savior, and then entered Fellowship with God (the dreams of the delighting void). Can it be said that this is the rebirth, accomplished by penetration of the Child by the solar spermatikos? Yes. Firebright, brought to life and sustained Greater intelligence for me, better health, longer life, even prosperity. A certain facility with life. But most of all I recall what I saw when I awakened: I saw my God, smiling in the sunlight of day. Once, during the years of the Terrible Separation, I saw Palmer Eldritch in the Sun—I saw God backward, but sure enough, in the daytime sun: at high noon, and knew him to be a god. The Three Stigmata, if read properly (i.e., reversed) contains many clues as to the nature of God and to our relationship with him. I was motivated to flee, then, fearing what I saw, so vast was the breach then. It was definitely a true vision of God, but grown (to my blind sight) terrible; still, it was the beginning of my seeing; that I could see God at all, in the sun, showed that I was not entirely blind, but rather deranged. My 3-74 experiences are an outgrowth of my Palmer Eldritch experience of over ten years earlier. "Faith of Our Fathers" shows this too; I knew Him to be real ... but only in Ubik does he begin to appear as benign, especially then in Maze of Death. We were coming back together, as friends in the light-struck meadow or forest ... the summertime to greet.

  [5:69] This news (in Psy. Today69) about the pineal body being a light receiving organ or gland is so exciting to me because it means that the chromatic phosphene source I experienced did not merely go to the light-sensitive part of my brain, but also to my pineal gland.... My brain saw the phosphene activity and was dazzled and delighted; however, probably as far as the brain itself went, it ended there. Not so for my pineal body; it responded (which is what it does; see article in Psy. Today) to what it received from the optic nerve, accepting it not as entertainment but as signal. (Disinhibiting, no doubt.) Probably all melatonia production (for openers) was halted, it being an inhibiting secretion. I guess I saw the "Other Sun," which shone at nighttime, when the physical sun isn't there. It was a deliberate signal from the Sun of righteousness, in the night, a dazzling display of its kind of light (a fire-like light, much like chromatic fire), and it tripped the pineal into things buried in our morphology for thousands of years, which the physical daytime sun doesn't trip (more than abolishing the production of melatonia and histamine, etc.). This chromatic Other Sun fire light would cause firing in the pineal body which constituted the true, absolute, ultimate purpose of that body, and place my total mindbody organism into its true, absolute, ultimate Being state. [...]

  Nurturing. I am not, rather than merely being nurtured (by the Earth, etc.) but nurturing Firebright within me (a Yinnish matter: hence this is why I got K'un as my trigram, K'un and Tui,70both female). This is the normal growth-line of an organism: it is born, and must, as an incomplete, ungrown infant, be nurtured. Gradually, as it grows, it moves toward nurturing rather than being nurtured; final entelechy completion would be for it to nurture, be a parent. This is logically visible in all higher organisms. (We call this "giving" rather than "receiving.") What the Gospels stress when they repeat the concept of giving in so many ways is nurturing, which is giving. The parent (mother or female) gives of her own body in this. The reason the Gospels emphasize the female values is not for receptivity alone (which is the first step, before implantation) but after the reception of the seed, then the nurturing. So long as one takes, one is not full grown, and certainly not yet a parent (of the Spiritual, Immortal body within). One becomes the "mother" and God himself is the father. And does the protecting, as one sees on the visible plane, in a family.

  One could speculate that this is the purpose of human beings: Why We Are Here—to serve as the recipient "female" "mothers" for the implantations of the solar spermatika, the divine seeds. Curiously, this would bear on Doris' point about the item in Catholic Agitator71 that Jesus' healing activities were not only primary, it was that which most crucially angered the Romans.* I asked her, "Why the hell would healing these bodies for us be a primary act on His part, especially since these bodies will die anyhow; they're healed, but they aren't made into anything but what they are, i.e., they aren't immortal." Well, if these bodies are to serve as the "wombs" for the solar spermatika, then healing such a body would be "pre natal care," and certainly logically crucial. [...]

  It doesn't seem to me that it's just speculation that it was my pineal gland to which the primary message went, and which was primarily stimulated; because: (1) the dreams of three eyed people, with the third eye being the Hindu 3rd all seeing eye of enlightenment dead-center in the forehead. And (2) the pineal gland is affected by light, according to Ps
y. Today, in early springtime, at the vernal equinox or just before ... probably it can be computed at the precise time (March 18) (1974) that I experienced the chromatic progressions. However, this still leaves the issue of, Where did all the information (e.g., written) come from? Disinhibited (i.e., this was all engrammed inside, in my entelechy, but held back, blocked by the melatonia, the GABA fluid, etc.? Just in there waiting? Or did it enter me along with the seed?). Pre-natal instructions! No wonder I felt myself to be under the guidance of Asklepios—and dreamed of doctors! And got primarily medical/healing advice, which goes with what Christ himself offered, for the same reason.

  What, though, took possession of me, which seemed like Elijah (if not truly Elijah)? I guess it was the Father; certainly it was not the seed. A form of the Father: the Holy Spirit, which, recall, made Mary pregnant, which brought conception to her; she conceived by the Holy Spirit and gave birth to the Logos; and yet, the Logos in a sense impregnated her; I guess the macro-Logos this way achieves its micropresence here. Locally. [...]

  Prophecy: seeing into. The past is within things (as in Ubik). Again, the onion rings universe. Where is the past? Within what we see, at the hearts. All reality is like some great Indian burial garbage mound, like layers or accretions, at Troy, successive. Not behind but "below." Contained.

  Like in the 3 pages I sent Angus. Palimpsest. Well, if the past is within what we see (smaller concentric rings, constricted) perhaps one can reason that the future consists of larger rings than that which makes up our perceptual present; vide Plotinus. The next concentric ring of emanation would be the future ... strange. Which we reach toward, and which reciprocally reaches down to assist us, as I inferred about the "space people": they're from the future, reaching back to what for them is a smaller inner ring of the past, to give help. Angels. They would come to us in dream-time, with visions of what is ahead, and this is why dreams are prophetic. And less dense, less constricted than the daytime Now ring. [...]

  You are to be "meek," i.e., Yinnish, humble, receptive, but what overpowers you (the father!) is fierce, like Elijah, seeking justice and truth, powerful, definitely Yangish, and the not-you. Just the opposite. Possession by the God (vide Virgil describing Apollo taking over Sibyl72). You may be masculine to other humans, but to Him you are feminine, passive. Now, the Mynaeds of Dionysos did not seem to believe (read know) that a permanent fertilization, acquisition took place, but the Orphics certainly did; here lies a vast distinction! The being-overpowered leaves something forever: a vision of truth, of reality, a rising up to ultratemporal regions, but after the beatific vision, the Firebright Second Birth, what is born, lives on, eternally. What a jump from the mere Dionysian frenzy to Orphism and beyond, to Christianity! What a realization of the value of being possessed!

  This borders on the Sufi: becoming God. One does "become" God while he possesses you, but then he leaves. But—well, it's like poor Leda (vide Yeats' poem73). But look at the progeny: Helen of Troy.

  Well, I have certainly (through Doris' help) made a distinction between two opposite sequential states; my experience began when I was "listening for very weak signals to transduce," which was meekness (I got it right, picked up paw talk, etc.), and then came the chromatic fire. That was when I received God or God's Power or Spirit, the Yang upon me-as-Yin. Possession of me by the God took place, as Ted Sturgeon says in Venus Plus X or whatever, this being what was really sought at the Feast of Agape.* No wonder they say, as Doris points out, God is love! Wow, He sure is! It is a (ahem) mating (again vide Yeats' poem "Leda and the Swan"). But that was one year ago—over a year ago. Actual possession lasted days, weeks, slowly drained off; no more than a couple weeks, the electrostatic life form gradually drained off. But Firebright remained; the dreams remain right up to now; contact (Fellowship) with God remains.

  Spring is the mating season. As Psy. Today says, it's based all the way up to cosmic influences (sidereal). All synchronized.

  By following all the admonitions of the Gospels, one literally courted the great masculine Father deity so that he literally possessed the Christian. From this (receiving the Holy Spirit, as they put it euphemistically) they got various powers: healing, prophecy, ability to discern, and were made Righteous, which I experienced as a thirst for Truth and Justice and doing the right thing. "Gifts of the Spirit," yes, but those who were possessed were also the "First fruits of the harvest," which meant that they gained something permanent; this would correspond with my being back in Rome; i.e., escaping the thrall of time (supra); being released from the bondage of time, which is a thrall producing death—hence, freedom, release, from the power of death. Certainly, of all the various gifts, this would matter the most. I myself experienced reality on an inner ontological basis (assimilating objects themselves rather than mere phenomena), saw the structure of the universe (Logos or Plan), had and still retain fellowship—contact—with God, which is to say, knowledge of him. I didn't just get the power to heal; I was healed. I walked with God and communed with him (along the alley that day, also in trances and dreams). I knew the true state of things (the tyranny) and what to do. [...]

  Ursula accuses me of getting away from "Taoistic balance" when I get into Christianity. The Logos and balance (cf. frag. 51 of Heraclitus) are intimately connected, with the Logos implementing balance or harmony everywhere, it being the Plan. It is hard to imagine the Logos out of balance. [...]

  My sense that Firebright has gone on only means that He, a half Light, Half Human creature, is now strong enough to leave the "womb," which is good. Any immortality I have will be through the fact that He is immortal; like all children, he must leave, Son of a Mortal Mother (myself) and Deity (God as Father). Tessa points out it's a corporate body, like yogurt (in the dream, the renewing fish that's sliced forever). Christ as pure Light Being is the Head; we all form the body; we are immortal with Him. It would be dreadful to be immortal alone, separate.

  There is no doubt that, what with my right hemisphere experiments, I was trying to achieve something—and perhaps did. Received something; receiving was part of what I was into, the idea that we could, if we listened in a new way (or a forgotten way). Where did the "light beam" come from? Certainly my dreams suggest the past; anyhow it is all what should be identified as retrieved knowledge. But it may have been triggered (the disinhibiting) by an ET signal. This presumes a link between earth and, ahem, heaven. I think there is.*

  Also, what I experienced was an Adjustment, in terms of the palintonos and palintropos harmonie systems. The great entity which we call God, Immanent Mind being a better term, adjusted imbalances at that time, and this started up a lot of signaling. Probably I was part of a palintropos change, and oscillation outward (expanding) with what had been in the Taoist sense "too filled up," also the Greek sense (hubris) forced back, made Yinnish, retractile; this contributed to maintaining the total palintonos harmonie of the Universe/Mind. I was made into an active (Yangish) station of that change, and felt it, felt the signals coming to me; this is what appeared to be—or was—possession by the God or Elijah, also divine intervention (to restore harmonie ...). What acted was the Immanent Mind which carries within it (the Container of all the objects) me and everyone else including my total environment. That this realm exists is not an object of knowledge to our society; it used to be called The Gods, in the Greek sense, not in the Hebrew sense (vide all studies thereon). Well, our society, inadequately informed on what the pre-Socratics knew, and the mystery religions and other Greek thinkers knew, continues on unaware of the forces which ultimately govern. [...]

  We are the acted-upon, which is what is meant by, "Beware of hubris."

  What possessed me also equally possessed the world around me, so unless that which was not alive (the universe) can suddenly be alive, which is not likely, then more probably it was a heightening effect both in me and outside me. It already was alive. I know I was. This was for both me and for my environment a threshold effect, or anyhow my perception thresholded. I say, It is al
l alive, and what we see is not only alive, it is alive through being infused by life as our body is alive through being infused by life. It is psyche to soma in both cases. We are talking about a vitalistic, not a mechanistic, view, and I saw it. I am sure of what I saw. Maybe by "possessed" it should always read, "awareness of being possessed," implying we are (the environment outside, each of us inside) possessed all the time but not aware of it in either direction. QED.

  In another sense, "being possessed" was being outside oneself, and outside the environment as well, at a third point, the Archimedean standpoint from which one could see both oneself and the environment as an interacting entity ... but this does require "being outside." So it may not have been a coming into me, but a me going outside of me.