The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick

by Philip K. Dick

  [50:91] Has anyone thought of this modified Gnosticism? There was no creator of this world (planet or cosmos) and the life therein. Atheists such as Darwin are absolutely right; it was no God but simply natural law at work, determining evolution. However, a loving, all-wise, sentient super-entity inhabiting an "upper triad," etc., has entered the scene and is transmuting this purely naturalistic world into a totally benign sentient body or organism.

  [50:92] It is a major realization that just as Thomas Aquinas' natural theology arguments (such as arguing back from design to designer, etc.) fail to prove the existence of God, the ruthlessness and disorder in nature do not logically imply a bad creator God; no argument, "natural" or "ontological," proves God's existence. Thus, the Gnostic belief in a deranged or inferior or evil creator isn't substantiated. Therefore we Gnostics are out on a limb vis-à-vis a bad creator in terms of argument. So out goes all cosmogony for this world. What remains is what I have by revelation: a supernatural divine intelligence doing what Jacob Boehme saw: colliding with the material universe and transforming (rather than abolishing) it. If I do not regard Zebra as a creator God, but a modulating God, then what we seem to actually have is divinization of the mundane, or plan over nonplan, organic interaction over chaos. No dualistic theology is necessary.

  [50:93] Take the statement by the spirit to me back in 1968 about the Galapagos turtle. The import of what the spirit said was that even though it appeared otherwise, the dying turtle was somehow extricated: "and she shall see the sea." One could extrapolate and say that this statement implies that even what appears to be, or remain, [unsubdued] evil is invisibly ameliorated in a mysterious way.

  Boehme wrote that man (i.e., men) have a choice illuminated for them by the light of the spirit: we can remain in torment as victim of the oscillations of the lower triad (or material) universe, or "die to our self"—negate ourselves as the urgrund does, and thereby imitate Christ and follow him from suffering to triumph (joy). Thus anguish is ultimately something to overcome, not fall victim to. Anguish is the starting point. So we must not tarry in anguish, but hasten with "gladdening footsteps."27

  [50:101] The cunning counterfeit of reality, revealed as such when authentic reality breaks through—like the "tip-tip" of the branch blowing against the window in Finnegans Wake during Earwicker's dream. This "tip-tip" is the clue, and the only clue. In Ubik it is the commercials and messages intruding "from the other side" (Lem). Do we experience that? I did in 3-74. So I am forced to conclude that our reality is a cunning counterfeit, mutually shared—and that the wise mind is trying to signal us—to do what? To kick over into anamnesis: discharge of DNA long-term memories. To remember and to wake up are absolutely interchangeable.

  [50:105] It may be that the divine is re-entering—not entering our universe (viz:

  This would indicate a fallen state of our world, and the divine enters at the bottom—i.e., in the trash, the lowly, the discarded. Christ speaks of the tiny mustard seed, 28 and the gloss on the J. Bible29 stresses that the kingdom will enter inconspicuously—very small; i.e., lowly. Where we would be least likely to look for it (cf. "the stone rejected by the builder").*

  This realization is very important.

  And this lowly trash, bottom penetration is exactly how I portray it (Ubik) in Ubik! On match folders; in tawdry commercials—therein lie the divine messages.

  Entry from the "provinces"—Galilee—now takes the form of entry from trash in the gutter on up—a trashy [S-F] novel which contains trash (the chapter-opening commercials) is the triumphant return of the rightful king. Ubik is trash containing an even lower order of trash: the Ubik commercials—but which are in fact vox dei.30

  [50:109] A human can evolve into Christ if Christ ignites his own self in the human and takes the human over. There is only one difference between God and Christ: that is one of accessibility (equality) to man. Christ, as Hagia Sophia, can ignite himself in a man and speak with him in a dialogue. At this point, the man rises from time, space, and the slavery of deterministic nature mechanics, remembers all and knows himself by means of Christ as inner light.

  [50:121]

  In other words, the two realms, sublunar (our world) and the supralunar (heaven), are bridged by a polyencephalic mens31 which is heterogenous: the most startling part is that at our [sublunar] end certain wise men (magi) and saints participate in it, and at the other end, wise men and saints who have died (passed over to heaven or the supralunar) participate in it. The substantial structure is God-as-holy-Spirit, bridging the two worlds.

  ***

  [50:137] We can be moved anywhere anytime, caused to do or not do anything, entirely motivated by an external force (mind), and never perceive the Leibniz-like "preset clocks" which chime in unison. [...]

  We're a fucking goddam "Biosphere" ruled by an entity who—like a hypnotist—can make us not only quack like a duck or cue, but imagine, to boot, that we wanted (decided) to quack.

  [50:142] Ah—my bipolarization between the human and the android. Free man (liberated) vs. the artifact controlled "android"; I am now prepared to elevate the bipolarization into theological, supernatural, cosmic dimensions. The concept of balking assumes the status of successfully resisting cause-and-effect script-programming. Mekkis32 vs. Agape. Love is the total permission of exception, and leads us from rule (law, justice) to paradox (mercy). Paradox is the manifestation of metamorphosis by a reversal of opposites—cf. alchemy, Empedocles, etc., and especially Christ's parables and sayings (about the kingdom), and about judgment and the final dispositions. Folly, madness, passion, the joyful dance—vs. iron limitations imposed. This is the age of the inner spirit, in which inner spirit (via anamnesis) and teaching (discerning and knowing—Sophia—) become real, and the external material order (world) revealed as delusion. The material world is about to be abolished, and its hold on us with it—dispelled (cf. my published writing). The abyss is devouring the byss, by an outburst of ecstasy. What has happened is that the occluded mind is restored to its primordial wholeness.

  Folder 28

  FEBRUARY 1978

  [28:1] The "other universe" is an intelligent, thinking mind, and so when it impinges on our material universe, these "impregnations" take the form of written or audible information (words), such as described in Ubik. This is, in fact, the basic situation in Ubik—the impinging on the irreal world they are in (while half alive) in the form of helpful information. The term for this impinging information is "word" or Logos!

  And the Marxist intellectuals know that (1) that is what is happening in Ubik and (2) Ubik itself is the Logos.

  What we have is sentient radiation, energy or electricity or plasma or ionization.

  Using Tesla's33 theories about energy and information transfer, the Soviets are now able to synthesize a sort of mundane Logos, or ionospheric information transfer grid. However, Tesla, in his own work with such "Radar-like" devices found he had made contact with a "St. Elmo's fire" ETI—the intrusion of which (living sentient plasma) must puzzle and intrigue the Soviets.

  Ubik deals with all this. In reading Ubik anyone familiar with either the man-made "Logos" or the natural one, would assume the author knew what he was writing about. Especially they would hope Ubik indicated the efficacy of their own system.

  What to me is most interesting is that this sheds a lot of light on the enigmatic term or entity "logos," or "the word" (and wisdom) of God. Only if the other universe is conceived as Xenophanes (e.g., Anaxagoras) conceived it—as noös—does "word" make sense as an entity which is not only wisdom itself but is alive, and could incarnate itself here (in human form). Since the real universe is mind (electromagnetic flux) it does not much think but is (esse) thought or word (word-wisdom). Thoughts are ontologically real and not merely verbal descriptions of material reality; they are the final order of reality.

  Words, bursting through the material world, are in fact the real universe (noös) penetrating a (mere) holographic projection. Without the understanding and aw
areness of the real (ultimate) reality being one of mind, the concept "the word" makes no sense since, as Xenophanes saw, the noös wields the world by its thinking, the word-wisdom is not a mere aspect of the ultimate, the urgrund, but its activity per se; hence in Genesis, when God says, "Let there be light," there is light; he creates by saying (thinking) (cf. Bishop Berkeley34).

  Also, Xenophanes realized that noös never moved about. The Tesla Grid would be ubiquitous, too, an analog of the actual Logos. In a sense, then, using Biblical terms, the Soviets' Tesla mind-control (informing) Grid would be an anti-Christ, mimicking the Logos itself.

  [28:4] Interestingly, my theolepsy did not withdraw me from the world, but, quite the opposite, reintroduced me to the world and in a new and active—dynamic—way, in which I impinged on it more than it impinged on me. And this was a microcosmic version of the Logos' dynamic impinging on the world in a vast, historically important way: I replicated in a tiny way its stance—and definitely linked (synchronized) to its macrocosmic impinging. Thus my role as victim (or object) of mundane forces was dramatically reversed, in fulfillment of the scriptures in which the powerless would judge the powerful (a complete reversal of the extant order of things).

  This dramatic reversal fits my most acute analysis and understanding of the "end-times"—that vast paradoxical reversals (big-small/weak-strong/wise-foolish/major-minor/important-unimportant, etc.) will without warning (i.e., without evident transitional stages) set in. This is one way by which we will know—recognize—the end-times. Those upheavals which are essentially reversals. A black guard and a hippie cop will destroy the Government and send them all into disgrace, prison and exile.

  [28:7]

  [28:10]

  The criminal virus controls by occluding (putting us in a sort of half sleep) so that we do not see the living quality of the world, but see it as inert man reduced to automaton. The occlusion is self-perpetuating; it makes us unaware of it and of our keepers (and helpers too). So restoration doesn't consist of enhancing but lifting (away and off).

  If there is to be immortality, there must be another kind of time: one in which past events (i.e., the past in its entirety) can be retrieved—i.e., brought back.

  I did experience such a time.

  ∴ immortality is possible.

  [28:12] As a result of the archetype lying at the absolute deepest core of pain, there comes a point in a person's life, when he reaches that core, that his pain is, by holy miracle, inexplicably transmuted into joy. This is the heart of the Christian mystery—and the heart of the issue, "where is our God (deus absconditus)? where can he be found?"

  Again: it is at the moment when the ultimate blow (of pain, murderous injury, humiliation and death) is struck, it is Christ who is there, replacing the victim and taking the blow himself. This is what happened to me in 3-74.

  But there is a further mystery here: it is not just Christ as surrogate instead, but Christ with, in syzygy.

  Thus at the ultimate abyss of pain, one experiences one's creator.

  Thus wisdom says, "I will accompany you down even into the prisons."35

  There is by miracle both a with and an is. To understand how with, is and in place of are all one is to understand the fundamental miracle of God.

  The Q: "who is there?" when the blow comes cannot be given in mundane terms; instead, an entire sacred universe and entity is revealed.

  So when you see any creature humiliated and dying, you are seeing your own God and Savior, which I have sensed for some time.

  As it dies the creature "comes to itself" and knows—experiences—where and what it really is (and perhaps has always been).

  [28:14] Since time is the true receptacle of being (for the organism) anamnesis equals awareness of the organism as such: a seeing of the more or less complete entelechy; and amnesia equals blindness, since to be seen the organism must be seen under the aspect of time—in terms of temporal extension. Hence, only by understanding this can one comprehend the absolute value of memory, and comprehend it as a perception or organ of perception, like ocular vision, not metaphorically but literally an organ of perception. Ocular vision is perception of the organism in space; memory (anamnesis) is perception of it in time, and it is in time (more than space) that its true nature (being) extends. Hence, in 3-74, I correctly declared that I had always been blind, but now could see. That sight was memory extending over thousands of years.

  This realization is a seminal breakthrough, to view anamnesis as an organ of perception, and the most important of them all. Through anamnesis I could, for the first time, perceive the organism, the one. And what did I see? A Living Mind/Body, inhaling and exhaling (palintropos harmonie). Heraclitus was correct—also Parmenides.

  [28:15] And why do we forget in the first place? The desire to escape from pain. Like it or not, the hallmark of the real is the infliction of and hence the experience of pain—physical and mental: because, for activity (change) in the total organism to occur, its "respiration"—there must be an unceasing (and I do mean unceasing) breaking down of every form (or stasis) to make way for the next stasis. It is unescapable that for each new eidos to come into existence the former eidos is reduced to a means by which it is given birth. Only the organism in toto has end-existence; all subparts are means and it is this experience of self as mere means which gives rise to ontological anguish. If there is to be happiness it must come in a voluntary relin quishing of self in exchange for aware participation in the destiny of the total one. There can be no happiness for the subsections, so the search for it is doomed to fail; while existing (and fruitlessly searching for intrinsic fulfillment), each subpart is used by the organism as a whole remorselessly and relentlessly; that is their fates. What Christ offers is miraculous awareness of and hence participation in (with joy)—the totality; to be united with Christ is to be melded into the totality—the only true joy.

  Hence it is logical not merely ethical for me to transfer my money to such organizations as Care, Save the Children, etc.; only insofar as I live in them and with them (the "other") do I live at all; intellect, not merely conscience, insists. What we call "conscience" is merely heightened intellect (noös).

  I must seek the handle of the final other, and live through that—or else die. It is a matter of life and death. In seeking receivers (for what I have) I am seeking—and finding—life itself—and I know it. I am right. No sacrifice is involved. To buy an expensive car (e.g.) is to die—to sacrifice life itself in favor of a machine.

  The Gnostic acts (or Gospel?) of John: Christ as child, young man, old man, short and bald, tall, firm, soft—and he did not blink (his eyes): Christ can manifest himself to you in any form he chooses, and someone else with you may not see what you see, but rather something—someone—else entirely (e.g., Pinky).

  Somehow it all has to do with identity. There is no way by which any of us can assess his life as successful or meaningful. The kind of identity which confers meaning onto a given life is a gratuitous Gift to the individual part by the whole (i.e., by the deity); objective meaning may exist, but the person in question will not know it unless this merciful and priceless insight is bestowed. You could, by your own efforts, cause your life to have meaning—but still not know it (i.e., that it had had meaning). Meaning and knowledge of meaning are not usually correctly distinguished. I think perhaps all lives have meaning—even in a sense equal meaning—but what we lack, and cannot acquire by our own efforts, is certain knowledge of it.

  [28:17] I did not go back in time, but entered a different kind of time: sacred or mythic time, in which every thing every time was present in the form of eternal archetypes; thus I saw Pinky in the archetypal role of the humiliated, dying savior. This is a more real kind of time than profane or linear time in asking, what characterized it? I would say, everything of value was preserved (present and immediate), and that the pluriforms of reality (diverse things and processes) were coordinated into a single sacred drama, that of the death and rebirth of the savior. Tim
e both expanded (I recalled 1,000's of years) but those 1,000's of years shrank down into an immediate sequence, as if very short. The telescoping of literally millennia disclosed a single underlying event—although spread out—seemingly elongated—in linear time, this collapsed view was the correct one. This was not just another way of seeing reality; it was the accurate way.

  I was so clear in my mind as to the exact point in this drama at which we stood: (1) the savior had died, but (2) we had passed over from grieving at the loss (i.e., looking back) but were looking ahead to his return, and rejoicing already. Furious preparations were in order, as if to be ready when the bridegroom appears—it could happen any second (but that could be a long time in profane, linear time). Still, we were no longer involved in the Loss (the passion); that was over. And: (3) the black iron prison had been successfully burst and (4) the prisoners saved. Part of our joy stemmed from knowing that destruction of "Babylon/Rome" (the prison) came before his return, and it had been accomplished. Now things were such that we could imminently expect him and he would take us by surprise—we did not, could not, know the "hour" of his return. But soon means soon. Any time now. We'd barely be prepared. When I think about it, this mood of eager anticipation and expectation and trembling awe and excitement is exactly what the UFO people feel toward the approaching first overt contact.