The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick

by Philip K. Dick

  Folder 16

  JUNE OR JULY 1978

  [16:6] Voice: "You [i.e., the surface PKD personality] and the alibi are both equally expendable." (Does alibi = world?) (Yes, the false, simulated USA 1974 world.)

  I deduce from this, then, that the Rome c. A.D. 45 world is real (which is why it appears in Tears) and USA 1974 is an "alibi" to conceal it. The alibi KW and I are looking for is the very world we seem to be in, and the true story is "Acts."

  Voice: "I go to A.D. 45 Rome when I die" (meaning me). Then Rome A.D. 45 ("Acts") is not a past life but a future life. And why am I going there? Because it is real.

  These worlds have to be regarded as stories, narratives—USA 1974 is a spurious one to cover up the real one.

  [16:10] KW spoke of sabotage versus malfunction, an issue which I dismissed. But then the voice called the USA 1974 world "an alibi world" which is "expendable." Sabotage—not by an evil party—but by a friend, since this is the thrall situation. I misunderstood KW. Sabotage of the prison machinery. An induced malfunction; which by the way answers the epistemological questions I've chewed over in 27 years of writing having to do with simulated worlds (hence Lem's question).

  E.g., "Delmak-O" = USA 1974

  Persus 9 = Rome C. A. D. 45

  The tattoo = the Golden Fish

  God, all my "this is illusion" writings (Eye, Joint, Stigmata, Ubik, Maze) are analogs of the USA 1974 vs. the glimpse of Rome c. A.D. 45 via the golden fish sign.

  "Here we are."

  "But where are we really?"

  And then someone gets a glimpse. (As in "the Earth is hollow and I have touched the sky.") Usually, once the simulation is detected there are assorted guesses. But sometimes the first clue vis-à-vis simulating of world is the glimpse.

  My God, my life—which is to say my 2-74/3-74 experience—is exactly like the plot of any one of 10 of my novels or stories. Even down to fake memories and identity. I'm a protagonist from one of PKD's books.* USA 1974 fades out, ancient Rome fades in and with it the Thomas personality and true memories. Jeez! Mixture of Imposter, Joint and Maze—if not Ubik as well.

  What the malfunction or induced malfunction proves is the existence of at least one world-generating Mind, and (as I failed to see in those earlier notes) possibly two world-generating—even competing—minds. Competing worlds, competing world-generating minds. Plus the passive, programmed, observing little non-world-generating mind.

  Is this a battle for his allegiance? World against world, mind against mind? The voice last night scathingly referred to USA 1974 and the corresponding PKD personality as "both being expendable." Diabolic interpolation/simulation?

  [16:13] I guessed a long time ago that the world we perceive is a simulation, but this diagnosis only makes sense when you can point to a real world to contrast it to, and this, prior to 2-74, I could not do.77 I now understand the crucial role of assent—programmed assent—and what happens if assent is suddenly broken and then transferred—and also why we give unconditional assent to this simulated world—why, for instance, the search expressed in my novels makes no sense to many people.

  [16:14] I subscribe to the acosmic Gnostic view that world does not reveal God. Abolish world and you are facing God. In a sense world is a mask thrown forth by God to conceal himself from man, who must then deal with the puzzle which world presents to him. If evil (undeserved suffering) rules world, how can it be the product of a benign mind? But world is not isomorphic to God; it is unlike him, a smokescreen with which man is not to make his peace but is to balk against. Yet tantalizing clues (signs) of God shine through the world from the far side; they invade the world, and are covertly available to human perception. The Golden Section is one such clue.

  Axiom: masks do not resemble the visages concealed by them. If we know that world is a mask of God, the problem of evil (undeserved suffering) is somewhat answered. But why must God mask himself? Answer: man must solve the moral and epistemological puzzles presented to him by world in order to come to life (become disjunctive from what is not-him). He can join the world or he can repudiate it. This is a very serious game, this guessing game. It only serves its purpose if man knows relatively little about what is going on. E.g., if he knows he will be rewarded for balking he will balk in order to obtain the reward—the test will be contaminated. He must balk with no knowledge of reward; in fact he knows he will be punished (by world, the BIP). So "he who gives up his life will save it," etc.

  This all really presumes another, invisible landscape at odds with the palpable one. Two realms, perhaps a lower and a higher, one implied, each with its own laws. The lower realm alone does not tell the full story—in fact may not even tell the true story or a part thereof. In the lower realm, deity appears in a debased and trivial or besmirched guise, marginally (like the cheap commercials for Ubik). Only at the end (as in the heading of the last chapter in Ubik) does deity unmask itself, and we see it as it truly is.

  Thus I say, if deity exists in the lower realm it will not bear a noble heavenly dignified beautiful aspect; it will be where least expected and as least expected, so there is no use deliberately looking for it—it will have to come to us and unveil itself to us. It could be an old sick—even dying—tomcat stinking of urine, degraded and humiliated.

  However, it aids, advises and monitors us. The world is a one-way mirror; God can watch us but not we him.

  ***

  [16:19] Aldiss56 says the Horn of freedom blows in my writing. If I stigmatize the lower realm as counterfeit, aren't I rendering a service, and an unusual one at that? Who else has unscrambled world into two realms (well, Parmenides for one) the malignant part of which is bogus?— [...]

  God, I have broken myself in this pursuit over 27 years. Critics compare my malignant false worlds to metastasizing cancer. I demand that deity appear or somehow put its stamp on world before I can accept it as anything but a diabolic counterfeit interpolation. We have been deceived for thousands of years. The Neoplatonist such as Plotinus knew of two realms. The Essenes (v. Josephus) report a lower realm of feverish unconsciousness, the poisoned, intoxicated soul. "Men like to sleep."

  [16:21] Axiom: The best forgeries go undetected. On a scale of increasing perfection there is an inverse ratio to detection. Those which we do detect are signs which point toward the better (undetected) ones.

  [16:29] The mad God James-James began generating world upon world, worlds unrelated, worlds within worlds. Fake worlds, fake fake worlds, cunning simulations of worlds, mirror opposites of worlds.

  Like I do in my stories and novels (e.g., Stigmata and "Precious Artifact"). I am James-James.

  I created one world among many and entered it and hid myself in it. But the police detected me—the non-terran police—and tried to fake me out with the Xerox missive. But I knew it was coming—as soon as Tears appeared they would be sure about me. And I recovered my memory and identity and powers and dealt with it properly, and paid them back. My organization helped me—it set off my memories a month in advance. I saw my creator—my creator, protecting me. I am hiding here, under his protection. The network voice—she talks to me. I am patched in to the network, so I am not alone. Meanwhile, my creator ("Zebra") patiently repairs the damage I've done, by rebuilding the worlds. He harbors no resentment. All I am allowed to do now is write about what I used to do. In a sense I am a prisoner. But it's for the best.

  I learned this from "Precious Artifact." I am a mad ex world-generator, now confined. But still periodically mad. I can't die. I am countless reborn-metamorphosed. I know the truth about the worlds I have made. That they're not real—I know about dokos, simulations which will pass any test. They are not fantasy, and they are only illusion to those who take them as real. They are skillful forgeries which will pass inspection. They are indeed like metastasizing cancers. "A world capable of splitting its per ceived reality into countless counterfeits of itself"—however Lem put it. (Does Lem know? He has guessed.)

  It is found in my "taco stand" visi
onary experience in 1971, which proliferated itself into all Mexico, and was real. I generated it, as I used to do. But exiled now, put in a box and dropped into the ocean. Zagreus.

  Burroughs is right about the Nova Police and their tracking down their quarry. But in my case Zeus protects me. Dythrambus. [...]

  Given a new life with no memories, I was still able to undermine. The worlds are cunning forgeries, and the police are after me. But Zeus will always protect me, despite what I've done. Misused my ability. Lem may be on our side (my organization). In any case he knows—he knew before I did—i.e., before in 2-74 I remembered. The Nova Police fell here; I assisted in that, but only to a very tiny degree. Tears contained the message: the quarry is innocent and the police will suffer reprisal. [...]

  We spring up everywhere: proliferated.

  The time has come to render this world void, to abolish it, and judge, Shiva. The police search frantically.

  The innocent (the wild little ones of the forest) have nothing to fear. My extended hand tells them that.

  Solemn-pentheus-die, Felix happy Dionysos live. Pentheus police general of Tears—the de facto monarch.

  [16:45] If the above theory is wrong (and there is no negative hallucination and spurious reality laid over the real world—which is quite different than what seems to be—) then what has been the use of my writing? Also, why have I been motivated for 27 years to belabor this one theme (including fake memories as an inner analog to the fake outer world)?

  Is it all just foolishness? My writing has to be dismissed (including the "Acts" and NT material in Tears and the "exculpation" cypher, i.e., the good news) and my 2-74/2-75 experience has to be dismissed as a psychotic break. And God didn't aid in pulling down the tyranny; there was no inbreaking, as depicted in the Tears dream.

  Everything has to be dismissed—my life's work means nothing, my most treasured experience—and I am and have been for years just crazy—

  Because everything is interwoven, it either all stands or it falls. Such stories as "Precious Artifact" and "Electric Ant" and "Retreat Syndrome" tell us nothing—not to mention the novels.

  Ubik tells us nothing?

  And four years and four months of exegete—wasted.

  ***

  [16:55] Let's start out afresh.

  (1) When I wrote Tears I did not knowingly include any elements pertaining to 1st century A.D. Rome. It was a totally imaginary future world.

  (2) The month that Tears was released, I saw a Golden Fish sign and asked what it was. I was told it was a sign "used by the early Christians." At once I remembered that the time was the first century A.D. in Rome, not the 20th century in the USA.

  (3) One month later amid various unusual subjective sensations, I experienced 1st century A.D. Rome as present and believed myself to be an illegal secret Christian, with code signs and sacraments such as I later learned were used at that time. I also dreamed foreign words all of which turned out to be the koine Greek used at that place and time, although I did not know this. I believed that Christ had just died and would soon return. I felt great elation. I was shown the word "Felix" in Tears and understood it was not a name but a key code. I did not know what it meant. However I looked it up and it means "happy" or "prosperous."

  (4) When I described Tears to my priest he said that a scene was very like a scene in "Acts," which I had never read. I then read "Acts" and found many elements common to Tears. After four years of studying Tears I felt I had fully extracted a stegenographic message from it. Tears was in fact set in 1st century A.D. Rome. I can prove it re the "Acts" material. The message, deeply buried, is that Christ has returned and we can't see it. Instead we see a fake, delusional, other world in which 2,000 years have passed or appear to have passed. I did not put this message in Tears or know it was there. The Roman world I saw the month Tears was released is the actual world in Tears.

  Unexplained are: If I did not recognize the "Acts" (Biblical) elements in Tears when I wrote it, how come I properly identified them the month Tears was released and I found myself in that very same world? Why didn't I identify that world as the one I had written about?

  These questions bypass more obvious questions which more naturally arise (such as, How come I found or believed myself in 1st century Rome? etc.).

  The questions in paragraph one are more astute than first appears. The questions—one question actually—is formally phrased as: "If you can identify y, why can't you identify y?"

  (The world of Tears is—cupola for equals—1st century A.D. Rome. When I saw 1st century A.D. Rome I recognized it, call it y. I could upon seeing y recognize and identify it. Y is the world of Tears. I wrote Tears. When I wrote it and repeatedly rewrote it and later repeatedly read it, I saw nothing in it that suggested y to me. But I later demonstrated an ability to recognize and identify y when I saw it. There is a disruption in the continuity of pattern recognition and identification; there is an ellipsis in—not logic, which is not involved—but something deeper. Person one [myself] both recognizes pattern y and does not. I.e., he is familiar with 1st century A.D. Rome and its customs and is not. He dreams koine Greek words but does not [1] know what they mean; or [2] that they are the koine; or [3] that the koine was the lingua franca of 1st century A.D. Rome—that "Acts," e.g., was written in it.)

  This line of inquiry points to two persons, one who knows and one who does not. This is substantiated by the switch of memory from 20th century USA to 1st century A.D. Rome. The person who wrote Tears used the memories/knowledge of the other without realizing it. This dissociation continued through all the eleven drafts and readings, until the memories, personality and knowledge—i.e., the other person—broke into consciousness the month the book was released.

  Question: is there a literature on alternate personalities (in persons with multiple personalities) separated by 1,900 years and 8,000 miles? They could not have split off during one lifetime (i.e., at an early age). So childhood trauma won't explain it. Answer: there is no such literature.

  Question: does the stegenographic message provide any clue to the abreactive personality? Answer: the message is the "kerygma" (proclaiming the redemptive death and resurrection of the lord) revised. Christ is not crucified, did not depart and hence is present. The subjective sensations noted above pointed to a confirmation of this.

  Conclusion: the person has a rich fantasy world. He has dissociated personalities and experiences. (Ever since an auto accident he has complained of periodic amnesia.) The "hidden message" in the novel and the "remembering ancient Rome" indicate strong unconscious wishes directed toward Christ's imagined return.

  It is touching that the human hope for a redeemer could yield such elaborate phantasies. A dearth of real experiences is indicated. Therapy indicated.

  [16:62] KW's right: the BIP warps every new effort at freedom into the mold of further tyranny.

  ***

  [16:69] "But are you writing something serious?" Note the word.

  Fuck. If they couldn't get us to write serious things, they solved the problem by decreeing that what we were writing was serious. Taking a pop form as "serious" is what you do if it won't go away. It's a clever tactic. They welcome you in—look at Lem's 1,000-page essay. This is how the BIP handles it if they can't flat out crush it. Next thing, they get you to submit your S-F writing to them to criticize. "Structured criticism" to edit out the "trash elements"—and you wind up with what Ursula writes.

  Like I say in Scanner, our punishment for playing was too great. And my last sentence is, "and may they be happy." (I got that from knowing what "felix" meant.)

  "Let them all play again, in some other way, and let them be happy."

  I showed the unfair punishment for playing. Scanner is a study of what the BIP does to you (punishes you) and what for (playing, not growing up, "not toiling"). Like the Christ story, it simply (as I point out) just lays forth cause and effect. I don't wind up deploring playing—just that particular way of playing. So in a way, Scanner is a s
tudy of the punishment (too great) for playing instead of toiling, not drugs. Thus the secret (encoded) theme of Tears is carried further. Amazing, since when I wrote Scanner I hadn't yet figured out Tears.

  Knowing what I know now after 4 years of exegesis re Tears what I'd write on the basis of it would be Scanner. How do you explain that? Scanner logically follows Tears if you know what Tears is really about. Play is one of the antiphonal themes in Scanner. Play and punishment. What an insight! You play—and are punished and far too severely; as I say, "The punishment was far too great." It opens (the postscript):

  "This has been a novel about some people who were punished entirely too much for what they did. They wanted to have a good time—," etc.

  The expectation of punishment is a knowledge about playing. You have been taught to expect it. This goes beyond mere worthlessness; this is sin, and God will get you (in all his mundane polyforms).

  Both communist and capitalist (and fascist) societies—and theocracies—teach this. It's called theodicy. It's fucked, like when Merry Lu threw my snuff in the garbage.

  No wonder the more $ I get the more morose I get. I enjoyed paying the IRS—shit! The BIP really has me by the balls.