The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick

by Philip K. Dick

  ➊ But an ur self: the Atman; Brahman within.

  ➋ With details I did not and could not know—which gave the system away.

  [18:78] Regarding the factor of complexity of the "volvox," what's involved is not the number of parts but the interconnections—I perceived a veritable maze of connections, with each new part fitted in to link as many previous parts as possible. The organizing and arranging has this interconnectivity in mind. Information moves through this jungle gym, branching and flowing like the red mercury in a thermometer—my God, it's twisted like this:

  Oh God, what have I stumbled onto? This is the basic cable—it's Crick and Watson's double helix again, and the ancient sign. Billions of these twisting interwoven conduits—it places a linkage in place, a bar or leg, a rigid shank, and then twists the flexible red and gold double helix filaments around it; it supports the twisting strands—it is material, they are—energy? They travel along supported by the linking bar. That means our material physical world—all its constituents—becomes mere rigid supports for "cables" that are not substantial which carry the messages and are the real business of the "volvox"-like brain.

  Then the macro-organism can distribute its energy anywhere it wishes, to any station along any cable. Entropy is overruled, because of this deliberate and effective capacity to transfer charge (potential) at will. This is an important matter; this lies at the heart of negentropy. I make no clear dis tinction between energy, information, and the life of this organism. Transfer, storage, boosting—I shift from a biological model to a circuit model, I realize, but both seem to apply; from the very start when I saw it in 3-74 it behaved as (1) electricity; and (2) alive.

  What I defined as set-to-ground could also be termed signal-to-noise. Since entropy (disorder) enters into information theory, in 3-74 it could be said I was able to extract message or order out of apparent disorder—i.e., perceive a negentropy normally outside our percept system. What seemed to define signal was certain frequencies of light—wave lengths of the color spectrum. One would have to (1) know that the signal was on that particular frequency; and (2) be able to unscramble the frequency from all others received—this happened to me outside my volition. Ability to distinguish color frequencies more and more accurately (precisely) seems to be an evolving faculty in humans. On specific red frequencies the information formed messages intelligible to me—geometric forms marked with Greek letters. Also, the living, sentient plasma I called Zebra was on that red frequency. In referring to my reference books I find that the red I saw as set or signal is at the most extreme high end of the visible spectrum. I take it, therefore, that the band of color visible to me had become increased, perhaps into the infrared. It looked like overamped (valent) red phospers in the tube gun (cathode tube) of a TV set. Reds, too, had predominated in the phosphene activity. The infrared end is long waves, interestingly, they are heat (i.e., thermal).

  Voice: "There's something (or someone) else living inside my head, and he's not living in this century."

  "Because the Holy Spirit was a living being for him, it is for me."

  [18:81] So again we seem to have two mutually exclusive true propositions:

  (A) "Thomas" is a former life of mine (of me) and I was "Thomas."

  (B) "Thomas" is "someone else inside my head," i.e., other than me, and "he is (right now) not living in this century."

  (A) equates with my anamnesis in 2-74 upon seeing the golden fish sign. I remembered I was/am in Rome c. A.D. 45. Ergo: Thomas is me. But:

  (B) Thomas talks to me, and he thinks in the Koine, which I don't know. Ergo, he is not me.

  And, if (as it appears) he is in my head but "not living in this century," then time is a fucking illusion and not linear at all. I point at once to my omni-faceted omni-world-generating sphere with its push-pull engagement with all the psychoi.

  I'd say I possess—just in this alone—knowledge such as few humans have ever had, and experiences to match. [...] Perhaps my "Onion" model of time is absolutely correct; Thomas locks into one layer, I another (again cf. Ubik). Thomas, locked into Rome c. A.D. 45, is still alive—and not just alive but in my head. My head! Am I, likewise, in his head? Or is this just one head? Fuck! [...]

  Beyond doubt: Thomas and I are co-inhabitants of my head (i.e., brain or mind, probably brain), existing side by side, somewhat but not entirely partitioned off from each other—I say not entirely because (1) in hypnogogic states I can transliminate him, or he can transliminate; and (2) in 2-3-74 he first broke through—in 2-74—and in 3-74 he virtually took over—he did take over! And (3) in crisis he can speak to me—I guess when my ego begins to implode, which fits in with (2).

  Okay—multiple personalities. Great. Fine—the literature is full of these cases. But with him living in another century? How can he be "living" in another century when my head, brain and body are here? I must cite my omni-world-generating push-pull-action sphere—I have no other theory. But if my shoulder dislocates, does his shoulder dislocate? When I saw Rome c. A.D. 45, his world, it did equate with—prove syntonic to—mine. People who I saw were simultaneously Americans and Romans. USA 1974 and Rome c. A.D. 45 seemed to be mere aspects of one substrate (the matrix sphere).

  Obviously the many (plural) space-times are aspects projected onto and/or by (from) the matrix which is totally "open" or plastic, capable of seeming to be any place and any time. Brahman!

  [18:84] I state: the passage of time since "Acts" is spurious. That is it. That is the premise derived from empirical experience. Whatever our senses tell us means nothing. Circular time, not linear time, is involved. When St. Sophia (Christ) returns it will be in apostolic times, as promised.

  The 1,900 intervening years are a spurious interpolation by the BIP. This is why I (Thomas) constantly write in indictment of the substantiality of our reality. There is a one-to-one correspondence between (1) the spuriousness of our world; and (2) my writing about this, including writing about falsified memories.

  It has been my job to indict our world as spurious and I have done it—obsessively, constantly and continuously. I have shown how it can be that such is so; I have examined mechanism after mechanism, model after model.

  In Tears I set out to depict what really does exist, and I did so without my knowing it (so obviously Thomas wrote it): I depicted the world of "Acts." It all dovetails. QED the content of Tears is the proof of all the above. Under epistemological attack, the world of "Acts" stands as being—the rest dissolves as mere accretional shifting aspects.

  [18:86] What a realization: transtemporal-constant secret Christians, originating in apostolic times, and lying within humans in succeeding generations—reactivated by external disinhibiting stimuli (but before this or without this can covertly direct the persons they inhabit, like the way Thomas secretly masterminded my writing). Hot dog!

  But this is exactly what I'm not supposed to talk about. These underlying co-habitating secretly still living apostolic Christians want to stay secret; Thomas is only one of several or many, I guess. What I am just beginning to realize is that Thomas has for at least 27 years masterminded my writing and its themes, if not my whole life. This should not be publicly disclosed, for obvious reasons. He took over in 3-74 to save me, and I should not write about it. I've been told. It is counterproductive.

  What I must concentrate on is not the irreality of our world or worlds plural, but the absolute transtemporal-constant: the apostolic secret Christians still alive and at work. This fits in with my flash upon seeing the golden fish sign: I saw the secret early Christians hurrying about their business.

  Then the answer is: Thomas is not a former life of mine. I did not live once in Rome c. A.D. 45, Thomas is an immortal apostolic Christian, and Rome c. A.D. 45 is the real present world, * and Thomas co-inhabits my head, locked into the real world. "Acts" is not a past world—v. Tears, it is the noumenal matrix of this world. We are not dealing with either the past or a past life and personality, but the urwelt lying under the Dokos. Thomas and
his world is here and now, and he knows it. [...]

  So I am, so to speak, a front—a face—for an immortal, transtemporal secret early Christian who is operating—undoubtedly in conjunction with others like him—in contemporary history. This is behind-the-scenes stuff, thrilling and scary. I certainly see Thomas' hand or mind in my writing. Yes indeed, he is with me, not is me—in my head. But "living in another century."

  I have even experienced the postmortem world, through Thomas: my 3-74 experience was all I thought it was. "Bright white light shining in the night to guide your way."

  Folder 2

  SEPTEMBER 1978

  [2:1] So Thomas is not a former me or a multiple personality. The single sentence last night ("there's someone else inside my head and he's not living in this century") nails it down.

  (1) "Someone else." Thomas is not me.

  (2) "Inside my head." It's a human being (not the Holy Spirit).

  (3) "He's not living in this century." This opens the door to that which is beyond conception. Operating out of my head he is locked into the world of "Acts." Here ends 4 years and 6 months of analysis and research. Time is unmasked as irreal; 1,900 years are disclosed as aspect of one underlying matrix; Tears and its "Acts" material is explained; my 27 years of writing the same themes over and over again fits into place; 2-74 and 3-74 is comprehensible, as is the overthrow of Nixon; the transtemporal constants have been explicated. When I got onto the "volvox" model and the push-pull system I was pretty close: the slowly revolving matrix structure, sphere, and the way it enhances what we project. The negentropic total system with its stations and connecting links, forming a vast brain—what a grand vision—how beautiful. The brain cannibalizing its earlier law-bound self to achieve total homeostasis and wakefulness for all its parts, so that all is brain, not sub-brain, interface for mind, all lives, all knows, all participates.

  But I'm under the stricture of silence, because to publish all this I'd have to tell about the immortal authentic apostolic Christians operating covertly in us. Perhaps I should destroy the exegesis. It's a journey which reached its goal.

  [2:5] In my dream in Canada, Kathy said, "One day the masks will come off, and you will understand all." It came to pass—and I was one of the masks, much to my surprise—and my whole world as well.

  [2:10] Voice: "It will take (i.e., require) the appearance of noble men." I.e., the second incarnation (i.e., to certify that it's come). (Or rather, before it can happen. Is Thomas one of these?)

  ***

  [2:12] The only models for this that I've ever even heard of, let alone know, are my own stories and novels. This situation appears again and again. Take the story "Retreat Syndrome." Or the novel Maze. The same idea (as has been pointed out to me by all sorts of readers) is reworked again and again, obsessively and endlessly; viz: I keep trying out new ways to account for this situation:

  (A) you see world X and have memories to match.

  (B) that world X is irreal, a delusion, and hides real world Y, and the memories in you are faked to match fake world X.

  The explanations for this change, but the paradigm does not. I'd state the paradigm this way:

  A group of people live in a particular world, i.e., time and place. Then one or more of them begins by degree to discover (or the reader learns) that that world is only a veil or delusional world covering another, real one, which the characters once knew about—lived in—but have both forgotten and can no longer perceive. In a variety of ways the latent, hidden, forgotten real world shows through or intrudes, or abolishes entirely the surface, delusional world, and their real memories of it return.

  This is exactly what happened to me in 2-74, then more so in 3-74, and then I found that hidden, real world depicted in the novel I wrote four years earlier—which was released the very week (2-74) I remembered the truth.

  [2:17] To reject the absolute nature of Y (Rome, c. A.D. 45) and hold that we have here twin, real, equal, separate selves and worlds housed in and/or emanating from one brain sticks us with a cosmology, an epistemology, more bizarre than the absolute vs. the mere aspect one. We wind up with the theoretical possibility of an unlimited number of equally real (or irreal) worlds and selves due entirely to brain-site stimulation or some such sophisticated technology—which is a more radical weltansicht75 than even Brahmanism, who can be in whatever form he wishes. Instead of real hidden world versus fake seeming world we have more than one (two to infinity) worlds all simulated uniformly, and selves to match. 2-74 and 3-74 then become "technological breakdown" which "reveals the true state of affairs" and that seems to be the site-stimulated brain that Lem perceives is the basic model of my writing. My writing is proved by my 2-3-74 experience and vice versa. What I seem to be is a malconstructed entity: somehow the "factory" or "mechanism" fucked up and stuck two personalities in my head (brain) living in different worlds thousands of miles apart and thousands of years apart—thus disclosing the nature of self and world in general. And I had written it all up in many stories and many novels—i.e., called world-wide attention to the paradigm at least as a fictional or—better yet—theoretical possibility.

  [2:20] Voice: "Pretexts," i.e., what we see as (call) causes, are just pretexts for the controlling entity to have the results he wants to happen—and appear to do so for a physical reason.

  [2:21] I have a choice between two totally wild conclusions:

  (A) either it's really Rome c. A.D. 45, and the USA 1974 world is just a way of viewing "Acts," a mere illusory aspect, through which the real world of "Acts" broke through in 3-74, or

  (B) our world (space and time) and all other worlds are simulations due to direct stimulation of certain brain sites, projected onto an a-spatial, a-temporal, plastic matrix out there, by an entity unglimpsed. [...]

  B is implied by the sentence, "there is someone else in my head and he is not living in this century." Up to hearing this, I had gone with A. Now I am forced, really for the first time, to consider B as likely or even more likely (than A). The "pretexts" idea when explicated totally ratifies B. However, if my writing is introduced as evidence, A is favored. The Q is, Does "Acts" as world possess any claim to being absolute?

  [2:22] Conclusion:

  The vast traffic of information which I saw in 3-74 when I saw "Zebra" is the answer. We are in an information-processing entity—it may even be [living] information. It uses us to receive, modulate, store and transmit information. So it is computer-like—or AI-system-like, or brain-like—a cybernetics or biological model will both work. Basically it knows.

  World is—worlds are—push-pull projected/generated for us, by us, through us, so that we see world, not the entity as it is (supra paragraph). Why this is I have no idea—i.e., why we are given what we call "reality" (world) and don't know what we really are (supra), are for, where, why, what.

  [2:25] Theologically, the only known formulation would be a thorough Brahmanism, very thorough. We (the Atmans or brains) are real, and outside us, Brahman plays tricks and games in conjuring up any and all worlds—X number of them, one for each individual Atman, which means billions—and each Atman finds its exterior analog perfectly substantial, real, consistent, satisfactory and objective (but: compared to what, I ask).

  [2:30] I have been governed too much by my own fictional models (e.g., Maze, Joint).

  [2:36] So our little psyche-world systems are perpetually bombarded with incoming information which we process and, at the right time to the right other stations we transmit in the rightly modified form—but all this takes place through us as if we were transistors, diodes, wires condensers and resistors, all none the wiser. Meanwhile our closed private world engages our attention with challenges, pain and delight, so that we will not merely subsist as slave components with nothing to do but function. After all, there will be long intervals when no adventitious information needs to be processed by us—without a world, we would degenerate fatally during the standby periods, which, I intuit, may last years or even decades. Meanwhile
we have food, music, books and friends.

  The primal necessity of this info processing may explain events and episodes in our lives which otherwise remain enigmatic or appear even futile—pointless travail, goalless activity. For all we know, it is during or because of these that we then or later can fulfill our data processing task. I'm not sure of this but I suspect it.* [...]