The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick

by Philip K. Dick

  "Don't tell that you're a secret Christian." "It (the Xerox missive) was from an intelligence officer in the Army." (So it was a trap.)

  "I did call you, Philip." (This, Christ's voice, not the "AI" or Holy Spirit ["You are doomed to do what you will do. There is no other possibility. Some will be saved and some will not."])

  [20:79] Sudden total realization as I was falling asleep (5:50 A.M.). My writing isn't messages smuggled into this spurious world to tell us our situation. No—we are in a prison, and my writing is messages smuggled out! We're trying through such as my writing to contact outside help—and 2-3-74 was that outside help answering the messages re our condition found in my writing—like Bowie's LP record put on the communications media to reach his wife.

  [20:80] This "reporting back" use of my writing, back to those outside, stating conditions here and asking for help, fits with the "little boy Philip on the raft floating toward London" dream: sneaked in here, camouflaged, from outside: "cuckoo's egg" role—grows up mimicking, and reports back.

  Folder 21*

  OCTOBER 1978

  [21:1] Kerygma understood as of October 18, 1978: In Stigmata, Ubik and Maze they are in an irreal world (Lem's paradigm). It is stipulated in Stigmata that no time passes, and this is implicit in Maze (and could be true in Ubik). In Tears the actual world is shown, the world of "Acts," Rome c. A.D. 45. In Scanner the cause of our being unable to reality-test is shown to be a percept-system toxicity or damage, anyhow an inner occlusion deliberately induced by a drug or drug-like substance (which collates with the master magician in Stigmata) administering a drug to people which puts them forever in this irreal world where no time passes—a world they can't tell isn't real. (In Maze two additional points are made: [1] false memories; and [2] negative hallucinations on a mass basis; rather than experiencing what is real, something which is actually there is not experienced.) Thus in those five novels virtually the complete story is shown, especially if one can determine from internal evidence that the world of actuality presented in Tears is the time and place of "Acts." The nature of the entity which seeks to rescue us is given in Ubik, and is called—by itself—"the Word," i.e., Christ or the Logos. It is breaking through "from the other side," one way, uncannily manifesting itself in ways not syntonic to the false world they imagine they're living in. This very experience precisely happened to me in 2-3-74, indicating that all five novels are literally true (I experienced the world of Tears or more accurately the world of "Acts"). I assumed that the purpose of my writing is to acquaint us with our situation, that my novels and stories function like the inbreaking messages in Ubik (such as the graffiti on the bathroom walls), but now I am given to understand that actually my writing is a report on the situation here outgoing—meant to leave our irreal world, to break out, not in, and acquaint the actual world (macrobrain) of our plight. They are then appeals for help, by a salvific entity which has invaded this our irreal world, an entity we can't perceive. It is the Paraclete, which has just now arrived for the first time, immediately following Christ's death and resurrection (it must be kept in mind that the real time is 45 A.D. and the real place is the Roman Empire). My writing is information traffic fed into the macrobrain, which continually processes such information. This information traffic between stations of the macrobrain is itself what we call "the Logos." [...]

  The creator can afford to descend into his own creation. He can afford to shed his memories (of his identity) and his supernatural powers. Then he can test his own creation. But he cannot afford to get stuck in it. The creator deliberately plants clues in his irreal creation—clues which he cunningly knows in time (eventually) will restore his memory (anamnesis) of who he is, and his powers as well; he will then know that his creation is irreal and has imprisoned him in it, thus freeing himself and restoring himself to Godhood.

  So he has a fail-safe system built in. No chance he won't eventually remember. Makes himself subject to spurious space, time and world (and death, pain, loss, decay, etc.), but has these disinhibiting clues or stimuli distributed deliberately strategically in time and space. So it is he himself who sends himself the letter which restores his memory (Legend of the Pearl). No fool he!

  This is perfectly epitomized in the Ubik commercials; he can exist at any trashy layer—sincerely—he wants to be, in any trashy form. But in the end he remembers (as witness the ad over the final chapter of Ubik). Purpose? This way he can permeate his creation with the divine, at all levels, and sincerely (i.e., without even him knowing, while he's doing it!).

  Zebra equals Christ. Christ equals God. Thomas equals Zebra. I equal Thomas. (For "equals" read "is.") Thus I equal God.

  But I've forgotten again. Oh well—I wrote it all down, heh-heh. Knowing I'd again forget. I was invaded (theolepsy) by Christ, all right. But as I say supra, it was I who remembered being Thomas or Christ and living back in Rome c. A.D. 45. So, like in Impostor, I am—

  I love it. It's delightful. It's a dance. Brahman dancing with joy. (Felix.) And so was Pinky; he knew and remembered, too.

  Christ (the Creator) is among us, disguised. Even He has forgotten. He could be any person, any animal. We do not know; He does not know. But eventually He will remember; He has set clues in his own path to trigger off his true memory and powers. Then we will find ourselves judged for the way we treated Him, as told in the NT. He who was our victim, our object, will be our judge.

  In 3-74 I sat down on the judgment seat, when I remembered.

  And what about those who set the trap for me in 3-74, the trap that went back to the raid on my house on 11/17/71. Beware when you set out a trap; you may trap Dionysos, the patron God of small trapped animals.

  ***

  [21:3] I now see our fallen state as consisting of four basic deformations:

  (1) Irreal world, which we accept as real. This cuts us off from the truly real world.

  (2) Perceptual occlusion, which prevents us from accurate reality-testing, so that we ourselves reinforce the convincingness of the irreal world.

  (3) Pervasive deterministic enslavement, which reduces us to the level of reflex machines lacking true volition. We are totally unaware of this.

  (4) Amnesia, which cuts us off from our true memory-systems, which in turn robs us of our authentic identities.

  [21:8] Who gains by this? What is the payoff, and to whom?

  I see at once. Growth is absolutely halted. Time itself is stopped. "Nothing new ever again came into his mind after that"—Jung's definition of psychosis. It is like a world or cosmic psychosis. And that which specifically is blocked is the return of the rightful king and the establishment of the just kingdom. At the critical moment in history, just after the resurrected Christ departs this world and the Holy Spirit comes and begins its work, the 4-pronged inauthenticity takes over. Destruction of Rome ends, and Rome perpetuates itself into an infinitude of fake time. It is as if a spurious ontological matrix or receptacle for Rome is obligingly spun out, and Rome unrolls forever into it in a plethora of disguises. The cycle of the ages congeals; the Iron Age does not pass normally (or at all) into the Golden Age. This is a form of entropy, as Ubik disclosed. The organism has locally died, or at least become sick. (It is stuck in its cycle, in cybernetic terms; it won't kick over—which fits with my idea that we are memory coils which won't kick over and discharge their contents.) The age of power (Mekkis) refuses to yield to the age of love (agape). It will not resign, but since the procession of the ages is automatic, the maintenance of the age of power is counterfeit; that is, it is illusory. A priori, it must be illusory, as KW figured out one time. The Empire is only a phantasm, lingering because we have gone to sleep. So who benefits? The powerful = the Empire, as is disclosed in Tears. But its continual presence is only seeming, and depends on the 4-pronged forgery for its seeming survival. Real time must have gone on and abolished it; ergo, we are caught in Fake Time, which leads right back to my 2/74 anamnesis: the spell over me was in the blink of an eye shattered—and a month later
the real world faded into view. We are dead! There is hysteresis or perseverance of image—something has deliberately been made to go wrong. A spell—wizardry. A spiritual part of us, necessary to our men tal life, has been removed from us; and in the homoplasmate it is restored. That's how it was done; for the inauthenticities to come into being, spiritual death, on our parts, had to occur. (Mors ontologica!) Spiritually, we are literally dead, and so real time for us ceases. Once the Holy Spirit restores that missing part (firebright!) real time picks up, resumes, and the PTG is here.

  [21:10] 4:30 A.M. quasi-voice: "One by one he is drawing us out of this world." (And then is it destroyed?) The time has come.

  Next day. Have read the above. Boy, was I fucked up—I couldn't tell if it was the AI voice or me thinking it. But I got up again to write my absolute conviction as to what the quoted sentence meant: I wrote "the time has come." But this is what the AI said within the last few weeks: "The time you've waited for has come." So? So: "One by one he is drawing us out of this world"—like under nitrous oxide I thought it, but I'd melded with Zebra, the other half of my homoplasmate syzygy. This goes with, "I did call you, Philip." The picking of the (little?) flock—it is the Good Shepherd calling to us.

  "Drawing" is an interesting verb, here, very economical but explicit. It suggests to me a lowered line, such as a fisherman might use; viz: drawing up.

  [21:12] "One by one he is drawing us out of this world" absolutely fits my stagnant pond vision. And the stagnation toxifies us (cf. Scanner). This fits with Thomas' abhorrence toward lead and aerosol sprays. And "he draws us out of this world" equals draws us up out of. Then the world itself can't be saved. This fits in with Gnosticism. We are rescued off this dying (toxic, stagnant) world. But we're not literally lifted up: the voice said "drawing us out of," not "up out of," which is important. Levels of ontological being or functioning may be involved. "This world" would be the lower realm, with its subsentient, mechanical laws—vide Neoplatonism.

  But the stagnant pond dream, and Thomas' attitude toward lead and aerosol sprays, point to a literal toxicity of a literal planet (i.e., world = planet). "Out of" suggests situation, involvement or embroilment.

  "Drawing us out of" could refer to an inner-outer bifurcation. We are in an irreal world based on unmoving fake time; "out" means outside; i.e., the real world. Suppose our irreal world is like a sort of bubble within an actual world, a condition of reduction or entrapment—could we be like the personoids which Lem writes about, within an artificial system?91

  [21:14] The very info traffic which always had controlled me signaled (moved) me along the path to 3-74 deliberately; what it was not was a mal function, or an override—my whole history of writing (e.g., Ubik) points to that: I had figured out the system, or rather the system caused me to be aware of it (subliminally?). My expression of the system was a verbal statement by the system, a verbal report on, of and by itself via me: my writing was generated by it as a part of the very info traffic which controlled me—all of us. So it wished to articulate itself into a verbal picture of itself via me—I am a function of it (and glad to be; in 3-74 it raised me to consciousness of this; that is what happened). [...]

  No, damn it, it is like Ubik! The outside macrobrain is signaling us to wake up, we are like the characters in Eye, asleep—not on the floor of the bevatron—but while watching for Christ to return. We were made toxic—i.e., put into "half life"—as if killed. Fuck! I know it; Ubik is the paradigm! The half-life, the messages, Ubik itself, Runciter—we are in a sort of bubble of irreality: spurious world generated by—the plenary powers, astral determinism, whatever the fuck that is.

  I give up. Its hold was broken over me in 3-74—Salvation is real. Paul was right. But technology is involved, a superior technology.

  [21:16] It replaced my psyche with its noös. That is what happened in 3-74, and I knew what it knew, it was me and I was it. Then it subsided, back to syzygy (symbiosis; subliminal control—it feeds info to me to write). I qua author am a function of it! I am a mouth piece for it, which is fine, since it protects me. My corpus of writing is a true picture of the reality situation, since the macrobrain is the actual author. But the "audience" isn't us here, but the outside; then Zebra, the macrobrain (Logos) is in here, inside this "bubble" with us. Reporting back out to its source. Of course it's in here with us; I saw it; we're in it.

  Maybe the antagonist is entropy. The Empire (age of iron) is entropic (we had already figured this out); newness (energy poured into the material system—time?) is needed to cause it, the system, to progress into real time and the age of gold. So the "override" in 3-74 was against entropy, as escalation of ergic force in me—an anti-entropic vitality; the system, like a clock, runs down, and this is what Zebra combats. (cf. Ubik re Entropy!!!) Entropic time is adegenerate or spurious time. The age of iron wore out, but a congealed "freeze frame" of it is still projected and not replaced; it is frozen.

  This is all dealt with in Ubik—the form-reversion as entropy: time moving backward to "prior, simpler, more stable forms." (The forces of destruction—thanatos ... which is exactly their situation: they have died, and so entropy sets in.) Rome persists because there is not enough heat, energy or life to carry us forward into the next age (agape).

  Our 4-pronged deformation is due to the entropic process; we have lost vital energy and hence are operating at half power, some faculties faded out, entirely; some are vitiated.

  [21:18] The true actual time is c. A.D. 45—since then mere "Palmer Eldritch time" has ballooned out for us.

  I know this is a weird thought, but—could the real world have come to an end c. mid first century A.D. ? And a phantasm rushed in to replace it? Time was drawn out of it?

  [21:18] The creation of info is negentropic. So Zebra generates info, primarily a verbal analog of itself from which it can be reconstituted by means of a pattern. This pattern (or Logos) is superimposed on a human mind, and a microreplication of Zebra results. The person is now isomorphic with the macroplasmate and is possessed by it, aligned by its shape. This is negentropic: pattern or form overpowering chaos. This runs counter to the entropic decay going on in our declining world. It isn't just energy that's transferred but energy (time) and pattern (Logos). This is the creation of the homoplasmate which I speak of. The syzygy or symbiosis; "born from above" or "born of the Spirit" which did not exist in history before Pentecost—the time and place of "Acts."

  Perhaps all the homoplasmates were created at that time, they are immortal! If physically killed they are reborn once the plasmate pattern is re-established (cryptemorphosis). This is code within the DNA which eventually recapitulates itself, given enough time: maturation—and disinhibition (neural firing)—are required. What is recapitulated is not another homoplasmate but the same one; it gives birth to itself, replicating itself over and over again under the proper conditions.

  It actually exists in the info it permeates the universe with. It isn't separate from the words it permeates. If the verbal cycle is interrupted, not its memory is destroyed but it itself. (The set-ground "King Felix.") Then it transfers into the human mind, and can assemble with different combinations—a mixing bond or clutch system. Transterrestrial intelligence exists through the material of this world it can get into a human mind and operate it subliminally. The Logos doesn't know info but is info—it could pass into a door or rock or crystal—or like Pinky.

  So somewhere along the line it entered me as information and patterned me so that in my own writing I replicated (and boosted) it; it got distributed (e.g., in Tears). Not just info concerning it, but it itself. It didn't enter me in 3-74; the writing proves that. In 3-74 neural circuits which had never fired were disinhibited by a drastic drop in GABA fluid set off by the Golden Fish sign in 2-74, and the plasmate in me took conscious control; was "born"—the 2nd spirit from absolute birth, it (Zebra) can enter anything, animate or inanimate; in the latter it takes volitional control of causal processes—mimesis, mimicry, camouflage.

&nbs
p; It assembles itself intact in a human brain from a collage taken from song lyrics, ads, novels, TV, movies—any and all info media, verbal and graphic. Once begun, it governs the person into seeking out the missing parts of the pattern (i.e., it). It even describes itself—e.g., the Bowie flick, Ubik, etc. What must be realized is that its pattern (identity) is a (total) message: it is info. "King Felix" is just one constituent of the totality, which is probably a narrative (story).

  For example, it uses the fish sign—any fish sign. (Because the fish sign is actually a diagram of the double helix DNA molecule; that's why it chose it.)

  This is what Paul meant by, "the secret is: Christ in us."

  Stigmata is a satanic bible: the novel describes the pattern proliferating itself in, on and through humans. By a study of Stigmata one can understand transubstantiation, which was my source and theme (my intent). It's even stated in the novel that Eldritch is the Christian God.

  You get a good deal of the story by combining Ubik and Stigmata.

  [21:21] The "information virus" Zebra destroys the 4-pronged deformation which I have delineated (supra previous set of pages):

  (1) It shows us the real world: Tears (abolishes the counterfeit world: Maze)

  (2) It abolishes the inner occlusion: Scanner (restores our faculties as they are supposed to be)

  (3) It breaks the "astral determinism" (it frees us): "Electric Ant"