The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick

by Philip K. Dick

  [39:65] I seek beauty like Parsifal sought the Grail—but what a price I pay.

  I don't write beautifully—I just write reports about our condition to go to those outside of cold-pak. I am an analyzer.

  Folder 41*

  Spring 1979

  [41:31] Dream:

  G-2 has created a "doomsday device," an artificial life form. I mention, "KGB contacted me." I am with G-2 (which is my code for U.S. [Army] intelligence). A man named Jim shows me the doomsday device. And then quickly runs upstairs. Analysis: doomsday device is what I call Valis. It is a construct invented by humans, specifically U.S. military intelligence. Tears shows traces of its cerebration, so KGB contacted me; this was G-2's purpose in putting the material in Tears, a ruse to draw them out and trap them. It worked. Hence my programming to report at once to "G-2" when the contact was made.

  [41:59] The device has begun to breathe; it has newly entered (invaded, come to life in) our world. It is Valis, it is St. Sophia, the Buddha, the head Apollo. It is alive (now). The great old air breathing fish which is the eye turned into a horizontal axis. It spans both this world and the other (next, upper). But I don't know what it is. If it's supernatural it is the logos. If not—

  [41:60] Then I will take the G-2 dream more or less literally—it tells me that Valis is a U.S. doomsday device and that is the long and the short of it. The dream tells the truth, the literal truth. The dream told me what I knew but refused to face: it's a weapon of an ultimate nature. The living info plasma got loose, but I don't think anything can be done now. We are scared as hell of it. Aha—we let it loose. It didn't escape; we released it and it is self-replicating and has infested our worldwide media. This was our plan, our anti-Soviet weapon. The way it worked on me is the way it's supposed to work: promotes love of God and country; v. the roses and lake dream. It creates an ersatz personality in the person. With predictable characteristics. God, country, bourgeois attitudes toward property—we are talking about capitalist mind control. [...] It isn't God; it causes belief in God. There is a syndrome, here, a recognizable one: God, country, property, car, dog, beer: a certain political ideological personality type—bourgeois—is created, which is politically reliable and dependable, and can be counted upon.

  Look at the effect it had on me—it turned me around completely politically, the specific act of contacting the bureau and then the general syndrome: God, country, anti-CP, dog, beer, car, property—I knew it was an adventitious override personality and yet I was helpless to combat it. [...] I viewed anything left wing as alien and sinister, foreign and evil—despite the hit on my house and all the other terror tactics by the U.S. military and G-2 (sic!). I viewed them as my friends, to be turned to and confided in. What kind of sense does that make? I loved and obeyed my oppressors.

  I cooperated fully with my oppressors. There was no further degree to which I could be turned around—I went all the way, due to the override, and experienced (1) a sense of having done the right thing for God and country; and (2) a total loss of anxiety, of exculpation (naturally). Fred, of Bob/Fred, had totally won. I literally narked on myself!

  [...]

  Fear killed the rebel in me in 3-74 and I never regretted it, since it gave me freedom from fear. They got me. The intimidation worked—e.g., the hit on my house. Now my left-wing rebellion is merely pro forma—I am an authoritarian personality, mouthing respectable beliefs. So as to gain the approval of Jesus freak ministers; I let them sit in judgment on me. Being locked up in OCMC16 didn't do me very much good in stiffening my spine. That sealed it.

  I am afraid of (1) the civil authorities (Caesar); and (2) God (Valis). Hence it can be said I am afraid of authority, of whatever is powerful.

  Folder 42

  [42:1] On the other hand, look at the hopeless situation I boxed myself into in 3-74. Something had to be done—a complete solution or no solution; i.e., a radical solution was essential.

  [...] It was play ball or perish. Okay—I chose the expedient solution, but my life was on the line. Economic terrors and political terror tactics had brought me to the verge of death. I avoided my sinister fate. Am I sorry? Now I feel secure; I live on; I write. Was this a mistake? What was the alternative? I sought the sanctuary of God, country—the institutions hallowed and sanctified by society. My life was at stake. So I turned to God and the Bureau, and financial security. Well, excuse me. I was a totally desperate person, which I no longer am. I can sleep at night. Okay—I play ball with my persecutors and pay off anyone who could hurt me: I am in a position of weakness and I know it. My cowardice is realistic.

  [42:21] I have underestimated God and overestimated myself for five years. The only issue at stake was my welfare. I am sobered; I have lived on fantasy and immensely enjoyed my alleged heroic status. My basic delusion was to actually believe it was possible that a Soviet espionage ring (KGB) would contact me; that is psychotic and grandiose. It's not much fun to merely have been an object of suspicion. I grossly overestimated my importance to all concerned. What I have to face now is that a lot of what I believed was psychotic. Simple paranoia would have sufficed. Megalomania overshot the mark.

  [42:39] Hypnopompic: "They know I'm their pitiless enemy."

  Dream: I am Jerry Lewis, a contemptible clown, but admired by millions, especially in France. In a parking lot I fall, and lie down to die. At once my fans gather from everywhere, and close in around me to protect me, giving military salutes; it is a heroic scene, the dying leader and his loyal troops.

  Folder 43

  [43:46]

  [43:83] So irreality and perturbation are the two perplexities which confront us; irreality is deepening, but the changeover shows enigmatic traces or imprints which do not belong, in particular of a parallel world phasing in and out; this latter (plus the presence of the macromind) is what is pointed to, but in a nonsensical, baffling way. To a very large degree memory no longer agrees with history.

  I wonder if this sheds any light on schizophrenia. Could the schizophrenic be given conflicting realities or data about reality? His mind has to put together constituents which simply do not fit. He is a casualty of this revision process and cannot make sense out of it. How is he to penetrate to the mystery—explanation—underlying what he undergoes? If my cosmology is correct, would you not anticipate such casualties? My writing is a deliberate attempt to take these conflicting or disintegrating realities, and the experiences of them, and seek some kind of ontological or metaphysical overview? So in a way I have battled against schizophrenia by seeking a philosophical framework which will (1) accept as real these disruptive data; and (2) account for them. 2-3-74, then, can be viewed as the catalytic triumph or payoff—i.e., the success—of decades of observation and analysis and theorizing. I have had to deal with deluding, irreal, conflicting, chaotic and fremd material, and just plain hung in there conceptually, taking the view that some explanation must exist, although it would have to be radical and far-reaching.

  I actually had to develop a love of the disordered and puzzling, viewing reality as a vast riddle to be joyfully tackled, not in fear but with tireless fascination. What has been most needed is reality testing, and a willing ness to face the possibility of self-negating experience: i.e., real contradictions, with something being both true and not true.

  The enigma is alive, aware of us, and changing. It is partly created by our own minds; we alter it by perceiving it, since we are not outside it. As our views shift, it shifts. In a sense it is not there at all (acosmism); in another sense it is a vast intelligence; in another sense it is total harmonia and structure. (How logically can it be all three? Well, it is.)

  Folder 4417

  [44:12] Leaving aside the question of how/why 2-3-74 was an analog in real life of situations in my fictional prior writing, I assess that in 2-74 I flashed (the blitz) on the resemblance—a flashing which quantum leaped in 3-74 as additional factors popped into existence, and I drew certain broad theoretical conclusions, mainly subliminally, very radical concl
usions (to a great extent I know not what). [...]

  The "very radical conclusions" seemed to include an intuition that reality could be tricked (so to speak) into contradicting itself; viz: if it assumes a perpetually obliging form for the purpose of simulating the semblance of verisimilitude, then via the right approach this very obliging quality can be turned against it in terms of continuity, its continuity, since it cannot withhold its obliging or mimicking quality. All you need do is totally believe that pattern "x" exists and if "x" is potentially real, it will pass over into the actual. This requires a push-pull relationship between the person and reality. He can't, say, will a blue phoenix into existence ex nihilo; the person must enter into a progressive intricate dialogue with reality in which there is feedback between both parties. (This assumes sentience, volition and intentionality in reality.) Reality testing, not its absence, is required. He is feeling out its softer flexible parts, where it will yield, how much and in what way.

  [44:63] Listening to the Platt tape18 I construe by the logic presented that Valis (the other mind) which came at me from outside and which overpowered me from inside was indeed the contents of my collective unconscious, and so technically a psychosis, since this is how you define psychosis (it certainly would explain the animism outside, and the interior dissociated activity) but—well, okay; it would account for the AI voice, the three eyed Sibyl, and the extreme archaism of the contents. And seeing Rome c. A.D. 45 would simply be psychotic delusion—I did not know where or when I really was.

  Q: What about the resemblance to my writing?

  A: The content was originally in my unconscious, e.g., Tears and Ubik.

  Q: What about external events? The girl? The letters?

  A: Coincidence.

  Q: And the written material? Huge books held open?

  A: Verbal memory.

  Q: Why would I believe that my senses were enhanced, i.e., I could see for the first time?

  A: Psychotomimetic drugs indicate this happens in psychosis.

  Q: And Kosmos? Everything fitting together?

  A: "Spread of meaning," typical of psychosis.

  Q: Foreign words and terms I don't know?

  A: Long-term memory banks open. Disgorging their contents into consciousness.

  Q: Problem solving—i.e., the Xerox missive?

  A: There was no problem; it was harmless.

  Q: Why the sense of time dysfunction?

  A: Disorientation.

  Q: Why the sense that the mind which had taken me over was wiser than me and more capable?

  A: Release of psychic energy.

  Q: Why was that mind and the whole experience syntonic to me? If it was syntonic to my ego, why had it been repressed?

  A: My ego was destroyed, so "syntonic" has no meaning here. Syntonic to what?

  Q: From a practical standpoint I functioned better. How could this be?

  A: It only subjectively felt better. No anxiety.

  Q: Why would I seek the experience again if it was repressed contents breaking through? Could I not let them through again, or never have excluded them following 3-74? The contents and the other mind leaked away; I tried to hold onto them but in vain.

  A: I was occluded to my own best interests. I liked being high.

  Q: Oh? "High"? Does psychosis equal high?

  A: Mania. I am manic depressive.

  Q: And schizophrenic? One is extraverted and one is introverted. Please clarify.

  A: Mixed or "borderline" psychosis.

  Q: No, it was florid schizophrenia with religious coloration. Not satisfactory.

  A: Catatonic excitement, then.

  Q: So the OCMC diagnosis was incorrect? Not manic depressive?

  A: That is so. Incorrect.

  Q: Why, then, was the onset one in which thought came faster and faster? That is mania.

  A: The lithium would've blocked mania. I was lithium toxic.

  Q: Then it wasn't schizophrenia; it was chemical toxicity.

  A: Perhaps. A combination. Plus the orthomolecular water-soluble vitamins.

  Q: But the orthomolecular WS vitamins are anti-schizophrenic.

  A: That is only speculation.

  Q: If 2-3-74 was psychosis, then what was the ego state which it obliterated?

  A: Neurotic. Or mildly schizophrenic. Under stress the weak ego disintegrated.

  Q: Then how could the phobias associated with my anxiety neurosis remain? E.g., agoraphobia?

  A: It does not compute. Something is wrong. They should have gone away or become totally overwhelming. The impaired ego must have still been intact.

  Q: Were my "dissociated" behaviors bizarre?

  A: No, they were problem-solving. It does not compute.

  [...]

  Q: This is no psychosis. You have contradicted yourself. This is a latent higher brain center—a psychotic episode creates problems; it does not solve them. It is a problem, as well as the collapse of rational efforts at problem-solving. Were its decisions and actions rational?

  A: Although religious in coloration—

  Q: That is not the issue. Were the problems solved?

  A: Yes. But by a psychotic self.

  Q: That is an oxymoron. A "psychotic self took over and problem solved." This is where the inquiry has led. The ego could not face or solve the crisis problem because of its severity, fled, and in its place another self solved the problem successfully. This leads us to a new frontier which is not mapped.

  A: Then the enigma remains.

  Q: We have learned nothing.

  A: Nothing.

  Q: After finishing listening to the tape do you have any intuition or guess as to who and what the Valis mind is? (Later.)

  A: Yes. It is female. It is on the other side—the postmortem world. It has been with me all my life. It is my twin sister Jane.*

  ***

  [44:68] Hypnagogic 5:30 A.M. voice: "We have adopted you because you adopted others—e.g., the children at Covenant House."19 And I realized: adopted. The adoptionist theory about Jesus: adopted by God at the time of Jesus' baptism, as God's son.20 And I understood: this meant—was saying—God has adopted me the way he did Jesus, and so the other mind is God's; I was sure the voice meant to convey this to me, in answer to my Q&A dialogue supra, that my conclusion about my sister was wrong and was being corrected.

  [44:73] "In contrast to its exoteric form, the esoteric Torah was regarded as a pre-existential being made up of the one great name of God. Philo speaks of the Torah as a living being whose body is the literal text of the Pentateuch and whose soul is the occult meaning that underlies the written word."

  Ach! This is the "Acts" material, the living information I saw: the "plasmate." "Acts" (and probably other parts of the Bible) is/are alive and can replicate. Perhaps "Acts" (like the Torah) has an underlying occult meaning. King Felix. It was alive. But what would the underlying occult (i.e., hidden) meaning be? Let us just say it has one.

  I am sure I am on the right path here. A whole reality of names or living words (cf. Joint) is pointed to. Yes, but "Acts" as "pre-existential being," as "living being whose body is the literal text ... and whose soul is the occult meaning that underlies the written word" point unmistakably to the preexistent logos, to St. Sophia, to Christ!

  [44:82] Is not the Empire a (Jungian) ossified (iron) complex invaded by a "metabolic toxin" which will dissolve it? Isn't this really a mind which is deranged—i.e., frozen into an overvalent complex, so that real time has ceased? Isn't this my primary contention? This is the phagocytosis of the heavy metal particle which I envisioned. Ossified complex, stuck time, the invader? And Tears depicts the ossified complex as a society spanning 2,000 years. This is precisely it: no time has passed since "Acts"; "once the mind becomes psychotic nothing new ever happens in it (or enters it, whatever)." But something new has entered it and it is dissolved—does this explain my dissolving of world (e.g., Joint), my acosmism? Isn't this precisely my job? Not to abolish reality, which is macromind, but the c
omplex, as depicted in Tears?