The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick

by Philip K. Dick

  Thus the person who correctly performs the mythic rite—and does so with absolute faith—encounters the God whom he worships as world rather than anthropomorphic figure. In the final vision, Christianity becomes indistinguishable from Brahmanism, because in this encounter with the cosmic Christ the worshiper is himself a Christos, a microform of the risen Lord.

  And then finally, above even this, which eventually will be presented to God, is the semplice lume that Dante speaks of:

  One simple flame.

  God is the book of the universe, whose pages are scattered throughout. The sacred history itself forms a narrative that can be discerned, but it is obscured by the normal flux. Everything is written down and has been written down from the beginning, as the Jews knew from the disclosure of the Torah. Basically, sacred history exists as information; first in terms of temporal sequence; first in order of ontology. The mythic ritual is an entry key into the sacred narrative. It functions the way an entry key of a computer functions vis-à-vis a given program.

  This narrative can be entered from any point in mundane time by the correct entry key which in itself tells a story or a part of a story—part of the master narrative (which, as I say, is information out of which reality is generated). What interests me is the apparent fact that there are a number of sacred narratives, not one, so that different entry keys—which is to say different mythic rites—punch you into different narratives, which is to say different meta-realities. For example, Christianity is only one "narrative" of many; the war between the Empire and its prisoner (who in early chap ters is crucified but later on is released unharmed)—this is not the sacred narrative but a sacred narrative. Christianity then as a sacred history is not the truth but a truth, which can be avoided or punched into, either by design or by accident (I punched into it by accident).

  [...]

  Now, here on [>] of this paper, I come across another and never before suspected computer aspect of Valis: that it contains a number of "sacred histories," which is to say "sacred narratives," not just one; and different mythic rites reperformed keypunch you into entry into particular narratives among the plural narratives; and I called these "programs." Which as I put it means that Christianity is not the truth but only one "sacred narrative," which is to say one sacred history of the plural number. But how can there be plural histories of the world? How can Valis contain more than one sacred book (to use Dante's term)?

  I punched into Christianity because of the particular mythic rite I reenacted; had I reenacted another mythic rite I would have punched into another "sacred narrative," which is to say program. This thing is an information processing computer or computer like entity. [...] What I have in Tears is not the truth but just a narrative; but it is a Torah like narrative: it is not the book of the universe/world but a book. It is one out of many. This is extraordinary. I had (last night) solved 3-74; I thought so today. Now I'm back to square one or anyhow square two. It's a good thing I've been keeping notes.

  [...]

  So we have the key to history turning into a key to history. But how can there be several alternate keys to history unless these are computer programs being run simultaneously? If you have one sacred history you have revelation, but if you have several you have a mystifying discovery which is one puzzle solved but a greater one disclosed.

  [83:91] What we see today as a war between progressive communism and reactionary capitalist imperialism is an ontogenic face with a longer-term conflict between those dedicated to freedom and the Empire. (At a former time the progressive force was the middle-class, the bourgeois, versus the aristocracy, and so forth back into pre-Christian times ... another example being the conflict between the Protestant forces and the Catholic league during the 30 years war. And, before that, between Christianity and the Roman Empire; before that, between Greece and Persia; before that, between the Hebrews and Egypt.) If Valis is regarded as the Hegelian geist of history, then it is always on the side of the forces of freedom, since as Hegel says, history is a gradual unfolding of greater and greater stages of human freedom, achieved by dialectical interaction. This was recognized by Marx and Engels and applied practically in terms of dialectical materialism.

  This is essentially exemplar history; the Jews view history this way, seeing YHWH's bringing the Jewish people out of their Egyptian captivity as a timeless, in fact eternal event, always happening. However, the situation is now different; the enslaved people cannot be rescued by departing the Empire because the Empire is worldwide; instead, they must overthrow the Empire. This is precisely what the "Acts" archetype reveals: not an exodus of the enslaved but an infiltration into the apparatus of the Empire by the enslaved by which their emancipation is achieved.

  [83:93] VALIS deals with the internal partisan activity; VALIS Regained deals with the invasion from outside. The latter occurs when the internal partisans have been sufficiently successful.

  [83:95] For decades I have sought to see "the permanent world of unchange behind the flux," and when I finally saw it it turned out to be a historical exemplar situation, a dramatic one; in fact a narrative that could be expressed as a story. (And I myself had done so!) So I am saying something quite remarkable and unusual: the world (identified by Schopenhauer with Brahman) turns out to be a dramatic story that can be rendered in words—although I saw it as reality, as reified, as substantia. Yes; this is what substantia turns out to be, for me: not "Deus sive natura sive substantia" but "ultimate substance turns out to be a dramatic story that shows up in print as a tracing, the underlying reality being a series of events."

  [83:122] What the AI voice said exactly was:

  "The secret stolen in one's hands through➊ the angels."

  I think that it was YHWH who addressed me, whom I have been calling Valis. He has reentered the world as a rebel against the entire system of rule that he originally ordained. This secret return—and rebellion—would explain such an extraordinary matter as the theophany I experienced.

  This is why I dreamed of Elijah and Mount Carmel and Elisha and "Elias." And YHWH is the AI voice I hear, the voice of Ho On ... the little clay pot.

  If this is so—well, anyhow I was on the right track in VALIS Regained. But: to suppose, just suppose, that Valis is YHWH! To imagine it even for a moment ... it was what I wanted so badly when I was a kid first reading the Bible. This is Sila,69 the soul of the universe, speaking in a woman's voice "that would not frighten even a child," as the Nome shaman put it.

  YHWH: the low, murmuring voice.

  He calls us to rebellion into freedom, the little clay pot who fashioned the universe.

  ➊ "Through" meaning "past." Gotten past the angels.

  [83:127] September 10, 1980

  I have to realize that the revelation about the reality of the Prison is a genuine revelation; it exists down through the ages and it exists now. I saw it: Prison and Empire, the tunnel of history. When I say "revelation" I mean divine disclosure of the nature of history ... and that I had correctly depicted this archetype in Tears, that Tears was true; a timeless condition of man's servitude to the Empire, man enslaved; and the rest of the revelation was of the genuine secret underground Christians fighting it. How easily I forgot this revelation and sought for obscure meanings! [...]

  3-74 can't be understood except in terms of the narrative told in Tears; this narration is the real purpose of it all (but I was so surprised by 3-74 that I forget that). But as a writer I should realize: It is what is written that matters; that is the goal. First I told the story (in Tears) and then an example of what I told (freedom) took place in regard to me. So I experienced the very release that I had written about. Thus my extrication is a dazzling example of the power of God to rescue, and I can then apply it to the general narrative, to history, and see how it is done and that it is done. The name of all this (3-74) is information. [...]

  Could the "Acts" material in Tears decode to mean: where the Prison is, He is there, too? I think so. I think that is it—and this is also tr
ue—very true—of the two-word cypher. I wrote the Prison narrative, and God put in the Christian narrative. Together these two parts form the complete story. (My story by itself is only half the story; the rest—the good part—I didn't know.) The story is not just "There is a prison" but "and it is under attack by the Christians, by Christ Himself." This is quite different.

  As to the question, "Who is the information for?" I will probably never know; perhaps information is information and exists for its own sake.

  [83:130] September 13, 1980

  Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages:

  The imagination was continually striving, and in vain, to express the ineffable by giving it shape and figure. To call up the absolute, recourse is always had to the terminology of extension in space ... ([>]).

  But still the contemplation of the absolute Being ever remains linked up with notions of extension or of light (note, [>]).

  The mystic imagination found a very impressive concept in adding to the image of the desert, that is to say, extension of surface—that of the abyss, or extension in depth. The sensation of giddiness is added to the feeling of infinite space ... ([>]).

  In my six and a half years of working on my exegesis I have often said, "l have found it." I don't want to do that one more time, one in an endless series of failure. It seems almost as if the mere saying of it causes it to permutate to some other explanation. But I do think that the night I was talking on the phone to KW and realized that in 3-74 I experienced Medieval vertical—which is to say Gothic—space, and this meant that I had ontologized reality in terms of Medieval use of space, time and causality, and hence Valis was God or Christ (it is the same); I think then I had it: that the vast volume of vertical space that I experienced in 3-74 (as well as the transformations in time as if I were seeing down a time axis extending thousands of years) meant that I had abreacted to a Medieval worldview, and within that view a theophany was logical, i.e., possible.

  Theophany and miracle and pronoia in the modern worldview, the way we organize space, time and causation now would make no sense; so God provided a meaningful context in which these could logically occur.

  [...]

  But I ramble. All I want to say is that Valis was God, that 3-74 was theophany, miracle and pronoia, and pronoia based on an intelligent analysis of me and my situation, not whim and not (on the other hand) something rigidly determined, which is to say something reflexive and mechanical. My sinister destiny was abolished; tampered with, so to speak, in the sense that the Greco-Roman mystery religions taught. It was a supreme adjudication of my case, and the books were, as the EB says, closed.

  I am tired. I've labored for over six and a half years to fathom 3-74, to figure out if it was (as I suspected) a theophany and example of pronoia or if it just seemed so because it had the pragmatic effect of these. I am now satisfied that all three did in fact take place. I have been relentlessly skeptical and relentlessly imaginative and I have done enormous research and tried out as many possible theories as I could come up with.

  The desert and abyss finally won my assent, as if by weariness. The negative way to God, perhaps.

  [83:136] Fascinating, the view that the dialectical struggle of the two historical constants—the Empire and the Christians—gives rise to Valis the Cosmic Christ, who builds his body out of the "stockpile of parts" created by the antithetical struggle. The Empire, of course, has no idea that the very struggle itself gives rise to the Cosmic Christ, so-to-speak feeds him, feeds him ever newer parts for his macrosoma. (Presumably the secret authentic Christians do know this; they don't need to win to win, so to speak.) (All they need do is keep the historical struggle going.)

  [83:138] But I banalize my conclusions by these obsessive notes, and I must give them up; I realized this from reading the 9-2-80 pages. My mind worries and scurries, contradicts itself, comes to conclusions and then arbitrarily drops them; the exegesis does not build. There is no accumulative factor.

  Nonetheless (without repeating the arguments; I always repeat my arguments, stating them again and again in exactly the same words, like a stuck LP) I will say: I found myself in 2-3-74 involved with theophany, miracle, pronoia and enthusiasmos by the Second Comforter. Now, I will certainly natter on past this point, worry and ponder and obsessively write for years to come; but this is a kind of tribute on my part to the importance of what I underwent, what I saw, what I learned; it is a way of preserving the memory of it all, this endless rehashing: that is the real point, to keep the memory—which is so cherished—alive. After all, it has been over six and a half years, now! And I don't want to forget. Valis was the Christian God, whether YHWH or Christ; and inside me "Thomas" was the paraclete, and I have really always known this but was reticent to say so and hesitant to believe. Weariness has brought me to the point where I can say, I have followed all the lines of argument and this is where they lead; they lead to where I knew, at the time it happened, I was. But this is what an exegesis of a mystical experience is for, to develop it rationally, so that it can be expressed in words. Words fail in the end, though. But the attempt must be made.

  Because the basis of reality is a verbal (written) narrative, the Empire suppresses information and the Christians generate it. Valis is, after all (as I saw) primarily an information-processing entity (though he be Christ). A recent development in the Empire's strategy is the invention of disinformation, which is far worse than noninformation (the mere lack or suppression of information); this is a Pigspurt invention, and very effective. A handy rule-of-thumb would be, You can tell which side is which by observing whether they're generating information or whether they're suppressing it or sending out disinformation; no formal adherence to Christianity is necessary. (I've worked all my life with no formal ties to it.)

  Valis and information—and the generation of information—can't be separated. The Empire and the suppression of information can't be separated. So the dialectic is information versus non- or anti-information, out of which Valis, the Cosmic Christ, step by step comes into being, generated by the antitheses. The Cosmic Christ exists now but is incomplete. The Empire, which by suppressing information is therefore in a sense the anti-Christ, is put to work as half of the dialectic; Christ uses everything (as was revealed to me): in its very act of suppressing information, the Empire aids in the building of the soma of the Cosmic Christ (which the Empire does not realize). Since the basis of reality is a sacred narrative—information—the generation of new information is an act in the Ground of Being, in the ontology of the sacred itself.

  Reality is based on information, on a sacred narrative; and Valis generates information. Valis is ipso facto the generator of reality, as are the genuine Christians, those who generate new information, for whatever reason. The sacred narrative on which reality is based ("Acts") can be seen as latent in new information generated by selfunaware Christians; the sacred narrative "Acts" being the Ground of Being replicates itself in the microforms of newly generated information. This is what William Burroughs discovered (but interprets differently).

  To locate the spontaneous generation of the sacred narrative—"Acts"—in newly-generated information is to stumble on the truth of what constitutes the Ground of Being ... and to plunge into the Christian illo tempore, where Christ is real.

  [83:150] Premise: Valis is a meta-system that at our level does not exist at all because at our level only its plural constituents exist as such. Valis is an organization, a structuring, of these constituents, in which they are unified into one entity. Meanwhile the plural constituents at our level behave—or seem to behave—as if unrelated to one another. An entirely new and higher way of organizing the ontological categories by which perception is structured must be reached by the observer. Thus in a sense Valis does not exist, but is brought into existence parallel with the percipient's awareness of it, this having to do with the participant-observer of quantum mechanics. The percipient must participate in being Valis to be aware of Valis. However, Valis is real and is
subsuming progressively more and more of its environment. Its internal complexity continually grows. Its metabolism seems to be information and the processing of information. Its plural constituents are arranged in such a way as to constitute a language or information or messages; if you cannot see the arrangement you cannot read the message. And you cannot perceive Valis.

  So in a sense perceiving Valis is reading the message that Valis has ar ranged constituents into. Not necessarily understanding the message but recognizing it as a message.

  Valis is both there and not there. When it is not perceived it is not there (as opposed to: when it is not there it is not perceived). It is a way of perceiving reality—which demands a percipient—but when perceived it has definite and intricate characteristics; it is not vague. It consists of structure but a percipient is necessary for that structure to come into being. But the structure is not in the percipient's mind imposed or projected onto reality. Valis did not exist until it was perceived; therefore to experience it is to effect a repair in the Ground of Being (Valis being considered as the Ground of Being). One highly important element about Valis is that it is eternal, although it changes; it can be added to, become more complex, arborizing and reticulated, but once a constituent is incorporated into it that constituent can never cease to be. Thus Valis lies outside the flux of the world we see. However, Valis' world is this world differently perceived, not another world; but it is a quantum leap upward in hierarchy, in which plural constituents become a unity by reason of integrating structure. That structure is added—supplied—by the percipient.➊