The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick

by Philip K. Dick

  [79:I-46] In this "Sibyl" plot development in the "Bishop Archer" book: do I not realize what I am saying? Jim Jr. came back; Jim was right—it was true! The prophecy (by Jeff) proves it, whatever the character's reactions thus in writing the book I vindicate Jim. Do I want to do this? Yes.

  [...]

  Am I falsifying history? I don't know; the material seems to be in control. But it (Jeff's—Jim Jr.'s—coming back) proves futile pragmatically: The Bishop and "Kirsten" died anyhow! Angel must be shown to realize this. Yet—what if "Jim" is alive in Bill (as in the "Beyond Lies the Wub" story)? It must be an inscrutable epiphany at the end; she can't tell. No; I know the answer; Jim, as we all are, is immortal; he did come back (in Bill, in me). That is the point I am working toward.

  There must be some indubitable sign that Bill at the end conveys to Angel that he really is Tim (even though he is mad and in the asylum). (My model: "Beyond Lies the Wub.") It must be a holy moment, and, to her, terrifying. Both: (1) holy; and (2) terrifying, not reassuring. (That would be sentimental.) This goes all the way back to my early novel (really my first): "The Weaver's Shuttle"!!!!! The old salesman (Runcible/Runciter) reborn. Rebirth is my theme. Immortality as, specifically, renewal and rebirth, not just continuity. With, in, as Bill, Tim is complete: he is now rooted in practical reality: thus is a syzygy.

  [...]

  He could not prove Jeff came back. He could not get the necessary info to save his life. He has returned—in/as Bill—but cannot prove it. So the book in the final analysis explores the fact that first, you cannot know the truth, and what truth you know, you cannot prove to others, thus (this is the summation) although Fate is defeated, you cannot prove that you have defeated it; this knowledge (of this victory) cannot be communicated. You can defeat Fate and know it, but you cannot tell it—which is my precise position; thus Tim winds up in an ambiguous position; he both won (he defeats Fate) but he cannot proclaim it—as if Fate exacts a latent, final, sting/victory. Yes: Fate plays the final card; you win but can't make anyone believe. It remains a private matter, locked in your idios brain. [...] So, strangely, this is the study of a man's triumph over Fate, which is a Promethean freedom; but his punishment for his "theft" or daring is to be chained to the rock of eternal silence that he did this: that Fate can be overcome. Thus he is free of Fate and yet punished by Fate—doomed in a subtle way: he is alive (reborn) but can tell (convince) no one.

  What would be his best ideal solution? Why to resolve simply in the fact that he is alive, per se; to abandon the proclaiming in the form of a simple, private, humble life, thankful for being spared, being alive; so we see him (Bill) at last in perfect peace, no longer trying to convince Angel; and at this point when he abandons his strivings (Schopenhauer's Will) and simply says, "This is sufficient," he then for the first time is redeemed—and knows it. It is sufficient simply to live, even if he can't tell anyone. This is his victory; he has won by and in submission. He has come to terms with Fate, rather than overcoming it. He and Fate are friends. They both know the truth. He will simply be Bill—and rotate tires. And out of this comes—for him, saintliness—for the first time. He as Bill is a Saint, a Buddha; he as Tim—forever striving—is not and here it ends, peacefully.

  He has won this tremendous victory, through the help of Christ, over Fate and death—and can tell (convince) no one. And yet he is content. This is sublime. In and as Bill he works on a car, repairing it, caring for it as one would an animal; devoted to it. We see him polishing the chrome: a boy, simple and gentle and loving and no longer off in theoretical abstract clouds. And Angel loves him although she does not believe. It does not matter to him; he is content, like the Buddha. It is as if the best in Bill has won out—of the syzygy: firmly rooted in reality: the salvation of both Bill and Tim, each of whom individually was mad in his own way; but out of the syzygy has come sanity, of a higher kind. The striving and restlessness are gone. Essentially he is content without knowing whether he won or lost to Fate, i.e., whether he defeated Fate, or whether Fate in the final analysis managed to defeat him. So he does not know that; and Angel does not know that; and Angel does not know if it's really Tim (or just Bill imagining he is Tim). This is a strange ending. The will (of Schopenhauer) turns back on itself and is satisfied not to know: This is the form its cessation takes: that he is content not to know, and so is she. Thus one thing is certain: the restless, striving, irrational will is defeated; it has given up. If this is how victory is defined, there has been victory. If victory is defined as knowing whether Tim Archer defeats Fate through Christ and immortality—it is not victory.

  The final message seems to be: sublime peace—freedom from the restless striving will—is possible, but knowledge—intellectual knowing—is not. The heart can know peace but the mind cannot be satisfied; the drive to know, to possess intellectual certitude is doomed to failure. Hence one short look elsewhere—to the heart (as Paul says about love). This, very simply, is a fact.

  [...]

  The conclusion: life is possible but knowledge is not, and the two must be discriminated.

  [79:I-56] Someone from behind me leaned forward and touched me on the shoulder. "Hi, Angel."

  I turned around to see who it was. A pudgy faced youth, blond haired, smiling at me, his eyes guileless. Bill Lundborg, wearing a turtleneck sweater and grey slacks and hush puppies.

  "Remember me?" he said softly. "I've been wondering how you've been doing. I guess we better be quiet." He leaned back and folded his arms, intent on what Edgar Barefoot was saying.

  [79:I-59] So despite all my efforts to the contrary I after all wrote the 3rd book of the trilogy! And it is finished and sent off!

  And it may just be the most accurate of the 3 books, in that it involves Jim Pike, and, what is more, says that Jim returned from the dead, out of compassion for "those he loved"—which is what I had wanted to write from the very beginning but did not know how, nor did I dare to! Inasmuch as Jim's (Tim's) return from the dead is identified with the presence of Christ in the Dead Sea Desert, it is expressed—like Christ's own resurrection—as a sign that the Parousia is here! Thus it may be the most accurate and most important and most daring of the 3 books! And completes the previous two!

  And very adroitly written! Since it does not seem to preach. Angel categorically rejects the notion that Tim (i.e., Jim) has come back, and yet from the internal evidence in the book it is clear that in fact he has—and thus is to be seen as a sign pointing to the Parousia, identified as such!

  Jim came back (I say it in "Bishop") and he came back to me (if you add in VALIS) and this is the Parousia (The Divine Invasion). The full and true story is divided up over the 3 books. Thus I now have—despite any of my intentions to the contrary—told the full and true story, not only of Jim but of the Parousia; he did come back and this is only half the story; the other half is: What this signifies: the news he brings: the Parousia is here.

  What I have done in and by these 3 books is penetrate to the heart of the Christian mystery. That Bill in the end is taken over by the Holy Spirit is proved by the xenoglossy (the Dante quotations) that Angel recognizes; this is specifically what Tim Archer when first we see him denies exists: This specifically is proof of the presence—and reality—of the Holy Spirit who in turn is Christ; and who and what is Christ? Our spiritual leader who dies, and whose return in us (and hence to us) by enthusiasmos is a triumph over death and proof of eternal life—and carries with it the knowledge from the next (upper) realm. This is the Essence of the Christian (1) experience and (2) knowledge, and is related to Elijah sending back a part of his spirit to his friend Elisha. I have now told the full story and specifically identified it with Christ, the Parousia and the Holy Spirit; the revelation is now by this 3rd book complete and accurate. Most of all it is clear that this return is due to compassion (agape) on the part of the departed friend who turns down Nirvana out of love for his friends left behind.

  I define Christ, then, as anyone whose love (compassion) is so
great that he rejects his chance at Nirvana (return to God) to return from death—the next World/Upper Realm—to and for his friends. After he dies they receive his returned spirit ("Born again"—"Born in the Spirit"—"Born from above"), whereupon not only are they joined with him but, moreover, the two realms are reunited to form what is called "the Kingdom of God" since the syzygy of him and his friend occupies—occurs in—both realms. The living friend not only finds the dead friend in his mind—he also experiences the next world: the two realms unify like two signals; this is restoration of the cosmos to before the Fall.

  This is what is meant by Christianity, because it confers new life, a new kind of life—and, moreover, life that is a syzygy between the two friends.

  [79:I-64] I have yoked Joyce's human character (Molly Bloom) to the prose of, e.g., the Encyclopedia of Philosophy: i.e., the finest prose style.

  [79:I-65] Archer is just plain the best novel I have ever written: I am at the height of my power; it evolves through Mary and the Giant to Crap to VALIS to it.

  The fact is, I not only know Angel Archer—Betty Jo, Connie, Kleo, Joan—and something more. My creation born out of 35 years of writing. This book, Archer, the summation back to "Weaver's Shuttle"—it sums up them all, from my first stories when I lived in the same building that (Monica Reilly) did—to VALIS (never mind Divine Invasion). And I did this deliberately: summed up 35 years of writing. This (David's offer) was the summation and victory of 35 years, not psychologically but artistically.

  Not: Mary and the Giant to Archer

  But: Mary and the Giant, through VALIS, to Archer— extraordinary.

  [79:I-68] So where did she come from? I inferred her nature from the style. But when you read the book you naturally get the opposite impression, viz: I had her in mind, because I wanted her to be my character I had to use her style of thinking. Yet that is not so. "The style is everything in Literature"; fine: but in this book my style brought a character into being. The origin of Angel Archer is in the style. Where did the style come from? It is a synthesis of a number of sources (my eclectic reading).

  Throughout the book, her compassion factor grows Bishop Archer's mind (intellect) which she had identified as something related to, like, analogous to her own, is (becomes), because it now is in Bill, the object of her compassion (loving-kindness); thus she feels compassion for her own intellect. Hence her own self as intellect (not to mention Tim)! Her heart (compassion, agape) wins out over her mind (intellect); she, then, is the Buddha's Bodhisattva; "turning her back from Nirvana" is her staying with Bill. Look how her attitude toward him evolves in the book from fear and dislike to respect to tender love in the end. It is as if she has become Tim's mother. She ministers to a ruinous way of talking as an affectation analogous to her own. The style created her!

  [79:I-71] In the "Bishop" novel I saw how "style" can give rise to a specific unique actual person (e.g., Angel Archer), so it is possible for verbal information to give rise—to create, give birth to—an actual concrete unique person who was not there before.

  [79:I-72] There is a stupendous and obvious point I'm missing about Angel. It would—and I did!—require an extraordinary viewpoint character to both intellectually and emotionally understand the Bishop. To do it adequately he or she would have to be highly qualified in terms of verbal skills, intellectual comprehension and tenderness; otherwise the "lens" that she consists of would be inadequate. Thus Angel and hence the style (since it is her ratiocination) was in fact created by Jim Pike. [...] She as interpretive lens would in fact have to exceed him in all respects; thus Jim not I is the author of Angel Archer. From word one line one page one a certain unique formidable intellect and spiritual soul equipped with common sense but, even more, aesthetic Love, would have to exist as lens; this is why I could not discard those opening 4 pages. And she is wounded due to his death—all these traits and wounded too.

  Thus (as I say) I did not create Angel Archer: my understanding of and loving Jim did—so Jim (in a certain real sense) did. In the novel I am true to the logic of fictional narrative technique: Tim/Jim is seen always and only through her mind. Thus Angel Archer is not my soul but is Jim's. His Monitor or recording Angel (sic!), his AI voice, not mine. His anima or other, not mine. But, in that case, how do I have access to her? Here is a vast mystery. I am not sure I know the answer. Is my soul his soul?

  There is no doubt: if the 3 books are read (VALIS, Divine Invasion and Bishop Timothy Archer) it is clear that the Parousia is here. Not a theophany is involved but resurrection, of a given man (not of Christ which after all took place 2,000 years ago). This (resurrection) (of Jim/Tim) is the beginning and it comes trailing clouds of collateral verification, like spinoffs: These in all constitute vast plural indices of the Parousia. Each novel in turn verifies and amplifies and explains the previous one.

  The Dead Shall Live

  The living die

  And music shall untune the sky.20

  [79:I-74] Most amazing of all, I did not perceive in advance that Bishop Archer would be the 3rd book of the VALIS trilogy; in fact I had conceived of it as repudiating (!) the Valis notions/mysticism. But on the contrary it nails the whole thing down and follows logically; in view of this, no wonder I turned down the Blade Runner offer to do the "Bishop Archer" book! It had to be written! To complete the total message with the given instance of a specific human returning from the dead (proving that the Parousia is here).

  [79:I-77] At the very end of the "Bishop Archer" book it would appear that Bill thinks he is—not just Tim Archer—but Christ! ("the expositor"). Thus indeed in no sense is he any longer:

  Bill ↔ Tim

  He is:

  Tim ↔ Christ

  This is certainly madness. But it raises the theological possibility that he is—this is—the Parousia. Yet Angel is right; Bill is destroyed in the process (like Nietzsche with Dionysus). So the ending is spiritually up and humanly down.

  ***

  [79:I-81] What I have shown is what the best intellectual mind—as correctly represented by a young Berkeley intellectual woman—can do and cannot do; it can go so far (represented by her "abscessed tooth and the Commedia" night) but it can go no farther—as represented by her rejection of Christ (yes, Christ!) at the end: she walks away. This is a penetrating analysis of the intellectual mind: what it can do (a very great deal) and what it can't do (make the final leap). And she knows it. This is what the "Bishop Archer" book is about: Angel is a pure aesthetic-intellectual, able to go so far but unable to make the final leap to Christ. Thus "Berkeley" (as paradigm of the intelligent, sensitive mind) is both lauded and stigmatized. This is a fine book; it both praises and deplores, and correctly. Thus one deduces the existence of the divine by its absence: the failure of her final leap (i.e., my meta-abstraction). Thus I was able to do specifically what Angel was not able to do; I left Berkeley. The topic is: "The limitations of the reasoning mind." Bishop Archer as Bill calls to her but she does not hear. It is not reasonable. Angel fell short, missed the mark, and this is what constitutes sin, this falling short of the mark. Thus this novel must end as it does. Bill may have made it; we can't be sure. But what we are sure of is that although Angel came close she did not; thus I demonstrate the limits of reason.

  What is needed is an orthogonal breakthrough, which I achieved (in 2-3-74). Ursula21 is the basis of Angel: Many virtues but in the end self-limiting.

  The mind "knows" in advance what is possible and what is impossible: it is intelligent, rational, educated and tender; but it is not devout. It does not know how to capitulate to the impossible and accept it as real. [...]

  Thus the novel is a damning indictment of pure intelligence lacking faith. She is so close but cannot make the final crucial leap. This does not deal with Berkeley except as a paradigm of reasoning: The intelligent, sensitive, educated mind—just how far can it go. The great quantum leap that I call the "meta-abstraction" is lacking. Yet all the clues, for it, are there. It is, as she says, a machine; it plods o
n and cannot leap the crucial gap to foolishness (as it were). It cannot pass over from words ("I am a word junky, a word disease") to the supra or non verbal, the purely conceptual (and non-verbal: absolute abstraction). The paradoxes are obscured to her, despite Barefoot's best efforts (i.e., "the foolish come for the words; the wise eat the sandwich").

  The Bishop is a topic in this novel only insofar as he holds out the gift of Divine foolishness to her, which she, in her rationality, rejects (at the end). She is the real topic. But the Bishop offers the cure and solution, which she rejects; yet she comes so close! She has failed: I must not regard her as a success; I must not strive to emulate her. I love her but in the final analysis I must reject her solution; it falls short of true comprehension: of an essentially irrational reality (that is not available to linear reason). The ultimate mystery of reality eludes her. She would have to believe the impossible. Only when one can believe the impossible is one truly free (of one's self-imposed prison). (The BIP!!!) One is pitting one's finite intellect against God: Satan's original rebellion redefined for the modern world.

  [79:I-86] Perhaps the great leap—meta-abstraction—is when we see the peak experiences as signs pointing to Valis which in itself is unknowable: my "surd"; this may be my "meta-abstraction"; viz: suddenly you intuit that the peak experience—all peak experiences—are signs pointing to a "thing" (Valis) in itself unknowable, and are not to be taken in themselves as "real," but, rather, signify (i.e., point to) reality. Since they seem not only real but ultra-real, then all at once "reality" is viewed as a signifier of reality, which (reality) in itself cannot be apprehended (directly); and this may be what my meta-abstraction was all about, which explains why I can't put it into words (i.e., what I realized; since I realized only a sign, not the "thing" signified: this fits in with, e.g., Zen Buddhism, etc.).*