The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick

by Philip K. Dick

  [53:E-8] Will Durant points out that the ascent in Dante's Commedia resembles Plotinus' ascent through the successive concentric rings. Absolutely; and I say, the passage over from the 4-D world to the 5-D—which are concentric or coaxial—is the crucial one—this line of thought leading back to my durable conviction that we (in our normal 4-D realm) are in Purgatorio; in which case passage to the 5-D realm is a fortiori a pas sage—truly and literally—from Purgatorio to Paradiso (not als ob but literally); this is what Dante is talking about, what happened to me.

  [53:F-5] What I seem to have arrived at finally is a triune structure based on Dante but also related to the Um-, Mit-, and Eigenwelt structure, yet different.

  (A) Lowest realm. Individual isolated: atomized (this correlates with Plotinus!). Pre-social, in that no real relatedness exists with other life—other living creatures human and animal both are experienced as objects, as it (reified), not you; hence there is no true Gemeinschaftigheit.54 Instead there is Einsamkeit.55 Other is known on a contingent basis, from outside, poorly, indirectly. This Dasein is what I term the android; this is a machine world, driven by pure blind necessity. It is Inferno.

  (B) Middle realm. Empathy/agape enters. The atomization is abolished as a pure state; there arises real knowledge of other; you replace it; world is social. This is clearly the Mitwelt. Something qualitative and radical has happened. A genuine entry of other into the self has occurred: knowledge of world is superior to contingent approximation. Analogy is utilized in which other life is compared in terms of isomorphism to self. The distinction between self and other is only relative, now, not absolute; thus some linked structure exists: self incorporated into systems that are ultra-personal; identity transcends individual identity. Flexibility replaces the fixed, brittle categories of (A): boundary now fluctuates as self moves out, and other enters. [...]

  (C) This is an extraordinary Dasein and is predicated on at least one absolute. Here, part-whole compatibility is complete, originating in a blitz in which the self-world/other dualism is annihilated by (1) absolute knowledge by the former (self) of the latter (world/other). This seems to be based on a cognitive operation by the knowing self in which the self incorporates other as knowledge (information) in such a way that other is transformed into negative entropy engulfed and assimilated and acquired in a single act that both transforms world into information, pure information and only information, but (crucially) information that now belongs to the self and is within self as structure of self derived from world—this both requiring that world be absolutely comprehensible and rendering world comprehensible without qualification, as if self is now in the relationship to world that world was formerly in in relation to self; self and world have changed places and world as information is at the disposal of self as source of the self's own structure.

  [53:G-4] "Frau, sing für unsere Freunde."56 Apes. Horace/Dimi. Vast green meadow. Physical ritual greeting gestures.

  As we can now use phosphenes for the blind (to compensate), they (the 5-D species) who are deaf use phosphene color to compensate for their deafness in order to see music—it is all math anyhow: frequency. Ratio. [...]

  They stimulate our phosphenes artificially, by radiation, so we will see in a compensatory fashion what we cannot actually see because of our visual impairment. They, who are deaf, can see in 5-D; i.e., what we—who are blind—can't. This is why I said, "I am no longer blind." They made me sighted by stimulating my phosphenes so I could see them, i.e., what I called Valis. It is valid sense perception but compensation for us, a blind species that depends on hearing.

  This explains this sequence: Pythagoras, phosphene, biochip, symbiote, mycelia, vine, circulatory system.

  [...]

  Meadow. Ape-like sentient other species. Dante, Mathilde. The Holy. Close Encounters—music and color, but—here is where in actuality it breaks down: they are deaf. It is both Christ (the religious) and another species—from another world in 5-D coaxial with ours. They are spatially here, not from another star system in our universe. Thus they stimulate our brains to see holograms. This is what UFOs are. In my vision (dream) they appeared as ape-like to suggest 2001. And "Frau, sing für unsere Freunde" points to Close Encounters. The Holy: yes, it is Christ (i.e., Valis), but yet it is another species. Dysmorphic to us in another (5-D) realm, right here. They intrude onto/into our 4-D realm as theophanies and hierophanies. They know of the existence of sound scientifically but can't hear it and didn't evolve organs to detect it, but they know we did. Their vision is perfect; ours is dim. Here is the dysmorphism expressed.

  [...]

  I am not speculating. I am problem-solving trying to understand. Saturday night was real.

  ***

  [53:G-8] They are able to hear music by tapping into—patching into—our minds, which is why I said, "Frau, sing für unsere Freunde"; they virtually worship our music, and they yearn from the bottom of their hearts to hear it—as we will, when we know more, for their color language. Math is the common constituent that links our species to theirs, but then it is words, sound, music—the music of the spheres—for us—for them it is thousands of colors (specific numbers on the millimicron scale of the visual spectrum).

  Paradiso (in Dante) is their realm: light (more specifically color) and Love. But for them our realm is paradise because of sound (more specifically music). Thus the highest level of Purgatorio (our realm) is characterized by the woman—Mathilde—singing.

  The sight of them, as they crossed the meadow toward me, as ape-like clarifies, to me, that I am dealing with a finite species and not God or angels as we employ the terms. Physically they are corporeal and creatural, dysmorphic in part, isomorphic in part. Dio; it is all true. And I have seen them, as in Close Encounters. They brought back my lost "person" Dimi or Horace. He was with them in the "next" world in der Nähe.57

  And they are our friends.

  I saw those whom I've been in contact with; they came toward me, several of them. Emerged out into the open at last—not Adonis-like but ape-like. But that did not matter, I went outside the building, forgetting all else (a lot was going on, the activity of our world), to greet them with physical ritual gestures as with two different tribes ... but it was two different species. In two quite different worlds. And I now know supreme joy. Freunde—Freude58—Beethoven, Schiller, music.

  Not "sing to" our friend, i.e., to communicate, but "sing for"—for their enjoyment: this is our gift.

  The phosphenes link our species to theirs. For us, phosphenes—stimulated coherently—permit us truly to see, overcoming our partial blindness. For them, who are deaf, they can see sounds—in particular music.

  But the communications bridge is established by the fact that color and music (light and sound) are equally based on math.

  Music is something ultimate pertaining to sound. Color pattern is something ultimate you do with light. Ultimately, each serves as the language of that particular species.

  They have had to convert to words to communicate with me, i.e., sound; but now they are beginning to convert me to color—their form of communication. Imagine a math/color analog of our Pythagorean math/music! What a different universe—I was in it in 3-74 via a compensatory optic function: phosphene activity ("for the visually impaired"); and reciprocally they can "hear" sounds—e.g., music—by tapping our minds via symbiosis.

  As I realized a couple weeks ago, what we call "music" is audible math patterns: intricate and unique math sequences that the composer initiates and then completes: the aesthetic pleasure has to do with math rendered audible and heard by the right brain.

  That our common basis is math certainly leads me to the conclusion that all this is inter-species communication! Math is the ideal Lingua Franca.

  [53:G-10] Hypnagogic AI Voice: "she turned into an ape," the ape I saw this morning—one of "our friends"—I've been hearing as the AI voice and seeing as Diana: my tutelary spirit.

  [53:G-11] Book Idea:

  What the deaf ETI symbio
te feeds to the human as math ideas becomes musical compositions and returns to the ETI symbiote. The human does not know where his ideas are coming from.

  The discovery of the symbiote is a great revelation both to him and to the reader. The problem arises when the composer begins to wear out from exhaustion. The symbiote is still feeding him math ideas. At the end of the third period the human can't go on. But the symbiote wants a fourth period. The human has the choice between living (and not composing) or composing and dying. Which is more important to him, his music or his life? It is suggested to him that the symbiote—a biochip—be surgically removed. Clearly this is the Faust theme and also deals with Beethoven. Also there is his responsibility to the alien civilization that so venerates his music. The math ideas are the product of a whole species. What is finally offered to him—to repay him for his having to die—is that the symbiote will trade him for the music participation in its color experience: color as language—concepts, as cognitive abstraction. This will destroy his mind but he will have thought non-verbal concepts no human has ever thought before—nor ever could; that is, he will be a biochip symbiote to one of the deaf and mute non-verbal aliens: an apotheosis and ultimate Faustian experience: he will cease to be human, limited by his species boundaries.

  [53:G-14] The wisdom of heaven, once attained, points back down the ladder to Purgatorio. "The Garden of Earthly Delight: Mathilde singing." This is revolution beyond conception; it cannot even be thought! There is something superior to the King of Light(s) and it is the Lyre. What I saw in 2-3-74 to 2-75 is the 5-D world, Paradiso, God. But Purgatorio is superior and the 5-D world knows it, as if the ikon (copy) is superior to the model (Form, archetype), which is impossible. From the standpoint of our species this cannot be thought. At the very instant that "they" broke in last Saturday night with their "math-color" world I then saw how they see us; I saw from their viewpoint, and to them, we are the gods and they are apes! Yet we view it the other way around. On Saturday I as a 4-D human saw them and their world, but this morning I saw us as they see us. As if Paradiso is only penultimate. But to know this you must transcend our species. And this is why the soul (in Ted Sturgeon's schema) "descends" into incarnation into this, our world: Purgatorio.59 Our world is superior because here there is atmosphere, hence music. This is the motive for the voluntary fall, and it is quintessential wisdom.

  This morning was a sort of backlash of last Saturday night. They venerate us and yearn for us; we venerate them and yearn for them. It is as if when we die and go to our just reward we go there; and when they die and go to their just reward they come here, as willingly and voluntarily and eagerly as we go there. It turns out to be all relative, then, color vs. music. And the profundity of my insight is evident if the Manichaean, Zoroastrian, 4th Gospel light element is scrutinized; this is the core of our species' spirituality; but theirs reverses it. So to them, to go to their light world is a fall! A sort of Einstein spiritual relativism! But you would have to cross species lines to know this. If instead of a triune division you utilize only a lower-upper binary division our lower realm is their upper; and our upper is their realm and to them it is the lower. Each is the after-life and reward of the other, so an external dynamic transfer continues as we seek "liberation" from this realm to go there and they to go here. Thus "spiritual" and "physical" all at once can be construed on relative terms. When I die I will go there but, once there, I will yearn for this world of sound as now I yearn for that realm of color and light. And the common basis of both is: numbers and rations and proportions, i.e., math.

  So the truly ultimate solution is to prefer music while you are here, and prefer light when you are there. This accommodation surpasses Jesus, Mani, Dante, etc. It is a truth that can only be acquired after Paradiso in Dante's terms is reached. It is as if while "fallen" here, one must die (or "die"), return home to the pleroma (heaven), view this fallen world from that vantage point, and then arrive at this realization—whereupon the Faustian striving is at last quenched; then and only then does true wisdom and peace come. Amazing. Otherwise while here, one always seeks to go there and while there vice versa—never content.

  And my discovery of this must have been purely accidental, for, as I say, this surpasses God, who is after all "the King of Light" and predicated on the viewpoint of this world and our species and hence only part of the story.

  I am saying, there is something beyond Nirvana and it is right here (but equally there, too, as well).

  It is all conveyed by the enigmatic statement, "she turned into an ape"—referring to my tutelary spirit, the AI voice, the voice of the inner realm. The ultimate enantiodromia has set in; and the final veil has been penetrated, and almost accidentally, as if this surpasses even God and God's plan. The lovely Diana turned out to be an ape, but only from their viewpoint—it is all one vast hourglass turned over and over again, forever sad and absurd—but one can learn peace from this and cease to strive. And, in this cessation of striving for the spiritual, comes sanity and freedom, and true release at last from our "weary wheel"; this, then, is the true liberation, when the spiritual psychopomp is revealed as an ape—but an ape inexpressibly beautiful who brings back to me our dead cat, and to whom I have my wife sing.

  And here it all ends. It wasn't the AI voice that said that; another voice said it about her, i.e., about the AI voice.

  This is the first time in my life—i.e., within the last hour—that I have ever truly been enlightened—beyond even the Buddha or Christ or Mani, beyond all the wisdom of East and West—beyond even another realm (heaven), Christ and God.

  I.e., sanity at last.

  The world of light marred by an aching tragic heart-breaking flaw—by a vast streak of sorrow. A yearning for this world that causes its people to abandon it and come here despite our limitations.

  Each of our worlds is heaven to the other, and equally, each of our worlds is only Purgatorio to those in it: in each world its inhabitants long for the other, and seek to glimpse it (in our case re theirs) and to hear it (they ours): we long to see their light; they long to hear our sounds. Incredibly, whichever realm you are in you are exiled from heaven.

  [53:G-20] The Holy power YHWH has been preparing us to meet another race (ETI). In the ape dream I saw them as they actually are, at last.

  (1) Tagore vision: animals are sacred, are Christ

  (2) Apes in my dream "Frau—": animal

  (3) DI: YHWH taken to be a monster animal

  (4) Androids: animals sacred

  My proof that the ape vision is authentic and literal lies in the Tagore vision and Androids and DI, which conceptually prepares the way for this meeting between us and them at last.

  So it is both YHWH literally and truly (Anokhi—) and another race—of apes, animals.

  And it all goes back to the beetle, the rat, the crippled lamb, the Galapagos turtle, the deer.

  Animal as Christ: Tagore vision

  Animal as Christ: Ape vision

  Pinky as Christ

  The ape vision. The beatific vision. It assumes a degree and kind of ecstatic reality that nothing in my life has ever done before. Only God could compel such ecstasy.

  God, the creator, is introducing a codominant species into our "Park" to regain balance in our ecosphere. I am a contactee, but it is Christ, the NT and YHWH also. This is part of his ongoing creation of the garden (our world to which he says, "Felix—," etc.). Like a great game preserve. This is the answer to the problems expressed in the Tagore vision. This is why in the ape vision I saw meadow and trees: the Garden of Eden: our ecosphere.

  When I saw the apes, I was once more—literally—back in the garden where we belong, from which we fell. Hence they brought me Horace/Dimi: restoration of all that has been lost: not just by me ontologically but phylogenically: by the entire human race. This moment is salvation beyond anything I have ever heard of. All the original relationships between man, God, nature and the animals were restored to exactly as they were at the beginning of Genesis
. And the woman singing: This is the Garden, the Earthly paradise, the highest level of Purgatorio as it appears in Dante.

  This reveals the role of YHWH as Lord of the ecospheric Park, maintaining its life and balance, providing for (providentia) his creatures; but now man is not above all the other species; for the first time a species equal to man has been introduced, to restore the balance that man has upset. Thus the introduction of this new species pertains to the ecosphere as a whole (and ties into the Tagore vision!).

  My PTG is a vision of the ecosphere as Park or Garden: all life here tended by and cared for by YHWH. (Bringing to mind that idea told me when I had my shoulder surgery: that we are a "kept biosphere"—maintained by "them"; this would appear to be the case.) This would tie all my experiences together back to the beetle and culminating in 2-74–2-75. One must go all the way back to Genesis to understand the PTG, YHWH, restoration, the Fall, all my "supernatural" experiences—and especially Androids and the Tagore vision.