by Gwen Lee
That is good wine. I’ll tell you—I haven’t seen wine like that—listen. I’m real old, right, there’s never been wine like that in my lifetime, I’ll tell you that.
LEE: It’s something new.
DICK: It’s a new concept.
LEE: You thought of it. You thought of old people’s years, in my age group, they didn’t know about these types of things.
DICK: You still resent me. You’re so hostile about being thirty. Hey, I’m gonna hit you with a heavy one. You want to hear a real heavy one?
LEE: OK.
DICK: The first time I went into the doctor’s where he was reading my chart, and he said “middle-aged man”— the first time I ever heard the word “middle-aged.” And he looked at me and he said, “That’s the first time you’ve ever been told you’re middle-aged, now.” God, I had my wife with me, she was in her twenties you know, and I says, “What? I beg your pardon? What you say about me?” And he says, “Well, you are middle-aged,” he says. “You’re official—it’s on paper here.” My wife’s twenty-seven years old!
LEE: What’s the official?
DICK: I blocked it out.
LEE: Oh, OK, good.
DICK: Whatever it was I didn’t think it came for another ten years.
LEE: I know, I’ve moved it up. When I was fifteen it was thirty was middle-aged. And forty was just elderly.
DICK: Yeah.
LEE: And nobody wanted to live past forty but I’ve rearranged that, you know, now.
DICK: One time, this kid I knew who was doing a lot of drugs, he said to me, what was it like to see the first automobile? Well, that’d make me what—1971— It’d make me seventy-one years old. And I said, “It scared hell out of my horse.”
LEE: (laughs) Did he take you for real? Oh, my God! He really thought you rode horses, huh?
DICK: Oh well, Christ, I have no idea what he thought.
LEE: I remember being amazed that my mom, they actually had bicycles when she was a kid—it just astounded me. I think it’s—I have girlfriends who say their kids hit them for stuff, too—like they’re really shocked.
DICK: There’s some—tune on those goddamn bubblegum rock stations. “Your momma don’t dance and your daddy won’t rock and roll.” And they call them “the old folks”—your parents. The old folks were the grandparents. And I’m surprised that the parents were the old folks.
LEE: Yeah.
DICK: Oh, excuse me—I’m having trouble, a little bit of cork here in my wine. The cork isn’t in the wine.
LEE: Let’s hope not. Oh, I’m sorry I couldn’t bring the boa constrictor up like you asked. But you know—
DICK: Good God, I can’t understand a word you’re saying. I heard it—I heard the sentence backward. That’s most interesting. That means we’re on tape. Somebody’s—
LEE: We can rewind it and prove that I said that forward. You’re hearing the other side. You’re hearing it played back backwards.
(tape ends)
EXEGESIS
January 15, 1982
LEE: No, you seem very sincere on the religious stuff. I wasn’t sure about what—if you were kidding about the Gospels were written recently, I didn’t know—
DICK: Oh, yeah, I want to explain what I mean about that. I don’t mean that they were written recently, by any means. I don’t mean that I think they’re forgeries—
LEE: Yeah.
DICK: Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I know they’re not forgeries. No. What’s incredible is from the internal evidence, that is, you know, from the text itself, it would appear as if they were written recently because they use modern devices, structural devices that didn’t exist then, to show, for instance, the internal side of the character. They didn’t have that device then. No, I’m not questioning that they were written a long time ago. What I am really arguing for is this divine authorship. I’m arguing for divine authorship. The authorship of the Holy Spirit.
LEE: Oh, really.
DICK: Yeah, yeah, I am. For internal evidence as a writer, see, this is my area of expertise. As a writer, it is my professional opinion, not as a person, a religious person, but as a writer, my professional opinion is that they show unmistakable influences of modern trends and developments and structural improvements that are basic in the English language.
LEE: That’s fascinating about ancient people, then. You know that, to me, was always the reason why they had the story of the Garden of Eden and particularly Noah’s Ark—always fascinated me and I always rationalized it in my head because I found it real hard to believe he got all the animals on the one boat and everything, you know.
DICK: Yeah, it suggests immediately, uh, you know, cartoons of either the largest boat in the world or the smallest animals in the world. (laughs) Or some combination thereof.
I just keep seeing things in the New Testament that struck me as so beautiful, and there was a Jewish philosopher at that time, uh—named Father Judeaus—Father Jew—that’s what it means. And, you know, we don’t hear much about him—we hear a lot about Aristotle and Plato and so on. And he was drawing up an analytical list of virtues, what are human virtues. And this list of virtues had existed throughout all Greek and all Roman times. It was— it was part of the entire world as they knew it, you see. And there was nothing on the list about rendering any assistance to anyone in difficulty. So he noticed that, although it was the prevailing opinion, the prevailing ethical opinion, that it was a sign of weakness to care if someone else was in distress, you know, and feel anything or do anything. He knew, from reading, from being a Jew, and the Torah, the law, that there was something in Hebrew called saducha and it meant “giving aid.” And he added that to the list. And it had never been there before in Greek and Roman times. And it’s called philanthropia and it means—it literally means love of man. And it means giving help—
LEE: It was added to the Gospels?
DICK: No, no. This is philosophy.
LEE: OK, I’m sorry.
DICK: This was a philosopher. This was a philosopher. He was taking the prevailing trend—
LEE: I know that you think it was philosophy, but up until this time they hadn’t been included in the Gospels?
DICK: No, this would be the philosophy of the whole ancient world.
LEE: OK, I misunderstood you.
DICK: The whole Greco-Roman world did not regard giving aid to those in distress as a virtue, they regarded it as a weakness. Because he had read the Torah, he knew better. And he added the Greek, philanthropia, which he defined as giving aid to those who were in need. And therefore, through him, it entered the Western world. And at the same time as Christianity. The Father knew nothing of Christ, yet he put that in at the same time Christ did. Which is really incredible. Because see, this had never been there before in the Western world. Philanthropia. And I learned Greek, and that was the first word I wrote in Greek was philanthropia. As the word that to me, that was the turning point in the world, in the entire Western world.
LEE: Just reminded me of a Lee Layport that teaches at Santa Ana College. His very favorite, um, Greek word was sóphisma. Oh, my God, he must have said that at least twenty times during one class period. And—
DICK: What’s the word?
LEE: Sóphisma.
DICK: What does it mean?
LEE: Something to do about the Sophists, which were the modern, more sophisticate—
DICK: Oh! Oh—yeah—I’m sorry, yeah, sure, Sophists.
LEE: On, and on and on—
DICK: That’s just from Sophia—that’s the “Saint Sophia” that’s the Sophia in—you know—[…]
LEE: And, uh, and then the modern word “sophisticated” evolved from that.
DICK: It did, but—
LEE: But he was saying, actually, it was a term of ridicule. By the elders of the city. I don’t know. This is what— I’m quoting Lee Layport.
DICK: No, he’s wrong.
LEE: He’s wrong?
DICK: Yup.
LEE: I always
thought so.
DICK: “Sophist” meant those possessing wisdom. From “Sophia,” meaning wisdom. Word for wisdom. Something that goes from possessing wisdom. It essentially meant what, uh, not so much learning as a scholar. But, uh, being skillful at argument, actually, is what it meant. There is an element there that is not quite right, see, ’cause— […] Well, I don’t recognize the suffix but now I do recognize the word.
(Later that night, Dick is recalling a recent religious experience.)
DICK: […] extraordinary. I called my agent and told him. I mean, this is, this is something, you know, I don’t usually talk to people in general about my religious experiences. I mean, ’cause, you know, they don’t believe me. And I don’t like to talk to my agent too much about them, because after all, I don’t want him to think he’s got a crazy client. I mean, that’s being realistic, you know, that’s just not done. Convince him you’re doing too well. But I did this time. I called him. And I talked to him until he finally said he had to hang up. Uh, if this were true it would be incredible. It’s a little like a novel written by Arthur C. Clarke called Childhood’s End.
But for almost eight years I’ve been in touch with some kind of mind that has given every evidence of being God, including the words and everything. And I think now that it’s another species of life. That would seem to us like apes, subhuman. They have been preparing us all this time, for several thousand years through our religion to accept them because they are really different from us. I mean, they are not like anything on this earth. And it’s literally taken three thousand, four thousand years, to acclimatize mankind, now, for this meeting between us and them. Because they don’t want us to pull away from them. And they know from experience that when one civilization, when one planet meets another the shock is unbelievable. Like nothing anybody’s ever experienced. And now the time has come when we are going to see them as they are. They don’t look like Jesus. They’re ugly, they’re horrible but they are like Jesus spiritually. They think we will see that spiritual side. But they are something so awful-looking. They don’t have any ears. They can’t talk. Doesn’t have any hands. Looks like a praying mantis. Looks like a praying mantis. I mean, that’s—I know, I know, like, right, yeah, see? But that’s how they know they’re going to look to us. But now they think they can come out. And they—they think because of our music they think we’re great spiritual beings. They think we are the spiritual beings and we think they are the spiritual beings. It’s incredible.
LEE: When did you decide this?
DICK: Pardon me?
LEE: When did you feel this?
DICK: This happened this week. Just this week, just the other day. Two days ago. I saw myself going out to greet them and they were awful-looking. And they were like animals. And they weren’t even able to talk. So the only way you could greet them was to throw yourself on the ground and, like, paw on the ground like apes do. And, uh, I turned to my wife, who was with me, and I said in German, I said, “Frau, singt, fur unsere freunde,” I said, “Wife, sing for our friends.” Because that’s what they wanted, was our music. That’s what they wanted so much. And I woke up and I realized it was all true and I called my agent and he said, well, it would make a great book. Today I called him and said I’m making a book out of it. But I said yesterday it’s true, I said, because they showed me the color, they write in color. They showed me an example of their adaptation, how they write down first the thoughts themselves and then annotation to those thoughts. They show … at first they bombarded me with their thinking in color which I didn’t know was thinking and then they showed me the annotation. You know, like we have a printed page? It looked like a page from a medieval music score. But not like that at all. If you thought it was anything, you’d think it was music.
LEE: Was this presence similar to the experience that you had in ’74?
DICK: Uh—
LEE: Or was it mostly just—
DICK: I started out with the colors. Uh, after I saw the golden fish sign. I saw the golden fish sign. You know, OK. Then a month later I started seeing color. At night. For eight hours. Brilliant colors that blinded me and they were incredible complex patterns, I mean recognized them as surpassing anything that our greatest artist can do. Any artist that we have— none of them like Paul Klee—they were better Paul Klees than Paul Klee could paint. And better Chiricos than Chirico could paint. And said I don’t know what this is. I’ve never seen anything like it. There are millions and millions and millions of them and each is a work of art and I was straight. I give you my word of honor. I mean I’m not—I am not lying. I was totally straight, I’ve been straight for years. And what it was was a language, because this week, last week, last Saturday, yeah, OK, last Saturday, I was sitting there as you and I are sitting here now. Suddenly I was hit with a flash of light and I saw their annotation from those colors. The colors were the thoughts and the annotation was the writing of the thoughts. And I saw it and I said, “I see music and mathematics and color.” I said, “I know what the music is. I know what the mathematics is, but I don’t know what the color stuff is. The music and the mathematics is Pythagoras’s disclosure between mathematics and music as the basis of reality.” I said, “What would the color be? Would it be a language?” and I said, “Yes, it’s a language, they’re showing me that this is a language that they use involving mathematical symbols and musical interval annotations and color.”
LEE: But in what way do you think they’re going to try to contact us?
DICK: They are going to show themselves as what they are.
LEE: What a shame. I mean, people don’t like repulsive things.
DICK: They know that. They know that. They know it, and they’re ashamed. And that’s the tragedy. The tragedy is not that they’re ugly. The tragedy is their great shame. Because they look at us as these spiritual beings and they see our—our revulsion and they feel shame. They don’t feel anger. They don’t feel anger at it, they feel shame. OK, they feel the way we would feel if we approached God and God were to be repelled by us, you know, physically finding us repulsive, and that’s the way they feel. And yet they are our gods to us. Uh, we are gods to each other. They’re praying we won’t see that. It’s not like two different species.
LEE: Is this like the beast that won’t die from the fatal wound in Revelation?
DICK: Oh, no, no. That’s the empire. That’s the empire.
LEE: OK.
DICK: Oh, no, it’s the empire, it’s the empire.
LEE: Are you picking these records at random or are you— you’ve got ’em—
DICK: Essentially at random.
LEE: Are you really?
DICK: Yeah, just kind of, uh, you know, like somebody would light a cigarette for instance, I do that a lot when I get edgy. I mean, honey, I called my agent and I said, you know, I saw their annotation and the thing is it would take weeks to draw up—for instance, I later realized that in drawing it on paper you are only going to draw some of it. It had, for instance, the logarithmic spiral from the Fibonacci numbers in it. But that, even that—(pause) that’s water running in the wall (laughs). I know, it’s [next door neighbor] Pam’s bathtub. Yeah. It becomes impossible to tape in here because of the water running in the walls. People have noticed that. But anyway it would have taken weeks to draw that thing up, it had so many mathematical symbols in it. But you see—
LEE: Is this where you got the first clue of this novel?
DICK: Yes. Yes. It would—yeah, yeah. You came over that Sunday—this was Saturday night, you came on Sunday—we were up all night, she and I, and I would tell her, I would say, OK, now they’re firing linear sequence information at me. Uh, and I can give you the missing integers so that it forms a sequence of its own. And then I named off the sequence and she remembered it, but I didn’t. It was all happening terribly fast. It was happening at tremendous velocity. They only had a few seconds to fire it across. And they fired it quick. It was like seven different sequences with missing integ
ers and I say, OK, Pythagoras, and I began to work it out later on.
LEE: I know you were just getting kind of a glimmering of it on Sunday.
DICK: Yeah.
LEE: But to have it crystallize this fast is pretty, pretty amazing. Of course, when something grabs you like that you just kind of can take it and go with it. That’s great.
DICK: Well, then, since then I’ve had that thing where I saw them coming out of the woods as animals, but—
LEE: Does it worry you?
DICK: No, I mean I just want it to be OK for them. You know? It is going to be OK for them. I hope—I’m sure it is.
LEE: Do you know what the basis of any communication would be?
DICK: Math.
LEE: Would they really be able to communicate with us mathematically so that we won’t go squish them all or scramble them with malathion or whatever.
DICK: Uh. OK, they’re going to rely on math because they’ll do with that golden rectangle, that 8 x 13 thing, with me. They can—
LEE: I mean, I’m talking about a real fear of—people see something like that—it’s frightening.
DICK: Yeah, yeah.
LEE: I mean, they might try a mass genocide on whatever it is.
DICK: Yeah, yeah, that’s true. Yeah. Jesus Christ! Literally true.
LEE: I know it is.
DICK: I mean, I was just thinking if it repels, like emotionally, but no, no, you’re talking about actual—
LEE: Exactly. I mean, knowing people, people are terrified of the unknown and they want to just kill the unknown.
DICK: God! You know, I never thought of the past—just kind of an emotional response—you know—but you’re right. They could turn, for instance, you know, helicopter gunships at them.
LEE: I wasn’t being facetious when I said that about the malathion.
DICK: I realize that, yeah. I realize that, yeah. How does it— you know you are still being able to grasp what they were trying to communicate to me.
