DICK PHILIP K.: (1928-1982) American science fiction writer whose novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) ...

DICK PHILIP K.: (1928-1982) American science fiction writer whose novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) was adapted for the cult movie Blade Runner (1982).

 

I am, frankly, very joyful that I got such a radical political novel published –
 in the guise of a theological-philosophical sci-fi novel’

 

DICK PHILIP K.: (1928-1982) American science fiction writer whose novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) was adapted for the cult movie Blade Runner (1982). A remarkable collection of six T.Ls.S., love, Phil, each with a small drawing of a heart and arrow in his hand at the side of the signatures, twenty-one pages (total), 4to, n.p. (Santa Ana, California), February 1981, all to Professor Patricia Warrick (‘Dear Pat’). Over a period of just a few days Dick writes at great length to his correspondent (three of the letters written on the same day, 14^th February, of which one runs to seven pages) and discusses various topics including his VALIS trilogy, Christianity and religion, philosophers including Plato, Plotinus, Dante, Malebranche, Kant, Mercia Eliade and others, American politics (likening the United States President to the ‘grim king’ who must be overthrown), reincarnation, the occult, consciousness of time, the films Star Wars and All That Jazz and other subjects, perhaps most importantly the series of mystical experiences he faced in 1974.

Brief extracts from the letters include –

‘I just reread VALIS in its entirety. I now understand. There is another “time” or reality; it does not lie in the future…..Like the dream-time (perhaps because it is the dream-time) it is now and it is here. It is disclosed by sacrament and by God’s grace through revelation – revelation of Christian apocalyptic history, exactly as I saw. In this other time (illo tempore) Christ is present, but in our linear flux time he is not and, perhaps, never will be. This is exactly and precisely what February 1974 to February 1975 consisted of……The two times or realms bear some kind of relation to each other; in some way they interact (or have a common basis), but I can’t say how. This explains why I “remembered” in February 1974 when I saw the golden fish sign…..It is world as God’s plantation, and the whole story is in VALIS. The search at the end for the savior is a search by Fat (myself) to find the way back to that world, misconstrued in terms of space, and in terms of time….VALIS was Christ, but the question as to whether I went there or he came here totally baffles me…..The faith that Fat and Phil feel at the end of VALIS is the only route; it must be absolute, unfailing and eternal; and yet still God’s grace is necessary if the savior is to be “found”. VALIS is a valid, true, accurate and sufficient account of participation in this other time or realm where Christ is rather than is not…..As Plotinus says, this is not a journey through space; it is a journey from a lower realm to a higher one. All this is very strange, but I know it absolutely upon rereading VALIS.  I know it but I can’t explicate or propound it; yet what I say is true…..VALIS, then, is an extraordinary and extraordinarily important record of this finding of this other reality, realm, world of time. I repeat: beyond doubt, what was found is absolutely real’. (10^th February 1981)

 

‘When I reread VALIS the other day…..there was something else I noticed, something I had not realised was there. A coherent system for political action of a revolutionary nature can dimly be apprehended through the obscuring layers of philosophy and theology and science fiction. I am wondering, therefore, what effect – if any – VALIS will have on born-again Christians, inasmuch as they are into apocalyptic speculations – as my novel is. Just as in Revelation “Babylon” is identified as Rome, I go on and identity “Rome” as the imperial American Presidency. I bipolarize true Christianity to this modern-day Rome and stigmatize the American Government as the incarnation and physical manifestation of Satan…..In fact, VALIS seems to me to be a very political book – virtually a manifesto and to a certain extent even a handbook of rebellion…….Deconstructed, VALIS, then, is a political novel, more so than any I’ve previously written. What apparently happened in March 1974 was that my political views and my religious inclinations and convictions, which up to then were at odds, fused as thesis and antithesis in me into one higher synthesis, so that my theology can be said to have explicit political implications, or it can with equal accuracy be said that I now see my political views as emanating from divine authority, represented in VALIS by Sophia and of course by VALIS itself in the movie Valis. Which is to say, its successful attack on and overthrow of Nixon……Once again my right hand did not know what my left hand was doing. I thought I was writing a theological, philosophical novel; but, as I say, in view of the regime that has just now come to power here in the U.S., VALIS can be interpreted as a call for political action against that regime, and not limiting itself to legal acts. It is as if upon experiencing a Christian conversion (March 1974) I then went on and wrote the political novel that up to then I had always been afraid to write – wanted to write but feared to……Oddly, VALIS, then, is the reverse of FLOW MY TEARS, wherein the overt or external or outer or exoteric message is political…..VALIS appears to be theological and yet carries a covert message in which violent revolution against the regime is preached…..What is strange is that in writing VALIS I was totally unaware that I was preaching revolution, the same revolution I have always preached; but, now possessing divine sanction, in fact divine authorship, I was free (as I say) for the first time to come forth and preach it openly…..I am, frankly, very joyful that I got such a radical political novel published – in the guise of a theological-philosophical sci-fi novel……So I guess I experienced what Jung calls “the reconciliation of the psychic opposites”, this being what March 1974 was all about; the opposites (politics and religion) were fused into a higher synthesis…..and out of this came VALIS. When one reflects on the current political climate, VALIS is extraordinary indeed, and very much needed’ (12^th February 1981)

 

‘I wish to put forth a very powerful argument regarding the spiritual, psychological effect of apprehending the Forms through anamnesis, because I now understand – I think – what the mind of the percipient fathoms when he apprehends that Forms exist, and apprehends them specifically through anamnesis: the loss of amnesia and hence the recovery of prenatal memories. It is pointed out somewhere in my reference books…..that a recollection of a former life or even of several or many former lives is not a guarantee of immortality. This is a logical error often made; viz: if I lived before this lifetime I will therefore live again after this lifetime. But this does not follow; this lifetime could be the final one…..This is why occult books dealing with reincarnation are really not worth anything…..I’ve said always that I really did not know what my brain inferred from my meta-abstraction of February 1974; the inference was non-verbal or supra-verbal, anyhow averbal. Yet I think – I think; I do not know – that I understand, dimly, what my brain inferred in that brief instant: correctly inferred, Simply, it inferred that things do not perish…….contrast this with the lumpen occult twaddle about having been “Khai of Ancient Khem”, as a Berkley novel to be released in March is called; it is about “a man who lives in two different time periods”. Kleo’s cheap sneer about my memory of being Thomas in the first century C.E. has forced me to analyze my meta-abstraction to see what in fact my brain did infer. I think I am on the right track, here. And this would explain my experiencing primal dread in March 1974; the final and ultimate battle to establish my own being had joined. And, fortunately, out of this encounter came my sense of my own being. For the first time in my life. And since then – no more anxiety’ (13^th February 1981)

 

‘I have now got an ingenious way of explaining how the universals – Plato’s Forms – are apprehended; I know exactly what the process is that the brain goes through; what material it receives and handles and how it handles it; i.e. what correct inference it draws. The percept-system (that is, the senses) reports to the brain the following: The same thing exists at two places and two times. That is, one object is seen twice…..The brain will then perform what I call a “meta-abstraction”. It is upon this meta-abstraction that the conception of universals in the sense of Platonic Forms is based….Let me give you an example. A new mother approaches her baby’s crib. Then she goes away. Presently she returns. Again she goes away and again, presently, she returns. The brain of the baby comes to the correct conclusion that there are not three mothers but one seen three times…..Unless this mental operation is done, however, it will be impossible for the brain to organize its sense-data into any kind of coherency, because of course it does not do this with just the one thing (the mother) but with all things…..However, the meta-abstraction from particulars to Plato’s Forms is rare…..It is as logical and as important, and it serves the same purpose: organizing chaos into structure, intelligible structure. However, few people (brains) do it, because to do it you as a brain must see the same object (particular) at two different times and two different places…..and how often does this happen? It can happen only if there is anamnesis; that’s how often it happens, which is not very often….’ (14^th February 1981)

 

‘When the percipient sees the syntonic blending of two spatiotemporal continua he is seeing two things: (1) The irreality of the flux world, or, more precisely, its semireality, its derived existence; and (2) The truly real Form world. He has not abolished world; he has abstracted the Forms and now apperceives them in place of the flux realm. Thus no true acosmism is involved. The percipient has done nothing more than apply the same logic of abstraction that he applied as an infant when he grasped the fact that it was not three mothers who entered his room and approached his crib but one mother three times…..How wonderful it would be if we could monitor an infant’s mind at the occasion of this initial abstraction!......Just suppose, theoretically, what his world was like before his mind performed this operation. Surely, pure chaos reigned…..I have, then, if I am correct, located and explicated the fundamental abstracting logical operation common to not just all humans but to all higher creatures in general. If I am correct – if – then I have achieved a significant breakthrough in understanding how the universals – not just universals but specifically Platonic eide, Plato’s Forms – are apprehended, why, and, perhaps most important of all, for what reasons we can conclude that this meta-abstracting is absolutely necessary, logical and invincible given the sense-data presented to the percipient…..God might understand reality, but we would not. My reference sources make this point. Nominalism is essentially an impossible doctrine; we all must function on the basis of a perception of or the supposition of recurrent constants (universals). World simply cannot, from a pragmatic standpoint, be viewed as an endless procession of unique objects and processes. The real question is not, “Are there universals?” but, “How far are we going to carry the doctrine of universals?”……Something must occur that triggers off the final meta-abstracting; Plato spoke if something encountered that reminds us of our forgotten former life. I call it a “disinhibiting stimulus”. Maybe it’s a large black slab, as in 2001. (I seem to be joking but I am not. My meta-abstracting in February 1974 did not randomly happen; it was induced…..It is sufficient for me right now to explicate the logical steps the brain takes, not to determine a divine cause.)’ (14^th February 1981)

 

‘Recognition by its very nature involves memory….It seems to be necessary to redefine “anamnesis”, but it is impossible that it can be redefined without retaining the element of memory. There is no doubt whatsoever that in February 1974 when I saw the golden fish sign and heard the girl’s words I remembered. That is precisely and specifically what happened and I knew it at the time. I remembered and because I remembered I understood; it all came back to me in an instant, a world (not this one), a way of life (not this one), a place (not this place), a time (not this time); most of all, not Phil Dick…..Let us say that something exists outside of time. Where does it exist? Clearly nowhere; it cannot occupy space and be exempt from time. So it is not an object. When I saw the golden fish sign I did not see an object but a shape, as a triangle is a shape; that can exist outside of space and time, and that does not perish. More accurately, the golden fish sign – the jewelry that the girl wore – was a message; it was information conveyed to me (hence the crucial importance of her words). What, then, was the message? We are here. She identified the “we”: early Christian, therefore secret Christians operating illegally and against the state……Now, as impossible as it may seem, I did not know in February 1974 that the early Christians identified themselves with the fish sign; I say “It sounds impossible” because every seventh car I see these days has the Christian fish sign on it…..But as I see it now, I had noted the same thing at two times and two places. 1) This thing (Christian fish sign) existed in the Roman Empire in the first century C.E. 2) This thing (Christian fish sign) existed now, in the United States, in California in 1974 C.E. Premise: one thing cannot exist at two different places and two different times. Conclusion: Therefore it is an illusion that “two different places and two different times” are involved, despite the evidence of my senses. Whereupon, sure enough, Rome (the Middle East, more precisely) of the first century C.E. faded into palpability, to commingle with U.S.A. 1974 C.E., exactly as my inexorable logic stipulated Did my percept-system simply ape my mental operation?......The answer is contained – not in what happened that day – but what happened a month later. The Middle East of the first century C.E. literally forced its way into palpability; it could not be denied or restrained. And at that point I no longer held any mental convictions on the matter. Nor was I any longer under the influence of the sodium pentathol. Nor were the girl and her golden fish sign present. That antique world pushed forward into palpability because (I think) it was the outer analog of a vast system of inner recognitions and memories surfacing in my mind…..I remembered being an early secret Christian, and Kleo’s cheap sneer is absurd because in no way was there any glory involved in that life; there was fear, great fear, and hiding, and running, and exchanging covert identification signs, and waiting for the Romans to kill us, and performing the primitive sacraments in utter stealth…..Jesus had died and although we anticipated his return he had in fact not returned. The only thing keeping us going was the anticipation of his imminent return. Meanwhile, the Lord’s Supper kept us in touch with him…..I know this will sound strange, but for us the Lord’s Supper was like the hologram of the Princess in STAR WARS…..This is a dreadful thing to say, but the Holy Spirit was a sophisticated recording. It dealt only with the past. The future Christ, which is to say the Parousia, was withheld. Thus time was essentially frozen, and that is my whole point; my anamnesis retrieved what had already happened……What terrifies me (it is even traumatic to admit it) is that I have the nagging sense that the prophecies by the AI voice….are in some very real sense taped messages, programmed to play once the disinhibiting stimulus has set the mechanism into motion; I mean, these are messages encoded in my brain from early times……This is all ghastly, but – I am talking about a memory-packet set to fire on the basis of the right signal…..but how is a memory packet, as marvelous and awesome as it is, going to bring about the millennial kingdom?.....The memory packet is frozen…..I have the sensation that no time is passing, that the tyranny is a constant, the overthrow of the tyranny is a constant, and, finally, the return of the tyranny is a constant…..Is there no end to this?.....Perhaps this is simply a perpetual dialectic, on the order of Yin and Yang…..The millennial kingdom is what you are striving for, but the game is the reality…..I am describing hell….hell in the sense of eternally striving but never getting any closer. This is what you do to people in inferno. The President [Ronald Reagan] we have now is worse than any we have had before. He is worse than Nixon…..It will soon be legal for an FBI undercover operative to commit murder in order to maintain his cover (really)…..The MX missile will be approved. Likewise the neutron bomb……Likewise a central data bank to gather information on domestic sedition, or suspected sedition, which includes “terrorism”, probably defined as any group of two or more blacks with a .22 pistol and a couple of lids of grass…..As regards the Soviet Union, I saw on the TV…..that people from South East Asia…..are dying in their sleep from the effects of nerve gas that the U.S.S.R. used on them back in Cambodia or wherever the fuck they came from…..We are monsters facing monsters…..I get letters begging for money to feed the surviving veterans of the Loyalist Army of Spain now living in incredible poverty in France; these were my heroes and they are toothless old men poking in garbage cans, forgotten by every country in the world, and by Jane Fonda and Joan Baez and anyone else you want to name. I came close to being murdered for my anti-war activity in the Sixties; my physical and mental health is permanently affected for as long as I live, and for what?.......On the other hand I saw Bob Fosse’s film ALL THAT JAZZ and I thought, Had I been created for this moment it would alone justify my entire life…..Never have the themes of death and fatal destiny in the true tragic sense been expressed like this; death is transformed into a glorious hallucination……death celebrated in color and sound and motion to such a height that it assumes a visage so dreadful that even in its perfect beauty it is terrible beyond what we had ever, as a species, imagined…..If it is the triumph of Christianity…..that we take the fate of a simple black woman in the rural South to be equal in importance to the death of kings, then ALL THAT JAZZ is the triumph of something vaster than Christianity, because Christ is not there; God is not there; only Death is there, and death has to carry it all, and welcome Joe Gideon who took pep pills and screwed around and smoked too much and never really loved anyone…..The real victor was popular entertainment turned inside out to become something I can’t describe……Popular entertainment has proven itself the master, the true artifact…..A man taking a morning shower, smoking a cigarette, putting Visine eyedrops in his eyes while listening to a tape of Vivaldi; and our age is justified. I, who have been searching for the Holy Grail, tonight saw something better. I mean: I saw my Lord’. (14^th February 1981).

Each of the letters are accompanied by the original envelopes. A remarkable series of letters, rich in their content. VG to about EX, 6

During February and March 1974, Dick experienced a series of hallucinations which he referred to as ‘2-3-74’. Valis (an acronym for Vast Active Living Intelligence System) is the title of a 1981 science fiction novel by Dick, and is one of a three part series. Set in California during the 1970s, the book features heavy auto-biographical elements and draws inspiration from the author’s own investigations into his unexplained experiences over the previous decade.