The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick

  I think 3-74 was something I did vis-à-vis world that did not involve God. It involved world and information, but it was physical. I am the doubt; God allows it but it is satanic and rebellious. It is Satan the accuser of God’s handiwork, Satan in me as rebel questioning reality under the guise of epistemological inquiry. It is hubris and intellectual arrogance yet God allowed it. It was—has been—blasphemy. World, which I questioned, came back at me in a subtle form, the subtle serpent, world as Valis which I then took to be real, and so fell even more under its domination than any average Christian is dominated by world; Valis is world as Satan’s kingdom, subtly disguised in such a way as to fulfill my personal, individual preconceptions about God; this is why 3-74 resembled Ubik and Ubik; it was my own preconceptions and theology fed back at me to “ratify” them. This is world’s—Satan’s—victory, this great intellectual subtlety. World as it normally appeared was not complex and illusive enough to satisfy me, so Satan obliged: with world that would satisfy me emotionally and intellectually. (And in doing so, burned me with the hell labor of this exegesis.) [ . . . ] I have sinned in this exegesis; it is one vast edifice of hubris, of Satan in me questioning and accusing.

  And I finally began to realize it; I prayed to be delivered from it. 3-74 was some vast enantiodromia in which I pulled reality inside-out, used up and hence froze time, saw the past (“Acts”) and the future (the second sig nal) so it was a great feat. But it was still reality: epistemology and not even metaphysics, and no theology—world rightly seen—but not God.

  [1:293] November 24, 1980

  The arguments for Valis being the Cosmic Christ are not conclusive but they are compelling. I call my own attention to the typed pages of 11-16-80 which preceded by only a short while the theophany of 11-17-80. They were in fact the last thing I wrote before the theophany.

  [1:301] Strange to say, when I look back to 11-17-80 what seems to me now the most proof that it really was God is not so much the bliss but the distinct individual personality (with its intense love); the distinctness, the uniqueness, the individuality of the personality. I could then and still can imagine what he would look like were he physically visible: an old man in a robe, very old, very dignified and wise, but, most of all, loving and kind and gentle (yet firm, very firm)—but not as he is usually pictured, not a patriarch in the usual sense, more, perhaps, like a magician in contrast, though, to (say) Gandolf; much darker: gray and brown and black, in shadow, yes: in shadow, like Michelangelo painted him in his creating Eve, yet not so, but close to it. Not heroic, as Michelangelo painted him, and not Hebrew. More supernatural. Really sort of physical, not “spiritual.” Yes: physical and supernatural, not a king or patriarch, all dark. Like a druid or humanist: learning. Not classical. Like a tree or a scholar.

  I know: _like a book._ Hence made of parchment, tree, branches, paper, cloth.

  He was not a type, like “the wise old King,” not an archetype, not like a statue; he was an individual, not man but a given specific man (in contrast to sort of Platonic eidos). It was as if the universe had been created by one given specific individual man.

  Book. Robe. Tree. Gray. Brown. Dark shades and fabric.

  There was nothing generic about him. No so to speak DNA. No latency; all was actualized and distinct. As if you had gone from the physical, material realm of specifics to the Platonic archetypal—and then back to the specific man! Like a complete circle. Strange. He was like all ontogeny!

  As if a wise old scholar, a sage, had conjured up creation, not God as we normally think of him, but a scholar of love and tenderness, but of vast learning. Again I see a book.

  [1:303] But there were elements about him not found in man or men as I have experienced them: specifically, infinite love (agape). Not agape greater than I have ever known but infinite—and from it stems absolute theodicy and, for us, infinite bliss. (I might also add that infinite kindness was contained in this infinite agape, but—I would think—that is due to the nature of agape; it cannot be separated from it, something I already knew about agape—v. my story notes for the Ballantine collection.79) Here I see my earliest—and really inadequate—definition of agape as “worry”; by that I meant and mean concern for that which by definition is not you, that which is independent of you, having its own einai. This is what you cherish due to your agape: the integrity of the einai of the other (creature). You offer it life.*

  [1:309] It is a good thing that earlier in my exegesis I realized that I had a surd left over, because that surd is the God I experienced in 11-17-80; viz: when “perturbed” world was completely analyzed, there was something left over that was not world (the glint and riffle in the weeds of the alley, the glyphs of God).

  Folder 87

  November–December 1980

  [87:1] November 30, 1980

  I happened to read the EB article on Messianic Movements and am simply in shock. Everything revealed to me vis-à-vis 3-74 and the AI voice—it is Christian covert Messianic movement—it is—look; there is an invisible Christian Messianic movement or group or organization, what I used to call “the secret underground Christians”—my experience in 3-74 (based on 2-74), with seeing Valis and all my dreams and the AI voice (e.g., “The Empire never died”)—anyhow; there are five kingdoms or empires; yes, empires. Assyrian, Persian, Greek, Roman, and the next—the fifth—will be Christ’s. This is chiliastic, millennialist thinking, as opposed to Augustine; it has to do with movements breaking out later on, starting with (yes, you guessed it) Joachim del Fiore.

  This is incredible. I am in shock. The entire edifice of secret Messianic movements was supernaturally disclosed to me, or else by fantastic technology, and it’s all in VALIS. And (get this!) the EB article on Messianic Movements talks about it being connected with the Enlightenment!

  The “second signal”—cryptic information, the two-word cypher in Tears, and the “Acts” material and the (oh God!) the dream material in Tears—Messianic chiliasm.

  There is a secret organization fighting the BIP.

  More. The Kingdom is here, secretly; I saw it. And Valis is Christ or God.

  I am pitted against all establishment Christianity, which takes its cue from Augustine, that the present order will endure. The EB:

  The granting of toleration to Christianity by the Roman emperor Constantine . . . and its becoming the religion of the Roman Empire heralded a development in which the church became the ally of the present order rather than the harbinger of its passing away.

  There you have it. “As far as the struggle with evil in this world is concerned, Augustine surrendered and abandoned the field. No imminent supernatural intervention in history was expected. Augustine taught what has been referred to as ‘realized’ eschatology. For him the battle has already been fought on the spiritual ground that really mattered . . . he rejected as carnal any expectations of a renewed and purified world that the believers could expect to enjoy.” “Augustine’s allegorical millennialism be came the official doctrine of the church, and apocalypticism went underground.”

  And I have it all there in VALIS!!!!!

  [ . . . ]

  I have it; why VR deals with Judaism.

  Emphasis on the expected Second Coming introduced an element of messianic unrest in addition to questioning the validity of the present order; it was soon repudiated by the church as “unspiritual,” since it envisaged a messianic kingdom upon earth—rather in the manner of the Jews—instead of a heavenly Kingdom.

  Note: “Rather in the manner of the Jews.” Hence VR, based on what the AI voice said, spoke of “He has been transplanted and is alive” as YHWH, not Christ.

  The heretical element, though not inherent in millenarianism as such, resided in the tendency of radical religious or social criticism to use chiliast-messianic terminology when such criticism propagated the notion that the present rulers—and even the very forms—of church and state would be superseded by a perfect order.

  This is just incredible. Because 2-3-74 constitutes
proof that some secret underground chiliastic Messianic movement exists, and Christ or YHWH is the head of it; therefore it possesses either supernatural powers or advanced technology; I don’t know which.

  This first shows up in Tears.

  It has to do with the future, so it may indeed be technology.

  It’s all there in VALIS. It first showed up in Tears.

  So I’m not just a Christian; I’m a revolutionary chiliastic Messianic millennialist, part of a secret underground group led by either the Cosmic Christ or God and possessing either supernatural or advanced technological means.

  We are pitted against the entire world-order, both church and state (vide VR!!). And it is on the Jewish model, although Christian.

  I had better burn my exegesis.

  Because this has to do with revolution, radical social reform; it has some kind of relationship to Marxism, to socialism, to the overthrow of governments and the establishing of a new world order. Again let me think back to Nixon and his downfall. Oh dear. This secret group with its technology (?) acted in 1974. It’s all true.

  * * *

  [87:17] Today I’ve tried to work on my exegesis—as I’ve been doing for 6½ years. I can’t do it. Why not? Because the love and personality that God showed me on 11-17-80 make any intellectual understanding seem unimportant—pale and weak and dry and faded. Never have I known anything like that love; and the personality—it was as distinct as any human personality. And this does not even consider the infinite bliss I felt. He answered all my questions anyhow; I have no more questions. To know God and God’s love, and to understand how our suffering, our life here, will be justified—his gentle reproach: “Would you think I in my theodicy would not make it up to you, make it up so that this suffering here would seem—be—paltry in comparison?” And then he let me experience a little of the bliss to come. So the bliss did 3 things:

  It explained why he would let us suffer here. How it would be justified. (This has always been my main theological-philosophical question.)

  Because it was infinite bliss it proved he was God (because I see this as proof: only God can provide infinite bliss).

  It made me happy intrinsically.

  But the love outshone the bliss; perhaps it gave rise to the bliss. I have never known such love.

  Human personality is imaged upon his personality (I realize). This is why although it was infinite it was—well—it was like an infinite augmentation of such love as I have in fact known in life—but—it was beauty-in-the-form-of-love. But it was more intimate (as well as more intense). It pulsated like—maybe a light.

  And he knew me. And yet still he loved me.

  Of one thing there is no doubt: this was the Judeo-Christian view/concept of God. Transcendent. With the life to come—the afterlife—as a reward, and this life here an ordeal, but one justified by the afterlife. And God of love bestowing infinite eternal bliss.* And God with distinct per sonality—which is not really the same thing as mere consciousness. Pantheism was by what he said ruled out. And he gave me to understand that (much as I had already figured out) I had experienced only traces of him here in this world; he is in his transcendence much more—infinitely more. Although he did not say it, I got the impression that—well, I was going to say, “We are created here,” but I really don’t know. But he did designate our lives here as an ordeal—but a little ordeal, in fact so paltry in comparison to what is to come that all my theorizing about reality is of little significance because this life here is of such little stature in comparison with what is to come; what is epistemology when infinities of infinities lie ahead of us? Even a tiny knowledge about infinity and eternity is more than a lot of knowledge about this finite world . . . a point I have totally missed. All my speculations have been about world, so world has me fast! It has been a trap!

  But on the other hand (as I have noted) I was reeling from encountering the raw fact—proof—of God’s existence and effort exerted on world. I was inferring God by the perturbation he caused in world (as the AI voice pointed out). Now I have direct knowledge of God. World no longer now seems to me to be of any importance.

  I just realized a common element I had missed that links the theophany of 3-74 to 11-17-80: in both cases my sense of evil, oppression and suffering was undermined drastically by an awareness of divine goodness, love, wisdom and power (cf. my Charles Platt interview: “removed as if by divine fiat”). There is a distinct continuity.

  I have it. “Valis” studies reason invading the irrational and arbitrary—this is Valis invading. The rational (reason, logic, justice—i.e., Valis) is higher than the irrational (ananke); this is all a Greek view, Greek and Roman. This is as far as my revelation had reached in 2-3-74: the dialectical combat between the irrational and the rational (ananke and noös, which is how I specifically and correctly express the combat in VALIS). But there is even one higher level, above reason: agapē (which doesn’t show up in VALIS, i.e., in 2-3-74). Reason subdues the irrational: justice (Torah) subdues chaos! Order subdues chaos. But now—as of 11-17-80—I encounter something even higher: Jesus’ God, Abba, whose essence is love “that moves the sun and the other stars”; this—agapē—is the highest, not higher, principle; it is Christian love above Stoic reason. It is bliss, infinity and love, and transcendent; it leaves the world-order, epistemology and metaphysics and philosophy and science behind/below. This is not noös; it is above noös; it is like us (cf. 1 Jn). Greek culture didn’t give rise to this idea (it gave rise to the idea of logos or noös). Hebrew culture didn’t give rise to it (it—Hebrew culture—gave rise to the idea of Torah, the will or law of God, cf. Spinoza). Where did it come from, then, this equating God with agapē (v. Paul’s letters)? Why, it was revealed by Jesus; even Buddhism and Zoroastrianism lack it (note: the wise mind, not the loving Father). I see no precedent for this revelation by Jesus. We even today, 2,000 years later, have little understanding of this total, accepting loving-kindness, because of which God adopts us as his sons and heirs. I do deal with it at the end of Tears—but on 11-17-80 I experienced it. Words can’t describe it, whereas words can describe logic and reason and justice. And I have been adopted.

  [87:37] One of my greatest realizations about him in 11-17-80 is that rather than just willing he also allows (in contrast to Spinoza: “His will is law”). Everything that exists he either wills or allows. The magnitude of the freedom expressed by this (“he allows”) was a totally new conceptual experience to me. God’s will was something I understood; in fact I had always viewed everything as due to his will. I had therefore no notion of human free will (in this I saw God and reality as Spinoza did). He allows independent being, which explains, perhaps, evil and disorder and that which is futile and wasteful, perverse and senseless. He shows infinite toleration due to his love and kindness; nonetheless this is not all; he also decrees (this is his will); a tension is created by his will and his permission, the result of which is an unfathomable mystery to a finite creature’s intelligence; but God knows that every creature will within this mysterious bimodular reality—God’s will and God’s permission—find his way voluntarily back to God, however long and “inefficient” the path. This is totally bountiful; the parameters are infinity itself.

  [87:73] December 8, 1980

  Thus there is absolutely no problem in reconciling 2-3-74 with 11-17-80. The first had to do with world and a “perturbation in the reality field”; the second had to do with a transcendent God who is a loving father, with personality, his essence love, capable of conferring infinite bliss; he is infinite along all axes. This is more than his will. But from a practical standpoint, in terms of world and human history, his will is everything; for instance, it saved my life vis-à-vis the Xerox missive.

  Folder 88

  December 1980

  [88:10] December 10, 1980

  Notes to [>]. I did not start out seeing God—i.e., 2-3-74—and “this theophany led to my 6½ years of exegesis”—futile exegesis of 2-3-74 based on the delusion that I had s
een God. What actually happened was that I saw world in a highly superior way, but still world: it had something to do with entropic time and my exhausting entropic time through/in/by the dialectic until a massive enantiodromia occurred; I “pulled world through infinity,” i.e., into negentropic time/morphological arrangement (Plato’s eidē). But I took this ultimate view of reality as a vision of God and so fell into a terrible trap both epistemologically (philosophically, metaphysically) and also theologically (spiritually); for example I supposed a pantheism à la Spinoza.