The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick

  Q: Okay, what did you do?

  A: Meta-abstracted re spatiotemporal sets.

  Q: And as a result?

  A: The ajna eye came on and as a result I meta-perceived along 4 spatial axes.

  Q: And as a result what did you see along these 4 spatial axes?

  A: (1) Something we see partially: the MMSK. And: (2) something we don’t see at all: a living info life form: Valis/the plasmate.

  Q: And what does this add up to?

  A: A quantum evolutionary leap in cognition and way-of-being in the world both in terms of cognition (comprehension about reality) and perception—literally—of that reality. Plato and Buddha (e.g.) were possibly onto this as an experience (anamnesis and) but did not understand what it signified. [ . . . ]

  Finally: this untangling after 7 years of work goes directly back to the grueling labors circa 10-80 when I really bore down. The Logos is pointed to—but new language will have to be developed. Maybe we can work it out in cooperation with “the Logos,” the info life form that I saw that is here.

  I understand! The “Logos,” i.e., the plasmate hence Valis, is a life form that already lives in 4-D space, just as we live in 3-D space. Therefore it is a more evolved life form than us. It isn’t just living info; no: it also lives—hence moves—in full 4-D space: it’s there already, and adapted to that environment. It is a life form more sophisticated than us; from our imperfect 3-D view it is camouflaged from our perception. [ . . . ]

  Is it possible that this augmented depth-perception, perception of four spatial axes, is due to bilateral hemispheric parity? Or even to right hemisphere dominance? After all, it is the right hemisphere that apprehends space. Perhaps my right brain hemisphere became conscious. This is the next step in human evolution: for the right hemisphere to come on.

  And to think it never occurred to me all these years that when I looked at the contents of Tears and saw the text at several spatial levels—each successive one according to how old it was—I was seeing time as space, which means that I had converted time into space according to the quote from Parsifal, “You see, here time turns into space.” Thus (if one wanted to) one could set up a cypher system by which a message could be read off at a glance, as set to ground (in other words in terms of spatial depth along this fourth spatial axis; but whether it is cypher or just the normal way the plasmate operates I have no idea; it may not be cypher at all but just its MO). The message lodges in a context that is not the same age as it; in other words set and ground lie at different depths along the fourth spatial axis. Apparently the percipient does not need to know the age of the different texts in order to see them lying at different depths; they will lie at their appropriate depths according to their intrinsic age, not according to the percipient’s knowledge; this is the case because they actually are at these different depths, when time (age) is converted into space. If this is so, it is quite extraordinary, perhaps the most so of anything I’ve come across in this experience and exegesis of the experience. For example, a percipient who is able to see time as space (the fourth spatial axis) will see the word ASHER on the Linda Ronstadt albums as lying very deep, since it is an ancient Hebrew word. So a message can be put together involving it as a linking device. For example, when I looked at that page in Tears I saw the word FELIX at a different depth from the words surrounding it, and this was before I knew that it is a Latin word as well as a name. I did not estimate the depth by the age; I estimated the age by the depth, by the various different depths. In my opinion someone or something is using this mechanism as a message-carrier. What I have been calling “the ‘Acts’ lens-grid” is in fact the appearance in me of the ability to see time as space, hence age as depth. I stood in the antechamber of a world that is already long inhabited and well-utilized. This is momentous. Since the verbal integer (morpheme) sets its own depth independent of the particular knowledge of the percipient, the enciphering-deciphering (encoding and then extraction) is spontaneous. ASHER can be used (for example) to show where a message begins. It can be linked and relinked with morphemes of other ages greater than that of the inferior bulk-text. What it is linked to need not be the same age as it but only a different age from the inferior bulk-text. The fact that I was used as an unwitting medium to generate and hence transmit such material shows an instance of how this is done; the older, deeper material in Tears came to me in the form of a dream with the urgent sense that I had to enter it into the text of Tears exactly as I had seen it; only years later did I see it lying farther down—i.e., at a greater depth—and then I realized that it was older—hence lower—than the rest of the text of the novel. This material linked itself with the Latin word FELIX which I had thought of as being only a name.

  I believe I counted four different depths in the total text of Tears. A single morpheme will do it. ASHER will be perfect since it is of enormous an tiquity/depth. And it’s on every Ronstadt album starting with “Heart Like a Wheel.” We are talking about literally millions of instances (print-outs), and many linkings.

  This message traffic uses a system that springs normally almost automatically into existence, given the nature of the fourth axis perception (time as space). So the method is not ingenious. But the real question remains: Who is sending, and to whom, and what are they saying?

  [89:29] VALIS picks up where Scanner left off. The traces of heavy metal in drugs that caused the occlusion that I noted in Scanner now appear (in VALIS) as the iron (metal) spear-tip that wounded Christ. And the occlusion that is the topic in Scanner is the topic of VALIS, but now it is an ontological cosmic occlusion: insane creator and irrational creation. The cure (remedy) is salvation through Christ who, it is stipulated, represents the principle of rationality; he breaks into the universe, heals it and us as antidote, and invisibly transubstantiates the universe into his own body. Yet, paradoxically, Christ himself has been wounded by the Black Iron Prison, the Empire, through its spear; as he is physician and savior to us we ourselves flock to destroy the Empire and heal our own savior (salvador salvandus).

  [ . . . ]

  Scanner is my true Paradise Lost (the story of the Fall) and VALIS Paradise Regained, the story of the restoration through Christ. Hence VALIS can only be truly understood if Scanner is taken into account. Bob Arctor on the last page of Scanner is Horselover Fat on the first page of VALIS—the two novels form a seamless whole.

  (1) Scanner: Man’s fall into occlusion, ignorance, impairment and enslavement.➊

  (2)VALIS: Man’s restoration through Christ who brings him the saving Gnosis that in effect he has lost (been deprived of).➋

  ➊ Here he, the man, splits into two halves: he is self-estranged. He is wounded.

  ➋ Here he, the man, fuses back together as one intact person; the wound has healed. He now recognizes himself as himself. The saving knowledge (gnosis) takes the form of man’s ability to identify a picture of himself as himself (“Mein eigenes Gesicht”) (or: “Mein eigenes Gestalt”1). Thus topologically the universe that in Scanner was pulled through infinity, reversing the gestalt and making it unfamiliar (i.e., Fremd), has been reversed once more and is its familiar self: nicht Fremd but rather Heimlich. The Gnostic categories of estrangement and alienation versus returning to one’s home, the familiar, apply here. One has come to oneself after the Fall in Scanner.

  [89:103] It is very, very important to realize that in Tears two distinct selves in me were writing two parallel but unconnected narratives: (1) the overt, explicated political one about forced labor camps and a U.S. ruled by five police marshals, the pols and nats; and (2) a latent religious narrative about Christ and Rome and St. Paul—and agape. Now, in 2-3-74, these two selves as (so to speak) thesis and antithesis ignited into one single ultra synthesis in which the apparently conflicting elements that divided them off from each other were fused in a totally new, vast vision of history, society, God, freedom, tyranny that constituted a revelation to each self. “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts,” but, more, this meant psycho
logical integration for me, individuation in Jung’s sense, wholeness, etc., and an end to internal conflict.

  This synthesis combined revolutionary political activism of a Marxist type with a form of Christianity unknown to me: apocalyptic millenarianism of a Jewish messianic nature, involving a Zoroastrian dialectic (much as the Essenes believed in). [ . . . ] My primary vision was of a conflict constant in history found, e.g., in the book of Daniel in which an enslaved people fight against a tyrannical empire to establish a just kingdom under messianic rule. Upon grasping this conception of history I resolved my inner conflicts by this, a higher organizing principle or structure that subsumed all parts of me. This all embracing conception of history, society, man and the dialectic I put forth in VALIS so that VALIS is simultaneously a religious and a political novel. (Technically, it presents the view of active millenarianism; we must act politically to establish the messianic kingdom.) (It will not come on its own. So VALIS is both a broad overview and a call for positive political action essentially revolutionary.)

  This does not in any way involve an about-face in my political stance (i.e., that which I inherited from Berkeley). It simply fuses it with my metaphysical, religious, epistemological, philosophical views—note “epistemological”; all my years of epistemological preoccupation are involved in the synthesis: viz: I find that Christian apocalyptic history is the true, hidden essence of reality (which of course brings in the messianic salvific mission of Jesus Christ and ultimately God). Thus all areas of my worldview are involved and integrated in this synthesis. The political element has religious implications. The religious element has epistemological implications. There are exceedingly profound historical implications, since it is in history that all this is played out. But until yesterday when I reread VALIS once again I failed to notice just how political a book it is. All my thinking has been philosophical and theological; the political part just seemed to happen. For one thing, it was always there; what is new is the religious mystical part. Also, until Reagan got in office, the political part seemed merely theoretical, but now, suddenly it seems immediate and vital. Suddenly VALIS and the vision presented in VALIS is politically relevant, as if overnight so. This, simply, is because the Empire is back and stronger and worse than ever. The timing of the book is really extraordinary.

  [89:105] Stoned insight: I assimilated my theology, metaphysics, epistemology and philosophy to my political beliefs. They are all changed but the political beliefs remain the same; they ratify my political beliefs. They give it cosmic timeless scope; it is validated by and issues from divine authority.

  VALIS is a fusion of the political theme of Tears, the religious theme of Deus Irae, and the street patois and split personality and dope themes of Scanner—it logically follows the three previous novels.

  and other aspects: death and loss, friends. So I am right; 2-3-74 represented a flash in which the independent areas of my thinking fused into one great new synthesis in which everything I had thought before was subsumed beneath a vision of God. [ . . . ]

  VALIS is composed of:

  (1) My 10 volume meta-novel

  (2) Politics

  (3) Religion

  (4) My actual life

  (5) History

  all fused together into a total vision that is a structure emanating out of the mutual exchange of (between, among) these five elements up to then existing independent of one another in my mind.

  [89:119] The fifth Savior Fat is looking for will lead the resistance against the regime (the BIP). (Like Che.) This time it won’t just be a deposing of the regime; the revolution of the 60s will take over the government and rule in its place; this did not happen in the 60s; once Nixon was out, the counterculture dissolved—because all its leaders had been killed (as the Sibyl pointed out); so the fifth Savior replaces them and leads the revolution to overthrow the regime (the BIP), Reagan himself. This is what VALIS is all about; it preaches revolution. [ . . . ]

  I see VALIS as the Bible, a political handbook, a basic text like Mao’s Red Book. Copping to the fact that I saw Christ is in order to show my authority for preaching political revolution: we must not only overthrow the regime, we must seize power in its place. I must come out of the closet. I already have in VALIS; in confirming the suspicions raised by Tears!!

  Progress is taking place. Deposing Nixon was not enough; we melted away; it was “business as usual,” now we will take over, after a terrible battle with the regime. I must stand behind VALIS theologically and politically: a wholly new thing: the invisible secret true Christians are surfacing, and I am one of them! They’ve existed for some time but in secret; now they come into the open. VALIS is a manifesto.

  [89:137]

  (1) You cannot apprehend the eide and still employ space, time and causation as ordering categories.

  (2) You cannot employ space, time and causation as ordering categories and still apprehend the eide.

  This is what I finally realized: twin realizations; or rather, twin aspects of one realization. The mind (brain) must choose. (I’ve read so many articles on philosophy that I finally learned to reason, not just to guess.)

  [89:139] I just reread Flow My Tears. The mystery deepens. Obviously it is The Bacchae retold. Felix Buckman is King Pentheus, the “King of Tears.” Jason Taverner is the stranger, the priest of Dionysus, who is imprisoned by Pentheus, and who bursts the prison and causes Pentheus to become insane and dress up in women’s garb (alluded to by the character of Alys who “is Felix Buckman’s twin”). “King Felix” is Dionysus, “the joy God,” who was shown to me to be Christ by the dream I had in which I was shown the book page on which the name “Jesus” split apart into Zeus-Zagreus. Beyond doubt “King Felix” is a cypher and refers to the God who will—and does—pull down the King of Tears, the police tyranny; Dionysus does this (as that U.K. article described). So I am saying that “King Felix” refers primarily to Dionysus, and it was Dionysus who overthrew Nixon. My enthusiasmos in 2-3-74 was by Dionysus; I was intoxicated; it was Dionysus’ stoned magic that permitted me to see what I saw in 3-74. Greek—hence I heard Thomas thinking in Greek; hence the Sibyl and Cyclops. By the cypher Dionysus identified himself and his presence, but you had to be “mad” or intoxicated to read the cypher. Hence I dreamed of the maze at Minos, saw Crete beyond the 1:618034 doorway and Aphrodite. I was possessed—and saved—by Dionysus; he saved me from the Xerox missive trap; this is why I was manic—intoxicated. Dionysus! My equation is correct:

  Dionysus inspired the counterculture’s overthrow of Nixon. And inspired VALIS in 2-3-74. The joy God—King Felix. The injury done Felix Buckman (the death of Alys) symbolizes the mortal blow to soon be struck at the tyranny by Dionysus.

  Then when I was slipped the hit of STP in ’74 it was Dionysus I saw: the grapevines growing up around the figure of the Catholic priest, my little icon of the saint.2 And all the pranks, games and riddles (e.g., re Erasmus). Hence I heard the word dithyramb3—the dance of Dionysus.

  [89:141] I do discuss Dionysus in VALIS, but he has occluded me with Christian material—a diversion that I fell for—until I reread Tears tonight; Dionysus caused me to see all that I saw in 3-74; it was his magic—it wasn’t really Christ and God; Dionysus can take any form—he fooled me. Of course, now that VALIS is in print, Dionysus lets me see the truth; since it doesn’t matter.

  [ . . . ]

  “This, too, is sooth.” Yeats. It is magic. Pagan magic. This explains Diana, the AI voice. Pagan magic come to our rescue.

  [89:142] Entry #12 in the tractate:

  The immortal one was known to the Greeks as Dionysus; to the Jews as Elijah; to the Christians as Jesus. He moves on when each human host dies, and thus is never killed or caught. Hence on the cross Jesus said . . . etc. Elijah had left him and he died alone.

  I rest my case.

  [ . . . ]

  The joyous (happy—Felix) Christians blowing up the BIP and running away—this is Dionysus’ perception of the grim King of Tears, his rule, and
the bursting of his prison by Dionysus. To Dionysus, this is the basic perception of the dialectic of history: Dionysus, the running, joyous “secret Christians blowing up the black iron prison” versus the King of Tears. And of course I never flashed on this: BIP versus joyous Christians equals prison versus Dionysus. Dionysus equals freedom. BIP and King of Tears equals slavery. This is the underlying struggle.

  Tears is a Greek tragedy, but more than that it is the birth of Christianity out of tragedy: out of the loss and grief at the end, agape is born. So not only is Dionysus there (tragedy) but Christ (Christianity); it is as if Christ is born (at the end). This is truly an extraordinary novel! It is the passing of one age (antiquity) and the birth of the next (Christianity!!). So as a proto-history it goes from B.C. to A.D. The madness induced in Pentheus by Dionysus (Taverner) is converted (by the dream, which is of Christ) into agape, which is sane—the solution to Dionysus and madness and grief and loss is found in Christian agape, which appears as the solution to the ancient world itself. It is as if Dionysus has evolved into Christ. Dowland—because of his lute music—is obviously Orpheus, the link between Dionysus and Christ historically.

  [89:148] Dream: the Parousia is here. RC (Rosy Cross) is controlled by the Roman Catholic church; subliminal messages so that the true Christians will identify themselves. The Holy Mother Church knows Christ is here. Hence VALIS. We are totally under the control of God (Valis) now. The separation of the sheep from the goats has begun.