The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick

by Philip K. Dick

  Joint (e.g.) is mind, android, cold.

  VALIS (e.g.) is heart, human, life.

  I passed through progressive humanization and humanized stages in my writing as I did so in my actual life.

  [77:G-11]

  There is no truth in this, only artistic vision: but for me, in terms of my own vision, "truth" (objectively) has no meaning; to state that X is "truth" would violate the premise of my own vision. Thus VALIS was inexorably dictated/generated by my total corpus.

  Folder 7815

  May 1981

  [78:H-1] Bishop Tim Archer.

  I'm going to assign to him as his major view my Commedia 3-coaxial realms view (as expressed in my Metz speech and which were going to be the basis for the 3rd novel in the VALIS trilogy*). He has been studying the Commedia and Sufi teachings, also quantum mechanics (which he does not understand but nonetheless prattles on about). He is convinced that Dante's 3 realms (Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso) are available in this life; and here he gets into Heidegger and Dasein. (This makes historical sense, since Heidegger very much influenced Tillich, etc., contemporary Protestant theory.)

  Now, how does this relate to his later involvement with the Zadokite Document and the Anokhi mushroom? The Zadokite sect knew how to get into the Paradiso realm (alternate reality) in which Christ is here. (This clearly relates to Allegro's "hallucination" theory; likewise Hofmann's Road to Eleusis.) It is quite simply the restored realm, and is potentially always available. What I want to stress is that none of these ideas is original with Bishop Archer. So I must invent a writer-scholar-philosopher-theoretician who advances this theory about the Commedia in his book(s), his published writing—something connected with California outré theorizing.

  In other words from the beginning Bishop Archer is searching for Christ. The "Dante" formulation initially provides him with a theoretical framework as to how it can be done (or he thinks this is how it can be done). Now, he drops all this—and the California writer who is based on Alan Watts—in favor of the Zadokite scrolls and the Anokhi mushroom; this is typical of him. I would have built on the first, constructed a synthesis, but this is not how Jim worked; he rushed from one thing to the next. Okay; this California writer is a Sufi. Edgar Barefoot is his name. This is set in the Bay Area. Bishop Archer meets Barefoot; they become colleagues: an Episcopal Bishop and a Sufi guru living on a house boat at Pier 5 in Sausalito. The name of all this is: making God (or, as with Archer, Christ) immediately available to you as a living experience.

  There is a certain quality of Jack Isidore in Bishop Archer: the capacity to believe anything, any pseudoscience or theosophy. The "fool in Christ," naive and gullible and rushing from one fad to another, typical of California.

  The Zadokite Document (scrolls) convinces Bishop Archer—who had devoted his life to "reaching across to the living Christ" (which makes sense given the fact that he is after all a Bishop)—that Christ was "irrelevant." There is something more important: the expositor of the 200 B.C.E. Zadokite sect.

  Archer's involvement with Barefoot is "ecumenical," but with the Zadokite and Anokhi mushroom stuff he has ecumenicalled himself out of Christianity entirely. Barefoot is crushed, heartbroken—an example of the casualties Archer leaves along the road behind him in his speed-rush Faustian quest, always exceeding itself, surpassing itself (it is really Dionysus that has hold of him). Barefoot, Calif. guru that he is, acts as a rational stable counterpoint to Archer's frenzy. Barefoot is authentically what he seems to be, claims to be: a spiritual person and teacher; he is not a fraud. He is always being demolished in discussions by other more formal thinkers, e.g., those at UC Berkeley, e.g., on KPFA. But—like Watts—he has his followers. He is really quite systematic and rigorous in his thinking. He does not foresee Archer suddenly abandoning him and flying off to Europe vis-à-vis the Zadokite scrolls—he, the Sufi, the non-Christian, is horrified when Archer turns his back on Christ. Archer declares that now he has found the true religion (at last). This very concept ("the true religion") is foreign to Barefoot, in fact that is one of his fundamental views: that all religions are equally valuable.

  Ah. Archer has expropriated Barefoot's views and peddled them as his own. Barefoot does not mind; he just wants the views per se to be promulgated. [...]

  So when we meet Bishop Archer he is already involved in a fusion of Heidegger and Sufism—this means that the book will deal with California grotesques, which is okay. This is how we encounter him, like the grown-ups in The Cherry Orchard.

  Barefoot claims actually to have experienced the 3 Realms. I will assign to him my "evasion equals time; Dasein equals space" view. Archer can't get the hang of it and wearies of trying; it takes too long. He wants instant solutions. The Anokhi mushroom will do.

  [...]

  The basic story: Zagreus has seized control of Bishop Archer and drives him to his ruin. Whereupon Zagreus leaves the Bishop and enters Bill Lundborg. But in exchange for madness and death—the dues that Zagreus exacts—he confers a vision of Perfect Beauty (Pythagoras' Kosmos).

  So I have the Bay Area gay community, the Bay Area "Alan Watts KPFA" community, poetry and religion (non-Christian) and music and some dope, but this is not the doper subculture! They are all intellectuals, except Connie.

  How about a Trot too, to bring in radical politics?

  Folder 79

  May 1981

  [79:I-2]16 Art, like theology one giant fraud. Downstairs the people are fighting while I look for God in a reference book: God, ontological arguments for. Better yet: practical arguments against. There is no such listing, it would have helped a lot if it had come in time: arguments against being foolish, ontological and empirical, ancient and modern (see common sense). The trouble with being educated is that it takes a long time; it uses up the better part of your life and when you are finished what you know is that you would have benefited more by going into banking. I wonder if bankers ask such questions. They ask what the prime rate is up to today. If a banker goes out on the Dead Sea Desert he probably takes a flare pistol and canteens and C-rations and a knife. Not a crucifix: Displaying a previous idiocy that was intended to remind him. Destroyer of the people on the Eastshore Freeway and my hopes besides; Sri Krishna, you got us all. Good luck in your other endeavors. Insofar as they are equally commendable in the eyes of other Gods.

  I am faking it, she thought. These passions are bilge. I have become inbred, from hanging around the Bay Area intellectual community; I think as I talk: pompously and in riddles. Worse I talk as I hear. Garbage in (as the computer science majors say); garbage out.

  [79:I-9] These things are obvious to me:

  (1) I am on a stupendous spiritual quest. It involves my total life.

  (2) It involves—but is not limited to—my writing.

  (3) I am making progress.

  (4) VALIS is salient and evolves into the "Bishop Timothy Archer" novel.

  (5) My turning down the Blade Runner offer to do the "Archer" book for only $7,500 is a double-edged spiritual advance: (1) to turn down the money; (2) to do the "Archer" book; thus my spiritual aspirations endured white-hot iron testing and triumphed.*

  (6) It is Anokhi whom I seek. My perception grows, it is real, it is worth the work.

  (7) VALIS was a dim but authentic (!) vision, as to a child, of Anokhi. Someday I will be an adult.

  (8) My view synthesizes all the theology and philosophy I have learned; nothing is wasted.

  (9) I have a real understanding of Anokhi and he works with me to bring this vision about; I am not working in the dark; he is with me.

  (10) Finally, I am right now triumphing, as I write the "Archer" book. Not as a literary piece but rather having to do with Anokhi. Had I not turned down the Blade Runner offer, had I not tackled the "Archer" book, I would have lost. But he helps me. Literature is not the issue. Forging a vision of Anokhi as I write is the issue. For me there is no other issue. Pure consciousness.

  [79:I-13]17 I see the legend of Satan in a new way; Sa
tan desired to know God as fully as possible. The fullest knowledge would come if he became God, was himself God. He strove for this and achieved it, knowing that the punishment would be his permanent exile from God. But he did it anyhow, because the memory of knowing God, really knowing him as no one else ever had or would, justified to him his eternal punishment. Now, who would you say truly loved God out of everyone who ever existed? Satan willingly accepted eternal punishment and exile just to know God—by becoming God—for an instant. Further (it occurs to me) Satan knew God, truly knew God, but perhaps God did not know or truly understand Satan; had he understood him he would not have punished him. But Satan welcomed that punishment, for it was his proof to himself that he knew and loved God. Otherwise he might have done what he did for [the] reward. "Better to rule in hell than to serve in heaven" is an issue, here, but not the true one; which is the ultimate goal and search to know and be; fully and really to know God, in comparison to which all else is really very little.

  [79:I-15] What I must do—what I am doing—is extract the essence (einai) of God out of intoxication; sever the two; for the presence (not the es sence!) of God intoxicates man and makes him mad, but it is man the percipient who is mad, not God.

  I did see God (3-74), and as a vast signalling system who operates in us and on us by hieroglyphics that are stimuli—and this (seeing thus, and correctly) drove me mad; I am mad but I did see God. Yet I continue, for at last God's essence, which transcends madness, will sober me in love: cf. Donne's "batter my heart"; the whole pattern is becoming clear to me, and it is a rational structure! The madness that seeing God fills man with is the madness of belief, knowledge and joy; these must be separated from the madness or their value will be lost in the intoxication. This is enthusiasmos by the Holy Spirit. But (to repeat) God is not mad; man is driven mad by belief, understanding and joy, for he is a little thing.

  [79:I-19] In 2-3-74 the Geist in me rebelled against Fate (death) expressed by the Xerox missive and, in rebelling, became self-aware (Anokhi); this is what I knew (and knew of) as Valis. It could not rebel unless it became self-aware; it could not be self-aware without rebelling (against fate). (This finds expression in VALIS when I say of the plasmate: "For thousands of years it slumbered"; i.e., "throughout all this [the first age or half of the book] Siddhartha slept [but now he awakes].") [...]

  Thus in a certain poetic way it is true to say I seized the Book of the Spinners—i.e., of Fate—read the writing and caused it (my fate) to come out differently.18 Put another way, I refused my instructions to die—my programming; I rebelled against it. These are poetic or quasi-poetic, but "rebel," "Fate" and "spirit" and "consciousness" (Anokhi) are real and literal.

  [79:I-24] The issue is not reality or ontology but consciousness—the possibility of pure, absolute consciousness occurring. In terms of which material things (objects) become language or information, conveying or recording or expressing meaning or ideas or thoughts; Mind using reality as a carrier for information, as an LP groove is used to carry information; to record, store and play it back. This is the essential issue; this use of material reality by mind as a carrier for information by which information is processed—and this is what I saw that I called Valis, and anyone who reads VALIS and thinks it is just a rehash of metaphysical ideas or ideas "worked over by 1,000s of thinkers for 1,000s of years" is a fucking fool! Robert Anton Wilson is right.19

  [79:I-28] I will know what this pure consciousness was, ere I die trying.

  Some mental entity using reality as a carrier for information—what does this mean? That we humans are not alone and that we are not the highest life form on this planet. And it is aware of us and intervenes in our lives; yet we see it not.

  [79:I-30] All I can think of is that reality is pure consciousness; that only Anokhi exists, purely and solely. That what we have is ascending degrees of perception, and the ultimate is perception of pure consciousness "out there"!

  I can express the essence of it: reality refers to something above, beyond and outside itself; it is (literally is) an idea about something else; it is not so much information but an idea or concept of something beyond it (itself). Hence I discerned info "recorded" or "encoded" into/on it. What I have been missing is: this causes reality—not just to be a vehicle for info—but, as a vehicle, to be caused to refer to something outside itself. Thus it signifies (as what is seen) what is not seen, and this (my not-seen) is my surd. And I know what that (surd) is: it is God impinging on reality (but distinct from it, Spinoza to the contrary). Hence this is why I saw "pretextual cause" and "camouflage"; this (new) concept subsumes both these earlier perceptions/conceptions.

  I have had it all and never realized it before (except that I understood the "surd" concept). Hence the AI voice speaks of a "perturbation in the reality field"—pointing beyond the reality field! All creation registers the imprint of God and reveals God. But not in the traditional "design" sense; no: not design but sign which must be read; sign pointing to what lies beyond it (viz: a sign does not point to itself). Put another way, if there was no creation, the existence of God would be metaphysical, just as without the iron filings the magnetic field is metaphysical. Yet we do not and cannot normally "read" reality at all. It is either-or, not degree. Both the immanent and transcendent views are wrong; a totally new view is needed! Viewed this way the "Acts," dream and cypher material in Tears becomes completely understandable. This is how the I Ching works, the registering as if by a limpid passive "vegetable" agent. What we are talking about, then, is the Tao, which is real but does not exist! Yet registers on (or mildly shapes) what does exist! And is the ultimate power.

  [79:I-34] When I saw the Grail this morning (5:30 A.M.) I did not see it per se; I did not, either, see it created out of nothing. I saw an ordinary physical normal every-day cup already in world affected by God; the cup in a sort of mist of color—the space around the cup as mist-like colors; and this cup became the Grail; it changed; it was made into (?) the Grail, and it did not just seem to me to be the Grail; it was the Grail; it was what I would say converted into spirit, a spiritual thing: "Grailified," so to speak. Light did not emanate from it; it was transfigured by a sort of material light that showed—displayed or was—colors. He must have a physical cup or cup-like object in, I guess, our Lower Realm, to shape and mold and change and transform and "Grailify." The spiritual, then, is not opposed to or separate from the physical; it is as if the physical and mundane exists to be thus spiritualized.

  The physical, material world, then, is not truly disjunctive to the other realm but points to it as a sign and under certain circumstances—a state of Grace—can be so read: as to what it refers to, is or bears (carries) information about.

  I found myself thinking, "This is the Medieval World View," and then I realized, "No! This is what it aimed at."

  [79:I-36] "Bishop Archer." The medium Rachel Garret is (acts as) the Spinner; she foretells the Bishop his fate: death in the Dead Sea Desert. The rest of the book is his attempt to defy Fate and free himself from his sinister destiny through the blood of Christ.

  [...]

  He puts up the greatest fight possible against sinister Fate; this could include fighting against deteriorating into a credulous crank: Kristen's death sobers him up. Yet if he believes Rachel's prophecy he has de facto succumbed to superstitious credulity! Is this not Scylla and Charybdis? To avoid death he must believe in crackpots. The reader, knowing of Jim Pike's death, will see the irony of the situation. Angel counsels him not to believe what mediums say; but he cannily senses that he had been heeding Rachel's warning at the cost of seeming/being a nut: "Better a live dog than a dead lion." He is really in a spot: Fate, by a master move, has him either way. The Bishop correctly perceives the strategy (by Fate): a master move involving paradox.

  [79:I-39]

  (1) The warning by Jeff, through Rachel Garret. Apparently Jeff has come back all right.

  (2) Disbelief by Tim and Angel (of the warning).

  (3) Kirsten
's suicide. This changes everything.

  (4) Tim now takes it seriously and perceives the double bind he is in. He is totally lucid.

  (5) Tim sees the situation in terms of Fate; his knowledge of the mystery religion origins of Christianity comes to his rescue; Christ can save him (and only Christ).

  (6) ∴ (sic!) He goes to Israel to seek "Christ," the Anokhi mushroom. Dies. It would seem Fate won.

  (7) Angel encounters Bill: Tim is alive in him (as in "Beyond Lies the Wub") but he (whoever "he" signifies) is mad.

  (8) All she can save now is herself.

  [79:I-43] All—repeat: all—that invaded me in 2-3-74 was myself as eternal unique idea (in other words my intelligible essence or soul). Somehow I gained access to my informational basis!