The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick

by Philip K. Dick

  [79:I-87] So the meta-abstraction is the sudden insight that the most intense experiences with reality—i.e., that which is most real—is only an abstract sign pointing to an actual totally unseen reality beyond, which causes us to experience the peak moments for the purpose of alluding to itself, creating the peak experiences as an interface by which to register on us; whereupon these ultra intense experiences—taken to be ultimately real—suddenly become only signs, hence abstract: i.e., WORDS about reality and not themselves reality. They merely allude to but are not; they possess no sein, and yet they constitute the most compelling "reality" we know!

  Within the framework of this realization, the statement "a perturbation in the reality field" conveys everything, in that reality is perceived as a field on which something beyond it intrinsically totally undetectable impinges, with the result that it—this totally intrinsically undetectable "thing"—becomes indirectly (inferentially) known to us—as if it is signaling to us but can signal to us only by perturbating the reality field. Thus we must construe "reality" as a medium on which this "thing" registers and makes itself available to us: my "surd." The implications of this are simply stupendous: this "thing" evidently cannot directly register (impinge) on us. To suddenly grasp that we are compelled to give total assent to reality merely as a means by which we can inferentially know this "thing"—this may be the great leap, my "meta-abstraction." As in going from "2 cows and 2 cows = 4 cows" to "2 and 2 = 4"; it is an abstraction, and it does involve a sudden vast leap. Like that of seeing the relationship between the word "banana" and a banana; the word points to the thing....

  [79:I-89] So to say the universe is info is only half the story, and the lesser half: the surd (1) is not discussed. But Bishop is on the right path: Barefoot's "speech for the foolish, sandwich for the wise"; it may not be possible to come any closer to moksa in a verbal presentation; Angel may be doomed because a book is words!

  Words stand in relationship to reality as signifiers (normal abstraction).

  Reality stands in relationship to X as signifier (meta-abstraction). What is this "X"? We don't know; we have only the "signifier," reality.

  But if reality is abstracted into a signifier we can fathom that it (reality) points, although we can see what is pointed to; however, this "X" perturbs the reality field and so is knowable by inference (its perturbation of reality). It renders reality (into) a language. This is why I saw: the plasmate; the set-ground; and rest-motion; and linking-relinking: "X" was perturbing reality causing it to be in relation to "X" a language (i.e., as the word "banana" is to banana). Thus in these 7 years I've only had half the picture, but sensed the "surd." The AI voice has tried to aid me.

  The Tao? "X" does not exist. It is not real. Yet it perturbs reality and causes reality to impinge on us, compelling our assent. This is purposeful.

  My God—what is pointed to is Ubik, Lem's analysis of Ubik ("uncanny one-way intrusions") and "Overdrawn at the Memory Bank" and The Tibetan Book of the Dead and my 10 volume meta-novel.22 In 2-3-74 I never saw the real world; I just saw our semi-real world impinged on, perturbed, made into language.

  ***

  [79:I-94] The meta-abstraction is to (suddenly) perceive reality as signifier and not as the thing signified. Hence as a result (of this meta-abstraction) reality would then very soon assume the aspect of information and language and signs because this is how our minds conceive of "signifier"; languages, information and signs is the way we signify (reality, things: words pointing to something of which they are pure abstraction).

  I've been on the lip of this realization ever since I developed my "surd" theory. Now it is clear why words and even concepts fail to represent what I call Valis; they deal with reality, but in this case reality itself is the abstract signs, words, concepts, info, language; so human language would be twice removed, hence not relatively ineffective but totally so.

  So all the "language" elements that I saw (e.g., plasmate, set-ground, linking-relinking, rest-motion, MMSK) may in fact be metaphors constructed by my own mind to express the fact that as the word "banana" is to banana, reality is to X.

  [79:I-95] My mind was scanning reality as (reality as) language, trying to read it and thus know X. This failed.

  One can (apparently) only know that X exists but not what X is. In which case, the closest approximation conceptually may be that which Anokhi expresses.

  However, my intuition is that since what it (X) manifests itself as is beauty, then the Sufis may be right and its essence is what we term beauty.

  But it would be very hard for this meta-abstraction to take the form of words because to say, "Reality is not that which is signified but is, rather, the signifier," seems (even maybe is) oxymoronic (except that the AI voice knew how to express it: "a perturbation in the reality field"—a brilliant way to convey it).

  [...]

  Thus my poor brain was converted into a putative deciphering machine in its attempt to read the information; but (it would seem) the information can't be read because it is only metaphorically information; that is, it stands to X as information (such as we generate) stands to reality. But it is only like information; it is information only in that it signifies something outside itself; hence all the info I've received is either cryptic or incoherent—although containing mystifying allusions to something; there is, then a something.

  It's like Borges' story "The Library of Babel."

  Well, then; perhaps my 2-74 meta-abstraction was not Plato's recovery of the Forms. But a new way of perceiving reality (distantly related to Plato's perception of the Forms; so-to-speak analogous to it), resulting in my Kantian ordering categories fundamentally revising themselves (or rather my brain discarded the old ones—space, time and causation—and adapted the new one of conceiving everything in terms of abstract information). This is more accurate, but the main goal does not have to do with reality at all but that of which reality (as a field) is the signifier. "It's only information." My brain was telling itself. "But what that information is about can't seem to be found in the information!" My brain tried to break the "cypher" without success. It may be information generated by and in my own brain (which is why the whole thing resembles Ubik and my own prior thought formations). Yet there is something there, capable of perturbing the reality field.

  This of course is why "God" acts through or as causation; he can (he is X) only impinge through reality, not directly.

  But as I said initially, a peak (ultra-intense) experience is X compelling our assent to an absolute degree (in the experience at hand; he—it—can do this anytime anywhere with anything): This is the closest we come to experiencing X; put another way, all peak experiences are of X (expressed in, through, as world).

  [79:I-99] "The age of iron is filibustering so we won't notice that everything we have [that we treasure] has been taken away from us"—hypnogogic thought. Referring to "Acts"? The Messianic age? Strange thought. The real world?

  [79:I-105] 5:30 A.M.: The phenomenal world is what we conceive it to be: in space-time, or information; it has no absolute existence. Its highest utility—pragmatic value—is—would be—to point as a sign to the absolute and be a means by which we could and can know the absolute which does have a genuine intrinsic existence on-its-own but is to us and for us unknowable. Thus I have sharply heightened the use-value of the phenomenal world by shaping it—rendering it—into and as information about the absolute; this is a titanic achievement. I have made the Kantian ordering categories an instrument—not just to shape the phenomenal world—but to (use it to) point to the absolute, which is genuine. Thus the phenomenal world no longer (for me) simply points back to my own mind (and its ordering categories) but points away from me to the absolute; points as information about the absolute, the not-me. This is a vast evolution: it is phenomenal world leading out, not back to me: out and away and to, rather than being circular; rather than simply reporting my own mind back to me (in terms of time, space and most of all causation). This is what I have don
e: made of the phenomenal world a bridge to the absolute, the not-me.

  [79:I-110] Tug. Valence the way. Influence on the reality field: "perturbation"; this is a modern expression for the way.

  I have unified Kantian Cartesianism and Taoism: the sentient tug on reality ("the reality field") by that which is not:

  The way is yielding yet leads. It is gentle but cannot be resisted.

  Valis (my one—sole—glimpse of the action of the absolute on the reality field "a perturbation of the reality field") was a tug, a valence away from plumb. This is the Ch'ang Tao which is outside reality acting on reality. I saw the absolute as a tug (perturbation) acting on reality (and I comprehended the dialectic) and this is Taoism. The Tao is impersonal but "heaven is on the side of the good man" and "heaven fills up the empty."

  [79:I-113] The key is this: the Commedia successfully captures the Medieval world view of vertical—or Gothic—space: rising. This coupled with a transcendental Platonism is the essence of the matter, the hierarchically arranged realms. What I need to do is study a modern person who has no literary contact with the medieval "vertical space" (as does Angel Archer) and trace that person rising through the triune realms from say his high school years to his first marriage, divorce. Without ever referring to the Middle Ages or Dante I will show him rising analogically to Julien Sorel's rise in society in terms of wealth and influence; this however, is spiritual rising, through the vertical realms, in Berkeley in the 40s and 50s. (?) And then (perhaps) a crisis, disaster and Fall. (Why? Why not just have it as in Dante?) Successive levels of spiritual enlightenment: "the Commedia revisited" with no theology. All merely secular: aesthetics, politics, his job. Au tobiographical, a spiritual search. (For what? "The right woman"? Like Janet?) Never will there be any explicit reference to the Commedia and the Middle Ages, and to spiritual ascent, but that is in fact the topic: Christian enlightenment. Culminating in contact (somehow) with Christ or Christ-consciousness, but never identified as such.

  Best method: fairly short time period (e.g., 1948-1951). Unity of time and space. From last year in high school to first job to marriage to divorce.

  Folder 80

  June 1981

  (Editor's note: Dick had finished his new novel, which he called "Bishop Timothy Archer" [or BTA]; it would later be published as The Transmigration of Timothy Archer.)

  [80:I-115] The "Archer" book: jumping-off point:

  Store, and the employees

  Homosexuals

  Berkeley Avant-Garde: Literature/Poets

  CP-USA

  Dixieland Jazz—music in general

  S-F (Tony Boucher)

  The character is on a spiritual quest in the sense of Dante led by Virgil and Beatrice but does not know it (in these terms): Binswanger's 3 realms (Heidegger—none of this ever mentioned).23

  Psychology—therapy—Jung

  Oriental thought—Alan Watts—KPFA

  The University

  To repeat: the underlying ("latent") structure is Medieval vertical space, but the setting is modern purely: time, horizontal, secular. The former shows through as does the mythic substructure in Joyce's Ulysses.

  Crucial experiences (moksa/satori)

  Qualitative leaps of understanding. Cumulative.

  FBI

  What supplies the vertical factor is that these epiphanies/moksas/satoris are (1) cumulative and (2) one-way; once you make each leap you never fall back. Their Commedia spiritual nature can be concealed by having the character be youthful and growing. These seem to be normal growth-stages: first job, first marriage, etc.

  Analysis: the ostensible horizontal axis of linear time (as receptacle of being) conceals a latent vertical axis of space (as receptacle of being), because the spiritual insights (not recognized as such) are cumulative and one-way, rather than merely successive. Hence beneath or within the modern horizontal linear time sequential realm lies hidden the medieval spiritual vertical spatial cumulative realm as the true way-of-being-in-the-world, unrecognized even by the person as he ascends.

  This is the basis of the novel (proposed): its twin structures: one ostensible, material, sequential, linear, temporal—the real one latent, vertical, cumulative, spiritual and spatial, in fact medieval. Only the motion along the vertical axis has real significance, and this motion is concealed, not deliberately sought; the cumulative satoris are as if given to the person (protagonist) by an invisible but distinct agency (entity) who becomes progressively more and more palpable to him starting from zero palpability. It is essential that this not be framed in theological terms. (Then what? Comprehension? Moral, having to do with choice? Freedom? Autonomy? Self awareness [e.g., clarity of idea of his goals/values]? How he ranks the worth of different things? I'm sure this can be done without any reference to religion. Love?)

  The horizontal advances are sought-after and achieved consciously and explicitly. But he does not even know of the "Medieval" vertical scale, hence does not seek to climb; hence on this scale his advances are more encounters, rather than achievements, since he does not knowingly pursue them; yet this is the real scale (the two directions being orthogonal to each other).

  Assuming that, unknown to us, the Medieval vertical axis exists, you could stumble (as it were) onto an extreme ascent—leap plateau unintentionally: advance vertically very simply (along an axis you did not know existed); this could be 2-3-74, a latter quantum jump along an orthogonal axis I had moved in fits and starts along previously. Hence 2-3-74 can only be explained in terms of this specifically medieval vertical axis.

  In reading over these supra pages I discern a terribly moving notion: that some agency leads you along this vertical axis—leads you invisibly—and where it leads you is to itself; it is both means (what moves you) and goal (what it leads you to); moreover, with each quantum leap up, you form a clearer notion of this agency, beginning with no realization of its existence at all. There you become aware that it exists. (This explains why motion in this axis is cumulative and one-way, irreversible; because you are being led, and this agency cannot err.) Finally you begin to gain some conception of it beyond that it exists to what it is like (i.e., its nature), and ultimately it will lead you to it (and this itself is a crucial realization: that it is leading you to itself as the goal).

  [80:I-122] This of course is what I experienced in 3-74 as Valis' mind in my own (and in fact as my own) (myself as intelligible function of the Divine Mind: one function in an infinitude). To know oneself as pure idea, and that idea conceived by the divine mind—this idea, being intelligible, comprehends itself as it is known to and by God. One can see this self-comprehension at work in the "Bishop Archer" book as Angel Archer comprehends herself as pure idea in relation to the ground-of-being: and is aware that she is impaired and yet real. This is not an "infinity of mirrors" regress, quite the contrary! There is such unimpaired self-perception that it is evident that the capacity of this mind for correct observation even of itself is total. This is the epitome of rationality. Angel totally knows herself and thus is: and without qualification; thus in Heidegger's language she possesses authentic realized sein. Her actions are based on this authentic sein. This is not a languid, morbid, intellectual self-preoccupation, but, rather, a pitiless light of the soul alone with itself, without cover or pretense or deception. This is not the ego becoming boundless; she sees when she ends.

  Interestingly, in the final scene of the novel she designates her "serious mistakes" "that she has made" not as/in failing to go with Tim to Israel but, rather, in standing idle, saying nothing, when Tim and Kristen believed that Jeff had come back; and "because of this they are now dead," and Angel is right: this was indeed her error; and she says she doesn't plan to repeat this mistake (vis-à-vis Bill). You'd expect her to designate her failure to go to Israel as her error and had she done so she would have been wrong (for this reason: regarding Jeff she knew better, but regarding Israel she did not and could not).

  [80:I-124] The 3 realms of the Commedia are based on a single
matrix, like the 3 aeons of the Torah. This is a basis of an S-F novel. The vertical axis.

  Use "Frozen Journey" as the paradigm: the same memories return in 3 distinct forms—modes. Entropy. Equate with mental illness. Vitiation of the signal; it suffers a degrading. (1) Freedom (soaring). (2) Duty (voluntary restraint: stoicism). (3) Compulsion: thrall. BIP. Progressive decay. Binswanger's 3 Realms: (1) ecstatic, (2) rational, (3) anankastic.

  1: Yang. 2: Yang/Yin (balance). 3: Yin (immortal cause-and-effect).

  1: Pure form one. 2: Mixture. 3: Pure form two.

  No repetition of scenes as in Martian Time-Slip and "Frozen Journey."

  Treated as alternate tracks, with him located basically in the middle one with glimpses of A and C (worse—better—i.e., Inferno and Paradiso). Tries to avoid A and to find C. Maze—system of punishments (A) and rewards (C). An intelligence. He has time-traveled back to Berkeley circa 1948-1951, as (him I mean) secret invader disguised as autochthon. There are 3 such spatiotemporal "Berkeleys," 3 alternative tracks; he seeks C but is mostly in B, but for failure in maze-solving choices is sent by the mind of the maze to A. Success is to thread the maze and get back out. Entirely. This is his goal: not C but return to his own time. It is not Berkeley c. 1949-1951 but a replication by the intelligence of the maze. He is a historian, an authority on this period. He built the maze as an exhibit ("exhibit piece") and then fell into it. It is a model of the past, like Wash-35 in Last Year. He built it with computer-control as its mind and then he fell into it qua maze. It (its computer mind) won't let him back out until he "solves" it. Like a Disneyland, an amusement-cum-instructional park—like the school in Martian Time-Slip? Reward: C; punishment: A.