The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick

by Philip K. Dick

  What I have been calling "the meta-abstraction" is in fact knowledge—the act of knowing—as God knows (i.e., knows what is, i.e., world). In 2-74 and more fully later in 3-74 I saw as God sees and understood as God understands, that is, absolutely and a priori, in which what is known is exactly the same as what is; they are assimilated to each other. That the mind of God was at that time in my mind—I experienced that as Valis in my mind. All that I saw (Christian apocalyptic world, the plasmate, set to ground, the prison, the secret Christians, the abolition of time—i.e., coaxial reality and the conception/perception of eternal constants)—this is how God sees; I did not see this or understand this; God saw and understood this, and, as I say, I saw and understood because he bloomed in my mind like cold white light (hence I experienced an infinitude of space).➊ I realize this due to Sunday night when the same absolute knowing by God in me induced a realization of my practical and moral jeopardy. Again there was certitude—total, unconditioned knowing—but what I knew this time was dreadful and lethal to me practically and spiritually. Once again the unitary fusion of knowing and doing occurred because for God there is no distinction between what he knows and what he does. Ratiocination—logic itself, thinking itself—does not occur because it is not required; God does not figure out; he does not reason because he does not need to reason.

  It was—both times—as if my mind expanded into infinity (conceived as spatial infinity). The sense one gets is that one's mind contains all reality, and this is because all reality is known a priori and absolutely, not sensibly and contingently.

  [...]

  I guess for a moment I was plunged into hell and discovered what it consists of: one is given absolute moral insight into one's own sinful nature, and there is no way it can be rectified; it is now too late; hence hell is eternal. This is clearly and obviously the just punishment and the logical punishment: absolutely (by the knowledge of God's own mind) to see what one has done, illuminated by the divine light that reveals all. This is total knowledge of the situation and of oneself. It can be awful. By this divine illumination one's cognition/perception condemns one; this is absolute self-condemnation not based on arbitrary rules but on total comprehension of what, really, is structural and how one has fitted into this structure and changed it by one's deeds. The harmony and order of the cosmos are disrupted by what one has done. It was not guilt that I experienced; it was understanding. This is more terrible than any guilt. Guilt admits of degree; this was boundless. [...]

  These revelations that took place Sunday night tell me a great deal about God, wisdom, morality and the Torah, and the order and sustaining of the cosmos—understandings I never had even an inkling of before. I see how correct moral laws function in the divine government and are inseparable from the physical laws that regulate reality itself; moreover, this being the case (the homologizing—logically—of physical law and moral law in sustaining the cosmos, i.e., order) shows why God as cosmocrator is on tologically the source of morality as his primary attribute or manifestation (as Judaism teaches): and as I say, the Gnostics are correct: heimarmene combines causation and the Mosaic dispensation because both are essential in the divine government. God's will, then, which (as Spinoza rightly says) is physical law, is based on Holy Wisdom who informs the creator of what is, and in a certain real sense the absolute comprehension of what is (omniscience) determines what should be.

  Thus (as I say) wisdom and morality and the preservation of the cosmos—universal rules—become one. My radical new comprehension stems from sharing God's view of reality and morality as a unitary "thing"; they only become unitary—one and the same—when Holy Wisdom is involved so that absolute a priori knowing exists.

  The key term is being (Sein, esse, einai); this is what is preserved because this is what Holy Wisdom knows. Hence the role of God as creator is stressed. (I did manage to deal with some of this in DI.) I can now see clearly why and in what way Hagia Sophia is the primary agent in creation.

  All this (based on Sunday night) is probably one of the greatest leaps in my theology-epistemology-worldview-ideology. There is nothing radical in it; it is fundamental: the OT itself. And yet, significantly, I was already moving in this direction, in my thinking (as expressed in DI) and in my life (conservatism, preservation, accrual and building/creating). (And, very important, stability.) What epitomizes all this is not idealism but the rational (as Rabbi Hertz and others point out regarding Judaism). One could say that Sunday night absolute rationality invaded my mind and totally possessed it. (Apollo, then, in contrast to Dionysus or Faust.) Yes, ever since 2-74 I have venerated and sought out St. Sophia, for it was she of whom the AI voice spoke. I see myself as intoxicated up to Sunday night; whereupon I became sober; I came to my senses very suddenly—at the last moment.

  ➊ Augustine teaches this: the divine illumination, later picked up by Malebranche.

  [55:D-110] I have plumbed the true secret core of authentic Christianity—i.e., in 2-3-74. Hidden within the passion, the crucifixion, is its mirror opposite: ecstasis: joy, i.e., Dionysus, and this is what broke over me in 2-3-74: not just theoretical knowledge (Gnosis) but the Christian ecstatic experience.

  Hence when I read Luke I recognize Jesus as a miracle worker, a guru, a magician. He is the God of change.

  ***

  [55:D-115] This means that my lifetime search in plumbing the depths of suffering in order to unravel its mysteries has proven successful. This relates to the rat, the beetle, the burning Japanese soldier, the Galapagos turtle; this has to do with empathy—my empathy—which is another word for agape: and agape is the greatest of the Christian virtues, as Paul tells us: it is the true way of the Christian. But why? Because it is good, i.e., a virtue?* Not exactly. Agape is a road along which one travels in imitation of Christ, to penetrate to the core—deepest ontological layer—of suffering (his passion and crucifixion), and there, if you follow that road—and that road only—you arrive at the secret: the Resurrection—which is the miraculous conversion of suffering into ecstasy, which is uniquely the Christian miracle; this is how Christianity and Christianity alone solves the problem of suffering. This solution is not a philosophical, intellectual understanding (e.g., why there is suffering) but an event: the dramatic conversion of suffering, not into mere stoic apathy, the mere lack of suffering, but into its affective and ontological bipolar opposite: ecstasy—and here, precisely, Dionysus-Zagreus enters; Jesus "is" Dionysus-Zagreus as a solution to suffering; this is not just ecstasy but, more, ecstasy as the conversion of suffering. (This conversion is not found in the Dionysian-Orphic system; ecstasy is sought for its own sake.)

  There is, then, no exultation in suffering per se, here; suffering, as in Buddhism, is to be solved; thus Jesus addresses the same problem that Buddhism and Stoicism address, but solves it quite differently. If Buddhas can be called victors, certainly, then, the Christian (who goes all the way to the end of the road of agape) is even more a victor, for he is not merely liberated from suffering—he experiences ecstasy. Why? My perception is: he remembers Christ the bridegroom having just been here and anticipates his imminent return, and is now as bride preparing for that re turn; the Christian is right now making the wedding preparations in this the tiny interval between Christ leaving and his anticipated imminent return; this is the Dasein of the true Christian, and this is joyful, in fact ecstatic. I know because I experienced it. There is memory of Christ (anamnesis) and anticipation (eschatology), and, most of all, the sense of oneself as the bride of Christ (which is, as soul, which is female). This hierogamy is consummated by the birth in the Spirit, the purpose of the messianic mission; and I do speak of this in VALIS. All time and all space collapse into this: the memory, the anticipation, and the understanding of oneself as the intended bride—which is literally (not just symbolically!) fulfilled by the birth in the spirit which occurs now: it is not anticipated but occurs.

  Yet the road to this is through suffering, and it is not just actual (involuntary) suffering, such as i
s imposed on all creatures, but, rather, the vicarious and voluntary ontological suffering of agape. In imitation of Christ one voluntarily takes on all suffering, but as means, not end.

  [55:D-132] "Spinoza's 3rd attribute: infinity." If every thing, event and act extends into infinity (the eternal) would this (principle alone) not explain 2-3-74 and the "not two mothers once but one mother twice" meta-abstraction? That is, I saw world correctly, extended into the infinite, the absolute, eternal, i.e., as Spinoza's "Deus sive substantia sive natura"! Thus particulars became for me their own archetypes. (Which is why Plato's anamnesis and noesis were involved!) This is not merely a perception of world-as-it-really-is; this is perception of God! Hence the infinite space. [...] In 2-74 I must have caught sight of a particular as what it truly is: an eternal constant; and thus I ushered in infinity by the power of my own comprehension/cognition: I understood.

  [55:D-146] To say that it extends into infinity does not imply immense physical size; it enters into infinite implications, significance, meaning, which is to say it is as I saw in 2-3-74: it is typological (or archetypal). This is precisely the 2-74 meta-abstraction, for it has a permanent and ubiquitous ramification. Thus many places and times work off it. It applies over and over again. It is into this attribute that scripture taps. This is how sacerdotal performance works. The significance axis (is) always the same. (For each paradigmatic thing, event, act, situation.) (1) By "same" what is meant is "unitary." The key term is "[is]" rather than "resembles" or "is identical to." "Not 2 mothers once but one mother seen twice" is a realization of this. Surely this is what Plato surnamed eidē. If what is involved here is that which is signified (by a thing, event, act, situation) then there is a sign-to-object relationship between the word and writing of word mode and object: the word (info) which we take to be the object—thing signified—does not in itself contain the significance that is in the true thing but only refers to it. (The word "dog" does not itself have hair, feet, a tail.) Thus when we see info as object it lacks the significance that the infinity attribute (true object) possesses, analogous to hair, feet and tail on a particular dog. Now, in a sacerdotal act (a sacrament) the significance "in" the act is precisely what is sought for; the object and what is said and done in connection with the object is summoned deliberately—so in a sacerdotal act what I call the infinity attribute is apprehended, or at least the attempt is made to apprehend it—that is the entire point. Well, this is precisely what happened to me in 2-74 in seeing the golden fish sign: an object (that was really only an informational sign pointing to an object) was comprehended by me in this sacerdotal sense—which from a liturgical sense is comprehensible; but what is not comprehensible is that I saw all reality this way: as sign not thing, whereupon (by definition) reality became a sacrament, every building, person, event. No conventional theological explanation will account for this (since such a transformation should be limited to designated sacerdotal objects and acts). What is obvious is that what is done—sought for—with the sacraments (and often achieved) is equally true for any thing, act, situation, event: all reality viewed collectively as an aggregate of plurality; that is, as reality per se. This should not be possible. And, moreover, ordinary reality taken as such without this enhancement becomes "mere" information. So two things have happened: ordinary reality can now be viewed as a sign (information, word, writing) pointing to another kind of reality (object) entirely that is primarily defined, not by its trans-spatial and trans-temporal quality, but by its meaning. It is a significant reality in which meaning is everything, like a sacred drama. Now, this is not Plato's eide. This is something else. This means that everything extends into this dimension, but that the attempt to summon it, being confined to stipulated sacerdotal objects and acts, does not reveal this to us. What I claim for this dimension or mode or attribute is meaning or significance, and this definition when scrutinized really asserts that that which truly is is revealed; viz: the meaning is not implied, referring to something else, as in a symbol or sign that has been given a referral value; the meaning is in the dimension now perceived and this meaning is self-authenticating and self-revealing: it discloses its own "story" by itself, requiring no interpretation or analysis: it is "open." In fact, it is "open" in the precise way that the ordinary object is not when it is taken to be a sign signifying something; with the sign the meaning must be explained: it is not there.

  Folders 67, 68, 69

  December 1981

  [67:12] Something has happened in me that is so important that it is, in effect, the healing at last, of the schism in me that goes back to the 50s to when Mr. Smith and Mr. Scruggs first approached me and set up the schism—and it stems from the Tagore vision. For the first time, tonight, at Michelle's, I was able wholeheartedly and without a trace of ambivalence to engage in political activity directed against the government—and why? Because I know, really know, that this is what God wants; I have chosen—at last—between the two sides that eternally have competed for my allegiance and between which I have always been divided all my life—at least all my adult life. And totally and absolutely committed, because of the religious sanction overriding the merely secular authority.

  [68:L-10] The palpable situation that I now (12/9/81) perceive and in which I am not just actively but wholeheartedly involved is (I suddenly realized) the revealed apocalyptic situation of 2-3-74: it is Armageddon, with the true Christians pitted against the Empire in terms of what I call the "demonic trinity": nuclear reactors, nuclear waste, and nuclear weapons. It is the Tagore vision that transforms supernatural revelation into the palpable: that was (as I have realized in other but closely related terms) the turning point for me. What I did today vis-à-vis the Christic Institute was fully commit myself without hesitation to precisely that organization of Christian revolutionary activists that I saw in 2-3-74 (by revelation) combating the Empire. In other words, my unaided eye can now discern what then was visible to me only by supernatural revelation.

  [...]

  I had already realized that the Tagore vision (1) unified my political action of the 60s with my religious experiences of 74; and (2) unified my psyche, which always before had been split into two warring sub-psyches on opposite sides of the political fence: opposition to the Empire (government) and support of it (e.g., the Bureau). Not only am I mentally healed, I am palpably in what in 74 I knew only by revelation. To me, the nuclear issue is Armageddon and—as I saw revealed in 2-3-74—it is the true Christians against the Empire. Thus 2-3-74 regarded as prophecy has now come true—seven years later—and I am in the thick of it. These are indeed the final days.

  ***

  [68:L-12] The apocalyptic vision has come true really only since Reagan took office; just recently the whole tone of reality has shifted drastically: as I said recently, "The masks are off," and they are off on both sides!

  [69:I-8] Nietzsche is right about Christianity. It's the fucking hair shirt syndrome: always made me feel shame, guilt, always responding to duty and obligations to others—I view myself as weak, at the beck and call of others, obligated to them. Bullshit.

  "I am a man"—as that book on Judaism puts it. I need no one's permission anymore. I need not account to anyone. I owe them nothing; they are pushing old buttons, long out of date. I have proved my worth and earned my reward.

  [...]

  I have earned self-respect, and I deserve the respect of others. Finally. I did it; Russ helped me, but really I did it, starting in 72 when I came here to Orange County. I've made it.

  For me the Tao—the path—is not self-sacrifice and humility but self-respect based on wisdom, achievement and strength. My body's pain is not directed against me; it is my pain in response to self-denial, and, most of all, my denying myself Denise, whom I loved.

  Folder 73

  December 1981

  [73:29] Owl*

  That final last movement for the 13th quartet Beethoven wrote keeps showing up (as it were: i.e., being played) on KPFA, and Owl is invariably terrified by it
—he knows not why. Golly: I'd even be parodying VALIS in my absurdist treatment of the search—Faustian search—for knowledge (salvation through gnosis, which seems to be my own downfall). Owl feels superior to all the other "people" in the construct because they can't see—or aren't interested in—the plasma's autograph. Hence the title: The Owl in Daylight—Owl is a fool, but, like Jack Isidore, a holy fool in Christ.

  Obviously I'll be either going Borges one better or parodying him—either will do.

  Harvey Pong idiot S-F fan.

  The trouble with Owl, the plasma points out, is that in a way he's too clever; he's outsmarting his own maze—which after all was built not to trap or punish him but to teach him and help him problem solve; but all he does is sniff out (1) that it's a forgery (in which I parody my own 10 volume meta-novel!) and (2) that a vast "God like intelligence" lies concealed behind it. This is counterproductive—and costing Owl money. So here in Owl we have absurdist Faust story which parodies my exegesis and Borges and Gnosticism.➊

  Maybe philosophy prof, parody of Heidegger—German ontologist with elements of Jung.

  ➊ Yet there will be elements of wondrous beauty: Beethoven is not parodied, nor Dante; it won't be a parody; it will contain elements of parody, some funny, some savage.

  This won't be merely funny; it will be tragicomic. The futility, the foolish hopelessness of questing after the gnosis—it is in vain. But what, then? Let me ponder. Peer Gynt.50 The button molder.