A Messiah could make no significant difference - leaves the problems of Life untouched

There has usually been, and commonly, a yearning for a Messiah - a deliverer or saviour of a people or the world. 

The deep problem is not that the Messiah never actually comes; but that even if there was or is a Messiah, and even if he actually liberated or saved his people or the world; then doing this would leave the fundamental problems of Life untouched.

This because even if "my people" or the world was somehow genuinely and lastingly saved from any kind of worldly-affliction such as enslavement, poverty, natural destruction, war, poverty... then there would still be entropy (disease, degeneration, death) and there would still be evil. 

This came to mind in reading Philip K Dick's Exegesis - and considering that for many years he yearned desperately for a Saviour; in the last weeks of his life, he announced his vision of "Tagore" whose role was vicariously to save the planet from Man's ecological destruction.  

But PKD was being short-sighted and overwhelmed by current emotion - like when we are sick or afraid; and imagine "if only" we could be well we would never be unhappy again. 

Even if Tagore had been true and had achieved exactly what Dick hoped he would - this would have made zero qualitative difference to the human condition. 

It is the problem of double-negative values; the Messiah is supposed to save-from - and no matter how many things he was able to save me or us from; then the problems of entropy and evil would still remain.

 

Indeed; no matter what I personally was saved-from - I would still have the problem of my-self and of my-death. 

Like everybody I have ever heard of; I am quite capable of tormenting myself into misery (even despair) even when I am currently un-afflicted by any significant problem - when I am free of pain, of hunger, when I am warm and comfortable and here-and-now secure. 

When I imagine or dream terrible things - I am doing this to myself, and the evil is from me. 

There is the evil in me; there are an uncountable number of bad things that could happen, that cannot be excluded - and there are the universal actualities and possibilities of entropy (especially death) and evil.

The most that could realistically be achieved by an actual Messiah would be to impose on his people (because few would accept it) a kind of irreversible blissful ignorance of the fundamental problems - which would need to be some kind of permanent annihilation of consciousness...

Which is, if not exactly death, then subjectively indistinguishable from being unalive; and amounts to the wish that we never had lived. 

This is the terminus of the primacy of any double-negative values: a preference for not-existence. 

PSYOP Thought Experiments: How would you react if you learned that a sad and beautiful poem that touched you deeply had been written by a computer?

You may think she's cute - but she's a replicant, you fool!

Thought experiments are usually pretty evil mind manipulations, as I've said before. 

The thing is that in order to respond to thought experiments, you must allow yourself to admit them as possible, as potentially real. 

I got the title of this post from an advert for an NYT "Best Selling" book of such questions - which provides a clear example of the PSYOP nature of Establishment-allowed and Mass Media-publicized thought experiments. 

"How would you react if you learned that a sad and beautiful poem that touched you deeply had been written by a computer?" compels us to admit (for the purposes of argument, in our own understanding) that the very highest realms of human creativity can - in principle - be replicated by computers. 

Of course there is no instance of any such creativity from a computer ever; for the good reason that it is impossible - impossible in principle, not in practice.

But we are supposed to take it seriously, and in doing so we take it seriously - and thus genius-level computer creativity becomes a social reality, even when a real impossibility. 

One could extend the thought experiment (and of course this has been done, is being done, on a near daily basis in the media and elsewhere); to even more subversive questions as: 

"How would you react if you learned that your deeply loved wife of twenty years was in fact a robot"? 

Or the Philip K Dick story The Electric Ant, in which the "how would you react" is to learning that you yourself were a robot*.   

Focusing on "how would you react" is a classic way of smuggling assumptions; of the "do you still beat your wife" type, or implicit character-assassinations like asking "what made X become such an murderous psychopath?". 

(Of course, PKD is the genius-originator of this line of thought-experiment; with a difference that he really lived it.)

The PSYOPS give-away is that this kind of supposedly-free-thinking-radical, subversive, confusing, delusion-inducing, doubt-generating, demotivating thought experiment is media mainstream - often mandatory in schools and colleges; and indeed currently a Major (Trillion Dollar) part of public funding, strategy and propaganda... 

Is actually located in an Establishment monitored and controlled public discourse; in which innumerable and ever-increasing everyday and obvious experiences and observations are treated as hate-facts: taboo, suppressed, slurred, dishonestly-denigrated, excluded, and increasingly punishable. 

This kind of detailed, long-term manipulation of discourse - such that the impossible must be taken seriously and the true must be regarded as a lie - is clearly intentional and strategic... Global and totalitarian PSYOPS, in other words. 

Should we seek for God among the "trash" of Western culture?

In his Exegesis; Philip K Dick often returns to the theme that God - and The Good - could be found among the "trash" of civilization - and only among the trash:

The right place to look for the Almighty is, e.g., in the trash in the alley. And for Satan in vast cathedrals etc. 

This fitted with PKD's sustained interest in historical Gnosticism; by which this world is made by The Devil, who is an evil demiurge; such that God (and Good) can only penetrate this world (and eventually redeem it - make it good) by stealth and in-disguise. 

Such Gnosticism (which he knew of partly via his friend the Bishop of California Jim Pike, who was involved in translating the Nag Hammadi library) appealed to PKD because he was very aware of the evils of this world, especially its suffering. 

PKD could not make intuitive sense of the traditional-orthodox-canonical Christian view that such a world as we inhabit was created and sustained by a wholly-good and omnipotent God. On the other hand; PKD was not satisfied by the explanations of Gnosticism either - and therefore the Exegesis displays many oscillations and explorations, and never settles on a final or wholly-satisfying explanation. 

Leaving aside what I regard as the mistaken metaphysical assumptions of ancient Gnosticism (and indeed traditional canonical Christianity) - there is certainly a strong case to be made that real Christianity is now to be found only among the detritus and at the edges of modern Western Culture; and not in the cathedrals, temples, churches, seminaries and theological colleges, or their like. Nor indeed in mainstream mass media; nor high status education and academia.  

As Western Culture has become totalitarian and corrupted - then every-thing that is mainstream, official, popular, powerful, wealthy and high status; has been brought within the evil-motivated totalitarian System, and under the ultimate control of literal demons. 

Here-and-now; any-thing that is not on-board-with, and supportive-of, the totality of systemic evil is forced to the margins; and demonized as "trash". 

Christians themselves are already - and increasingly - regarded-as, and treated-as, trash by the world of mainstream officialdom and mass media; and the more truly-Christian a person may be, the more he will be despised. 

So that the end-result is superficially very much as assumed by ancient Gnostics and their sympathizers such as PKD; despite that PKD was essentially a man-of-the-left, and there is a significant element of 60s counter-culture "nostalgie de la boue" -style posturing about the notion of seeking "God" in the trash!

Nonetheless, and despite all reservations and contextualization; it is probably true in essence. 

Although most of the trash of our civilization is indeed rubbish, and some of it is very evil; as of 2024, in The West, we won't find God anywhere else. 

Philip K Dick, Tim Powers, and CS Lewis

This section of Philip K Dick's novel Valis (1981) always cracks me up, whenever I re-read it: 

It was a mainstay of Kevin's bag of verbal tricks that the universe consisted of misery and hostility and would get you in the end. He looked at the universe the way most people regard an unpaid bill; eventually they will force payment. The universe reeled you out, let you flop and thrash and then reeled you in. Kevin waited constantly for this to begin with him, with me, with David and especially with Sherri. 

As to Horselover Fat, Kevin believed that the line hadn't been payed out in years; Fat had long been in the part of the cycle where they reel you back in. He considered Fat not just potentially doomed but doomed in fact. 

Fat had the good sense not to discuss Gloria Knudson and her death in front of Kevin. Had he done so, Kevin would add her to his dead cat. He would be talking about whipping her out from under his coat on judgment day, along with the cat. 

Being a Catholic, David always traced everything wrong back to man's free will. This used to annoy even me. I once asked him if Sherri getting cancer consisted of an instance of free will, knowing as I did that David kept up with all the latest news in the field of pyschology and would make the mistake of claiming that Sherri had subconsciously wanted to get cancer and so had shut down her immune system, a view floating around in advanced psychological circles at that time. Sure enough, David fell for it and said so. 

"Then why did she get well?" I asked. "Did she subconsciously want to get well?" 

David looked perplexed. If he consigned her illness to her own mind he was stuck with having to consign her remission to mundane and not supernatural causes. God had nothing to do with it 

"What C. S. Lewis would say," David began, which at once angered Fat, who was present. It maddened him when David turned to C. S. Lewis to bolster his straight-down-the-pipe orthodoxy. 

**

The character of Kevin in Valis was based on SciFi writer KW Jeter; while David was based on Tim Powers. These were, at the time, young undergraduate students at the California State University at Fullerton; and the three men - together with James Blaylock, who does not feature in Valis* - would meet regularly for long rambling philosophical conversations sparked by PKD's current musings from Exegesis. 

I find these remembered and reimagined conversations to be among my favourite sections of Valis; and the subsequent Spiritual Quest on which the "three" contrasting friends embark, is a strange but appealing twist on the Fellowship of Lord of the Rings, of St Anne's in CS Lewis's That Hideous Strength - or indeed in almost every fantasy novel, movie and role-playing game since.  

In an interview; Powers confirmed the CS Lewis theme of the debates:  

[Tim Powers]: I remember reading Valis, and at one point Phil says, “David,” that is Powers, “had withdrawn into himself in some sort of catatonic way when confronted with the savior reincarnated. The Catholic Church had taught him how to do this. How to shut down his senses when confronted with something that violated Catholic orthodoxy.” 

I remember telling Phil, “What the hell is that? What are you talking about here, man?” He just sort of went, “Heeheeheehee.” 

And at one point in the book the Phil Dick character says to the Powers character, “Would you please not tell us what C.S. Lewis would say about this? Could you do us that one favor?” 

And I said, “I don’t quote C.S. Lewis all the time.” And again, he sort of went, “Heeheehee.” 

[Interviewer]: That’s the thing I wanted to ask you about. Were you that big of a devotee of C. S. Lewis and are you still? 

[Powers]: Oh yeah, I love Lewis. I reread him all the time. Largely his nonfiction, though his fiction is lots of fun, too. And G.K. Chesterton. I’m still a practicing Catholic, not lapsed or recovering.

**

I think this so reliably makes me chuckle, because I too was prone to quote CS Lewis on all manner of disputes, for the first couple of years after I became a Christian. This reflected the course of my particular path, and the role that Lewis played in it. 

I am very grateful to Lewis for his role in my becoming a Christian, and several of his books and arguments have stayed with me. 

On the other hand; it was not until I began to reject many of CS Lewis's most basic assumptions that I began to attain coherence of Christian faith - and to extricate myself from enmeshment in the futile and harmful church disputes that plague modern Christianity. 

Presumably, PKD concluded something similar... 

 

*I guess that Blaylock was omitted from the novel either because his personality did not fit the necessary stereotypes to enable amusing arguments, or because in Valis PKD is (usually) split across two characters (in the same body): Phil, the narrator, a SciFi author; and Horselover Fat, the crazy protagonist ("Philip" means "Horselover", while "Fat" is a German translation of "Dick"). So the generation of four-way conversations did not require the presence of a Blaylock-derivative. 

The Ubik Solution? Christian messages from the neglected, discarded, despised and marginal

Ubik (1969) is a science fiction novel by Philip K Dick. Without summarizing the plot, or giving away the punch line; suffice to say that it depicts an evil-permeated and rapidly entropic world, which is opposed by a 'god' who is excluded from all mainstream and normal ways of communicating and helping. 

In this world, The System is all-pervasive. God's messages must come from peripheral and unexpected directions in order to get past the monitoring intelligence. Good can only work indirectly. "God" is to be found only in the "trash" of this culture. 

We might imagine an equivalent for our world, in which the real Christian needed to disguise itself as trash, and move out to the places into which The System does not (yet) extend. It can only find an outlet among the despised people, those regarded as absurd, insignificant - or labelled by The System as insane, idiotic, evil...

The System fights back by mimicking the secret divine messages by deploying fakes as bait... The System pretends that these people and messages are radical, anti-Establishment, or disapproved; yet The System contrives to draw attention to them, nonetheless. 

The System advertises (under pretense of warning against) exactly these baited traps; which it hopes will be mistaken for divine messages - but will lead back into The System. 

Meanwhile, the real messages from the divine, real goodness, are unknown or unnoticed except to those who honestly seek them, and are sensitized to their truth. 

The System is entropic, parasitic, destructive - and opposed to The System is Ubik. 

Ubik is found in various trashy forms, such as an aerosol that (albeit temporarily) opposes and reverses entropy; it heals the dissolutions of The System. 

Ubik is, indeed, understandable as an allegory to the Eucharist; the bread and wine of the Mass as it is supposed ideally to function; yet which is but a "momentary stay against confusion" (to use Robert Frost's description of poetry). 

Even if it was available in unlimited supply and on-demand (and, in PKD's story as in our world, Ubik is actually difficult and dangerous to locate, and has a short 'shelf life'); Ubik does not provide a permanent answer, as does Not the Eucharist.

But Ubik provides a chance to break free from the constancy of destruction by the entropy of the world -- a chance, perhaps, to clear our thoughts and make further enquiries; to seek and discover the availability of a permanent - an eternal - solution to entropy

To discover how to reach a world without entropy, without evil.

"Going it alone" as a Secret Christian

Continuing the PKD-inspired theme of living as-if a "Secret Christian" (versus The-Empire-that-never-ended); this is rooted in the conviction that we each can - when necessary - do this work alone,  without the assistance of a church, or indeed "other people". 

Also related is the further conviction (from Rudolf Steiner and Owen Barfield) that clear and true thinking - thinking derived from our true and divine "self" - positively affects the world of creation - including if this thinking is never communicated.  

What is missing from this description of an "asocial" Christian life is some kind of feedback cycle; that essential to-and-fro, trial-and-error interaction characteristic of the best social interactions; by which our understanding is stated, evaluated, developed, and (it is hoped) improved.  

When there are no people on one's side that can be trusted at the deepest level; then the feedback cycle must-be mystical, supernatural, 'magical' - in a word 'divine'; and exactly that has been provided by Jesus Christ as the Holy Ghost. 

This guidance is a case of "must-be", exactly because it is needed - we may be alone as a follower of Jesus Christ among the people around us, but we cannot actually "go it alone" in an ultimate sense; since we are all prone to error and corruption. 

We all need correction; and when there are no suitable people, and no valid institutions, to provide it - then, of course, God will ensure all necessary guidance is available by other means. 

The main question is whether we genuinely want divine guidance. If we are merely seeking validation, and will not listen to anything but validation, then we cut ourselves off from divine guidance. But assuming we really do want guidance, how might we reasonably expect to get it?

With modern human consciousness, such things are different from in the past; and - because of our agency and freedom; we moderns must actively seek and consciously choose that which was more passively and un-consciously imposed-upon more ancient Men. 

A good way to think about this may be to assume that (here-and-now) we must do most of the work of understanding for ourselves. 

Having worked-out some kind of understanding, we need to ensure that we really do understand it; in other words, we need to articulate it clearly and as simply as possible, so that we can fully grasp what it is that we think we know.  

And then we seek feedback by whatever works for us as an individual: through prayer, meditation, or even by doing what I am now doing - by articulating the understanding in writing as clearly and simply as possible.

And then we adopt a receptive frame of mind, a spirit of honest enquiry, of attuned-responsiveness... We make our proposal and then await - in a state of awareness - to experience how it plays-out*.  

And thereby; although we may lack personal help, we will find that "we are not alone". 

 **

To expand a little: We should not expect understanding to pour-in upon us as divine inspiration; but should expect to do the work of understanding for ourselves. That is the way to learn, and to-learn is, substantially, what we are here for. We look to the Holy Ghost simply to confirm, or to deny, what we have proposed. 

And we should not expect to attain answers that are perfectly and eternally true - but answers that will suffice for our current needs. Thus answers may change over time, as we and our needs change. An answer may suffice for a while, and then later we get sent "back to the drawing board" Furthermore, it may be that it is in striving for ever-better answers, rather than in receiving stable and certain affirmations, that we are doing what God most wants from us and what we most need. 

After all, understanding is seldom easy in a world full of lies and distractions; and we may never hit-upon the right answer, despite what seems like our best efforts. And again, ultimately, all answers that we can arrive-at must-be wrong because finite and the product of limited minds. It doesn't really matter. 

What does matter is that we know enough for salvation, and live and learn towards resurrected life-eternal.  

Transtemporal Secret Christians versus "the Empire that never ended" (aka. the Black Iron Prison) - the Exegesis of Philip K Dick

Edited slightly (cuts, punctuation, expanding abbreviations) from from Exegesis by Philip K Dick

[18:84] I state: the passage of time since “Acts of the Apostles” is spurious. That is it. That is the premise derived from empirical experience. Whatever our senses tell us means nothing. Circular time, not linear time, is involved. 

When St. Sophia (Christ) returns it will be in apostolic times, as promised. The 1,900 intervening years are a spurious interpolation by the Black Iron Prison (BIP)... 

[18:86] What a realization! Transtemporal-constant secret Christians, originating in apostolic times, and lying within humans in succeeding generations — reactivated by external disinhibiting stimuli (but before this or without this can covertly direct the persons they inhabit, like the way Thomas secretly masterminded my writing). Hot dog! 

But this is exactly what I’m not supposed to talk about! These underlying, co-habitating, secretly still living apostolic Christians want to stay secret! 

What I must concentrate on is not the irreality of our world or worlds plural, but the absolute transtemporal-constant: the apostolic secret Christians still alive and at work. 

This fits-in with my flash of insight [in February 1974] upon seeing the golden fish sign: I saw the secret early Christians hurrying about their business. 

Then the answer is: Thomas is an immortal apostolic Christian, and Rome c. A.D. 45 is the real present world, and Thomas co-inhabits my head, locked into the real world. 

“Acts” is not a past world — v. Tears, it is the noumenal matrix of this world. We are not dealing with either the past or a past life and personality, but the urwelt lying under the Dokos. Thomas and his world is here and now, and he knows it. [. . .] 

So I am, so to speak, a front — a face — for an immortal, transtemporal secret early Christian who is operating — undoubtedly in conjunction with others like him — in contemporary history. 

This is behind-the-scenes stuff, thrilling and scary. I certainly see Thomas’ hand or mind in my writing. Yes indeed, he is with me, not is me — in my head. But “living in another century.”

**

In this exciting sequence of insights; Philip K Dick is looking-back, after several years, to his religious experiences of February and March 1974  ("2-3-74"). He has long since concluded that these experiences led him to realize that the Roman Empire, conceptualized as a Black Iron Prison of bureaucratic totalitarianism, never ended; but persisted through transformations and translocations to the USA - for PKD the Nixon administration in particular, and the civilized world more generally. 

In some way (he tried-out many theories) PKD believed that he had some kind of direct and experiential relationship with the time around AD 45, and the places of Acts of the Apostles; perhaps (in some way) via an alter ego-type person called Thomas who might be one of the named Apostles - or someone else. 

At that time and place (according to PKD's visions); the early Christians constituted a small, secretive and indomitable sect. These kept alive faith in Jesus Christ in their hearts, and (in some rather vague way) also operated cooperatively as a covert resistance against the Empire. 

(PKD's visions had been triggered, or his latent understanding disinhibited, by seeing a golden ICHTHYS fish-pendant catching the sunlight; and being told by the girl who was wearing it, that this was a symbol of the early Christians; a sign by which, PKD inferred, they recognized each other.) 

PKD regarded this basic situation as a continuing one: secret Christians versus the Empire (a hostile Empire who acted constantly to assimilate and neutralize, or else annihilate, the Christians). 

For Dick; the secret early Christians were, and are, the real Christians; the other kind being sometimes more-, sometimes less-, corrupted and assimilated to the Empire agenda of the Black Iron Prison. 

As Dick comments; this way of understanding is indeed both "thrilling and scary"! But, maybe, in some kind of overall and exact but approximate way; PKD was here expressing an essential truth for Christians; which is broadly as he states it. 

Real Christians always have been ("transtemporally") in something-like this situation - few, secret, seldom meeting, sustained by direct experience and knowledge; always opposed by The System, and most of the self-identified official Christians. 

Recognizing each other only by signs that flash-out briefly and intermittently; and reveal something they have always known. 

      

Note added: Of course; regular readers will have guessed that I am here thinking that PKD's vision, or fantasy, of the secret Christians; in its essence, matches the conceptual basis (if not so much the metaphysics or theology) of Romantic Christianity.  

The hope (not mine) of a divine negentropic/ alchemical redemption of this mortal life and world

As I have previous said, from reading the Fourth Gospel as well as the core sense of Christianity, I do not believe that Jesus Christ promised a Second Coming. On the contrary, I believe Jesus fully achieved everything he incarnated to achieve in a cosmological sense - in terms of changing reality; and that since ascension His role is to guide all who ask for His help, by the Holy Ghost. 

But a familiar worldly-Messianic project of redemption of this sinful and suffering mortal life, of Jesus returning to take-up kingship of a New and Purified this-world, seems to have been introduced into Christianity at an early stage - and continues. 

For such redemption to happen, this-world would need to be remade, in such a way that all that is evil and of-sin - including death - would be removed, purified, transformed; and only Good remain. 

This might be envisaged to happen all-at-once at the second coming; but there have always (I think) been some who saw this happening gradually, incrementally, a bit at a time. 

I first understood this in listening to lectures by Stanley Messenger in which he expounded the ideas of Rudolf Steiner. In this explanation, the spilled blood of the crucified Christ entered the substance of the Being that is planet earth; and initiated a process of transformation that could be explained in terms of alchemy and homoeopathy; and would lead eventually to the total redemption of earth and everything the dwells here. In the end (as I understand it) there would be a complete integration of all, into full accord with divine purposes. 

I have also come across what seems to me a variation of this basic idea in Philip K Dick's Exegesis; where he is discussing Jacob Bohme and AN Whitehead. PKD's version is that this reality began as dominated by chaos and continues as entropy. God began creation in this context; and there has since been a process by which creation gradually overtook chaos; in which negentropy incrementally overwhelms entropy... Until either at or by the Second Coming, the process is completed and all that is evil, destructive - all suffering and pain - is transformed into Goodness and Happiness. 

My above summaries are themselves of secondary sources, thus unreliable as to detail - but I offer them as the kind of thing that would need to happen if this mortal world were to be saved, redeemed, made into Heaven on Earth. In other worlds, all that is evil, all destructive change, all death - would need to be transformed into harmony with divine creation. 

And this transformation is regarded as something that will happen. It is not a matter of choice, but of processes acting-irresistibly-upon Beings. Evil and Sin are eliminated by being made good. 

Now - I regard this as both impossible - because evil cannot be made Good; and undesirable to Christians - because salvation must be chosen.  

More fundamentally; I do not believe that this is what will happen! I think it is a mistake to suppose that Jesus said he would make Heaven on earth, or by processes incrementally to transform mortal to immortal life. 

The real situation is much simpler; which is that evil and sin will not because cannot be eliminated in this world and mortal life; which is why we must die and be resurrected to enter the state of only-Goodness: we must be born again.  

Those, and only those, who choose resurrection (and allow/ embrace the necessary transformative changes to themselves) will be added to Heaven, will join Heavenly life - leaving-behind their sins and all evil; and from thence, living only by love. 

This mortal realm with its sins and evil will be left-behind; as a place for those who choose to hold to their sins and evil, and those who choose not to live wholly by love. 

Such must happen; in order that Heaven be possible; and it must happen because eternal Beings must dwell somewhere.

And if Beings do not want to dwell in Heaven, then they will remain in some part or variant of the mixed-world of this-world of mortality - where entropy and creation contend. 

A specific example of how God can work for a man's salvation and theosis: Philip K Dick and his Exegesis

Starting when he was forty-five years old, and continuing from February 1974 for the last eight years of his life; Philip K Dick had many religious experiences; which became the focus of his thinking and writing in his last novels and the philosophical notations and letters than have survived as the Exegesis.

This can be understood as a specific example of one of the many ways that God can work to stimulate a man to orientate towards Jesus Christ (i.e. salvation, after death), and to learn spiritually during this mortal life (i.e. theosis). 

PKD's experiences led to a conviction that he was receiving a mass of vitally important information, and the Exegesis records some of his struggles to understand and "deal with" this deluge of incomprehensible input. 

This involved casting-about widely, reading and talking, following hunches, seeking appropriate and adequate concepts, trying out multiple hypotheses: and writing, writing, writing... 

The "conventional wisdom" is that PKD was engaged in wild speculations, circular or self-contradictory notions; was chasing a will-o-the-wisp - and that, in the end, he failed to reach any valid destination.  

But I suggest that - understood in an ultimate sense - PKD was doing pretty-much what God hoped he would do, and that very likely he did achieve a great deal of what he most needed to achieve at the spiritual level. 

God's intent with some men - perhaps many of us - is to galvanize us to to active spiritual work; orientated-towards God, Jesus Christ, and divine creation - and to learn from this process by trial-and-error. 

The terminus of such a process is not some version of "enlightenment" in this world... of unending bliss without experienced suffering...

Nor is it achieving a settled and complete understanding (which, after all, could only be a grossly simplified model of reality)...

Instead; the terminus aimed-at is our mortal death and that which follows thereafter. 

The divine intent (I infer) is twofold: To point us towards salvation; salvation being that we embrace the gift of resurrection offered by Jesus after our death. 

And further; before our death - during this mortal life to gain spiritual learning; learning that will accumulate to benefit our divine-self-to-come; that is, after salvation. This learning from the experiences of mortal life is theosis - because it results in (eventually, not during mortal life) becoming more God-like in our nature. 

This theosis-learning during mortal life needs to be understood in a spiritual sense, because it is not about memory - and is indeed not affected by the brain, body, decay, disease, death or any material circumstances that follows after the spiritual learning. 

Even if what we have learned is immediately forgotten - in this-world, in a material sense; nonetheless, if it is significant for our eternal resurrected and Heavenly life - it is spiritually retained, potentially for eternity; so long as salvation is embraced in the end.  

My interpretation of Philip K Dick's eight years of changing his mind, trying-out innumerable bizarre notions, following multiple blind-alleys, making many mistakes - as well as having transcendent insights, and (briefly) achieving Christian certainties - can therefore best be understood as a valid and appropriate response to his mysterious, perplexing and God-given experiences from February 1974. 

Some would say that God 'ought' to make Himself clear. That God would not really operate in ways that are confusing or ambiguous. And that Men ought to be aiming at some settled and clear and correct understanding. 

Yet, surely it counts as a major success for God; that from early 1974, PKD uprooted and re-orientated his life; that he worked many hours of most nights at his self-imposed task of understanding his spiritual experiences; that he focused (again and again) on understanding Jesus Christ - His real nature, His goals on earth and in Heaven... 

What seems in this-worldly terms to be just thrashing around in philosophy and theology; at times being plagued by obsessive or even psychotic preoccupations; at times making bad lifestyle choices; afflicted by wide mood swings -- as well as experiencing extreme joy, considerable serenity, performing acts of loving kindness, laced with self-deprecating humour, and much else that is positive...

What seems to be misplaced activity or avoidant behavior according to a pragmatic interpretation; may be, in an ultimate sense, not-far-from being the best possible life attainable by the actual man Philip K Dick; given his innate nature, abilities and limitations. 

That is: a life of spiritual learning (theosis) enriching the final choice of disposition with salvation. 

Which was your favoured Monopoly token?

I am re-reading (third time) Anne R Dick's memoir The Search for Philip K Dick - which contains the information that his favoured Monopoly token was the Old Boot - and a critic commenting on the book later suggested that this was significant, in terms of PKD's self-image. 

Maybe... 

My own favoured token was the Flat Iron; and the reason I gave myself for this choice was the way it could slide smoothly over the board. 

The most popular token among family and friends (about which fights would occur) was the Little Dog; which seems an obvious one, because it was cute.

The other die-cast tokens in my game were the Top Hat, Battleship and Racing Car. 

In retrospect, it is surprising that I did not favour the car or the ship - so maybe there is some occult significance in the iron - but I am not sure what. 

I don't enjoy ironing, and never have; although doing it is indeed one of my current family-household chores. 

(Maybe the childhood choice was some kind of unpleasant self-fulfilling prophecy?...)

So, what was Your favourite Monopoly token as a child - and can you infer whether it represented anything about your character? 

Philip K Dick's vision of God - 17 November 1980 (From The Exegesis)

From Exegesis [1:301] - I have slightly edited this for clarity and emphasis:

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) Gandalf; 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.

*

For those who do not know PKD's Exegesis; it comprises about eight years worth of the copious notes he made for himself; triggered by several Christian religious experiences that began in February of 1974 - trying to analyze and explain these experience using a wide range of often-contradictory schemata. 

The work is therefore not cumulative, is incoherent, and has no overall arc or conclusion. 

The Exegesis is, instead, a series of insights of many different types and degrees of quality; but characterized by extreme honesty and earnestness. The best of them I find extremely worthwhile and stimulating; and I am inspired by the actuality of this long-term and deicated 'project' of Dick's. 

Here; Dick describes a visionary experience of God as a person - which has close resemblances to my own (Mormon-esque) understanding of the nature and being of God. 

Note on The Exegesis. A large selection from this (edited by Pamela Jackson and Jonathan Lethem and others; none of whom are Christian, which is significant) was published in 2011. 

I own the Exegesis as an e-book, the paper copy; and as an audiobook - which is superbly narrated by Fred Stella, and is 52 hours long (yet only costs one credit to buy...)! 

In passing, we owe the survival of Exegesis mostly to the timely, decisive (and dubiously legal) actions of Tim Powers - then a young student friend of PKD, and now a successful SciFi-Fantasy author (and a lifelong, traditionalist Roman Catholic). 

Why The Empire of Evil will Not destroy real Christianity - despite that it desires and intends to do so (with reference to Acts of the Apostles Chapters 21-28)

In the closing section of Acts of the Apostles, from chapter 21, there is a rather absurdly-detailed story; a complex and confusing rigmarole of events that begin with Paul being mobbed by Jews at the Temple in Jerusalem, and ends with him being tried, and released! by the Romans in Rome. 

The author of Acts (who was with Paul, throughout) is apparently trying to explain how it was that Paul - and by extension the early Christians - were Not destroyed, and the faith eradicated; despite that the Empire and the Jews both wanted this, and held all the worldly power. 

Philip K Dick wrote an astonishingly insightful meditation on this theme -  in his Exegesis notes from 1980. Dick considered that this episode of Acts was, in a this-worldly sense, an opposite narrative to the crucifixion. 

Whereas Jesus was mobbed, captured, interrogated, tried and executed - Paul went through the same stages...  yet was released!

The release of so dangerous a man as Paul, seems a remarkable thing; given that it was in the interests of both Romans and Jews that Paul either be killed and eliminated, or at least imprisoned and absolutely prevented from continuing his work of evangelism. 

At one level, we can see the hand of divine providence at work in the many and varied encounters of Paul; yet in another sense the worldly odds were stacked against him - and in fact he suffered beatings, chaining, imprisonment and many other tribulations - that were more than sufficient to silence a lesser man. 

Divine providence was 'not enough' to protect Paul from the many and terrible persecutions that Man's free will could inflict; how, then, could this same providence secure Paul's liberation? 

We could therefore ask more specifically how it was that divine providence was able to navigate a path through such apparently overwhelming and irresistible hazards leading to Paul's release in Rome. How was it that "the prisoner slides through the fingers of the Empire" (as PKD said).   

And this same question is again, Now, urgently relevant for Christian survival in a totalitarian global System which dwarfs the Romans in size and power; and holds and enforces an ideology of value-inversion that is far more existentially hostile to Christianity than the pagan Roman Empire ever was.  

(By contrast; the Roman's hostility to Christianity was mostly merely expedient - they disliked any group that tended to cause trouble for the Empire.)

The answer is that there is not one single answer; but that The System is, in actuality, very limited in what it can do - and is continually, and increasingly, sabotaging itself. 

And this applies with particular strength to an incoherent, self-hating and self-destroying Empire - such as the Global Establishment in 2022. 

As PKD wrote:

The Empire has lost the ability to state its case; it cannot close the trap. The later history of this archetype will be that the Empire will lose even more power; eventually it will not even be able to arrest its victim, let alone crucify him.

What matters in such circumstances is Not a detailed understanding of how the Empire works, nor any detailed strategy of how to elude its grasp; but strong faith underpinned by the courage that comes from hope of resurrection. Given that, and when an outcome is necessary or desirable to divine providence - God will find a way to accomplish the 'impossible'. 

Philip K Dick discussing the (Christian) self limitations of his character Angel Archer who was based-on Ursula Le Guin - from The Exegesis

From The Exegesis by Philip K Dick - written May 1981; section 79:1-81 (page 737) - The Exegesis was a private journal written in the last eight years of PKD's life (1974-82). Cuts are indicated by ...

Dick is discussing Angel Archer - the first person protagonist in his last novel The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (TTA), 1982 - who PKD reveals was based-on ULG. He had just finished TTA at the time of this writing, and (in this entry!) regarded it as his best ever work. 

PKD and Ursula Le Guin were both in the class of 1947 at Berkeley High School, California but did not meet until later. They corresponded and had great mutual respect as leading US writers of fantasy and science fiction. ULG had at one time stated publicly that she feared for PKD's sanity. 

**

What I have shown [in TTA] is what the best intellectual mind - as correctly represented by a young Berkeley intellectual woman - can do and cannot do; it can go so far... but it can go no farther - as represented by her rejection of Christ (yes, Christ!) at the end: she walks away. 

This is a penetrating analysis of the intellectual mind: what it can do (a very great deal and what it can't do (make the final leap). And she knows it. 

This is what the "Bishop Archer" book is about about: Angel is a pure aesthetic intellectual, able to go so far but unable to make the final leap to Christ. Thus "Berkeley" (as paradigm of the intellectual, sensitive mind) is both lauded and stigmatized...

Thus one deduces the existence of the divine by its absence: the failure of her final leap (i.e. my meta abstraction)...

Bishop Archer as Bill calls to her but she does not hear. It is not reasonable. Angel fell short, missed the mark, and this is what constitutes sin, this falling short of the mark... What we are sure of is that although Angel came close she did not [make it]; thus I demonstrate the limits of reason. 

What is needed is an orthogonal breakthrough, which I achieved (in 2-3-74 [i.e. February and March, 1974 - which led to writing the Exegesis]). 

Ursula [Le Guin] is the basis of Angel: many virtues but in the end self-limiting.

The mind "knows" in advance what is possible and what is impossible: it is intelligent, rational, educated and tender; but it is not devout. It does not know how to capitulate to the impossible and accept it as real.

 **

Note from BGC: Here PKD diagnoses a very common problem among some of the best 'minds' of the past two centuries; and puts his finger on the reason. 

“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away?” Philip K Dick was wrong about That, wasn't he?

The above quote “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.” comes from a Philip K Dick essay; but PKD himself was not happy about that definition - and it is frequently refuted so in his own fiction and the Exegesis. 

It is being refuted on a daily basis in 2020. 

 

To define reality in terms of 'experience' is a pragmatic definition; the idea that reality will bite whoever denies it, and reward whoever honours it. 

But this, in the end (if you pursue it), this principle can be seen to reduce to "reality is whatever is expedient". What 'works' cannot atheoretically be distinguished from 'what is expedient'. Always a causal path must be inferred. 

And Expediency is, substantially, a matter of power. 

 

Furthermore, the assumption is that when reality bites, we will know it is reality. But this is obviously not the case in a world where government, education, major corporations and the mass media are all speaking from the same script. 

When reality is-biting, it may be denied that this is a bite, the pain can be attributed to some other cause; because there are no 'facts' without interpretation. 

Interpretation can deny the factuality of a fact in one direction; or make a lie, or an abstraction, into 'a fact' in the other direction - and people cannot usually tell the difference (nor do they care to try)

 

Power can make almost anything expedient, at least in the short term; for example believing that men and women can change sex. 

This is made true, according to pragmatic definitions, because those who sustain it are rewarded and those who deny it are punished. And that kind of in-your-face reality doesn't go away - at least not in the medium term of years and decades.

And power can - much more easily - make almost anything inexpedient - therefore 'un-true'; even when some-thing is supported by (for example) a century's worth of uncontradicted scientific evidence - such as class or racial differences in 'g' (general intelligence, measured by IQ). 

Many things that happened and are real - real according to science, personal experience and common sense - have been made to go away by the combined efforts of education, government, laws and the mass media.

 

So power can make anything true and anything untrue by PKD's definition - if we define truth according to our practical, everyday experience of things. 

This is because there are no facts without theories - and no theories without assumptions. 

And assumptions can be smuggled into culture, and minds, either by false arguments or by covertly concealing them in political communications, laws and workplace regulations, news stories, TV dramas, movies etc. CS Lewis called this Bulverism, and it happens all the time, deliberately and strategically - at many levels, and with many twists. 

 

Anyway; if reality cannot be defined pragmatically; then what is real reality; how can we define it? 

We first need to assume and acknowledge that reality is really real - we cannot define reality from a place of being agnostic about its existence! The only people who can coherently discuss the nature of reality, are those who acknowledge it is. 

We also need to acknowledge that we inhabit a creation. Only if life overall has a reason, purpose, meaning; can we talk in terms of reality - as a term contrasting with not-reality.

The we have to introduce God into the discussion: God the creator. A personal God (not an abstract deity) has to be the creator, if there is to be a reality that Men can know.

Indeed, for men to know - Men must also share in the same divinity as God the Creator. (Which, for Christians, is a fact.)

In conclusion, PKD was writing for a mixed audience of mostly atheists and 'agnostics' (de facto atheists); and was trying to discuss reality in a way that included this audience. But - as we know from the Exegesis - PKD was a theist (a Christian), and he knew from his personal spiritual experience, that materialism, the denial of God and the spirit, could not discern reality. 

PKD knew that Man relies upon God (a truthful and loving deity, outside of creation) if Man is to know reality - and this is a theme of much of his best work. For instance; In Ubik, Runciter is 'God', outside 'the world; trying to communicate with Man (inside the delusory and hostile world of cryogenic half-life) by means of signs - and providing help to awake to reality with the substance Ubik. 

At his best and deepest - Philip K Dick knew what everybody in 2020 ought to recognise. Without God Man cannot know reality - cannot distinguish reality from demonically-induced delusions, human manipulations, or from wishful-thinking.

And even with God, we still must make the right choices. God-without (the creator) gets us half-way to reality; God-within-us (present because we are children of God) is needed to get us the rest of the way. 

 

The Empire Never Ended and the Black Iron Prison

The Empire Never Ended is a maxim used often by Philip K Dick, especially in his novel Valis (1978), but also throughout the philosophical journal the Exegesis (2011).

The Black Iron Prison (BIP) was PKD's term for the manipulative, modern, totalitarian System based on bureaucracy and propaganda.


What I personally derive from this is that The Roman Empire was an institutional structure, a System, that has continued to this day. But, while continuous in The West; The Empire has changed considerably - especially in response to the breaking-in of Christianity; which was profoundly at odds with The Empire.

My summary understanding of what happened (not that of PKD) is as follows: Jesus Christ and his posthumous followers were a transformative force acting upon The Empire. Initially there was no 'church' but Jesus's followers worked like a family, based on loving personal relationships and without any abstract institutional structure.

The first stage in assimilating Christianity was to create an institutional church which could take its place among the other institutions of The Empire (the Emperor and his bureaucracy, the Military, the state religion etc). But such was the spiritual power of Christianity, that its church rapidly grew to take-over the Empire as its primary system.

Over the centuries, however, The Empire first assimilated then dominated Christianity - in multiple ways; until from the 19th century The Empire began to eliminate Christianty from the public realm altogether - first with the Communist and Socialist totalitarian Systems, then with the whole of the  world.

At this point - where Christianity became almost-wholly corrupt, of fully assimilated at the institutional level - The Empire became The Black Iron Prison - an atheist totalitarian and global bureaucracy.

Just this year of 2020; the process came to near completion, with Christian churches closed and suspending core activities across the whole world.

The Black Iron Prison has won.


Edited from Exegesis 19:34-5:

The BIP is a vast complex life form which protects itself by inducing a negative hallucination of it: muddled thinking, loss of faculties and perception (as a protective mechanism).  It has come here and because of its defensive devices we are not aware of it.

This BIP a sinister life form indeed... 

1. First it takes power over us, reducing us to slaves.
2. Then it causes us to forget our former state
3 And to be unable to see or think straight so that the BIP becomes invisible to us, by reason of what it has done to us.
4. But we don't even know that we cannot think straight. 
5. We cannot even monitor our own deformity, our own impairment. 

Even the edifice of the church has been subverted by the BIP and made into an instrument of its occlusion of us. Ii is interesting how effectively the impairment works. If you derange the brain in precise ways, not only will it be damaged, but it will be unaware that it is impaired and will not seek to rectify the damage. 


My note: At this point the BIP has become a single, global, exclusive and self-perpetuating system - based on the positive feedback of mutual reinforcement.

There is a primary concealment of the BIP controllers by using human puppets; true motives are hidden by a labile-rotating and incoherent pseudo-morality (e.g. healthism, environmentalism, antiracism, sexual revolution etc...) to mask the true selfish and exploitative nature of The System.

All autonomous institutions or groups are destroyed or assimilated - including the primary, natural and spontaneous human groupings of marriage and family, neighbourhood and nation.  

The defences of the system are manyfold and are underpinned by a false metaphysical monopoly; such that all 'evidence' (itself heavily controlled, and overwhelming in volume) is seen to conform to the rigid cultural assumption that excludes God/ Spirit/ Objective values; and the whole BIP functions on the exclusive assumption that this is a materialistic, positivistic, meaningless and purposeless world - in which autonomous life and consciousness are essentially epiphenomenal illusions.

Further interventions (justified by the metaphysics and pseudo-morality) themselves also impair thinking and suppress motivation. The BIP deploys addiction, and dependence (on distraction; stimulation, sedation, hallucination) from mass media, entertainments and actual drugs.

As a relief, and to rationalise suppression, the BIP adds intoxication (pharmacological and social - eg riots).

Most recently, there is the general strategy of imposed social isolation such that individuals are single units within the official System; by means of 'untouchable'-style social-distancing, prison-style lock-down, face-concealment, driving all of 'life' into the remote, demotivating abstractions of online communications and interaction. 

Victims of The Zap Gun (Philip K Dick, 1967)

I am now reading some of the more minor works of Philip K Dick, most recently The Zap Gun from 1967. I bought and read this in, I think, 1984; expecting very little based upon its title and the cover illustration - I assumed it would be some kind of fighting adventure... Nothing of the kind!

All I could remember about the book until I took it up again a few days ago; was that it was surprisingly good, and surprisingly thought-provoking - and indeed that is the case. It is classic PKD territory, written at the height of his powers - and it is Not about a zap gun! - or, at least, the 'deadly' weapon turns-out to be very different from a gun, and very relevant for our current malaise.

Spoilers follow...


The world of The Zap Gun is one in which a cognitive elite ('cogs') rules the masses - pursaps, or 'poor saps' - by a version of the 1984 strategy of pretending perpetual war between Western and Eastern blocs. But this war is in fact a permanent state of mutual deterrence, secretly agreed by the governments, who pretend to be continually developing deadly anti-personnel, tactical weapons.

The process involves using rare individuals who have the psychic or mystical ability to go into a trance and return with accurate illustrations. These are made into blueprints and then fake weapons; shown to the masses via faked videos of them having terrible effects on human-lookalike androids.

The fake-weapons are always something else that is either useful (e.g. a household artefact) or amusing (a game), and this is reverse engineered from the plans; and the technology is 'plowshared' (referencing the proverb about turning swords into plowshares) into these new devices.

This situation is destabilised by the appearance of insect-like alien slavers in satellites who are incrementally taking the population of the planet - when a real weapon is needed to defeat them. Since this is a PKD novel - we never actually encounter the aliens (their nature is inferred); and the 'action' of their destructive slave raids, and their eventual defeat, are described only indirectly - happening 'off-stage'.


The surprising twist is that this alien-defeating weapon turns-out not to be any kind of gun, but a maze game toy; a toy made by an animated figure in a maze who cannot ever escape.

The game player comes (by a telepathic empathic field) to identify with the creature in the toy maze; and with trying to help it escape this unsolvable, because pre-emptively shifting, maze. The earth maze toy was originally manufactured with only a mild empathic field, to function as an enjoyable, educative pastime.

But to make it a weapon, the strength of the empathic involvement is amped-up. The mazes are put into the possession of the alien creatures, who cannot resist trying-out the game, by which they are quickly trapped in the endless, changing loop or this artifical world from which escape is impossible. The invaders soon lapse into a cut-off, psychotic state; and the invasion is defeated.


This maze game now seems exactly like an allegory for the many hand-held 'entertainments' of recent decades, beginning with the 'Game Boy' devices in the 1980s, and culminating in the smart phone - by a process of empathic amplification...

But of course this was actually PKD using his own remarkable intuitive 'precog' abilities to foresee and describe how individually- and socially-lethal such technology could be in a spiritually-empty world that has no motivating values higher than personal comfort, convenience and distraction.

My fellow feeling with aphoristic note-makers

I have gradually realised that some of the authors with whom I share the greatest 'fellow feeling' are the aphoristic note-makers. For example: Pascal's Pensees, Novalis's Pollen and Philip K Dick's Exegesis. I have ordered a selection from Coleridge's Notebooks, so we'll see if that can be added to the list...

The main thing about these 'unfinished' works, is that they are the writer actively thinking and talking with himself, as honestly as he is able - and the kind of person who produces this kind of writing is someone who thinks and broods purposively for much of the time.


That is what I recognise and am drawn-to; because I am of this type and have met extremely few people who are like me in this regard.

This activity (ie. spending hours per day brooding and thinking) is the basis of what I would regard as the real and proper activity of Philosophy; and why I called myself 'a philosopher' in my scrappy-memoirs (which are not themselves, however, an example of this notebookish form).


I can remember when I first looked-at Pascal, in a secondhand bookshop in Cheltenham some decade ago. I opened the Penguin paperback, read a few lines; and simply felt: Yes.

I feel the same every time I look at it. In a sense, everything else (content, conclusions etc) is secondary to this affirmative affinity.  


This note-taking thinker is a definite, albeit rare, Type; as much as the scientist, poet or fiction writer - and will be the covert driver of those activities: for instance of the poetry of Novalis, the Fiction of PKD, or my science (which was mostly theoretical).


(I may recognise the type, but don't always feel a personal affinity: Nietzsche and Wittgenstein are instances of this. They are my type, but mostly on a different wavelength.)


And it is why I have found blogging (of the type I do) so congenial; because it is only one step removed from my primary work: those reams of handwritten notes I have generated through writing every day for the past (what?) forty-plus years - yet almost never looked-at a second time. 

In one sense these notebooks are the meditative-laboratory for my published and disseminated writing; in another sense the public work is secondary to the notebooks; which are The Real Thing (despite that nobody ever will see them, nor would they be of any interest).

The clearest example of this 'real thing' can be seen with PKD's Exegesis compared with the novels he published in the final eight years of his life when he was making notes for it. For one who can appreciate the Exegesis (and is reading from a shared primarily-Christian perspective with PKD, which essentially None of his critics and editors are); it can easily be felt that the notes are primary and the novels (such as Valis - which is a fictionalised version of the notes) are derivative and lesser.


I am not saying that journal-type notes are superior works-of-art to poems, novels, essays; because they certainly aren't. Not even close! They will always be a (tiny) minority taste.

And indeed where they are not - as with Pascal - they are usually adopted pretentiously and grossly misunderstood by people whose nature is extraverted and whose content is externally-derived.


Art is a public activity, by intent; and journaling notes are not - or, ought not to be. The purpose is different. In a nutshell; what I value in these works is evidence of another person whose thinking is endogenous. In finished art is is difficult to impossible to tell whether the writer is generating or channelling the material - and it is almost always the latter.

For example, skilled journalists, critics, popular non-fiction writers take-in material, subject it to standardized-processing, then spew it out. The result may be superficially and temporarily impressive - but is deeply and over the long-term, debilitating. Such writing (for instance much 'travel writing' is a kind of trick - parasitic upon the genuine thought of others.

(The same applies to what passes for science nowadays; most of the most-influential of which is written by agencies who employ glibly-articulate quasi-journalistic hacks and PR merchants to do the job.)


To get back to PKD's Exegesis - this brings out another aspect of this kind of work; which is that it is not done to impress others, nor to satisfy the needs of socialization. Dick was, apparently, a bit of a chameleon in his social interactions; with a tendency to say and behave in ways to gratify the company. This meant there was a considerable gulf between the spontaneous incoherence of his notebooks; and the adjusted and filtered versions of these which appeared in everyday conversation.

Indeed, most of us are like this; we adjust what we say to the person we are speaking with. Sociality is primary. Yet when real, hard, honest thinking is being done' the unfiltered original may have an interest and validity - perhaps greater than the (more-or-less) bowdlerised versions of the ideas that we show to other people.

So a journal written to be shown to other people - like those of Thoreau and Emerson - may well make excellent literature - as these do. But such 'public journals' lack the special quality of genuine, personal notes; when the writer's audience is himself.   

The benefits of working Fast: Exegesis, Valis and the essays - Philip K Dick

Exegesis - a 2011 edited selection of  Philip K Dick's diary from the last eight years of his life (between 1974 and 1982) - has become a key text for me. Although I had never looked at it until last autumn, Exegesis is one of only three works that I have in threefold: as paper copy, Kindle and audiobook (the others are Hobbit/ Lord of the Rings, and Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell).

The great value for me has been stimulation: I find Exegesis to be energising and enthusing. Indeed; it helped dig me out from a spell of directionless demotivation  - so I feel gratitude toward it.

A fair bit of it is also very interesting and enlightening; although ultimately I regard most of it as wrong (after all, I live in a minority of one). Nonetheless this does not trouble me in the slightest. Exegesis is such an honest work - so raw and energetic, intelligent and exploratory in its genuine philosophising, that this is all to the good.


Consequently; I have also gone back and re-read the PKD novels that I encountered in the middle 1980s; and read several others (or else listened as audiobooks). One of his novels - Valis - was published in 1978, in the middle of the Exegesis period, and using many of the events and ideas from that book.  Indeed, most PKD fans read Exegesis through the lens of Valis.

Valis is a work of art, rather than a collection of notes - and some find it PKD's best novel. But I find Valis much less valuable than Exegesis, because it strikes me as less honest. The philosophical fireworks are presented through the screen of a skeptical, indeed cynical, narrator - and in a distanced, ironic fashion. Whereas from Exegesis I 'know' that these were of burning and urgent significance, at the time they happened; with Vlais the ideas seem (and are) secondhand.

Likewise the lectures and essays of that period - such as "How to build a universe that doesn't fall apart two days later". In making this speech/ essay for public consumption; PKD distanced himself from the daily (nightly) reality of his thinking; made it fit into a schema - which in real life, it never did.


Therefore, while I fully realise that Exegesis would not appeal at all to most people (indeed, I am surprised anybody except me finds it worth reading!) I regard it as without doubt the best thing of PKD's later years.

This is also because I find that all of PKD's very best novels - by my estimation - to have been published in a brief period of just five years between The Man in the High Castle of 1961 and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep in 1966. There were indeed seventeen novels (!) published in these years - but the best I have read (and I haven't read them all) are Dr Bloodmoney, The Three Stigmata of Palmar Eldritch, and The Penultimate Truth.

The earlier novels I have sampled are rather poorly written and did not keep my attention; the later novels are sometimes very good in parts (e.g. Ubik, Maze of death, Flow my tears) but do not satisfy as a whole.


My conclusion is that Dick's central and dominating preoccupation moved from fiction to philosophy as he got older; and the type of unsystematic philosophy he did (or rather lived) was unpublishable at that time; although in more recent years he might well have blogged it - much as I do. As a young man, therefore, PKD thought via stories; as a middle aged man he thought via philosophy.

To make a living, the older PKD repackaged his philosophy into novels, stories, speeches, essays - but these were secondary to the solitaary, self-addressed reflections that are sampled by Exegesis. And when he tried to 'use' these primary notes as source material; the need to be systematic, the need to distance himself from the embarrassing honesty and rawness of the original, the attempt to justify and persuade others... all these requirements got in the way, and diminished the quality; while at the same time creating work that admittedly some fans regard as his best.

Thus Ubik, A Scanner Darkly or Valis are often asserted to be the peak of PKD's achievement - and for some people this presumably is the case. But not for me. I regard these as hybrid works, somewhat contrived and unspontaneous, and never fully successful.

PKD worked best when he worked fast (very fast) - both as a fiction writer (staying awake for several consecutive days of solid typing, using amphetamines); and also as a philosopher: sometimes generating many thousands of words of Exegesis in marathon nocturnal sessions.

Certainly not a healthy life: and not a healthy man - but I am grateful for his achievement.

Notice of The Penultimate Truth, by Philip K Dick (1964)

I've just read The Penultimate Truth by Philip K Dick (from 1964), which I had not previously bothered-with - due to having read some rather adverse/ lukewarm reviews. But it turns-out the reviews were mistaken: I thought this was an excellent novel - one of PKD's best.

It is not giving away any great plot points to reveal that the set-up is a post-world-war society where most of the human population are kept below-surface in 'ant tanks' where they live in miserable and crowded conditions, manufacturing robots which they believe are necessary for the ongoing war on the radiation-devastated planet surface (which they believe to be uninhabitable by humans).

In reality; there is an aristocracy of 'Yance-men' living on the planet surface, who use these robots as labourers and domestic servants; and whose main activity is producing the 'fake news' to convince the underground dwellers to continue their closed-in, crowded, toiling lives.

In essence this is a world (exactly like ours) that is based on a Big Lie; and there is a recurrent discussion and analysis of this idea from Goebbells. In this world, the Nazi propagandist's expertise is regarded as exemplary, and taken to a high level of 'artistry' and effectiveness.

With a Big Lie, the lie has become so big that people cannot believe it could possibly be a lie; and they will ignore all kinds of detailed discrepancies in 'the narrative' fed to them, because the idea that they are living a total lie is simply beyond belief.  This bigness is indeed vital to success - because lying always involves discrepancies and errors; so that - in the end - a Big Lie is the only kind of lie that can be permanent and compelling.

The novel is all about this matter of deliberate, calculated lies and deceptions; and the motivations/ rationalisation behind them - the strange mixtures of self-seeking (power and luxury) and self-sacrifice (loneliness and isolation) that the Yance-men life entails; the ways they are both villains and martyrs. Indeed, all the point-of-view characters are broadly sympathetic, we can identify with them - to some extent.

The title of 'penultimate' truth seems to be a reference to the fact that even when the Big Lie is penetrated, we never seem to reach an ultimate truth; the knowable truth always seems to be incomplete, and the final answers (at least) one step further away...

Anyway, I would recommend this very highly; as being absolutely relevant to our present global situation; one of the most intelligent and deep 'dystopian' novels that I've encountered - with that instant memorability and iconic quality of 1984 and Brave New World - but much better-structured, more gripping and enjoyable to read.

Philip K Dick - an overview (so far...)

In the past couple of months I have read/ listened-to a dozen Philip K Dick novels, and most of the Exegesis - his philosophical and spiritual journal written during his last eight years. I haven't enjoyed a fiction writer so much, in such quantity, for several years. Certainly, I appreciate his work more fully this time round than when I read a batch of his novels more than thirty-five years ago (triggered by watching Blade Runner - one of the half-dozen best movies I've ever seen).

Although there are several of his important works still to go (I'm 'simultaneously' reading three of them at present) I think I have by-now achieved a reasonable overview.

In particular; I have noticed that his very best novels are from the 1960s, and before the spiritual revelations that began abruptly in February and March 1974, continued through the rest of his life - and led to his almost daily and extensive work recorded in the Exegesis - which was the attempt to make sense of what was happening to him, and understand the implications.

It seems to me that the novels published after 1974 are mostly interesting and worthwhile (especially VALIS), but they lack the fluency and coherence of Dick's best 1960s novels such as Man in the High Castle, Dr Bloodmoney, Three Stigmata of Palmar Eldrich, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Martian Time Slip and Ubik. In particular, the final two novels - Divine Invasion and Transmigration of Timothy Archer - are not satifying as a whole, and have a certain flatness and lack of empathic characters.

My conclusion is that Exegesis was receiving PKD's best efforts, and the attempts to spin-off novels from it were contrived, over-planned. VALIS is something of an exception, being composed of lightly fictionalised 'excerpts' from Exegesis - however, I did not find the ending satisfying, and I enjoyed the unselfconsciousness and energy of the original, more than the same material when put into fiction.

I feel that VALIS - by means of the literary conceits of its structure - erects a barrier of 'deniability' between the material and the reader. In particular, in all of Dick's last three works, the possibility of a genuine contact with the divine is put into brackets, and the materialist explanations seem to triumph overall. Whereas in the Exegesis, the most high intensity and ecstatic sections are without doubt those when PKD knows (albeit temporarily) that he has had real revelations of the truth.

Dick's mainstream critics and admirers, and most of his social circle, are normal modern Leftists for whom the divine is excluded by assumption; and who therefore necessarily interpret every strange experience as generated by insanity, drug use or over-imaginative wish-fulfilment.

(From what I have seen, so far) Perhaps only his friend, the author Tim Powers (a Roman Catholic) was able and willing to acknowledge that what Dick experienced included genuine divine revelations. And only when this possibility is recognised, can the Exegesis be appreciated as fully as it deserves.