Review of The Transmigration of Timothy Archer by Philip K Dick (1982)

Although I have owned a copy of The Transmigration of Timothy Archer for nearly forty years; it was only this weekend that I actually 'read' it - that is, I listened to the audio-book version. I found it very stimulating.

The protagonist is a type that I thoroughly despise in real life: the 'trendy', leftist-radical, media-famous, apostate Christian bishop - indeed the central character was modelled on a real life example of the breed, who was apparently a friend of the author. However, such was the depth and multi-faceted nature of this book that my irritation took a second place behind my fascination at the issues and conflicts.

Although Dick was far more sympathetic to the Tim Archer character than I would have been - seeing him as a great man who did much good and whose quest was genuinely spiritual; overall the portrait is unsparing.

This includes the way that short-termist, hedonic, personal and selfish drives are retrospectively 'validated' by the intelligent and articulate (and legally trained) Archer; who fluently distorts philosophy and Christian theology into justifying whatever he currently wants to do. Also the ways in which the bishop is de facto a parasite upon the church in terms both of his status and also of lifestyle and financially.

Dick was a very smart and cerebral writer - in this respect much like Saul Bellow; there is a wide range of artistic and cultural references, and the engagement is sufficiently deep and sincere that the book comes-across as a genuine exploration (rather than a pretentious display of names). The novel doesn't merely discuss or talk-about, but actually does philosophy.

This is unsurprising given the extraordinary and frenzied nature of PKD's final years - during which he was continually grappling with spiritual and religious issues; reading, thinking, talking and staying-up through the night writing dozens of pages of exploratory philosophy - entirely for his personal reasons (not aimed at publication, although an edited selection of these writings was posthumously made available - in 2011 - as Exegesis).

Overall, this book succeeds in rendering the spiritual quest to know Jesus, to understand and practice Christianity, as a very exciting and supremely important business; a matter that grips and obsesses the characters. And this is surely a consequence of the fact that it was so for PK Dick himself - in late life.

Nobody - least of all Dick - would recommend anybody to emulate Dick's lifestyle and life choices, which were largely disastrous - but this books focus on important things. There is a relentless pursuit of truth, a sustained and repeated attention to primary questions... and these are of greater urgency now than when the book was written, since our culture has drifted so far into shallowness and despair, feeble motivation, brief-attention and gullibility.

Dick's attitude and world is only the start of wisdom for a person (a society) sunk in distraction and intoxication, but that is something we need now more than ever.

The question of "evidence" of life after death - from Philip K Dick

I feel as if I am channeling WmJas Tychonievich, in reporting this following (sort-of) "synchronicity" -- which is that immediately after writing my post on the question of evidence of God; I continued my re-reading of The Transmigration of Timothy Archer by Philip K Dick (1982), in which I came across the following (edited, and with my additional emphases):

**

"Is there any proof of God's existence?" Bill said. 

After a pause, Tim said, "A number of arguments are given. Perhaps the best is the argument from biology, advanced for instance by Teilhard de Chardin. Evolution - the existence of evolution - seems to point to a designer. Also there is Morrison's argument that our planet shows a remarkable hospitality toward complex forms of life. The chance of this happening on a random basis is very small... 

"There are proofs," Tim said. "But God doesn't talk to anybody," Bill said. "No," Tim said. He rallied, then; I saw him draw himself up. 

"However, the Old Testament gives us many instances of Yahweh addressing his people through the prophets. This fountain of revelation dried up, finally. God no longer speaks to man. It is called 'the long silence.' It has lasted two thousand years." 

"I realize God talked to people in the Bible," Bill said, "in the olden days, but why doesn't he talk to them now? Why did he stop?" 

"I don't know," Tim said. He said no more; there he ceased.... "I really wish you would explain it to me," Bill said to Tim. "Because it's impossible. It's not just unlikely; it's impossible." ... 

"Jeff [i.e. Tim's deceased son] has communicated with the two of us," Tim said. "Through intermediary phenomena. Many times, in many ways." ..."It is God Himself working on us and through us to bring forth a brighter day. My son is with us now; he is with us in this room. He never left us. What died was a material body. Every material thing perishes. Whole planets perish. The physical universe itself will perish. 

"Are you going to argue, then, that nothing exists? Because that is where your logic will carry you. It isn't possible right now to prove that external reality exists. Descartes discovered that; it's the basis of modem philosophy. All you can know for sure is that your own mind, your own consciousness, exists. You can say, 'I am' and that's all... 

"What you see is not world but a representation formed in and by your own mind. Everything that you experience you know by faith. Also, you may be dreaming. Had you thought of that? Plato relates that a wise old man, probably an Orphic, said to him, 'Now we are dead and in a kind of prison.' Plato did not consider that an absurd statement; he tells us that it is weighty and something to think about. 'Now we are dead.' 

"We may have no world at all. I have enough evidence - your mother and I - for Jeff returning to us as I have that the world itself exists. We do not suppose he has come back; we experience him as coming back. We have lived and are living through it. So it is not our opinion. It is real.

"Real for you," Bill said. "What more can reality give?" "Well, I mean," Bill said, "I don't believe it." 

"The problem does not lie with our experience in this matter," Tim said. "It lies with your belief-system. Within the confines of your belief-system, such a thing is impossible. "Who can say, truly say, what is possible? We have no knowledge of what is and isn't possible; we do not set the limits - God sets the limits." ...

"What do you believe, then? In objects you get into and drive around the block. There may be no objects and no block; someone pointed out to Descartes that a malicious demon may cause our assent to a world that is not there, may impress a forgery onto us as an ostensible representation of the world. 

"If that happened, we would not know. We must trust; we must trust God. 

"I trust in God that he would not deceive me; I deem the Lord faithful and true and incapable of deceit. For you that question does not even exist, for you will not grant that He exists in the first place. 

"You ask for proof. If I told you this minute that I have heard God's voice speaking to me-would you believe that? Of course not. We call people who speak to God pious and we call people to whom God speaks lunatics. 

"This is an age where there is little faith. It is not God who is dead; it is our faith that has died." 

"But -" Bill gestured. "It doesn't make any sense. Why would he come back [from the dead]?" 

"Tell me why Jeff lived in the first place," Tim said. "Then perhaps I can tell you why he came back. Why do you live? For what purpose were you created? You do not know who created you - assuming anyone did - and you do not know why, assuming there is a why. 

"Perhaps no one created you and perhaps there is no purpose to your life. No world, no purpose, no Creator, and Jeff has not come back to us. Is that your logic? Is that how you live out your life? Is that what Being, in Heidegger's sense, is to you? 

"That is an impoverished kind of inauthentic Being. It strikes me as weak and barren and, in the end, futile."...

**

It strikes me that these are strong, valid arguments; despite that "Tim" - Timothy Archer - is depicted as the worst kind of trendy-leftist, self-justifying hedonic Episcopalian Bishop from the 1960s! And despite that Tim's belief in the return of his deceased son is depicted by the agnostic narrator (his daughter in law, widow of the deceased son) as merely a wish-fulfilling yet dangerous delusion. 

The modern mainstream idea of "evidence" has always (as seen above) been ultimately incoherent in its own rationalistic terms - even when its professional practice was honestly-applied and coherent in terms on a basis in circular assumptions and reasoning. 

Yet nowadays (and since the 1990s) the public and in-practice conceptualization of evidence, of facts, of reality has been thoroughly corrupted into (literally) nothing more than the current, official, Establishment consensus; as currently propagated by the official mass media. 

"Evidence" in practice therefore means nothing more than a very vague, diffuse, and open-endedly changeable impression of what seems acceptable to those with power, wealth and high status... 

The more that people (or institutions, or algorithms) talk-about and assert evidence/ facts/ realism and their importance - the more manipulative, dishonest and intentionally-evil is the actuality. 

Earlier standards of evidence (which existed - at least in England! - within several discourses such as science, academia and law) have by-now been annihilated, as coherence of reasoning and statement have themselves been annihilated. 

Therefore arguments such as those of Bishop Timothy Archer in the above passage, have altogether lost traction. 

There can be no basis for argument (or evidence!) when there is no commitment to truth, and no interest in knowing reality.

 

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. 

We can never "know" completely and finally; but can Love wholly and eternally

From Exegesis by Philip K Dick, referring to his novel The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (1982) 

This is a strange ending [to the novel]. 

The will (of Schopenhauer) turns back on itself and is satisfied not to know: This is the form its cessation takes: that he is content not to know, and so is she. Thus one thing is certain: the restless, striving, irrational will is defeated; it has given up. 

If this is how victory is defined, there has been victory. 

If victory is defined as knowing whether Tim Archer defeats Fate through Christ and immortality—it is not victory. 

The final message seems to be: sublime peace - freedom from the restless striving will - is possible, but knowledge - intellectual knowing - is not. 

The heart can know peace but the mind cannot be satisfied; the drive to know, to possess intellectual certitude is doomed to failure.

Sureness is not factual but relational: but a matter between persons, between beings (in the here and now).

What we can be sure about is not knowledge - which is why epistemology, a philosophical search for surety of factual information -  is a dead end. 

"Knowing about stuff" is not the core of reality; because reality is not naturally divided into units, into "facts". 

We can never ever be "certain" of facts because reality is not pre-divided into facts - not factually-segmented - such divisions are imposed, arbitrary, and selective.

(The idea that "scientific facts" are the only thing we can be certain of - is therefore a dangerous delusion.) 

  

What, then, is the core of reality? 

The fundamental and real divisions are those between individual living beings. 

Ultimate reality is therefore to do with living beings and the relationships between them. 

The heart can know "peace" in the context of love; albeit in this mortal world that peace can only be temporary - because of entropy/ death and evil. 

Yet in resurrected Heavenly life, that peace can be eternal.

And love between living beings is a dynamic thing, because life is dynamic; which is why and how love overflows into creating.  

Even in Heaven (even for God the Creator) we will never know finally, nor wholly and eternally - because creation is ongoing, and other-beings really are "other". 

But we shall love wholly and eternally; and it is that possibility which makes Heaven possible. 

 

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.