Homecoming
Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2024 8:46 pm
Douglas Mercer
September 1 2024
Phillip Dick famously had “the experience.” What made him unique was the zealotry and fanaticism with which he pursued and publicized it. It was life altering and as sober as a judge he realized that this was all that mattered. In the language of his religion he had found the pearl of great price and found the field where the secrets are buried and he bought it and built his house there, like the wise virgins he kept the oil in his candles or put all of his eggs in one basket and bought that basket.
He was not unaware that it would bring ridicule down on him, to speak of a lateral reality might be fine for an “as if” science fiction writer but to speak of it as real brought up issues of schizophrenia, frontal lobe anomalies, derealization, solipsism, delusions of grandeur, paranoia, acid or aneurisms, amphetamine use, and the whole host of pharmacological and psychiatric apparatus by which the world wishes reality away. Perhaps because he emerged in a time when science fiction writers were held in such low repute, as the beggars at the novel’s ball, the notion of reputation only bothered him a little, though it was a concern. But in the end he felt he was the only one who could or would speak openly and frankly of this experience and he felt that the world was in great need of his testimony so he went for broke and spoke his mind.
In short Dick believed that what we deem as real is not, that there are pluriform worlds with different modes or aspects (hues), that intersected with this one. There was a Track A which was that of a Black Iron Prison or Empire or Police State, there was a Track B which was our present world where good and ill were mingled together. He believed that he had existed in Track A and had helped to overturn the police state there but that the police were always on the march to subjugate man again. The empire or the system must be vanquished for true reality to set in.
At the heart of his philosophy was Jesus Christ. He said that there was an eternal landscape that always existed and it was always 30 AD, and that the world is always heading toward Calvary, only in disguise. Or perhaps the Holy Spirit had come and gone and we were embedded in newer versions of the Book Of Acts. He said that just as the early Christians had battled against the Empire of Rome so we too battle against the threat of a fascist state of “naizism.” That is the empire always exists and secret Christians are always fighting against it.
He posits that the universe is God or the “advocate” playing a game of chess against the Devil or the “enemy”. He said that God is the programmer or the reprogrammer but the devil puts in new moves or mutations in the game which reengineer reality and these new levels are ultimately assimilated or synthesized into the game to reach higher on the ladder. Thus there are worlds which are fakes which are superimposed on one another as new and better versions of reality are created but the enemy is always present to create snares or springs to catch woodcocks, and to continue the seemingly endless game of simulacra.
He has no doubt that it is the God of the Jews and Jesus who rule these worlds, who are the grandmasters of the chess board, knowing all the move in advance, and owning all the squares. On a mundane level he is sure that the National Socialists are evil and that Richard Nixon is bad; and that Nixon’s downfall represents an attempt to overcome repression, and his impeachment is the hinge point of a new and emerging reality.
He says that Christian teaching always states that “short work” will be made of the world, that something unexpected will intrude into reality like a thief in the night. Which is why one must keep one’s lamps burning.
That much is correct although we speak of an Intruder who knows something about opening windows and doors.
That is he has his just so story by which he is able to rationalize the famous events of February to August 1974.
But funny things happen on the way to form, and it is surprising that he eventually postulated a Track C (the third time is the charm, Third Reich or Realm). He described this third version as follows at a conference in Metz, France:
“In February 1975 I passed across into a third alternative present, Track C we will call it. And this was a garden or park of peace and beauty, a world superior to ours rising into existence. So there were three rather than two worlds. The black iron prison world which had been, our intermediate world where oppression and war exist but have been somewhat cast down, and then a third alternative world which someday when the correct variables in the past have been reprogrammed will materialize as a superimposition on this one. And in which as we awaken to it we shall suppose that we have already lived there and the recollection of this intermediary world, like that of the black iron prison world, will be eradicated mercifully form our memories. The best that I can do after having had these experiences and written these novels is play the part of the prophet, the role of ancient prophets such as Sybil who was the oracle of Delphi. And to talk of the wonderful garden or park world much like that which our ancestors are said to have inhabited. In fact I sometimes imagine it to be that same world restored as if a false trajectory of our world will eventually be fully corrected, and once more we will be where many thousands of years ago we once lived and were happy. During the brief time I walked about in that garden world I had the strong impression that this was our legitimate home which somehow, we had lost. The time I spent there was short, about six hours in real elapsed time but I remember it well. In a novel I wrote called Deus Irae I describe it toward the end as a place where the curse is lifted from the world. What is amazing to me about this park like world (Track C) was the non-Christian elements forming the basis of it, it was not what my Christian training had led me to expect. Even when it began to phase out I still saw skies, I saw land, and I saw blue smooth water, and standing by the edge of the water was a nude beautiful woman whom I quickly recognized as none other than Aphrodite. At this point this other better world had diminished to a mere landscape seen through a rectangular doorway, the outline of the doorway pulsed with laser like light and it all soon grew smaller and at last (alas) was gone from sight. The three by five doorway then devoured itself into nothingness sealing off what lay beyond. I have not seen it since but I have the firm impression that this was the next world not of the Christians but the reality of the Greek and Roman world, something older and more beautiful than that which in my own religion had been conjured up as a lure to keep us subjugated in a state of dutiful morality and empty faith. What I saw was very old and very lovely: sky, sea, land and a beautiful woman and then the nothing for the door shut and I was closed off back here. It was with a bitter sense of loss that I saw it go, or saw her go really for it all constellated about Aphrodite who I discovered when……”
He had been in Elysium Fields of the Fortunate Isles, that Idyllic land where mortal heroes who have been granted immortality by the gods were sent; it was on the banks of Oceanus with perpetual springs and its own sun and stars; in this description he finally hits all the right notes; he has the beyond good and evil of Nietzsche and Crowhurst where only the truth matters. By saying that the variables of the past have been changed it is that the valuations of good and evil (National Socialists are evil) have been overturned, as his inverse presentiment showed him in The Man In The High Castle; that is the past of the false world (our world) have been elided or edited of corrected so we see clearly, and false fronts dissipate and disappear. He emphasizes that this is not the Christian Celestial City which means that it is no longer one that the Jews are parasitizing, that the host will have broken free of its evil virus and spring forth into its former and destined reality. That is after a life spent exploring and creating spurious worlds, specious ideas, forgeries and fakes, he had fallen unexpectedly into something real, the world was no longer disenchanted but enchanted and everything was crystal clear and the goddess of love and creation (the Fat Lady), the goddess of roses, swans and myrtles had been restored to her place of honor. That is he had come home. And to his eternal honor he avoided the only error that a second-generation cosmic being can commit: he did not conceal but told the truth and told it plain, so we can get off of the false trajectory and get back on course and adapt to our ordained eternity.
Notes:
Harlan Ellison was at the conference in Metz and said afterward the audience was aghast at the "crazy things" Dick had said and they speculated that he was either drunk or doped.
September 1 2024
Phillip Dick famously had “the experience.” What made him unique was the zealotry and fanaticism with which he pursued and publicized it. It was life altering and as sober as a judge he realized that this was all that mattered. In the language of his religion he had found the pearl of great price and found the field where the secrets are buried and he bought it and built his house there, like the wise virgins he kept the oil in his candles or put all of his eggs in one basket and bought that basket.
He was not unaware that it would bring ridicule down on him, to speak of a lateral reality might be fine for an “as if” science fiction writer but to speak of it as real brought up issues of schizophrenia, frontal lobe anomalies, derealization, solipsism, delusions of grandeur, paranoia, acid or aneurisms, amphetamine use, and the whole host of pharmacological and psychiatric apparatus by which the world wishes reality away. Perhaps because he emerged in a time when science fiction writers were held in such low repute, as the beggars at the novel’s ball, the notion of reputation only bothered him a little, though it was a concern. But in the end he felt he was the only one who could or would speak openly and frankly of this experience and he felt that the world was in great need of his testimony so he went for broke and spoke his mind.
In short Dick believed that what we deem as real is not, that there are pluriform worlds with different modes or aspects (hues), that intersected with this one. There was a Track A which was that of a Black Iron Prison or Empire or Police State, there was a Track B which was our present world where good and ill were mingled together. He believed that he had existed in Track A and had helped to overturn the police state there but that the police were always on the march to subjugate man again. The empire or the system must be vanquished for true reality to set in.
At the heart of his philosophy was Jesus Christ. He said that there was an eternal landscape that always existed and it was always 30 AD, and that the world is always heading toward Calvary, only in disguise. Or perhaps the Holy Spirit had come and gone and we were embedded in newer versions of the Book Of Acts. He said that just as the early Christians had battled against the Empire of Rome so we too battle against the threat of a fascist state of “naizism.” That is the empire always exists and secret Christians are always fighting against it.
He posits that the universe is God or the “advocate” playing a game of chess against the Devil or the “enemy”. He said that God is the programmer or the reprogrammer but the devil puts in new moves or mutations in the game which reengineer reality and these new levels are ultimately assimilated or synthesized into the game to reach higher on the ladder. Thus there are worlds which are fakes which are superimposed on one another as new and better versions of reality are created but the enemy is always present to create snares or springs to catch woodcocks, and to continue the seemingly endless game of simulacra.
He has no doubt that it is the God of the Jews and Jesus who rule these worlds, who are the grandmasters of the chess board, knowing all the move in advance, and owning all the squares. On a mundane level he is sure that the National Socialists are evil and that Richard Nixon is bad; and that Nixon’s downfall represents an attempt to overcome repression, and his impeachment is the hinge point of a new and emerging reality.
He says that Christian teaching always states that “short work” will be made of the world, that something unexpected will intrude into reality like a thief in the night. Which is why one must keep one’s lamps burning.
That much is correct although we speak of an Intruder who knows something about opening windows and doors.
That is he has his just so story by which he is able to rationalize the famous events of February to August 1974.
But funny things happen on the way to form, and it is surprising that he eventually postulated a Track C (the third time is the charm, Third Reich or Realm). He described this third version as follows at a conference in Metz, France:
“In February 1975 I passed across into a third alternative present, Track C we will call it. And this was a garden or park of peace and beauty, a world superior to ours rising into existence. So there were three rather than two worlds. The black iron prison world which had been, our intermediate world where oppression and war exist but have been somewhat cast down, and then a third alternative world which someday when the correct variables in the past have been reprogrammed will materialize as a superimposition on this one. And in which as we awaken to it we shall suppose that we have already lived there and the recollection of this intermediary world, like that of the black iron prison world, will be eradicated mercifully form our memories. The best that I can do after having had these experiences and written these novels is play the part of the prophet, the role of ancient prophets such as Sybil who was the oracle of Delphi. And to talk of the wonderful garden or park world much like that which our ancestors are said to have inhabited. In fact I sometimes imagine it to be that same world restored as if a false trajectory of our world will eventually be fully corrected, and once more we will be where many thousands of years ago we once lived and were happy. During the brief time I walked about in that garden world I had the strong impression that this was our legitimate home which somehow, we had lost. The time I spent there was short, about six hours in real elapsed time but I remember it well. In a novel I wrote called Deus Irae I describe it toward the end as a place where the curse is lifted from the world. What is amazing to me about this park like world (Track C) was the non-Christian elements forming the basis of it, it was not what my Christian training had led me to expect. Even when it began to phase out I still saw skies, I saw land, and I saw blue smooth water, and standing by the edge of the water was a nude beautiful woman whom I quickly recognized as none other than Aphrodite. At this point this other better world had diminished to a mere landscape seen through a rectangular doorway, the outline of the doorway pulsed with laser like light and it all soon grew smaller and at last (alas) was gone from sight. The three by five doorway then devoured itself into nothingness sealing off what lay beyond. I have not seen it since but I have the firm impression that this was the next world not of the Christians but the reality of the Greek and Roman world, something older and more beautiful than that which in my own religion had been conjured up as a lure to keep us subjugated in a state of dutiful morality and empty faith. What I saw was very old and very lovely: sky, sea, land and a beautiful woman and then the nothing for the door shut and I was closed off back here. It was with a bitter sense of loss that I saw it go, or saw her go really for it all constellated about Aphrodite who I discovered when……”
He had been in Elysium Fields of the Fortunate Isles, that Idyllic land where mortal heroes who have been granted immortality by the gods were sent; it was on the banks of Oceanus with perpetual springs and its own sun and stars; in this description he finally hits all the right notes; he has the beyond good and evil of Nietzsche and Crowhurst where only the truth matters. By saying that the variables of the past have been changed it is that the valuations of good and evil (National Socialists are evil) have been overturned, as his inverse presentiment showed him in The Man In The High Castle; that is the past of the false world (our world) have been elided or edited of corrected so we see clearly, and false fronts dissipate and disappear. He emphasizes that this is not the Christian Celestial City which means that it is no longer one that the Jews are parasitizing, that the host will have broken free of its evil virus and spring forth into its former and destined reality. That is after a life spent exploring and creating spurious worlds, specious ideas, forgeries and fakes, he had fallen unexpectedly into something real, the world was no longer disenchanted but enchanted and everything was crystal clear and the goddess of love and creation (the Fat Lady), the goddess of roses, swans and myrtles had been restored to her place of honor. That is he had come home. And to his eternal honor he avoided the only error that a second-generation cosmic being can commit: he did not conceal but told the truth and told it plain, so we can get off of the false trajectory and get back on course and adapt to our ordained eternity.
Notes:
Harlan Ellison was at the conference in Metz and said afterward the audience was aghast at the "crazy things" Dick had said and they speculated that he was either drunk or doped.
