The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick Read online

  Ubik, the world, was arrived at a priori. But now [...] I discern in Ubik certain traditional elements (I discern them only by studying night and day my various reference works): (1) the Logos (i.e., Runciter talking and writing notes to them); (2) the twin competing interacting subforces which Empedocles described (Ella versus Jory, which is love versus hate, a kind of dialectic interaction generating all change); (3) Ubik as an omnipresent energy field which would be the ancient notion of God as Immanent Mind infusing the universe, within it rather than above it; or, in Hindu terms, the Atman, the Breath of God; (4) the manner of regression of forms which takes place runs along an axis which is, so to speak, at right angles to the form-progressing axis we usually envision, but it is logically there, although not within our range of immediate perception. However, Plato's edola weren't within immediate perception either, and still aren't. Given the other elements of the Ubik world as being theoretically possible as underpinnings of our own, but not disclosed or available to us in a perceptual sense, then this, too, may be a valid view as to (1) the actual existence of the Platonic archetypes, the ideal forms, and (2) how they progress or decay, as incising takes place or for some reason fails to take place. It all constitutes together a harmonious Greek worldview, consistent with itself and available as I say a priori.

  Even the small point of negative ionization as a factor in Ubik the force is consistent with Reich's33 view of the orgone force he posits, which was linked to ionization, especially in the atmosphere. (I just learned that, amongst all the rest.) Orgone as an underlying semi-living life energy, cosmic in origin, the link between the living and the non-living, would be roughly equal to Ubik, although not conceived by Reich as a sentient. I obviously conceive of Ubik as sentient, perhaps a bioplasmic life form related to the Logos, as the three members of the Christian Trinity are related to each other and one another; Runciter as Christ/Ubik as Immanent God/Runciter, when not visible but writing to them as Logos. Which, I see now, by my logic, makes Logos and Christ the same (which was St. John's view anyhow, in his Gospel34). Imagine, having arrived at St. John's view of Christ a priori! (Should I notify the Pope?)

  What ties all this up—for me anyhow—is about ten months ago I began reading about two fascinating new areas of study: Robert Ornstein's work in causing the right hemisphere to come on in people, his view as I'm sure you know being that we use only our left, and also the ortho-molecular vitamin formula, which is supposed to produce radically improved neural firing in the brain. As if there weren't enough, I also began to read what to me was the most extraordinary idea of all: that the human brain (are you ready?) can transduce external electrical fields, both high and low frequency, if the fields are weak, if the thermal factor is low, and if it so does, its efficiency is augmented by the field-influx. Well, Malcolm, having the ortho-molecular vitamin formula in my possession I began experimenting ... and to compound all this, I had written the rough draft of my new novel A Scanner Darkly, in which I studied the drug-damaged brain and concluded that the basic impairment which I'd seen in the burned-out members of the drug subculture which so horrified me, had to do with "split brain" phenomena of some obscure kind, and had done a vast amount of study on this, and theorizing for the novel. Putting all the above together, I set out to obtain a radically improved efficiency in my own neural firing, with the emphasis on, hopefully, causing my unused right hemisphere to wink on and function as Ornstein at Stanford says it ought to. ("We sent half a man to the moon," is Ornstein's phrase.)

  In mid-March I got abrupt, dazzling results, which I'd prefer not to go into just yet. Recently, when the New Yorker interviewer came to interview me,35 he had a friend with him and it turned out they know Ornstein personally and are well acquainted with his research and theories; this gave me a long-sought-for chance to discuss my ten-month-experiences to someone who could tell me, Did I indeed cause my right hemisphere to come on, and were/are my experiences genuine? Yes indeed, they decided, after listening to me. (We talked all afternoon, the interview forgotten, so important did we mutually consider this stuff to be.)

  Basically, Malcolm, when I had both brain hemispheres functioning in tandem, in a parity relationship, each involved both in perception and cognition, I saw around me a different universe. It was, briefly, I later realized (it took me three months to so identify it), the universe I had depicted in Ubik. Most thrilling of all, I did indeed transduce an external very weak energy field (I think, as with most science, simply knowing it can be done is half the job), which gradually drained off during the following weeks: this explained the astonishingly great jump in neural efficiency which I experienced. (It also disastrously upset the physical equilibrium of my body; it raised my blood pressure from 140/93 to 268/170, causing my doctor to hospitalize me instantly, which shows the risk in these matters; it isn't only the brain which took the ergic influx, evidently, but my whole neurological system.) However, the field did drain off normally and gradually, but during the time it was incorporated within me I got a priceless chance to experience for the first time the true koinos kosmos: the true things-in-themselves which Kant felt we could never experience. A vast noetic factor lived in me; I both saw and comprehended in a single mentational act, although it's taken me months to label what I encountered (e.g., the Logos, God as Immanent Mind within the structural framework of reality surrounding me). I think what was the most thrilling of all, above and beyond everything else which was new to me, was visually to observe the constant, steady, unfailing signaling systems by which all living organisms are disinhibited; which is to say, their engrammed and then blocked instinctive patterns imprinted on them at the beginning are periodically released at the correct moment, for the appropriate occasion ... in this fashion chaos becomes cosmos, and harmony and stability and regulated interaction between all parts of the structure are perpetually achieved. Being outside the ontological categories at one point I could watch signals coming up, about to be disclosed. We humans receive them as well as the animals do, but don't realize it, since the signals, when they are disclosed to us, can't be resisted; at the same time the interior engrammed assembly fires, giving us the delusional sense of internal volition; we wish to do what we then do. Thus I watched, fascinated, to see that we are never out of the hands of Our Creator, the Immanent God which surrounds us. The concept of entelechy of Aristotle (that our patterns are entirely within us, and unfold during our life) is a sublime delusion; we have part within, but part is outside because otherwise disjunction with our environment would occur almost at once. New views as to the nature of schizophrenia, in which the person withdraws and hence fails to receive or tries to fail to receive, these essential disinhibiting external signals, may someday arise ... his manifold internal programmed systems, installed in him at conception, can't properly fire, since regular, orderly disinhibition is impeded by his fugue. Like Jonah, he flees God. He flees his destiny, which is to say, his instructions as to how to grow and become.

  Well, Malcolm, I've said more than I intended. Much of this would have gone into my London speech—some had, in the part I'd done before flu hit. Before closing, I want to stress that I was indeed lucky (although my heightened view of the world showed me that what we call "luck" is arranged methodically by our guiding Creator, and doesn't happen by chance), inasmuch as not only did I transduce an external field successfully into the electrical field of my neurological system, as has been shown in laboratory work over recent years, but that field which I transduced was, shall we say, a benign one, that is, it promoted both mental and physical healing in me ... a long process, but a start, inasmuch as I am quite a bit better off in both counts than before. I would characterize this transduced field as a semi-living bioplasmic field, sentient and deathless; I could see it in a few subtle arrangements outside me, so I realized that it had been present but not visible to me. [...] I don't know about weak fields—I lack the technical training to identify it, but it is a plasma, very heavy and although possessing enormous mass, capable of terr
ific velocity on occasion; like red-and-gold shining mercury, it flowed off and disappeared almost as soon as I spied it, which was only a couple of times. When it pours into a person, which it can do and does do on rare occasions he claims that "The Holy Spirit" entered him, or "Dionysus," if that's the name by which he calls his god, or Apollo. I personally like to think of it as Mr. Runciter, still working ceaselessly to assist his friends, to give them the advice and help of a much older, wiser person. Let me know what you think of all this, Malcolm, and again, thank you for your article on Tears.

  Cordially,

  Phil Dick

  Letter to Malcolm Edwards, January 31, 1975

  [4:147]

  Dear Malcolm,

  Would you object if I completed my presentation to you of the material contained in my last two letters (January 29 and January 30)? I just want to add a point or so....

  What I saw about the external disinhibiting structure which evidently surrounds each human being, as a sort of cube-like chamber, was the utili zation of every sort of datum, especially visual, so that when required that particular datum projected a signal (as I mentioned) which the intended person to be disinhibited received. Other persons would not respond, since they would not be engrammed to respond to that signal; they would in fact perceive no signal at all. The intended individual would experience a sudden transformation of the ground-set formation of the environment around him; one item would come forward, alter from ground and become set, then go back once more, to resume its passive or inert mode, its park, its waiting mode. This appeared to me much like an enormous number of corrective rocket jets, very small, such as would be mounted on an interplanetary vehicle; they could fire at any time in any sequence, producing the most precise change in the course of the vehicle itself, stabilizing it, causing it to pick up or lose velocity ... you can see the analogy. What in regard to us seemed to me especially high in this utility was written material, of any and all sorts: any sign, any ad, any piece of paper; the resemblance to Runciter's communicating with the people via the trash of the gutter, the debris such as match folders, the labels of spray cans, etc.—this is exactly what I actually saw myself as functioning in the highest fashion to guide and instruct us, these same verbal instruments. It is evident why eventually I would suppose the presence of the Logos.

  Also, I saw a continual use of the joining of two verbal items; they would be kept separate—and hence not causing disinhibiting to occur—until the proper moment. I saw various written items rotate, so to speak, very slowly, inexorably, like a solenoid clock as it ticks along. Then two separate verbal items (such as an ad for beer plus a street sign with the word CRESCENT DRIVE on it, to make up an example—these might remain separate and not be gestalted into one unit by the person for an indefinite time) would by inexorable degrees come together and mesh into an entity. At once, they would signal, and cause neural firing of an inhibited engrammed system in the person. He would not know why he suddenly did what he did; he would feel volition, and like a person under a post-hypnotic suggestion, invent in his mind a plausible explanation. That all this would form an enormous and complex world-clock, synchronized with itself, is evident. Where free-will enters, I saw, is that between the flashing of disinhibiting signals to a person, he is free to play, to do what he wishes; like a child at recess between classes, he can do whatever he wants—until he hears the bell sounding. And, as I perceived it, once the "bell" sounds, which is to say the disinhibiting signal, he must do what is required, since the total person (the autonomic nervous system) is engaged. I did not reason this out; I saw this. I also saw the Logos as it reached from our future into our present—which is the only world we have, our present—to make use of the arrangements of things. It had no power, no force or strength, to compel what was, but it could somehow arrange what the original efficient causes at the start of time had brought into being. The forward-moving force of time, enormously powerful as it was, seemed oblivious of the subtle arranging by the Spirit or Logos; it always seemed taken by surprise by the resulting combinations arranged: they seemed to thwart its rather blind purposes.

  Also, I came to understand this. With all creatures other than man, instinct is the same for each individual of the species; all dragonflies are programmed alike. But, I saw, each individual human being is programmed uniquely, in terms of (1) the signals he can and will encounter during his life, and (2) according to the unique and special purpose set for him by his Creator. A specific destiny is thereby arranged for each person; when he is born, his destiny is in him, and all that is needed is to set him in motion. His Creator knows from the start everything which that person will encounter, and his Creator has by this engramming and signaling system made it possible to determine and control in advance how the person will go, along his course; it is not random; it is not accidental; it never lacks purpose—although, I saw, sometimes for extended time periods the person (any given person) must of necessity be placed on hold—he must mark time until the rest of the cosmos is ready, since everything has to be coordinated. If it were not this way, we would soon have no cosmos. This is why we sometimes have the deep and acute intuition that we are accomplishing absolutely nothing, and no matter how hard we try we can't overcome what we call "inertia." Actually, somewhere in the world other pieces of the puzzle must work out their paths so that we can join them; there is no other viable way to handle these things. It's one endless series of D-Days, with each piece perfectly synchronized; but oh, the waiting until our moment to fire effectively, in an important manner, arrives!

  Perhaps the most startling aspect of reality that I saw, and one which for nearly nine months I could not fully accept, was this: the only portion of the universe which is truly real is living creatures, such as ourselves. The non-living parts are merely structure, very much like the backdrop and artificial scenery in a formal play. We see these dead objects in terms of being as real as ourselves, but again, this is a necessary illusion or delusion placed on us in order that we be able to function in what we must do, which is to grow and develop according to complex plans obscured from our gaze. What exists around us, actually, beyond and above the sparks of life which we ourselves are, is in essence nothing more than elaborate but somewhat barren struts and support beams, literally so; they support the intricate signaling devices which flash messages—i.e., commands and assistance—to us continually, and also of course they afford biologically-essential life support. This is indeed a kind of ship we are within, but in shape more like a gigantic hollow cube, all sides of which surround us and fire information and instructions in rapid, elaborate sequence: we are seeing the physical body of the Creator, who animates all.

  What I could not see—and remember I didn't reason all this out; I saw it noetically—was the final goal or purpose of all this; that was beyond my ken. I saw a process, what seemed to be a temporary mode which we inhabited—I sensed that this is a stage, from which we go to another (see previous letters). We are being processed along, and as we go we are changed and informed; there is no ontology for us, no concrete being—it is all, as Bergson saw, a becoming. We are, in a way, passing through a Cosmic Car-Wash, and a thousand brushes and brooms and vacuum cleaners are scrubbing us, refining us and purifying us, and, very important, teaching us. This process, along which we all travel in unison, produces what seemed to me permanent alterations in us; by us, of course, I don't mean our physical bodies, but the spark inhabiting these bodies. But also, we seem to be carrying out, at the bidding of these engrammings, complex tasks, which is why people often get a sense of God's Divine Plan of which they are a part. It seemed to me that in addition to being changed we are working our asses off in the service of some over-all structure, purpose, goal or need; perhaps what I saw is continual creation, and we are involuntary workmen located here and there like a million bees about the structure, hammering and sawing for all we are worth, the blueprint not being visible to us (but only to the Architect). Our instructions are somehow within our heads.... I
have the keen intuition, probably a correct one, that our original set of engramming, the many programs laid down and then inhibited at birth, are continually being updated and refined during sleep; while each of us sleeps, he is taught through the dream-state: it never seems to occur to people, by and large, why it is that universally mankind has sensed that dreams deal with the future. The reason is obvious; it is in the future that the tasks which the dreams inform us about are to take place.

  Also, I'm positive, the night's dreams reinforce original training vis-à-vis the disinhibiting signals about to be encountered. Shortly (a day or so, a week maybe at the most) before you run into a particular ad showing canned tuna fish with a drawing of a pretty girl, to which you are to respond with a complex series of acts, you will have a dream, only vaguely remembered, that by reiterating the original training eliminates any possibility that you will not respond when the signal from your environment comes your way. As you and I know from reading S-F stories, one signal missed, and an entire alternate universe would come into being—hardly an economical or orderly way for God to handle things. (You'll find early stories of mine such as "Adjustment Team" and "The Commuter" dealing with post-screwup changes; they're always bad news to the Creator.) In connection with this thought, I submit to you that this entire cosmology which I've presented to you in these pages bears an organic relationship to my entire body of writing, to my basic theme of What is reality? I think I have at last transliminated—i.e., coughed up into consciousness—my subcontinent which has given rise to all my work and to all my theories and thinking.* You are the first and so far only person I've told it to. I hope you're not displeased.