Friday, March 4, 2011

some notes on religion in the PKD selected letters



1975-1976
23 Dear Claudia - God reborn as branch of US Post Office
Nobody ever guessed that God would be reborn in the form of a building.
26 she feels Lem is correct... UBIK contains a paradigm world
43bot it's taken me months to label what encountered [sic]
43 when I had both hemispheres functioning in tandem, in a parity relationship, each involved both in perception and cognition, I saw around me a different universe
44 I've said more than I intended
138 a God within
33 the Earth like St. Sofia is an organism, a living one, being build
135 Neoplatonism
36 Developing a metaphysic that will cause a cultural turnaround
Neoplatonists like Plotinus and Avicenna, Philo
39 Who the hell is saint Sophia, I wondered?
40-41 Malcolm Edwards so important and so meaningful I was dazzled
49 DC I could not have finally put together my 12-page metaphysic without you
44 these essential disinhibiting signals may someday arise
47 Martian Time Slip I show disjunctions in time...
...so UBIK is the sine qua non of my work in a sense
45 retrograde motion in time (name for later chapter?)
53 Also, I'm positive, the night's dreams reinforce original training vis-a-vis the disinhibiting signals about to be encountered.
61 for 20 years I have alluded to the possibility of the entire platonist system being accurate
53 why people often get a sense of being part of God's plan
57 DC xerox of my metaphysic
59bot DC soap-bubble effect of the phenomenological world.
61 God is as close as the wall beside me; is *within* the wall beside me, concealed by it, as if that wall is a paper mask.
62 DC hologram
63 A superior analogy would be to regard the universe as consisting of language
70 Why would God take his Sole Son...?
71 worst thing for the titans / devour life form after murdered it
72 triggered - how close to "The Hymn of the Soul" - perhaps this was a purely accidental disinhibiting
76 King Solomon, "Fuck it."
85 I've been reading Ornstein
118 I present you with the sort of evidence which deep within the heavy books I read seemed to indicate vast truths undisclosed to most men
150 Decoded NT shows that what happened to me is happening to others
151 Firebright
138 not all seeds are planted as wheat grains are [influence of PKD on contemporary religion/magic]
152 No priests are needed!
148 a dazzling spectrum of balanced chromatic lights
128 Ornstein--for ten months I have been a different person
describes Nicholas Brady/City of Iron/Thomas/station in the noosphere, Sumerian "oceans of knowledge"
141 DC today is the vernal equinox
143 Point B
142 You think I'm kidding. I *hope* I'm kidding.
131 "music is not real" communication has a reality that we do not understand
129 The could chains of iron are being thrown off, but by what miracle.
129 DC I'm so tired I can't do much, SFS
130 we must be calm and serious here because what Jameson is alluding to is that somehow language is a set in which salvation can overcome *the evil of physical power*
182 to his mother about therapist's advice for dealing with depression
159-160 to Le Guin 159 taoist balance 160 unbounded "governs" universe in Presocratics (source Hussey)
160 You know, Ursula, although I am a Christian I do not accept the authority of any man
I believe that God has broken his long (for us) silence.
90-91 notes on VALIS
92 Identity...
101 We could abolish much of what we experience
127-129 to Robert Ornstein, plot summary
117-118 Dionysus
136-137 Claudia you must read Lathe
92 Dear Claudia, I got loaded...
179 I never thought anything much about Ubik while writing it
179 You can see that this is a heavy idea and much research is required.
308 to Peter Fitting: It's as if the gods were sitting around and having nothing better to do they say, "Let's see old Phil get THIS down on paper." And then revealed all the mysteries of the universe to me and then sat back laughing.
308 notes up to 250,000 words
326 to Tessa - I am evidently in the opposite corner from God.
329 to Mother - fits pattern of William James, Varieties of Religious Experience
331 Deus Irae contains a few mystical experience fragments I worked in [elsewhere-my worst book is my best]
340 DC Bantam editor is afraid Phil Dick has "got religion." The truth of the matter is I have, as you well know, but I try to conceal it.
341 Where I differ from Plotinus... [carbon ends]

1 comment:

  1. "religious quotes" from PKD Interviews:

    1) "I have very powerful beliefs, and I have experienced very powerful religious experiences, but they do not fit the doctrines of the Church, particularly. Yet I will stick by them as authentic." ["An Interview With Philip K. Dick," by Daniel DePrez, Science Fiction Review, No. 19, vol. 5, no. 23, August 1976]

    2) "I've always been interested in religion. In man's relationship with is [sic] God, what he chooses to worship was raised a Quaker but converted to Episcopalianism very early in my life." ["An Interview With America's Most Brilliant Science-Fiction Writer (Philip K. Dick)," by Joe Vitale, The Aquarian, No. 11, October 11-18, 1978]

    3) "I'm totally against organized religion," he states. "I believe you have a direct relation with the divine or you have no relation with the divine. It has nothing to do with faith or dogmatic creeds. The initiative comes from the divine side. There is nothing you can do." ["Philip K. Dick: Confessions Of A SF Artist," by George Cain & Dana Logo, Denver Clarion, October 23, 1980]

    4) "...I found that once I had studied a dualistic, bitheistic religion, it was very hard for me to go back to monotheism after that." [9-30-81, Gregg Rickman, Philip K. Dick: In His Own Words, 1984]

    5) "For me Evil was as real a force as Good. There was God and there was the Anti-God. It [The Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch] was really a study of Deity as Evil and Good as Human." [9-30-81, Gregg Rickman, Philip K. Dick: In His Own Words, 1984]

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