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If you liked this, I highly recommend reading his book VALIS. It's psuedo autobiographical, and deals with the odd "visions" and "revelations" PKD experienced l

If you liked this, I highly recommend reading his book VALIS. It's psuedo autobiographical, and deals with the odd "visions" and "revelations" PKD experienced later in his life. He was likely suffering from some sort of mental illness, but to close the discussion there ignores the lessons PKD himself taught us in his earlier works. Reality is weird and slippery, and we don't really know what's going on.

nsajko 6y ago
> ... odd "visions" and "revelations" PKD experienced later in his life. He was likely suffering from some sort of mental illness ... Philip Purser-Hallard: "The drugs did work": https://www.theguardian.com/film/2006/aug/12/sciencefictionfantasyandhorror.philipkdick https://www.theguardian.com/film/2006/aug/12/sciencefictionf...
- Trasmatta 6y ago
  Interestingly, his books describe very psychedelic type experiences, but he apparently didn't do psychedelics much. There's a reference to him trying LSD once and hating it. His drug of choice seemed to be amphetamines. Ultimately it's impossible to diagnose post mortem what exactly was going on in his head.
  - pmoriarty 6y ago
    Just because PKD said he hated LSD doesn't mean it didn't influence his writing. The peaks of many of his best works seem like bad acid trips, though the paranoia that can come from heavy amphetamine and other drug abuse could certainly have had an influence as well. Anyway, I'm not sure how trustworthy PKD's accounts of his own drug use are.
    - Trasmatta 6y ago
      According to PKD, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, one of his most psychedelic books, was written before he tried LSD. But yes, it's hard to trust what he said about his drug use.
      - pmoriarty 6y ago
        I'd agree that it's one of his most psychedelic books, but did he maybe try not LSD but some other psychedelic before that?
        DonHopkins 6y ago
        He did a lot of Can-D and Chew-Z!
      - doopy1 6y ago
        PKD wrote a lot of great books really quickly by relying on amphetamines, heavily. This had a major contribution to the far out mental state he was in towards the end of his life, and it's actually quite sad. I say this as a huge PKD fan. Ubik and A Scanner Darkly both had a profound impact on me.
    - empath75 6y ago
      Lots of people have written very trippy things without having done psychedelics at all. Here’s something I was just learning about in a podcast recently — 2000 years old abd similar to the kind writing that pkd was doing after his breakdown. https://biblehub.com/library/clement/the_stromata_or_miscellanies/chapter_vi_the_mystic_meaning_of.htm https://biblehub.com/library/clement/the_stromata_or_miscell...
      - pmoriarty 6y ago
        While I agree that very strange and possibly "psychedelic" things can be written without using psychedelics or other means of attaining altered states of consciousness, particularly if one is mentally ill, I'm not convinced the 2000 year old works the article you link to discusses weren't themselves influenced by access to some altered state of consciousness, perhaps through psychedelics. Psychedelics and other means of altering consciousness have been used throughout human (and possibly even pre-human) history. In reference to the link you cited, there has been evidence that cannabis, which can have psychedelic effects at high doses, was used in ritual contexts in biblical times in ancient Israel. Here is a recent article discussing some new evidence of this: https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/28/world/tel-arad-shrine-israel-cannabis-study-scn/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/28/world/tel-arad-shrine-israel-...
        empath75 6y ago
        Okay, but he was a Greek in Egypt.
rantwasp 6y ago
if we’re into this, Valis, The Divine Invasion, The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, A Maze Of Death, and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch are all facets of the same diamomd. IMHO, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch is by far the best PKD book.
- pmoriarty 6y ago
  I'd add Ubik to this as well, and would personally rate it higher than the Three Stigmata. For me, Ubik is PKD's greatest and most accessible book. 1st rank - Ubik, The Three Stigmata, A Martian Time Slip, Faith of Our Fathers 2nd rank - (The Divine Invasion or The Galactic Pot Healer ... don't remember which now... it's been a long time), A Maze of Death 3rd rank - VALIS, Eye in the Sky Honorable mention: the middle of Lies, Inc -- it has a weak start and ending, but the middle is up there with the best PKD has ever written. I found The Transmigration of Timothy Archer to be pretty boring, but I didn't make it all the way through, and some PKD books (like Lies, Inc) start dull and turn great, so I might give it another go sometime.. but the impression I got when first reading it was that this was a book written around the time PKD was starting to transition to writing more "serious literature" (aka not scifi), and to me PKD is just much stronger at writing scifi, particularly of the really mind-bending, bad acid trip kind, and he just wasn't cut out to write "serious literature"... so yeah, right now I'd pass on The Transmigration of Timothy Archer. I'm also kind of sick of his obsession with his pink light mystical experience.. I wish he'd just gotten over it already and moved on to something else. Writing about it once was more than enough.
  - Trasmatta 6y ago
    +1 for Ubik. It's really the quintessential example of his reality bending core theme. Everytime you think you've got a handle on what's happening, he pulls the rug out from under you, all the way to the end. Some of his other books try to do the same thing, but tie things up too nicely (like Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said).
    - rantwasp 6y ago
      I am alive and you are dead. Classic PKD
artsyca 6y ago
You know, I'd have to suggest "Intergalactic Pot Healer" as a soft introduction into the whole scene. Thing about reality being slippery we have a tendency to acknowledge the fact when we're reading the books but then to comfortably return to our regularly scheduled mundane existence the minute the books are closed. I still haven't been able to reconcile the sheer madness of the world with the workaday banality and obedience I've experienced in this cursed industry.
- Trasmatta 6y ago
  I had some bad drug trips earlier this year, and one of the things that's stuck with me is the realization of how bizarre our reality and existence is. It manifests as an existential dread, where I realize that we're all walking around in a world we don't understand, where most people don't seem to be questioning that fact. It's like, we all just started existing one day. You can trace that back to your parents, to being born, to evolution, to the laws of physics, to the big bang, etc, but that doesn't remove the bizarre fact that we exist and are conscious for some reason but we have no idea why. (Or if the question of "why" even makes any sort of logical sense.) Even the reality we think we perceive is unlikely to be anything like what's actually going on. Isn't that just so weird? It's been about 5 months now, and I still get hit with these feelings multiple times a day. It's accompanied with a strong feeling of anxiety, so I wish I could go back to the old banality. (Yes, I've been considering therapy for awhile, but it's difficult to get an appointment with a therapist right now.)
  - artsyca 6y ago
    Dude read the first paragraph of "Call of Cthulu" by HP Lovecraft. Unfortunately that ship has sailed for us, there is no going back all the way.. But you should take comfort in that you're not alone. I have a lot I'd like to share with you, would you be into having a virtual cup of tea or coffee?
    - Trasmatta 6y ago
      When this all happened, that quote was one of the exact ones that I felt described it perfectly! The existential dread felt like my mind beginning to correlate its contents and it was terrifying. I'd love to discuss it more. Where can I get in touch?
perfmode 6y ago
In my humble opinion, PKD was grazing what the perennial philosophy offers to be the Truth of existence. To quote Waking Life: > Now Philip K. Dick is right about time, but he's wrong that it's 50 A.D. Actually, there's only one instant, and it's right now, and it's eternity. And it's an instant in which God is posing a question, and that question is basically, 'Do you want to, you know, be one with eternity? Do you want to be in heaven?' And we're all saying, 'No thank you. Not just yet.' And so time is actually just this constant saying 'No' to God's invitation. I mean that's what time is. I mean, and it's no more 50 A.D. than it's two thousand and one. And there's just this one instant, and that's what we're always in." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perennial_philosophy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perennial_philosophy
- pmoriarty 6y ago
  Perennial philosophy is the view that all philosophies or religions are getting at the same thing, or have the same root. That's quite different from PKD's hypothesis (one of many he entertained) that the present moment is something like a holographic superimposition on biblical times in ancient Rome. PKD meant this quite literally, as one possibility of what reality might actually be, not as an opinion on what different philosophies or religions are getting at.
  - perfmode 6y ago
    PKD posited 50AD. The perennial philosophy posits there is only one moment. Hence, the quote included in my comment. The quote explains the connection. PKD grazed the truth but fell short, and this is alright.
    - pmoriarty 6y ago
      Ironically, there are actually many different perennial philosophies, each of which believe different things. The thing they have in common is that they believe all religions or philosophies are getting at the same thing or have their root in the same thing or experience.. but what that thing is differs from one perennial philosophy to another. You seem to have cited one such belief -- that there is only one moment -- but I'm not sure what the origin of your belief is. Which version of perennial philosophy are you referring to?
m463 6y ago
> He was likely suffering from some sort of mental illness Science Fiction really is a mental illness. You suspend disbelief, you invent an alternate reality in your mind, and then you walk around in it accepting both the possible and the preposterous in equal measure. But what a wonderful illness to experience, because someday it might infect others and we might have spaceships or cybertrucks or watch c-beams glitter in the dark near the tannhauser gate.

nsajko 6y ago

> ... odd "visions" and "revelations" PKD experienced later in his life. He was likely suffering from some sort of mental illness ... Philip Purser-Hallard: "The drugs did work": https://www.theguardian.com/film/2006/aug/12/sciencefictionfantasyandhorror.philipkdick https://www.theguardian.com/film/2006/aug/12/sciencefictionf...

Trasmatta 6y ago
Interestingly, his books describe very psychedelic type experiences, but he apparently didn't do psychedelics much. There's a reference to him trying LSD once and hating it. His drug of choice seemed to be amphetamines. Ultimately it's impossible to diagnose post mortem what exactly was going on in his head.
- pmoriarty 6y ago
  Just because PKD said he hated LSD doesn't mean it didn't influence his writing. The peaks of many of his best works seem like bad acid trips, though the paranoia that can come from heavy amphetamine and other drug abuse could certainly have had an influence as well. Anyway, I'm not sure how trustworthy PKD's accounts of his own drug use are.
  - Trasmatta 6y ago
    According to PKD, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, one of his most psychedelic books, was written before he tried LSD. But yes, it's hard to trust what he said about his drug use.
    - pmoriarty 6y ago
      I'd agree that it's one of his most psychedelic books, but did he maybe try not LSD but some other psychedelic before that?
      - DonHopkins 6y ago
        He did a lot of Can-D and Chew-Z!
    - doopy1 6y ago
      PKD wrote a lot of great books really quickly by relying on amphetamines, heavily. This had a major contribution to the far out mental state he was in towards the end of his life, and it's actually quite sad. I say this as a huge PKD fan. Ubik and A Scanner Darkly both had a profound impact on me.
  - empath75 6y ago
    Lots of people have written very trippy things without having done psychedelics at all. Here’s something I was just learning about in a podcast recently — 2000 years old abd similar to the kind writing that pkd was doing after his breakdown. https://biblehub.com/library/clement/the_stromata_or_miscellanies/chapter_vi_the_mystic_meaning_of.htm https://biblehub.com/library/clement/the_stromata_or_miscell...
    - pmoriarty 6y ago
      While I agree that very strange and possibly "psychedelic" things can be written without using psychedelics or other means of attaining altered states of consciousness, particularly if one is mentally ill, I'm not convinced the 2000 year old works the article you link to discusses weren't themselves influenced by access to some altered state of consciousness, perhaps through psychedelics. Psychedelics and other means of altering consciousness have been used throughout human (and possibly even pre-human) history. In reference to the link you cited, there has been evidence that cannabis, which can have psychedelic effects at high doses, was used in ritual contexts in biblical times in ancient Israel. Here is a recent article discussing some new evidence of this: https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/28/world/tel-arad-shrine-israel-cannabis-study-scn/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/28/world/tel-arad-shrine-israel-...
      - empath75 6y ago
        Okay, but he was a Greek in Egypt.

rantwasp 6y ago

if we’re into this, Valis, The Divine Invasion, The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, A Maze Of Death, and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch are all facets of the same diamomd. IMHO, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch is by far the best PKD book.

pmoriarty 6y ago
I'd add Ubik to this as well, and would personally rate it higher than the Three Stigmata. For me, Ubik is PKD's greatest and most accessible book. 1st rank - Ubik, The Three Stigmata, A Martian Time Slip, Faith of Our Fathers 2nd rank - (The Divine Invasion or The Galactic Pot Healer ... don't remember which now... it's been a long time), A Maze of Death 3rd rank - VALIS, Eye in the Sky Honorable mention: the middle of Lies, Inc -- it has a weak start and ending, but the middle is up there with the best PKD has ever written. I found The Transmigration of Timothy Archer to be pretty boring, but I didn't make it all the way through, and some PKD books (like Lies, Inc) start dull and turn great, so I might give it another go sometime.. but the impression I got when first reading it was that this was a book written around the time PKD was starting to transition to writing more "serious literature" (aka not scifi), and to me PKD is just much stronger at writing scifi, particularly of the really mind-bending, bad acid trip kind, and he just wasn't cut out to write "serious literature"... so yeah, right now I'd pass on The Transmigration of Timothy Archer. I'm also kind of sick of his obsession with his pink light mystical experience.. I wish he'd just gotten over it already and moved on to something else. Writing about it once was more than enough.
- Trasmatta 6y ago
  +1 for Ubik. It's really the quintessential example of his reality bending core theme. Everytime you think you've got a handle on what's happening, he pulls the rug out from under you, all the way to the end. Some of his other books try to do the same thing, but tie things up too nicely (like Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said).
  - rantwasp 6y ago
    I am alive and you are dead. Classic PKD

artsyca 6y ago

You know, I'd have to suggest "Intergalactic Pot Healer" as a soft introduction into the whole scene. Thing about reality being slippery we have a tendency to acknowledge the fact when we're reading the books but then to comfortably return to our regularly scheduled mundane existence the minute the books are closed. I still haven't been able to reconcile the sheer madness of the world with the workaday banality and obedience I've experienced in this cursed industry.

Trasmatta 6y ago
I had some bad drug trips earlier this year, and one of the things that's stuck with me is the realization of how bizarre our reality and existence is. It manifests as an existential dread, where I realize that we're all walking around in a world we don't understand, where most people don't seem to be questioning that fact. It's like, we all just started existing one day. You can trace that back to your parents, to being born, to evolution, to the laws of physics, to the big bang, etc, but that doesn't remove the bizarre fact that we exist and are conscious for some reason but we have no idea why. (Or if the question of "why" even makes any sort of logical sense.) Even the reality we think we perceive is unlikely to be anything like what's actually going on. Isn't that just so weird? It's been about 5 months now, and I still get hit with these feelings multiple times a day. It's accompanied with a strong feeling of anxiety, so I wish I could go back to the old banality. (Yes, I've been considering therapy for awhile, but it's difficult to get an appointment with a therapist right now.)
- artsyca 6y ago
  Dude read the first paragraph of "Call of Cthulu" by HP Lovecraft. Unfortunately that ship has sailed for us, there is no going back all the way.. But you should take comfort in that you're not alone. I have a lot I'd like to share with you, would you be into having a virtual cup of tea or coffee?
  - Trasmatta 6y ago
    When this all happened, that quote was one of the exact ones that I felt described it perfectly! The existential dread felt like my mind beginning to correlate its contents and it was terrifying. I'd love to discuss it more. Where can I get in touch?

perfmode 6y ago

In my humble opinion, PKD was grazing what the perennial philosophy offers to be the Truth of existence. To quote Waking Life: > Now Philip K. Dick is right about time, but he's wrong that it's 50 A.D. Actually, there's only one instant, and it's right now, and it's eternity. And it's an instant in which God is posing a question, and that question is basically, 'Do you want to, you know, be one with eternity? Do you want to be in heaven?' And we're all saying, 'No thank you. Not just yet.' And so time is actually just this constant saying 'No' to God's invitation. I mean that's what time is. I mean, and it's no more 50 A.D. than it's two thousand and one. And there's just this one instant, and that's what we're always in." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perennial_philosophy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perennial_philosophy

pmoriarty 6y ago
Perennial philosophy is the view that all philosophies or religions are getting at the same thing, or have the same root. That's quite different from PKD's hypothesis (one of many he entertained) that the present moment is something like a holographic superimposition on biblical times in ancient Rome. PKD meant this quite literally, as one possibility of what reality might actually be, not as an opinion on what different philosophies or religions are getting at.
- perfmode 6y ago
  PKD posited 50AD. The perennial philosophy posits there is only one moment. Hence, the quote included in my comment. The quote explains the connection. PKD grazed the truth but fell short, and this is alright.
  - pmoriarty 6y ago
    Ironically, there are actually many different perennial philosophies, each of which believe different things. The thing they have in common is that they believe all religions or philosophies are getting at the same thing or have their root in the same thing or experience.. but what that thing is differs from one perennial philosophy to another. You seem to have cited one such belief -- that there is only one moment -- but I'm not sure what the origin of your belief is. Which version of perennial philosophy are you referring to?

m463 6y ago

> He was likely suffering from some sort of mental illness Science Fiction really is a mental illness. You suspend disbelief, you invent an alternate reality in your mind, and then you walk around in it accepting both the possible and the preposterous in equal measure. But what a wonderful illness to experience, because someday it might infect others and we might have spaceships or cybertrucks or watch c-beams glitter in the dark near the tannhauser gate.