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> ... odd "visions" and "revelations" PKD experienced later in his life. He was likely suffering from some sort of mental illness ... Philip Purser-Hallard: "T
by 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 agoInterestingly, 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 agoJust 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 agoAccording 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 agoI'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 agoHe did a lot of Can-D and Chew-Z!
- doopy1 6y agoPKD 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 agoLots 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 agoWhile 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 agoOkay, but he was a Greek in Egypt.