The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick

Thought we could do with some comics:
http://www.philipkdickfans.com/weirdo/weirdo3.htm

Thoughts?

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
Thought we could do with some comics:
http://www.philipkdickfans.com/weirdo/weirdo3.htm

Thoughts?

Stranger than fiction.

btw, Tom Disch committed suicide July 4th or 5th.

Sounds like a severe chemical imbalance, with the expeience bolstered by a more-than-passing familiarity with Judeo-Christianity. Should it mean more?

Originally posted by David C
Sounds like a severe chemical imbalance, with the expeience bolstered by a more-than-passing familiarity with Judeo-Christianity. Should it mean more?

'Sounds like'. Go see your patients, doctor.

Salient points of interest:
1. PKD's 'alternate/ancient self' told him about his son's fatal, undetected condition. What's up with that?

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
'Sounds like'. Go see your patients, doctor.

Salient points of interest:
1. PKD's 'alternate/ancient self' told him about his son's fatal, undetected condition. What's up with that?

It is an allegation absent proof, that's what's up with that. PKD well could simply have had a retrospective flash of inspiration and embellished a case where he noticed, like any parent, that the kid was in pain and took him to a Dr. The rest of it may or may not have happened -- how can we know?

Originally posted by Scriabin
It is an allegation absent proof, that's what's up with that. PKD well could simply have had a retrospective flash of inspiration and embellished a case where he noticed, like any parent, that the kid was in pain and took him to a Dr. The rest of it may or may not have happened -- how can we know?

Assume, for the hell of it, he was telling the truth.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
Assume, for the hell of it, he was telling the truth.

Look, my wife's got a very good friend who has been at various times CEO and CFO of large mortgage banking institutions, and even #2 at the Mortgage Bankers Assn. here in Wash DC. Now she is a "Life Coach," a real Kaleeeefornia lady, this one.

She "channels" other lives. She uses more new age buzzwords than I can translate.

She can explain all this for you, not me. I'm old age, not new age.

The only thing I can assume is old Phil had too much to drink or smoke, etc.

He sure as hell did not see the future -- cause it ain't happened yet and he wasn't moving fast enough to slip the time stream he lived in.

There was a young lady named Bright
Who traveled much faster than light
She left one day,
In a relative way,
And returned on the previous night.

Originally posted by Scriabin
I'm old age, not new age.

The only thing I can assume is old Phil had too much to drink or smoke, etc.

No doubt. Although you're probably the same age as Robert Anton Wilson would be now. I seem to recall he had a pink light experience too ... or so he said.

No doubt! I'd be quite happy with a naturalistic explanation that didn't pooh-pooh the revelations of Phil. Of course he spent quite some time doing that himself.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
No doubt. Although you're probably the same age as Robert Anton Wilson would be now. I seem to recall he had a pink light experience too ... or so he said.

No doubt! I'd be quite happy with a naturalistic explanation that didn't pooh-pooh the revelations of Phil. Of course he spent quite some time doing that himself.

There are times when I feel a sense of deja vue; not the feeling that I've done this before or something has happened before, but rather the strong, but passing feeling or flash of memory of a dream I had where what is going on in the present was given to me as a vision, as it were.

I think the explanation for it has a lot to do with the way the brain passes information around. If you screw around with the brain, say with certain drugs, you can become quite convinced of things that are absolutely not the case.

For example, I have very strong, vivid memories of certain movies in which what I recall simply is not what you find upon watching the movie now. For years, I thought that Claude Rains shot the German officer at the airport in Casablanca; no, Bogart did. But, then, my memory of that scene is in color. That should give you a clue as to why I processed the information the way I did.

One of the worst things to do is alter your state of consciousness and then watch a double feature of early Bergman movies.

Do you think Bill Clinton read Wilson? Clinton also seemed quite annoyed by whatever the meaning of "is" is.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
Assume, for the hell of it, he was telling the truth.

OK.

Do we have any reason to believe it was the Christian "Holy Spirit" or whatever deity he grew up with that did the talking? No. It could have just as easily been Hubbard's Thetans, Rael's "greys" or Strassman's DMT. Right? Maybe it was the ghost of Twain...but given the level of humourless melodrama in that tract, I doubt it.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
Thought we could do with some comics:
http://www.philipkdickfans.com/weirdo/weirdo3.htm

Thoughts?

The print is too small, so I couldn't read it. The drawings were awful.

Originally posted by David C
Do we have any reason to believe it was the Christian "Holy Spirit" or whatever deity he grew up with that did the talking?

Of course not. Is there any suggestion that it was?

Originally posted by josephw
The print is too small, so I couldn't read it. The drawings were awful.

Your computer can zoom in on the images.

I think you'll find much of interest. For example, Tom Disch and PKD discuss whether PKD underwent enthousiasmos by Elijah.

One reason why I'm so interested in PKD's pink light experience is that it's the 20th-century literary equivalent of Gerard de Nerval's 'Aurelia'.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
Of course not. Is there any suggestion that it was?

A better question, maybe: what actually happened, concepts like 'the Holy Spirit' aside. 'He wuz nuts' isn't a satisfying answer. Also, what if anything can be learnt or better still applied from this tale.

Do you like PKD's fiction?

Ha ha ha ... Can you spot Shavixmir in there?