rigorousintuition.ca

I started reading some Steiner again recently and realized, I abashedly admit, that I still had not read any of Phil's work. So, I read Cosmogony and Cosmology and some excerpts from Exegenis.

The above works are works in which he attempts to explain his experience in a non-fiction manner. I scanned his fictional stories and have decided that I would prefer to continue reading his less fictional works first.

If anybody could help me quickly identify which works these may be, due to your own experience, that would be a nice bonus to keep me from slogging through all his works in an effort to identify what I am looking for.

Thank you in advance.

I came from the opposite direction...I "discovered" his fictional works a few years back (thanks to this forum!) and became a big fan. His stories "get into my head" more than any other writer I can think of. I've just started "The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick", which will be the first non-fiction writing of his that I have read.

His most non-fiction are A Scanner Darkly, anything in the VALIS trilogy which could also include Radio Free Albemuth and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer. I would say though that anything you ever read by him is simultaneously fiction and non. I can't think of a single thing I have ever read by him where fiction and non-fiction were clearly delineated as to overall theme.

Just dive in! Don't take acid. Let Dick be your acid. You will never observe the universe the same again.

I wrote a piece in 2013 about PK Dick being on the autism spectrum, may interest you: http://auticulture.com/wp-content/uploa ... Myself.pdf

backtoiam » Thu Sep 03, 2015 7:34 pm wrote: The above works are works in which he attempts to explain his experience in a non-fiction manner. I scanned his fictional stories and have decided that I would prefer to continue reading his less fictional works first.

There's really nowhere else to turn except the motherlode itself: The Exegesis.

The guy that writes for (or owns?) http://www.viewzone.com deciphers ancient petroglyphs. He was involved in decoding some rock glyphs found in Colorado. He developed a program that runs in your browser that inserts the symbols and translates them. While playing with the program that can be found here (http://www.viewzone.com/negev/z.html) that originated from here (http://www.viewzone.com/expo2002.html) I saw what I thought was an interesting resemblance.

While playing with this browser page program I seemed to come up with a sequence of questions and answers that if done in the right sequence seem to be querying as to the location or nature of God. Every time the answer is always the same "I am on the Island." No matter what I did I got the same answer which was "I am on Island."

Dick words from "In In Pursuit Of Valis: Selections From The Exegesis" in which he seems to be doing the same thing, and always getting the same answer. Dick keeps querying the big analog artificial intelligence machine in the sky and keeps getting the same answer.

I just found it interesting, and sort of profound, because while staring at the Moon the big AI machine in the sky gave me the exact same answer, which was exactly "One Zero"...and the next morning I found a beautiful dead huge Luna Moth on my door mat at the front door step with three holes eaten in it by ants, perfectly centered on it's back in a pattern that looks exactly like both the devil and the face of the moon, but maybe its just me...

The "he", first word of the first sentence, refers to the sky voice God talking to dick. "2-3-74" relates to a date, some experience or event in dick's life, that I am not familiar with.

From the Exegesis:

He said, "I am the infinite. I will show you. Where I
am, infinity is; where infinity is, there I am. Construct
lines of reasoning by which to understand your experience
in 1 9 74 . I will enter the field against their shifting
nature. You think they are logical but they are not;
they are infinitely creative. "

I thought and thought and then an infinite regression
of theses and countertheses came into being. God
said, "Here I am; here is infinity. " I thought another
explanation; again an infinite series of thoughts split
off in dialectical antithetical interaction. God said,
"Here is infinity; here I am. "

I thought, then, an infinite
number of explanations, in succession, that
explained 2-3-74; each single one of them yielded up
an infinite progression of flipflops, of thesis and
antithesis, forever. Each time, God said, "Here is infinity.
Here, then, I am. " I tried for an infinite number of
times; each time an infinite regress was set off and
each time God said, " Infinity. Hence I am here ."

Then he said, "Every thought leads to infinity, does it not?
Find one that doesn't. " I tried forever. All Ied to an
infinitude of regress, of the dialectic, of thesis, antithesis
and new synthesis. Each time, God said, "Here is
infinity; here am I. Try again. " I tried forever. Always
it ended with God saying, " Infinity and myself; I am
here." I saw, then, a Hebrew letter with many shafts,
and all the shafts led to a common outlet; that outlet
or conclusion was infinity. God said, "That is myself. I
am infinity. Where infinity is, there am I; where I am,
there is infinity. All roads-all explanations for 2-3-74-
lead to an infinity of Yes-No, This or That, On-Off, One-Zero

Yin-Yang, the dialectic, infinity upon infinity; an
infinities [sic] of infinities. I am everywhere and all
roads lead to me; omniae viae ad Deum ducent [all
roads lead to God]. Try again. Think of another possible
explanation for 2-3-74." I did; it led to an infinity
of regress, of thesis and antithesis and new synthesis.
"This is not logic, " God said. "Do not think in tenns of
absolute theories; think instead in terms of probabilities.
Watch where the piles heap up, of the same theory
essentially repeating itself. Count the number of
punch cards in each pile. Which pile is highest?

I was fortunate to be at the Philip K Dick celebration weekend in Essex back in 1991. Lawrence Sutin, Paul Williams, Greg Rickman, Brian Aldiss, Ken Campbell, Ernesto Spinelli and many others were present, it was a bit overwhelming but listening to the friendly conversations it was clear there were as many versions of Phil as there were readers. Somehow Dick contains all of them quite handily while evading a definitive 'reading.' There's been far more written about him than he actually wrote, for most writers that wouldn't be saying much, but for Dick, that says quite a lot.

As 82_28 says, just dive in and let what you find be your guide.

I like your avatar Harvey. I see that which it contain.

Thank everybody for your response. I appreciate it.

Lately I have been reading some Steiner books I ordered and haven't read yet.

I still haven't probed Lovecraft but I notice that this site is Lovecraft heavy. I'm not sure where to begin with Lovecraft anyway.

I also stumbled across this a while back. (http://pc93.tripod.com/sno.htm) Click on his portrait for interesting reading. Pretty interesting. He founded "The School Of The Natural Order". His goal before he died was to come up with a lexicon and semantics that transcended couched language so that the profane could attempt to get a perspective. I read what is behind the portrait at this link and decided to order his books from www.sno.org I haven't read them yet but I expect them to be interesting.

This is something that one of Vitvan's students wrote about him and it might be lighter reading than the first link and give an idea of what Vitvan is about. http://www.sno.org/vaam/VAAM-3frame.htm

Vitvan means "he who knows", given to him by one of his teachers. I haven't read the books I ordered yet but I am looking forward to it.

Are you referring to Rudolph Steiner?

The VALIS Trilogy is VALIS, Divine Invasion, and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer and does not include Radio Free Albemuth. RFA was originally titled Valisystem A and the editors wanted major revision so PKD started over and wrote VALIS. Tim Power had the RFA manuscript that was published after PKD died.

A Dark Haired Girl was published by Zeising in 1988 and contains a number of non-fiction essays as well as a letter from PKD to his daughter Laura. The letter (pages 235 to 238) refers to VALIS, DI, and TTOTA as a trilogy and states that the theme of the books is Christ and clarifies the religious aspects of the novels. This letter was not published in the six volumes of Collected Letters; the only place I have seen the letter is in DHG.

The novel that I had the hardest time completing a reading was Divine Invasion. The story is more understandable if one is familiar with Christian Gnosticism. I recommend Elaine Pagel's Gnostic Gospels (any of her books are good reads). Now an overview of Gnosticism is readily available via internet. PKD had a work in progress when he passed called The Acts of Paul. The premise is an alternative world where Paul did not have the conversion experience on the road to Damascus and Christianity developed in a different manner. The end of TAOP was to have been the narrator feeding a Logos Doctrine based Gospel into a world computer with the instruction for the computer to print the Gospel out at every computer terminal in the world, thus bringing the "True" Christians out of hiding.

The Shifting Realities of Philip K Dick is a more complete collection of literary and philosophical writings than DHG. I bought but have not been tempted to read The Exegesis. I did read Selections from the Exegesis. PKD putters about conjectures on the nature of reality in the aftermath of the Pink Light experience. One aspect of interest is that in hind sight PKD considered a group of novels as parts of a meta-novel in the Exegesis wanderings.

Divine Invasions - A Life of Philip K Dick written by Sutin (published in 1988) is a good read and an objective chronological biography of PKD. Despite Bladerunner and Total Recall, the influence and acclaim now held by PKD was not conceivable.

I like the nine non-science fiction novels written by PKD; they almost remind me of Steinbeck and most are good period pieces of 1950s California.

backtoiam » Fri Sep 04, 2015 9:17 am wrote:
cut


From the Exegesis:

He said, "I am the infinite. I will show you. Where I
am, infinity is; where infinity is, there I am. Construct
lines of reasoning by which to understand your experience
in 1 9 74 . I will enter the field against their shifting
nature. You think they are logical but they are not;
they are infinitely creative. "

I thought and thought and then an infinite regression
of theses and countertheses came into being. God
said, "Here I am; here is infinity. " I thought another
explanation; again an infinite series of thoughts split
off in dialectical antithetical interaction. God said,
"Here is infinity; here I am. "

I thought, then, an infinite
number of explanations, in succession, that
explained 2-3-74; each single one of them yielded up
an infinite progression of flipflops, of thesis and
antithesis, forever. Each time, God said, "Here is infinity.
Here, then, I am. " I tried for an infinite number of
times; each time an infinite regress was set off and
each time God said, " Infinity. Hence I am here ."

Then he said, "Every thought leads to infinity, does it not?
Find one that doesn't. " I tried forever. All Ied to an
infinitude of regress, of the dialectic, of thesis, antithesis
and new synthesis. Each time, God said, "Here is
infinity; here am I. Try again. " I tried forever. Always
it ended with God saying, " Infinity and myself; I am
here." I saw, then, a Hebrew letter with many shafts,
and all the shafts led to a common outlet; that outlet
or conclusion was infinity. God said, "That is myself. I
am infinity. Where infinity is, there am I; where I am,
there is infinity. All roads-all explanations for 2-3-74-
lead to an infinity of Yes-No, This or That, On-Off, One-Zero

Yin-Yang, the dialectic, infinity upon infinity; an
infinities [sic] of infinities. I am everywhere and all
roads lead to me; omniae viae ad Deum ducent [all
roads lead to God]. Try again. Think of another possible
explanation for 2-3-74." I did; it led to an infinity
of regress, of thesis and antithesis and new synthesis.
"This is not logic, " God said. "Do not think in tenns of
absolute theories; think instead in terms of probabilities.
Watch where the piles heap up, of the same theory
essentially repeating itself. Count the number of
punch cards in each pile. Which pile is highest?

I enjoyed The Mystery of the Aleph - Mathematics, the Kabbalah, and the Search for Infinity (Aczel 2000) about the troubled genius Georg Cantor. Cantor's work was the stepping off point for Mandelbrot and the field of fractal geometry.

http://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Aleph-Mat ... +the+Aleph

"A compelling narrative that blends a story of infinity with the tragic tale of a tormented and brilliant mathematician. From the end of the nineteenth century until his death, one of history's greatest mathematicians languished in an asylum, driven mad by an almost Faustian thirst for universal knowledge. THE MYSTERY OF THE ALEPH tells the story of Georg Cantor (1845-1918), a Russian born German whose work on the 'continuum problem' would bring us closer than any mathemetician before him in helping us to comprehend the nature of infinity. A respected mathematician himself, Dr. Aczel follows Cantor's life and traces the roots of his enigmatic theories. From the Pythagoreans, the Greek cult of mathematics, to the mystical Jewish numerology found in the Kabbalah, THE MYSTERY OF THE ALEPH follows the search for an answer that may never truly be trusted."

Like the Kabbalah, Cantor found that there are useful mathematical systems that employ more than one version of infinity.

The Kabbalah has three planes of negative experience or veils of an infinity (Ain Negativity; Ain Sof The Limitless; and Ain Sof Aur The Limitless Light) above the ten Sephiroth of existence in the Tree of Life. The Hebrew gematria used in Kabbalah traditionally or of legend is said to have come from Abraham in the Sefer Yezirah but was also taught by Jesus Christ to his disciples according writings included in the Pistis Sophia of early Christian Gnostics.

Crowley hung with Georg Cantor in the café scene at Montmarte in Paris. Freemasons, Rosicrucians, ceremonial magicians, and Mormons(!) are all Kabbalists.

PKD read and was influenced by these philosophies but the very descriptive and useful fractal geometry was not widely acknowledged when PKD wrote the Exegesis.

"A compelling narrative that blends a story of infinity with the tragic tale of a tormented and brilliant mathematician. From the end of the nineteenth century until his death, one of history's greatest mathematicians languished in an asylum, driven mad by an almost Faustian thirst for universal knowledge.

There is an old saying that goes something like this "when the student is ready the teacher will appear."

I propose that there should, or maybe there already is, a saying similar to "a student can force himself, without his knowledge, upon the teacher, by his obsessive desire to understand a universal secret that he has discovered."

There is a movie named "Pi The Movie" which depicts this fairly well and I'm pretty sure it can be viewed in its entirety at youtube. In this movie a man obsessively attempts to understand the full and universal meaning of the irrational number Pi. In so doing he triggers the Archimedes Mirror effect in his subconscious mind by obsessively using his earth bound material world view point to attempt to ascertain a right brained concept.

The Archimedes Mirror is a concave mirror that focus a ray of light into a pinpoint that burns like the Sun. Like a magnifying glass. At the beginning of the movie he says "My mother always told me not to stare straight at the Sun." And so he does...

He goes to his mentor and his mentor points to a fish with a black spot on the side of it's head, which is, as I can testify to, a place where a person can get a serious Sun Burn if they are not careful.

Max Heindel from the Rosicrucian Order said something similar to but not exactly, " a person should not arrive at the chemical wedding without the proper garments." Meaning, if you trigger the cascade before you have followed the proper "order" in conditioning the mind and subtle bodies for the event, you might end up damaged and naked.

The Golden Dawn will tell you right up front that if you fuck up the process you could damage your energy bodies so bad that its game over.

In a sorta related fashion...

Rudolph Steiner might refer to it as a "premature spiritual birth", which he said would be intentionally encouraged in a malicious manner upon society in an effort to cause spiritual abortion, insanity. This is currently happening to a lot of young people right now by reading shit on the internet that says "Open Your Third Eye This Way By Toning With Your Larnyx In A Few Easy Vowel Sounds."

These kids, some as young as twelve years old, are doing this stuff. Then reporting "weird shit"....well no kidding...they didn't get their garments ready for the big show down.

You're looking for fiction recommendations?

His best, I think, are UBIK, Martian Time Slip, Man in the High Castle, The Galactic Pot Healer, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, and the collected short works.

Jerky

Oh... LESS fictional works... sorry.

guruilla » Fri Sep 04, 2015 10:50 am wrote:I wrote a piece in 2013 about PK Dick being on the autism spectrum, may interest you: http://auticulture.com/wp-content/uploa ... Myself.pdf

I read the first of it and it seems pretty beefy dude. Thanx. I am going to read it slowly in its entirety in a couple of days or so and give it the attention it deserves.

I think of Valis as a sort of footnote to the exegesis. I enjoyed the book because he cited sources for his thought (as he did to a certain extent in the other 'Valis' writings), quoted them extensively, working it into a wonderful story as well. I have not read the whole exegesis yet, but have seen it used lately and am planning to pick it up sometime.

I love Valis and Scanner, but my favorite is probably Transmigration. I think Angel is one of his best characters; troubled, troubling, troublesome and mordantly funny by turns. There is a lot of semi- autobiographical material that Phil is couching in the perspective of Angel's life with the Archers. Desert island books all of them.

Dick is a Pandora of sorts. He not only opens the box, he deconstructs it. Yet, ever the sagittarian optimist, he always leaves hope to please and bedevil us in the end. I hope his optimism about humanity is not unwarranted.