Tag Archives | Philip K. Dick

How Philip K. Dick Can Change Your Life

By on January 7, 2013 in News 18

For the growing number of Dickheads among us, Trevor Smith’s recent article “I Understand Philip K. Dick” was a great reminder of how Dick’s writing contained such valuable human insight that to label it as just “science fiction” really doesn’t do it justice. Inspired by Trevor’s piece and the Terence McKenna essay his essay linked to, I went a mini PKD binge and turned up an interesting article and video at The Verge published during the PKD Festival in San Francisco last October. It’s worth checking out just for Jonathan Lethem’s intro…

There are a lot of ways to characterize a legacy.

You could start with numbers: 44 published novels, at least 121 short stories, and a dozen movie adaptations, most of them major Hollywood affairs — and then the expanding circle of influence that includes 12 Monkeys, eXistenz, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Over $1 billion in film revenue…

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I Understand Philip K. Dick

By on January 6, 2013 in News, stories 32

While reading bits of The Exegesis of Philip K Dick, I realized just how tapped in PKD’s mind was with the coincidental ether, and how this relates with other topics posted recently on this site. Namely Opti and I, by Opticuswrangler, and my article Plant/human symbiosis and the fall of humanity – A talk with Tony Wright, which places a biochemical basis for our disconnected and left-brained state of consciousness, psychedelics, and diet into an evolutionary context.

Phil had extracted gems for years out of the mercurial mists of the minds imagination, and shared them with us all in his novels; some of which have made their way onto the big screen. Something much less known, but just as stacked with gems of insight, was his Exegesis: a document of some 8,000 pages in which he attempted to turn his mind inside out onto paper every night for almost a decade, in an effort to come to grips with the mysteries of existence.… Read the rest

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“Living The Dream”

By on November 16, 2012 in News 11

Picture: "Gwenboul" (CC): www.centrifuge.fr. See full-sized image here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gwendalcentrifugue/8157645003/sizes/c/in/photostream/

“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away”

- How To Build A Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later, Philip K. Dick

Part 2, Essays for the Discordian occultist: inducing a magickal state of consciousness

Magick is a highly subjective skill. According to the occultist, Ramsey Dukes, as a discipline it lies somewhere alongside ‘art’, ‘science’ and ‘religion’ [1]. All of these pursuits require a certain state of mind. The magick user who entirely excludes the possibility of magick from his worldview is like a cleric who knows no God, an artist with no appreciation for art or a scientist who refuses to accept the laws of mathematics. It’s not necessarily the case that you will be unsuccessful but it’s significantly less likely. So, for as long as is comfortable[2], it’s time to allow magick to be part of your reality.… Read the rest

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The Exegesis Of Philip K. Dick

By on July 4, 2012 in News 15

Philip K DickPhilip K. Dick’s innovative science fiction is best-known for its portrayal of characters trapped in Gnostic false realities which they may unravel by way of divine or god-like helpers, mystical experiences, and active paranoia. As his career progressed, his novels became increasingly bizarre—and increasingly autobiographical. By the time he died in 1982, he had come to regard his collected work not as the production of his own fertile imagination, but as a kind of Scripture; the novelization of essential truths revealed to him in a series of visionary experiences with a higher intelligence.

A new window into the intense process of dizzying introspection by which Dick struggled to explicate his mystical experiences has recently opened with the publication of a 900-page collection of his private papers. As Daniel Karder of The Guardian puts it, “…if you want to know what it’s like to have your world dissolve, and then try to rebuild it while suffering mental invasions from God, Asklepios or whomever, you should read The Exegesis:” 

Philip K Dick rewired my brain when I was a mere lad, after I plucked Clans of the Alphane Moon at random from a shelf in my local library.

… Read the rest

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Interview With ‘The American Book of the Dead’ Author Henry Baum

By on September 23, 2010 in News 0

Via Technoccult:

How much do you buy the fringe ideas that have influenced the The American Book of the Dead novels? For example, do you really think the world is in need of a mass die-off to curb over population?

Baum: It’s a disturbing concept and one I’m still exploring. I look at the recent mosque controversy and wonder, for instance, what would happen if there was UFO disclosure. If people think Obama’s a socialist Hitler terrorist now, they might be turned into David Ickean conspiracy theorists at that point – he’s a reptilian. There’s just so much volatility that seems like it could end in violence. People are crazy – how do we introduce new radical ideas into the culture if a centrist like Obama is seen as a radical? I’m not advocating genocide…

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Philip K. Dick Contacted FBI to Warn of Secret Neo-Nazi Plot to Start World War III

By on February 16, 2010 in News 5

This is a great story for PKD fans and others alike. Read Nick Redfern’s “The Strange Tale of Solarcon-6″ in the current issue of Fortean Times:

Undoubtedly, one of the prime reasons why Dick attracted attention from the FBI was a series of bizarre letters he penned to the Bureau in the early 1970s, in which he described his personal knowledge of an alleged underground Nazi cabal that was attempting to covertly manipulate science fiction writers to further advance its hidden cause.

And the nature of that cause was even more bizarre: to initiate a Third World War by infecting the American population with syphilis. On 28 October 1972, Dick wrote to the FBI and outlined his distinctly odd beliefs:

The Man In The High Castle“I am a well-known author of science fiction novels, one of which dealt with Nazi Germany (called MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE, it described an ‘alternate world’ in which the Germans and Japanese won World War Two and jointly occupied the United States).

“This novel, published in 1962 by Putnam and Co., won the Hugo Award for Best Novel of the Year and hence was widely read both here and abroad; for example, a Japanese edition printed in Tokyo ran into several editions. I bring this to your attention because several months ago I was approached by an individual who I have reason to believe belonged to a covert organization involved in politics, illegal weapons, etc., who put great pressure on me to place coded information in future novels ‘to be read by the right people here and there’, as he phrased it. I refused to do this.”

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Spray-On ‘Liquid Glass’ Protects Surfaces From Just About Anything

By on February 2, 2010 in News 2

UbikThis sounds a bit like Ubik to me, if you read these articles from the Independent and the Telegraph. Here’s Clay Dillow’s take on it from Popular Science:

Much as it did for hair styling products and fake tans, spray-on technology now stands to revolutionize everything from locomotives to winemaking to textile design, thanks to a versatile new spray known as “liquid glass.” Applied to nearly any surface, an invisible non-toxic layer of silicon just one millionth of a millimeter thick can protect underlying matter from water, bacteria, dirt and even UV radiation.

Made almost entirely of pure silicon dioxide, liquid glass is harmless to the environment and could replace a variety of harsh cleaning chemicals. The coating can be cleaned with water alone, and tests by food-processing companies have shown that a good hot water rinse left liquid-glass-coated surfaces as sterile as normal surfaces doused with strong disinfecting bleach. The coating is also flexible and breathable, so it can be applied to both static and non-static surfaces.

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A Sneak Peek at Upcoming Philip K. Dick Movie ‘Radio Free Albemuth’

By on February 1, 2010 in News 2

Radio Free AlbemuthScott Timberg writes on io9.com:

A new film based on Philip K. Dick’s posthumous, roughly autobiographical novel, Radio Free Albemuth, has begun some informal screenings around Los Angeles. We saw the film, and spoke to writer/director John Alan Simon about representing the author’s ambivalent life.

Radio Free is very independent in spirit as well as in style; it’s hard to recall a feature film made with so few frills and so apparently small a budget. This may suit the material: The novel is one of Philip Dick’s most personal but least well known, and offers not one but two characters who stand in for Dick himself. One, skeptical and hard-bitten, is played by an actor (Shea Whigham) who resembles the author almost uncannily — a working-class autodidact with a touch of Kerouac. The second, sunny, gullible and in love with patterns and ideas, is Dick as he might have become had his life taken a more commercial turn.

… Read the rest

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Philip K. Dick’s Final Years in Orange County

By on January 27, 2010 in News 3

The Berkeley boho spent his final years in Orange County, which suited him fine, his daughter says. Scott Timberg writes in the LA Times:

When, one evening in 1976, Philip K. Dick invited Tim Powers to his Fullerton apartment, the Cal State student expected the kind of night he often passed with the science-fiction titan: a wide-ranging conversation, fueled by wine and beer, about religion, philosophy and Beethoven.

The night began the usual way. But it took a strange turn as Dick’s wife, Tessa, and her brother began grabbing lamps and chairs. “She and her brother were carrying things out of the house,” recalls Powers. “I said, ‘Phil, they’re taking stuff, is this OK?’ ”

” ‘Powers, let me give you some advice, in case you should ever find yourself in this position,’ Dick said. ‘Never oversee or criticize what they take. It’s not worth it. Just see what you’ve got left afterward, and go with that.’

“And then,” Powers recalls, “her brother said, ‘Could you guys lift your glasses?

… Read the rest

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