This was an experience, a probably literal fever dream. This book was never meant to be published as most of it is notes that he had written to himself. As such it isn’t the best most fun read, but it would probably be the most interesting journal you ever read. To me this book has its highs and lows. There are parts of this book that are fascinating, frustrating, redundant, contradictory, brilliant, and insightful. Being a preeminent science fiction writer, his strength is in his original ideas. There is no end to them. This book’s inspiration is based on a series of events that led him to the experience of singular mystical experience that was so life changing to him that he spends the next 8 years theorizing about its source and significance. He only stops theorizing about it because he died. As a reader it makes you want to experience something that significant just once in your life, but then again maybe not. Due to the type of mystical experience that was had, religious terms are best suited to try and describe it, but rest assured this religion of PKD is unlike any you’ve ever heard. I wrote down some of the ideas that stuck out to me, that I will continue to think about for a while.

  • The holy spirit acts upon the universe like a magnet drawing events towards a predefined target.
  • The paradox that information is really just noise, and that maximum information is also maximum entropy(noise) in a system. So as the universe unfolds, and entropy expands, information gains density. Almost as if we are going somewhere.
  • Apollonius of Tyana, really interesting character worth pursuing. Was a miracle worker that early church fathers denounced as a sorcerer. He taught reincarnation and was a vegetarian. He also taught that one must please god through intellect and not sacrifices
  • The relationship between author and critic where critic is part generator of the works meaning. This shows up time and time again where a critic will be talking about PKD’s book and the critic ends up shaping what the book means to PKD
  • The fundamental plot of unifying the self. The two hemispheres, the old man and new creation, the left brain the right brain.
  • He made this really interesting parallel between Zeus/ Zagrues with God the Father and Jesus. Zagreus was the divine son of Zeus. Zagreus was the heir of Zeus’ power, but Hera got jealous (as always) and convinced the Titans to kill Zagreus. They consume him, everything but his heart which Athena manages to bring to Zeus. Zeus swallowed the heart which would eventually be re-used in the god Dionysus (whole other can of worms). Zeus punishes the Titans by blasting them with his lightning bolts. Out the remains of the Titans arose the mortals(us). So, in a sense we were created from the sacrifice of the son of god. A fascinating tenuous connection.
  • “We are all portraits from a Disney Land sketch artist whose subject is Christ but who only has one minute fifty seconds to draw. Never exact but the subject is always approximated” - What a cool idea
  • Dick’s conception of time was complicated, he believed(sometimes) that the linear time conception was a lie, and that time was actually a loop that layered on top of itself. As such a central theme of the book is this idea that although his experience took place in California in 1974, it also happened simultaneously in AD 70 somewhere in the ancient world. He seemed to believe that for a moment his experience allowed him to see clearly that he was alive at the same time in both locations. Of course, like everything else in this book that translation doesn’t survive for long.
  • Building on the last point, he has the idea that the biblical fall is a sort of reverse memory of the future and thus implies the possibility of evolution of the species to fulfil that future memory. Meaning that at some point perhaps we will evolve into the type of people who can inhabit Eden.
  • I never noticed how similar Science Fiction and Theology are to each other. This is a very interesting concept.
  • DNA as a sort of block chain for God. Just like you hit play on a record and a song appears, you hit play on DNA and God appears.
  • Perhaps god is so coy because he doesn’t want to be frozen into hypostasis by words. The moment you think you have a hold on god, he disappears into the woods. Frustrating, but necessary?
  • Perhaps every life has meaning, but one lacks the means to have knowledge of the meaning
  • The logos/Christ/holy spirit communicates via low level waves in the universe. These waves transmit information directly to our subconscious and won’t be noticed except in certain circumstances.
  • Could this sidernal knowledge be what provides animals with their instinct. He has a story about watching his cat habitually go out and look at the stars for a few minutes at a time. Claiming that when the cat came back it was different. Almost like the cat was going out and downloading the latest update to its instincts. A crazy whacko idea, but very original and a great basis for a book.
  • The fall caused a breakdown of communication between the hemispheres of our brains.
  • It is impossible to get 10 seconds of mental silence and therefore the logos must sneak in a backdoor.
  • The universe is plastic in the face of mind
  • This concept that God created the world, but made it so realistic that he has to leave reminders in the world to remind him he’s dreaming.
  • PKD (often) had a gnostic view of the world which is that God isn’t supreme but instead is locked in a cosmic struggle against a different malevolent force.
  • The idea of “God working in mysterious ways” may be due to the fact that he has to do this in order to successfully complete his mission and evade detection by the malevolent deity.
  • Zebra(god) is saving reality by transubstantiation. Turning dead determinism into free will
  • What if reality was created in a mind to solve a problem much like you do in chess
  • The universe has an irrational streak, where in this zone the irreal is real and the irrational is true
  • Intelligence to comprehend the written word, more intelligence to supersede and generate extraneous meaning from the words.
  • A dream with a painting of a lamb being tortured. The more they tortured the lamb the more beautiful and significant the image became.
  • If you press world hard enough you get God. God is the world under threat of death
  • The role of religion is to defeat a mechanistic universe
  • Love is a wish that the other and not you exist. love guarantees the existence of that which is not under your will. Free of your will, this is true creation.
  • In a example of the evolution of PKD’s ideas here is a development of a previous idea - We may have constructed an imaginary reality so well that we forget that we are its creators. We possibly have encoded details to help us remember
  • The idea of closing a Canon is human and not divine. The divine idea is one of generation not stagnation.
  • Right action must bear the stamp of folly, self-sacrifice and finally madness itself. One should not do things because of rewards.
  • Earth people long for a realm of lights and mathematical certainty. People in the realm of lights long for earth and music. When each die, they go where they long to go, and their desires switch polarities. Each are exiled from heaven Overall, this book was an experience, as soon as you got a loose grip on an idea of his, it would change, disappear or be discarded. This book is not for everyone, but for some it will be great fun to jump inside a tormented brilliant mind and see connections that you would have never made on your own.