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     MindNet Journal - Vol. 1, No. 13
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     V E R I C O M M / MindNet         "Quid veritas est?"
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Notes:

The following is reproduced here with the express permission of
the author.

Permission is given to reproduce and redistribute, for
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The views and opinions expressed below are not necessarily the
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Editor: Mike Coyle 


Contributing Editors: Walter Bowart
                      Harlan Girard

Assistant Editor: Rick Lawler

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[For those who may have missed it the first time, here is a copy
of an article I wrote last year. It originally was published in
Crash Collusion magazine, no. 5. Copies may be had for $4 from
Box 49233, Austin, TX 78765. Issue 7 is due very soon, and
features an article by Adam Gorightly called "PKD, the Unicorn,
and Soviet Psychotronics". It's also $4. For those of you who saw
this article last time I posted it, note that this is a
cleaned-up copy with all scanning errors and typos removed. Feel
free to distribute it elsewhere. As always, your comments are
welcome.]

Philip K. Dick: The Other Side by Paul Rydeen

... the group had taken an active interest in their situation,
viewing it as a manifestation on an earthly plane of certain
super-terrestrial forces.

                                    - Jack Isidore (1)

My first exposure to the mind-bending fiction of Philip K. Dick
was in early 1981. It must have been January or February because
I remember it still being quite cold. To my surprise, a friend of
my dad's had given him a recent issue of Playboy, which I eagerly
perused whenever I had the chance. On one such occasion I needed
to prove to myself a maturity beyond the pictures of naked
ladies, so I commenced to read the magazine's various features.
It turned out to be the December 1980 issue; one feature was
Phil's story "Frozen Journey" (2). Although this high-school
senior had been reading science fiction for a decade or more, I
must confess I was confused by the shifting realities portrayed
in "Frozen Journey". Further readings did little for my
comprehension.

By the time graduation rolled around, I had seen Phil's books
recommended repeatedly in the columns of Heavy Metal magazine. I
picked up a used copy of The Man in the High Castle (3). It was
quite good, and a whole lot easier to understand than "Frozen
Journey" had been. Soon after, VALIS (4) hit the stands. I bought
it. I enjoyed it immensely, but was still unable to fully realize
the implications of Phil's speculations. Next I found the Gregg
Press hardcover reissue of Time Out of Joint (5) in a little
science fiction bookstore that had just opened off-campus. At
last I understood; what I had read of the false or illusory
nature of reality while studying Hinduism and Buddhism now made
sense on a personal level. As I matured, my appreciation for Phil
grew. I started college that fall, and frequented that bookstore
often. I scoured almost every used bookstore in the Minneapolis
area, spending months in search of elusive PKD titles. I found
many rare first editions this way, and still have dreams wherein
I continue the search. When Phil died in March of 1982, I owned a
copy of nearly every book he had written. I considered his death
a personal loss.

To understand Phil, one must grapple with his unique emotional
states, and his unique interpretations of same. Most importantly,
in February and March of 1974 Phil had a series of "mystic"
experiences. When he died eight years later he was still unsure
of their origin or meaning. Left behind was his so-called
Exegesis, an 8,000-page, one-million-word continuing dialogue
with himself written late, late at night (6). Though Phil never
did solve the puzzle to his satisfaction, I believe he enjoyed
the pursuit of the answer for its own sake much more than he
would have enjoyed resolving the problem. In fact, I don't think
any answer would've been entirely acceptable to him for very
long. By its very nature this mystery had no rational solution.

Phil had suffered several personal setbacks during the time
immediately preceding these experiences. Stress over his wife and
new son, a severe case of writer's block, an unexplained
break-in, lingering problems with drugs (mostly prescribed
medications), and worries over his political actions all played
their part. So did the loss of several close friends. He even
worried over whether he had inadvertently published high-level
government secrets in his novels (see KING FELIX discussion
below). The usually self- reflective Phil became much more
introspective than normal. His depression turned his thoughts to
suicide more than once. The impetus for this particular
experience was the severe pain Phil was suffering as a result of
having an impacted wisdom tooth removed. Phil called his oral
surgeon, who promptly phoned in a prescription for some codeine
to a local pharmacy (or Darvon; accounts vary).

When the delivery girl arrived, Phil took one look at her and
became mesmerized by the golden fish dangling between her
breasts. When asked, the girl told Phil that this was the
primitive Christian ICHTHYS symbol, ICHTHYS being the Greek for
"fish". The fish was chosen in part because ICHTHYS was taken to
be an anagram for "Iesous CHristos, THeou Yios, Soter" (Jesus
Christ, Son of God, Savior). "The girl and I are secret
Christians, in hiding because of the Roman persecution. The only
way we can identify ourselves to each other is the
innocent-looking fish symbol, a harmless pendant in the eyes of
most. This secret ally brings not only medicine to heal my sore
tooth, but spiritual medicine as well. After all, is not Christ
the Great Physician?" He accepted the package and bade the girl
good-bye. Phil found himself transported back to first-century
Rome -- the time of the founding of the Church amidst much
persecution. The vision of another reality superimposed upon this
one lasted weeks. Phil had a hard time deciding which one was
true, and which the illusion. During this period of uncertainty,
he found himself "trapped" (figuratively, I would imagine) in a
Black Iron Prison -- a Gnostic symbol of our fall into History. It
is deceptively referred to as the Cave of Treasures. Phil used
this concept obliquely in "Strange Memories of Death" (7),
wherein he refers to his apartment complex as having been
prison-like until the new developers made it appear like a
garden. From his further description it is quite obviously still
a prison, despite its Edenic appearance.

In Freudian terms, the tooth can be a symbol of libido (not
necessarily sexual). Dreaming of the loss of a tooth, for
example, can represent a fear that one may lose one's standing in
some way -- physically or emotionally -- or be a warning from the
subconscious that this is threatening to happen. Note that one of
Palmer Eldritch's three stigmata was his artificial teeth (8).
Phil's impacted wisdom tooth was like his latent Gnosis, awaiting
the proper stimulus to trigger his anamnesis. Another symbol of
libido is the phalliform fish, whose sleek shape glides silently
through the deep waters of the subconscious. As ICHTHYS, Christ
strengthens our libido, our "psychic" energy, and asks nothing in
return. He is UBIK, a negentropic force in a universe that is
forever running itself down (9).

The Hebrew for "tooth" is shin, which is also the name of the
twenty-first and penultimate letter of the Hebrew alphabet. (The
reader familiar with Phil's novel The Penultimate Truth (10) may
do well to ponder the connection.) The English equivalent to shin
is "S" or "Sh". Perhaps because of its trident shape (literally,
"three-toothed") and sibilant pronunciation, the kabbalists
associated this letter with the element fire. Compare Phil's
trident dream at the end of VALIS, after Fat departs again for
the Greek islands. Shin also appears somewhat like a descending
dove, so it should come as no surprise that a relationship
between it and the Holy Spirit exists. That the numerical value
of both the letter taken by itself and the Hebrew phrase RUACH
ALHIM ("the Spirit of God", usually translated "Elohim") is 300
serves to solidify the connection. The Spirit is often
represented as a flame, one example being the tongues of fire
that came to rest on the apostles' heads on that first Pentecost.
Many spirits and other air elementals have been associated with
fire as well.

Later Christian kabbalists (namely, Pico) and the Theosophists
attempted to justify their doctrines by showing that the union of
God as Yahweh/Jehovah (YHWH) and the Holy Spirit (Sh) was Jesus
(YHShWH). The four letters of the ineffable name represent the
four natural elements of the ancients, while the fifth element --
spirit -- fills out the fifth point of the pentagram, a symbol of
man. The triple-pronged shin was taken to be representative of
the Trinity. YHShHW is usually translated "Yeheshuah", of which
the English form is "Joshua". "Jesus" is from IESOUS, the Greek
version of this name. This formula seems especially valid if one
considers the esoteric doctrine of the Holy Spirit as the
feminine counterpart of God. Certain kabbalists have maintained
the Hebrew RUACH is of the feminine gender; if so then this has
been translated out of most versions of the Bible. In some
Gnostic systems, the consort of God is Sophia, Phil's Holy Wisdom
(see the biblical Book of Proverbs).

The Babylon whom St. John of Patmos tells us is "fallen, fallen"
is usually identified with first-century Rome (11). The Hebrews'
subjugation under the Romans was every bit as resented as it had
been under the Babylonians six centuries earlier. John's prophecy
of Rome's fall was certainly wishful thinking, penned sometime
after the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD. I identify John's
Babylon with the Gnostic Sophia, a symbol of the world in its
fallen state. The Land of the Dead -- Egypt -- was a similar
symbol for later Gnostic sects. The implication of Phil's vision
is that we still live in Roman times, i.e. a "fallen" state.
Gnosis must come from the outside. Chokmah is the Hebrew for
"wisdom"; her position on the kabbalistic Tree of Life is the
second or penultimate one (representing a less than perfect
reality) -- but here she is given a masculine identity, despite
the references to Holy Wisdom in the Scriptures. The Greek for
"wisdom" is Sophia; a cognate term is Gnosis, "knowledge". Like
Sophia, Chokmah is one step removed from the true Godhead. I
equate Sophia with John's Babylon and the traditional Chokmah,
the same yin principle which Phil took to be his anima in the
form of his long-dead twin sister Jane (she had died aged five
weeks). Her avatar has appeared previously in the form of Simon
Magus' Helen, to cite a Gnostic example. In Phil's case, he
sought her in each woman with whom he had an adult relationship
-- a reunion of the divine syzygy, as it were. His yearning for
the sister he never knew did more to inspire his world-view than
any other single factor; the appearance of twins throughout his
work is ample testimony to this state of affairs. The encysted
twin in Dr. Bloodmoney (12) is one of many such examples.

There is a kabbalistic tradition in which one sees oneself
relating events from the future. The kabbalists' reticence to
record autobiographical experiences, especially those of an
ecstatic nature, has obscured this fact. Phil had a hypnogogic
experience as a boy in which he saw himself as an adult standing
at the foot of his bed. In later life he relived the experience
from the "time traveler's" standpoint. The Persian Mani (founder
of the gnostic Manichean religion) had the same thing occur to
him when he was 12, and once more as an adult. He recognized this
doppelganger as his Higher Self -- the Divine Adam and called it
in Arabic "al-Tawm", the twin. It guided him and gave him comfort
throughout his life, and he was said to be gazing upon it in the
cell just before he died. Despite Phil's Valentinian Sophian
cosmology, I have often felt he was more akin to the Manichean
school on a practical level.

In 1975 a two-word cypher was "sent forth"; the phrase KING FELIX
appears in the juxtaposition of two adjacent lines in Phil's
novel Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said (13). It was only later
that he happened upon its significance. The fact that Army
Intelligence bought multiple copies of that one book perplexed
him greatly. In VALIS one of the Lamptons tells him that the
phrase has kabbalistic significance. I assume they refer to
gematria, the practice of assigning numerical values to
individual letters within a word and taking their sum. "King" is
English, so should it be translated into Latin? "Felix" is the
Latin for "happy" (literally, "fruitful"). "Rex" is the Latin for
"king" so FELIX REX adds to 256 when transposed into Greek
enumeration. This is the eighth power of two, which perhaps is
the Gnostic ogdoad pointing back to a duality -- Phil's
Two-Source Cosmogony. "Basileos" is Greek for "king"; I'm not
sure what the proper translation of "felix" would be, or even if
Greek is the proper language to use. This practice existed in the
Hebrew language before Greek became the common language of the
Mediterranean area, and in other Semitic languages before that.
The little girl, Sophia, reads from the Sephir Yetzirah when the
Rhipidon Society visits her at the Lamptons' -- establishing a
Hebrew link -- but she also tells them the Lamptons are insane.
This issue remains unresolved.

At one point Phil experimented with a megadose of vitamins he had
read about in Psychology Today. This mixture was being used by a
certain doctor to stimulate simultaneous neural firing in both
hemispheres of the brain. While the original experiments were
strictly designed for split-personality patients, Phil concocted
a batch and swallowed it down. He says it worked. The right side
of the brain is often identified with the dark, irrational,
"feminine" component of our minds; the parallel to the imperfect,
premature Sophia is obvious. Speculation has arisen that the
voices heard by prophets and madmen originate in the right-brain
(14). Usually drowned out by the day-to-day noise of the more
verbally active left-brain, under certain circumstances it may be
heard. At one time in our not-so-distant past, this may have been
far more common than it is today. This is one of many
possibilities considered by Phil, probably no more right or wrong
than any of the others.

Another possibility I'd like to briefly consider is that one
possible subconscious influence was the "Roman" episode of the
old Star Trek TV series. I've long forgotten the show's title,
but it involved a planet similar to twentieth-century Earth with
the exception that Roman rule still existed. Rome never fell --
the Empire never ended -- and secret followers of "the Son" were
preaching peace and brotherhood rather than tyranny. This in no
way lessens the import of Phil's vision, nor does it explain
anything away. I merely find it an intriguing idea to ponder. Who
can say what psychic debris forms the foundations of our
subconscious?

As the image of first-century Rome persisted, Phil began seeing
St. Elmo's fire almost everywhere he looked. He had purchased his
own ICHTHYS sign to hang in the picture window of his apartment;
admittedly his staring at the sunlight had much to do with the
earliest manifestations. However, the pink light was even visible
at night, when Phil would sit up in bed unable to sleep, enjoying
the show. In A Scanner Darkly (15) he describes it as a
rapid-fire succession of Paul Klee, Kandinsky and other modern
artists. He also describes the times the St. Elmo's fire took on
the shape of a doorway proportioned to the Golden Mean
(representing perfection). This was a doorway to the Other World.
The character in the book regrets having never thought to step
through the doorway after the apparition finally disappeared. The
nightly visions continued, often taking the form of incredibly
complex dreams which Phil saw at once were unlike his usual
sleeping habits. He called them "tutelary" dreams because of
their information-rich content. In many he was actually shown
texts, which he was able to read and transcribe their contents
upon awakening. This is another kabbalistic tradition, the
ability to read holy texts on the astral plane. Always for Phil,
the pink beam of light was prominent.

Admittedly, the idea one is being shot with a beam of energy is
typical to many schizophrenics. So are the discarnate voices
which haunted Phil's unplugged radio at night, telling him how
terrible a person he was (his then-wife Tessa heard them too).
The one difference here is that Phil perceived it as a healing
light rather than a further descent into madness. He credited it
with taking charge of his life, recovering a lot of income due
from unpaid book royalties, and even re-margining his typewriter.
He never decided what the beam's source really was. Guesses
included the Rosicrucian Society, Soviet scientists experimenting
with "psychotronics", and an alien satellite orbiting a distant
star. One message came from the "Portuguese States of America",
leading Phil to contemplate the possibility of parallel
universes. He also thought it might have been God. The Roman
Sybil in her later Christianized form was a particular favorite
of Phil's; her similarity to Jane as Phil's "protectress" was the
attraction. VALIS even quotes the Sybilline Oracles. Note also
that the much-sought product UBIK in Phil's novel of the same
name is depicted on the dustjacket of the original as spraying a
pink substance. Coincidence? The connection is further made in
VALIS when Phil and friends mistake a model of the satellite for
a can lying in the gutter (in the movie-within-a-book). Does
this refer to a can of UBIK as well?

In some of his dreams, Phil saw Soviet scientists rushing around
behind the scenes to keep the alien satellite functioning. Phil
originally thought VALIS was from Fomalhaut, which he called
"Albemuth" (from the Arab Al Behemoth, "the whale"). Fomalhaut is
the fish's mouth; Phil apparently mistook "behemoth" for
"leviathan", two Hebrew words from the Old Testament. It is the
latter which actually refers to the whale, according to most
sources. What matters most is Phil's beliefs on the matter; if
his subconscious mind processed "behemoth" as "whale", then
"whale" it is - for him. At any rate, the fish symbolism is
obvious, as is the reference to Jonah. Phil must have read Robert
K.G. Temple's The Sirius Mystery (16) before writing VALIS,
because he relocated the satellite to there. This brings in a
host of occult references too involved to go into here. Suffice
it to say that the dark companion of Sirius represents "occult"
or hidden knowledge, as does Sirius' position as "the sun behind
the Sun" (as Kenneth Grant calls it). Neither Phil nor Temple
seem to have known this when they wrote their books. Phil
cleverly tied in the dualist Dogon philosophy described by Temple
with his own Gnostic beliefs, though as narrator of VALIS he
ascribes this revelation to Fat and tells us this is the point at
which Fat's madness became complete. Madness or not, VALIS stands
as a classic on many levels. The three-eyed aliens had pincers
like a crab where hands should be, just like Palmer Eldritch and
his artificial hands. These "improved" hands seem to denote an
elevated status as cosmic artificer or demiurge, while also
indicating an inherent flaw of some sort. The beings were also
deaf and mute; they communicated amongst themselves by means of
telepathy. One could say their inability to hear or speak
reinforces the notion of an imperfect demiurge, as well as it
helps conceal his true nature. Then again, their physical
handicap may be the results of a personal sacrifice undertaken to
enhance their mental faculties.

Phil was consistent in documenting his major influences within
the works they influenced. VALIS was no exception. Curiously,
there are two which went uncredited, and to my knowledge no
researcher has yet uncovered them both. The first is Robert K.G.
Temple's aforementioned The Sirius Mystery. Temple documents the
Dogon people of Africa and their precise astronomical data which
predate telescopes. Their legends say that this knowledge was
given to them by three-eyed crab-clawed beings from Sirius.
Temple goes on to trace the Dogon's ancestors back to migrating
Egyptians who continue a tradition well-documented in the
Mysteries of Isis and Osiris. Certainly Phil read Temple's book
after writing Radio Free Albemuth; why else would he have moved
VALIS from Fomalhaut to Sirius?

The other major influence which went uncredited may be more of a
surprise. It is not a scholarly influence like Temple's, but
rather a little known facet of popular culture. The whole idea of
an immortal and all-powerful race who build universes out of
boredom, fall into them and become trapped because they forget
who they are is indeed gnostic in flavor, as many have said. It
should be noted, however, that this is exactly what Scientology
teaches about the Thetans. WE ARE THE THETANS and we don't even
know it.

Palmer Eldritch had three stigmata: his artificial eyes,
artificial teeth and artificial hands. The cover of the original
edition combines these to show the classic eye-in-palm design
used by fortune-tellers to indicate occult wisdom. The all-seeing
eye is a common motif in Masonic lore as well; at one point Phil
challenged God to show himself and saw the Ark of the Covenant
opened to reveal the eye-in-the-triangle. Esoteric tradition
among the Masons identifies this occult eye with the star Sirius
-- named for Osiris, the dead and risen Egyptian savior who
adumbrated Christ by centuries. It is also the eye of the cyclops
and the third or ajna eye of Shiva, which Phil (as Fat)
attributes to Ihknaton and his followers in the Tractates
appended to VALIS. Others have placed a sexual interpretation
upon it as well, but that's beyond the scope of the present work.

While listening to the Beatles' "Strawberry Fields Forever" one
day, Phil heard the lyrics change into a prophetic warning: "Your
son has an undiagnosed right inguinal hernia. The hydrocele has
burst, and it has descended into the scrotal sac. He requires
immediate attention, or will soon die." Phil rushed him to the
hospital and found every word to be true. The doctor scheduled
the operation for the same day. Once again, the healing power of
Phil's vision comes to the fore. In a sense the boy was "reborn",
which was to have great consequences for Phil's subsequent
actions. For a while Phil thought the spirit of Elijah had come
upon him, much as the followers of John the Baptist felt about
their Master. He even identified with a certain first-century
Christian he called Thomas, whose thoughts Phil heard while
falling asleep. There's someone inside of me, and he's living in
another century. This Thomas was eventually garroted, which
provides the connection to John the Baptist. "Thomas" is a Greek
name meaning "twin"; whose twin was he if not Phil's? (Mani's
twin was also called "tawm"; extant Greek Manichean texts refer
to him as "syzygon".) Phil saw fit to baptize and confirm his
infant son at this time (he was Episcopalian). Phil then gave his
son a secret name which has never been divulged. In the
posthumously-published Radio Free Albemuth (17) - the first
version of what finally became VALIS -- "Nicholas Brady"
christened "Johnny" with the secret name "Paul". Since Phil saw
himself as Elijah or John the Baptist, my best guess is that Phil
told his son he was the Savior incarnate, and named him
"Emmanuel", a Hebrew name meaning "God with us". His son's birth
name was in fact Christopher, from the Greek for "Christ-bearer".
Indeed, Radio Free Albemuth ends with the imprisoned Phil taking
consolation in the knowledge that the Message has gone out after
all -- to the children. The importance of this assertion in light
of the child-saviors in VALIS and The Divine Invasion cannot be
underestimated. No wonder it hurt so badly when Phil's wife left
with his son. It would have been interesting to see how Phil's
son would have turned out under his father's tutelage. As it is,
he may yet surprise us as he comes of age.

Phil's experiences culminated with a beatific vision of a Palm
Tree Garden, which he described in Deus Irae (18) and mentioned
several times in The Divine Invasion (19). Though this was still
a part of first-century Rome, Phil felt at peace in the garden --
the nostalgic Eden. The palm tree itself is the World Tree, the
axis mundi, the pole at the center of the world which leads to
heaven. Palm leaves were strewn before Christ when he returned to
Jerusalem to indicate victory over temptation in the wilderness;
today they are carried by those who have completed a pilgrimage
to the Holy Land. Palm Sunday commemorates this event in Christ's
life. Palmer Eldritch's name is an obvious reference, but
"palmer" could also refer to sleight of hand -- indicating his
position as malevolent demiurge.

Associated with the vision of the Palm Tree Garden was a young
girl gathering water at riverside. On her vase was an
interlocking pattern which Phil recognized as a series of ICHTHYS
symbols. He also saw it as the double helix form of DNA. The
universe, he understood, is information - just as DNA is the
encoded information by which our bodies are created and
maintained. He identified this girl with Aquarius, the
water-bearer. To me this symbolizes a pouring out (from the
subconscious) and the heralding of a new age. This scene was used
in VALIS to announce the new messiah, the little girl called
Sophia. A new age had indeed begun, short-lived as it was.

Though Phil's vision of Rome faded, his tutelary dream continued
for six more years. So too did the AI voice (for "Artificial
Intelligence"), a soft feminine voice he heard in times of stress
and during hypnogogic revery. Naturally he identified this voice
with Jane/Sophia, and claims to have first heard it during a high
school physics exam (it gave him the answers) 25 years earlier.
It all ended November 17, 1980. Phil claimed to have had a
theophany that day, though witnesses noticed nothing unusual.
Phil suddenly comprehended God as infinite, by nature
incomprehensible. In other words, the Exegesis would never solve
anything because there was no answer to be had. Phil actually
stopped writing for a time because of this, but was at it again
before too long. He also wrote The Divine Invasion around this
time, which was when the voice finally stopped. Had it not been
for the theophany, Phil would have probably cried, "Eloi, Eloi,
lama sabachthani?" As it was, he persisted in speculating the
remaining year of his life, and managed to produce one more novel
before the end - the posthumously-published The Transmigration of
Timothy Archer (20). Phil suffered the first of several strokes
in February 1982 and died several days later in the hospital, on
March 2. He was 53.

NOTES

(1) Philip K. Dick. Confessions of a Crap Artist. New York:
Pocket Books, 1982. (Orig. 1975.) Pg. 164.

(2) "Frozen Journey" was Playboy's name for the manuscript Phil
called "I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon". It was reprinted under its
original title most recently in The Eye of the Sybil (New York:
Carol Publishing Group, 1992).

(3) The Man in the High Castle. New York: Putnam, 1962. This
title has gone through several editions and remains in print.

(4) VALIS. New York: Bantam, 1981.

(5) Time Out of Joint. Boston: Gregg Press, 1979. (Orig. 1959.)

(6) A very limited number of Exegesis entries were eventually
published in Selections from the Exegesis, edited by PKD
biographer Lawrence Sutin (Lancaster: Underwood-Miller, 1991).
Sutin also wrote the excellent Divine Invasions: A Life of Philip
K. Dick (New York: Carol Publishing Group, 1991).

(7) "Strange Memories of Death" first appeared in issue #8 of
Interzone magazine (Brighton, UK). It also was collected in I
Hope I Shall Arrive Soon (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987) and
volume 5 of Underwood-Miller's Collected Stories (reprinted by
Carol Publishing Group).

(8) The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. Garden City:
Doubleday, 1965.

(9) Reference is to Phil's novel UBIK (Garden City: Doubleday,
1969).

(10) The Penultimate Truth. New York: Belmont, 1964.

(11) Revelations 18:2.

(12) Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb (New
York: Ace Books, 1965. Reprinted Boston: Gregg Press, 1977.).
Another good example is the pair of lambs born near the end of
Confessions of a Crap Artist (ibid), the second of which is
stillborn. In this case it is the male twin Phil kills off -
representing himself.

(13) Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. Garden City: Doubleday,
1975. (Phil parodied this book as The Android Cried Me A River in
VALIS.)

(14) See Julian Jaynes, The Origin of Consciousness in the
Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin,
1976.)

(15) A Scanner Darkly. Garden City: Doubleday, 1977.

(16) Temple's book is little more than a well-researched
paperback of the Ancient Astronaut variety. Only Phil could have
turned it into a whole universe. (London: Futura Publications
Ltd., 1979.) Robert Anton Wilson's Cosmic Trigger was also an
influence in regards to the Sirius connection; Phil acknowledges
it as such in VALIS. (Berkeley: And/Or Press, 1977. It's been
reprinted by both Simon & Schuster and Falcon Press.)

(17) Radio Free Albemuth. New York: Arbor House, 1985.

(18) (w/ Roger Zelazny). Deus Irae. Garden City: Doubleday, 1976.

(19) The Divine Invasion. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1981.

(20) The Transmigration of Timothy Archer. New York: Simon &
Schuster, 1982.

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POB 32314, Oakland, CA 94604-2314 USA.

The MindNet Journal is published by VERICOMM / MindNet in
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for the Convention Against Offensive Microwave Weapons,
POB 58700, Philadelphia, PA 19102-8700 USA.

Please visit the Freedom Of Thought Foundation home-page at:


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