PKD Tweets collection by Ted Hand aka @t3dy on Twitter, http://t3dy.livejournal.com
2011
Thinking of PKD interpretations of gnosticism/alchemy as similar to movie adaptations of PKD books; don't have to get it right to be fun/useful
interesting to compare masculine marxism of Philip K. Dick with feminine marxism of Anne R. Dick.
...but soon thanks to the mainstreaming of phildickian themes we can look forward to "reality breakdown TV"
I think PKD is worth studying as a Spinozist for the ways he fictionalizes philosophical problems he plays w/
@HBergson there's an anecdote somewhere about a guy PKD knew who was drugged out+couldn't think straight, but PKD read his copy of Spinoza--
He found in the book that the guy had underlined the exact same passages that were meaningful to PKD->Example of drugs rot brains.
These days I tend to read PKD on Gnosticism, Buddhism, Mystical Allegory as pure phenomenology, but used to see it as inescapable mystic key
@soundhunter one of my favorite parts about studying PKD is that he treated his weird gnostic experiences as allegorical keys to his novels.
@00Pelican00 I'm sure glad I found PKD in my teens, + was ready for all the heady philosophical and gnostic stuff by the time I hit college.
PKD+Alchemy-inspired artist http://www.arthurmag.com/2009/04/02/alc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Bog
PKD on direct connection between Karma and Black Iron Prison http://www.philipkdick.com/new_ex-there
@00Pelican00 Wilson also wrote the introduction to a volume of Selected Letters of PKD, some of my favorite reads on his VALIS experiences.
@00Pelican00 RAW wrote about meeting PKD in Cosmic Trigger and a chapter "The Black Iron Prison" on PKD in Cosmic Trigger 3
@Xamyul What I like about PKD as a Ren.Magic guy is his original use of the material. Same thing I study in Pico della Mirandola's Kabbalah.
@Xamyul PKD was strongly influenced by the Rosicrucian Enlightenment theory I think, and an early proponent of reading Renaissance Gnostics.
@Xamyul I suspect from PKD's treatment of Bruno in VALIS that he's influenced by Yates, but he had German+read Eckhart+Boehme, knew his shit
@Xamyul PKD's reading of Bruno is SF but no less implausible than most Renaissance Historians who wildly misread figures to their own ends.
@Xamyul PKD says Bruno+Hermetic Alchemists knew of but could/t locate/replicate "entity made of information" dormant in buried gnostic texts
@Xamyul I took a whole class on Proclus in grad school and he plays a big role in my MA thesis. Haven't come across much on him in PKD's bio
@Xamyul what about Valis now? I posted PKD on Bruno+Alchemy in Valis yesterdayish http://pkdreligion.blogspot.com/ did he read much Proclus?
Searching for Philip K. Dick by Anne Dick is a damned harrowing read. Her prose is astonishingly strong + clear, literary yet personal. #PKD
Interesting difference between RAW+his major influences WSB,PKD,Leary+Crowley--they were neglectful fathers but RAW emphasized childrearing.
Samuel Umland http://bit.ly/9Xzfw0 and Gabriel McKee http://bit.ly/bL4sKK on PKD and Religion
2010
Josh Lind,“Vessels of Spiritual Transformation: C.G. Jung and Philip K. Dick.” reads Galactic Pot Healer http://bit.ly/asmIaa
@tedfriedman PKD is my absolute fav. Jungian. He gets into it in Letters+Exegesis. Jung+PKD was discussed recently here http://bit.ly/bzbD9I
@tedfriedman check out chapter 5 of Samuel Umland's book http://bit.ly/9Xzfw0 also Gabriel McKee http://bit.ly/bL4sKK + Sutin's PKD bio
Now Wait For Last Year is (like Scanner) an overlooked drama of Christian redemption. PKD uses far-out SF instead of deconstruction to probe
I love the way Game Players of Titan interrogates the games that are always already involved in making decisions about social arrangements.
Because Galactic Pot Healer is a deliberate effort at Jungian-style myth-craft I find it the best PKD novel for allegory of interior journey
PKD, RAW, WSB are great successes as American writers in part b/c they can pull of Lovecraft-style cosmic horror, research as crazy-driving.
@DavidRozansky SF was liberating to PKD b/c it gave him metaphors to explore his mystical+philosophical themes. redemption's a neglected key
PKD+RAW share interest in strategies folks use for dealing w/neuroses and psychopathology--also in each case tied up with philosophy/occult
Dick studies characters who lose reality in order to illuminate humanity which is based on kind response to vulnerability of loss
Terence McKenna took inspiration from PKD's fictional altered states: "we must imagine what we can imagine"
While I admit that A Scanner Darkly is most faithful adaptation of PKD to film so far, I think it misses theme of redemption, humor of book.
@rfamovie Kafka is good as PKD precursor but I would emphasize Lovecraft (American horror tradition)+Borges(reality permutation)
PKD's exploration of ASCs is not Faustian quest to gain gnosis/power but more xtian project to become compassionate:understand vulnerability
PKD inverts paranoia--outside world demonstrates crazy symptoms according to rational tests that prove character isn't hallucinating
PKD "didn't know" that he was writing mystical allegory to trigger deconditioning beam of pink light, illuminate paranoid cerebral heights
PKD stories use weird SF ideas to do mystical allegory in order to trigger Altered States of Consciousness. Like Crowley, he claims unconsc.
PKD+Religion themes are conspicuously missing from PKD-based movies (Exception--Waking Life!) instead he appears to be secular/cyberpunk-ist
PKD movies have been seen as cinematic style "failures" but this might cause us to miss items of phildickian interest that do make it thru.
Like PKD stories, we can appreciate dys[/u]topian ideas/worlds in the movies, although they may fail to fully capture or work as whole films
Like PKD's hastily-written and stylistically uneven writings, PKD movies are often "bad" but not in a way that interferes with appreciation.
PKD movies are not always as polished as critics would like due not to laziness but the difficulty in translating his ideas onto the screen.
PKD movies are generally narratively flawed but each successfully portrays at least some aspects of the dystopian world projected by PKD.
I suggest that camp value of macho performances in Screamers, Impostor, even Paycheck+Next has been underappreciated. Need to apply PKDirony
Unlike Blade Runner, other PKD movies unlikely to get cult following, will always lack same degree of cultural importance, but still worthy.
I agree w/ "Future Imperfect" author: PKD movies are under-rated + more effective/interesting than critics have allowed. Still much to study
Many of the insights of Plotinian psychology which were important to Dick are compatible with the esotericism of Jung which PKD also dug.
Looking at the influence of philosophy and theology on PKD's earlier work, we must take into account influence of Plotinus,Christian Mystics
"PKD and Platonism" is a vital topic but it has been overshadowed by "PKD and Gnosticism" -- his younger and deeper commitments are neoplat.
PKD flirted with heresy the way he flirted with dark-haired girls--clumsily. His gnostic interests don't override his Plotinian commitments.
Interesting to contrast PKD w/ Lovecraft--PKD's "agnostic" version of cosmic horror sometimes allows for possibilities of gnosis, redemption
Is PKD bringing Plotinian ideas into the thought-experiments of his novels? Seems to me he opts for down-to-earth love over mystical union.
Influence of Plotinus on PKD deserves study. Difficult to do because he never finished a formal ontology or systematic theology, but we can.
PKD's hermeneutic imports SF methods-- "what if," mindfuck, reality breakdown, narrative twists as dialectic, applies to mystical problems.
PKD as allegorist: Jung is a start, Christian neoplatonism, gnosticism, perhaps alchemy, but also SF allegory--application of what if to God
PKD+Religion:why PKD interests practicing occultists-gnosticism in action, mystical allegory, ASC jokes, imagination exalted,trip reports...
PKD applies a homebrew mystical hermeneutics to his own novels, giving us not only information about the content but a method of decoding.
PKD deserves study as a theologian, but his mystical project is of interest beyond theorizing God--also as process/methdology and practices.
PKD's Galactic Pot-Healer contains Jungian allegory but due to typical Dickian inversion/destabilization can't reduce it to that.
PKD: need to deal with reality of experiences as well as mystical studies of PKD and presence of religious/gnostic ideas in stories/novels.
Fallout3 Android Quest deserves serious study as literary allusion to PKD, probably first great success in adapting a PKD theme to hypertext
Fallout3 Quest succeeds as PKD allusion because it challenges player to think thru android/human problem in order to decide quest outcome
Fallout3 Quest works as an interesting detective story/bounty hunt like Blade Runner+PKD's Androids, forcing player to decide about finding.
2009
PKD did serious theology. Drugs and Mental Illness don't change that. Failing to build a system doesn't make his project less valuable.
What is jazz esotericism? David Gill suggested that PKD "jams" with theological ideas. This is a great tool for thinking about syncretisms.
PKD version of HGA would be "you can heal stuff you are a healing terminal" then proceed to grok and heal various programs in noetic space.
The time traveling hero in PKD's "Dr. Futurity" is an "anthropological" character who must reason about strange cultures and languages.
PKD's Bruno -- magical art of memory necessary to reflect universe in mind of "operator." This helps PKD explain the mega-memory visions.
PKD knew Giordano Bruno through an encyclopedia article that relied heavily on Frances Yates' version of the Art of Memory, which PKD used.
we should take PKD's paranoia into account but this should not cause us to overlook the seriousness of his philosophical-theological thought
I wonder if anyone has applied Girard's mimetic theory to the study of Religion in Philip K. Dick (both his beliefs and his writings) I will
PKD vs. C.S. Lewis could be treated as gnostic fictionalizer vs. orthodox fictionalizer of religious belief and experience. also (post)colon
enjoying Solar Lottery by PKD, dig the fealty oath and telepathy stuff, the game theory and the dialectic. Nice RST angle. Typical PKD forms
Solar Lottery shows PKD's early mastery of suspense progression and psychedelic skill with psionic scenes, sets up his key themes+objects
PKD's esoteric allegory employs metaphors of neurosis and entropy drawn from contemporary psychology and physics, framing divine invasion.
PKD's main influence as a "mystic" was Plotinus. Tho not a deep neoplatonist, he explored the metaphysics and ontology of unitive experience
Post-PKD occultism: hermeneutics of signals received from "trash stratum" of pop culture+decaying social forms synchronicity participation
PKD board game - teeps and precogs
PKD+Religion study-PKDRST-needs to look at Dick's influence on weird occultisms of dudes like brother blue Terence McKenna chaos/cyber jung-
PKD novels form a continuous series when decoded as esoteric allegory. incorrect to call it philosophical/metaphysical: this is hermeneutics
I sunk PKD-did-it-first, pomo PKD, mindfuck film, mystic as crazy, lazy gnostic Jungians, nonreaders who write PKD. "fuck yr short memories"
not many PKD readers want to follow him into radical pantheism. atheists have no metaphysic. Christians don't like tampering. but esoterics!
kinds of esoteric PKD fan--occultists decode his novel mysteries, scholars dig wordplay, gnostic epistemologists, visionary fellow travelers
PKD novels can be studied not just for allegory of PKD myst.exp. but also in terms of ASC tweaking fx on the reader. cult author 4 acidheads
PKD schizognostic hermeneutic: religious ASC as visionary pathology vs RAW paranoid metaprogram hermeneutic: religious ASC as useful idiot
PKD did the formal ontology as he felt necessary (which seems like too much even to his average fan) but then proceeded to new theism quests
PKD's theology has been exagerrated as too heady. It's not excessively metaphysical. Shares the hastily summarized character of enc.articles
PKD theologized on a heavy metaphysical level but also on a very human level, in terms of the me-other relation between man and strange God.
PKD+LSD has not gotten a fair shake as a topic. Few readers want to learn about the dark places of the mind thus explored. Many voyeurs tho'
PKD compared religious states of altered consciousness to phenomenology of drug, stress, and mental-illness induced ASC. Got sense of humor.
PKD exegesis-lots of great stuff, esp. one-liners+gnostic novel
decode. dialog w/ God about infinity is so important and such classic Dick.
PKD on the future: much weirder than Heraclitus Eastern myth
Schopenhauer, even post-Bergson. He's para-Plotinian, freed from syntax of
time
McKenna's metaphysics and theology are strongly influenced by RAW and
PKD and must be understood in the literary universe of those types
No comments:
Post a Comment