Was PKD Possessed by the Kabbalist Abulafia?

[TO CHARLES N. BROWN, Locus]
Dear Charles,
April 23, 1979
This is to let you know that after four years of research and work I have
finally finished my new novel VALIS for Bantam. In the writing I collaborated
with the spirit of the 13th century Jewish Kabbalist Abraham ben Samuel
Abulafia who seizes control of me from time to time, as circumstances require.
Hope all is well with you.
Cordially,
Philip K Dick

The Selected Letters of Philip K. Dick 1978-1979 p.225

From Dick's notes for Maze of Death

Here is an interesting take on the Gnostic emanation as diminution concept.
Dick sure had a novelist's gift for retelling the story of trapped divinity.

"God’s learning about absolute evil from the relative evil of evil events in cosmological history, would infringe on the absolute quality of God’s goodness, since to know of evil is to become to some extent evil. Therefore, soon after creation, God became diminished -- or tainted -- by knowledge of evil, and, like man, fell into the realm of the Curse (which is an expression of that knowledge of evil by what had been purely good). It has taken God thousands if not millions of years to work his way back out of this critical situation, and, as stated before, the appearance of God in the form of the Redeemer is a sign that he has managed to climb back upward sufficiently to reintroduce new good into his creation. God, then, is once again available to man, and vice versa."

From Philip K. Dick, “Notes on the novel” circa 1968: RFPKD #7 (August 1998)

Thanks to Patrick Clark for sending me this.

Philip K. Dick on writing like James Joyce in Finnegan's Wake

Well, the name of the game is to set challenges for yourself, is it not? I wanted to see if I could go James Joyce one better in his final section of FINNEGAN's WAKE. My protagonist thinks in a sort of segmented epistolary form; that is, the flow is punctuated with unconscious asides, as if she is annotating her own narrative.
Letters 1980-1982 p.220

Philip K. Dick on Spinoza and Kabbalah

Philip K. Dick on Spinoza and the Kabbalah

[after having written several pages to Patricia Warrick about his sudden insight that Spinoza's philosophical theology was confirmed by the 3-74 Valis experiences]

Interestingly, Spinoza was influenced by cabalist thought; my Encyclopedia of Philosophy says: "a sixteenth century cabalist, Moses Cordovero, wrote in words which are almost reproduced by Spinoza: 'But the creator is Himself knowledge, the knower and the object known. His knowledge does not arise from His directing His thoughts to things outside of Him, since in comprehending and knowing Himself, He comprehends and knows everything that exists.' Thus Spinoza could and did legitimately claim to be developing one strain in the Jewish theological tradition."

I am excited, satisfied and pleased.

-Selected Letters of Philip K. Dick, 1980-1982 p. 56 (for the whole Spinoza bit see pages 51-56)

religion-related PKD Quotes from Selected Letters 1975-1976

again lifted from Palmer Eldritch (some overlap with my other Letters 75-76 post)

see also these quotes from the 80's Letters and notes on religion in the 70's letters

Every time I try to care about a spiritual matter I have to bust my ass earning more money.

If this is all a game and there is something else, since the game is lousy and drecky then it also follows although less evidently that the something else must be of true value, true good.

For what it's worth, God drives a lot better than I do. Which seems reasonable.
Nobody ever guessed that God would be reborn in the form of a building. This is to shag it past the Prince of This World. I think it is a neat-o plan.

What do I know? What does any writer know?

We accept his work, his offerings, his help; but him we kick away. He could reveal himself, but he would then spoil our illusion of a beautiful god. But he doesn't look evil like Satan; just homely. Unworthy. Also, although he has vast creative and building power, and judgement, he is not clever. He is not a bright god. Often he is too dumb to know when he's being teased or insulted; it takes physical pain, rather than mere scorn, to register.

In our own current view we are forced to admit that if time can flow only forward, never in reverse, then it lacks the property of symmetry, which other forces in the universe seem to have; therefore, perhaps - but not likely - our view of time is incomplete.

Why would God take his Sole Son, whom He loved, and send Him here?

Every novel of mine is at least two novels superimposed.

I did something I never did before: I commanded the entity to show itself to me - the entity which has been guiding me internally since March. A sort of dream-like period passed then, of hypnagogic images of underwater cities, very nice, and then a stark single horrifying scene, inert but not still: a man lay dead, on his face, in a living room between the coffee table and the couch.

You see, if one starts with music, the chanted drama of Dionysian tragedy, then by progressing methodically one finally arrives at the stunning realisation that SCIENCE AND SANITY, i.e. General Semantics, is totally insane.

I just wrote Ornstein about certain hypnagogic information input I've experienced which suggest the reality of Tielhard's noosphere; I may inadvertently have substantiated its reality.

The coercive enforcement of mere power, the ability to compel men, to reify them - this all constitutes qualities of Winter and is passing.

The symbol of half-life in UBIK must be viewed as an accurate dramatic representation of our true state of Being: we are only half alive, or slumbering in our icy coffins, severally, and individually as shown in the novel.

Maybe somewhere God has a set of headphones on and is listening to our civilisation. . .

Someday it will be noted in this country that UBIK contains extraordinarily important new theoretical material having to do with the nature of the universe, and we will all be rich.

It will not be published as a science-fiction novel. . ."It has too many four-letter words in it. . .and it'd wreck the novel to take them out." You can see. . .how God works it: from the bottom up. Gosh, I could have gotten one of my novels published as non science-fiction years ago if I'd known this.

It's as if the gods were sitting around and having nothing better to so they said, "Let's see old Phil get THIS down on paper." And then revealed all the mysteries of the universe to me and sat back laughing. Gods must have the same kind of sense of humour as cats.

. .what I have most against creed Christianity is its downgrading of intelligence, man's most precious possession.

Ross discusses Leibniz vs. Neoplatonism

For Leibniz, the trouble with the Neoplatonists was that their ignorance of mechanical science prevented them from grasping Plato’s insight that the whole physical realm depended on spirit. Instead, they were misled by a literal interpretation of his myths into superstitions about fantastic spiritual beings involved in the material world itself.
LEIBNIZ AND RENAISSANCE NEOPLATONISM

PKD on language virus theory of William S. Burroughs

Dick spent some time thinking about the information virus theory of William Burroughs, which he uses here to clarify his own thinking about "living information." Burroughs' theory interests and troubles him, as he indicates by praising Burroughs for getting the problem right. But he ends up disagreeing with Burroughs about the nature of the entity, and takes the opportunity to distinguish his own view in contrast to Burroughs. As is not uncommon in passages like this, Dick proceeds beyond the general theoretical question to speculate about his own experiences. I find this kind of passage beautiful and picturesquely Dickian. He is weaving a tense and compelling portrait, almost Lovecraftian in its description of the theoretical attraction and squeamish repulsion he feels for Burroughs' notion, of his work on the information paradox.

"I cannot accept Burroughs' view that we have been invaded by an alien virus, an information virus, yet on the other hand I cannot readily dismiss this bizarre theory as mere paranoia on his part. I think he is onto something real and important, and that his statements do more good--far more good--than harm (that is, he states the problem correctly, although perhaps his analysis of the cause is faulty; still, merely to be aware of the problem is to achieve a great deal). Now, I have been able to find accounts in ancient times of what seems to be a thinking or perceptual dysfunction or perhaps the thinking or perceptual dysfunction.

...Burroughs may have indeed detected an "information virus" or something like an information virus, but my supposition is that, if you grant its existence, it is of long-standing. World mythology supports this. Not just Christian.

Where Burroughs and I sharply disagree is that my supposition is that if--if--and information life form exists (and this is indeed a bizarre and wild supposition), it is benign; it does not occlude us; on the contrary: it informs us (or perhaps it has no interest in doing either, but simply rides our own information traffic, using our media as a carrier; that is entirely possible. That I myself saw this living information in the spring of 1974 is not something I wish to claim; on the other hand, I will not deny it. The issue is important, vital, and also elusive. If you grant an occluding information virus, are you not then yourself occluded in your very analysis of it, as well as your perception of its existence? There is a paradox involved. I'm sure you can see that. And I try to deal with it in VALIS."

Selected Letters of PKD 1980-1982, p.146

Here's a link to Burroughs on Language as a Virus from Outer Space

Here's a recent article explaining the history of the concept of information


From Dick's Exegesis:

 "[15:100] What if the proto-story in Tears is a sort of living DNA? That guides an entelechy through its growth steps? Are we the intended entelechy? Bateson's55 immanent mind that narrates information to each living entity ... Tears—the latent story therein—shows "bench marks" of the mind that fashioned me and all other life; it is mind perhaps, exerted directly on the novel (incised form) as if not through me—it is direct arrangement. (Like tea leaves, or animal entrails.) (Cf. Burroughs' cut-up message pieces latent meaning-extraction method.) This being replicates itself through—as—information. [...] I think it acted as a booster—i.e., first received, then transmitted. It acted like the divine wafer, the species of the eucharist. A living word-entity is here with us, taking us over via messages we receive; we act as hosts to it (perhaps temporarily). We become it."