In February 1974 something profound and inexplicable happened to author Philip K Dick that changed his life forever. Was it an illness, a psychotic reaction, or something truly mystical?
Today in pulp I look back at the exegesis of Philip K Dick...
Philip K Dick was both prolific and influential. In his youth he came to the conclusion that, in a certain sense, the world is not entirely real and there is no way to confirm whether it is truly there.
By the end of the 1960s Philip K Dick had published over 40 novels and stories, as well as winning the 1963 Hugo Award for The Man In The High Castle. But he still struggled financially.
As well as money problems he had become a heavy amphetamine user. In 1972, after his fourth marriage failed and his home was burgled, he made his first suicide attempt. He later entered the X-Kalay rehab centre to recover.
On 20 February 1974 Dick was at home recovering from dental surgery, which had involved sodium pentothal. He was in great pain and his wife ordered some strong painkillers to be delivered to their home.
The painkillers were delivered by a woman wearing a gold necklace with a Christian fish symbol. On seeing this he was suddenly blinded by a flash of pink light and a series of powerful visions ensued.
He later described this vision as anamnesis - "loss of forgetfulness." He immediately knew he and the delivery woman were both persecuted Christians in ancient Rome. Time was unreal, or rather it was a Platonic ideal.
More visions happened in the following months: abstract patterns, philosophical ideas, sophisticated engineering blueprints. He felt he was actually living two simultaneous lives. In one he was Philip K Dick the author...
In his other parallel life time had stopped in 70 A.D. and everything that happened afterwards was an illusion. The Roman Empire was alive under Richard Nixon and he was an undercover revolutionary.
One of his visions told him his child had an undiagnosed life-threatening hernia, which turned out to be true. His night-time murmurings turned out to be Koine Greek. Whatever was happening, it wasn't easy to dismiss.
Dick later describes the event as "an invasion of my mind by a transcendentally rational mind." The invader called Zebra, made more effective and rational decisions than he could, including sorting out his finances and royalties.
Dick wrote a private journal - called Exegesis - from 1974 up to his death in 1982. In it he tried to make sense of the intense visions he had experienced. He made a further suicide attempt in 1976 when his visions ceased.
He worked on many theories for his visionary experiences: God, the KGB, satellites, aliens, a telepathic first-century Christian called Thomas, the CIA, a version of himself from a different dimension, his twin sister in the spirit world...
Most of Philip K Dick's later works explore the gnostic ideas and implications of his visions. VALIS - "Vast Active Living Intelligence System" - is part of his unfinished trilogy of books about what he believed he had discovered.
In his Exegesis he wrote: "We appear to be memory coils... in a computer-like thinking system which, although we have correctly recorded and stored thousands of years of experiential information... there is a malfunction of memory retrieval."
Whatever the cause, the experience seemed to make him more secure and happier in his later years. It didn't make sense, it couldn't perhaps be understood, but he felt a form of truth had been revealed to him, and that was enough.
Philip K Dick passed away on 2 March 1982. His ashes were buried next to his twin sister Jane, who had died in infancy. Her tombstone had been inscribed with both of their names at the time of her death, 53 years earlier.
Philip K Dick's later work can be an acquired taste, but if you understand the author's frame of mind at the time you can perhaps appreciate what he was trying to describe. It's unique and unsettling and thoroughly rewarding.
More stories another time...
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What do Batman, Spiderman, Bettie Page, Madonna and women wrestlers have in common? Well I'll tell you: they all feature in the life of today's featured pulp artist.
Today I look back at the career of "the father of fetish" Eric Stanton!
Eric Stanton was born in New York in 1926. His childhood was marred by many illnesses, and confined to bed he learnt to draw by tracing comic books. He was fascinated by strong Amazonian women like Sheena, Queen of the Jungle and soon began creating similar cartoons.
After high school Stanton joined the Navy in 1944, putting his skills to use in drawing aircraft recognition cartoons. Post-war he got a job with cartoonist Gordon 'Boody' Rogers, creator of Babe: Amazon Of The Ozarks.
Given the weather is getting warmer I feel obliged to ask the following question: is it time to bring back the leisure suit?
Let's find out...
Now we all know what a man's lounge suit is, but if we're honest it can be a bit... stuffy. Formal. Businesslike. Not what you'd wear 'in da club' as the young folks say.
So for many years tailors have been experimenting with less formal, but still upmarket gents attire. The sort of garb you could wear for both a high level business meeting AND for listening to the Moody Blues in an espresso bar. Something versatile.
Today in pulp... Blade Runner! Let's look back at the classic 1982 movie and see how it compares to original novel.
"It's not an easy thing to meet your maker..."
Blade Runner is based on Philip K. Dick's 1968 novel Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? However 'inspired' may be a better word, as the film is very different to the book.
In the novel Deckard is a bounty hunter for the San Francisco police. The year is 1992; Earth has been ravaged by war and humans are moving to off-world colonies to protect their genetic integrity. They are given organic robots to help them, created by the Rosen Association.