Philip K. Dick: Christian mystic?
I am astonished to discover the following in an essay by Philip K. Dick:
"I had the acute, overwhelming certitude (and still have) that despite all the change we see, a specific permanent landscape underlies the world of change: and that this invisible underlying landscape is that of the Bible; it, specifically, is the period immediately following the death and resurrection of Christ.
[...]
"But how has this come about? If the real time is circa AD S0, then why do we see AD 1978? And if we are really living in the Roman Empire, somewhere in Syria, why do we see the United States?
"During the Middle Ages, a curious theory arose, which I will now present to you for what it is worth. It is the theory that the Evil One - Satan - is the “Ape of God.” That he creates spurious imitations of creation, of God’s authentic creation, and then interpolates them for that authentic creation. Does this odd theory help explain my experience? Are we to believe that we are occluded, that we are deceived, that it is not 1978 but AD 50... and Satan has spun a counterfeit reality to wither our faith in the return of Christ?
[...]
"I know perfectly well that the date is 1978 and that Jimmy Carter is President and that I live in Santa Ana, California, in the United States.
[...]
"What I am saying is this: There is internal evidence in at least one of my novels that another reality, an unchanging one, exactly as Parmenides and Plato suspected, underlies the visible phenomenal world of change, and somehow, in some way, perhaps to our surprise, we can cut through to it. Or rather, a mysterious Spirit can put us in touch with it, if it wishes us to see this permanent other landscape. Time passes, thousands of years pass, but at the same instant that we see this contemporary world, the ancient world, the world of the Bible, is concealed beneath it, still. there and still real. Eternally so.
[...]
"There must indeed be a mysterious Holy Spirit which has an exact and intimate relation to Christ, which can indwell in human minds, guide and inform them, and even express itself through those humans, even without their awareness."
Am I dumb to be surprised? Is this something that everybody knows about Philip K. Dick? I have never heard it mentioned.
full essay here
"I had the acute, overwhelming certitude (and still have) that despite all the change we see, a specific permanent landscape underlies the world of change: and that this invisible underlying landscape is that of the Bible; it, specifically, is the period immediately following the death and resurrection of Christ.
[...]
"But how has this come about? If the real time is circa AD S0, then why do we see AD 1978? And if we are really living in the Roman Empire, somewhere in Syria, why do we see the United States?
"During the Middle Ages, a curious theory arose, which I will now present to you for what it is worth. It is the theory that the Evil One - Satan - is the “Ape of God.” That he creates spurious imitations of creation, of God’s authentic creation, and then interpolates them for that authentic creation. Does this odd theory help explain my experience? Are we to believe that we are occluded, that we are deceived, that it is not 1978 but AD 50... and Satan has spun a counterfeit reality to wither our faith in the return of Christ?
[...]
"I know perfectly well that the date is 1978 and that Jimmy Carter is President and that I live in Santa Ana, California, in the United States.
[...]
"What I am saying is this: There is internal evidence in at least one of my novels that another reality, an unchanging one, exactly as Parmenides and Plato suspected, underlies the visible phenomenal world of change, and somehow, in some way, perhaps to our surprise, we can cut through to it. Or rather, a mysterious Spirit can put us in touch with it, if it wishes us to see this permanent other landscape. Time passes, thousands of years pass, but at the same instant that we see this contemporary world, the ancient world, the world of the Bible, is concealed beneath it, still. there and still real. Eternally so.
[...]
"There must indeed be a mysterious Holy Spirit which has an exact and intimate relation to Christ, which can indwell in human minds, guide and inform them, and even express itself through those humans, even without their awareness."
Am I dumb to be surprised? Is this something that everybody knows about Philip K. Dick? I have never heard it mentioned.
full essay here