The Selected Letters, 1974 Quotes

“You may recall the day we were over at Special Collections Library at Cal State Fullerton, and I revealed my mystic vision which came over me around March of this year, in which I saw the world—make that universe—entirely differently. Finally, in doing my homework on this, I found someone who had that worldview before me, and oddly it is a Greek philosopher who someone who flew here from France to interview me mentioned, around April. I had never read anything about Empedocles before. This French guy, who was doing his doctoral thesis on UBIK, wondered if my reading of Empedocles had influenced me, or had any other pre-Socratic Greek. I had to admit no. Evidently this French dude had correctly seen that UBIK expressed the worldview of Empedocles and to a lesser extent other Ionian Greeks or the Eleatic School. It was all meaningless to me, what he was saying, back then; how strange that my vision of the universe would conform in strict and exact detail to that of specific early Greek philosophers, views (as Lem pointed out in his article) long ago discarded.

Also, from what I read about Empedocles, he had certain what we'd have to call religious or mystical experiences which he discussed only with his friends; from the evidence I'm convinced these experiences resemble mine—were in fact identical. Empedocles was smart enough not to talk about them openly, and I'm trying to do the same. Whatever hit me in March hit him back in 400 or so B.C. Reading about his interpretation of them I can much better understand them for my own purposes. Also, I might add, Empedocles was certain that some day, through transmigration, he would return.”
― Philip K. Dick, The Selected Letters, 1974

“Just the other day I looked up the Greek philosopher Empedocles and I was amazed to see that UBIK in many ways expresses his world-view. It is a view generally discarded these days. In May of this year a guy from France doing his doctoral thesis on UBIK flew here and asked me, 'You know Empedocles?' to which I had to admit no, I didn't even know the name. The French guy got very angry, as if he believed I was lying, and walked out. Now I can see why. It is impossible to believe that anyone could write UBIK without having gotten the concepts from Empedocles. By the way—Empedocles, I read, believed that he would be reincarnated and return some day. I'm not kidding. He expected to come back—but I bet he didn't anticipate finding himself in Fullerton. I guess the part where they're all dead is because ol' E. has been dead these many centuries and knows a lot about how it feels (I wish I was kidding when I say all this, but I'm not; I mean, I really sort of believe this).”
― Philip K. Dick, The Selected Letters, 1974

“I'm working on a sequel to MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE called VALISYSTEM A, which is an acronym for "Vast Active Living Intelligence System" A. It is based on modern discoveries about the right hemisphere of the brain and on AI (artificial intelligence) systems and orthomolecular psychiatry (the use of water soluble vitamins). I tried out the vitamin formula plus attempts to cause neural firing in my right hemisphere back in mid-March, with spectacular results—I believe a letter of mine about this will be published in France in a magazine which they described as being like our Rolling Stone rock magazine, with a circulation of about 20,000. I've had over four months of enormously heightened neural efficiency and firing, producing a total change in my personality and abilities and habits.”
― Philip K. Dick, The Selected Letters, 1974

“Another reason why I've been slow to answer is that I've been working on something I've tried to get behind for 12 years: a sequel to MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE. Maybe I should keep you posted about it; possibly it will be the best thing (so to speak) that I've done or will do. Working title is: VALISYSTEM A. That's an acronym for "Vast Active Living Intelligence System" A. I have a 7-page letter on the subject addressed to Peter Fitting, one of the Marxist writers; if I can get it together to get a Xerox, I'll send it to you. Bear with me, please, because I am lazy & disorganized. But brilliant (you knew that).”
― Philip K. Dick, The Selected Letters, 1974

“And yet, as of this March, with the sudden bombardment of the nonobjective graphics, perhaps I have once again regained contract with the authentic future; for example, the work I'm engaged in now is a sequel to MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE, at last—I've wanted to do that for 12 years, but never come up with an idea good enough. Based on my experiences from March of this year on, I believe I have indeed, finally, come up with an idea good enough, and am deep into it. I feel that the external creative force which I've discussed throughout this letter, whatever its source, whatever its nature, has inspired me as I have never been inspired before. More important to me than what it is, what it's called, is the quality of its inspiration to me and the effect on my writing. Well, from these experiences over the past three months, I do have a terrific idea, I think the best of my life, and in no way will it be anything you can read about in the present day newspaper. Perhaps what has happened is nothing more or less than a sudden return of the old force of creativity which animated me in years past and novels past, before the tragic years after my wife Nancy became mentally ill and left forever with my little daughter, and I fell into despair and inactivity, and didn't write for three years. Whatever it is, God bless it, and I am grateful for it.”
― Philip K. Dick, The Selected Letters, 1974

“While I'm writing you I might mention the new novel I'm considering writing; it has to do with the phonograph record business, which I was involved with, at the retail end, for over seven years. I guess I'll make it a S-F novel, though, setting it in the future. My memory tapes (so to speak) have few if any gaps in them about my years in the record business, what with the rip-offs and payola. The small profits for the retailer, the huge chains that are wholesalers-retailers who crowd out the little guy.

Provisionally, I will call the record company DOGSHIT RECORDS INC. (Or DRI, as they have now EMI, RCA, MCA, etc.) In my head I've blocked out the tory of an android who has an agent who is another android, but neither knows the other is an invader. (There is a sort of mutual surprise ending, but the main thing is to lay forth the inner workings of an industry for our readership, in a novel of the sort I tend to write and they tend to read.) The musical artist's agent is named (are you ready?) Skim Morewithit, and so forth. There are rip-offs of royalties, two sets of books, all the usual stuff you find today and yesterday in the record business. As to locale, I haven't decided. Maybe on Jupiter, because it will be a (ahem) heavy novel.”
― Philip K. Dick, The Selected Letters, 1974

“Anyhow, I've begun on the story we discussed. I will not refer specifically to what you said, but I've decided that it will have as its author Hawthorne Abendsen, the novelist in my novel MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE who wrote THE GRASSHOPPER LIES HEAVY. I wrote & wrote . . . after all, I wrote my 4th novel EYE IN THE SKY in two weeks, so this merely shows I'm in love with what I'm doing. The title of Abendsen's yarn is, "A Man For No Countries," because he is unwanted in the USA where the Asshole Axis rule, and certainly not in Europe where Germany rules from . . . I did bio notes, the uncorrected carbons of which I'm enclosing; they were improved in a second draft, and can/will be cut as needed. And, as to the story, I finished the holographic first draft last night about the time our tomcat Pinky wants indoors to be fed, which is quite late, and at which time nothing, even Pinky, gets me out of bed. It is a short story, but I think a lot of it, Phil. I really do, and when I turn out a lousy one I usually know it and the other way around.

I'll send you a carbon of the final, not of the rough, since the rough is in holo. Now, a technical problem. To whom do I send the yarn when I'm done? By contract, it must be to Scott Meredith; that is determined by law. But my own name must be on it, on the far left upper corner, not under the title, so he can see who sent it, and hence pay me. That is, receive pay. Who does pay, by the way? Ed Ferman or whoever buys it (if anyone)? Does it just go onto the market like all stories, OR—and this is crucial, maybe—should I mention to Scott Meredith that you should be involved . . . without mentioning certain details held in confidence between us? How do I handle it? I will sell it, in any case; I wrote MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE in 1961 and ever since "they" have begged (well, asked me) to do more as a sequel. This story is in fact a follow-up, of Abendsen's life since, besides being an intrinsic plot-idea-theme story. So it'll sell, and Ed Ferman does like my stuff; he has commissioned a set of three stories from me, the last three I have done, including one for FINAL STATE or EDGE or whatever with Malzberg, and so would tend to want to buy it. So advise me, as I type up the final. And thanks for getting my literary ass in gear; God bless, Phil. [The story was never completed or published.]”
― Philip K. Dick, The Selected Letters, 1974

“Who, in examining a grain of wheat, could infer intrinsically from it what it will be? And they say now (whoever 'they' are) that even a grain of sand contains the coding from which the whole universe, if it blew up, could be reconstructed, and maybe better." (Which is the plot of my next book after the SCANNER one I described to you on the phone: a girl, crossing a national frontier, is detained by suspicious police; she is "pregnant," but what she contains in her womb is not organic but is in fact the "electronic, technological" seed of the entire future world, which, without her knowing it, is to be blown apart; she is a simple girl, my Kathy again, who genuinely imagines herself to be pregnant, and being Catholic, must bear the "child." And that "child"—can you imagine it? Not the universe, with stars and planets, but the new and better society, of Freedom which the enslavers have tried, and thought to have successfully wiped out, to obliterate. And there it is, in microsize, in her womb, as she placidly waits to be allowed to leave the "U.S.," it could be any "Rome," to enter a small nation. On, as she thinks of it, a Party-time trip.”
― Philip K. Dick, The Selected Letters, 1974