Jun 16, 2021 05:25 PM
(This post was last modified: Jun 17, 2021 02:56 AM by C C.)
The kinder, alt interpretation or "repair-job" is actually found here: https://www.voicemagazine.org/2002/07/24...ver-ended/
What's below concerns the original "real life" situation, or whatever you want to call it. It's probably better to read it first, so as to fully grok the contrast to the above construing that seems to place it in an allegory context that a repeating historiographic template can be abstracted from. In fairness, the above may simply be a conception derived from the applicable novels of Philip K. Dick, rather than the personal background source for them.
- - - - - - -
Philip K. Dick and a truly bizarre paranormal experience
(Or was it just part of his bouts with schizophrenia and drug side-effects? Well, still "paranormal" to PDK himself, since he literally attached meanings and significance to the events.)
https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2019/11/p...xperience/
EXCERPTS: For all of his success as a great writer, Philip K. Dick certainly had a troubled life that carried on into his growing fame. Addicted to amphetamines, Valium and tranquilizers for decades, he was an extremely paranoid man...
As the outlandish visions continued, he began to find that often as he went about his daily business he would see his surroundings with what appeared to be images of ancient Rome superimposed over them, and this would sometimes be incredibly vivid, complete with Roman centurions walking about and scenes from the past playing out over the mundane of his normal reality. As these hallucinations continued to get progressively intrusive, Dick began to come to a sobering realization of what it all meant, which would take the whole tale deeper into the strange.
Dick increasingly suspected that what he was seeing was the actual days of the Roman Empire creeping into his reality, and not only as ghosts of the past, but rather he believed that in reality the age of Rome had never died at all, and was living on as a sort of shadow existence parallel to ours. This was only bolstered by the appearance of “three-eyed extraterrestrial time travelers” who would sometimes come through the mysterious pink light to speak with him, and the story they had was a wild one indeed.
He was told by these entities that time had actually been stopped in 70 AD, right about when the Romans had destroyed the temple of Jerusalem, and that all of the history that he thought he knew was a deception and an illusion by what they called “the Black Iron Prison.” Not only this, but Dick was informed that he was actually an early Christian spy seeking to overthrow the Romans, as was the mysterious delivery girl with the gold necklace, which was why he had recognized her, with her flashing of that medallion being the key through which he had been awakened to the illusion and deception.
Interestingly, this was all accompanied by infusions of esoteric knowledge and guidance by benevolent spirits who seemed to have come to help him on his mission. Kyle Arnold, a psychologist at Coney Island Hospital and Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, has said of this:
As to theories as to what this all could mean, Dick pretty much covered every possible angle as to what the pink light and its myriad phenomena could be emanating from, ranging from the odd to the flat out absurd, each theory seemingly even wilder than the last. Besides the comparatively mundane theories that this was the doing of ghosts or aliens, he also mentions interdimensional beings, computer generated illusory realities, time travelers, versions of himself from alternate realities, a KGB mind control experiment, and the notions that this was the doing of a 1st century Christian named Thomas or that it was a telepathic communication with his deceased twin sister.
He didn’t seem to personally think it was all just due to the tripping of balls, and he never did find a comfortable explanation... (MORE - details)
- - - - - -
Now, in PDK's own words:
How to Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later (1978)
https://urbigenous.net/library/how_to_build.html
EXCERPT: . . . What could explain all this?
The answer I have come up with may not be correct, but it is the only answer I have. It has to do with time. My theory is this: In some certain important sense, time is not real. Or perhaps it is real, but not as we experience it to be or imagine it to be. 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; it is, in other words, the time period of the Book of Acts.
Parmenides would be proud of me. I have gazed at a constantly changing world and declared that underneath it lies the eternal, the unchanging, the absolutely real. 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.” [SEE FOOTNOTE AT BOTTOM] 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 can just picture myself being examined by a psychiatrist.
The psychiatrist says, “What year is it?” And I reply, “AD 50.”
The psychiatrist blinks and then asks, “And where are you?” I reply, “In Judaea.”
“Where the heck is that?” the psychiatrist asks. “It’s part of the Roman Empire,” I would have to answer.
“Do you know who is President?” the psychiatrist would ask, and I would answer, “The Procurator Felix.”
“You’re pretty sure about this?” the psychiatrist would ask, meanwhile giving a covert signal to two very large psych techs. “Yep,” I’d replay. “Unless Felix has stepped down and had been replaced by the Procurator Festus. You see, Saint Paul was held by Felix for —”
“Who told you all this?” the psychiatrist would break in, irritably, and I would reply, ’The Holy Spirit.”
And after that I’d be in the rubber room, inside gazing out, and knowing exactly how come I was there. Everything in that conversation would be true, in a sense, although palpably not true in another. 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. I even know how to get from my apartment to Disneyland, a fact I can’t seem to forget. And surely no Disneyland existed backat the time of Saint Paul.
So, if I force myself to be very rational and reasonable, and all those other good things, I must admit that the existence of Disneyland (which I know is real) proves that we are not living in Judaea in AD 50. The idea of Saint Paul whirling around inthe giant teacups wile composing First Corinthians, as Paris TV films him with a telephoto lens — that just can’t be. Saint Paul would never go near Disneyland. Only children, tourists, and visiting Soviet high officials ever go to Disneyland. Saints do not.
But somehow that biblical material snared my unconscious and crept into my novel, and equally true, for some reason in 1978 I relived a scene which I described back in 1970.
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.
Shall I go for broke and tell you the rest of this peculiar story?
- - - footnote - - -
The ape in the "ape of God" expression does not refer to a primate noun, but to the verbal meaning of "imitate uncritically and in every aspect" or "represent in or produce a caricature of".
From Satan and the origin of evil (Britannica):
In the Letter of Barnabas (early 2nd century), Satan appeared as “the Black One”; according to the 2nd-century apologist Athenagoras, he is “the one entrusted with the administration of matter and its forms of appearance,” “the spirit hovering above matter.” [...] In the Middle Ages a further feature was added: the understanding of the Devil as the “ape of God,” who attempts to imitate God through spurious, malicious creations that he interpolates for, or opposes to, the divine creations.
From Outline Studies in Christian Doctrine, by George P. Pardington:
Dr. Farr says, “In Eph. 5:18, two possible sources of simulation are indicated - drunkenness and Deity; full of wine or full of the Spirit. Satan was called by Augustine Simius Dei, the Ape of God, because he counterfeits the work of God. Human nature needs a stimulus of some kind. Doubtless, the Holy Spirit was intended to be the only original stimulus of humanity, but Satan invented alcohol as a substitute, stealing the nomenclature of the truth to mask the lie, i.e., Aqua vitae, eau de vie.”
What's below concerns the original "real life" situation, or whatever you want to call it. It's probably better to read it first, so as to fully grok the contrast to the above construing that seems to place it in an allegory context that a repeating historiographic template can be abstracted from. In fairness, the above may simply be a conception derived from the applicable novels of Philip K. Dick, rather than the personal background source for them.
- - - - - - -
Philip K. Dick and a truly bizarre paranormal experience
(Or was it just part of his bouts with schizophrenia and drug side-effects? Well, still "paranormal" to PDK himself, since he literally attached meanings and significance to the events.)
https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2019/11/p...xperience/
EXCERPTS: For all of his success as a great writer, Philip K. Dick certainly had a troubled life that carried on into his growing fame. Addicted to amphetamines, Valium and tranquilizers for decades, he was an extremely paranoid man...
As the outlandish visions continued, he began to find that often as he went about his daily business he would see his surroundings with what appeared to be images of ancient Rome superimposed over them, and this would sometimes be incredibly vivid, complete with Roman centurions walking about and scenes from the past playing out over the mundane of his normal reality. As these hallucinations continued to get progressively intrusive, Dick began to come to a sobering realization of what it all meant, which would take the whole tale deeper into the strange.
Dick increasingly suspected that what he was seeing was the actual days of the Roman Empire creeping into his reality, and not only as ghosts of the past, but rather he believed that in reality the age of Rome had never died at all, and was living on as a sort of shadow existence parallel to ours. This was only bolstered by the appearance of “three-eyed extraterrestrial time travelers” who would sometimes come through the mysterious pink light to speak with him, and the story they had was a wild one indeed.
He was told by these entities that time had actually been stopped in 70 AD, right about when the Romans had destroyed the temple of Jerusalem, and that all of the history that he thought he knew was a deception and an illusion by what they called “the Black Iron Prison.” Not only this, but Dick was informed that he was actually an early Christian spy seeking to overthrow the Romans, as was the mysterious delivery girl with the gold necklace, which was why he had recognized her, with her flashing of that medallion being the key through which he had been awakened to the illusion and deception.
Interestingly, this was all accompanied by infusions of esoteric knowledge and guidance by benevolent spirits who seemed to have come to help him on his mission. Kyle Arnold, a psychologist at Coney Island Hospital and Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, has said of this:
"Although it included paranoid elements–the most obvious being the nefarious Roman Empire lurking beneath appearances–there was more to it than that. Dick felt guided by tutelary spirits. Following their advice, he took better care of his health and made clever business decisions. In one instance, a hallucinated voice urged him to seek medical care for his infant son for what turned out to be a hernia. Dick’s judgment improved. He felt more alive. In a sense, his divine madness drove him saner."
Dick would become absolutely obsessed with all of this, which he called the “2-3-74” visions, trying to find out what it all meant in a desperate search for answers that would consume him for the rest of his life. He would write an 8,000-page journal on the whole experience he called his “exegesis,” and expound on it in a fictional form in his novels VALIS and The Divine Invasion, as well as mention it heavily in his semi-autobiographical novel Radio Free Albemuth.As to theories as to what this all could mean, Dick pretty much covered every possible angle as to what the pink light and its myriad phenomena could be emanating from, ranging from the odd to the flat out absurd, each theory seemingly even wilder than the last. Besides the comparatively mundane theories that this was the doing of ghosts or aliens, he also mentions interdimensional beings, computer generated illusory realities, time travelers, versions of himself from alternate realities, a KGB mind control experiment, and the notions that this was the doing of a 1st century Christian named Thomas or that it was a telepathic communication with his deceased twin sister.
He didn’t seem to personally think it was all just due to the tripping of balls, and he never did find a comfortable explanation... (MORE - details)
- - - - - -
Now, in PDK's own words:
How to Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later (1978)
https://urbigenous.net/library/how_to_build.html
EXCERPT: . . . What could explain all this?
The answer I have come up with may not be correct, but it is the only answer I have. It has to do with time. My theory is this: In some certain important sense, time is not real. Or perhaps it is real, but not as we experience it to be or imagine it to be. 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; it is, in other words, the time period of the Book of Acts.
Parmenides would be proud of me. I have gazed at a constantly changing world and declared that underneath it lies the eternal, the unchanging, the absolutely real. 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.” [SEE FOOTNOTE AT BOTTOM] 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 can just picture myself being examined by a psychiatrist.
The psychiatrist says, “What year is it?” And I reply, “AD 50.”
The psychiatrist blinks and then asks, “And where are you?” I reply, “In Judaea.”
“Where the heck is that?” the psychiatrist asks. “It’s part of the Roman Empire,” I would have to answer.
“Do you know who is President?” the psychiatrist would ask, and I would answer, “The Procurator Felix.”
“You’re pretty sure about this?” the psychiatrist would ask, meanwhile giving a covert signal to two very large psych techs. “Yep,” I’d replay. “Unless Felix has stepped down and had been replaced by the Procurator Festus. You see, Saint Paul was held by Felix for —”
“Who told you all this?” the psychiatrist would break in, irritably, and I would reply, ’The Holy Spirit.”
And after that I’d be in the rubber room, inside gazing out, and knowing exactly how come I was there. Everything in that conversation would be true, in a sense, although palpably not true in another. 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. I even know how to get from my apartment to Disneyland, a fact I can’t seem to forget. And surely no Disneyland existed backat the time of Saint Paul.
So, if I force myself to be very rational and reasonable, and all those other good things, I must admit that the existence of Disneyland (which I know is real) proves that we are not living in Judaea in AD 50. The idea of Saint Paul whirling around inthe giant teacups wile composing First Corinthians, as Paris TV films him with a telephoto lens — that just can’t be. Saint Paul would never go near Disneyland. Only children, tourists, and visiting Soviet high officials ever go to Disneyland. Saints do not.
But somehow that biblical material snared my unconscious and crept into my novel, and equally true, for some reason in 1978 I relived a scene which I described back in 1970.
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.
Shall I go for broke and tell you the rest of this peculiar story?
- - - footnote - - -
The ape in the "ape of God" expression does not refer to a primate noun, but to the verbal meaning of "imitate uncritically and in every aspect" or "represent in or produce a caricature of".
From Satan and the origin of evil (Britannica):
In the Letter of Barnabas (early 2nd century), Satan appeared as “the Black One”; according to the 2nd-century apologist Athenagoras, he is “the one entrusted with the administration of matter and its forms of appearance,” “the spirit hovering above matter.” [...] In the Middle Ages a further feature was added: the understanding of the Devil as the “ape of God,” who attempts to imitate God through spurious, malicious creations that he interpolates for, or opposes to, the divine creations.
From Outline Studies in Christian Doctrine, by George P. Pardington:
Dr. Farr says, “In Eph. 5:18, two possible sources of simulation are indicated - drunkenness and Deity; full of wine or full of the Spirit. Satan was called by Augustine Simius Dei, the Ape of God, because he counterfeits the work of God. Human nature needs a stimulus of some kind. Doubtless, the Holy Spirit was intended to be the only original stimulus of humanity, but Satan invented alcohol as a substitute, stealing the nomenclature of the truth to mask the lie, i.e., Aqua vitae, eau de vie.”