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Dick, Philip K. (1928 – 1982)

In an illustrated letter, Philip K. Dick expounds upon Platonic Forms and his VALIS vision

An excellent typed letter signed by Philip K. Dick (‘Phil’), three pages, August 11th 1981. A lengthy philosophical letter to science fiction author Patricia Warrick, which is embellished with labelled drawings by Dick, supporting his theories of reality, showing “Upper” and “Lower” realms as well as a “Field B Mundane”.

He opens, ‘I can finally write Eureka; I have indeed found it. I herewith copy from my notes of last night: There are two sources to our world — exactly as I say in VALIS (“Two Source Cosmogony”). I didn’t see a second, added signal in 3-74; I saw the two signals (components) pull apart (I know it to be so). They can be discriminated (untangled) and this is what Ditheon can do with its AB hyper-field; it can extract the Forms back out, as if freeing them: loosing them from their earthly shells/prisons. This is Platonist and Neo-Platonist. The correct terms are: Lower Realm and Upper Realm, and they mix to create our world. This renders the Forms sensible (empirically perceptible) but this is an inferior way of knowing them; to know them intelligibly (by the meta-abstraction) is to know them purely as they are. Thus the spiritual realm is here, commingled with the Lower Realm: our universe is not the Lower Realm but the mixture of the two. (In terms of Dante, Inferno is the Lower Realm, Paradiso is the Upper, and of course Purgatorio is the mixture).”

Dick then further expounds on his theory in two further pages of dense and rich text.

In fine condition. Accompanied by the original mailing envelope.

In the months of February and March 1974, Dick, then still convalescing and medicating himself from an impacted wisdom tooth, began to experience a series of hallucinations. Dick, who referred to them as ‘2-3-74’ in the shorthand, believed that his thoughts were being invaded ‘by a transcendentally rational mind’ of which he referred to as ‘Zebra,’ ‘God,’ or ‘VALIS.’