Philip K. Dick from beyond the grave...more or less

[pynchonoid]

Speaking with the Dead
Philip K. Dick 
[by Erik Davis] 

After spending the bulk of his life cranking out pulp
paperbacks for peanuts, the science fiction writer
Philip K. Dick is now finally recognized as one of the
most visionary authors the genre has ever produced.
While masterminds like Arthur C. Clarke anticipated
technological breakthroughs, Dick, whose speed-ravaged
heart called it quits in 1982 when the man was only
53, foresaw the psychological turmoil of our posthuman
lives, as we enter a world where machines talk back,
virtual reality rules, and God is a product in the
check-out line. 

Dick's fractured and darkly funny novels have left
their mark on video games and rock bands, avant-garde
theater and electronic opera. But his influence has
been particularly profound in Hollywood. Ridley Scott
turned Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric
Sheep? into Blade Runner, one of the most powerful SF
films of all time. A 1966 short story formed the basis
of the Schwarzenegger hit Total Recall, and Steven
Spielberg turned Dick's tale "Minority Report" into
his darkest flick yet. The reality slips and cartoon
metaphysics of The Matrix are thoroughly indebted to
Dick, and his spirit hangs heavy over Richard
Linkletter's astounding Waking Life. 

In the course of my current researches into
techgnostic religious phenomena, I was experimenting
with electronic voice phenomena. I was recording the
analog noise between tracks on a scratchy old copy of
Karl Muck conducting Parzifal with the Bayreuth
Festival Chorus onto a cassette tape. Then I would
cut, splice, and process the tape in various ways, and
then listen to the results. On the third attempt I
heard a voice that I recognized, from a tape once
available through the Philip K. Dick Society, as
belonging to the late science fiction writer. More
incredible was my discovery that, by recording my own
questions on the same cassette tape, I was able to
initiate a genuine dialogue with this mysterious
voice. Subsequent research proved, however, that all
of the quotations have already made an appearance
somewhere in Dick's fiction, letters, or essays.
Nonetheless, the conversation seems worth presenting: 

...continues:
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