NP,ex- Very Misc. : On Philip K. Dick

[rich]

The Ten Major Principles of the Gnostic Revelation
       From Exegesis, by Philip K. Dick
       The Gnostic Christians of the second century believed that only
       a special revelation of knowledge rather than faith could save a
       person. The contents of this revelation could not be received
       empirically or derived a priori. They considered this special
       gnosis so valuable that it must be kept secret. . .

____________
as a young person I see the appeal of that intimate group of like
minded sharing a profound secret
now, that i'm a bit older, I can honestly say the idea of gnosticism
as represented fills me with abhorrance

imho of course

On 6/12/09, Robin Landseadel <robinlandseadel at comcast.net> wrote:
> PKD relates to Pynchon in their shared obsessions with Gnosticism.
> Probably in both cases the authors experienced a cosmic flash they
> interpreted as gnostic. This has been well documented in PKD's case.
>
> 	The Ten Major Principles of the Gnostic Revelation
> 	From Exegesis, by Philip K. Dick
> 	The Gnostic Christians of the second century believed that only
> 	a special revelation of knowledge rather than faith could save a
> 	person. The contents of this revelation could not be received
> 	empirically or derived a priori. They considered this special
> 	gnosis so valuable that it must be kept secret. . . .
>
> 	http://deoxy.org/gnosis10.htm
>
> More from PKD's Exegesis
>
> 	http://www.philipkdick.com/new_ex-thereisadirect.html
>
> On Jun 12, 2009, at 10:40 AM, Mark Kohut wrote:
>
> The exegetical material figures heavily in Dick's last novels,
> particularly VALIS, The Divine Invasion & Radio Free Albemuth. But my
> favorite—and the most Pynchonian/paranoid—is "A Scanner Darkly."
>
>
>> "The real question (as I see it) is not, Why theophanies? but, Why
>> aren't there more?---from Dick's "Valis" 1981
>>
>> Full disclosure: I've only sorta read one, one-and-a-half P. Dick
>> novels....I'm thinkin' on changing that due to a confluence of
>> reasons........so, the above quote and what else I type here comes
>> from an article The Transmigration of
>> Philip K. Dick by a Philip Youngquist in the Spring 2009 issue of
>> The Common Reader.
>>
>> But I know some p-listers have read him a lot.
>>
>> Which article I recommend not least because of its focus on two
>> levels of literature: a canonical mainstream and "
>> "a subliterate tradition, for instance, of vernacular prophecy in
>> America. Surfacing..in African-American and poor-white preaching, in
>> outsider art, in street graffiti and on television."
>>
>> The writer sees Dick as in the tradition of "dissenting
>> Protestantism(!) that sustained Blake's visionary experience..."
>>
>> "With satirical intensity and spiritual extravagance, his books
>> propound vernacular prophecy to a secular world."...
>>
>> THAT sentence, the theophany sentence and the Pynchon 'dissenting'
>> Protestantism tradition, perhaps, might be applied to further
>> understanding of C of L49?
>>
>> OBA surely read him, cult pulp writer as he [Dick] was, yes?
>>
>>
>> More Misc. in a 1969 novel, Ubik, Dick hints that God might come out
>> of an aerosol can....!
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
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