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

[Paul Mackin]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "rich" <richard.romeo at gmail.com>
To: "Robin Landseadel" <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
Cc: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Friday, June 12, 2009 2:38 PM
Subject: Re: NP,ex- Very Misc. : On Philip K. Dick


> 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

What! You don't want transcendence or somethin'

P
>
> 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....!
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>