Inherent Vice: Groucho Marx & Mickey Wolfmann

[Kai Frederik Lorentzen]

We live in the midst of invisible forces whose effects alone we 
perceive. We move among invisible forms whose actions we very often do 
not perceive at all, though we may be profoundly affected by them.
In this mind-side of nature, invisible to our senses, intangible to our 
instruments of precision, many things can happen that are not without 
their echo on the physical plane. There are beings that live in that 
world as fish live in the sea. THERE ARE MEN AND WOMEN WITH TRAINED 
MINDS, OR SPECIAL APTITUDES, WHO CAN ENTER INTO THIS INVISIBLE WORLD AS 
A DIVER DESCENDS TO THE OCEAN-BED. There are also times when, as happens 
to a land when the sea-dykes break, the invisible forces flow in upon us 
and swamp our lives.
... The Threshold of the Unseen is a treacherous coast on which to bathe.

(Dion Fortune: Psychic Self-Defense)

The emphasis is mine; it might be considered as a well enough 
one-sentence-characterization of Doc Sportello as well as Lew Basnight 
from Against the Day. Both have some secular professional training in 
entering formerly invisible social worlds, and both of them have contact 
to people into actually hermetic worlds. Abuse of certain substances 
seems to be common among psychic detectives, too.

On 23.01.2011 18:58, bandwraith at aol.com wrote:

> What is our nature- our common shared humanness-
> and, what is its relationship to our own individual natures?
>
> In that sense, doc is not just a psychedelic detective. He
> is a private eye (except he's working for us) in search of
> the psyche- a psychic detective. The soul, if there is one,
> must be deeper than the paving stones. (Sorry if that spoils
> a good "beach read.") Mickey's nature is presented early
> on as possibly pleiotropic: a jew who wants to be a nazi.
> Doc, in effect, is seeking to find Mickey's true nature.