DICK PHILIP K.: (1928-1982) American science fiction... Lot 740

<p>DICK PHILIP K.: (1928-1982) American science fiction writer whose novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) was adapted for the cult movie Blade Runner (1982). A remarkable collection of six T.Ls.S., love, Phil, each with a small drawing of a heart and arrow in his hand at the side of the signatures, twenty-one pages (total), 4to, n.p. (Santa Ana, California), February 1981, all to Professor Patricia Warrick ('Dear Pat'). Over a period of just a few days Dick writes at great length to his correspondent (three of the letters written on the same day, 14th February, of which one runs to seven pages) and discusses various topics including his VALIS trilogy, Christianity and religion, philosophers including Plato, Plotinus, Dante, Malebranche, Kant, Mercia Eliade and others, American politics (likening the United States President to the 'grim king' who must be overthrown), reincarnation, the occult, consciousness of time, the films Star Wars and All That Jazz and other subjects, perhaps most importantly the series of mystical experiences he faced in 1974.</p><p>Brief extracts from the letters include -&nbsp;</p><p>'I just reread VALIS in its entirety. I now understand. There is another "time" or reality; it does not lie in the future…..Like the dream-time (perhaps because it is the dream-time) it is now and it is here. It is disclosed by sacrament and by God's grace through revelation - revelation of Christian apocalyptic history, exactly as I saw. In this other time (illo tempore) Christ is present, but in our linear flux time he is not and, perhaps, never will be. This is exactly and precisely what February 1974 to February 1975 consisted of……The two times or realms bear some kind of relation to each other; in some way they interact (or have a common basis), but I can't say how. This explains why I "remembered" in February 1974 when I saw the golden fish sign…..It is world as God's plantation, and the whole story is in VALIS. The search at the end for the savior is a search by Fat (myself) to find the way back to that world, misconstrued in terms of space, and in terms of time….VALIS was Christ, but the question as to whether I went there or he came here totally baffles me…..The faith that Fat and Phil feel at the end of VALIS is the only route; it must be absolute, unfailing and eternal; and yet still God's grace is necessary if the savior is to be "found". VALIS is a valid, true, accurate and sufficient account of participation in this other time or realm where Christ is rather than is not…..As Plotinus says, this is not a journey through space; it is a journey from a lower realm to a higher one. All this is very strange, but I know it absolutely upon rereading VALIS.&nbsp;I know it but I can't explicate or propound it; yet what I say is true…..VALIS, then, is an extraordinary and extraordinarily important record of this finding of this other reality, realm, world of time. I repeat: beyond doubt, what was found is absolutely real'. (10th February 1981)</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>'When I reread VALIS the other day…..there was something else I noticed, something I had not realised was there. A coherent system for political action of a revolutionary nature can dimly be apprehended through the obscuring layers of philosophy and theology and science fiction. I am wondering, therefore, what effect - if any - VALIS will have on born-again Christians, inasmuch as they are into apocalyptic speculations - as my novel is. Just as in Revelation "Babylon" is identified as Rome, I go on and identity "Rome" as the imperial American Presidency. I bipolarize true Christianity to this modern-day Rome and stigmatize the American Government as the incarnation and physical manifestation of Satan…..In fact, VALIS seems to me to be a very political book - virtually a manifesto and to a certain extent even a handbook of rebellion…….Deconstructed, VALIS, then, is a political novel, more so than any I've previously written. What apparently happened in March 1974 was that my political views and my religious inclinations and convictions, which up to then were at odds, fused as thesis and antithesis in me into one higher synthesis, so that my theology can be said to have explicit political implications, or it can with equal accuracy be said that I now see my political views as emanating from divine authority, represented in VALIS by Sophia and of course by VALIS itself in the movie Valis. Which is to say, its successful attack on and overthrow of Nixon……Once again my right hand did not know what my left hand was doing. I thought I was writing a theological, philosophical novel; but, as I say, in view of the regime that has just now come to power here in the U.S., VALIS can be interpreted as a call for political action against that regime, and not limiting itself to legal acts. It is as if upon experiencing a Christian conversion (March 1974) I then went on and wrote the political novel that up to then I had always been afraid to writ