Dick was born along with his twin sister Jane, in Chicago on December 16, 1928. His father was Edgar Dick, his mother Dorothy Kindred - from her maiden name came Dick's middle initial. Jane died six weeks after her birth, a loss that Phil felt deeply throughout his life. As time went on, Phil came to blame his mother for Jane's death. His relationship with both of his parents was decidedly difficult, and made only more so when they divorced when he was five years old.
Sister Jane, his mother, and his father served as models for many of the characters for Dick's fictional universes in the decades to come. In particular, the death of Jane - and Dick’s traumatic sense of separation from her, an experience common to many twins who have lost their sibling. This event contributed to the dualist (twin-poled) dilemmas that dominated his creative work - science fiction (SF)/mainstream, real/fake, human/android. It was out of these dualities that the two vast questions emerged which Dick often cited as encompassing his writing: What is Real? and What is Human? Both these themes are excellently captured in the movie adaptations of Dick’s novels/short stories.
Mother Dorothy retained custody over her son, and they eventually settled in Berkeley, where Dick grew up, graduated from high school, and briefly attended the University of California in 1949 before dropping out. In his short time at university he studied philosophy, this obviously gave him some answers and even more questions to some of the issues he had been battling with for many years.
Starting in early high school, however, Dick began suffering from bouts of extreme vertigo; the vertigo recurred with special intensity during his brief undergraduate stint. In his late teens, Dick later recalled, he was diagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia - a label that terrified him. Other psychotherapists and psychiatrists in later years would offer other diagnoses, including the one that Dick was quite sane.
A Genre of Ideas
In a 1968 "Self Portrait" he recalled the moment of discovery, the discovery that would enable him to portray his experience and sustain his creative juices:
"I was twelve [in 1940] when I read my first sf magazine…it was called Stirring Science Stories and ran, I think, four issues….I came across the magazine quite by accident; I was actually looking for Popular Science. I was most amazed. Stories about science? At once I recognized the magic which I had found, in earlier times, in the Oz books - this magic now coupled not with magic wands but with science…In any case my view became magic equals science…and science (of the future) equals magic."
This is not to say that Dick read only SF during his teen/late teen years. On the contrary, he was an omnivorous and devouring reader, reading anything from science fiction to mythology to philosophy to post modern theory and so on.
Even though Dick never lost his yearning to be accepted by the literary mainstream, he always regarded it as a kind of treachery to deprecate the science fiction genre he grew up on and flourished in. In 1980, two years before his death, he wrote:
"I want to write about people I love, and put them into a fictional world spun out of my own mind, not the world we actually have, because the world we actually have does not meet my standards. Okay, so I should revise my standards; I'm out of step. I should yield to reality. I have never yielded to reality. That's what SF is all about. If you wish to yield to reality, go read Philip Roth; read the New York literary establishment mainstream bestselling writers….This is why I love SF. I love to read it; I love to write it. The SF writer sees not just possibilities but wild possibilities. It's not just 'What if' - it's 'My God; what if' - in frenzy and hysteria. The Martians are always coming."
A Life-Changing Experience
In February and March 1974, Dick experienced a series of visions including an information-rich "pink light" beam that transmitted directly into his consciousness. A year after the events, in March 1975, Dick summarized the 2-3-74 experiences that would pervade his writing for the final eight years of his life:
"I speak of The Restorer of What Was Lost The Mender of What Was Broken."
"March 16, 1974: It appeared - in vivid fire, with shining colors and balanced patterns - and released me from every thrall, inner and outer.
"March 18, 1974: It, from inside me, looked out and saw the world did not compute, that I - and it - had been lied to. It denied the reality, and power, and authenticity of the world, saying, 'This cannot exist; it cannot exist.'
"March 20, 1974: It seized me entirely, lifting me from the limitations of the space-time matrix; it mastered me as, at the same time, I knew that the world around me was cardboard, a fake. Through its power of perception I saw what really existed, and through its power of no-thought decision, I acted to free myself. It took on in battle, as a champion of all human spirits in thrall, every evil, every Iron Imprisoning thing."
Some have commented that what emerged from these visions/hallucinations was a saint. In that regard, Dick himself always bore in mind what he called the "minimum hypothesis" - that is, the possibility that all that he had undergone was merely self-delusion.
Those who insist on the "truth" or "falsehood" of Dick's experience of 2-3-74 are missing the central point: that those experiences provided him with the means to explore spirituality on a different level, as the western world turned to secularism Dick had new insight. Trying to shrug off the ways western culture commodifies spirituality.
Thank you Opium!
It has been argued, that Dick’s revelations and hallucinations were a side effect of his drug abuse (especially during the 60’s). His uses of drugs such as opium have been documented, and far from having some religious experience, it would seem the case that such hallucinogenic narcotics were primary in the 2-3-74. Thomas de Quincy (an English author) wrote extensively on the use of opium, he quotes:
"Whereas wine disorders the mental faculties, opium introduces amongst them the most exquisite order, legislation and harmony. Wine robs a man of self-possession; opium greatly invigorates it....Wine constantly leads a man to the brink of absurdity and extravagance; and, beyond a certain point, it is sure to volatilize and disperse the intellectual energies; whereas opium seems to compose what has been agitated, and to concentrate what had been distracted. ...A man who is inebriated...is often...brutal; but the opium eater...feels that the diviner part of his nature is paramount; that is, the moral affections are in a state of cloudless serenity; and over all is the great light of majestic intellect...."
Far from trivialising the use of such narcotics, this quote suggests, that if Dick never partook in their uses then maybe we wouldn’t know the inner depths of Dick. This can be debated but the case remains, that his decision to use drugs helped his creativeness and ability to convey many of his ideas to his readers.
On the Edge of Eternity
Dick died on March 2, 1982, the result of a combination of recurrent strokes and heart failure. In a 1981 entry in his Exegesis (an extensive journal he kept to explore the ramifications of 2-3-74) Dick wrote this:
"I am a fictionalizing philosopher, not a novelist; my novel & story-writing ability is employed as a means to formulate my perception. The core of my writing is not art but truth. Thus what I tell is the truth, yet I can do nothing to alleviate it, either by deed or explanation. Yet this seems somehow to help a certain kind of sensitive troubled person, for whom I speak. I think I understand the common ingredient in those whom my writing helps: they cannot or will not blunt their own intimations about the irrational, mysterious nature of reality, &, for them, my corpus is one long ratiocination regarding this inexplicable reality, an integration & presentation, analysis & response & personal history."
Dick had ideas in his head he obviously wanted to share. Many of us who feel there is something wrong with humanity, we think about it and we talk to others about it. However it is only a select few who actually take it upon themselves to try and makes us reflect on our triumphs or mistakes. Dick achieves such a task in his short stories and novels; his philosophies about the nature of the self and perceptions on reality are cleverly conveyed.
He is a master of psychological and metaphysical manipulation, also great at conveying political conspiracy within a conspiracy within a conspiracy. His writing is a collection of grand contemporary theory - an astute guide to the shifting realities of the twenty-first century.
References:
http://www.opiates.net/
http://www.philipkdick.com/aa_biography.html
(accessed on 21/02/05)
Bibliography:
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=opium
http://www.geocities.com/pkdlw/
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