478

Philip K. Dick

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:2,000.00 - 3,000.00 USD
Philip K. Dick

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Auction Date:2020 Apr 08 @ 18:00 (UTC-5 : EST/CDT)
Location:15th Floor WeWork, Boston, Massachusetts, 02108, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
TLS signed “Love, Phil" with added heart and arrow,” six pages, 8.5 x 11, January 12, 1981. In-depth letter to science fiction author Patricia Warrick, in part: "I want to share with you the most treasured moment in my life, a second theophany that took place last November 17. It is not something I discuss with even my closest friends. For one thing it needs no discussion; it was self-authenticating.

I was standing with my friend Ray Torrence (who I mention in 'Frozen Journey'); we were both in my kitchen. It was about eleven a.m. and he would soon be returning to Northern California; he had spent the night at my apartment. Suddenly I saw an infinite void, but it was not the abyss; it was the vault of heaven, with blue sky and wisps of white clouds (I am quoting the notes I made that night). He was not some foreign God but the God of my fathers. I saw nothing, but I experienced his presence, his personality. And I was aware of him addressing me. He said, 'You suffer a little now in life; it is little compared with the great joys, the bliss that awaits you. Do you think I in my theodicy would allow you to suffer greatly in proportion to your reward?' He made me aware, then, of the bliss that would come; it was infinite. He said, 'I am the infinite. Where I am, infinity is; where infinity is, there I am. I am everywhere and all roads, all lives, lead to me. Everyone will find me in the end. I revealed myself to you (in March 1974) and you saw that I am the infinite void. I am not in the world, as you thought; I am transcendent, the deity of the Jews and the Christians. What you see of me in the world (i.e. in March 1974 as Valis) that you took to ratify pantheism—that is my bring filtered through, broken up, fragmented and vitiated by the multiplicity of the flux world; it is my essence, yes, but only a bit of it: fragments here and there, a glint, a rustle of wind in the weeds of the alley…now you have seen me transcendent, separate and other from world, and I am more; I am the infinitude of the void, and you know me as I am. You see me revealed in theophany; I speak to you now; you gave, while alive, experienced the bliss that is to come; few humans have experienced that bliss. Let me ask you, Was it a finite bliss or an infinite bliss?' I said, 'Infinite.' 'So no earthly circumstance, situation, entity or thing could give rise to it.' 'No, Lord,' I said. 'Then it is I,' God said. His nature, then, was palpable to me, as it had not been in March 1974. His nature was pure agape and it was not just very great agape but infinite agape. This was what gave rise to the infinite bliss in me, his infinite agape nature."

Dick elaborates on the experience with details of the deific presence, "…an old man in a robe, very old, very dignified and wise…not a patriarch in the usual sense; more, perhaps, like a magician, dark gray and brown and black, in shadow…really sort of physical, not 'spiritual'…physical and supernatural, not a king or patriarch, all dark. Like a druid or a humanist: learning. Not classical. Like a tree or a scholar. I know: like a book." Dick also explains how the event clarified his prior 'Valis' encounter: "Apparently what I experienced in March 1974 (this is what I've come to think, provisionally) was not God but God's will acting on world; I experienced the perturbation in the reality field that his will exerted, the tug or force; but I did not experience his nature, his personality or his thoughts. He therefore manifested himself to me on 11–17–80 because I was floundering around helplessly and hopelessly in my exegesis, coming up with one false theory after another." In fine condition. Accompanied by the original mailing envelope.