Philip K. Dick, the Empire, and me.

I had a dream in early April of 2002 where I saw a landscape which I knew to be modern day Orange County, California (where I lived at the time in Aliso Viejo), freeways and all. Then the modern landscape became transparent and I saw imperial Rome lying beneath the surface. I heard the words "History in reverse" right before I awoke.

Later, I discovered that the science fiction writer, Philip K. Dick, had received a series of visions in February and March of 1974, which he referred to as 2-3-74. He described the initial visions as laser beams and geometric patterns, and, occasionally, brief pictures of Jesus and of ancient Rome. As the visions increased in length and frequency, Dick claimed he began to live a double life, one as himself, "Philip K. Dick", and one as "Thomas", a Christian persecuted by Romans in the 1st century A.D. (to read more see [link to en.wikipedia.org] [link to www.miqel.com] What was especially interesting to me about these visions is that he was living in Fullerton, CA at the time. That's because I grew up in Fullerton; I moved there soon before my sixth birthday and left when I was twenty-one.

He delivered the following speech in France in 1977 (the year I was born) - [link to www.youtube.com]

Anyway, I hadn't looked into this in a while, but I mentioned him in a post I made yesterday, so I decided to look at something he wrote again. The following is from the Tractates Cryptica Scriptura, Exegesis from the novel VALIS by Philip K. Dick 1981 - [link to deoxy.org]

The plasmate was PKD's term for the holy spirit, I believe.

"22. I term the Immortal One a plasmate, because it is a form of energy; it is living information. It replicates itself—not through information or in information—but as information.

23. The plasmate can crossbond with a human, creating what I call a homoplasmate. This annexes the mortal human permanently to the plasmate. We know this as the "birth from above" or "birth from the Spirit." It was initiated by Christ, but the Empire destroyed all the homoplasmates before they could replicate.

24. In dormant seed form, the plasmate slumbered in the buried library of codices at Chenoboskion until 1945 C.E. This is what Jesus meant when he spoke elliptically of the "mustard seed" which, he said, "would grow into a tree large enough for birds to roost in." He foresaw not only his own death but that of all homoplasmates. He foresaw the codices unearthed, read, and the plasmate seeking out new human hosts to crossbond with; but he foresaw the absence of the plasmate for almost two thousand years.

25. As living information, the plasmate travels up the optic nerve of a human to the pineal body. It uses the human brain as a female host in which to replicate itself into its active form. This is an interspecies symbiosis. The Hermetic alchemists knew of it in theory from ancient texts, but could not duplicate it, since they could not locate the dormant, buried plasmate. Bruno suspected that the plasmate had been destroyed by the Empire; for hinting at this he was burned. "The Empire never ended."

26. It must be realized that when all the homoplasmates were killed in 70 C.E. real time ceased; more important, it must be realized that the plasmate has now returned and is creating new homoplasmates, by which it has destroyed the Empire and started up real time. We call the plasmate "the Holy Spirit," which is why the R. C. Brotherhood wrote, "Per spiritum sanctum reviviscimus."

27. If the centuries of spurious time are excised, the true date is not 1978 C.E. but 103 C.E. Therefore the New Testament says that Kingdom of the Spirit will come before "some now living die." We are living, therefore, in apostolic times. "

I'm a non-denominational, Bible-believing Christian, and I believe Philip K. Dick leaned toward Gnosticism in his later years, so I don't agree with everything he writes here. I'm not really saying I believe any of it, necessarily. It's just that when I read this yesterday (after having not looked at it for years), I got major chills. Not in a bad way. I think the kind of brief euphoria that accompanies an epiphany. But I don't really know what to think of this, so I thought I'd post about it and try to get some outside input. I'd especially like to hear from those who have had similar experiences or encounters.