Metodo

International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy

Book | Chapter

207572

The hymn of Philip K. Dick

reading, writing and gnosis in the "exegesis"

Erik Davis

pp. 173-191

Abstract

Popular accounts of Philip K. Dick routinely trot out his paranoia, his drug abuse and his scandalous number of wives. But his greatest scandal is arguably a sacred one: the series of extraordinary experiences he underwent in early 1974, experiences he often described as "religious' or "mystical" and that, to the observer, lend themselves equally to the languages of revelation, psychosis and science fiction (sf) fabulation. The explicitly religious turn in Dick's post-1974 work left many of his early critics shaking their heads, as they discounted his "New Age" concerns or worried about a descent into madness. Though Dick's late novels have since been richly recuperated, and a number of critics have addressed Dick's strictly theological concerns, the religious questions posed through and by his fictions will remain poorly handled without a more robust engagement with perspectives grounded in the study of contemporary religion and esotericism.

Publication details

Published in:

Dunst Alexander, Schlensag Stefan (2015) The world according to Philip K. Dick. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.

Pages: 173-191

DOI: 10.1057/9781137414595_11

Full citation:

Davis Erik (2015) „The hymn of Philip K. Dick: reading, writing and gnosis in the "exegesis"“, In: A. Dunst & S. Schlensag (eds.), The world according to Philip K. Dick, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 173–191.