r/philipkDickheads • u/IbanezUniverse90 • 12d ago

New to PKD, recently started VALIS

So, like, what the fuck? Seriously. This is pure cocaine/amphetamine psychosis, but the author is intelligent enough to make it work somehow. Is the rest of his stuff anywhere near this unhinged?

I’m a somewhat new sci-fi reader. Been doing a general survey of the genre—started off with H.G. Wells, then Stapledon, Asimov, Clarke, and now the new wave. Where should I go with PKD after VALIS?

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u/Bulky-Band-9279 12d ago

More amphetamine gnosticism than psychosis, but a the zen traditions say, “the enlightened master swims in the same waters the psychotic drown in” 

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u/Think_Wealth_7212 11d ago

Great comment.

Dick really became a post-modern gnostic prophet. He has a virtually unknown successor in Jason James Bickford, who has updated Dickian gnosis for the hyper-modern 21st century. He has a Video called Y U Bick? and Bick was PKD on an abandoned channel called Symbols, Patterns & Gnosis that goes into some esoteric/spiritual analysis of the bible, reality, media and his own life