The Gospel According to Philip K. Dick

[alamedvav]

1100 lbs of explosives is a whole lot of explosives. less than a pound used on a come shaped charge can cut through 3 inches of steel. WTF. Am I supposed to believe this figure. oh forgot he's a sci-fi writer. Don't get me wrong I Like phils work. but sometimes seems we fall into his paranoia.

[rey5000]

@alamedvav "They used explosives to open the 1,100 pound fireproof safe..." 

[VJFranzK]

EXCELLENT film! We re-watched it again the other day. Perhaps a re-release on Blue Ray, with updated "motion graphics" animation? I do know a lot of motion graphics people, being a VJ myself.

[MrBuyMore]

it was nixon. watch the french interview.

[xjames118]

I love PKD - both in terms of his pulps and literature. However, there's a strong risk of overemphasising the connection between drugs and religion, particularly gnostic religion. A drug-addled mind is mutually exclusive to true mystical insight - and I think this comes through in the VALIS trilogy. In my experience, you're better off becoming a communist (for what it's worth). In other words, no one gets to heaven who can bear to live on this earth a second longer than they have to.

[buckfushes]

I think religion and meth fucked up PKD's mind... But it made for some of the best writing I've ever read.

[MPedroful]

I was amazed when I read some of PKD's esoteric essays. We think alike, in a way that is awesome but scary in a way.

[cuntpiss]

Was the sabotaging of Arctor's cephscope a cryptic retelling of someone fucking up Dick's typewriter?

[randomlaughingman]

could be. In Pursuit of Valis is the best book, sadly not very available last i checked, cause it shows how PKD came to realise his 'fiction' was really reflecting what is going on for real.

most people seem to lack the ability to admit the truth even to themselves, never mind in public. this really is the BIP and the PTG is ever-present. & when you see it you will know, & if you saw it already then you'll read the thing and recognise it is true.

[hypnoid77]

I came across this film randomly in Kim's Underground Video in New York, got sucked into PKD and never have been the same since.

[balletgirlxo]

hi. i was living with phil when it happen.

[marksteensland]

That's amazing! I would love to ask you more about it. Can you send me your email address?

[AScann3rDarkly]

I hope you have Blaylock and Powers in this movie somewhere. From what Tim Powers tells me they were great friends for many years.

[marksteensland]

Unfortunately, no. They both decided they didn't want to participate in this movie.

[AScann3rDarkly]

That's a shame. I was a student of both and nobody could have provided better insight into his personal life over the years than them.

[carlodave9]

PKD related over and over that he moved among drug addicts and desperate malfunctioning misfits for all of his professional life. He got robbed. Big whoop. Ain't nothing a good ol' can of Ubik can't fix... Wait... Where's my Ubik?! Help!!! The government gots my Ubik!

[itzahazylife]

i love how no one knows anything about why they did this to him...so why do so many people speculate on the subject?...it's so insignificant...what is so significant about this?

[sisyphusorianus9787]

I take it as such: (and this in a rather fantastical shade of perception)... If Horselover Fa--- ahum... Phil could speak Koine Greek subconsciously, then VALIS beamed knowledge of explosives & demolition into his head---to cultivate a distrust of the 'Empire that never Ends' & its master, always planning stratagems, that would lead him in his quest for Sophia.

[pisces2099]

or maybe the FBI cracked the safe the same way they did countless other coitelpro ops at the same time. Pity Mark Felt's dead otherwise he could tell you comforting lies about that, same way he helped out Mockingbird CIA asset Bob Woodward by pretending to be Deep Throat.

[randomlaughingman]

the FBI raided Tesla's safe too. Intl were interested in PKDs books, cause of things like the storyline in Man in the High Castle. there's also curious similarities between 2-3-74 and that 'story' in the Bob Frissel book about the Sun exploding in 1972, and everything since then being a simulacrum reality.

[casperado666]

pkd is a part of my religion

[lordhaku]

The bloody huge recent mystery concerning PKD is his vanishing android head.

No - I'm not kidding. Somebody made an android version of Philip K. Dick and during a flight, it went missing. Personally, I like to think the head became sentient, went back in time and broke into the safe with explosives - just to screw around with conspiracy theorists.

[NineInchWalrus]

Man I love PKD's writing. I see things a lot of the same ways he does. Great writer, can't read enough of his stuff.

[Intangible88]

If Philip K Dick was really invlved in "drugs" he was very stupid - but despite this from what I've read he was someone who really understood what the "Christian" message really is (not many do!) - VADIS was it called? Yes, I can make sence of that - the first thing it would do is heal you disabled child as it did for him - no, Philip , you don't take silly "drugs" after an expericence like that _ I say as I sit here drinking whisky!

[elbanydaer]

@Intangible88

If Phil was on "drugs" I would think he used Partnership products ("drugs") to put him in touch with reality and open up new worlds to him. I am talking about LSD, DMT, shrooms, and things like that.

I doubt that he was into dominating drugs like heroin, cocaine, Prozac, etc. Drug addicts don't manage to write the way he did.

[Intangible88]

If Philip K Dick was really invlved in "drugs" he was very stupid - but despite this from what I've read he was someone who really understood what the "Christian" message really is (not many do!) - VADIS was it called? Yes, I can make sence of that - the first thing it would do is heal you disabled child as it did for him - no, Philip , you don't take silly "drugs" after an expericence like that _ I say as I sit here drinking whisky!

[ebaystuff4sale]

i read somewhere that he was having tax evasion troubles and that he had all the reason in the world to have his papers 'stolen'.

I think PKD did it himself...habitual liars make up these fantastic stories to cover their tracks.

[OrmEmber]

I doubt very seriously that Phillip K Dick remotely believed he himself blew up his safe. Where was he supposed to have gotten that kind of explosive? And set the charge... in a drug-induced haze. Sorry.  It sounds like the kind of ham-fisted stunt that led to Nixon's downfall, by the clutzes that worked for him that screwed up and got him exposed.

[brambolius]

pkd = my jezus :)

[MindForge83]

I don't know what would be better; The US Gov't committing the entry, or, better yet... Himself! Talk about life imitating art!

[sloeber]

yeah both are great, though I laugh hard at the 'skepticism' of people who think the government wouldn't do such a thing.

[jphwacheski]

I called the cops when I was broken into,. not expecting them to help, just to generate an "official" report, if you have insurance you need a police report,. although I had none,. :( just thought if it was local crackheads the cops may find some of my stuff,. and if it was the spooks they allready had what they wanted,.

[heartworm666]

Lets remember, that Dick himself remained skeptical as to just what happened, he even entertained the idea that he could have had a kind of drug black out. Part of what made his experiences fascinating, was that there was no clear explanation either way. Please don't dilute the mystery with your own paranoid conspiracies...

[BelatedCommiseration]

Its so weird, its others peoples paranoid delusion about another person's paranoid delusion...a very 'Dickean' situation if ever I heard one. Theres always this question about what ae other people thinking. How are they 'seeing'. If you could be in someones head, and see the things they see and hear their thoughts...would you really still think the same way as they do if you still had your own conscious mind?

[ElspethSquidbody]

Well, those American Secret Police were worried sick sbout John Lennon, so any prominent 'weirdo' was fair game, it seems to me quite plausible that the FBI or whatever blew the safe. It might have contained subversive documents! His best book IMHO is Radio Free Albemuth - which might be about the power of poetry.

[dkco]

I think the US Government had better things to do than steal science fiction manuscripts from someone with a mental disorder. I mean, I know this makes him look like more of a persecuted martyr in the eyes of Dick fans, but you have to ask: How would the government benefit by doing this? And if they found drugs, (which they almost certainly did), why was he never brought up on charges?

[LucanWolf1]

What more proof does one need to say the U.S "Government" is corrupt and run by evil individuals?

[OrmEmber]

I would say a Death Star and Dick Cheney breathing through a respirator sounding like James Earl Jones...

[dkco]

You say 'proof' when even Dick himself admits he doesn't know who did it. That's not 'proof'.

[WickedNemesis]

He was SO far ahead of his time, it was sick!

[twoyearslaterr]

PKD: He was so right that somebody wanted to kill him.