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Phildickian Gnosticism

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I Ching

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2-3-74

The A.I. voice

Palm Tree Garden

Immortality

The I Ching is an old Chinese book. By old, I mean significantly older than even the Nag Hammadi books. Tradition holds the creation of its rough form to be somewhere around 5000 years ago. Modern scholars maintain a great deal of skepticism over this claim. Even with the tiny bit of controversy as to its age, we can be sure of one thing, the book is extremely ancient. Though a good deal of luck, an intact version of it was found while Chinese archeologists were excavating Han dynasty era tombs. Truley a remarkable find indeed, given that the edition they found was probably penned around 2200 years ago. This little book remained sitting there, undisturbed, from far before the birth of Jesus to the 1970s. It sat there for 200 years before the age of Jesus, until the dawn of the age of disco. A lengthy journey to be sure. Equally impressive is that it continued outside that time chamber as well. A living tradition, with additional commentary developed around it outside the walls of that tomb. It's popularity rose, fell, and then rose again to all new heights there and across the seas to increasingly foreign langs.

The contents of the I Ching consist of commentary on each of 64 combinations of six solid(active) or broken(passive) lines. These arrangements are called the hexagrams. The usual practice is to use yarrow sticks, or more commonly coin flips, to produce one of these lines. The procedure is repeated until a full hexagram is created. In theory the newly formed hexagram's commentary should directly relate to ones circumstances, and possibly point to what's coming in the future. Various groups have found different ways to interpret the I Ching. From divine oracle, to meaningful coincidence which can help clarify a point as the user mulls it over.

Philip K. Dick was one of the first people in the west to make much use of it. From early on Phil had an interest in Carl Jung's psychological theories, and eventually came across Jung's essay on the I Ching. Phil initially took to the I Ching with great enthusiasm. He strongly believed that it wasn't a predictive device, but rather a diagnostic one. To him, the I Ching was much like a doctors exam. An exam can show strong and weak points in a person current state, and what has a high and low chance of going wrong if no changes are made.

In 1965 Phil put many of these thoughts into an article entitled Schizophrenia & the Book of Changes. He even went so far as to use it as a tool to write The Man in the High Castle. Of particular note is something which happened to him at the end of that novel; Phil was left hanging with no ending. The I Ching had served very well as a guide right up till that point, but Phil couldn't make out anything from it which would give a satisfactory conclusion. This is something which he'd notice many times over from the I Ching. It would lead him well, but only up to a certain point. Then, it would either give incorrect or nonsensical advice. By 1976 Phil's opinion of the I Ching had undergone a massive shift in direction. He didn't doubt that it had a supernatural element, but instead of neutrality or benevolence he saw an actively malevolent presence. One which would lead one along a nice path, right up to the edge of a cliff, and then to abandonment. What's somewhat odd is that I'd never heard of him harboring any negative feelings about the I Ching until I started doing research for this site. Most information I've heard paints his feelings as being unquestionably glowing.

Now, the question is if this negative view might have changed later in his life. I've heard several times that he believed the I Ching to have been a previous, incomplete vessel for the plasmate. The problem is that as of yet I've been unable to actually find this in his writing, audio recordings, or interviews. The most I've been able to come across to indicate any change to a more positive view since 1976 was a brief quote of one line from the I Ching in Valis(1981). What's interesting here too is how quickly the change in attitude seems to have come about. He speaks briefly about the I Ching in a 1974 interview, and seems genuinly positive about it. One guess I might give, and keep in mind this is only a guess, is that it had something to do with the 2-3-74 event. He would have been experiencing a lot of metaphysical turmoil about his beliefs and life at that point, so perhaps he had a brief lovers spat with the I Ching. Or, just as possibly, it could be that some experience during this time posed a reveleation to him of another nature inherent within the I Ching.

With that ambiguity, I leave two quotes from Philip K. Dick on the I Ching.

Well, the I Ching gives advice beyond the particular, advice that transcends the immediate situation. The answers have an universal quality. For instance: "The mighty are humbled and the humbled are raised." If you use the I Ching long enough and continually enough, it will begin to change and shape you as a person. It will make you into a Taoist, whether or not you have ever heard the word, whether or not you want to be.
Philip K. Dick: Vertex, Vol. 1, no. 6, February 1974

And then, just about the time that it's gotten your, you know, your credulity is there -- you're willing to trust it -- just about the time you've given it your faith and trust, it will zap you with the most malevolent, wrong information. In other words, it sets you up. It really does, it really sets you up. I regard the I CHING as a malicious spirit.
Philip K. Dick: Science Fiction Review, No. 19, Vol. 5, no. 3, August 1976

Why not, here's one more which takes a bit of a middle ground betwean these two extremes.

I speak from experience. The Oracle -- the I Ching -- told me to write this piece. (True, this is a zen way out, being told by the I Ching to write a piece explaining why not to do what the I Ching advises. But for me it's too late; the book hooked me years ago. Got any suggestions as to how I can extricate myself from my morbid dependence on the book? Maybe I ought to ask it that. Hmmm.
Schizophrenia & the Book of Changes(1965), reprinted in The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick.