Extrapolation

Coin-Operated Doors and God

A Gnostic Reading of Philip K. Dick's Ubik

Extrapolation (2015), 56, (1), 83–110.

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3828/extr.2015.6
Language
English
Pages
28

Abstract

In this paper, I use classic scholarship on Gnosticism, as well as Dick's later works and Exegesis, to highlight the many Gnostic elements in Ubik. These include the lower realm of half-life, the battle between a benevolent force interceding from outside and a malevolent one controlling the realm from within, the strange forms of the "Manifestations of Runciter," and the nature of Ubik itself. I show how Dick forged a new worldview—postmodern Gnosticism—by calling attention to his medium and, unlike classic Gnosticism, never fully trusting any definite resolution of his perennial question, What is real? This discussion also sheds a surprising light on how Dick reflected on his own work as he reread his earlier books after his religious experiences of 1974. His shock at how well Ubik in particular had anticipated Gnostic ideas and his own epiphanies led him to entertain the possibility that it was "a form of scripture," hidden from the malicious rulers of this world and even from himself.

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Braver, Lee