Conversations with Philip K. Dick

If you liked Philip K. Dick: Remembering Firebright, and if you want more, you can read my new book Conversations with Philip K. Dick. It 's available now on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/Conversations-Philip-K-Dick-Tessa/dp/1974534898/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1503328166&sr=8-1&keywords=tessa+dick+conversations

Second memoir almost ready for release

My memoir My Life on the Edge of Reality is almost ready for release.  All it needs is one final edit, plus the cover art.  


Artist extraordinaire Nick Buchanan is working on the cover art as we speak. 


This is going to be a detailed look into the events of my own life, with bits and pieces of my experiences with my husband Philip K. Dick.  It will be a great companion piece to my other memoir Philip K. Dick: Remembering Firebright. 


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Book excerpt - Philip K. Dick memoir

Chapter 2, The Prelude

After about than 35 years, I’ve finally put together some of the pieces of a puzzle that I once thought unsolvable. Why would some vast conspiracy, some ultra-secret organization with international resources, focus their efforts on a little known science fiction writer who was so poverty-stricken that he was forced to apply for government aid to feed his small child? This question occurred to Phil and others many times, but no answer seemed forthcoming. Recently, however, I came across information about Dr. Timothy Leary, with whom Phil had a passing acquaintance.
Dr. Leary spoke to Phil by telephone in 1969, several months before Leary’s conviction for possession of marijuana. President Nixon once called him “the most dangerous man in America”, due to his advocacy for the use of LSD and other psychotropic drugs. When he escaped from prison in 1970, all the resources of the federal government were marshaled to track him down. So that explains why Phil was under surveillance in 1971. He had come to the attention for the authorities because they wanted to put a stop to Leary’s call to “tune in, turn on and drop out”.
Timothy Leary, once the golden child at Harvard University for his work in personality profiling, had become a public enemy, considered more dangerous than the worst mob boss. Phil, in turn, had become a public enemy by association.
Phil’s wife Nancy was hospitalized for an extended period, and the royalties coming in from his books slowed to a trickle and then dried up, so he applied for state aid to ensure that his daughter Isa would have food and medical care. Phil began to notice that cars seemed to be following him when he drove to the grocery store. He wrote it off as paranoia, at first.
When Nancy came home, she seemed distant. Eventually, she left him for a neighbor who happened to be a member of the Black Panthers. To say the least, those circumstances did nothing to assuage Phil’s feelings of persecution. Left alone in a three-bedroom house, Phil began taking in roommates to relieve his feelings of loneliness and help to pay the bills. Gradually, without his noticing it at first, the little tract house in San Rafael, California, became known as a party house and a crash pad. People would come to visit, drink and take drugs, eat Phil’s food and fall asleep on the couch and the floor. Some of those people he knew, and others he did not. Some told him that the police suspected him of being a drug dealer, and that it was bad for his reputation to allow teenagers to hang around. He began dating a 19-year-old girl, and her friends naturally gravitated toward his house.
Most of these people did not read and had no idea what Phil did for a living. They were kids who liked to party, and his house was open to them.
All of these circumstances looked suspicious to any authorities who might notice him. And since he had already come to their attention because of his contact with Timothy Leary, they did notice him.


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Gnosticism - Fascinating and Frightening

When Aeon Byte interviewed me for their internet radio program, they brought me back to thinking about Philip K. Dick's gnostic quest for sacred secrets. Their web site is all about gnosticism. I'll post a link to the interview when they have it up on their web site, "the god above god":

Aeon Byte

Gnosticism both fascinates me and frightens me. It fascinates me because I crave knowledge. It frightens me because I fear losing my faith, which is quite fragile, I must admit.

The Lord called me when I was a child, but my journey of faith has been long and tortuous. I am already a heretic, or at least a backslider -- I rarely go to church -- but I cling to that thin thread of faith in the Savior who will lead me by the hand when my soul departs this body.

When I was 7 years old, my grandmother gave me a Bible. I was an early reader, and I used to read from that Bible at random before bed. I was fascinated by the story of King Solomon. When Solomon was still a youth, God offered him his choice of three gifts. He could choose only one -- great wealth, or great power, or great wisdom. When Solomon chose wisdom, the Lord was so pleased that he gave him all three gifts.

Gnosticism is the quest for esoteric knowledge, and it is not necessarily wise to seek such knowledge.

Knowledge and wisdom are not the same thing. This is clearly demonstrated in Paul's list of the gifts of the Spirit in I Corinthians 12:8, where he lists wisdom and knowledge as separate and distinct gifts of the Spirit.

Regarding knowledge, let me point you to Philip K. Dick's favorite verse -- I Corinthians 13:12:

"For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." (King James version)

That verse inspired the title of my husband's novel A Scanner Darkly, and it also defined his life-long quest for knowledge. Phil's religious speculations and conclusions definitely had their roots in dualism, especially the Manichean heresy, but his quest was primarily that of a gnostic -- a seeker of esoteric knowledge. He also sought Holy Wisdom in the form of a woman, a character who appears in several of his novels, often under the name of Sophia, which means Holy wisdom.

The Nag Hammadi texts (discovered around 1979) were not available to Phil, but he did study the Dead Sea Scrolls, and he picked up a gnostic turn of mind through his close personal relationship with Bishop James Pike, the Episcopal Bishop of California in the 1960s. Pike was tried by the church for heresy, and although he won his case (as described in his book If This Be Heresy) he agreed to resign from the church. He was busy consulting mediums in an attempt to contact the spirit of his dead son, which led to Pike's book The Other Side. Phil and his wife Nancy attended one of those seances. Phil was convinced that the medium had contacted something, but that it was not human -- it was something evil, purely evil.

Toward the end of his life, I believe that Phil contacted something evil, and that it might have caused his premature death. Thus, I believe that gnosticism is dangerous. A little knowledge is good, but great knowlege can destroy you. Just look at the Faust legend. For 20 years, Faust had everything he wanted, but then he had to give up his soul to the devil.

I hope that my soul goes to Heaven when I leave this body, this wonderful animal that God has given me to carry me through this life. I thank God for this body, which bears my burdens, pains and sorrows, but I look forward to having a more perfect body in the next life.

~~ Tessa
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Why Now, After 27 Years?

So why did I write my memoir now, 27 years after the death of my husband? Well, actually, I first wrote it in 1989 and 1990, but publishers were not interested in my memoir about Philip K. Dick. Now, with the Internet and POD publishing, I can publish it myself and make it available to readers, bypassing traditional publishers.

The real question, I think, is why write it at all? I suppose that this is my effort to keep Phil alive in some small way. His books and stories keep him alive in the minds of readers, and the movies are nice, but what about the man who wrote those stories? Others have written biographies and presented their theories, mostly about Phil's madness. They do not present the man that I knew, the man who shared his life with me for ten years. I want to show you the man, not my theories about him.

"I know for certain that we never lose the people we love, even to
death. They continue to participate in every act, thought and decision
we make. Their love leaves an indelible imprint in our memories. We
find comfort in knowing that our lives have been enriched by having
shared their love." ~~ Leo Buscaglia

Phil's body of work has left an indelible imprint on readers, and the time that he spent with me has left an indelible imprint on me. I hope to share that imprint with you.

One Step Closer

My PKD memoir has a cover design, and it is finished.

I just need to do one more check for typos. I'm sure that I'll miss a few, but I'm doing my best.

This book is really important to me.

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An Apology

I assumed -- in fact, we all assumed -- that Phil's continual complaints of "the flu" were either psychological or faked. He would become ill and fail to fulfill promises while he lay in bed for two or three days at a time. Guests would have to leave, and he would break promises and appointments.

Well, from the symptoms, which I will not describe in detail because some of them are disgusting, I am certain that he was suffering from a congenital gall bladder problem that our adult son also has. The diarrhea, the fatigue and other symptoms all cry out. And our son, just as his father did, suffered an acute attack of non-alcoholic pancreatitis. Phil always thought that his attack had been caused by drugs, but our son does not use drugs. In fact, he's a health nut and a licensed nutritionist.

After nearly dying, and then spending thousands of dollars on medical tests, Christopher learned that his gall bladder has a congenital defect, and that is why he suffers period bouts of "the flu". He is forced to send guests home, break appointments and lie in bed for two or three days at a time. Since he inherited this problem, and I do not seem to have it, he must have gotten it from his father.

So, Phil, I am very sorry for doubting that you really were ill.

~~ Tessa Dick

PS: My memoir, Firebright: Remembering Philip K. Dick will be available at Amazon dot com in a few weeks.

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