Charles Platt’s 1979 interview with Phillip K. Dick

Phillip K. Dick is a fascinating figure for me. Terribly unstable yet visionary. He said several profound things during the above interview by Charles Platt. I was especially intrigued by the part about how someone with a powerful psyche can invade the psyches of others.

He admits to being easily persuadable. While undergoing “attack therapy” he found himself agreeing with statements about himself he knew to be false. Exactly the same mechanism used to extract false confessions and create cults and totalitarianism.

It gave me an image: Comic book thought bubbles, floating around invisibly, taking form in the actions of people.

It’s interesting to think about political and cultural changes not as people & countries making decisions, but more like clouds of psychic energy, traveling through the airwaves, through the Internet, through advertising and political campaigns.

Battling it out and making alliances. Merging and splitting apart. Some more powerful than others. Many small ones, gradually absorbed into larger ones.

I’m not a New Ager. I don’t believe in “psychic energy” per se. It’s mostly a metaphor, but a hell of a strong one.