This time I read VALIS by listening to the free audiobook on YouTube – which totally counts. Found out there are quite a few books like that. Just started Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.

I always thought VALIS (Vast Active Living Intelligence System) was a great book, full of heady ideas. I liked it the first time, though much of it was over my head. This time, having learned a little about Gnosticism and Phillip K. Dick’s life, I think I got it.

I’m aware that VALIS was semi-autobiographical. I think it was Dick’s way of explaining how he navigated genius and mental instability. He might not have been the sanest writer out there, but he was functional – and creative.

Horselover Fat wouldn’t give up his faith that VALIS had been real. Phil in the book knew Horselover was crazy, but that belief was keeping him alive. What changed was the amount of power he chose to give his alter ego.

I know real life Dick had a religious experience that convinced him he’d lived another life as an early Gnostic Christian. I think he knew his experience was irrational. But I think he kept that part of himself around, because it was his creative engine.