The Science Fiction Mythmakers by Jennifer Simkins

Author:Jennifer Simkins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McFarland
Published: 2016-08-30T16:00:00+00:00

Constructing Theology: New Religious Myths in Dick’s SF

In Ubik and A Maze of Death, we see a shift in Dick’s SF toward narratives that incorporate increasingly complex theological systems. While earlier novels, including The Three Stigmata and Do Androids Dream, suggest that a spiritual realm exists, Dick’s later SF incorporates more detailed and cohesive representations of the divine structure of the universe. These novels amalgamate a network of spiritual systems, including Presocratic, Platonic and Gnostic models. The primary concern in Ubik and A Maze of Death is how to reconcile a belief in a powerful, benevolent deity with the contradictory universe, in which light and dark seem to coexist.

Presocratic philosopher Xenophanes wrote that “One god is greatest among gods and men” (31; fr. 23).39 He further describes god as all-knowing and all-seeing, saying: “whole he sees, whole he thinks, and whole he hears” (31; fr. 24). In a 1980 interview Dick declares himself a subscriber to Xenophanes’ philosophy, stating: “I still view God as Xenophanes viewed him” (“Philip” 46). He further says that “the truth was first uttered … [by] Xenophanes [in fragment 23]” (46).40 However, as Hussey points out, Xenophanes’ belief in one, all-encompassing deity poses the “problem of explaining the diversity, transience and apparent imperfection and self-contradiction of … the observable world” (46). Heraclitus seeks to unify these contradictions by regarding them all as facets of one god. He describes “the god” (85; D. 67; CXXIII) as “day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, satiety and hunger” (85; D. 67; CXXIII), saying that “[god] alters … [and] gets named according to the pleasures of each one” (85; D. 67; CXXIII). For Heraclitus, then, god is “convergent divergent, consonant dissonant, from all things one and from all things all” (85; D. 10; CXXIV).41

Heraclitus’ conceptualization of god is explored in Ubik and A Maze of Death. In Ubik, Joe Chip obverses that “An unnatural and gigantic force, haunt[s] [his life]. … controlling what [he] experience[s]” (137). While he posits that this force may not be responsible for the entropic decay he and his friends are threatened by, he also admits that an all-powerful deity would likely be simultaneously responsible for both entropy and renewal (137). Joe thus recognizes, as the Presocratics do, that an all-encompassing, ubiquitous entity would have control over all matter and all experience, both positive and negative.

This belief that the universe may be controlled by one god is also represented in A Maze of Death. During the Delmak-O experience, the characters inhabit a universe in which humankind has “proof of the Deity’s existence” (88). However, there are competing explanations of the nature of the triune deity and its relation to the Form Destroyer. The characters acknowledge that “it is … not possible to declare whether … [the Form Destroyer is] a separate entity from God, uncreated … but also self-creating, as God is, or … is an aspect of God” (9). The characters debate this issue but fail to come to a consensus. However, one character, Tony Dunkelwelt, experiences a divine vision that reflects Heraclitus’ philosophy.

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