The Esoteric Theology of Philip K. Dick

George J. Sieg, Michael C. Barros

• Publisher: Fortress Academic
• Year: 2026
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9798216201533
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Theology

This volume collects chapters written to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Philip K. Dick's transformative 1974 mystical experiences, through which he ultimately contextualized his influential and posthumously much-adapted science-fiction and speculative fiction.
Contributing authors here examine the enduring significance of Philip K. Dick and his work, drawing on diverse scholarly perspectives that engage seriously with his self-understanding as Christian, gnostic, mystic, and theologian. Including contextual introduction and overviews, individual chapters focusing on specific works of PKD (as well as some of their adaptations), critical analysis, and examination of their significance within the life and worldview of PKD and his milieu, this collection continues foundational work that has characterized PKD's contributions to science fiction and speculative fiction as significant to its increasingly gnostic trajectory, as well as opening new avenues of exploration that situates PKD's impact within the broader appeal of esoteric worldviews as they have continued to propagate through the counterculture into the mainstream. PKD's commitment and dedication to Christian belief, faith, and practice, as well as Christian gnosis and mystical experience, are foci of particular interest, and this volume challenges the frequent misconception of PKD as exclusively relevant to Gnostic counter-cultural mysticism. Instead, his esoteric Christian gnosis is identified and analyzed as the basis of his ultimately moral and consistently humanistic theology.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Content
• Introduction
• Part I: Foundations of Esoteric Theology
• Chapter 1: This Is the Gospel of Philip K. Dick: A Self-Referential Science Fiction Theology
• Chapter 2: The Conquest of Death and the Divine Afterlife: Philip K. Dick’s Life and Fiction of the 1960s
• Chapter 3: Consuming Communion: Transcendence, Moral Clarity, and Community in The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
• Chapter 4: When the Dickian Time Drives on, Laying Bare the Ubik Landscape: Ubik as Philip K. Dick’s Early Exploration of God efore His 2-3-74 Mystical Experience
• Part II: Theological Themes
• Chapter 5: Groove Override: The Defeat of Heimarmene in Dick’s “Exegesis”
• Chapter 6: What Is Human: Humanism in Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
• Chapter 7: A Structure of Belief: The Function of Conspiracy in A Scanner Darkly
• Part III: Who Do You Say That I Am?
• Chapter 8: Do Elohim Dream of Spirit Sheep?
• Chapter 9: The VALIS Confession: Esoteric Compassion and the Struggle for Recognition
• Part IV: The Freedom of the Logos
• Chapter 10: Do Dictators Dream of Listless Grasshoppers?: Counter-Totalitarianism, Exceptionality, and a Materialized Political Radicalism
• Chapter 11: “I Gotta Figure This Out”: Philip K. Dick, Calvinism, and the Hermeneutics of Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report (2002)
• Chapter 12: Fabulations of Theory
• Conclusion: Disclosure of the Worlds to Come
• Index
• About the Contributors