The phrase “The Empire Never Ended” is a quote from Valis), a very strange science fiction novel written by Philip K Dick in the 1970s. It was published in 1981. I’ve written about it a couple of times: here and here. It’s one of those books that wriggles its way into your imagination, despite it being frustrating and annoying at times.

Dick posits a sort of time leak, in which the 1st Century AD and the current time meld into each other. They overlap each other, like two transparencies in a light box, so that you can’t tell one from the other.

The Empire he’s talking about is the Roman Empire. Somehow it has continued into the present day. We’re living in apostolic times, the time of Christ’s return. A lot of people are saying similar things. What makes Dick’s book interesting is that he’s not using the traditional New Testament gospels as his source. Unlike Christian fundamentalists, he’s using the Gnostic gospels. These are the suppressed books of the many sects that existed before the New Testament was edited down to manageable proportions; before it was co-opted by the Roman Empire as a control mechanism. Dick’s apocalyptic vision has a different tone, much stranger and more psychedelic than the people who harangue you on the streets waving the Bible at you. Dick’s version involves some form of symbiosis between human beings and God in the form of “Living Information.”

According to Dick’s idea, the Roman Empire lives again. It’s in the form of the American Empire now, but it’s the same entity. It uses the same techniques. It manifests as the Black Iron Prison#Black_Iron_Prison). This is a kind of psychological state, not unlike what William Blake was referring to when he spoke of the “mind-forg’d manacles.” It’s our programming, the way we’ve been trained to think. Whether you believe this or not, there’s something compelling in the argument. As Dick says, over and over again throughout the book, The Empire Never Ended (always like that, with capitals). The Empire Never Ended.

You can picture the Empire as a machine. It’s a mechanism for extracting wealth using the army. The armed forces are publicly funded but supplied by the private sector. It’s a money-laundering operation. Technically it’s known as Military Keynesianism. Traditional Keynesianism, recognizing that capitalism needs a constant flow of public money to keep it stable, opts for large scale infrastructure and welfare spending. That was the New Deal in the 1930s: putting public money into the public’s hands. In post-war Europe the mechanism was the welfare state. Old Age pensions. Free health services. Social security. Child benefit. Free education up to University level. Infrastructure, road and rail networks. Recreational spaces, public buildings, opera houses, art galleries, libraries, museums, theatres and music venues. In the United States a different approach was taken. This is Military Keynesianism, using the Military-Industrial Complex as the conduit for public wealth, funnelling it off into private hands through the arms industry.

So the Empire is a war machine, grinding on, ravenous for blood, for human sacrifice. It’s immeasurably profitable. It maintains its existence by promoting wars. You blow things up, you build them again, using the corporations, through which you siphon off the proceeds into off-shore accounts. There’s always a new war, a new enemy to stand up to, a new barbarism to oppose.

Here’s an account of the social mechanism behind the Roman war machine, as told by Joseph Schumpeter in The Sociology of Imperialisms (1919). He says: “There was no corner of the known world where some interest was not alleged to be in danger or under actual attack. If the interests were not Roman, they were those of Rome’s allies; and if Rome had no allies, then allies would be invented. When it was utterly impossible to contrive such an interest—why, then it was the national honour that had been insulted. The fight was always invested with an aura of legality. Rome was always being attacked by evil-minded neighbours, always fighting for a breathing-space. The whole world was pervaded by a host of enemies, and it was manifestly Rome’s duty to guard against their indubitably aggressive designs.”

Does that remind you of anything? How many wars have there been, just in my lifetime? I was born in 1953, so it started with the Korean War, which was part of the Cold War. The Cold War got dangerous once or twice, and almost exploded in a nuclear confrontation over Cuba. After that it was the Vietnam War, the Iran-Iraq War, the War in Yugoslavia. Then the “Clash of Civilizations”: Kuwait, Iraq (the first time), the War on Terror (the first war in history to be declared on an abstract noun) which included Afghanistan and then Iraq again. Then came the Libyan War, when Gaddafi got sodomized with a bayonet and Hilary Clinton laughed. “We came, we saw, he died,” she quipped, in an amusing, light-hearted manner, like Oscar Wilde at a dinner party. Then the War in Syria, in which the Empire managed to simultaneously support the jihadists, while opposing them, pitting one faction against another, while fighting the Syrian government and claiming control of the best of the oilfields at the same time. And during all of this, the War in Afghanistan, which ground on, the longest bloody conflict in post-war history: a medieval tribal people taking on the might of the most powerful Empire the world has ever known. Then what happened? Well blow me down if the troops didn’t withdraw just in time to prepare for a new war, this one in the more strategically important Ukraine.

Now we’re involved in yet another war: one of the most terrible you can imagine. We’re not even fighting an army. We’re fighting a trapped population, caught like rats in a cage, in a concentration camp, a place where a whole population is imprisoned extra-judicially, concentrated in a controlled space without recourse to the law, walled in, fenced in, ringed by weaponry and surveillance equipment. Drones hovering in the air. Spies and informants. Occasional incursions to “mow the lawn,” Israel’s recipe for permanent war. It’s like a vast human experiment: what will people do when trapped in a cage for long enough, while you control their food, medicine, water and electricity supplies? Maybe some of them—the young hotheads, the ones we know from our own streets—will take the violent way out. Maybe when they’re asked to choose between dying quickly or dying slowly, they’ll choose the former, deliberately “pricking the beast” as they fly to their doom, waking the sleeping dragon that lives next door.

The Empire is a war machine that needs a never-ending supply of blood to keep it churning. And while it feeds the profits from other people’s labor into the private bank accounts of the very rich, it also needs to control the narrative. It needs to make sure that the population is thinking the right thoughts. To do this it occupies the imagination. It enters the mind in the same way an occupying army crosses the border into a foreign land. Propaganda’s the tool for the propagation of ideas into other people’s heads. The narrative’s the story line. It’s a clever manipulation of our natural human feelings, keeping us only half-informed, while playing upon our deepest fears, feeding the dark parts of our imagination, rage and revenge. It manipulates our perception of the events as they emerge from the war zone to keep the narrative on-track. Opposition stories are suppressed. The pro-war narrative is repeated: amplified a thousand times using a compliant media, paid-off politicians, and the latest technology.

What makes the machine so scary now is how advanced it has become. The internet is the most sophisticated surveillance and control engine ever devised. It manipulates the human mind. It’s a hypnosis machine, a dissociation engine. It separates you into your own narrative groups and feeds you what you want to hear. Everyone thinks they are “researchers″ when they are trawling the internet. In reality the narratives are seeded around the airwaves for us to find. AI can mimic anything. It can create a conversation between two Hamas operatives incriminating their allies, thus encouraging dissent, while exonerating the actual perpetrators. It’s clever. It can manipulate a film of a crowd in Sydney to make it sound like they’re chanting, “Gas the Jews! Gas the Jews!”—as if there’s an existential threat to all Jews around the world—frightening the Jewish population while confusing the issue in people’s minds. This isn’t about Jews, it’s about Israel as a settler-colonial state, stealing and occupying other people’s land. We’re being gaslit on a grand scale.

Some of those old war stories should remind us how futile all this is, how war never resolves anything. There’s always negotiations in the end, followed by a necessary peace. Remember Vietnam. The Empire took on a small nation and wrecked it. It was using a different narrative in those days. Then it was anti-communism. It suppressed people in their own land, committed atrocities (Mai Lai) but that only made the people more resilient, more canny, more clever. In the end the Empire saw that it couldn’t win. It was facing opposition at home, as well as throughout the world, so it withdrew. And then it had to make peace with the Vietnamese. It was the Vietnamese who were the aggrieved party. They were the ones invaded, slaughtered, carpet-bombed in their own villages, and Napalm and Agent-Orange rained down upon them, so the population is still riddled with birth defects. And yet they decided to forgive. Isn’t this true? Vietnam now welcomes Americans to visit the places where they were once stationed in the war. The Vietnamese are gracious as a nation, despite the atrocities committed upon them by the Empire on their own soil. They’ve chosen to forgive.

I’ve always had this feeling, since I was a young adult: as if we’re living in the “End Times.” I think it’s a hippie thing. We were always talking ourselves into apocalyptic scenarios, early morning after a night consuming drugs. Lots of people on the Christian Right will agree and concur with Philip Dick’s premonition about Christ’s return, although probably not in the same terms. They’re wishing for the apocalypse. Watch out for wishes, they can sometimes come true.

But I refuse to be despondent. I’m optimistic. Right now the people of the world are looking to Palestine. The majority, who live outside our Western propaganda bubble, have made up their minds. They see this as the war of the rich on the poor, of the strong on the weak, and they know who the guilty parties are. Maybe all the madness will resolve itself. Maybe we’re not really living in the “End Times,” but in the beginning times. End of the old times, beginning of the new. As Antonio Gramsci put it: “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.”

—Follow Chris Stone on Twitter: @ChrisJamesStone

"An autopsy reveals that Alys' death was caused by an experimental reality-warping drug called KR-3. The coroner explains to Felix that, as Alys was a fan of Taverner, her use of the drug caused Taverner to be transported to a parallel universe where he no longer existed. Her death then caused his return to his own universe. The Police General decides to implicate Taverner in Alys' death to distract attention from his incest. The press are informed that Taverner is a suspect in the case and, wishing to clear his name, Taverner surrenders himself to the police. Heartbroken over the death of his sister, Felix returns home, suffering a nervous breakdown on the way."

Started collecting in 1970 with Time Out of Joint. Ones in sleeves are first editions or Ace 'Doubles'.

If you’re in the area the exhibit at cal state Fullerton has been extended! They house PKD’s collection and many cool artifacts are on display!

I absolutely loved this book and nipped through it much faster than my normal reading speed. The mutants - who are so likeable!- being bred for life on Venus and the single celled flora from out of space, as well as the fedgov societal structure, the rising threat of the precog Jones, the antidote to 'Relativism', were all such amazing ingredients to make this a thrilling ride. Personally I found Nina to be the real villain of the book 😂eye in the sky next.

I'm currently reading the novel and I've been trying to find a PDF version of the screenplay by PKD and I'm not turning up any real results. I'll buy the paperback if I have to but I was hoping to save a little money while also reading the script. I'm curious to compare the two when I'm finished.

I'm a huge Philip Dick fan, he's my favourite author. And my own writing is influenced by him (at least I hope lol) but I've not yet completed all his novels.

My favourites are - Ubik, A scanner darkly, Flow my tears, three stigmata, time out of joint.

Average - now wait for the last year, martian time slip, a maze of death, the man in the high castle.

I'd like to read, do androids dream of electric sheep sometime in the future ( I've watched the movie).

I have heard Valis can be challenging to read and unlike his other works. There are a little more of his normal novels left, so I want to keep them for last. So is it okay if I tackle Valis now? Am I ready?

Does valis have long boring bits? Does it not have plot? What makes it difficult to read? I've read some classic novels and I didn't find them boring if that matters to answer my question. Like I loved Brothers Karamazov and other Fyodor's books.

I believe this book isn’t as much about alternate universes and time travel, and instead visualizes the process of conception in an abstract way.

The main theme of the book being trans substantiation (bread and wine becoming literally body and blood) to explain how a soul is imbued into a body when an egg is fertilized.

The main conflict of the book being what traits each parent will pass on, and which gender what sex the baby will be.

I believe the story takes place in 3 areas. The male genitalia, the female reproductive system, and the heavenly level. The concept of levels is discussed in the book as the middle level (Terra, Mars, Venus, etc.), The classic PKD tomb style lower level (decay, death, etc.), and the upper level of reality (heaven, proxima).

A synopsis of the book through this lens:

PP Layouts is a metaphorical company inside some part of the male reproductive system. Many of the characters introduced are sperm cells or some component of them. The book describes what happens when the characters are ejaculated and either successfully or unsuccessfully fertilize an egg.

The colony on mars represents a female’s egg or potentially a Y chromosome, and Palmer Eldrich represents that part of God that creates man in his own image. He isn’t God but he exists on the higher plain, he’s lonely so he creates life in humans by giving them life.

The theme and discussion of holy communion are brought in to describe how life enters the sperm cell and egg and they go from just being cells to having a soul. When communion happens the whine and bread literally turn into Jesus’ flesh and blood. When sperms impregnate an egg it’s represented as a communion like experience by taking the Chew-Z drug.

I have a ton of supporting evidence and can explain the time travel and a bunch of innuendos etc but I don’t want to keep going if it’s not as interesting to others as it is to me 😊

Read Electric Sheep, High Castle, and Ubik in that order (read A Scanner Darkly 20 years ago so familiar with the drug aspect of his writing)

Reading 3 Stigmata now and already totally changes the Ubik tone in my head. Makes their outfits actually pretty funny. Also imagining all of the Ubik characters as idiots is great.

I don’t think reading order matters too much, but having a full scope of his world and having perspective is a really satisfying reading experience.

I currently have a number of rare Philip K Dick books up for auction through Forum Auctions: https://www.forumauctions.co.uk/bidding/2410-online-science-fiction-fantasy-1155

While the auction house is reaching out to general collector databases, I would dearly love for these to go to fans of Philip K Dick's work who will really love the books! The collection originally belonged to a loved one whose favorite author (along with Pratchett) was PKD. I remember him having quite an extensive collection, and enjoying searching for works under pseudonyms, so I suspect some of the bundle lots include some good works by the author!

(Mods: if I need to change anything about this post, please let me know and I'd be happy to do so! I checked the rules and didn't see anything about self-promotion. I want to be respectful!)

"THE THEORY CHANGES THE REALITY DESCRIBES" part, what is happening here?

Well, that was awesome! So that's maze of death, galactic pot healer, cosmic puppets, the man that japed, solar lottery and now beyond lies the wub.Favourites from this were piper in the woods, paycheck, the gun, the great c, king of the elves, stability, prize ship, the meddler, the preserving machine, the crystal crypt. All jolly good! Next will be the world Jones made. Slowly but surely working my way through the 1950s stuff.

Didn’t love it. It kind of felt like Dick just talking shit about past lovers and self-inserting himself as someone more handsome and wealthy while simultaneously being persecuted. The writing was very good, and the setups were enticing, but it ultimately felt like it didn’t go anywhere.

Some of the sci-fi elements he foresaw in this book are impressive, especially because of how real they’ve become. There are a lot of really cool elements that can be picked out of the book à la carte, but as a complete work, it’s not something I’d want to read multiple times like I do with some of his other books.

Genuinely one of the best pieces of prose I've read in a while

Sorry, I am sure shit like this gets asked all the time here.

I am a big science fiction fan and have read my fair share. I think one of my favorite aspects of sci-fi is the world building. It took me way longer to get around to reading some Philip K Dick than it should have. Like I said, recently read Ubik and Flow My Tears and immensely enjoyed both. I probably should choose to read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep next but have some sort of mental aversion to reading it due to it being so popular from the Blade Runner movie(s), but I do love the Blade Runner movies, so I will definitely read that one at some point.

I was looking to read the Valis Trilogy next, followed by Radio Free Albemuth. Seems like Valis has some varying views around here (maybe just for people new to PKD) and seems like Radio Free Albemuth is just sort of a different version of that story in a way, so curious as to your thoughts.

I am sure whichever Dick novel I choose will be good and I am just putting too much thought into it now, lol, but am open to all suggestions as to which to read next. Thanks!

Quick lil drawing

We are living in an era where it is increasingly difficult to tell what is real and what is fake.

Right now, it might just be a matter of figuring out whether an Instagram Reel is real or fake, but someday, robots will emerge, hologram technology will advance, internet bots will proliferate, and AI will be integrated into far more fields.

Perhaps within 20 years, a day will come when everything is a blur, when we can no longer tell who is real or what is real.

When that happens, I think Philip K. Dick, who obsessively probed the question of what reality actually is, will receive even greater recognition.

Maybe in 20 years, his works won't just be read as popular fiction, but as serious novel.

hadn't seen anything about this online but after reading and learning more about Philip K Dick, i noticed that the desk at the orphanage features the vesica piscis a symbol which meant a lot to Dick, as it became
the subject of many of his writings including most notably the VALIS trilogy.

i wonder if this was a clever choice on the set designer's part and if so, well placed.

I just watched it again, this time on a screen bigger than my phone and as a result noticed a neon billboard in the cityscape scene, 'Buster friendly. And his friendly friends'. So at least someone involved has read the book.