Description

This anthology explores diverse aspects of the life and work of Philip K. Dick, offering scholarly perspectives engaging seriously with his self-understanding as mystic, Christian, gnostic, 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 open 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

Introduction
Section I: Foundations of Esoteric Theology
Chapter One: This is the Gospel of Philip K. Dick: A Self-Referential Science Fiction Theology, Riccardo Gramantieri
Chapter Two: The Conquest of Death and the Divine Afterlife: Philip K. Dick's Life and Fiction of the 1960s, M. Blake Wilson
Chapter Three: Consuming Communion: Transcendence, Moral Clarity, and Community in The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Justin Cosner
Chapter Four: When the Dickian Time Drives on, Laying Bare the Ubik Landscape: Ubik as Philip K. Dick's Early Exploration of God before his 2-3-74 Mystical Experience, Laurie Jui-hua Tseng
Section II: Theological Themes
Chapter Five: Groove Override: The Defeat of Heimarmene in Dick's “Exegesis”, Gabriel Mckee
Chapter Six: What is Human: Humanism in Philip K. Dick's Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep?, Maxwell E. Stevenson
Chapter Seven: A Structure of Belief: The Function of Conspiracy in A Scanner Darkly, Richard Johnston Jones
Section III: Who Do You Say That I Am?
Chapter Eight: Do Elohim Dream of Spirit Sheep?, Joshua Snell
Chapter Nine: The VALIS Confession: Esoteric Compassion and the Struggle for Recognition, Scott Maybell
Section IV: The Freedom of the Logos
Chapter Ten: Do Dictators Dream of Listless Grasshoppers?: Counter-Totalitarianism, Exceptionality, and a Materialized Political Radicalism, John C. McDowell
Chapter Eleven: “I Gotta Figure This Out”: Philip K. Dick, Calvinism, and the Hermeneutics of Spielberg's Minority Report, Stephen Daly
Chapter Twelve: Fabulations of Theory, Aaron French
Conclusion: Disclosure of the Worlds to Come
About the Contributors

Product details

Published 18 Sep 2025
Format Ebook (Epub & Mobi)
Edition 1st
Extent 288
ISBN 9781978772236
Imprint Fortress Academic
Illustrations 2 bw illus
Series Theology, Religion, and Pop Culture
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Anthology Editor

George J. Sieg

George J. Sieg teaches philosophy at the Southwest…

Anthology Editor

Michael C. Barros

Contributor

Justin Cosner

Contributor

Stephen Daly

Stephen Daly is Lecturer in Corporate Law at the D…

Contributor

Aaron French

Aaron French is a postdoctoral researcher in relig…

Contributor

Gabriel Mckee

Contributor

George J. Sieg

George J. Sieg teaches philosophy at the Southwest…

Contributor

Josh Snell

Contributor

M. Blake Wilson

Related Titles

Get 30% off in the May sale - for one week only

Environment: Staging