Spurred on by an essay by Angus Taylor called “Philip K. Dick and the Umbrella of Light” about his work concerning the nature of reality Dick decides he inadvertently uncovered the form of Plato’s Eternal Real World.  The intellectuals though have been saying for centuries Plato’s worldview is pointless to even consider, since his idea of a real world cannot be experienced. Dick takes comfort in the fact that even if he doesn’t convince everyone about this the truth will eventually re-emerge just as it did with him. 

He goes on to speculate about curved orthogonal time which lies at a right angle to the time we perceive. This horizontal time axis is the eternal one in which the Logos exists. Either Dick regressed or Rome came forward on this timeline and was revealed to him. 

In this letter Dick quotes a passage by John Calvin written in the 1500s about how human beings have supernatural abilities that will be restored by Christ. Again he relates to Claudia his experience of seeing Rome during the event that happened to him in March. 

In a postscript he pitches an idea of time in which time itself enters a person all at once as energy and we retain this in our heads as a potential which is slowly revealed. He uses this theory to explain déjà vu as we are glimpsing in advance what is already in our mind. 

The Immanent Mind which has been slumbering for two thousand years is now waking up.

At the beginning of this letter Dick brings up Ubik and the Ubik screenplay he is writing for a European producer.

Dick connects Ubik, the force itself, with the immanent mind he mentioned in his last letter. All of us have bits of this universal mind which can be sparked by an external catalyst such as Christ. 

I’m curious what Claudia Bush thinks as she receives letter after letter from Dick repeating variations of the same thing again and again. 

Dick tells Claudia about a hypnagogic vision he had of a godlike figure while at the same time a Greek phrase entered his head. His wife helps him determine the Greek was from Hebrews 7:26 (in the King James translation: “For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens.”)

Whatever is visiting him has gone by many names in the past: Apollo, the Holy Spirit, Elijah and what Virgil called the “Immanent Mind” in the Aeneid. Dick is convinced the Immortals made a promise to return thousands of years ago and they are finally keeping that promise. 

Dick tells Claudia about a dream involving an elevator, a policeman and a pile of spaghetti. He decides the cop represents the guide who leads souls across to the ‘Other Side.’

In another dream he sees some men with egg-shaped heads who he is convinced are the superior race of Immortals. 

In an addendum to this letter Dick expands on his concept of these aliens who he refers to as ‘the Other.’ Dick believes ‘the Great Builder’ is orchestrating everything to get us to merge with this other race. 

Dick complains about how he was portrayed in a recently published interview he did for the London Daily Telegraph. 

Asklepios, accompanied by a posse of several others, visited his dreams several times the night before, and Dick realized with disappointment they were not gods but just ordinary men like everyone else.