The schizophrenic and dreamlike nature of Robert Altman’s 1977 film 3 Women (starring Sissy Spacek, Shelly Duval, and Janice Rule in roles with overlapping identities) attracts Dick’s comparison to his own life. He’s scared at the idea of decomposing the world only to be left with nothing, except he knows Valis is the being behind the world. A thing with no substance (Valis) created another thing with no substance (the world), and it is a shocking concept that he was also thought into being by Valis.
Dick stresses the potential danger of what happened to him in 3-74. This is not something casually revealed, since it involves exposing someone to non-being and possibly death. He compares it to a small dose of poison that can cure madness or kill if used incorrectly.
Belial has been ruling the Earth under the guise of YHWH. The true YHWH is like Ubik, trying to warn us from outside. All of this was told by Dick in Three Stigmata and “Faith of our Fathers”. He decides Paul invented Christianity which led to the rise of the Satanic church.
Like his characters in Ubik, Dick is dead and YHWH is attempting to break through to rescue him. He understands what those in the past like Plato and Aristotle didn’t: the realms are not spatially different (like heaven and earth) but rather exist outside space and time. God as immanent deity is all around us. Just like the Greek philosopher Plotinus Dick sees this as a non-spatial journey.
Through observation of reality and his memories he tries to determine what is true (or false). He has a dream about a place he used to live, but he is able to realize in the dream it isn’t reality. In the waking world we compare observations with our memories to draw conclusions about what is real. Dick sees this as a fool-proof simulation. He was able to break from the loop when he remembered being somewhere else (anamnesis) while simultaneously recognizing reality as simulated.