TLS signed “Love, Phil,” adding a heart with an arrow, five pages, 8.5 x 11, February 23, 1981. Letter to science fiction author Patricia Warrick, in part: "To repeat the basis of the satori: 'Perturbed from outside, it turns from multiplicity to unity,' it being reality, all reality, the reality field. Let us ignore the question, 'How can it be all reality and yet be perturbed from outside?'; instead, let us consider the view now possible of reality. It is seen from one step back, so to speak. There is conceptually (in the mind of the participant) and outside of reality reality, so that reality itself is a self-contained unity; it is seen as a totality…normally it is axiomatically impossible to be outside reality. This is the whole problem in getting perspective on reality: you can never be outside it; you are in fact an indivisible part of it; therefore you can never know it. You cannot render it abstract and deal with it on that basis (that which is abstract is seen as a totality; that which cannot be seen as a totality can never be viewed in an objective, abstract way). It is an insuperable barrier to comprehending reality that the percipient is a part of that reality; this is something long recognized. But once 'a perturbation in the reality field' is apperceived or understood, and that perturbation arises from outside the reality field (although this seems on the face of it impossible) then an Archimedean standpoint comes into existence."
He launches into a lengthy discussion on religion, posing questions such as "What is God's relationship to the universe, and if he did not exist, how would the universe be affected, if at all?" He then evokes several philosophers and fellow writers—Arthur Schopenhauer, Baruch Spinoza, Ursula le Guin, William Burroughs, and Hunter S. Thompson. He also discusses his VALIS visions at length and makes reference to his dystopian novel A Scanner Darkly. In fine condition. Accompanied by the original mailing envelope, with the handwritten return address incorporating his full signature: "Philip K. Dick."
In the months of February and March 1974, Dick, then still convalescing and medicating himself from an impacted wisdom tooth, began to experience a series of hallucinations. Dick, who referred to them as ‘2-3-74’ in the shorthand, believed that his thoughts were being invaded ‘by a transcendentally rational mind’ of which he referred to as ‘Zebra,’ ‘God,’ or ‘VALIS.’ He documented these experiences in his letters to Patricia Warrick, and published a novel based on them in 1981.
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