Max Damerell: The Man In The High Castle (Science Fiction Novel) - What does Philip K Dick (1995), himself theorise about the I Ching?

“What distinguishes schizophrenic existence from that from that which the rest of us like to imagine we enjoy is the element of time. The schizophrenic is having it all now” (Dick, 1995).

            Philip K Dick was a compulsive storyteller (Mountfort, 2006) who believed that if a person used the I Ching long enough it would shape their thinking and personality (Mountfort, 2006). He experimented, using the I Ching to dictate the stories he wrote, and the movements of his characters, and has compared the process to the onset of schizophrenia or possibly the effects of LSD (Dick, 1995). He cites theoretical physicist Wolfgang Pauli who wrote about synchronicity, a concept where someone is “engulfed in an endless now” (Dick, 1995). Dick theorizes that the I Ching is a way of managing the synchronicity that some people get caught up in, whether by drug use or personality type.

            In “The Man in the High Castle”, Frank Fink represents us all. He is the Everyman consulting a copy of the I Ching. “He considered until he had his thoughts properly controlled and his questions worked out” (Dick, 1962). It is easy enough to imagine the author in a similar, agitated state, trying to decide what happens next in his story. His head is filled with possibilities and ideas but he places his faith in an ancient Chinese fortune-telling text. It was radical then and continues to be now, this idea that a leather tube containing forty-nine yarrow stalks can create hexagrams, which can be interpreted as predictions. Dick maintained that the I Ching mostly wrote High Castle, that is, the story was dictated by an oracle who had decided how those yarrow stalks would fall. He used it as an organizational device (Mountfort, 2006) asking the I Ching questions and accepted what he was handed (Dick, 1962). He compared the experience to taking LSD or having schizophrenia; he once described himself as a partial schizophrenic (Dick, 1962) and drugs appear very early in High Castle. Mr. R. Childan is described as seeking inspiration: “He lit up a marijuana cigarette, excellent Land-O-Smiles brand” (Dick, 1962). The I Ching appears to have been Dick’s drug of choice when he was writing. He believed that it provided clear directives “that will determine the future” (Dick, 1965). He saw the I Ching as an “analytical and diagnostic force” (Dick, 1965) and advised readers to “observe and enjoy what you see” (Dick, 1965). It was a non-schizophrenic experience he wrote, more like an LSD trip (Dick, 1965).

            Dick’s theory was: The I Ching works (Dick, 1965). As proof, he used it to plot High Castle. He was not schizophrenic but he believed in synchronicity and enjoyed recreational drugs. He wrote of Mr. Tagomi in High Castle: “in asking the question, had a deeper query in the back of his mind, one of which he was barely conscious” (Dick, 1962). Was Dick barely conscious of how his fiction would play out? He wanted to know and yet he was happy with a “partial knowledge of reality…sufficient to get us by” (Dick, 1995). He felt that knowing exactly how future events and writings would turn out would be to become a true schizophrenic (Dick, 1995) and that would be “a greater loss than gain; we would have induced our future into being consumed by the present” (Dick, 1995). Knowing what the future holds did away with any possibility of “free, effective action” (Dick, 1995) he theorized and he based his speculative fiction on not knowing what would happen until he had consulted the I Ching, “a device by which synchronicity can be handled”.

References:

·      Dick, P. K. (1962). The Man In The High Castle (2011 ed.). United States, NY: First Mariner Books.

·      Dick, P.K. (1995). Schizophrenia and the I Ching. In Sutin, L. (Ed.), The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick (pp. 175-182). New York: Vintage.

·      Mountfort, P. (2006). Oracle-text/Cybertext in Philip K Dick’s The Man in the High Castle. Conference paper, Popular Culture Association/ American Culture Association annual joint conference, Atlanta, 2006.