Good discussion. Great website. Thank you.

I have just finished reading six of PKD’s books this year, and have enjoyed them all, though it was the biography of his life in the back of the American classics compendium of his work that troubled me the most.

I came across this site in preparation for a sermon on the Blessed Virgin Mary’s song found in St. Luke’s Gospel (1:47-56). As a minister and theologian, I understand PKD’s experience with “Jesus” and God as a foil or as opposite to that which the BVM experienced: hers, eminently God-centered, spiritual, and joyful; his, eminently self-centered, carnal, and tragic.

From a historic Christian perspective, one which seems to be underrepresented on this site, the difference at the end of the day is not that there are no “spiritual” elements in his religious experience, or “theological philosophy.” The difference is that Mary encountered God; PKD only a figment of his imagination.

For Christians, there is no “Christ” without “Jesus”; likewise, there is no Jesus without his coming in the flesh (the Incarnation, you know, the *Christmas* story), and no Incarnation without the Fall of Mankind into Rebellion against a God who always did what was good, right, and perfect, and who is justified when he judges humans for refusing to embrace the Remarkable Promise that Mary simply accepted.

“My should magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”

What Mary says in one sentence PKD struggled to grasp even after thousands of pages of writing, rewriting, and reworking. There is a Christmas lesson here for all of us PKD fans who have both enjoyed, struggled with, and even pitied this great man.

Unless we are changed and become like little children we cannot enter the kingdom of God. (a paraphrase of a beautiful statement by Jesus recorded in St. Matthew’s Gospel chapter 18)

RIP PKD.