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The Empire Never Ended

17:55 / 06.12.05

I am currently reading RAW's Right Where You Are Sitting Now' and there are a number of times the phrase 'The empire never ended' comes up. I get a vague feeling this comes from Philip K Dick (possibly Valis) but i'm not sure. Can anyone shed some more light on this idea?

18:05 / 06.12.05

Actually just finished Valis last week, and yes, "the empire never ended" is in there. One way of interpreting it is that that since time is all funny and stuff (still not done sorting the book out in my head, sorry), the world of today and the world of the Roman Empire are the same thing. Another is that since the early Christian movement was hindered by the death of Christ, they were unable to end the empire of spiritual oppresion, trapping us in the Black Iron Prison.

Just realized that I really haven't gotten it all sorted out yet, so I'll let someone else pick up the pieces. In summary: Yes, it comes from Valis (a great book), and it can mean one of many things.

18:07 / 06.12.05

yeah, it's from valis (although i'm sure it comes up in the other "valis trilogy" books, too...). it's been a while since i read valis, but i seem to recall it being in reference to Dick's visionary experience with the Jesus-era Roman empire, prompting revelations that the empire and its control structures have never really ended, just been camoflauged by some space/time weirdness...

19:28 / 06.12.05

A few of us cobbled together a wiki analyzing the extracts of Dick's exegesis published at the end of Valis. The entire exegesis is apparently a few thousand pages (lot's of stuff in Dick's head). Anyway, the wiki is here. Feel free to add your own 2 or 3 bits.

19:41 / 06.12.05

Robert Crumb once did a marvelous comic (in his Weirdo magazine) about Dick´s enlightenment, that made him think he lived a parallel life in ca 30 AD as an early and prosecuted christian.

There´s stuff about it in his novel Radio Free Albemuth, which seems to be very autobiographic, too.

22:26 / 06.12.05

They were wheel clamped and ticketed, but I swear those early Muscular Christians were never prosecuted.

Electrocuted, maybe. Didn't Nicola Tesla ensure that the crosses upon which they were crucified have current up the wazoo?

23:02 / 06.12.05

I remember hearing that Radio Free Albemuth was actually a different version of the manuscript which became Valis. Don't have a source on that or anything.

23:43 / 06.12.05

I actually don't know much of K. Dick (Valis?). Today is the first time I read his exegis and, man!, I gotta tell ya, I gonna have to stop a while and think about (most of) it...

00:01 / 07.12.05

The message, while only directly stated in VALIS and Radio Free Albemuth, is actually representative of Dick's odd brand of christianity. The stuff people have said so far is good; if you're interested in following up further, look at The Divine Invasion (more or less a sequel to VALIS) and the Transmigration of Timothy Archer, which was marketed as the third in a trilogy of the other two-radio Free is just floating around somewhere in continuity-but is actually a novelistic retelling of the death of Bishop Pike-the main connection to the other two is the gnostic elements. There is also a book of Dick's literary and philosophical writings (in which many of the articles in the other dick thread are printed) which also has more extensive selections from the exegesis, which totals 1100 pages or so.

03:55 / 07.12.05

Some kind soul has posted Tracates Cryptics Scriptura, which appears in Dick's novel VALIS as an appendix. (It's the received "gospel" of VALIS and probably Dick's most condensed & concrete attempt to codify his gnosis/Valis experience.)

http://deoxy.org/pkd_tcs.htm

"41. The Empire is the institution, the codification, of derangement; it is insane and imposes its insanity on us by violence, since its nature is a violent one."

06:18 / 07.12.05

For a bit less of the amphetamine Xtian ontologising and a bit more of the WhatIsReality? mindfucking, I recommend "Ubik", "A Scanner Darkly", and "Flow My Tears, The Pooliceman Said".

Note also that Richard Linklater (Slacker, Waking Life) is working on a wicked rotoscoped film version of "A Scanner Darkly". The previews look great (with Keanu as the protagonist/antagonist).

08:26 / 07.12.05

Why does it always have to be Keanu?

"The black iron prison" would be a great name for a professional wrestler's finishing move.

alejandrodelloco

23:10 / 07.12.05

If you want a super weird-out, read Radio Free Albemuth and Valis together, in any order. Guaranteed wackiness.

It would be interesting doing some magical work with Valis...

nyarlathotep's shoe horn

15:20 / 08.12.05

back to the empire...

funny thing...

The Romans used the Eagle as their standard.
So did the Nazis.
So does the US.

the Eagle is an alternate symbol for the astrological Scorpion of Scorpio. Scorpio is ruled by the Roman God Pluto, who shares the house with Mars (a vacation spot from Aries I presume).

so, Roman empire vs American?

US in the 20th C (truly it's birth as an empire).

1929 - stock market crash
1930 onward - dust bowl
1931 - american discovers Pluto (only planet discovered by an american).

Pluto is the Roman god of Wealth (ie stock market) and Grain (ie dust bowl) and the underworld

1940s - Plutonium developed in US (with the help of a whole lot of Europeans)
1945 - Plutonium unleashed, ensuring US' military dominance, sort of.

1979-1999 Pluto came closer to EArth, having crossed Neptune's orbit.

1999 also signals the end of the longest uninterrupted economic climb in recorded history.

2003
The US launched its invasion of Iraq at the beginning of Aries (which Mars, god of war, rules) shortly after all the hype about the red planet.

and they still use a lot of Latin.

so, what's so new about this empire? The paper or the petroleum or the plutonium?

curiouser and curiouser
ta
tenix

16:34 / 08.12.05

Nice posting Tenix, this seems to back up at least one of the possible readings of the quote.
I'm going to re-read Valis (worked out it was at least 10 years ago so its about time) to get my head around it some more and i'll have to back it up with Radio Free Albemuth just for fun.

16:59 / 08.12.05

Just a brief thought about how the quote can be related to Judge Dredd, through the eagle symbol. Not 100% sure yet but i'll post soon if it dovetails.
Anyone else care to comment on this?

Imaginary Mongoose Solutions

15:00 / 10.12.05

Why does it always have to be Keanu?

Apparently it's because he's actually a big PKD fan. Or so the rumor goes.

Darumesten's second variety

12:01 / 11.12.05

As far as I know, Dick had this recurrent dream when he was a kid where he searched a sci-fi magazine without results. When he found the same magazine he dreamt about in real life it contained a short story titled 'The Empire never ended'. This had a great impact on him and he later used this expression for his ideas about the continuity between roman empire and us government in his books Valis or Radio Free Albemut ..

And by the way .. heck yeah, I'm alive and back to barbelith.

17:01 / 11.12.05

Radio Free Albemuth was actually the original version of Valis, but his publisher (I think - maybe it was just him) didn't like it, so he gave the manuscript to a friend, and re-wrote it to be more sci-fi and less directly autobiographical. That version was published as Valis.

Radio Free Albemuth was only published after he died. I like it though. It works quite well in its own right, and helps to make sense of the trilogy proper.

Also, here's the Crumb comic mentioned upthread - well worth a read.