The key to understanding the universe in Ubik is in the repeated references to the Tibetan Book of the Dead, which acts as the primary text to understand the concept of half-life in the story. The book is based mainly on the idea of intermediate stages in existence, all central to the Buddhist concept of life, death, and transcendence. These beliefs become valuable to the people in the future Dick envisions, who have engineered a very literal intermediate stage between life and death. But the ideas found in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and related beliefs, extend far beyond this one concept in Ubik, but are present in almost every facet of it. The world is presented as a series of intermediate stages in existence, where life and physicality, death and the mind, intermingle and change state constantly. This all plays into Dick’s usual wheelhouse of perception and reality, but adds a spiritual bent to it.

Right off the hop, we are told that the boundaries between lives has been irreversibly altered by the existence of telepaths, represented by Ray Hollis, and the prudence organizations, represented by Glen Runciter – the basic concepts of personal privacy and even the mind itself are now dubious, as people live in constant awareness that someone, somewhere, can read their thoughts (or, in the case of Pat, alter reality itself). But the reality where minds intermingle via telepathy is really no different than the sort of floating cloud existence present in the moratoriums, where the weakened remnants of the minds (which in that context are presented as synonymous with the idea of a soul) co-habitate some invisible space, which of course causes frustration for those trying to speak to the half-lifers (like Glen Runciter does, repeatedly.) This may provide an explanation for why it took the characters so long to realize that they were now in half-life – it is largely the same, at least in their basic interactions with the world. Our very basic understanding of reality, then, is initially distorted, which plays into the book’s later delving into stages of existence, which are based entirely on the mind/soul on its own. This also plays into the zinger ending, which forces the reader to question every level of reality they thought they understood, as it shows all levels of reality intermingling.

The concept of karma, central to Buddhism, is not explicitly mentioned in the book, but it apparently exists in it – which explains why Ella Runciter, ringleader of the angelic forces attempting to protect the half-lifers from the demonic Jory, is set to be reincarnated. With that, we can see that this follows the cyclical nature of existence, with rebirth seen as a sort of reward, even if it only continues that cycle. It is certainly seen as preferable to the existence of Joe Chip, forced to fend off decay (which acts as a visual representation of “real” death), and Jory, who clings on to his intermediate existence by bringing on the decay in others. There are definitely Western religious overtones in the book, this primacy of existence being one of them, but the idea of escaping this form of “immortality” subverts it somewhat – the desired destiny of a virtuous human usually is to be rewarded with such a state, by Dick portrays it as a hellish realm where death is even more of an omnipresent threat. This mixture of western and eastern philosophies is, once again, foretold by the references to the Tibetan Book of the Dead early on.

Focusing on the eastern religions for a bit, one concept I found particularly interesting when seen in conjunction with Ubik is the preta, or hungry ghost. These beings exist at the extremes of physical desires due to their karma in their previous life, which in some ways could be considered the ultimate ironic lesson in philosophy of rejecting material matters. All of Runciter’s psychics, as well as Jory, could be described as being in this “hungry” state of existence – always seeking some form of reality, but finding it always out of reach. This can be seen in the frequent imagery of food (and more importantly for Joe Chip, cigarettes) rotting away before them, which also serves to demonstrate the haphazard way the “false” reality of half-life is constructed, falling away and reverting and never being able to maintain form. The agonizing “rotting” deaths of the psychics also corresponds to the description of the pretas as being corpse-like. Jory, in his “hungry ghost” stage, has become a menace, his hunger being for continued existence which he is able to maintain by devouring other souls in half-life. We can see this as having a karmic angle to it as well – he is only able to do this because his family abuses their wealth to keep his destruction quiet – and it serves as an effective punishment as well – after all, how can an eternal life in the intermediate realm be preferable to the continuing of the cycle as seen in Ella’s rebirth? Both of these, in a way, seem to be based in maintaining a material existence, but one is doing so through selfish, entirely material means and the other through spiritual ones.

The way Dick fuses science fiction concepts with spirituality is a fascinating read, although it may not be immediately evident until the later in the book. The use of psychics at first forces to question reality and the characters’ perception, but things get much more complicated very quickly as we see how they relate to the multiple levels of reality and the stages between life and death, which were also foretold by those references to the Tibetan Book of the Dead. In a way, it almost seems like a red herring – the psychics and anti-psychics prove to be no more in control of reality than the normal folks trapped in half-life, but they do provide an effective bridge from the science fiction view of reality to a more religious one, as the ideas of mind and soul gradually become one.

Share this: Twitter

Facebook

Like this: Like Loading... Related

Tags: Novel, Philip K. Dick, Science Fiction