Speaker 1: Have you ever wondered about the nature of reality? Ever
Speaker 1: considered that the world around you might not be as
Speaker 1: it seems that it's constructed, or that your life is
Speaker 1: on a course outside of your own control. If so,
Speaker 1: you've likely stumbled upon a series of questions which have
Speaker 1: been at the core of human thinking for thousands of years,
Speaker 1: from Plato's allegory of the Cave to Descartes's evil demon.
Speaker 1: The nature of ontology, that is, the exact composition, veracity,
Speaker 1: and reality of living has given rise to a multiplicity
Speaker 1: of questions about not only our own place within the universe,
Speaker 1: but the fabric of the universe itself. We feel it
Speaker 1: acutely when we're sleeping, when our imaginations to borrow from
Speaker 1: Freud become untethered from the strictures of ego, offering us
Speaker 1: a glimpse into strange and sometimes unsettling other worlds. Dreams,
Speaker 1: and hallucinatory visions are strange frontiers that cannot be mapped
Speaker 1: with any certainty. Scientifically speaking, they are simply images conjured
Speaker 1: from the depths of our subconscious a way for our
Speaker 1: brain to process the many complex events and emotions we
Speaker 1: experience on a daily basis. But what if, as some
Speaker 1: might have as believe, there was more to these often
Speaker 1: familiar but other worldly, supposedly self made moving images. What
Speaker 1: if they weren't distorted depictions of our earthly experiences at all,
Speaker 1: but were in fact actually glimpses into other worlds. You
Speaker 1: may be familiar with Hugh Everett's many World's theory. Essentially,
Speaker 1: it posits that we exist as only one in an
Speaker 1: in series of possible worlds, so that at any given moment,
Speaker 1: there are potentially infinite versions of ourselves busily going about
Speaker 1: our lives in ways that might seem unimaginable to us. Somewhere,
Speaker 1: some version of you has died in a war. Elsewhere,
Speaker 1: you have become a famous rock star, won the lottery,
Speaker 1: received the Field's Medal for mathematics, have three heads, or
Speaker 1: were never even born. At a time when so much
Speaker 1: about the world seems untethered and beyond our control or understanding,
Speaker 1: it is hardly surprising that the many world's interpretation is
Speaker 1: now prevalent in mainstream culture. Two of Marvel's studio's most
Speaker 1: recent ventures, Spider Man No Way Home and Doctor Strange
Speaker 1: in the Multiverse of Madness, secured earnings of over two
Speaker 1: billion and one billion dollars at the box office, respectively.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty two, A twenty four's Everything Everywhere, All
Speaker 1: at Once, directed by best friends Daniel Kuan and Daniel Scheinert,
Speaker 1: took home six Academy Awards. The film was ostensibly about
Speaker 1: a mother traveling through the many worlds of Everett's theory
Speaker 1: to save her family. For the most part, it seems
Speaker 1: we have latched onto Hugh Everett's Many World's idea out
Speaker 1: of an urge to escape the uncertainty of the world,
Speaker 1: or to appease the disappointment we might feel when life
Speaker 1: and the world doesn't turn out the way we might
Speaker 1: have hoped it would. There is great comfort to be
Speaker 1: found in the possibility that out there, somewhere is a
Speaker 1: version of our world and ourselves in which everything we
Speaker 1: have ever hoped for actually comes true. Surely, as many
Speaker 1: of Everett's colleagues believed when he first proposed the idea,
Speaker 1: the notion that there might actually be infinite versions of
Speaker 1: ourselves existing out there somewhere is an utterly ludicrous proposition.
Speaker 1: And yet we need only look back at the history
Speaker 1: of our scientific understanding of the universe to see a
Speaker 1: field littered with strange, unfathomable theories, once thought ridiculous, only
Speaker 1: to later be proven to be very real. Indeed, it
Speaker 1: was back in nineteen oh five that Einstein published his
Speaker 1: Special Theory of relativity, later refined in nineteen fifteen as
Speaker 1: its General Theory of Relativity, in which he proposed that
Speaker 1: mass and energy were essentially the same thing. Einstein's theory
Speaker 1: also suggested that time is experienced differently between two individuals
Speaker 1: if they are traveling at different speeds relative to each other. However,
Speaker 1: it would be another four years before concrete proof of
Speaker 1: this theory was actually demonstrated to be true. For every
Speaker 1: minute of those intervening years, many continued to doubt it.
Speaker 1: The same with no doubt have being thought of Paul
Speaker 1: de Rack's theory on the possible existence of antimatter, which
Speaker 1: he first proposed in nineteen twenty eight, But the doubters
Speaker 1: would have been eating their words when it too was
Speaker 1: finally proven correct, also four years later. And it was
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty four when Peter Higgs theorized the possible existence
Speaker 1: of the Higgs boson, and by extension, the existence of
Speaker 1: the Higgs field, the field of energy that gives mass
Speaker 1: to fundamental particles such as quarks and electrons. Many still
Speaker 1: doubted its existence right up until the moment when, almost
Speaker 1: fifty years later, it too was finally proved to be real.
Speaker 1: In a space vically unstable and uncertain times, it can
Speaker 1: also seem as though reality is tenuous, that we live
Speaker 1: in a world not bound by strict physical laws, but
Speaker 1: something of far more insidious design, a world in which
Speaker 1: reality is decided for us in some other realm, that
Speaker 1: it is merely a fiction tramped up for the gratification
Speaker 1: of an absent audience. Take Neil Bostrom's simulation theory, for example,
Speaker 1: the concept that we might in fact be living in
Speaker 1: a simulation created by other beings. In the late twentieth century,
Speaker 1: a science fiction writer from the United States took all
Speaker 1: of these ideas and condensed them into his own brand
Speaker 1: of paranoid fantasy. Perhaps you've read one of his stories
Speaker 1: or seen one of the many films adapted from his
Speaker 1: dozens of novels. I am talking, of course, about Philip K. Dick.
Speaker 1: There are some who declare him the greatest writer of
Speaker 1: science fiction that ever lived. Others consider him a prophet
Speaker 1: fated like nostrodamis, and some believe he was nothing but
Speaker 1: a complete and utter madman. You're listening to Unexplained, and
Speaker 1: I'm Richard McLean Smith. All things considered, it was an
Speaker 1: average day in Orange County. A tepid wind was blowing
Speaker 1: in off Newport Beach, and Philip known as Phil to
Speaker 1: his friends, could almost taste something in the air. Perhaps
Speaker 1: it was the breakfast burrito he'd had that morning at
Speaker 1: the local diner, or maybe it was the series of
Speaker 1: stressful phone calls he'd had to feel from his ex
Speaker 1: wife Nancy. Whatever it was, Phil felt more apprehensive than usual,
Speaker 1: and it didn't help that he was on his way
Speaker 1: to have his wisdom tooth removed. Despite being one of
Speaker 1: the most well respected writers in the world, forty five
Speaker 1: year old Philip Kindred Dick had just endured some of
Speaker 1: the most turbulent years of his life in nineteen seventy one,
Speaker 1: after a long standing amphetamine addiction began to derail his
Speaker 1: domestic life. Phil's marriage to his fourth wife, Nancy Hackett,
Speaker 1: fell apart when she moved out of their home, taking
Speaker 1: their four year old daughter, is Old with her. Phil
Speaker 1: began indulging in a way he never had before, he
Speaker 1: often allowed other drug users to share his home with him.
Speaker 1: In November, the house was ransacked and burglarized. The increasingly
Speaker 1: paranoid Dick believed this was an attempt to undermine the
Speaker 1: work he'd been doing. When the police police investigated, however,
Speaker 1: finding no obvious suspects and nothing of value taken save
Speaker 1: for some of Dick's own personal papers, they concluded the
Speaker 1: writer had staged the robbery himself. By March of the
Speaker 1: next year, Phil upended his life and moved to Vancouver
Speaker 1: to pursue a relationship. When that too fell apart, he
Speaker 1: overdosed on potassium bromite in a desperate attempt to end
Speaker 1: his own life. It was only after being convinced by
Speaker 1: friends to return to California that he tried to get
Speaker 1: his life back on track. All at once. He found
Speaker 1: himself writing again after more than three years of writer's block,
Speaker 1: and for the first time since his divorce from Nancy,
Speaker 1: Phil was starting to feel good. It felt like nothing
Speaker 1: less than the universe giving him another chance. Now it
Speaker 1: was nineteen seventy four and Phil was convalescing after recently
Speaker 1: finishing his latest novel, A Scanner Darkly under guidance from
Speaker 1: his psychiatrist and several trusted friends and confidants. The then
Speaker 1: forty five year old author had recently started incorporating elements
Speaker 1: of his own life experience with the kind of speculative
Speaker 1: fantasy he had first become famous for. Critics were excited
Speaker 1: by what they saw as the emerging broody, paranoid texture.
Speaker 1: This lent his work almost as if the author was
Speaker 1: on the cusp of something, and Phil was satisfied that
Speaker 1: he was producing some of the most thoughtful, philosophical, even
Speaker 1: therapeutic writing of his career. On the afternoon of February twentieth,
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy four, Phil underwent an excruciating bout of dental
Speaker 1: surgery aisy from the dose of sodium pentathal. He was
Speaker 1: advised that he'd need painkillers if he was going to
Speaker 1: make it through the next few days. In peace, Phil
Speaker 1: Dulye contacted his local pharmacy and requested a home delivery
Speaker 1: of the synthetic opioid Darwin, which arrived soon after. Having
Speaker 1: taken some of the medication, Phil had just fixed himself
Speaker 1: an iced drink when his front doorbell began to ring
Speaker 1: with urgency. Not expecting any visitors. He felt a pang
Speaker 1: of anxiety at the thought of who on earth might
Speaker 1: be calling on him at this time. With no small
Speaker 1: degree of trepidation, Phil opened the front door to find
Speaker 1: the striking aspect of a dark haired, young delivery woman
Speaker 1: standing on his doorstep, a woman whom he instinctively felt
Speaker 1: reminded him of the twin sister he had never known
Speaker 1: who had died in childbirth. Taken in by the woman's
Speaker 1: beauty and something ineffable he would later struggle to explain,
Speaker 1: Phil was entranced by the golden necklace she wore over
Speaker 1: her uniform. In fact, he couldn't take his eyes off it.
Speaker 1: He asked the woman about its strange fish shaped design,
Speaker 1: something which at once felt both familiar and alien to him.
Speaker 1: What is that, he asked? The woman smiled. It's the
Speaker 1: symbol early Christians used to signal one another, she said.
Speaker 1: The vesicle pie SATs, or christian icthus perhaps better known
Speaker 1: as the Jesus fish, consists of a simple fish shaped
Speaker 1: insignia fashioned out of one continuous loop or line. As
Speaker 1: the woman turned to leave, Phil noted that the sun
Speaker 1: on his porch seemed to then suddenly shine brighter, that
Speaker 1: it's energy almost seemed concentrated on the pendant as one
Speaker 1: of the Sun's rays made contact with the Iicthus, its
Speaker 1: glancing reflection threw off an intense beam of pink light.
Speaker 1: It struck Phil on the forehead, leaving him momentarily mesmerized.
Speaker 1: Moments later, the woman was gone back alone inside his house.
Speaker 1: Phil couldn't be sure how he knew, but he felt
Speaker 1: that in that moment he'd been gifted with a long
Speaker 1: dormant sense of wisdom and clairvoyance, that the pink light
Speaker 1: had been intelligent, even tangible in form. Over the next
Speaker 1: few days, Phil later claimed to have experienced several intense visions,
Speaker 1: visions which he at first dismissed as hallucinatory, but that
Speaker 1: he gradually came to believe were revealing the true nature
Speaker 1: of the universe to his Phil's visions apparently came in
Speaker 1: the form of words that he both saw and heard,
Speaker 1: as well as elaborate pictures, figures of people, and the
Speaker 1: frequently repeated motif of words printed on a page. It
Speaker 1: was as if quote sights of his brain were being
Speaker 1: selectively stimulated by energy beams emanating from far off, perhaps
Speaker 1: millions of miles away. He believed it was a message
Speaker 1: coming directly from God. He remained house bound for several
Speaker 1: days as the messages kept on coming, later telling a
Speaker 1: journalist that it seemed to him that his mind had
Speaker 1: been invaded by another transcendentally rational mind. He felt as
Speaker 1: though he had been insane all his life, but was
Speaker 1: now now finally, saying, though the frequency of the visions
Speaker 1: gradually began to wear off, their intensity seemed only to grow,
Speaker 1: moving from the conceptual to the physical, and several weeks
Speaker 1: after the initial event, he still found himself at their mercy.
Speaker 1: That any of this was the consequence of the high
Speaker 1: strength medication Dick had been taking was an impossibility to him.
Speaker 1: As something of a self proclaimed authority on casual drug use,
Speaker 1: he knew of no drug he had taken before that
Speaker 1: would have affected him so strongly for such a long
Speaker 1: period of time. Dick's strange visions continued periodically into March.
Speaker 1: He began to document them in a series of journal
Speaker 1: entries he referred to as two three seventy four or
Speaker 1: February to March seventy four. The visions were said to
Speaker 1: mostly comprise of complex geometric patterns, before later becoming vivid
Speaker 1: images of Jesus Christ, and even depictions of the plight
Speaker 1: of the early Christians and the corruption at the heart
Speaker 1: of the ancient Roman Empire. It was Phil's absolute conviction
Speaker 1: that this information was wholly in origin, and thus should
Speaker 1: be regarded as a form of scripture. One night, Phil
Speaker 1: was apparently woken by the sudden re emergence of the
Speaker 1: strange pink light. In that moment, he was filled with
Speaker 1: the complete certainty that his youngest son, Christopher, was gravely ill,
Speaker 1: and that he needed medical attention before it worsened irrevocably.
Speaker 1: The problem he was supposedly in that moment being made
Speaker 1: acutely aware of was something to do with an undiagnosed hernia.
Speaker 1: After pleading with the boy's mother, Tessa that he needed
Speaker 1: to be taken seriously, she and Phil rushed Christopher to
Speaker 1: hospital in a panic. Unknown to Phil at the time,
Speaker 1: the child had indeed been suffering from a vague abdominal complaint.
Speaker 1: The doctor found nothing wrong with him, but Phil insisted
Speaker 1: they give his son a scan, much to the doctor's astonishment.
Speaker 1: There in the boy's bow region was a clear herniation,
Speaker 1: for which the boy was promptly treated Throughout the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: Phil's visions increased in duration and frequency, though by now
Speaker 1: the author was so inured to their message that they
Speaker 1: no longer frightened him. He began to regard them as
Speaker 1: a gift. By the time nineteen eighty came around, Phil
Speaker 1: now claimed that he was living to para lives, one
Speaker 1: as Philip K. Dick, writer father occasional person of interest
Speaker 1: for the FBI, the other as a man named Thomas
Speaker 1: an icthus swearing Christian and revolutionary who was persecuted by
Speaker 1: the Romans in the first century AD. Throughout it all,
Speaker 1: the pink Light had continued to visit him. He was
Speaker 1: now unequivocal in his belief that it really was some
Speaker 1: kind of rational mind in its own right. Sometimes he
Speaker 1: called it Zebra, other times God, though the name he
Speaker 1: most frequently used for it was the one he would
Speaker 1: eventually choose for one of his most divisive and controversial novels, Vallis,
Speaker 1: in which he presented, through his alter ego horse Lover Fat,
Speaker 1: much of what had been occurring to him. One evening, Valis,
Speaker 1: all Vast active living in teens eligent system told Phil
Speaker 1: that the reason for its communication with him was simple,
Speaker 1: the people of Earth were being silently controlled by an
Speaker 1: underground cabal with its roots in the Roman Empire. At
Speaker 1: the head of this cabal who had to be taken
Speaker 1: down in order for the descendants of Vallas's true messenger,
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ to continue their work liberating humankind from its
Speaker 1: universal blindness. Phil would later claim that the Watergate scandal
Speaker 1: of August nineteen seventy four, which ultimately led to the
Speaker 1: resignation of Nixon from high office, marked the final downfall
Speaker 1: of this hidden Roman Empire. Philip K. Dick published Vallis
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty one. In it, his alter ego horse
Speaker 1: lover Fats communication with the godhead Valis ultimately leads to
Speaker 1: an elaborate encounter with the fifth Savior of the universe,
Speaker 1: a two year old Messiah figure named Sophia Lampton. Quite
Speaker 1: why Dick chose to first render his apparent real life
Speaker 1: experiences through the medium of fiction is not entirely clear,
Speaker 1: though what we do know about his private beliefs regarding
Speaker 1: his alleged contact with the divine was later recorded in
Speaker 1: a nine hundred page journal known as The Exegesis. What
Speaker 1: makes this a compelling story and not one which can
Speaker 1: easily be dismissed as the delusions of a man plagued
Speaker 1: by mental illness and drug addiction. Is that Dick himself
Speaker 1: struggled with its veracity as a narrative. Using the figure
Speaker 1: of horse lover Fat to outline his concerns, Dick not
Speaker 1: only provided the supernatural explanation to everything that had befallen him,
Speaker 1: but also offers up several lucid, rationalist explanations about what
Speaker 1: may have transpired. Philip K. Dick was well aware that
Speaker 1: visual and auditory hallucinations could sometimes seem persuasive to the sufferer,
Speaker 1: even going so far as to question whether schizophrenia, bipolar
Speaker 1: induced psychosis, or flashbacks could be responsible. Having spent significant
Speaker 1: time in psychiatric hospitals over the years owing to multiple
Speaker 1: suicide attempts, phil knew only too well about the counter
Speaker 1: arguments in Valis. He outlined them with care and precision,
Speaker 1: ultimately leaving the reader to make up their own mind
Speaker 1: about whether the trials of Horse lover Fat had been
Speaker 1: self generated or really had come from some higher power.
Speaker 1: Perhaps what this all comes back to relates to what
Speaker 1: we discussed at the beginning of the show. If the
Speaker 1: universe really is as complex as quantum mechanics theorizes, and
Speaker 1: the Many World's theory proves to be correct, then surely
Speaker 1: it must follow that some version of Philip K. Dick
Speaker 1: will have had these experiences somewhere, even if in this
Speaker 1: timeline they arose simply from mental illness or drug induced psychosis.
Speaker 1: In his nineteen sixty nine semi autobiographical novel slaughter House Five,
Speaker 1: Kurt Vonnegut envisioned a fourth dimensional race of beings called Trouphammadorians.
Speaker 1: These aliens are imbued with the power to traverse the universe,
Speaker 1: as well as the latent ability to observe all points
Speaker 1: within the space time continuum. They treat death as barely
Speaker 1: registrable on their infinite timeline, a non event that interrupts
Speaker 1: rather than ends proceedings. They see the past, present, and
Speaker 1: future simultaneously. They embody both free will and determinism, chaos
Speaker 1: and order, and for them, death is merely the transfer
Speaker 1: of energy from one state to another. It is comforting
Speaker 1: to think that in some other reality the people we've
Speaker 1: been bereaved by are still happily living their lives. It
Speaker 1: also provides comfort to think that somewhere we are right,
Speaker 1: even if in this universe our actions or beliefs have
Speaker 1: proved wrong. For centuries, we lived under the presupposition that
Speaker 1: the universe works entirely within the realm of Newtonian mechanics,
Speaker 1: that it is a kind of giant clock, with each
Speaker 1: of its components in perfect harmonious working order. In reality,
Speaker 1: what quantum mechanics proves, and the many as yet still
Speaker 1: unproven theories like Everett's Many Worlds suggest the universe is
Speaker 1: vastly more complex. An antecedent to the many world's interpretation
Speaker 1: developed by Hugh Everett can be found in the double
Speaker 1: slit experiment. It is, according to Richard Feynman, the experiment
Speaker 1: with which all of the mystery of quantum mechanics can
Speaker 1: be found. The experiment was first devised by Thomas Young
Speaker 1: in eighteen o one and revealed that photons of light
Speaker 1: also behave like waves. In the experiment, photons of light
Speaker 1: are fired at a screen with two slits cut out
Speaker 1: of it, with another screen behind to record the pattern
Speaker 1: they make. You might assume the resultant pattern recorded on
Speaker 1: the back screen would mimic the shape of the slits,
Speaker 1: creating two matching lines in the manner of a stencil. Instead,
Speaker 1: it creates a wave interference pattern of many strips of
Speaker 1: light interspersed with darkness. Subsequently, however, the experiment revealed something
Speaker 1: even more staggering that when single particles, be they photons
Speaker 1: of light or electrons, have fired one at a time
Speaker 1: through the slits, an interference pattern is still generated behind
Speaker 1: the screen, suggesting the single particles are somehow interfering with themselves.
Speaker 1: As if that weren't strange enough, if you place a
Speaker 1: device next to the slits to detect which particle go
Speaker 1: through which slits exactly, the pattern generated behind the slits
Speaker 1: is not one of wave interference, but rather two lines
Speaker 1: that mimic the shape of the slits. After all. In
Speaker 1: other words, it seems to suggest that a subatomic particle
Speaker 1: is not one single thing, but that it exists rather
Speaker 1: as a probability of possibilities until it is observed. Though
Speaker 1: the true implication of the double slit experiment has yet
Speaker 1: to be established, it has led to some interesting interpretations,
Speaker 1: chief among them being the idea that it is consciousness
Speaker 1: that somehow fixes what could potentially be an infinite amount
Speaker 1: of possible realities into the one that we actually experience,
Speaker 1: a fanciful notion, perhaps, but one that at least allows
Speaker 1: for the poetic idea that perhaps we really do hold
Speaker 1: the power to make our own reality, and that other
Speaker 1: worlds are always possible and always existing side by side
Speaker 1: in one way or another. I'll leave you with the
Speaker 1: beautiful poem Snow by Lewis mcneie. Yes, the room was
Speaker 1: suddenly rich, and the great bay window was spawning snow
Speaker 1: and pink roses against it, soundlessly, collateral and incompatible. World
Speaker 1: is suddener than we fancy it. World is crazier and
Speaker 1: more of it than we think, encourageably plural, I peel
Speaker 1: and portion are tangerine and spit the pips and feel
Speaker 1: the drunkenness of things being various, and the fire flames
Speaker 1: with a bubbling sound. For world is more spiteful and
Speaker 1: gay than one supposes on the tongue, on the eyes,
Speaker 1: on the ears, in the palms of one's hands. There
Speaker 1: is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.
Speaker 1: Thank you, as ever for listening to the show. Please
Speaker 1: subscribe and rate it if you haven't already done so.
Speaker 1: In some other news, unexplained will be coming to YouTube
Speaker 1: very shortly in video form, so please watch out for
Speaker 1: future developments there. You can subscribe to the channel at
Speaker 1: YouTube dot com Forward slash at Unexplained Pod. You can
Speaker 1: also now find us on TikTok at TikTok dot com.
Speaker 1: Forward slash at Unexplained Podcast. This week's episode was written
Speaker 1: by James Connor Patterson and produced by me Richard McClain Smith.
Speaker 1: James is a brilliant writer and poet. His debut collection
Speaker 1: of poems titled Bandit Country, exploring the hinterland between the
Speaker 1: North of Ireland and Republic, was shortlisted for the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two ts Eliot Prize and is out now to buy.
Speaker 1: Do check it out Unexplained as an av Club Productions
Speaker 1: podcast created by Richard McClain Smith. All other elements of
Speaker 1: the podcast, including the music, are also produced by me
Speaker 1: Richard McClain smith. Unexplained. The book and audiobook is now
Speaker 1: available to buy worldwide. You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes
Speaker 1: and Noble, Waterstones and other bookstores. Please subscribe to and
Speaker 1: rate the show wherever you get your podcasts, and feel
Speaker 1: free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas
Speaker 1: regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you
Speaker 1: have an explanation of your own you'd like to share.
Speaker 1: You can find out more at Unexplained podcast dot com
Speaker 1: and reach us online through Twitter at Unexplained Pod and
Speaker 1: Facebook at Facebook dot com. Forward Slash Unexplained Podcast m