Again, the point here is not to seek to argue on behalf of Dick as an inspired seer, or even -- necessarily -- as a "sane" human being. (There is no proof possible as to the sanity or insanity of Philip K. Dick.)* Rather, it is to challenge the reader to resist labels and to plunge into the ideas expressed in the texts themselves, and to wrest from them what seems useful and vital without regard to predisposing diagnostic labels. One might further urge that readers suspend their tendency to read Dick's metaphysical writings with belief or disbelief foremost in mind. For Dick, as the writings themselves reveal, had no pointedly persuasive intentions with respect to the reader. In turn, those readers who refuse to worry over whether Dick persuades them on any particular points may find that he illumines any number of prospective paths for further exploration. There is a beauty and a visionary intensity to the possibilities Dick offers, as in "Cosmogony and Cosmology," a 1978 essay in which Dick sought to distill key concepts of the Exegesis. The divine form discussed is that of a righteous Godhead (akin to the redeeming Logos of the Gnostics) who has lost the memory of himself as the true creator and has ceded control of the earthly realm to a blind and ignorant demiurge or "artifact." This "artifact" (akin to the Gnostic Archon) holds all humans in its delusional thrall, and even the Godhead must struggle against it.**

* There is a considerable range of quality in the attempts to apply diagnostic measures to Dick's life and writings. Jay Kinney, for example, offers a thoughtful and subtle comparison between schizophrenic and shamanic states in his "Wrestling with Angels: The Mystical Dilemma of Philip K. Dick" (published in In Pursuit of Valis). In the writings of Gregg Rickman, however, diagnoses of Dick abound and are relentlessly flogged despite the highly inconclusive evidence.