From: "Andrew M Butler" 
To: pkd@jazzflavor.com
Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 09:50:32 +0100
Subject: Re: [PKD] TTOTA: Ch 1-2

An email I sent yesterday ("all my troubles seemed so far away...") 
doesn't seem to have come through. Here's an expanded version of what 
I said.

Paul Williams tells a story of how Phil had explained the opening of 
Bishop Timothy Archer (as it then was) and Williams pointed out the 
continuity error - it's a helluva long time between the era of Pike 
and 1980. Does the novel account for this time? Various characters 
date deaths or marriage breakdowns by record releases, such as Rubber 
Soul. When was that?

In 1965-6, Pike and his son Jim spent six months on sabbatical in 
Cambridge, England, researching the Dead Sea Scrolls and aiding the 
church in Africa.  Pike returned to America separately from his son, 
whom he never saw alive again: alone in New York, Jim committed 
suicide.  On Pike’s next visit to Cambridge, with his mistress Maren 
Bergrud, Jim appeared to be making some sort of psychic contact: he 
moved postcards around and burned some of Maren’s hair.  Pike went to 
several mediums, both in Britain and back in the United States, and 
through them contacted what he assumed to be his son.  Such behaviour 
did not help Pike’s reputation; he was already being tried for 
heresy.  Although he was ultimately cleared, Pike felt unable to 
continue his bishopric and joined an interfaith foundation in Santa 
Barbara and, continuing his interest in the Dead Sea Scrolls, went to 
Israel, where he died in the desert in September 1969.

Dick knew and respected Pike, presumably from around the time of his 
conversion to Episcopalian Christianity and afterwards, whilst being 
married to Anne Rubenstein.  In fact it was he who introduced Pike to 
Maren, who was the step-mother of his fourth wife, Nancy Hackett.  In 
Counter-Clock World, Pike plays a minor role:

[T]he Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of California, James Pike, had 
been arranging to have jazz masses performed at Grace Cathedral.  . . 
. A former lawyer, active in the ACLU, one of the most brilliant and 
radical clerical figures of his time, he had become involved in what 
had become called “social action,” the issues of the day: in 
particular Negro rights.  He had for instance been at Selma with Dr. 
Martin Luther King (CCW.  4: 42).

Dick links King and Pike again in the Appendix to VALIS: “In the 
first century C.E. she [the Sibyl of Cumae] foresaw the murders of 
the Kennedy brothers, Dr. King and Bishop Pike.  . . . they stood in 
defense of the liberties of the Republic; . . . each man was a 
religious leader” (V.  A: 230).  Dick’s own friendship with Pike is 
discussed briefly in the body of the book:

Fat had known [Bishop] Jim Pike, a fact he always proudly narrated to 
people given a pretext.  . . . “Jim and his wife had driven out onto 
the Dead Sea Desert in a Ford Cortina.  They had two bottles of coca 
cola with them; that’s all.”
	. . . For years Fat had brooded about Jim Pike’s death.  He imagined 
that it was somehow tied in with the murders of the Kennedys and Dr. 
King, but he had no evidence whatsoever for it (V.  5: 76).

As indicated by the foreword to A Maze of Death, Dick and Pike had 
had theological discussions together, and presumably they must have 
also talked about the paranormal events experienced by Pike.  In 
October 1966, Dick 
attended and took notes at a seance with Nancy and Maren.  This 
sitting, where it seemed that Jim appeared, formed the inspiration 
for the seance scene in The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (TTA.  
9: 148 - 10: 158).
Cheers

Andrew M. Butler
Recruitment Secretary Science Foundation / Features Editor Vector

"When there is no hope there are only principles to follow."

Webpage at http://homepages.enterprise.net/ambutler