Philip K. Dick’s FBI File and the Bizarre Neo-Nazi Plot to Trigger the Third World War

The Following is from this Fortean Times article:

On 20 February 1974, Philip K. Dick was recovering at home from the effects of sodium pentothal, administered after the extraction of an impacted wisdom tooth. Answering the door to receive a delivery of additional painkillers, he noticed that the delivery woman was wearing a pendant displaying what he later described as the “vesicle pisces”. After her departure, Dick began experi­encing strange visions of laser beams, geometric patterns, Jesus, and ancient Rome.

As the visions increased, Dick came to the remarkable conclusion that he was being contacted by some form of higher power that he referred to as Valis – an acronym for ‘Vast Active Living Intelligence System’. Struggling to comprehend what was occurring, Dick kept an extensive journal, entitled the Exegesis, which ultimately ran to 8,000 pages of religious speculation.

Over time, Dick’s odd beliefs and worldview became increasingly paranoid. He believed that Valis had specifically contacted him as part of an attempt to have President Richard M. Nixon impeached, and he believed that he was being persecuted by both the FBI and the KGB.

And, as a result of seeing dark conspir­acies here, there, and everywhere, Dick wrote to FBI Headquarters on 15 August 1975 requesting the declassification of his own FBI file – a file that throws a great deal of light on the man, his motivations, and his unusual beliefs.

MR SCRUGGS AND MR SMITH
Dick knew that there had to be an FBI file on his activities because, as he told the Bureau in the letter requesting access to it: “In the early ’fifties, two agents of the FBI, Mr George Scruggs and Mr George Smith, approached me.”

Undoubtedly, one of the prime reasons why Dick attracted attention from the FBI was a series of bizarre letters he penned to the Bureau in the early 1970s, in which he described his personal knowledge of an alleged underground Nazi cabal that was attempting to covertly manipulate science fiction writers to further advance its hidden cause.

And the nature of that cause was even more bizarre: to initiate a Third World War by infecting the American population with syphilis. On 28 October 1972, Dick wrote to the FBI and outlined his distinctly odd beliefs:

“I am a well-known author of science fiction novels, one of which dealt with Nazi Germany (called MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE, it described an ‘alternate world’ in which the Germans and Japanese won World War Two and jointly occupied the United States).

“This novel, published in 1962 by Putnam and Co., won the Hugo Award for Best Novel of the Year and hence was widely read both here and abroad; for example, a Japanese edition printed in Tokyo ran into several editions. I bring this to your attention because several months ago I was approached by an individual who I have reason to believe belonged to a covert organization involved in politics, illegal weapons, etc., who put great pressure on me to place coded information in future novels ‘to be read by the right people here and there’, as he phrased it. I refused to do this.”

Dick then elaborated on his unusual theories:

“The reason why I am contacting you about this now is that it now appears that other science fiction writers may have been so approached by other members of this obviously Anti-American organization and may have yielded to the threats and deceitful statements such as were used on me. Therefore I would like to give you any and all information and help I can regarding this, and I ask that your nearest office contact me as soon as possible.

“I stress the urgency of this because within the last three days I have come across a well-distributed science fiction novel which contains in essence the vital material which this individual confronted with me as the basis for encoding. That novel is CAMP CONCENTRATION by Thomas Disch, which was published by Doubleday & Co.

“P.S. I would like to add: what alarms me the most is that this covert organization which approached me may be Neo-Nazi, although it did not identify itself as being such. My novels are extremely anti-Nazi. I heard only one code identification by this individual: Solarcon-6.”

Read the rest here.