ABSTRACT
Platonism is considered to be one of the origins of the Gnostic tradition and a clear parallel can be seen between Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" and the Gnostic view of humanity imprisoned in the world. One of the defining characteristics of the Gnostic tradition is that humanity has been imprisoned in the material world by the archons through an act of deception. Like the Gnostics–and Plato–before him, PKD's metaphysics postulates that our world is a prison. According to PKD, this is a tragic realm in which we are prisoners, and the ultimate tragedy is that we do not even realise it. In his Tractates PKD contrasts the Black Iron Prison BIP with what he terms the "Palm Tree Garden" (PTG). Without citing his source, he claims the Gnostics believed in two temporal aeons: the first, or current time, characterised by evil, and the second, to come in the future, which would be benign.
