ABSTRACT

In Carl G. Jung's psychology, the self is considered to be a God-image, a symbolic representation of the inner conceptualisation of God, which is, simultaneously, the centre of the totality of consciousness as the union of all opposites within consciousness. The concept of an emissary, or its equivalent, is also central to Philip K. Dick's (PKD) Gnostic system. In his Exegesis, he acknowledges that he is rather taken by the idea of a "kind stranger God intruding into our screwed up chaotic world". In the Tractates Cryptica Scriptura, PKD refers to this spiritual physician, in other words, his Gnostic emissary, by the neologism plasmate, an immortal form of energy which he defines as living information and which he identifies with the Holy Spirit. Through a process he describes as cross-bonding, the plasmate can unite with a human being such that the human is permanently annexed to the plasmate, resulting in a further PKD neologism, a homoplasmate, a divine-human syzygy.