RECORD
Ubik
- Title:
- Ubik
- Author:
- Phillip K. Dick
- Date of Publication:
- 1969
- Description:
- Ubik is a 1969 science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick. The story is set in a future 1992 where psychic powers are utilized in corporate espionage, while cryonic technology allows recently deceased people to be maintained in a lengthy state of hibernation. It follows Joe Chip, a technician at a psychic agency who begins to experience strange alterations in reality that can be temporarily reversed by a mysterious store-bought substance called Ubik. This work expands upon characters and concepts previously introduced in the vignette "What the Dead Men Say". (Source: Wikipedia)
- Keywords:
- Afterlife Holy People Omens & Visions Psyche Transcendence
- Religions:
-
Christianity-Protestant minorBuddhism-Theravada major
- Locations:
-
United States major
- Wikidata Entity ID:
- https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q617357
- Open Library ID:
- https://openlibrary.org/works/OL9002759M
- Item Type:
- Text
- Item Image Format:
- image/jpeg
Keyword Engagements
- Afterlife
- In Philip K. Dick’s Ubik, death is merely a barrier between one world and another. After death, a person is put in Cold-pac, where their remaining life, known as half-life, can be accessed in organizations known as Moratoriums. In a Moratorium, a person from the physical world can communicate with the dead who remain in half-life. When a bomb blast appears to kill Glen Runciter, the group that accompanies him desperately attempt to get him into half-life before his time runs out. But as the world around them appears to revert back in time, they start to question who is dead, and who is alive.
- Holy People
- Philip K. Dick’s Ubik explores holy people as guides that bridge gaps between the spiritual and material realm. Glen Runciter and his wife Ella are the primary guides in the novel, with Glen presumably occupying the material realm, while Ella remains in the spiritual realm of half-life. Glen initially communicates with his associates, trapped in half-life, through cryptic texts, such as bathroom scrawls or hidden notes, before he finally manages to directly communicate with Joe Chip, one of his most trusted associates. Meanwhile, Ella, residing in half-life, guides and sustains those who degrade rapidly in half-life, thanks to her invention, the Ubik spray.
- Omens & Visions
- In Ubik, Philip K. Dick explores psychic powers in individuals, many of whom experience visions prior to a bomb blast that leaves them, or their boss, Glen Runciter, dead. The visions center around two people, Bill and Matt, who claim that they are out to “get” them. While the interpretation of what the visions mean is left intentionally vague, each person who experiences a visitation ends up dying, seemingly from decay, in half-life. Joe Chip also experiences what can be considered a vision when Glen Runciter appears, almost like an apparition, in Joe’s hotel room, giving him a can of Ubik to cure his decaying body. After healing Joe, Runciter vanishes without a trace.
- Psyche
- In Philip K. Dick’s Ubik, some people are classified as telepaths. These people have psychic powers that enable them to intuit or alter the world in various ways, such as granting telepaths visions of the future, or the ability to reshape the present by altering the past. Further, the novel explores how perceptions can misguide and deceive. The predominant viewpoint character, Joe Chip, assumes that he is alive, while his boss, Glen Runciter is dead. This assumption is later turned around, when it is revealed that Joe and his companions are dead, while Runciter is alive. Yet the novel ends with a reveal that sows doubt even about Runciter’s place in the world.
- Transcendence
- Philip K. Dick’s Ubik explores a world beyond the material realm, where those who die are suspended in half-life, still capable of communicating with those in the material world. The spiritual realm in which those suspended in half-life find themselves appears to be like the material world in the novel. Yet a presence in the spiritual realm actively feeds on its inhabitants, and can revert locations, items, and people to previous forms. What was initially a mirror of the 1992 setting of the novel slowly reverts to a 1939 version, where only a can of Ubik, a special form of salvation, can temporarily halt the reversion process.
Attribution
- Citation:
- "Ubik", Mapping Religion in the Global Anglophone Novel (MaRGAN), https://ghjensen.github.io/margan/items/margan008.html
Rights
- Rights:
- Metadata and other content produced by the MaRGAN team for this website is free for teaching and research purposes, provided appropriate credit is given. See https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ for more information.
- Standardized Rights:
- https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/