Haseeb Ali Chishti | Birkbeck College, University of London (original) (raw)

Papers by Haseeb Ali Chishti

Philip K. Dick, one of the most visionary practitioners of science fiction in the 20th century ex... more Philip K. Dick, one of the most visionary practitioners of science fiction in the 20th century experienced a series of quasi-mystical events starting in February 1974 that profoundly altered the course of his life and his work. Known by the shorthand of 2-3-74, these experiences defy rational explanation, something Dick himself would attest to as he spent the remaining 8 years of his life obsessively trying to figure them out. By focusing on Dick's work during and after 2-3-74, the novels A Scanner Darkly (1977), VALIS (1981) and The Divine Invasion (1981), this thesis will argue that the events of 2-3-74 led Dick back from an abyss and gave his work a new direction. Dick's work, so overtly social and political in nature, will provide the backdrop to critically examine the decade of excess, the swinging 60's in America and will show how Dick's fiction had reached the same impasse that the counter-culture had reached in its promises of revolution and a new mode of consciousness in society. Using the works of such cultural theorists as Zygmunt Bauman, Anthony Giddens and Daniel Bell, Dick's vitriolic A Scanner Darkly will reveal the end of the road that Dick was travelling on and VALIS and The Divine Invasion¸ both works which deal with 2-3-74 will help us construct a map for the trajectory that Dick's work took after 2-3-74. Leo Tolstoy's A Confession (1882) will elucidate the universality of Dick's despair and using William James's excellent study, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) as a backdrop, the thesis will also compare Dick's experiences with those of Carl Jung, who's experiments with his own unconscious, documented in Liber Novus (2009) have finally seen the light of day after almost a century of secrecy and who's analytic experiments bore similar fruit to Dick's own metanoia.

swan song, the trilogy of novels -Cities of the Red Night (1981), The Place of Dead Roads (1983) ... more swan song, the trilogy of novels -Cities of the Red Night (1981), The Place of Dead Roads (1983) and The Western Lands (1987) -are a radical transformation and reimagining of the history and destiny of Western civilization while at the same time concerned with the autonomy and self-actualization of individuals living in such a civilization. Among the multiple story lines that interweave throughout the texts two things stand out: Immortality and Space. For Burroughs immortality and space are inextricably tied together; it is only by the leap into space that he envisages immortality to be within our reach, but this immortality is no craven attempt to hold on to life; immortality for Burroughs is clarified in The Western Lands as 'purpose and function' 2 , the purpose being the journey into Space which Phil Baker has remarked, in his book William S. Burroughs (2010), represents 'freedom from past conditioning, words, time and the body' 3 .

Nothing is unclear to the understanding; it is only when we fail to understand that things appear... more Nothing is unclear to the understanding; it is only when we fail to understand that things appear unintelligible and confused. 1 Carl Jung might have formulated this aphorism with regard to psychic illness and the dangers of naïve interpretation but it applies equally well to complicated and potentially fatal physical illnesses which defy attempts at establishing direct causation. Carl Jung's Modern Man In Search Of A Soul provides a highly insightful look at the lack of a sense of meaning in life which he claims is the crisis that guarantees all the other social crises that man faced in the 20 th century and which have shown no signs of abatement in the 21 st . Taking Modern Man as the starting point, this essay will seek to establish the link between the crisis of meaning in life that Jung elucidated and the need of people suffering from illness to find meaning and purpose behind their illness because, ultimately, regaining health is not the only concern of the ill. As Bernie Siegel very succinctly phrases it in his best-selling book, Love, Medicine and Miracles: 'Getting well is not the only goal. Even more important is learning to live without fear, to be at peace with life, and ultimately death.' 2 This essay aims to evaluate the insistently optimistic attitude towards life-threatening illnesses such as cancer that is espoused by the growing body of literature on self-help and alternative, holistic therapies and the relationship between the self and the illness that these self-help books help cultivate. A term such as self-help is ambiguous and has been used in a variety of contexts; for the purposes of this essay self-help will refer to the healthy-minded outlook and insistent optimism towards serious and often incurable illnesses that is popularised by authors such as Bernie Siegel and Norman Cousins. These eulogise a program of self-healing; the aim of these guides is to release our 'vis medicatrix naturae' 3 or the healing power that we contain within ourselves as Norman Cousins described in his pathography, Anatomy of an Illness, one

Philip K. Dick, one of the most visionary practitioners of science fiction in the 20th century ex... more Philip K. Dick, one of the most visionary practitioners of science fiction in the 20th century experienced a series of quasi-mystical events starting in February 1974 that profoundly altered the course of his life and his work. Known by the shorthand of 2-3-74, these experiences defy rational explanation, something Dick himself would attest to as he spent the remaining 8 years of his life obsessively trying to figure them out. By focusing on Dick's work during and after 2-3-74, the novels A Scanner Darkly (1977), VALIS (1981) and The Divine Invasion (1981), this thesis will argue that the events of 2-3-74 led Dick back from an abyss and gave his work a new direction. Dick's work, so overtly social and political in nature, will provide the backdrop to critically examine the decade of excess, the swinging 60's in America and will show how Dick's fiction had reached the same impasse that the counter-culture had reached in its promises of revolution and a new mode of consciousness in society. Using the works of such cultural theorists as Zygmunt Bauman, Anthony Giddens and Daniel Bell, Dick's vitriolic A Scanner Darkly will reveal the end of the road that Dick was travelling on and VALIS and The Divine Invasion¸ both works which deal with 2-3-74 will help us construct a map for the trajectory that Dick's work took after 2-3-74. Leo Tolstoy's A Confession (1882) will elucidate the universality of Dick's despair and using William James's excellent study, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) as a backdrop, the thesis will also compare Dick's experiences with those of Carl Jung, who's experiments with his own unconscious, documented in Liber Novus (2009) have finally seen the light of day after almost a century of secrecy and who's analytic experiments bore similar fruit to Dick's own metanoia.

swan song, the trilogy of novels -Cities of the Red Night (1981), The Place of Dead Roads (1983) ... more swan song, the trilogy of novels -Cities of the Red Night (1981), The Place of Dead Roads (1983) and The Western Lands (1987) -are a radical transformation and reimagining of the history and destiny of Western civilization while at the same time concerned with the autonomy and self-actualization of individuals living in such a civilization. Among the multiple story lines that interweave throughout the texts two things stand out: Immortality and Space. For Burroughs immortality and space are inextricably tied together; it is only by the leap into space that he envisages immortality to be within our reach, but this immortality is no craven attempt to hold on to life; immortality for Burroughs is clarified in The Western Lands as 'purpose and function' 2 , the purpose being the journey into Space which Phil Baker has remarked, in his book William S. Burroughs (2010), represents 'freedom from past conditioning, words, time and the body' 3 .

Nothing is unclear to the understanding; it is only when we fail to understand that things appear... more Nothing is unclear to the understanding; it is only when we fail to understand that things appear unintelligible and confused. 1 Carl Jung might have formulated this aphorism with regard to psychic illness and the dangers of naïve interpretation but it applies equally well to complicated and potentially fatal physical illnesses which defy attempts at establishing direct causation. Carl Jung's Modern Man In Search Of A Soul provides a highly insightful look at the lack of a sense of meaning in life which he claims is the crisis that guarantees all the other social crises that man faced in the 20 th century and which have shown no signs of abatement in the 21 st . Taking Modern Man as the starting point, this essay will seek to establish the link between the crisis of meaning in life that Jung elucidated and the need of people suffering from illness to find meaning and purpose behind their illness because, ultimately, regaining health is not the only concern of the ill. As Bernie Siegel very succinctly phrases it in his best-selling book, Love, Medicine and Miracles: 'Getting well is not the only goal. Even more important is learning to live without fear, to be at peace with life, and ultimately death.' 2 This essay aims to evaluate the insistently optimistic attitude towards life-threatening illnesses such as cancer that is espoused by the growing body of literature on self-help and alternative, holistic therapies and the relationship between the self and the illness that these self-help books help cultivate. A term such as self-help is ambiguous and has been used in a variety of contexts; for the purposes of this essay self-help will refer to the healthy-minded outlook and insistent optimism towards serious and often incurable illnesses that is popularised by authors such as Bernie Siegel and Norman Cousins. These eulogise a program of self-healing; the aim of these guides is to release our 'vis medicatrix naturae' 3 or the healing power that we contain within ourselves as Norman Cousins described in his pathography, Anatomy of an Illness, one