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“Science fiction is one of the best psychedelics around” - some Youtube video I can’t
find in my watch history.
I have no reason to doubt the veracity of that statement. In theory, a great novel
should have many of the same effects that psychedelic drugs such as LSD or
Ayahuasca are purported to have. A reader of great science fiction should feel that they
are taken to another world, one not totally separate from our own but more complex
than just a mirror image. The reader should encounter characters or ideas that reflect
perspectives and archetypes that will provide both immense joy in knowing and
immense frustration in their inscrutability. And of course, a reader of great science fiction
should feel themselves changed after the trip.
Alongside the abstract parallels found in the experiences are real world
connections that have tied the two. Two renowned authors who traded in psychedelics
and science fiction were Aldous Huxley and Phillip K. Dick (PKD). For Huxley, both
seem objects of study. His works Brave New World, Ape and Essence, and Island all
use futuristic settings and the trappings of the sci-fi novel to explore his thoughts on
everything from sex and evolution to total isolation in society. Outside of these works,
although they were clearly influenced, Huxley is perhaps most famous for his essay The
Doors of Perception. In this essay Huxley details his experience using the psychedelic
drug mescaline in May of 1954. Dick’s life and writing were more closely intertwined with
the psychedelic. In fact, if it can be said that two of Huxley’s interests were psychedelics
and science fiction, then it can be said that Dick had one interest: psychedelic science
fiction. Experimenting heavily with psychedelic drugs throughout his career (as well as
habitually smoking marijuana), Dick’s science fiction began coming closer and closer to
the author’s real-world ideas and questions about religion, consciousness, and the limits
of the human mind. In one of his final works, VALIS, the barrier between science fiction
and reality is shattered completely, as the novel describes what happens to Phillip K
Dick when he is contacted by God in the form of a beam of pink light.
That final work that I mention shares another key importance with the
psychedelic experience: a total change in perspective. Whether it’s the “ego death”
experienced on a heroic dose of magic mushrooms or contact with the
extra-dimensional clockwork elves met on a DMT trip, reports of psychedelic
experiences almost always contain a revelation of sorts for the tripper (tripper?
Adventurer? Psychonaut?). PKD’s novel VALIS contained for me revelatory knowledge.
I have read novels that have changed my life, but VALIS did more. By breaking any
barriers that exist between the author, the reader, the world of the story, and the world of
the mind PKD creates a novel that is more potent than any other.
And all of that was a prologue for me to say that as I make my way into the
sequel to VALIS I’ve been thinking a lot about the fictional worlds, and the rules that
govern them. Specifically, the interaction between creating a cosmos and metaphysics
for a fictional world and the common rules of writing advice. For an example: Lord of the
Rings. Without much contest, Tolkien’s epic can readily be named as one of the
greatest stories ever told, enthralling readers since 1955 with depth and richness that
few stories can offer. Yet, think about how many of the conflicts in the story are solved.
How does Frodo escape the evil tree? How is the ring delivered to Mount Doom? Not
through the work of the heroes, as we might expect of a great story, but instead through
something higher acting. The higher power can always be felt on the side of the good
guys, and the stink and corruption of evil always produced by those who would do the
heroes harm.
In Tolkien’s world, there is an active force for good in the universe which results
in examples of eucatastrophe, a term he coined to describe the universe (or God, as he
likely would have said) causing a swing for good. This idea is one he borrowed from two
very different sources, the first being fairytales. These stories are often set in worlds
where good will beat out evil, with the job of the protagonists not being to solve the
problem of the story but instead to face a test of their resolve or virtue. It is partly the
same for PKD’s metaphysical vision put forth in his later works. There is a higher power,
a pink beam of light called Zebra, but it’s motives are not so clear cut as the near-Christian morality of Tolkien’s Eru. While Zebra does provide guidance, that
guidance is often misinterpreted with adverse effects, and the very process of
theophany required to interact with the divine can be scarring.
So why does the moral certainty of Tolkien’s drama seem like a holdover from
fairytales, as if it might not belong in the bibliography of a sophisticated author? The
answer in part lies in the way Western/American ideals of independence and
self-reliance have taken a larger hold than ever before. Take the myth of Apollo and the
satyr Marsyas. We have the story courtesy of Ovid, who relates how the satyr
challenged Apollo to a musical contest, Marsyas on the double reed and Apollo with his
lye. The satyr lost, naturally as he was challenging Apollo, and as his punishment Apollo
flayed him alive. However in the U.S of A, the story is told a bit differently. We have the
American telling courtesy of Charlie Daniels, who sings the story of a young man
Johnny challenging the Devil to a fiddling contest. Johnny bests the Devil, and wins his
golden fiddle. The American telling rejects that any supernatural force could surpass a
man at his craft. However, there is another reading of the song. After boasting that he is
the greatest fiddler, the Devil challenges, loses, and gives up his fiddle not because it
was a fair challenge that he lost, but because the Devil was taking the opportunity to
increase Johnny’s ego and his sin of pride. A very different moral reading.
Because of that example, and many other cultural shifts like it, it should be no
surprise that the moral compass of the fantasy world belonging to the man heralded as
the “American Tolkien” is just as questionable and complex. To avoid spoiling the
incredibly rich plot of G.R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, the discussion of the moral
metaphysics of Martin’s fantasy world will be brief. Suffice it so say, there is no Eru in
Westeros. A “good” ending is not at all felt as a guarantee, mostly because there is no
one ending which is the good ending for the story of individual characters. Martin’s
world is populated not by good peoples and evil peoples but instead by a myriad of
individual perspectives. Westeros is morally modern (postmodern?) world, one where
capital-T Truth and capital-G God are not to be found easily, if at all.
Good fiction is like a psychedelic drug. And whether the adventure takes place in
the fairy-world of Middle Earth, the shattering reality of PKD, or the compelling but
godless waste of Westeros, it has the potential to reveal something. At its most potent, it
goes beyond expanding your perspective. The most potent stories, just as
pearl-clutchers have feared psychedelic drugs could do for decades, have the potential
to totally shatter your perspective.
Bradfield Ross is a McConnell Scholar in the class of 2026. He is studying philosophy and political science.