A man throws a handful of Hexagrams to the floor and looks upon them with full intention of seeing the future. The Hexagrams, of course, are variously encoded with a comprehensive symbol structure, so that taken in combination, and decoded, they may produce a dynamic and comprehensive map of reality. And should they be observed and decoded by a mind prone to making narratives -- these little hexagrams might even tell a story. Thus understood, we comprehend that throwing a handful of hexagrams may describe a world, and may in fact tell a story about that world. But we then are left with a nagging question: by what line of thinking may one presume that the story being told is in fact their own story -- and that in fact it is the true story of what has yet to transpire?

In Man in the High Castle, this kind of prophetic logic is presumed with as much certainty and “common sense” as remedial mathematics. The characters residing in the Pacific States of

America

practice the I Ching as though it has the validity of a weather report. However -- these people have good reason to embrace a prophetic metaphysics. In the Universe Dick has written, something terrible has happened to the world. With the victory of

Germany

in World War 2, the Nazi “Archetype” (42) has overtaken the planet, and as a consequence human life has been devalued, “progress” proliferates like a drunken cancer, and the Aryan race rules the Eastern Hemisphere with a politics of madness. In a world where so much has gone wrong, it is only natural that among the remaining sane human beings there might develop a certain preoccupation with getting a handle on how things come to be. In effect, what has happened to the denizens of the Pacific is the enabling of an alternative state of consciousness -- a new ontology of perception which might hope to counteract the pervasive insanity of the Nazis. Fascism by definition promotes a fair amount of collectivism and oppression amongst its peoples, and as such, the remedy to this blight may well be found in a reassertion of Individual Agency. In Dick’s novel, this new individualism is founded in what physicists and psychologists have called the Synchronicity Principle. Operating both through the I Ching and in the structure of the narrative itself, Synchronicity enables a counteractive consciousness by expanding the range and scope of individual agency. For if we are to imagine a universe where human beings can affect the world, and not merely the reverse -- we must examine the principles by which this interaction might take place.

The Synchronicity Principle has been defined in various ways by various thinkers -- taking a full range from psychological metaphor to spiritual axiom. The most pragmatic understanding of synchronicity is that of meaningful coincidence, whereby an individual experiences the external world as mysteriously interconnected. Often, this interconnectedness is further marked by a mirroring effect of external reality to the individual psyche. Further speculation about an implicit “higher order” operating through the Synchronicity principle is left to the interpretation of the observer, or, for our purposes, the novelist. A secular definition of the concept is offered by social theorist Dr. Robert Anton Wilson: “Synchronicity: A term introduced by psychologist Dr. Carl Jung and physicist Dr. Wolfgang Pauli to describe connections, or meaningful “coincidences,” that do not make sense in terms of cause-and-effect. It is thought by some that such connections may indicate … some sort of nonlocal information system^{^[1]}.” (Wilson 544). This interpretation, founded in the ever uncertain field of quantum physics, suggests a universe that, at least some of the time, side-steps the notion of linear cause-and-effect -- allowing instead for the unfolding of events by means of a multi-dimensional causality. In short, the clearly delineated notions of space and time so cleanly understood via Aristotelian logic is here made fuzzy. Thus it would be quite possible to predict the future, as with the I Ching in Dick’s novel -- as notions of past and future are no longer inherently separated. In fact, everything is happening all at once.

But by taking a strictly secular definition of the Synchronicity Principle, we are in danger of losing both the psychological and spiritual dimensions of a synchronistic universe -- and it is precisely in these latter fields that the issue of individual agency is illuminated. Artist and teacher Julia Cameron approaches Synchronicity from a more personalized perspective: “We all have those dark and romantic notions which call to our deepest selves. When we answer that call, when we commit to it, we set in motion what C.G. Jung dubbed Synchronicity, loosely defined as a fortuitous intermeshing of events. Back in the sixties, we called it Serendipity.” (Cameron 64). In Cameron’s interpretation, we see the issue of individual agency has come to the foreground. The particular quality of the synchronization is formed in response to the psyche of the individual -- the story being told reveals itself to them as their story. Here, synchronicity is activated, and interacted with, by the individual, whose desires and fears give it shape, and whose creativity gives it meaning. “We change and the universe furthers and expands that change.“ (Cameron 2). This, one might argue, is exactly what transpires each time one of Dick’s characters employs the I Ching -- the individual asks a question and throws the hexagrams, which are then synchronistically positioned and interpreted by the individual psyche. A dialectic is established between an interpreting mind and a reactive and intelligent universe, and a map appears offering various paths of a personalized future. It is the dialectic of this process which is vital -- for while a secular interpretation of synchronicity allows the future to be known (determinism), the psychological-spiritual interpretation suggests that the future can also be created. That is to say, the individual is encouraged to take responsibility for coordinating the events of their world as they unfold.

And certainly, the residents of Dick’s Universe might be due for a little creativity.

Case in point: Frank Frink’s consultation of the oracle, regarding the proper course of action at the prospect of entering the jewelry business. Although Frank is asking a highly personalized question, his psyche is clearly charged to interpret the hexagrams as part of a grand scheme. It takes no hesitation of his imagination to conclude that his personal future has tied into world events. “War! He thought. Third World War! … What’s happening? Did I start it in motion? Or is someone else tinkering, someone I don’t even know? Or -- the whole lot of us.” (51) Franks disorienting vision of doom is flavored with the an unusually prominent sense of personal responsibility. His immediate sense of confusion concerning the state of the world is followed by an automatic questioning of his own role in the grand narrative. That an unexceptional, aloof member of the working class is poised to discern his role in the fate of the planet shows the degree to which the concept of causality has been tied to individual action. Even if the weight of war does not fall specifically on Franks shoulders, still his mind is primed to locate whatever individual might be mucking up a benevolent outcome -- and in the last resort the question falls on mankind as a whole. The general conclusion, immediately, is that we are doing this. The implication being, one would hope, that we can stop doing this, and in fact, we must. The news is, nevertheless, understandably disturbing. “ It’s the fault of those physicists and that damn synchronicity theory, every particle being connected with every other; you can’t fart without changing the balance of the universe. I open a book and get a report on things even God would like to file and forget.” (51). A synchronistic universe is potentially upsetting precisely because it calls for the observer to assume responsibility in what is observed. Frank is uncomfortably resistant to what his brain seems to be telling him -- he clearly resents his own complicity in the state of the world. In this sense, Frank is certainly no hero, and his lack of involvement is understandable given his position as closet Jew in an anti-Semitic world. The significance lies, rather, in the foregrounding of his planetary awareness -- his prominent understanding of what is to come, and the nagging question of what he is to do about it.

The events in The Man in The High Castle cover a relatively short period of time -- the reader is never given a final confirmation, affirmative or no, regarding the “absolute truth” of Frank’s involvement in the prophesied war. The focus is shifted instead to the moment of choice, the act of observation itself Frank is put in the position of etching out the meaning of doom and salvation for himself. “Hell he thought, it has to be one or the other; it can’t be both. You can’t have good fortune and doom simultaneously. Or… can you? (51). The ambiguity of this final duality in Frank’s forecast forces a specific choice in regards to outcome. There will be prosperity, or there will be war, or else someone is going to have to come up with very creative fusion of the two -- if not a third, unforeseen solution altogether. The point being, while the hexagrams may synchronistically point toward a specific confluence of forces, this information is pragmatic only in the choices of an active creative mind. As opposed to the Nazi mentality of “follow the leader,” following the hexagrams seems to increase brain activity -- and if they are in fact accurately describing future events, that brain activity becomes by default the active construction of a more intelligent future. In any case, the book ends with the implications of War brewing, and the final outcome, like events in our own world, is yet to be decided. In this sense, the book operates for the reader much like the I Ching -- we may see as much of ourselves and our world in it as we please -- the point in the end is to foster interpretation.

In addition to the Synchronicity Principle working implicitly through the employment of I Ching through the novel, we also see it demonstrated in the overall construction of the narrative itself. The events and characters in the novel are curiously interconnected -- synchronicities pile up through coincidences which are rarely brought directly to the readers attention, but nevertheless drive the plot, character development, and themes of the story. Frank Frink is ironically positioned at the center of this synchronistic maelstrom -- at times it seems that Frank is the gravity which draws the narrative together. Frank’s estranged wife “just happens” to be Juliana, who for her part is the only character to confront the Man in the High Castle himself. Frank is also the supplier of the mysterious Wu jewelry to Childen, who passes it on to Paul Kasoura, the man who identifies the jewelry as exemplary. Paul is revealed as an avid reader of The Grasshopper Lies Heavy -- a book written by a man whose life “just happens” to be saved, that week, by the ex-wife of the Wu jewelry maker. A similar piece of Frank’s Jewelry is passed on to Tagomi, and is in fact the point of focus for his thrilling meditation and subsequent vision in the park. Tagomi draws the circle closed by spontaneously signing for Frank’s release from Nazi captivity. Tagomi has inadvertently saved the life of the man who made the jewelry that shaped his vision, and Frank is suddenly turned out onto the street, freedom mysteriously regained. “I wish I understood, he said to himself as he moved along the busy evening sidewalk … but he knew he never would.” (241). How, after all, is a man supposed to understand being saved by his own jewelry?

Perhaps Paul Kasoura has already offered an answer to this question. Of the jewelry he says: “In other words, an entire new world is pointed to, by this. The name for it is neither art, for it has no form, nor religion. What is it?” (176). Reaching beyond comfortable notions of mysticism and creativity, Paul insinuates that Frink’s jewelry is emblematic of an unforeseen future. This questioning of a comfortable duality is very much like Frank’s own questioning of doom versus good fortune when he confronts the prophecy of war. As it turns out, the I Ching has helped Frank pursue a line of work whereby he has created objects that somehow express an original and synthetic reconciliation of opposites. Frank’s solution to the problems of the world is his jewelry, and that solution is explored and expunged when Tagomi meditates on that same jewelry in the park. Upon returning to his office, he thwarts the Nazi regime by choosing to free an anonymous Jew. The issue of individual agency is again brought to light. Tagomi has single handedly overcome the death machine of nazi paperwork with little more than a pen; Frank is liberated from nazi control, rescued, it seems, by his own creation.

This question may be asked of the novel as a whole -- Dick’s work is fraught with meta-textual confusions and casual ambiguity. Nevertheless, the story here told has been orchestrated to explore the notion of orchestration itself. For the relatively brief period of time we visit this world, we are invited to see within it the possibility of a synchronistic consciousness developing through individual agency and multi-dimensional causality. The events here contained may have no more inherent meaning than a randomly thrown hexagram -- and yet like that hexagram they beg for meaningful interpretation.

Of course, I suppose it could always be argued that all of this synchronistic interconnection is nothing more than a reflection of Philip Dick’s neurons bonding as he put together the plot. This is, in my mind, little different from the viewpoint that the I Ching offers wisdom at random. I rather think it more useful to view this book as a map of reality in its own right, thrown like the I Ching, and awaiting the creative faculties of the reader. The novel illuminates the concept of interpretation and at once asks the reader to interpret. We look upon a world quite possibly nightmarish, but quite possibly not so unlike our own -- a world that humbly requests our meaning-making faculties to stay sharpened. Peace and prosperity, liberty and health, much like synchronicity, are founded in vigilance. In the end, Philip Dick may be doing nothing more than teaching us how to read.

Wilson, Robert Anton, Schrödinger’s Cat Trilogy, Dell Publishing, 1540 Broadway, New York, NY 10036, 1979.

Cameron, Julia, The Artist’ Way – A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, Penguin Putnum Inc. 200 Madison Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, 1992.

^{^[1]} Furthermore, Wilson summarizes Nonlocal as “not depending upon space and time. A nonlocal effect occurs instantaneously and with no attenuation due to distance. Special relativity seems to forbid all such non-local effects, but Bells Theorem seems to show that quantum mechanics demands them. The only solution thus far offered to this contradiction are that nonlocal effects involve “consciousness” rather than energy (Walker, Herbert) or that they involve “information” rather than energy (Sarfatti).” (542). Bells Theorem is “a mathematical demonstration by John S. Bell which shows that if quantum mechanics is valid, any two particles once in contact will continue to influence each other, no matter how far apart they may subsequently move.” (540).