THE PHILIP K DICK BREAK-IN — THE TIMOTHY LEARY/RAW CONNECTION
Maybe Day 2024
Originally prepared for PKD Festival, Fort Morgan, Colorado — Summer 2024 — Don Dulchinos — dopod@indra.com
The Phil Dick literary/philophical connection to RAW was elucidated by Erik Davis in High Weirdness. It noted among Phil’s experience was a break-in to his home in California, the vandalism of his file cabinet and the removal of some personal documents. He never figured out the who or why, though he entertained many conspiracies.
The following exchange took place on the Facebook Philip K. Dick Fan Group beginning April 11, 2021. (All rights reserved to individual members of the Group.)
Marko Fančović
The leather jacket that Winona Ryder wore while filming “A Scanner Darkly” once belonged to Philip K. Dick himself; Winona’s father was for a while sharing a flat with PKD in the 1960s and the jacket remained (probably was forgotten) in his closet; Ms. Ryder knew about that and intentionally wore the jacket in the movie as an inside joke and/or homage.
Her father was a noted dealer in books on the history of psychedelics.
Dan Lauffer So he was more than that. Michael Horowitz turned his book collection into the Fitz Hugh Ludlow Memorial Library of Drug Literature, (now at Harvard) founded in early 70’s (Fitz Hugh Ludlow the author of The Hasheesh Eater, first full length work on drugs in America — I wrote Ludlow’s biography, met Mike about 30 years ago. “My wife and daughter are on a movie set in L.A.” he said casually — she was unknown then.) But Mike was also Tim Leary’s archivist, and around the time Tim escaped from prison would be the time Phil’s home was burglarized. Hmmm. Anyone know exactly when Phil and Mike were roommates? Also, the recently published The Starseed Transmissions book by Robert Anton Wilson, recounts several conversations between Horowitz and Wilson comparing notes on visiting Leary in prison to figure out if he had turned informant; with the CIA, FBI or who — similar to candidates Phil thought responsible for his burglary. So, what if burglars were actually after Leary info?
Donald Peter Dulchinos Thank you for all the information. I was aware of Ludlow from Leslie’s Hasty Papers. I had studied Leary’s Interpersonal Checklist and have enjoyed the legend of the government psychologist administering the scale to Leary after he was arrested. I have read PDK extensively and published a brief paper on the lack of empathy in the replicants of Blade Runner and individuals on the spectrum. So much of PDK’s work is informed by paranoia that the break in almost seemed inevitable. I am also aware of Wilson’s work. I have seen these works from the perspective of a collector and publisher of the beats and as a psychologist. Thank you for tying so much together.
Dan Lauffer “informed by paranoia” is a great observation, and that said, I put together the timeline below for fun. The timing sort of works for the break-in being Leary related. But the Horowitz friendship did not appear to remain close in later 60’s as far as I can tell; also, the argument against is that PKD was not close to Leary, compared to more public figures like Ginsberg or even John Lennon who would be more likely targets if you were trying to dig up dirt on Leary. Of course, on the other hand, the Watergate investigation vindicated a lot of paranoia of the 60's…
Here is a PKD — Leary Timeline
196?? PKD and Horowitz roommates?
1966 PKD moved to San Rafael
1967 Horowitz in Berkeley, establishes Ludlow Library 1970
1971 Horowitz moved to San Fran in 1971
Jan 70 Leary on trial, in prison by March
Apr 70 Horowitz first meets Rosemary Leary to discuss archives
Sep 70 Leary escape
Nov 71 PKD Break-in, San Rafael, CA (Marin)
Nov 72 PKD reports harassment for following year (Letter to Williams)
Jan 73 Leary recaptured
Oct 73 Wilson starts visiting Leary in prison
Feb 74 PKD first pink light visions
May 74 Last Wilson visit to Leary in prison
Jun 74 Leary transferred to unknown prison, incommunicado
Oct 74 PKD Rolling Stone interview with Paul Williams, discussing break-in
Feb 76 Leary released from prison
Further discussion:
William Sarill
According to Wikipedia, source for Michael Horowitz’s friendship with PKD is Nigel Goodall’s Winona Ryder: The Biography. Horowitz is her father; he is described as an author, editor, publisher and antiquarian bookseller. He was also an archivist for Timothy Leary, who was Winona’s godfather. An altogether appropriate background for her performance in Scanner, with or without PKD’s jacket.
Will Morgan
William Sarill Timothy Leary is Uma Thurman’s (also in the PKD film Paycheck) godfather too. Considering Leary was claiming extraterrestrial contact at around the same time as Dick….
Well. I feel like I need red yarn to figure all this out.
Postscript by Don Dulchinos
Erik Davis’ recent High Weirdness tracks these thematic fellow travelers of PKD, Wilson and Terence McKenna. But Horowitz does not appear in those pages. Nor are there any connections cited between Leary and PKD, except for this:
Paul Williams, the most important of these science fiction rock geeks (and later the executor of Dick’s estate”, passed on a copy of Three Stigmata to Tim Leary, who in turn gave it to John Lennon, who briefly considered turning it into a film.
