Imp Pushing Candy

A short mind-dump of notes taken from the reading of The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by P.K.D

As this is my first book review on this Substack, I’m still finding my footing in the layout and presentation of how to best deliver such a review; here goes:

From the cover of the first edition as seen above, one gets the impression of a right hand and its mechanical nature giveaway (screw and bolt fixture at bottom), a left eye, be it a sullen eye, all surrounded by teeth, metal teeth; these three characteristics are the three stigmata.

The main bulk of the story focusses on two drugs being pushed around the sol system, that of the already established: CAN-D (candy) and the new kid on the block: CHEW-Z (choosey) *italics my own.

We’ll start with CAN-D. This allows what is called ‘translation’ to happen, where many minds fuse into one and then inhabit a doll, in which the doll when placed on a layout board with items such as a mini kitchen, this will be the world you experience. It is popular with people living on Mars as a way to experience what living on Terra is like. With minds in union through the drug, which is pushed by a aptly character called ‘Impy White’. When we look at the etymology and background of the imp we get a mythological being similar to a fairy or demon and the word may perhaps derive from the term ympe, as in a young grafted tree, grafted being to join together like the CAN-D is fusing/grafting the minds of its users together to become one mind.

Christ specified that we observe two sacraments,' Anne
Hawthorne explained patiently.
Baptism - by water - and Holy Communion. 
The latter in memory of Him ... it was
inaugurated at the Last Supper.
Oh. You mean the bread and the wine."
You know how the eating of Can-D translates - as they
call it - the partaker to another world. It's secular, however,
in that it's temporary and only a physical world. The bread
and the wine

Now comes a time when the users of CAN-D hear about a superior drug called CHEW-Z. This does not fuse the minds of its users together, you are in your own world (or is it) with full creative control, there is no need for a layout board either. And the biggest difference is, no time will pass whilst you are gone; a month, a year, doesn’t matter, you’ll awaken like you have closed your eyes for a fraction of a second.

Rumours quickly circulate on Terra, where this is also planned to be distributed with the all clear from the UN (CAN-D is illegal on Terra), that it is similar to what Buddhists call Maya (and Zuck calls Meta?). That is a trap, and are subject to Eldritch (meaning old strange, left-field?), there are many strange beasts that roam, like at the edges and borders of maps. There are moments where the users of CHEW-Z think they have awoken, only to find they are still trapped within the influence of the drug, like a dream within a dream:

Roni Fugate murmured, I'm sorry, Mr Bulero, but
there's a creature under your desk.'
Bending, Leo peered under the desk.
A thing had squeezed itself between the base of the desk
and the floor; it's eyes regarded him greenly, unwinking.

Eldritch had him and also the validity, or at
least the seeming validity, of the Chew-Z experience had
been demonstrated; he himself had confused it with the real.
Only the malign bug created by Palmer Eldritch - deliber-
ately - had given it away.
Otherwise, he realized, I might have gone on forever.

An interesting effect of CHEW-Z is the ability to send you into the future where you can interact with people you know (though only evolved people whom have undergone e-therapy (evolved humans (meaning someone who has undergone expensive genetic treatments by a German "doctor" called Dr Willy Denkmal, which are supposed to push the client "forward" on an evolutionary scale, and which result in gross physical, as well as mental, modifications)) and even yourself but you are somewhat of a phantasm a ghost; objects pas through you.

A strange passage worth of note is as follows, on the subject of phantasm, it reads:

Néver forget that a phantasm can go
anywhere; it's not bounded by time or space. That's what
makes it a phantasm, that and the fact that it has no metabolism, 
at least not as we understand the word. Oddly, however, 
it is affected by gravity.

Interesting that gravity effects phantasms

‘They've made some attempts with high-voltage, low-amperage electroshock,' Roni said.
'And with magnetic fields.
Columbia University has-
The best work so far, his future self said,
is in the physics department at Cal, out on the West Coast. The
phantasm is bombarded by Beta particles which disintegrate
the essential protein basis for-’

I also made note of any cookie crumbs that may lead us outside the pages. I read that most if nearly all P.K.D novels have a common thread¹ that of an invader from the outside.

'Ever seen a Proxima thing?'
Only pics.'
*Grisly,
" the businessman said. If they find that wrecked
ship on Pluto and it is a thing I hope they laser it out of
existence; after all we do have a law against them coming
into our system.'

There is also an artificial Earth-satellite where Eldritch is being kept to recover after his to out to the outter Prox systems, the satellite is called Sigma 14-B. A quick search of sigma brings up its relation to blackholes:

Sigma is given by the Greek letter sigma in lower case with star velocity in subscript (σν☉). In physics and mathematics lower case sigma means set or group. This is appropriate for the property sigma as it is a measurement of a group of star speeds. The above correlation is given by-
[(Q2+(J/M)2≤M2)=106*M☉]≈50 km/s(σν☉)
The black hole mass equal to 1,000,000 times the mass of the Sun is approximately equal to the sigma of a star travelling at 50 km/s. The increase factor is
106n*101=xKm/s+50 km/s.

Sigma also when looking at the Greek/Phoenician origin states:

According to one hypothesis,[4] the name "sigma" may continue that of Phoenician samekh (𐤎), the letter continued through Greek xi, represented as Ξ. Alternatively, the name may have been a Greek innovation that simply meant 'hissing', from the root of σίζω (sízō, from Proto-Greek *sig-jō 'I hiss')

This ‘hiss’ reminds me of the game Control:

At the onset of the game, an entity called the Hiss is attempting to cross over through a dimensional barrier into this reality, and has taken over numerous parts of the Oldest House

There is also the mention of the number 33 (known as the Jesus year).

you one thing that might help. He's very suspicious of
women. His marriage broke up a couple of years ago and he
never got over it. See, his wife became pregnant twice, and
the board of directors of his conapt building, I think it's 33,
met and voted to expel him and his wife because they had
violated the building code.

He decided to divorce his wife and keep the conapt building at 33; he sacrificed his previous life for his new life; left it all behind.

I feel this sort of length is long enough for a quick drop of notes and feelings about the book.

My next Substack will be a little different as it will be film related, starting with the works of Fritz Lang.

Love ya x

1. I Am Alive and You are Dead: A Journey Inside the Mind of Philip K. Dick by Emmanuel Carrère