Liminal Characters in the Science Fiction of Philip K. Dick

The structural connection between the diachronic liminal characters and their synchronic liminal counterparts has a lot of effects and implications in Dick's sf. When synchronic liminal shamans bewitch other characters into becoming liminal initiates, the diachronic liminal characters are separated from their single-reality states and enter a state of uncertainty between a material world and a spiritual reality. At this stage, the diachronic liminal characters are all, like adolescents, unable to function properly in their lives. However, when they re-aggregate into a single-reality state, namely the world of "adults", the diachronic liminal characters have developed and become wiser. What the diachronic threshold characters experience as real is debated through the various liminal states Dick's synchronic threshold characters find themselves in. By means of the estranged sf universes of the fictionalising philosopher Philip Dick, the answers to these questions present new interpretations of what is human, what is divine and what is civilized.