Dick posits the philosophy of Tao, which offers a means of examining the universe through the principles of interconnectedness – or Jungian synchronicity – at odds with Western ideas of a universe that functions on the mechanistic basis of cause and effect. In

To learn which questions are unanswerable, and not to answer them: this skill is most needful in times of stress and darkness.

But you must not change one thing, one pebble, one grain of sand, until you know what good and evil will follow on that act. The world is in balance, in Equilibrium. A wizard’s power of Changing and of Summoning can shake the balance of the world. It is dangerous, that power. It is most perilous. It must follow knowledge, and serve need. To light a