The Black Iron Prison is a concept of an all-pervasive system of social control postulated by the science fiction writer Philip K. Dick in his Tractates Cryptica Scriptura, a summary of an unpublished Gnostic exegesis he included in his very darkly humorous 1981 novel VALIS.

Once, in a cheap science fiction novel, Fat had come across a perfect description of the Black Iron Prison, but set in the far future. So if you superimposed the past (ancient Rome) over the present (California in the twentieth century) and superimposed the far future world of The Android Cried Me a River over that, you got the Empire, as the supra- or trans-temporal constant. Everyone who had ever lived was literally surrounded by the iron walls of the prison; they were all inside it and none of them knew it. K. Dick, Valis, London; Gollancz, 2001, pp. 54-55

See also

• Guy Debord
• Phillip K. Dick
• Doublethink
• Fascism
• George Orwell

External links

• http://www.philipkdick.com/

• Tractates Cryptica Scriptura

• http://www.palmtreegarden.org

• Umberto Eco on Ur-Fascism
• The Minimum Security Black Iron Prison