Editing Ubik (section)

==Interpretation and analysis==
[[File:Philip K Dick in early 1960s (photo by Arthur Knight) 02.jpg|thumb|upright|Author [[Philip K. Dick]]]]
Dick's former wife Tessa remarked

<blockquote>Ubik is a metaphor for God. Ubik is all-powerful and all-knowing, and Ubik is everywhere. The spray can is only a form that Ubik takes to make it easy for people to understand it and use it. It is not the substance inside the can that helps them, but rather their faith in the promise that it will help them.<ref name="tessa">[http://tessadick.blogspot.com/2008/12/ubik-explained-sort-of.html UBIK Explained, sort of]{{dead link|date=January 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}, Tessa Dick, It's a Philip K. Dick World, December 4, 2008.</ref> </blockquote>

She also interpreted the ending by writing

<blockquote>Many readers have puzzled over the ending of ''Ubik'', when Glen Runciter finds a Joe Chip coin in his pocket. What does it mean? Is Runciter dead? Are Joe Chip and the others alive? Actually, this is meant to tell you that we can't be sure of anything in the world that we call 'reality.' It is possible that they are all dead and in cold pac or that the half-life world can affect the full-life world. It is also possible that they are all alive and dreaming.<ref name="tessa" /></blockquote>

Peter Fitting sees parallels between the God-Devil/Life-Death relationship of Ubik and the antagonist's consumptive abilities within half-life, and the commercialized industry between psychics and psychic-inhibiting "inertials" which occupies the novel's "reality". Fitting also notes Dick's effort to desacralize and commercialize Ubik through the ironic advertising messages which begin each chapter.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Fitting |first1=Peter |title=Ubik: The Deconstruction of Bourgeois SF |url=https://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/5/fitting5art.htm |journal=Science Fiction Studies |date=1975 |volume=2 |issue=1}}</ref>