The story, set in the late 1960s and 1970s, details the efforts of Episcopalian Bishop Timothy Archer to cope with the theological and philosophical revelations of the newly-discovered Gnostic "Zadokite Documents", causing severe stresses on him and those around him. Archer is loosely based on controversial Episcopalian Bishop James Pike, who in 1969 died of exposure while exploring the Judean Desert, near the Dead Sea in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Transmigration is one of Dick's most overtly philosophical and intellectual works. Unusually for Philip K. Dick's works, which usually employ multiple narrators, the book is narrated throughout by the character of Bishop Archer's daughter-in-law Angela Archer. It is a very questioning and occasionally despairing work, but ultimately life affirming. The subtlety of the plot development, the intellectual rigour of the discussions that take place, both conversational and interior monologue and most of all the wonderfully expressed character of Angela Archer make this, a most rewarding work, a fact that makes his death shortly before publication all the greater loss.