<P>Another usage so far specific to Fantasy and Science Fiction is the android that is specifically intended to impersonate another creature (usually a human being). For example, as is depicted in the film Blade Runner, androids built in imitation of humans are banned from the planet Earth, yet return to Earth in search of their creator. In hopes of having their pre-programmed termination undone, one of the androids meets the engineer who designed his artificial eyes and says to him, "If only you could see what I've seen with your eyes." In Blade Runner, the androids are not copies of actual humans - all of whom, in the film, have physical defects - but of idealized, perfect versions of humans. Therefore, the replicants are imitations not of reality but of another imitation - ergo, they are simulacra.
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<P>The novel on which Blade Runner is based, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, was written by Philip K. Dick, whose novels often blended the lines between reality and its copies. Dick even published a book in 1969 called Simulacrum, which had a somewhat similar plot involving androids.
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<P>In occult literature, the word simulacrum is often used to designate an object intended as a representation of a whole, according to Magic principles. For instance, a nail or hair can be used to represent the whole person it belongs to, believed to trap part of the essence of that individual and used for rituals to represent the person. Simulacra can be inserted into a doll representing a person to cast spells upon, to establish the binding bridge between the representation icon and the subject.