'Ong’s Hat: COMPLEAT' released [UPDATE]

Ong's Hat: COMPLEAT, a new multimedia version of Joseph Matheny's best-known work, has just been released.

In the newsletter announcing the release, Joseph writes:

"Ong's Hat: COMPLEAT is a multi-layered work designed to be experienced in various ways, depending on the experiencer's preferences and level of engagement.

Structure and Components

The work consists of three main elements:

Original Notes:  A PDF or EPUB document containing the author's initial draft, providing background information and links for further research.

Audio Conversations: Chapter-by-chapter discussions between Joseph Matheny and Sequoyah Kennedy, exploring the material in depth.

Transcripts: Written versions of the audio conversations allow readers to listen to or read the discussions. (Coming in print version)"

All of this can be ingested in any order, although the suggestion from Joseph is to start by reading the notes and then listening to the audio conversations or reading a transcription of them. 

More here, including links on where to buy from various vendors. 

UPDATE: I mentioned to Joseph that I like Bandcamp but I that I wondered if he had a preferred vendor among the options listed at the newsletter. He replies, "Bandcamp is fine. The Bandcamp download provides the audio and full ebook form pub or PDF versions of the text. The full, chapter by chapter breakout, divided into individual chapter directories is the bundle from SendOwl. If you plan to experience it as I describe in the video (https://youtu.be/e3GCrv-xlxY) then the SendOwl version is the best. If you want to just download and listen/read in your preferred order then Bandcamp is fine. SendOwl gives us a larger share but not so much more that it really matters."

 

Moby Dick reading group, Chapters 75-81

  

The Heidelberg Tun. (Public domain photo). 

Chapters 75-81, “The Right Whale’s Head” through “The Pequod Meets the Virgin.”

I've actually seen the Great Heidelberg Tun, a huge wine cask in Heidelberg Castle in Heidelberg, Germany; I visited the castle when I was young in trips to what was then "West Germany" when I was young. My parents were married in Heidelberg, on July 23. The Heidelberg Tun at the castle now dates to 1751, so it would be the one Melville is referring to (more information here.)

There are chapters of Moby Dick in which Melville gives lectures on various aspects of whaling, and chapters in which action occurs. As much as I enjoyed Chapter 60, "The Line," I have to admit I mostly prefer the action chapters.

In Chapter 78, "Cisterns and Buckets," Queequeeg performs another daring rescue, jumping into the sea, sword in hand, to perform another daring rescue when Tashtego is about the drown after he falls inside the sinking whate head. The text refers to "the courage and great skill in obstetrics of Queequegg, which is a pun -- Queequeeg essentially performs a Caesarian by slashing into the head and pulling Tashtego out, and also in a sense Tashtego is born again when he is rescue from what seems to be certain death.

 "How many, think ye, have likewise fallen into Plato's honey head, and sweetly perished there?" Is Melville warning against being captured by belief systems?

In "The Pequod Meets The Virgin," the other "action" chapter in this section of of the novel, Melville uncorks a couple of zingers. When we encounter The Jungfrau, it has no whale oil, it "is technically called a clean one (that is an empty one), well deserving the name of Jungfrau or the Virgin." 

And the Jungfrau's crew, captained by a man, Derick, who is foolish as well as ungrateful, chases after a Finback whale it has no chance of catching: "Oh! many are the Finbacks and many are the Dericks, my friend." 

The description of the unfortunate old whale with the damaged fin, trying to escape her tormentors, seemed to me one of the most affecting passages in the novel:

"It was a terrific, most pitiable, and maddening sight. The whale was now going head out, and sending his spout before him in a continual tormented jet; while his one poor fin beat his side in an agony of fright. Now to this hand, now to that, he yawed in his faltering flight, and still at every billow that he broke, he spasmodically sank in the sea, or sideways rolled towards the sky his one beating fin. So have I seen a bird with clipped wing making affrighted broken circles in the air, vainly striving to escape the piratical hawks. But the bird has a voice, and with plaintive cries will make known her fear; but the fear of this vast dumb brute of the sea, was chained up and enchanted in him; he had no voice, save that choking respiration through his spiracle, and this made the sight of him unspeakably pitiable; while still, in his amazing bulk, portcullis jaw, and omnipotent tail, there was enough to appal the stoutest man who so pitied."

The passage in the chapter that begins, "“Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons? or his head with fish spears?” is quoting from the Book of Job in the King James Bible, 

Steve 'Fly' Pratt's new album

 Tanmoy: A New Global Epic is the new release by Steve Fly.

"What is Tanmoy?

"A long poem in 60 (eventually 120) stanzas, about the tale of the tribe. Each stanza has music and music video to accompany, and add context, mood. Tanmoy is a collaboration with a.i., mainly for structure and layout of the poem. All music is Prompted. In one sense this is the result of a quarter century of research, in another its the result of twelve days work in 2025. I started January 1st," he reports.

More here. 

Fire destroys Theosophical Society library in LA area

"A page from the archives of Altadena’s Theosophical Society, which burned down this week. Found in my yard 11 miles away." Via Scott Collette on X.com. 

Some bad news as a result of the LA fire:

"It has been compared to the Library of Alexandria in Egypt; the world-renowned Theosophical Society, founded in 1875 by Madame Helena Blavatsky and Henry Steele Olcott, was an international and historical landmark in Altadena, California near Pasadena, treasured by millions and 'was dedicated to the uplifting of humanity through a better understanding of the oneness of life.'

"Sadly, on January 9th, reports from fire officials battling the raging Eaton Fire that consumed Altadena and the surrounding areas, advised that the world-renowned, historical landmark had been destroyed by the wildfires , and with it, all its ancient literature of published and unpublished works.

"With the tragic loss of the structure, thousands upon thousands of published papers, books, rare scriptures, unpublished letters, art objects, and preserved works by past philosophers and theologians were burned: all that remained were the charred remains of the building and scorched reminders of the international Society’s historical work scattered miles away from its home."

Source, and a search engine search reveals similar reports. 

R.I.P. David Lynch

David Lynch in 1990, the year Twin Peaks debuted on TV. (Creative Commons photo by Alan Light). 

My favorite movie and TV director, David Lynch, died Thursday at age 78. Wikipedia says he died after being evacuated from his home because of the LA fires. 

It always hits me a bit when a favorite artist dies. Lynch had revealed last year he had emphysema from years of smoking cigarettes.  So for me as far as a shock,  it was kind of somewhere between when Kurt Cobain and John Lennon died (a complete surprise) and when Iain Banks died (he had announced he was dying of cancer). (I found out about John Lennon when I was watching "Monday Night Football" on TV and Howard Cosell shared the news. This was before the Internet of course, but I got long distance phone calls from friends). 

So many questions! Will I ever find a TV series I like as much as Twin Peaks? (I own all three series and the movie; I have been engaged in a long re-watch. I'm in the second season right now). Was Sheryl Lee really the most beautiful screen siren ever, or did David Lynch make it seem so? Did Lynch and Mark Frost realize what a gift to the fans it was when they brought it back in 2017? What if Lynch had accepted the offer to direct Return of the Jedi? 

The New York Times has its weaknesses but it's still a good newspaper, and it really went all out with the Lynch news -- a long obituary, and six sidebars! Here are gift links to get you behind the paywall: The obituary, an appraisal from chief Times movie critic Manohla Dargis (who recounts getting lots of abuse for a rave review of Mulholland Drive), 12 Lynch titles and where to screen them,  some of the tributes from film industry figures,  his life in some memorable photos, a discussion of Twin Peaks from main TV critic James Poniewozik,  a "critics notebook" on his look from Guy Trebay. 

The Wikipedia article on Lynch is very long and detailed. 

Jesse Walker's favorite Oscar moment

Jesse Walker posted on X.com: "My favorite Oscars moment, from 2002: David Lynch and Robert Altman sharing a smile after they both lost the Best Director award to Ron Howard. Watching at home, we couldn't hear what they were saying. But Lynch said later that Altman was telling him, 'It's better this way'."

A St. Louis synchronicity

I like to record synchronicities on this blog, and I had one this week.  Before I married her, my wife was my Cleveland girlfriend and I lived in Oklahoma, so we had to travel to see each other.  Ann and I met in St. Louis a couple of times when we were dating, and one memorable get together featured a dinner in a very nice restaurant, a walk in a neighborhood with a house where T.S. Eliot once lived, and a viewing of "Mulholland Drive" (described by the New York Times as Lynch's acknowledged masterpiece) in a nice old movie theater. (That last bit may have been my idea). 

I flew from Ohio to Oklahoma this week to see my mother, and I stopped to change planes in St. Louis, which of course reminded me of all this. 

Robert Shea, Twin Peaks fan

I feel confident in posting all of this  because I know many RAW fans are big Lynch fans. Gregory Arnott texted me to make sure I saw the news. (See his article for this blog on occult aspects of Twin Peaks.)

One of the minor mysteries of writing this blog is that I've never been able to find any evidence RAW was a Twin Peaks fan. (I asked Scott Apel years ago). But you know what? Robert Shea was! I asked his son Mike Shea, and Mike replied, "He was! I didn’t watch it with him at the time but I watched it a couple of years ago and loved it."

The origin of the Law of Fives

 

In Illuminatus!, "everything" follows the Law of Fives (if you are ingenious enough). Grouchogandhi, K.S.P. on X continues to post Discordian documents and the above relates to the origin of the Law of Fives.

Caption: "Kerry’s mention to Hill that he sent a copy of Why We Think The DS Is A Hot Item to Grace Caplinger (Zabriskie), with first formal mention of the Law Of Fives, adorned with a slew of Greg Hill stamps, as he was wont to do, dated May 5, 1965.

"Courtesy of the Discordian Archives."

Source. 

Restating RAW

Robert Anton Wilson, from Cosmic Trigger 2: "Suddenly I understood that the meek never inherit a damned thing: only the very brave and very stubborn make any impact on the world. The [Brooklyn] bridge stood there, a miracle in its time, taken for granted today, but an epiphany to met: great things are possible, to those too pigheaded to admit defeat."

John Collison on X: "As you become an adult, you realize that things around you weren't just always there; people made them happen. But only recently have I started to internalize how much tenacity *everything* requires. That hotel, that park, that railway. The world is a museum of passion projects."

Via Nabeel S. Qureshi's "hard-won life lessons," worth a look. 

New Robert Anton Wilson collection

Bobby Campbell's latest Substack newsletter highlights a website I hadn't heard about until a couple of days ago: A collection of Robert Anton Wilson audio and video and transcripts. 

The Uutter collection of RAW material appears to have quite a bit of material. Bobby writes, "The bulk of it seems to consist of the usual RAW classics available all over, but with some genuinely surprising gems sprinkled in the mix :)))

"How about an audio recording of Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea in conversation, for example!"

At some point, it might make sense for RAWilsonFans.org to update by adding links to the Uutter site and to the Robert Anton Wilson Fans Germania site. 

 

Moby Dick reading group, Chapters 69-74

Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 2 Portrait of Thomas Carlyle by James Albert McNeill Whistler

This week: Chapters 69-74, “The Funeral” through “The Sperm Whale’s Head.”

By ERIC WAGNER
Special guest blogger 

Chapter 69 

The final sentence, “There are other ghosts than the Cock-Lane one, and far deeper men than Doctor Johnson who believe in them,” makes me think of William Blake’s line, 

“May God us keep 

From Single vision & Newtons sleep” 

Wikipedia says, “The Cock Lane ghost was a purported haunting that attracted mass public attention in 1762.” 

Chapter 71 

I don’t know what to make of “A long-skirted, cabalistically-cut coat of a faded walnut ting,” worn by the man who calls himself the angel Gabriel. It makes me think of Thomas Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus (“The Retailored Tailor”) which shows up repeatedly in Finnegans Wake. The Wake itself features a sailor who becomes a tailor, an s-t transformation suggesting Einstein’s space-time transformation. It also makes me think of Oscar Wilde’s essay “The Truth of Masks” which on the surface talks about costumes in Shakespeare, but Bob Wilson saw it as an essay about the masks oppressed people wear: gay people in Wilde’s London, colonized people, etc., and about the masks we all wear metaphorically. Living through the Covid-19 pandemic, I also think of literal masks. This brings us back to Melville’s “All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks.” (I read that line in a beatnik voice, man.) I find it an interesting coincidence that this chapter deals with an epidemic. 

Gabriel’s refusing “to work except when he pleased” makes me think of Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener.” 

Chapter 73 

"So when on one side you hoist in Locke’s head, you go over that way; but now, on the other side, hoist in Kant’s and you come back again; but in very poor plight. Thus, some minds for ever keep trimming boat. Oh, ye foolish! Throw all these thunder-heads overboard, then you will float light and right."

This rejection of Enlightenment thinkers Locke and Kant seems to go along with the rejection of Dr. Johnson a few chapters earlier. I find it interesting that the TV series Lost included characters based on Enlightenment thinkers like John Locke, David Hume, and Rousseau, as well as Richard Alpert and Mikhail Bakunin. The series also had an acknowledged Robert Anton Wilson influence. 

Chapter 74 

“Why then do you try to ‘enlarge your mind? Subtilize it.” I find it interesting that the second quoted sentence does not end with an exclamation point. 

Next week: Please read Chapters 75-81, “The Right Whale’s Head” through “The Pequod Meets the Virgin.”

 

 

New 'Tales of Illuminatus' Kickstarter coming this spring

Bobby Campbell completes taking a rare few days off for the holidays but has issued a new Substack newsletter, announcing a spring Kickstarter for the second Tales of Illuminatus comic book:

"The pre-campaign page for Tales of Illuminatus! #2 “The Invisible Crown” is now live over at kickstarter :)))

"JOIN UP HERE: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bobbycampbell/tales-of-illuminatus-2-the-invisible-crown

"We’re still a ways away from officially launching, but I wanted to at least get the ball rolling, and today seemed like an especially appropriate day…"

Other news at the link, but that's all about Tales. I will keep everyone posted! 

Fake think tank created apparently using AI

Washington, D.C., is filled with think tanks that try to influence U.S. policy. I have sometimes at this blog cited the Cato Institute, which has views on the war on drugs that coincide with those of Robert Anton Wilson and many of his fans. 

The above photo is from the Beltway Grid Policy Centre, a think tank focusing on Asian issues, and apparently shows the think tank's staffers. But according to an article on Drop Site, the think tank is a complete fake, staffed by "people" who can't otherwise be found and apparently created with the use of an AI.

"Beltway Grid's lack of a physical footprint in Washington — or anywhere else on the earthly plane of existence — stems from more than just a generous work-from-home policy. The organization does not appear to require its employees to exist at all.

"That celestial quality begins at the top at Beltway Grid, which does not list an executive director, president, CEO, or any other leader, but does include 12 staff on its 'about us' page. None of those employees have any trace of experience—not just professional, but of even living in the world—before arriving at Beltway Grid."

More here.  Via Jesse Walker on X.com.

An AI project influenced by 'Prometheus Rising'

I don't know very much about AI, and I cannot evaluate MindBound Labs, a company founded in India by Kehur Ahuja. He is using an approach called "Recursive Insight Synthesis" to "to accelerate the evolution of ASI  [Artificial Super Intelligence]." This is described in his Substack. 

See this passage in a recent Substack newsletter for why I am bringing this to your attention:

"I am deeply grateful to Robert Anton Wilson for inspiring me to develop this approach. In his seminal book Prometheus Rising, specifically in Chapter 14 titled “THE METAPROGRAMMING CIRCUIT,” Wilson explores the concept of "meta-programming awareness." He writes:

“Korzybski even claimed that the use of mathematical scripts is an aid to developing this circuit, for as soon as you think of your mind as mind1, and the mind which contemplates that mind as mind2 and the mind which contemplates mind2 contemplating mind1 as mind3, you are well on your way to meta-programming awareness.”

"This idea struck me deeply. The recursive layers of self-reflection that Wilson describes—the contemplation of mind1, mind2, and mind3—resonated with me as a profound way of thinking about both the mind and the process of knowledge generation itself. It became clear that this recursive structure could be applied not only to the mind but also to the development of ASI."

More here. 

Hat tip: Rasa, who received an email from Mr. Ahuja.

New Mycelium Parish News

The new Mycelium Parish News has been released, documenting Discordian doings, mostly in Great Britain. I plan to order my copy soon. 

Ben Graham, in his latest newsletter:

"Then just after Christmas I received my copy of the 2024 Mycelium Parish News, put together by James Burt and Dan Sumption at Peakrill Press and documenting the activities of our extended creative circles, plus related interesting things, over the previous 12 months. in some ways, the MPN makes me think of the regular Whole Earth Catalog that provided a valuable link to physical, spiritual and artistic resources for the hippy counterculture of late 60s/early 70s America and beyond.

"The MPN includes capsule reviews and links for books, zines, newsletters like this one, blogs, websites, podcasts, films and music. There are also pieces on recurring events in the physical world, and a look back at some key countercultural happenings of the past year. If this risks triggering FOMO, there are short articles by guest contributors suggesting ways to get involved with such things in 2025, or start your own. So the Parish News is equally a valuable historical document, a list of exciting things to catch up with, and a spur to future activity. Long may it continue!"