Don Dulchinos on 'All Things Are Lights'

When I posted my two new articles for Maybe Day, "Reading about Robert Anton Wilson: Biographies, criticism and more," and "Robert Shea: A reader's guide,'  I was not surprised that the RAW essay did get more comments. 

But I was pleased that Don Dulchinos did take a moment to post a comment on the Shea article. He wrote, "For my money, All Things are Lights and The Saracen are a worthwhile explication of how bureaucratic Christianity exterminated personal gnosis, at least for a few centuries."

The late writer and author Patricia Monaghan, Shea's widow, told me in an email that All Things Are Lights was her favorite of Shea's works. 

She wrote (in a 2011 email), "I'm glad you like All Things, which is such a terrific book.  You are right in the 'prequel' idea in that Bob's interest in secret societies and such folded over from Ill! to All Things, but there was not a direct connection.  What drove Bob as an historical novelist was an interest in the underdogs of history, the people who were 'lost' from a historical point of view.  (I keep thinking that Saracen should be made into a movie, now, with the rise in interest in the Islamic world--but of course Bob's Muslim characters weren't terrorists!  Well...they were...sort of....)  The Cathars were persecuted in what was really a land-grab by the French against the Spanish--in Languedoc today, you can still see, in bars, maps of France before and after the 'Albigensian crusade,' which make very clear that France exploded in size after grabbing that land.  Bob's last published book, Shaman, looked at the Black Hawk War from the Indian side.  That was his way--always to focus on the 'other' in any historical situation."

Don Dulchinos is the author of several books, including Neurosphere: The Convergence of Evolution, Group Mind, and the Internet, Forbidden Sacraments The Survival of Shamanism in Western Civilization, Pioneer of Inner Space; The Life of Fitz Hugh Ludlow and The Collected Works of Fitz Hugh Ludlow. (Here is the Wikipedia bio for Ludlow). More information about these books at the official Don Dulchinos website. 

You can also read Dulchino's review of Terra II…A Way Out by Timothy Leary, published by Hilaritas in 2024, with links to related articles. 

RAW on politics as a cause of pessimism

 

With politics lately seeming so bad, not just in the U.S. but in much of the world, I thought the above might be of interest. Via Klaster Chaosmos on Bluesky (worth a follow if you are a RAW fan there!). Klaster responded when I replied "I hope he's right," saying "Whether right or wrong, to me it serves as a stark reminder of the backwards and mostly reactionary nature of government and politics in general .. with Bob's trademark cosmic wink of an incorrigible optimist, of course ... as for relevancy: context matters." 

Klaster also shared the source with me after a bit of research and said the source is The Prism Lecture, 1982. "At some point, Bob discusses economics & politics from an angle of primate psychology & territorial behaviour. The quote comes on after he quotes Timothy Leary:

"The only intelligent way
to discuss politics
is on all fours."

Lots of relevant stuff throughout."

Possibly related: In a recent Substack newsletter, Scott Sumner reviews Richard Hanania's new book Kakistocracy: Why Populism Ends in Disaster and then suggests:

"So how depressed should we be by the rise of anti-elite populism? Consider these three claims:

1. Politics is getting worse.

2. Voters are becoming less well informed.

3. The world is getting better.

Are all three claims true? I believe the answer is yes. There’s more to life than politics." (More at the link.)

Also possibly related: A Fareed Zakaria piece in the Washington Post, "A revolution is unfolding. Voters everywhere are furious." He suggests this is what's going on: "The larger explanation is that we are living through one of history’s great technological revolutions. And these transformations always produce deep anxiety and fear."

He adds, "The last technological transformation on this scale came between roughly 1880 and 1920. Electricity, the telephone, railroads, the automobile and movies overturned entire industries and ways of life. Millions left farms for cities. Global trade disrupted local economies. New fortunes appeared overnight, while old occupations disappeared. In this turmoil, frustration and anger found political pathways. The left turned to communism, the right to fascism. What followed were new mass movements, cultural upheavals and world war." (The claim that technological changes helped give rise to the right wing populism of Trump, Bolsonaro, etc. also is a key claim of Hanania's book.)

I found the piece via Tyler Cowen, who writes, "You can be a victim of these processes, or keep your wits about you.  The choice is yours."

A copy of 'Neurologic' for you

Timothy Leary in 1970 (public  domain photo). 

 I recently wrote a blog post in which I asked Mike Gathers and Joseph L. Flatley which Timothy Leary title to read to get Leary's take on the Eight Circuit model, and I got two recommendations. Lenny suggest Neuropolitique, which is in print and remains available from New Falcon. Mike Gathers suggested Neurologic and suggested a couple of links where it can be downloaded. 

Mike has now made a link available for a cleaned-up version of Neurologic. It is a PDF file and you can download it here. I have myself downloaded a copy. 

I thought it might be helpful to have an epub version, as that's the standard platform used by ebook readers and apps across platforms, so I tried to convert Mike's PDF file, but the book reader on my smartphone would not recognize it as a legitimate file. Has anyone else tried to do that? 

Scott Alexander on an interesting magic mushroom

 

Lanmaoa asiatica. Creative Commons photo, source. 

[Given that many of you are interested in psychedelic mushrooms, I thought I would share an excerpt  from Scott Alexander's recent Substack issue, "Links For July 2026 (Part 1)."  Each link has a few sentences with the link. Here is what Scott posted about an edible mushroom, Lanmaoa asiatica. A lot of the other links are pretty interesting, too, so check them out -- The Management.]

Overdoses of the edible mushroom Lanmaoa asiatica have only two side effects: stomach upset, and seeing hallucinatory gnomes and elves for the next ~week. As far as anyone can tell, the mushroom isn’t psychoactive in any way besides the gnome hallucinations (ie users are still completely lucid, and understand that what they’re seeing isn’t real). It’s not culture-bound or placebo, because the mushroom grows in China (Yunnan) and the Philippines, and both places have independently noticed this, apparently without any contact or discussion with one another. I went down this rabbit hole a little; answers to some obvious questions:

• We have no idea what chemical is involved; state-of-the-art in analyzing the mushroom’s pharmacology is this extremely boring and result-free paper.

• There’s no way to get this mushroom outside of China or the Philippines; all attempts to turn up online vendors have failed.

• Even within those places, it’s not really distinguished from several other similar-looking mushrooms, and your chances of locating it without being a Chinese-speaking mushroom expert are low.

• There is no good information about what constitutes a normal dose, what constitutes a hallucinogenic overdose, and whether there is some even worse level of overdose that will actually hurt you (nobody has described the latter, and it seems unlikely within the bounds of normal Chinese cooking failures, but it might be a different situation if a Westerner who knew nothing about this mushroom took a random amount trying to overdose on purpose).

• The elves and gnomes are described as “mischievous” and are capable of interacting with objects in the environment, eg climbing tables.

• The hallucinations seem similar to other gnomeogenic conditions like Charles Bonnet syndrome, but it’s unclear why this should be true, since the latter usually involves visual injury rather than psychoactive chemicals.

'The Classical Style' reading group, week ten

Ludwig van Beethoven, about the time the Hammerklavier was written. (Source). 

Part IV  SERIOUS OPERA 

By ERIC WAGNER
Special guest blogger

On page 180 Rosen writes, “Tovey has remarked that Beethoven was not insufficiently dramatic but rather too dramatic for the stage: his music compresses into ten minutes the complexity of a three-act opera." This reminds of the equation Pound quotes “Dictung = condensare”, which Basil Bunting found in a German/Italian dictionary, poetry = condensation. Pound thought a short poem could compress the action of a novel. One can see this in something like Robert Browning’s “Fra Lippo Lippi”.  

I find it interesting that The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and The Magic Flute have remained in the repertoire continuously since their premieres, never needed to get revived. Some of Shakespeare’s contemporaries criticized his blending of genres: his comedies contained serious depths and his tragedies contained farcical humor. I found it odd that the 2006 Will Ferrell film Stranger than Fiction insisted on a rather narrow separation of tragedy from comedy. I like how Rosen shows how Mozart took elements of opera seria and incorporated them into the opera buffa traditions to create his masterpieces.  

This chapter serves as a transition from the world of Haydn to the world of Mozart, with a preview of the world of Beethoven. Rosen sees them all working within the world of the classical style, with Beethoven stretching that style into undreamt of territories. In some ways I see this study group as part of our upcoming Schroedinger’s Cat study group. A character in that novel invites a number of concert pianists to a party so she can talk with them about Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata. I like to think of Charles Rosen attending that party and sharing some of the ideas in this book with the host and the other guests, listening the other pianists' notions about the Hammerklavier and having spirited discussions with them.

Joseph L. Flatley's Maybe Day essay

 

Joseph Flatley (illustration "borrowed" from his newsletter). 

Joseph L. Flatley has a new Substack newsletter up, "Sirius, Osiris, and Isis — oh my!," which discusses Maybe Day, Robert Anton Wilson and his own recent experiences with a dream journal and a Crowleyan rite he performed that produced some interesting synchronicities. It's well worth a read.

Lenny also has a new book out, The Occult Timothy Leary: The Tarot, Magical States, and Post-Terrestrial Evolution. You can read my interview with him.  Oz Fritz wrote a review. Michael Johnson wrote one, too. 

The one-day Bobby Campbell art show

I was unfortunately not able to hit the road to view the pop up exhibition of Bobby Campbell art at the Create Magic Art Shop in Wilmington, Delaware. Bobby has now posted photos on Bluesky to show what it was like, and I reproduce them here. For prints and comics, see Bobby's Weirdoverse Gift Shop. 

Hilaritas Press releases new edition of 'The Trials of Arthur'

Yesterday, amid all of the other Maybe Day excitement, Hilaritas Press released a new edition of The Trials of Arthur: The Biker Who Would Be King by C.J. Stone and Arthur Pendragon. Above is the podcast, also released yesterday, of Mike Gathers interviewing Arthur. 

"Hilaritas Press was contacted by the authors of this astounding book to see if we would republish the book, with additional material and color photographs throughout. After reading the book, we were enthusiastic," Rasa explains.

A blurb explains, "Raised Druid King of Britain by five Druid orders on the King’s Stone in Kingston upon Thames in 1998 (where seven English monarchs had previously been crowned), this is the real life story of an outlaw biker who changed his name to Arthur Pendragon, became a Druid, then a King, who took on the British establishment and won!"

The author,  Christopher James Stone, has a new essay up, "Myth, Maybe and the Matter of Britain," that explains the book. 

Happy Maybe Day!

 

Bobby's full list of contributions is here. 

Check out the streaming live broadcast. You can see the playlist. 

My contributions are "Reading about Robert Anton Wilson: Biographies, criticism and more" and "Robert Shea: A reader's guide." 

News: 'Chapel Perilous' audiobook, Boing Boing covers the lost Leary-RAW book

In his Substack newsletter, Gabriel Kennedy/Prop Anon announces a Kickstarter campaign will begin soon for an audiobook of his RAW bio, Chapel Perilous: The Life & Thought Crimes of Robert Anton Wilson. He built his  own recording studio and saw his computer die when he started recording, but it's on the way. Details here. And as for the Kickstarter, here is the link.

Meanwhile, the folks at Boing Boing, specifically Ellsworth Toohey, have taken note of Bobby Campbell's recovery of the lost Timothy Leary-Robert Anton Wilson book, The Periodic Table of Energy. It is good to see the publicity, although a brief mention that Maybe Day is tomorrow and that Bobby is organizing the celebration would have been nice. Here is my coverage of the book.  And you can also get Bobby's original announcement. 

New articles for Maybe Day

Maybe Day is Thursday, but some of us have been posting articles so that we can create links to be included in Bobby Campbell's Maybe Day Roundup.

Below are my two contributions, "Reading about Robert Anton Wilson: Biographies, criticism and more," my attempt to point to books about RAW, and "Robert Shea: A reader's guide," about all of Shea's fiction. 

On his blog, Oz Fritz has posted "Crowley, Joyce, Lewis Carroll and the Night of Pan."

I don't know if it's meant as a Maybe Day piece, but Michael Johnson has a new piece up, "Swamp Gas, Ball Lightning, Anal Probes and the Stench of Disinformation."

Reading about Robert Anton Wilson: Biographies, criticism and more

By TOM JACKSON
Blogger at RAWIllumination.net 

Robert Anton Wilson is credited with more than 30 books. The official website maintained by the Robert Anton Wilson Trust lists 33 titles as of July 2026, and more are on the way. 

But what if you want to read about Wilson or read books that engage with some of his most interesting ideas and topics? This article aims to help with such explorations. I hope the suggestions in this piece will be useful. I am sure there are some really good books I have missed and I welcome suggestions. 

The vast majority of the authors mentioned here have author pages, home pages for individual book titles, newsletters on platforms such as Substack, social media accounts at various locations, etc. etc. I have not attempted to provide links to all of those supplementary sources, but if you look around you should be able to find them -- there's an "official page" for Robert Anton Wilson, Gabriel Kennedy/Prop Anon and Erik Davis have Substack newsletters, and so on. If you are into podcasts, you will want to know that Kennedy/Prop and Eric Wagner have both done many hours of podcasts, and Hilaritas Press has a monthly podcast series focusing on its RAW titles. 

I have in some cases provided a link, particularly when I noticed a bargain or think the book might be hard to find, or when there is a link to an official Hilaritas Press edition, as the latter is the publishing imprint of the Robert Anton Wilson Trust. But in many cases, where a book is generally available, I did not see the need to put up a link or dictate which bookstore or website you should use to acquire a title. 

I am sure I have missed some interesting and worthwhile books, so please post your suggestions in the comments. 

Biographies and Memoirs

Chapel Perilous: The Life & Thought Crimes of Robert Anton Wilson by Gabriel Kennedy, released in 2024, is the only book length biography of Robert Anton Wilson that's been published so far. Self published by Kennedy/Prop Anon, is is deeply researched. See this link for "Where to buy" links. Available as a hardcover, paperback and an ebook. The author has appeared on many podcasts.

Cosmic Trigger 1: The Final Secret of the Illuminati, Robert Anton Wilson. This is RAW's memoir of the period in his life in the 1970s when he was experimenting with the occult and LSD and thought he might have been contacted by entities from the Sirius star system. One of his most popular books. The definitive edition is available from Hilaritas. 

Cosmic Trigger 2: Down to Earth. Robert Anton Wilson. This book also is (mostly) a memoir, and it covers RAW's life from birth to his marriage to his wife, Arlen. Also available from Hilaritas, with supplementary pieces from Christina Pearson and myself. (There's also a Cosmic Trigger 3, also worth reading. It has some biographical information, too, but seems less like a memoir to me.)

High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies, Erik Davis. A book about Terence McKenna, Robert Anton Wilson, and Philip K. Dick, and their weird experiences in the 1970s. An interesting book, probably of particular interest to Dick fans and people who enjoyed the first Cosmic Trigger.  Important note from Mr. Davis: "It is currently out of print BUT a new edition (with new afterword and appendixes) will be out this fall from Strange Attractor Press." 

Beyond Chaos and Beyond, Robert Anton Wilson, edited by D. Scott Apel. This is an anthology, mostly of material that originally appeared in the Trajectories newsletter put out by RAW and by Scott. It does have a lot of good material, but I mention it here because it includes a 30,000-word piece by Apel on his long friendship with RAW. Hilaritas Press link. 

Critical studies

An Insider's Guide to Robert Anton Wilson, Eric Wagner. A useful guide, which I keep on my phone when I want more information about some aspect of RAW's career. Note that the Kindle version is only $5.  Pay attention also to the fact that this book has been published in three editions; you will want the third edition that came out in 2020.

Straight Outta Dublin, Eric Wagner (with R. Michael Johnson). Another critical study, this one focuses on the influence of James Joyce on RAW. While the main text is by Eric, the book also  features a long essay by Michael Johnson. Available from Hilaritas. 

Fly On The Tale Of The Tribe: A Rollercoaster Ride With Robert Anton Wilson, Steven James Pratt. A collection of short pieces discussing Robert Anton Wilson's work by Mr. Pratt, a British writer, musician and James Joyce scholar. It's inspired by the outline for Wilson's planned but not completed Tale of the Tribe book at the end of Wilson's TSOG: The Thing that Ate the Constitution and Other Everyday Monsters. The paperback remains available for about $11 at various locations, such as Amazon, but Steve, who is working on a revised version, has withdrawn the ebook. 

Books on the Eight Circuit model

There have been many books on the Eight Circuit Model of Consciousness invented by Timothy Leary and modified and popularized by Robert Anton Wilson.

The definitive RAW book on the model is of course Prometheus Rising, but which Timothy Leary book should the reader focus on? I recently posed that question to Mike Gathers and Joseph L. Flatley. You can read their full answers on my blog, but the gist is that Mike pointed me to Neurologic while Flatley suggested Neuropolitique.  Neuropolitique is available from New Falcon.  The ebook is only $4 on Amazon. I have lately been trying to avoid linking to Amazon on my blog, but this title is not listed in any edition on the Barnes and Noble website. As for Neurologic, is is out of print as far as I can tell, but available on the Internet. 

Probably  the latest book to explore the Eight Circuit model is Joseph L. Flatley's The Occult Timothy Leary, which applies the Eight Circuits to tarot but also discusses many of Leary's other ideas.

The late Antero Alli was probably one of the better-known figures who has written about the Eight Circuit model. His books on the subject include Angel Tech: A Modern Shaman’s Guide to Reality Selection and also The Eight-Circuit Brain: Navigational Strategies for the Energetic Body.

According to Flatley's book, The New Hermetics by Jason Augustus Newcomb "incorporates techniques like neuro-liguistic programming (NLP) and hypnosis into ceremonial magick for a system of initiation designed to instill 'complete awareness and control of all your eight circuits'.” 

Flatley's book also mentions The Shamanic Path to Quantum Consciousness by Laurent Huguelit as a book that incorporates the model. 

Other books on the model: 8-Circuit Ascension: A Guide to Metaprogramming the Multidimensional Self by Douglas Wingate and Rachel Turetzky and Nonlocal Nature: The Eight Circuits of Consciousness by James A. Heffernan. 

Adaptations

It is always interesting to see a work written in one medium adapted in another.

The Illuminatus! trilogy is currently being adapted as a series of comic books by Bobby Campbell. As I write this (July 2026) Tales of Illuminatus No. 3 is scheduled to appear later this year. Please see the official website for more information. 

Daisy Eris Campbell produced a theater adaptation in Britain of Robert Anton Wilson's first Cosmic Trigger book. Many of us Americans did not get an opportunity to see it but Hilaritas Press published a book, Cosmic Trigger the Play, with photographs to give the reader an idea of how it was staged. 

Other  useful books

For anyone who shares Robert Anton Wilson's interest in quantum mechanics, there are probably many books that deserve mention, although out of ignorance I will only mention two: How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival by David Kaiser profiles scientists RAW knew such as Nick Herbert, Jack Sarfatti and  Saul-Paul Sirag. I enjoyed the book. Herbert has a book, Quantum Reality, that I haven't read yet. 

RAW liked to listen to classical music, and Beethoven was the composer he mentioned the most in his writings. There are many books about Beethoven, but a 2014 biography, Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph by Jan Swafford is useful if you want to know about Beethoven's connections to the Illuminati. 

If you are interested in the use of conspiracy theories in Illuminatus!, you might be interested in The United States of The United States of Paranoia by Jesse Walker, which shows the role of conspiracy theories in U.S. history. The book includes a chapter that discusses Discordianism and Robert Anton Wilson. 

The KLF: Chaos, magic and the band who burned a million pounds by John Higgs discusses the music duo influenced by Robert Anton Wilson and also RAW himself. It's a great read. Note  that there's now a tenth anniversary edition with new footnotes by John. Also, there are many biographies of Timothy Leary, a big influence on RAW. I suspect many of you would enjoy the John Higgs one, I Have America Surrounded: The Life of Timothy Leary. 

Every Day Is a GOOD Day is a collection of short pieces by Robert Shea that I edited for Hilaritas Press. It offers insight into  the co-author of Illuminatus! 

The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic by Alan Moore and Steve Moore is a kind of encyclopedia of magick and would seem to be useful as a primer on many topics that interested RAW. The book has a primer on the Kabbalah, for example. 

Lazy Person's Guide to Framing: Decoding the News Media, Brian Dean. A popularization of George Lakoff's work on framing, but also about RAW's reality tunnels concept. Here is my review, which links to Brian's own explanation of the book. Currently 99 cents on Amazon as an ebook, so grab it now. 

The "Books" area of the Robert Anton Wilson website, has a list of books that influenced RAW's thinking, "Not the 'best' or even my favorites exactly: just the bare minimum of what everybody really needs to chew and digest before they can converse intelligently about the 21st Century." You'll see books listed there that are cited in RAW's writing, such as Ulysses by James Joyce, the Cantos of Ezra Pound and Science and Sanity, by Alfred Korzybski. If you aren't ready for Korzybski's big, difficult tome, Michael Johnson has a blog post from 2016 that discusses popularizations of the book. 

I am not enough of a Joyce scholar to be able to recommend which books about him you should read. I'll just note that much if not all of James Joyce's work is in the public domain (Finnegans Wake appears to be the exception), and you can find ebooks at sites such as Standard Ebooks and Project Gutenberg. I happen to be a fan of Standard Ebooks and it's my preferred site for public domain books. 

If you are a RAW fan, you should regularly browse the Hilaritas Press website, both for new editions of many RAW works and for books  that might interest many RAW fans. 

A few blogs 

While I have attempted to stick mostly to books in this article, there are a few blogs I should mention for people who like to read about Robert Anton Wilson. RAW Semantics  publishes many essays on RAW. Michael Johnson writes about RAW a lot at his Overweening Generalist Substack newsletter.  My own RAWIllumination.net has daily postings, usually connected in some fashion to Robert Anton Wilson, Robert Shea or both of them. The Oz Mix by Oz Fritz is also a great resource. 

Robert Shea: A reader's guide

By TOM JACKSON
Blogger at RAWIllumination.net

When I began my RAWIllumination.net blog, it was pretty much focused on Robert Anton Wilson, although by that time I had realized that Robert Shea was an interesting writer in his own right, and not just as the co-writer of Illuminatus! While I write more often about Wilson at the blog, I also often write about Shea.

I have now read all of Shea's books (with the exception of an anomalous work, From No Man's Land to Plaza Del Lago, a short history book. Plaza Del Lago is a shopping center in Wilmette, Illinois.) So I thought it might be useful to write a short guide to all of the titles.

These books are available free or cheaply as ebooks and inexpensively as used books, although most are out of print. Mike Shea, Robert Shea's son and literary executor, has chosen to privilege making Shea's work available over trying to squeeze every last nickle of royalties and has released all of Shea's novels (except Illuminatus!)  under a Creative Commons license; if you want to make a movie out of one of them you must pay for the rights, but if you just want to read the book you are free to do  so at no cost with Mike's blessing.

I have not chosen to provide links for individual titles, but here are some ways to get both ebooks and paper books.

For ebooks, once you have decided which title you want to try, look at the Project Gutenberg Robert Shea titles (I suggest skipping his early short stories, which aren't very good), checking out the links at the official Robert Shea page, or searching for Shea at the Internet Archive (which seems to have all of his fiction titles.) Or just Google the title. Some titles also are available as properly formatted Kindles at a reasonable price on Amazon. I did buy the Kindle titles for Shike and All Things Are Lights. 

For paper copies, there are many places to look for used books. I recommend BookFinder.com as a good place to find reasonably-priced used books. 

If you only know Shea from Illuminatus!, I should explain that  his solo  novels are straightforward historical novels  with clear prose and little of the literary experimentation of Illuminatus!, which, while a genuine collaboration between Wilson and Shea, owes most of its style and experimentation in form to Wilson. There are connections, however, between Illuminatus! and Shea's solo novels. Most of them feature Illuminati-style secret societies  that have links to secret societies in other parts of the world, and explore many of the ideas featured in Illuminatus! I have written about All Things Are Lights, for example, as a kind of "thematic prequel" to Illuminatus!

Most of Shea's historical novels are set in the Middle Ages in a variety of locales, although his last published novel, Shaman, took him into a new artistic direction as it is set in the United States in the early 19th century and features a Native American hero. Shea was still busy writing historical  novels when he died of cancer in 1994 at age 61. 

Shea's first books, the two Shike novels, were his best sellers. They did really well. The rest of his career could be described as an attempt to repeat that success. His agent, Al Zuckerman, was very oriented toward helping his clients write blockbusters see also this,  and perhaps if Shea had lived longer, he could have come up with another big hit. That said, I enjoy all of Shea's novels. 

OK, here are the books, in chronological order of when they are published:

Shike. A novel set in medieval Japan at the time of the two attempted Mongol  invasions of the island, e.g. the thirteen century. It was Shea's most commercially successful book and sold really well. The books were published as two separate novels in 1981, Time of the Dragons and Last of the Zinja, before eventually being published as one book. 

All Things Are Lights. Following the success of Shike, Shea did not publish another work until 1986, when All Things Are Lights came out. Also taking place in the 13th century albeit in a different area of the globe, and set mostly in France during the reign of Louis IX, it includes descriptions of the war against the Cathars, including the 1243-1244 siege of the Cathar stronghold of Montségur  and the Seventh Crusade ((1248–1254).

All Things Are Lights is the novel which has the most connections to Illuminatus! (there's even a hint that the main hero's sister is an ancestor of Hagbard Celine). I have written about Lights as a "thematic prequel" to Illuminatus!

Here is a blog post with a detailed discussion of All Things Are Lights. 

The Saracen. Following All Things Are Lights, Shea returned to the Shike formula of writing one fictional work in the form of two volumes. So although The Saracen is really one story, it was published in two volumes in 1989, Land of the Infidel and The Holy War. Our hero this time is a Muslim warrior and spy, and the "land of the infidel" is medieval Italy in the 13th century, some years after the events of All Things Are Lights. The Wikipedia article says it "enjoys a strong cult following," and I did enjoy it. The Order of the Assassins are featured, and one of the characters is the son of the main characters in All Things Are Lights.

The Shaman. Shea's last published novel is something of a departure, as it is set on the American frontier in the early 19th century. The hero becomes a Sauk shaman and Native Americans are depicted sympathetically. I like this less well than Shea's other novels, but Mike Shea thinks it may have been his Dad's favorite novel.

 Every Day is a GOOD Day: Robert Shea on Illuminatus! Writing and Anarchism, is a collection of short pieces by Shea. It also includes two long interviews of Shea. I edited the book, which was published by Hilaritas Press in 2025, 50 years after Illuminatus! was first published. You can also get more information here. 

'The Classical Style' reading group, week nine

Haydn around 1792 (John Hoppner painting).

III  HAYDN FROM 1770 TO THE DEATH OF MOZART 

2. Symphony 

By ERIC WAGNER
Special guest blogger

“It’s all about the bass.” When I played in the Arizona State Chamber Orchestra in the 1981-1982 school year, we played Haydn’s Military Symphony and Mozart’s Symphony #31. The orchestra only had two basses, whereas the ASU Symphony Orchestra had eight basses. I played in Beethoven’s Seventh with the Symphony Orchestra. The music of Mozart and Haydn usually gets played with a smaller orchestra with fewer players for each of the string parts. I find Rosen’s discussion of this interesting, especially Mozart’s desire for more bass. 

Haydn wrote 104 symphonies. I’ve listened to some of these for over fifty years, but I’ve only scratched the surface. It occurred to me this morning that one might spend two years focusing on one Haydn symphony each week. Of course, the later symphonies seem worthy of greater scrutiny. 

Page 162 mentions the painter Poussin whose The Shepherds of Arcadia shows up in Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The Widow’s Son, and the Marquis de Sade shows up on pg. 163. This music emerged from a world that included Adam Weishaupt and other odd ducks. This aspect of the musical world of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven doesn’t particularly interest Rosen. So many different ways to approach this music exist. Part of me wants to linger on this chapter, but I fear falling behind. We have a schedule, and the massive Mozart piano concerto chapter lurks just ahead. Beware!

Bobby Campbell news update: Maybe Day and 'Tales'

 

Bobby Campbell released a newsletter over the weekend.  I have covered much of his news here, but you should read the whole thing; it's not a long issue.

A couple of things I want to highlight: Maybe Day is Thursday, and again, all of you who can make it are invited to Bobby's pop-up art show. Details above.

Also, I want to note this update on Tales of Illuminatus No. 3: 

The KS ended strong, passing the 100 supporter milestone I was hoping for, and with another few weeks of late pledges available, we may yet surpass the first issue total :)))

Also, not entirely impossible we hit our stretch goal of $5K, at which point I'll add in the "Killing of the King Ritual / 1,000 Points of Light" storyline into The First Trip Trade Paperback.

GET IN ON THE ACTION! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bobbycampbell/tales-of-illuminatus-3-opus-chao

I'm about 70% finished with my pages for issue #3, with most of the heavy lifting completed, and everything starting to come together so super nicely.

The current plan is to cut off orders on the last of the dog days of Summer, August 11th, and start fulfillment on August 23rd!

Mozart's son

Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart in 1825. 

It's well known that J.S. Bach had composer children (RAW apparently was a fan of Johann Christian Bach).  But I somehow did not register until recently that Mozart also had a composer son.

His name was Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart (1791-1844). He was born about four months before his father died. The Wikipedia biography says he didn't write a huge amount of music, but claims, "The first concerto could pass for one of his father's late (K. 550 and above) works, except for a youthful exuberance and the piano's tessitura which had been expanded in 1795, just after Mozart senior died. The second concerto is more contemporary to the 1810s with a more virtuosic piano part showing hints that the younger Mozart was developing his own style." There are recordings of the piano concertos I haven't heard yet. 

It also says, "He constantly underrated his talent and feared that whatever he composed would be compared with what his father had done." I can see where that would have been a problem. 

Franz Schubert was his friend and he also knew Robert Schumann. He didn't marry or have any kids, and neither did his brother, the other child of Mozart to survive into adulthood. 

 

More Erik Davis news -- Expanding Mind archived on YouTube

 

I recently shared the news that Erik Davis' out of print High Weirdness book will come out again this fall in an updated edition. But I have more Erik Davis news, via his Burning Shore Substack newsletter: The archives of his Expanding Mind podcast have been made available on YouTube. 

The reason he was moved to do this was because of bad behavior by the folks at the Progressive Radio Network, his original host: 

"That said, none of this grooviness mattered much to PRN, or at least to whatever odious asshat flunky decided, last October, to erase the entirety of the show’s files from the hard discs over at Podbean, which hosted PRN’s shows. Despite the value and loyalty I brought to that janky outfit over the years, they didn’t even do me the courtesy of a heads up. When disappointed fans let me know the show was gone, I tracked down someone at PRN on the phone to ask what happened. Despite my calm demeanor, he just hung up on me."

Erik eventually responded by collecting together all of he shows he could (about half a dozen apparently are lost) and putting them on YouTube. He says,

"There are many great shows, but I am particularly proud of my conversations with Elliot Wolfson, Alan Moore, Mary-Jane Rubenstein, Greg Tate, and Pauline Anna Strom."

Links to all of those shows in the newsletter, which is worth a read, but above, I've posted the Alan Moore show, which is the one I want to listen to. 

Maybe Day is soon -- new art and an art show

 

Maybe Day is July 23; see organizer Bobby Campbell's website for details! Not too late, perhaps, to come up with something and participate. The RAW Semantics blog apparently has new art in the works; the above, which I thought was amazing, has been posted on Bluesky in advance. 

And see below for a flyer of the art show in Wilmington, Delaware, Bobby is providing for Maybe Day.

Recommendations for Tim Leary on his Eight Circuit model

In the course of working on a Maybe Day article, I had a question about the Leary-Wilson Eight C'ircuit model of consciousness. It's obvious which RAW book one should read to learn about the model, e.g. Prometheus Rising,  but which Timothy Leary title should one read? I posed the question to a couple of people who had done a lot of research on the model, and I'm sharing their answers here.

Joseph L. Flatley is the author of a new book, The Occult Timothy Leary: The Tarot, Magical States, and Post-Terrestrial Evolution. (See this interview).  When I asked him to suggest a Leary title on the model, he replied:

"Obviously the best introduction to the 8 circuit model is Prometheus Rising. As for Leary's work, I would recommend Neuropolitique, which is a collection of articles written around the time of his release from prison. A lot of them refer to the eight circuit model and are very readable. Even the articles that don't refer to the circuits provide a great introduction to the Leary worldview. His two major reference books on the 8th circuit model, Infopsychology and The Game of Life are really hard to get through and I wouldn't necessarily recommend them to beginners."

Many of you know Mike Gathers from the Hilaritas Press podcast, and he is busy working on an article on the Eight Circuit model, about which more below, but first, here is Mike's answer:

"Good question.  Info-/Exo-psychology is weird.  Like Bucky Fuller on Freud and LSD.  Game of Life is just... super weird. Not my thing.  Flatley led me to appreciate it, but not my thing.  You can find PDFs of Neurologic out there pretty easily. There are two different versions that appear to be two different 1973 printings of the same 'edition.'   It runs 40-60 pages depending on the printing.  Higgs felt it was Leary's best presentation of the model."

"The 44 page version of Neurologic can be found here:

https://www.scribd.com/doc/2350894/NeuroLogic-by-Timothy-Leary

https://www.scribd.com/doc/17278486/NeuroLogic-by-Timothy-Leary

https://mirror.explodie.org/Timothy%20Leary%20-%20Neurologic.pdf 

"I have a 74ish page version that I think is the original, full printing, but I don't see it up on the interent anyway for public access."

As for Mike's upcoming article: "The 8 Circuit Ascencion people are putting together an anthology.  So I have a 4-8000 word chapter that will be a "Then and Now."  Half history of the model and half bringing it up to 2026.   I'm thinking I will do a Leary vlog/pod that goes into more detail.   We'll see what follows.  I seem to have found some motivation on the whole thing and am basically retired (or on a one year sabbatical, depending on my mood) and doing what I want.  The deadline for the chapter is 10/31. "

(Footnote to the above: Despite a similarity in titles, Neurologic and Neuropolitique are separate Leary titles. Neuropolitique is actually a revision of an earlier book,  Neuropolitics: The Sociobiology of Human Metamorphosis.

Also, I have been trying to post fewer links to Amazon -- not an anti-Amazon jihad, just a preference to promote actual bricks and mortar bookstores -- but I could not find a Barnes and Noble link to Neuropolitique and opted to post a useful link. I just bought the ebook of Neuropolitique.)

New 'High Weirdness' available soon

While I was researching an article  for Maybe Day, I noticed that High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies by Erik Davis (focusing on Terence McKenna, Robert Anton Wilson, and Philip K. Dick) appeared to be out of print. On Amazon, the hardcover and the paperback are both listed for about $125.

Well, don't buy it! A new edition is coming soon.

From Erik Davis, after I wrote to him about the matter: "It is currently out of print BUT a new edition (with new afterword and appendixes) will be out this fall from Strange Attractor Press."

I'll try to pay attention when it comes out. 

'The Classical Style' reading group, week eight

 

Joseph Haydn around 1770 (source). 

Part III 

HAYDN FROM 1770 TO THE DEATH OF MOZART 

1  String Quartet 

By ERIC WAGNER
Special guest blogger

Mozart died December 5, 1791, age 35. 

On pg. 118, Rosen says of Haydn’s Op. 33 string quartets, “Transitional figures and phrases are almost completely eliminated.” I find this interesting because when Ezra Pound edited T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, he mostly eliminated transitional material, seeing it as unnecessary. Before Pound and Eliot, the notion of the three unities of time, place, and action played a big role in Western literature even though writers like Shakespeare rarely followed the unities. Shakespeare’s The Tempest provides a rare exception: the play takes place in one location on one afternoon. Robert Anton Wilson noticed that films prepared audiences for radical jumps in space and time. D. W. Griffith influenced both Pound and Joyce. Later films like 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Fifth Element would jump thousands of years from one scene to the next. James Bond films would jump all over the world from scene to scene.  

Literature before Pound and Eliot tended to have transitional material. Pound used radical jump cuts across space and time in The Cantos, and he encouraged Eliot to abandon transitional material in The Waste Land. Rosen illustrates a similar process in Haydn.  

I love Rosen’s writing, but one sentence on page 140 bothers me: “Op. 64 no. 3 in B flat major is one of the great comic masterpieces: the listener who can hear the last movement without laughing aloud knows nothing of Haydn.” I don’t like how he puts the reader on the spot here. The first time I listened to this movement in response to this passage, I did laugh aloud, but I wondered if I found myself nervously laughing because of my fear Rosen would think I knew “nothing of Haydn.” I just listened to it again, and I had a similar experience, laughing insecurely but enjoying the music nonetheless. Cannabis users might experiment with this movement and the quartet as a whole.

Late pledges still taken for 'Tales of Illuminatus No. 3'

Although the Kickstarter for issue number three of Tales of Illuminatus is over and the initial pledges have been paid,  late pledges are still being taken at the Kickstarter site.  It will still help with the project and Bobby Campbell would still appreciate your support. A wide variety of rewards remain available. The planned first trade paperback will have bonus material if the Kickstarter can hit $5,000. 

Update: See Bobby's comment,  below. 

Saturday links

 George Washington crossing the Delaware (to attack the British army's German soldiers). 

Bobby Campbell and Gabriel Kennedy on the Wetwired podcast.   The podcast also has a collection of RAW episodes. 

Arden Leigh in podcast discussing AI. Bobby recommends this. 

The ebook of John Higgs' bio of Timothy Leary is currently $3 on Amazon.  Also, Jesse Walker's The United States of Paranoia also is on sale again. 

Dementia is declining. 

Solar power is gaining. 

Neal Stephenson on "The Sting in the National Anthem's Tail." 

Was the American Revolution good or bad? Ilya Somin thinks it was good but he provides arguments for both sides. 

2026 Prometheus Awards announced

[Again, the relevance to this blog is that Illuminatus! won the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award, Robert Shea was involved with the Prometheus Award and I am currently one of the judges -- The Management.]

J. Kenton Pierce wins Best Novel for A Kiss for Damocles

Aldous Huxley novel Brave New World to be inducted into Hall of Fame

The Libertarian Futurist Society (www.lfs.org), a nonprofit all-volunteer international organization of freedom-loving science fiction fans, has announced Prometheus Award Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction winners.

The 46th annual Prometheus Awards ceremony

The 46th annual Prometheus Awards will be presented online Sunday afternoon Aug. 16, 2026, in a zoom awards ceremony open to the public.

This year’s hourlong ceremony, tentatively scheduled for 2-3 p.m. Eastern time and emceed by LFS President William H. Stoddard, will feature a guest speaker: Lifelong science-fiction fan Ilya Somin (George Mason University law professor, Cato Institute scholar and author), who will present the Hall of Fame award.

Updates will be posted on the Prometheus Blog over the next several weeks about additional speakers and the ceremony line-up.

The Prometheus Award for Best Novel

A Kiss for Damocles, by J. Kenton Pierce, won the 2026 Prometheus award for best novel for novels published in 2025.

The science fiction novel, published by Raconteur Press and launching Pierce’s Tales From the Long Night series, illuminates the ethics and efficacy of free trade and self-defense as a proper foundation for civilization.

Pierce’s novel is set on a remote planet where humans in towns and homesteading communities are struggling to recover centuries after a catastrophic attack and volcanic cataclysm that set back and severely limits their use of advanced technology. At the story’s heart is Shai, a young homesteader facing harsh frontier conditions, corrupt Townie politicians, dangerous native species, and sinister forces amid still-functional A.I.-powered orbiting war machines.

Pierce celebrates the self-reliance and resilience of self-regulating frontier communities that survive and evolve based on the hard-won realities of voluntarism, mutual respect and cooperation. But this is also a cautionary tale about the deceptive ideals of a command-and-control politics and the perennial tendency toward abuse of power, reflected in the Townies’ push for higher taxation, fiat money and state takeover of education to indoctrinate new generations.

Narrating from her wry but hopeful perspective, Shai becomes a leader in her community’s struggles to defend their freedom, preserve their heritage and restore their world.

Visit the Prometheus blog for a full review of A Kiss for Damocles that illuminates how it fits the distinctive dual focus of the Prometheus Award on quality and liberty.

The other 2025 Best Novel finalists were Storm-Dragon, by Dave Freer (Raconteur Press); War by Other Means, by Karl K. Gallagher (Kelt Haven Press); No Man’s Land, by Sarah Hoyt (Goldport Press); and Powerless, by Harry Turtledove (CAEZIK SF & Fantasy.)

The Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction

Brave New World, a 1932 novel (Chatto & Windus) by Aldous Huxley, won the 2026 Best Classic Fiction award and will be inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame.

This dystopian classic offers a still-timely cautionary tale of collectivist soft tyranny under seemingly benevolent world government and technocratic central planning.

Critiquing his era’s rise of collectivism and scientism, Huxley warned about behavioral/biochemical conditioning, propaganda, censorship and manipulation of artificial wombs limiting intelligence and initiative to create and control different castes.

At a time when the intellectual and artistic elite saw most forms of authoritarian collectivism as the inevitable and positive wave of the future, Huxley foresaw the dark side of utopia. The novel explicitly dramatizes how such trends deny individuality, liberty, reason, romantic love, the family, history, and literature (including Shakespeare, which inspired the novel’s title).

Visit the Prometheus blog for a full review of Brave New World that illuminates how it fits the distinctive dual focus of the Prometheus Award on quality and liberty.

The other Hall of Fame finalists were The Star Dwellers, a 1961 novel (Faber and Faber; Avon Books) by James Blish; That Hideous Strength, a 1945 novel (Scribner) by C.S. Lewis; Salt, a 2000 novel (Gollancz) by Adam Roberts; and Singularity Sky, a 2003 novel (Ace) by Charles Stross.

Prometheus Awards History

The Prometheus Awards, sponsored by the Libertarian Futurist Society (LFS), were first presented in 1979, making it one of the most enduring awards after the Nebula and Hugo awards, and one of the oldest fan-based awards currently in sf.

For more than four decades, the Prometheus Awards have recognized outstanding works of science fiction and fantasy that dramatize the perennial conflict between liberty and power, favor cooperation over coercion, expose the abuses and excesses of coercive government, and/or critique or satirize authoritarian systems, ideologies and assumptions.

Above all, the Prometheus Awards strive to recognize speculative fiction that champions individual rights, based on the moral/legal principle of non-aggression as the ethical and practical foundation for peace, prosperity, progress, justice, tolerance, mutual respect, civility and civilization itself.

All LFS members have the right to nominate eligible works for all categories of the Prometheus Awards, while publishers and authors are welcome to submit potentially eligible works for consideration using the form linked from the LFS website’s main page at www.lfs.org

While the Best Novel category is limited to novels published in English for the first time during the previous calendar year, Hall of Fame nominees — which must have been published, performed, broadcast or released at least 20 years ago — may be in any narrative or dramatic form, including novels, novellas, stories, films, television series or episodes, plays, musicals, graphic novels, song lyrics, or narrative or dramatic verse.

The Best Novel winner receives a plaque with a gold coin, and the Hall of Fame winner, a plaque with a smaller gold coin.

Michael Johnson on RAW's memorable trips

A belladonna plant (Creative Commons photo, source). 

Michael Johnson has a new Substack issue out, "Robert Anton Wilson: Two Formative Drug Trips," with the usual careful research you expect when Michael writes about RAW. Here is a good observation:

"There seems something paradoxical about drug writing: reading about Bad Trips often seems more interesting than reading about Good Trips. Hey, I want all of your trips to be good ones: emotional breakthroughs, sudden realizations that change your life for the better, the feeling of being connected with everyone, every living thing, the biosphere, and the universe, all that really Good Stuff. But it’s at times not gripping reading. Bad trips very often, I find, make for a cracking good read. I read and I think of a line from DFW: well…here’s a supposedly fun thing I’ll never have to do. (He said “never do again” but ya know?)"

As I remark in the comments, the link Michael provides to an R.U. Sirius bad trip has some pretty memorable lines, e.g. when the hospital authorities look at his fake IDs: "Since the admission authorities knew I wasn't Ho Chi Minh, they figured the other ID must be the correct one. I was admitted as Frank Zappa." Also: "The arrival of the ambulance got the attention of my parents."

Lost Leary-Wilson book now available

 

Using the Timothy Leary archives at the New York Public Library, Bobby Campbell has made available a lost book, The Periodic Table of Energy, by Timothy Leary and Robert Anton Wilson. 

A download of the PDF and Bobby's explanation of how he recovered the document and made it available can be found at Bobby's post at the Only Maybe blog. Note that it's a hefty file, 158 MB. The cover, which I show above, was created by Bobby.

Discussing the manuscript, Bobby writes, "I haven't done a detailed comparison yet, but from a decent skimming of these pages and my memory of The Game of Life and Info-Psychology, I would say The Periodic Table of Energy represents a distinct formulation of Leary's ideas, though clearly early drafts of concepts that he would revisit, and further develop, in later works."

In the first comment, quackenbush writes, "This is definitely a proto version of the Game of Life, an occult transmission, and not a proto-Exo-psychology, which is more of 'scientific' presentation. Curiously, he lists other books, and it appears that 'Interstellar Neurogenetics' is the proto-Exo-Psychology."

More information here. 

A Grateful Dead history

 

The Grateful Dead in 1970. Public domain publicity photo, source. 

Despite getting a strong recommendation from Tracey Harms to check it out, it took me awhile to get to the "Dark Star" by the Grateful Dead episode in Andrew Hickey's  A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs podcast. In podcast form, it's four hours and 39 minutes long. I saved myself considerable time by reading the transcript, available at the link.

Tracey mentioned that it would give me background on the California  milieu of Robert Anton Wilson, and in fact Wilson is mentioned in the podcast. While the song "Dark Star" is duly covered, the podcast in fact is a long history of the band.

I am not particularly a Grateful Dead fan -- I did the bulk of my listening to the Dead when I was in high school and college, before 1980, because I had friends who listened to the records -- but I thought the podcast was very interesting, and I read the whole thing. Some fine research. I had no idea, for example, that two members of the band, Phil Lesh and Tom Constanten, had ties to modern classical music and knew Steve Reich. Even as a transcript it took quite a bit of time to get through the podcast, but I read it eagerly. 

Before offering another theory on why Silicon Valley became such a technology powerhouse -- because so much defense spending was focused there -- host Andrew Hickey offers this:

"Many people who were influential on the Californian ideology, like the postmodernist science fiction writer Robert Anton Wilson, would argue that if you plotted a timeline of the most innovative people in human history, that timeline would slowly move west and slightly north, accelerating over the centuries, as the most radical thinkers followed the Sun, so in the last few centuries the greatest innovations had come from Greece, then Italy, then France, then England, then New York, and then finally the West Coast of the USA. According to Wilson and his friends like Timothy Leary, now that wave had finally reached the Pacific there was only one place left to go, and so humanity would fulfill its manifest destiny and head up into the stars."

Jerry Garcia was only 53 when he died after years of neglecting his health. The story is very sad. The band should have let him stop touring and get his life together. I plan to check out more episodes of the ongoing podcast and if you get interested in it, you can get bonus episodes by supporting Andrew Hickey on his Patreon.