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.