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
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
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.
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