The new Damien Echols book

Damien Echols has a new book out. As he was one of the writers invited to contribute to the Hilaritas Press edition of Sex, Drugs & Magick, I thought there might be some interest among RAW fans. 

The book is The Alchemy of the Broken Blade: Forging Inner Transformation from the Fire of Experience and it features a forward by Mitch Horowitz. Here is some of the book blurb:

"The Alchemy of the Broken Blade is a field manual for those walking through the fire. It is for anyone who’s been shattered―by trauma; by grief; by the long, slow erosion of purpose in a world that worships distraction; that demands everything and gives little back. The Alchemy of the Broken Blade weaves a path for personal transformation through ritual, discipline, and relentless presence.

"Bestselling author Damien Echols delivers a practical tool kit for personal transformation and healing, not based on theory but on lived experience. He shares a spiritual practice born from extremes: From a wrongful conviction that led to death row, solitary confinement, spiritual breakdown, and resurrection, Echols spent years clawing his way out of despair and into a life he could stand inside again. And through that process, Echols discovered a path―not clean or easy but sacred."

The author's bio begins, "Damien Echols is an American author who first became known as one of three teenagers, the West Memphis Three, wrongly convicted of a triple murder in 1994. DNA evidence secured his release from death row in 2011, after which Echols authored several autobiographical and spiritual/magickal books."

Shakespeare news update

A possible portrait of Christopher Marlowe. (Source). 

Fascinating article from the Guardian: 

"Dramatic new evidence concludes that the play Edward III should be added to William Shakespeare’s canon, and also that it was a major collaboration with his contemporary rival Christopher Marlowe.

"The history was published anonymously in 1596, and it has long been thought that Shakespeare wrote at least a few scenes. However, Dr Rory Loughnane, a leading scholar and co-author of the research, told the Guardian that computerised textual analysis pushed the case 'beyond any reasonable doubt' that the Stratford-born playwright was the principal writer."

Here is a sentence from the article I particularly enjoyed: "The researchers used various forms of computerised linguistic analysis in comparing Edward III with securely attributed works by 10 dramatists active between the late 1580s and the mid-1590s. In one test, 23 segments – 'the lion’s share' – were identified as being written by Shakespeare, while nine segments were classified as Marlowe, whose works include Doctor Faustus."

Shakespeare of course was born on April 23. 

David Lee's assumption, and mine [UPDATED]

The Washington, D.C., headquarters of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. Creative Commons photo, source. 

The David Lee essay I referenced yesterday had a sentence that jumped out to me: "Well, judging by nearly everyone (but not all) the people I've ever met on the Discordian scene, I'd assumed anyone handling RAW's legacy would be fairly politically Left, and on board with proper climate science."

The assumption that everyone who is a RAW fan is a leftist seems uninformed. But when I make that remark, I am really pointing a finger at myself.

I got interested in RAW when I was in college. I was in a small group of Libertarians at the University of Oklahoma. We were all big fans of the Illuminatus! trilogy, which came out in the 1970s, when I was in college.

I assumed at the time -- and thought for many years -- that most, or at least very many, RAW fans are libertarians. Launching this blog about 16 years ago taught me this was not true. In Britain particularly (David Lee is British) RAW fans tend to be Labour Party types. There are a few British libertarians, but apparently only a few. In the U.S., there are in fact plenty of RAW fans among libertarians. But it's not clear to me that they outnumber people into magick or Bernie Sanders fans. 

It took me awhile to realize that Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea attracted a wide range of weirdos, rather than just the sort of weirdos I hung out with in college. Do other RAW fans make that same mistake? 

UPDATE: In the comments, Brian Dean says he "strongly doubts" that British RAW fans tend to be Labour Party types, and I acknowledge that if he and other British fans insist upon this, they would know better than I would. 

Monday links

 Michael Johnson on secret compartments in books. 

Dave Lee on Robert Anton Wilson and the yoga of hope, an essay he says was rejected for the upcoming RAW book on magick.  

Libbie Grant on  "The 13 Best Weird Literary Novels."

Edrith on 31 science fiction books to read, novels and collections. 

"Nonetheless, we have to hold our noses and vote for Democratic candidates, at least at the Federal level. The country is safest when the same party doesn’t control the White House and both houses of Congress."

My contribution on the My9albums meme. also see above. Also, Jesse Walker's version. 

Another reading group, 'The Classical Style,' has been indexed

 

For years, we have had online reading groups at this blog, with posts that discuss a book a section at a time  and comments by other readers. In each case, I have put together links for each book, so that if you want to read it later, you can read the blog posts  and the comments. All of those links may be accessed by scrolling down the right side of this page.

I spent some  time today creating a page with links for all of the posts by Eric Wagner about The Classical Style by Charles Rosen, so now that's available, too. 

Here are other online reading  groups, indexed by links: Illuminatus!, Vineland by Thomas Pynchon, Natural Law by RAW (the Hilaritas version), Prometheus Rising by RAW, Nature's God by RAW, The Widow's Son by RAW, The Earth Will Shake by RAW, Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov, The Beethoven Quartets by Joseph Kerman, Email to the Universe by RAW, Cosmic Trigger by RAW, Coincidance by RAW, Masks of the Illuminati by RAW and Quantum Psychology by RAW. Read or re-read one of these books and see what the rest of us had to say about it! Again, look at the right side of the page and scroll down to find the book. 

I probably need to figure out a way to make it easy to find all of these reading groups. Maybe I will put up a list. 

The next online discussion group will be for the Schrödinger's Cat trilogy. That will start in January, using the one-volume edition; more details soon. 

Oz Fritz on Hermetic material in Schrödinger's Cat.

Diagram from the new Oz Fritz blog post

In January, we will start an online discussion group on Schrödinger's Cat. Oz Fritz isn't waiting for the discussion of this seminal RAW work to begin; he has a new blog post up, "Robert Anton Wilson, The Rosy Cross and The Night of Pan," which discusses RAW's use of Cabala in the work. Oz remarks,

"This may seem fanciful to those who don't know Wilson or wish to deny his Cabala. The book Maybe Magick, scheduled for release at the end of this month (October, 2026) has a couple of articles (at least) that illustrate the complexity of his Cabalistic reckoning. Another example can be found in the introduction I wrote for Lion of Light."

And in the same post, Oz calls the trilogy a "Manual of Shamanism."

I'll have details up soon about the planned reading group. 

'Tales of Illuminatus' Kickstarter fulfillment completed [UPDATED]

 

Bobby Campbell has announced that the trade paperback of the first three issues of the Tales of Illuminatus trade paperback of the first three issues  (pictured) and the paper edition of Skeleton Key #1 (Michael Johnson's zine of commentary) have been mailed to people who had them included in their Kickstarter packages.  I'm pretty sure that completes fulfillment for all of the people who supported the project with their pledges for the third issue. UPDATE: See Spookah's comment. 

The Beatles available for everyone

The Beatles in August 1966, the month Revolver was released (with disc jockey Jim Stagg). Public domain photo, source. 

I've had trouble finding anybody else  yet who thinks this is a big deal, but I think it's a big deal! If you live in the U.S. and you have a library card for a public library, you can likely listen to any Beatles album or song you like, for free, without advertising.

The reason for this is that most public libraries in the U.S. offer Hoopla Digital, a product accessed via a smartphone app or website that offers streaming movies, TV shows and music albums, along with digital books and comic books. While Hoopla offers many (but not all) classic rock artists, including the Rolling Stones, Elton John, Led Zeppelin and The Who, it did not have The Beatles (although it had solo albums by former Beatles.)

A few days ago, however, Hoopla suddenly announced it had the rights for the Beatles. I immediately checked out Let It Be (Super Deluxe) (57 tracks), Revolver (Super Deluxe) (63 tracks) and Rubber Soul (Super Deluxe) (68 tracks). I didn't listen to any albums, super deluxe or otherwise, I just reveled in being able to listen to songs such as "Drive My Car," "Norwegian Wood," "Rain" and "Nowhere Man" over and over again. 

A couple of posts on this blog of possible interest: "Yellow Submarine bleg,"  (see the comments), "I think I know where the yellow submarine in 'Illuminatus' comes from" and "Why 'Revolver' is the best Beatles album for RAW fans." 

A Joseph Matheny manifesto

In his latest newsletter, Joseph Matheny provides a look at what he's attempting with his latest work in progress, Art is War. 

"ART IS WAR, and I have never been more convinced of that than now. If you are an artist, this is your call to arms (your art is your praxis).

"Be a ronin instead of joining and supporting the feudal castles, i.e., the corporate raiders taking over the world of art, such as Disney, A24, and a plethora of other similar parasites.

"Seek out and support independent artists and/or make your own.

"Form art groups and, instead of falling for the old divide-and-conquer tactics corporate feudalists use to keep us separate and weaker, support each other. Bind together."

More here, including book notes, links and information about a new book, anonymously written, on "The joy of being nobody." 

Update from Ben Graham

British Discordian writer Ben Graham, who recently announced the completion of the novel Savage Jubilee and a new edition of the previous novel in the series, Electric Tibet, has an update in his latest newsletter:

"Thanks to everyone who’s pre-ordered copies of my two interconnected novels, Electric Tibet and Savage Jubilee. Although they won’t be officially published until January 14, 2027, I’ll be sending out the first batch of pre-orders in the next few days. All pre-ordered copies are signed and hand numbered, and you can get them exclusively at bleedingcheekpress.bigcartel.com - if you’re buying both books, don’t forget to use the code UNDERGROUND23 at checkout to get a £5 discount."

At the link, there's an excerpt of the first few pages of Savage Jubilee. 

New Jesse Walker podcast

A recent photo of Jesse Walker posted on Facebook. Wait, we found somebody who still uses a typewriter? 

This sounds pretty good. From Jesse Walker:

"I went on a podcast hosted by a couple of ex-CIA guys. It was about 30 minutes of them asking me questions about one of my books, then about 20 minutes of me asking them questions about life in the CIA."

The book of course is Jesse's The United States of Paranoia. The podcast is called Mission Implausible, here's the link to Jesse's episode. 

Bonus link: Judy Woodruff interviews Jesse on how conspiracy theories shaped America. 

'War on some drugs' update: Murder at sea

Jacob Sullum, senior editor at Reason magazine

Jacob Sullum, routinely excellent when writing about what Robert Anton Wilson called the "war on some drugs," has a new piece up at the Reason magazine website, "How Murdering Suspected Drug Smugglers Became the New Normal."

Sullum discusses the Trump administrations policy of "remotely killing 227 people in cold blood without any semblance of due process" (as of late August this year) and then goes into detail about just how immortal and illegal the program is. As you might expect, the same people who bombed an Iranian girls school insist they are never wrong when they order a boat strike. 

My Halloween reading this year

 

I enjoy Halloween, and each October I try to do Halloween-related reading. 

Last year, I did well. I read a sprawling old Gothic novel, Melmoth the Wanderer, by Charles Robert Maturin. Very atmospheric. 

This year, I am about halfway through Twice As Dead by Harry Turtledove, a fantasy about a detective in Los Angeles, a few years after World War II. It has vampires, ghosts, etc. Not really scary, but Halloweenish and fun. 

Before the month ends, I hope to get to the Standard Ebooks edition of The Return by Walter de la Mare.  

As Brett Cox mentioned in a recent blog post, A Night in Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny also is a possible Halloween read. "There are people who reread it every October, a chapter a day for 31 days," he noted.