Monday links

Free ebook, in case you were curious.

April Eris of the Month at Historia Discordia. 

New video by the pop duo Miracle.  "On this latest album, released in February by Relapse, Robert Anton Wilson, Kate Bush and Glenn Danzig are all name-checked as inspirations."

Maybe we just have to muddle through somehow.

New free ebook about Ayn Rand. 

Jason Louv explains Buddhism. 

The seven deadly sins of social media. 

More on whether RAW did the Jaguar interview of William Burroughs

A 1969 issue of Jaguar magazine, from the Internet Archive. 

There seems to be some discussion about whether the interviewer from Jaguar magazine, mentioned in yesterday's post, is really Robert Anton Wilson, so let's stay on that topic a moment.

Michael Johnson writes (comment at yesterday's blog post): "IIRC, Mike Gathers and I parsed very closely the interviewer for Jaguar (1966...so RAW either had just started working at Playboy or was shortly to begin his 5 year stint there), trying to figure out of it was RAW or not. We both thought it probably was him, based on the nature of the Qs and the style. The "right where you are sitting now" was persuasive."

I was struck by the "right where you are sitting now" quote I highlighted yesterday, too, of course, and note that RAW's book Right Where You Are Sitting Now is dedicated to Burroughs and Philip K. Dick.

Jesse Walker writes, "1. The *Jaguar* interview includes this exchange:

<for 15 years, and have been off them
for 7 years now. Would you explain
how you got addicted?

BUR: Addiction is a disease of exposure.
By and large people become
addicts who are exposed to it. Doctors
and nurses, for instance, have a high
addiction rate. People who I knew at
the time were taking it. I took a shot
of morphine, liked it, and eventually
became addicted.>>

2. The *Fact* profile of Burroughs includes this exchange:

<addicted. “Addic­tion is a disease of exposure,” he replied. “By and
large people become addicts who are ex­posed to it—doctors and nurses,
for instance. People I knew at the time were using it. I took a shot,
liked it, and eventually became an addict.”>>

Clearly the same conversation, even if it's transcribed a little
differently.

3. The *Fact* profile is attributed to "Ronald Weston." We know that
Wilson used this pseudonym. He told me this directly.

4. We know that RAW wrote for both *Fact* and *Jaguar*."

Me again: Jaguar was a "men's magazine" for the time. I don't have a cover image for the January 1966 issue the Burroughs article appeared in, so I've illustrated this with a cover of a 1969 issue. Probably not a magazine you'd leave laying on your coffee table to impress friends or family members, but did the editors of such magazines get to run articles on esoteric topics that interested them, because the articles were largely beside the point in selling the magazine? 

Robert Anton Wilson interviews William Burroughs

William Burroughs. Creative Commons photo by Chuck Patch. 

On Twitter, Jesse Walker highlights one of the important discoveries of Martin Wagner's Cosmic Trigger Companion (which I wrote about the other day): An interview with William Burroughs by Robert Anton Wilson.

Here is a section which would seem to have had a big influence on RAW:

(After RAW has asked about Burroughs cut-up techniques)

Burroughs: "I think if a writer is not endeavoring to expand and alter consciousness in himself and in his readers, he is not doing much of anything. It is precisely words, word lines, lines of word and image and associations connected with these word and image lines in the brain, that keep you in present time, right where you are sitting now." 

Many JFK files will stay secret for years

Burial of John Kennedy at Arlington National Cemetery. (Public domain photo from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.)

The JFK assassination is a major theme of Illuminatus!, but in "real life," the murder also a prominent feature of government weirdness. It's been more than 50 years since the assassination, but some of the files are still years away from being released (because of "national security") if they are ever released at all. Don't you feel more secure, knowing that the U.S. government hides information from you for decades?

Jesse Walker has an article about all this in Reason magazine. Many additional files were released Thursday, but many remain secret, Walker explains.

Jesse writes, "This isn't just of interest to conspiracy theorists and conspiracy debunkers. The assassination was central to the history of the American '60s, and there are plenty of details around it that haven't been filled in. And even if you don't care much about the assassination, you should want the government to have at least enough respect for transparency to stop hoarding information about an event that happened nearly 55 years ago."

In a synchronicity, I spent Thursday covering a Bobby Kennedy Jr. visit to my newspaper in Sandusky, Ohio (he was helping Dennis Kucinich's campaign for governor). The JFK files didn't come up.

What are the 'missing' RAW books?

An unconsummated Bride. Link. 

Over his long writing career, Robert Anton Wilson began or at least announced books that never appeared. I've chatted a little bit with Martin Wagner recently about this.

By my count, there are at least five publicly acknowledged  books, and I am not confident that they are the only ones.

(1) The World Turned Upside Down. In my mass market paperback of Nature's God, published by Roc, there is a note at the end about this next book in the Historical Illuminatus! series, "coming soon." There were actually five books planned in the series, but only three were published.

(2) Lion of Light, unfinished or unpublished book about Aleister Crowley that Martin reminded me of.  Here is a post about that book. 

(3) Starseed Signals. This is the book that Adam Gorightly has been trying to bring out. Adam is apparently still waiting on his publisher to bring it out.

(4) Tale of the Tribe. The book about the Internet that is outlined at the end of TSOG: The Thing That Ate the Constitution.

(5) Bride of Illuminatus! The sequel to Illuminatus!, apparently abandoned after the death of Robert Shea. A bit more here.

Rasa's license plate

If you see this car with a California license plate, it's Richard Rasa, metaprogramming director for the Robert Anton Wilson Trust (which includes the job of editorial director for Hilaritas Press.) That's his new plate!

If we're sending people for drugs, who should go?

Scott Sumner (Mercatus Center photo)

I really like this paragraph from Scott Sumner, who says we should quit putting people in prison for drugs, and has some choice words about who winds up getting sent:

"If we were actually going to use the 'addiction' criterion for who we avoid sending to prison, it would make far more sense to imprison the yuppie cocaine users, and give pass to the poor inner city kids desperate to get money by selling drugs. Of course I'm not recommending this policy, but it would at least take the violence out of the drug trade, and hence be less bad than current policy. Instead, affluent drug users go to 'rehab' clinics and poor drug sellers go to prison."

More contrarian opinions here.

Cosmic Trigger Companion launches

Big news from Austria: Martin Wagner has outdone himself in his work of Robert Anton Wilson scholarship by publishing the A Cosmic Trigger Companion website, an annotation of one of RAW's most famous books, Cosmic Trigger: The Final Secret of the Illuminati. In the course of the book, Wilson refers to various documents and art objects — and Martin posts them, so you can  read them, or view a movie clip of what RAW is referring to, or see the cover of a science fiction magazine, etc. A great example of how the Internet can be used to promote scholarship.

If you are reading or re-reading Cosmic Trigger, see also our Cosmic Trigger reading group archive (scroll down on the right side of the page), led by the estimable Charles Faris.

Getting high with H.P. Lovecraft

H.P. Lovecraft not only referenced marijuana in his fiction, he may have been the origin of 4:20 as code for smoking pot. Or so argues this piece at Cannabis Culture, "420, Lovecraft, Crowley, and Hashish connections!" by Chris Bennett, which finds the 4:20 reference in a Lovecraft story entitled "In the Walls of Erix."

Then there's this sentence: "There is the rumor that Lovecraft’s wife, Sonia Greene, had a 'friendship' with the British magician Aleister Crowley and information was exchanged between them."

Bennett is the author of a new book, Liber 420: Cannabis, Magickal Herbs and the Occult.

Hat tip: Charles Faris.

 

The war on some drugs spurs more deaths

Jeffrey Singer

A few weeks ago, I heard a podcast on the war on drugs with a Cato Institute policy expert named Jeffrey Singer, who pointed out that while authorities have stressed pressuring doctors to reduce pain pill prescriptions, drug overdose deaths have continued to go up. (The instinct to deal with social problems with crackdowns and punishment apparently runs deep.) Singer argues that the approach to the overdose epidemic should emphasize harm reduction and treatment, not punishment. Yes, the Cato Institute is libertarian, but it's not just libertarians who make that argument.

I was intrigued by Singer because the situation he described -- authorities patting themselves on the back over few pain pill prescriptions while overdose deaths soar -- is exactly what's been happening in Ohio for the last few years. So I wanted to write a story. The problem was, that in this case, I didn't want to tell "both sides." I wanted to emphasize a point of view that gets little attention.

To my surprise, my editors liked my story idea. They wanted to run it in the Sunday paper, our flagship edition. And in fact they ran my article, "Expert: Ohio Drug Approach Not Working," above the fold on page one. Given that RAW talked a lot about the "War on some drugs," I thought sombunall of you might want to read it.

Daisy Erie Campbell announces tour dates

Daisy Eris Campbell has announced tour dates for her one-woman show about coming to terms with her famous father's legacy (i.e., Ken Campbell, who mounted a theatrical production of Illuminatus!)

The dates:

May 16th, 7pm - Boscoe Tent, Brighton Festival, Brighton
June 15th, 7.30pm - Ebenezer Presents, Aller, Somerset
June 23rd, 7.30pm - Kunst Gallery, Belper, Derbyshire
August 31st, 7.30pm - The British Library, London
September 9th, 5pm - The Hub, Leeds

For information on tickets and further details, please go here. 

Thursday links

"The Temple of Bacchus at Baalbek, Lebanon, ca. 150 AD. This stunning Roman temple, still very well preserved, is actually larger than the Parthenon of Athens." Source. 

Adam Gorightly's five Discordian rituals. 

Not from Illuminatus! The U.S. government once planned false flag attacks using Soviet aircraft. 

""We had recently become aware that Robert Anton Wilson was available to  speak. He was touring around, setting up speaking engagements in a  really cheap DIY operation — it wasn’t through an agency or anything like that. He was available to speak for $500" Source from Mondo 2000

More JFK files are supposed to be released soon. Jesse Walker article from October, but the deadline is April 26. Of course, the federal government always honors its own rules.

Alex Tabarrok on Facebook.

Why not use this approach to war? 

New book on John Dee

Jason Louv of Ultraculture has a new book out, John Dee and the Empire of Angels: Enochian Magick and the Occult Roots of the Modern World.

Dee, an Elizabethan scientist and occultist, is mentioned numerous times in Robert Anton Wilson's Cosmic Trigger. 

The book has picked up some nice endorsements from the likes of Douglas Rushkoff and Mitch Horowitz.

Rushkoff: "John Dee is the original Elizabethan mage-scientist, who invented the British Empire and invested it with magical power. He is to Elizabeth what Merlin was to Arthur, except he was real. Here’s the original technology of weaponized memes, psyops, and empire building in a gripping, authoritative account of how and why we became an occult society.”

Horowitz: “Any biographical treatment of John Dee must be nothing less than epic--and Jason Louv has gloriously achieved this in John Dee and the Empire of Angels, a truly comprehensive, broad-spectrum, and lavishly beautiful historical study of the master magus and the counter-current of secret history Dee launched into the world, which has affected us all.”

On Twitter, Horowitz also wrote, "A truly epic work of historicism on John Dee from @jasonlouv. I cannot imagine it being surpassed. Part of the renaissance in occult letters."