Jury nullification activist faces jail time

Robert Anton Wilson's 1994 anthology, Chaos and Beyond, has a a stirring essay, "Jury Nullification: Freedom's Last Chance." Wilson says the doctrine that a jury may judge the law instead of the facts has "major potential" to help uphold the Bill of Rights. He cites the John Peter Zenger case (1734), which every well-informed journalist knows was an important First Amendment case.

This message evidently does not resonate with the federal authorities. The New York Times reports on the case of retired Penn State chemistry professor named Julian P. Heicklen who is an activist for jury nullification and hands out pamphlets on the subject outside a courthouse. Mr. Heicklen has been indicted for "jury tampering."

Here is an interesting paragraph from the Times report: "He said his activism on nullification dated back to just after he retired in the early 1990s, when he openly smoked marijuana in State College, Pa., to get arrested as a protest against marijuana laws. For this, he was arrested about five times. Mr. Heicken has said that otherwise he does not smoke marijuana."

Justin Bieber backs RAW up on this

One of Robert Anton Wilson's heresies as a libertarian was that he thought the U.S. should have a health care system that covers everyone, just like the rest of the developed world. Who knew Justin Bieber was a health care pundit? Pandagon defends Bieber in an amusing post. (Via Arthur Hlavaty,who probably doesn't listen to much Justin Bieber.)

A 'Widow's Son' bibliography

I thought fans of The Widow's Son might enjoy a bibliography of the real books cited in that fine novel's copious footnotes. Where possible, I have included a link for more information. I've also skipped shorter works Wilson cited, such as newspaper clippings and the First Surrealist Manifesto. I also have omitted apparently fictional books, such as Golden Hours by de Selby. The footnote at the end of Part One, Chapter 8, is not specific enough for me to provide a citation; I can't tell if it's a real book or a joke. I have verified that each of the below is an actual book (or at last a pamphlet) cited (or at least mentioned) in a footnote. Let me know about any mistakes.

Allen, Gary, The C.F.R.: Conspiracy to Rule the World.

Allen, Woody, Getting Even.

Bacon, Francis, New Atlantis.

Baigent, Michael; Leigh, Richard, and Lincoln, Henry, Holy Blood, Holy Grail.

Bello, Nino Lo, Vatican Papers.

Bennett, J.G., Witness.

Bernard, David, Light on Freemasonry.

Carr, William Guy, Pawns in the Game.

Christiani, Dounia Bunis, Scandinavian Elements of Finnegan's Wake.

Cohn, Norman, The Pursuit of the Milennium.

Crowley, Aleister, The Book of Thoth.

Daraul, Arkon, History of Secret Societies.

de Sede, Gerard, La Race Fabuleuse.

de Sede, Gerard, Le Vrai dossier de l'enigme de Rennes.

Durant, Will, Rousseau and Revolution.

Foot, Paul, Unsolved: The Mysterious Death of God's Banker.

Glasheen, Adeline, Second Census of Finnegans Wake.

Gordon, Thomas, and Morgan-Witts, Max, Year of Armageddon: Pope and the Bomb.

Gribbin, John, In Search of Schroedinger's Cat.

Hammer, Richard, The Vatican Connection.

Hammett, Dashiel, The Maltese Falcon.

Hoffman, Banesh, The Strange Story of the Quantum.

Joyce, James, Finnegans Wake.

Joyce, James, Ulysses.

Jung, Carl, Psychology and Alchemy.

La Barre, Weston, The Ghost Dance: The Origins of Religion.

Lernoux, Penny, In Banks We Trust

Nettl, Paul, Mozart and Masonry.

King, Francis X., Ritual Magic in England.

Knight, Stephen, The Brotherhood: The Explosive Expose of the Secret World of the Freemasons.

Knight, Stephen, Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution.

Legman, Gershon, The Guilt of the Templars.

Martin, Malachi, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Church.

Masterman, John, The Double Cross System in the War of 1939 to 1945.

O'Brien, Flann, The Dalkey Archive.

O'Hehir, Brendan; A Gaelic Lexicon for Finnegan's Wake and Glossary for Joyce's Other Works.

Oglesby, Carl. The Yankee and Cowboy War.

Paoli, Mathieu, Les Dessous D'une Ambition Politique.

Phipps, William E., Was Jesus Married?

Pound, Ezra, The Pisan Cantos.

Robison, John. Proofs of a Conspiracy. (Text is here.)

Shah, Idries, The Sufis.

Solomon, Maynard, Beethoven.

Spencer-Brown, G., Laws of Form.

Temple, Robert K. G., The Sirius Mystery.

Thomas, Gordon, and Witts, Max Morgan, Pontiff.

Waite, Arthur Edward, The Rosicrucian and Alchemical Works of Thomas Vaughn and A New Encyclopedia of Freemasonry.

Webster, Nesta, World Revolution. The Plot Against Civilization.

Wilgus, Neil, The Illuminoids.

Wilson, Colin, A Criminal History of Mankind.

Wilson, Robert Anton, The Earth Will Shake.

Yallop, David. In God's Name.

Yates, Frances, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment.

Interview with Carl Oglesby

For years, I have read references to Carl Oglesby in the work of Robert Anton Wilson. (For example, Wilson often mentions Oglesby's book, The Yankee and Cowboy War: Conspiracies from Dallas to Watergate.)

Here is an interesting interview with Oglesby, from Reason magazine, which reveals him as a left-libertarian, now unlike RAW himself.

Who was Mathieu Paoli?

I have been working on a bibliography for the various books mentioned in the footnotes of The Widow's Son, which I'll publish here as soon as I can finish it. For the most part, this is a straightforward exercise — if I suspect a book really existed (Wilson includes some made-up books) I can find it on Amazon, Abebooks, etc. But I have been struggling a bit with Les Dessous D'une Ambition Politique, allegedly by one Mathieu Paoli, a Swiss journalist reportedly executed by the Israelis as a spy in the 1970s. He is mentioned in this interview, and there is information about him in Holy Blood, Holy Grail, but it seems odd there is not more information about him. I also would feel better if this entry didn't say, "fake entry, this book doesn't exist." Can anyone help?

Fly Agaric talks to RAW

Steve Pratt aka Fly Agaric interviews Robert Anton Wilson in September 2002, and we learn that RAW doesn't like James Bond movies but does like Mahler. Quite a long interview, with some very interesting segments. Hat tip, Michael Johnson.

More Shea to read, it seems

It appears I have some additional reading to do. After I posted about how much I enjoyed Robert Shea's All Things Are Lights, Eric Wagner posted in the comments that he enjoyed it, but he liked Shike even more. So it seems I ought to try Shike and see what he means.

I have plenty of options for reading Shike. Shea is out of print in the dead trees sense, but his work is available electronically in multiple formats. Shike is available as a Kindle edition for $8 but also has a free HTML on the official Shea site.

I read All Things Are Lights by converting the HTML version into a QiOO mobile file and then toting it around on my cell phone.

An antidote for Ayn Rand?

The slacktivist blog publishes a rant about his daughter being assigned to read Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead (which I haven't read -- I haven't read any of her fiction.)

Down in the comments, Nick Mathewson remarks that in high school, "I found that the antidote for Ayn Rand for me was Robert Anton Wilson. No idea why."

Geds replies, "Because he's awesome? And, weirdly, when you consider the bit where all of the good guys in Illuminatus! were anarchists, you get a sense of the importance of working together from that book, rather than just saying, 'Screw it, I'ma get mine and you all can rot'."

Atlas Shrugged is satirized in ILLUMINATUS! as Telemachus Sneezed.

Awesome political rant on Fox News

The pleasure of this video goes beyond being able to unexpectedly write the headline I put on this post. I think Robert Anton Wilson would have enjoyed this free speech rant.

Robert Shea's 'All Things Are Lights'

I have just finished All Things Are Lights by Robert J. Shea, and I enjoyed it very much and recommend it to anyone who enjoyed ILLUMINATUS! Although superficially it is a straightforward historical novel with plenty of action and romance, there is rather more material than I expected about secret societies and secret occult teachings. The Templars and Cathars feature prominently in the book, and Gnosticism, paganism, sexual tantra and the Assassins also are referenced. The book's hero, Roland de Vency, has a skeptical attitude toward authority and an agnostic attitude toward religions. The Wikipedia article about Shea says that his novels include "a few sly hints about the subjects of ILLUMINATUS!" but in connection with All Things Are Lights, this seems like a strong understatement.

While this blog focuses on Robert Anton Wilson, I feel strongly that Robert Shea also should not be neglected or forgotten. Kindle editions of Shea's works may be purchased from Amazon. Free copies of many of his books also are available from the official site maintained by his son, Mike Shea, and from a collection of some of his work at Project Gutenberg.

Robert Anton Wilson on the Illuminati

Via the usual tipster, Michael Johnson, here is a video of RAW giving a quick overview of the Illuminati. (Michael says the video is not available at rawilsonfans.com.) For a continuation of the interview, go here.

Meditation lowers violence at Alabama prison

In an earlier blog posting, I noted that many of the teachings in RAW's Prometheus Rising resemble what I had learned studying Theravada Buddhism. A knowledge of Buddhism is one of the features of RAW's writing.

Here is an interesting story from the Associated Press about how Vipassana meditation has been used at an Alabama prison to reduce violence.

Free copies of 'Alien Abductee's Handbook' available

Joe Tripician has written to me to announce that The Official Alien Abductee's Handbook: How to Recover from Alien Abductions without Hypnotherapy, Crystals or CIA Surveillance has been released as a free electronic book as a PDF download. Get it here.

Mr. Triptician tells me that Robert Anton Wilson called his book "The funniest book I've read since the Warren Report." More information on the book here.