Bodge No. 9 is available. (The zine from the Liverpool Arts Lab.)
The Psychedelic Experience, 20 minutes, a short film from 1965. Erik Davis writes, "The Psychedelic Experience Jean (female) Millay's rarely seen 20 minute trip short from 1965. Not as nice as the 16mm I saw on the screen once but still a blast from the past...
The young lady is not wearing a headband. She is wearing her Hapbee, a "smart wearable" advertised as allowing users to "change your mental state." Company website here. Cost for U.S. customers: $399.
Brian Dean at RAW Semantics reviews a brain machine, the Hapbee, similar to the brain machines that Robert Anton Wilson used to try. It's a machine that is advertised as being able to beam various moods into a user's brain -- alertness, calmness, being focused, being happy, etc. I don't want to introduce a spoiler into this blog post, but read Brian's interesting review.
The new Hilaritas Press podcast has launched. The first episode is devoted to Alfred Korzybski; access it here.
"We are very excited to announce the release of the first episode of the new Hilaritas Press Podcast series. This first episode dives deeply into the life and ideas of Alfred Korzybski, one of the most influential thinkers of the many fascinating people Robert Anton Wilson examined in his explorations of what he called his Reality Labyrinth. In this episode we talk with Dom Heffer from the Institute of General Semantics. The hosts for this episode are Mike Gathers, Eric Wagner and Gregory Arnott. All three hosts have a long history with the ideas of Robert Anton Wilson, and all are advisors to the RAW Trust."
Next month's episode is devoted to Wilhelm Reich. More information here.
A photo John Higgs posted at his latest newsletter offers a possible clue on the subject of his new book, which he will announce Oct. 5. Do we get to guess the title? My entry is "Bonding with The Beatles."
The latest John Higgs newsletter has an essay on Robert Anton Wilson and vaccine skepticism. I don't want to try to summarize it here, just read it, but here is one paragraph:
The miracle of vaccines, however, is not a story that social media is likely to promote. An issue here is that the success of vaccines is abstract and invisible, which makes them just the sort of thing that our brains are bad at factoring in. We are hardwired to pay more attention to the tale of a friend of a friend who had a funny turn after being vaccinated than we are the tens of thousands of unspecified people who did not die because they had their jabs.
John will announce details of his new book on Oct. 5, and there's plenty of other interesting news at the link.
Apuleius Charlton's Jechidah blog has a new entry which will conclude the Ishtar Rising reading group.
And there's an announcement that a reading group will follow for Robert Anton Wilson's Sex, Drugs & Magick: A Journey Beyond Limits. This is good news for me personally, as I wanted to re-read it and had delayed doing so to take part in the Ishtar Rising group.
"I won't really know when we're beginning Sex, Drugs & Magick until I finish copyediting TSOG. Hopefully I'll have an update within a month," Apuleius reports.
1. On Twitter, I pointed out the recent blog post on Philip K. Dick and The Beatles' "Paperback Writer" to Ted Hand and Erik Davis and asked if they had any comment. (Both are Dick scholars.) Ted said, "I wonder if there's any other information about Timothy Leary's thoughts on PKD." Erik said, "I have never heard the Paperback Writer claim, though I understand it was mostly a Paul song, and Paul's not so PKD. The Lennon/Leary story as far as I know is about Lennon wanting to make a film of 3 Stigmata after Leary turned him on to the book."
2. "Into the Weird," new talk by Erik Davis, now available on YouTube.
3. Erik is hosting a new online gathering called "The Dharmanaut Circle."
"The Circle is designed to be a safe and supportive place to explore and discuss experimental and heart-felt approaches to meditation, sensory awareness, psychedelics, and other modes of waking up in these dizzying times. The format will be largely the same as the SFPS: I will gab a bit, lead a guided wander through the sand-box of meditation, and host a healthy conversation. Figure two hours. Suggested donation is $33. You can sign up here."
4. Erik continues to write a Substack newsletter, Burning Shore. As with other Substack publications, some is free but you have to pay to get the full experience (and support Erik's work.) (The "Ask Dr. D." column is behind the paywall, so you'll have to pay up to find out what "Gonzo Philosophy, Gonzo Practice" refers to.)
Post at the Robert Anton Wilson Fans group on Facebook, by Ben Predpelski, five days ago.
Brian Taylor (in the comments) notes it also involves eating bats and self isolating, and provides this link.
Tucker Carlson
As an exercise at the end of Chapter 6, RAW advises reading magazines that communicate political ideas you disagree with. And he also advised similar reading habits in this interview:
" I also read at least one periodical every month by a political group I dislike -- to keep some sense of balance. The overwhelming stupidity of political movements is caused by the fact that political types never read anything but their own gang's agit-prop."
I recently listened to Ezra Klein's podcast interview with Tyler Cowen, and I was struck by how Cowen offered similar advice:
"I would say, have friends from all sorts of different idea groups, even if you really don’t like those ideas. And if you have a list of, oh, I won’t have a friend, you know, who’s a Nazi — like, fine. I don’t have a friend who’s a Nazi. But starting to make that list is actually, I think, a bad thing to do. Have diverse friends ... Spend your time building things, doing things, meeting people, going places. Don’t get too much into the complaining, about the right, about the left. Like, whatever you’re going to complain about, a lot of it will be correct. But it’s making you less productive and I would say stupider to be too much into the complaining, if I may complain about the complainers."
When I did my last blog post for the Prometheus Rising discussion group, I committed to take in material I usually avoid: "I also pledge to try to watch a couple episodes of Tucker Carlson's show, someone I've managed to successfully avoid for years. As he is Fox's top show host, it also will be interesting to compare his show with his MSNBC counterpart, Rachel Maddow."
I don't know what it's like in other countries, but in the U.S., politics has largely supplanted religion and any intellectual pursuit as a source of meaning and as a consuming passion. I am not crazy about politics -- I lean toward the Gene Healy theory that politics makes people stupid and mean -- but I sometimes think I'm the only American who doesn't constantly post endless political BS on Facebook.
In any event, I did watch two episodes of Tucker Carlson's evening news show on Fox. Just as Rachel Maddow has the flagship show on MSNBC, Carlson is Fox's top show host. I had to watch Tucker kind of the down low to avoid offending my wife, who watches Maddox almost every night; it would have been difficult to explain I was just trying to do an exercise in Prometheus Rising.
Both shows are both entertaining and manipulative, with each zeroing in on the most risible actions and statements by the other side, and with plenty of sarcasm and wit by the hosts. Mostly because of the vaccination issue, I would say I tend to agree more with Maddow's views, but both are good at scoring points. I wish someone would do a similar TV show to push Reason magazine style libertarianism, the political point of view I lean toward.
It seems to me people in the U.S. might understand each other better if Democrats would watch some episodes of Tucker Carlson's show, and Republicans would watch a few episodes of Maddow's show.
Philip K. Dick, paperback writer
Martin Wagner posted this comment on my post a couple of days ago about the Beatles' Revolver album:
"Tessa Dick, the last wife of PKD, said in an interview with the German Spiegel, that John Lennon called her husband in the 1970s to tell him that The Beatles wrote "Paperback Writer" in his honor."
I was surprised to see that. Here is a bit more:
"In an interview given to Der Spiegel in 2016, Philip K. Dick's last wife, Tessa Dick, said that John Lennon had called her husband during the 1970s and told him that Paperback Writer had been written in honor of him. Source (in German): [1]. Quote from the linked interview: "In den Siebzigerjahren rief einmal John Lennon bei ihm an und sagte ihm, den Song 'Paperback Writer' hätten die Beatles ihm zu Ehren geschrieben." ("In the 1970s, John Lennon called him [= Dick] to tell him that The Beatles had written 'Paperback Writer' in his honor.").
"Of course, we also have John's own quotes in the article that it's mainly Paul's song, but if you look at those quotes closely, you'll see John actually talks about the tune as being entirely Paul's, not the lyrics."
My old friend Brett Cox (mentioned in the Revolver blog post) once wrote a parody of "Paperback Writer" for a fanzine about a person who wants to publish a science fiction novel; from memory, I believe the first line was "Donald Wollheim won't you read my book?" Wollheim, a famous SF book editor, was one of Dick's editors. So perhaps Brett was more right then he knew? This reminds me of Robert Anton Wilson's bit in Illuminatus! about Beethoven being a member of the Illuminati, which RAW apparently put in because he loved Beethoven and it was a good joke. RAW later read Beethoven biographies and discovered he was more right than not.
Many of Dick's titles were first published as paperback originals (much like Illuminatus!, as a matter of fact) and the Philip K. Dick Award is given to the best paperback novel published in the previous year.
Thanks for the tip, Martin!
UPDATE: Martin wrote to me and shared this passage from Tessa Dick's memoir, Philip K. Dick: Remembering Firebright: "On another occasion, Phil took a telephone call from a man who said he was John Lennon, and he was in a hotel room in Canada with Dr. Timothy Leary. 'Yeah, sure, you bet,' Phil said. He did not believe it, but eventually the man convinced him he really was John Lennon of the Beatles and that he and Dr. Leary were both fans of Phil's writing. He told Phil that the Beatles song 'Paperback Writer' was about him."
I still don't know what to make of this, but the additional details are intriguing and seem to add to the possibility the claim is true. A possible date for the phone call would be 1969, when John Lennon recorded the song "Give Peace a Chance" in Canada. Timothy Leary was present. Details here.
Chad Nelson
I recently completed a stint as a volunteer copyeditor for the new Hilaritas Press edition of Natural Law, Or Don't Put a Rubber on Your Willy.
To do so, I had to agree to a nondisclosure agreement, so I have to be careful to reveal few actual details about the book. I think it is known publicly that the book doesn't just have the original long essay but also adds other material, but I can't give any other specifics. I also don't know when the book will come out; I only know Rasa and the Hilaritas folks are working on it.
But what I did want to record is that based on what I read, it's going to be a really good book. I am very excited about it, and I'm curious what the rest of you will think when it comes out. Chad Nelson took on the task of editing the book, deciding which additional material to add, and he did a great job. There is a lot of additional material, and it's all really good.
I had expected a more political, more "libertarian" book based on the sources I was working with, but instead I encountered a rather strong RAW book, one aimed at all of his fans.
In fact, I told Chad in an email, "I was actually kind of expecting a 'libertarian' book, but I suspect the title will have broad appeal to RAW fans."
Chad replied,"I too was expecting a "libertarian" book!"
Chad then gave me a RAW quote from the Natural Law essay which partially summarizes what the book became:
"If Ideologists ever convince me that this pragmatic, individualistic, scientific attitude is incompatible with libertarianism, then I will find some other name for myself and not use the word 'libertarian'anymore. I am not interested in Ideologies and don't give a damn about labels at all, at all."
-- Robert Anton Wilson
Inspired by a good book I just read, Revolver: How the Beatles Reimagined Rock 'n' Roll by Robert Rodriguez. I am talking about the complete album released in Britain and later released in the U.S. not the truncated version originally released in the U.S.
1. RAW fans as a rule are big music fans, and Revolver seems to me and many others the best Beatles album. (This has become conventional wisdom, but it was my opinion before I knew that.)
2. This is the Beatles album with the song "Yellow Submarine," which of course inspires Hagbard Celine's submarine in Illuminatus! (As I have written elsewhere, it was Shea and not Wilson who apparently was the Beatles fan.) Howard and his friends in Illuminatus! make sense of the lyric about friends who "live next door." Most people can't live "next door" to a submarine.
3. Between "Yellow Submarine" (with its dream of freedom) and "Taxman," Revolver arguably in the most libertarian Beatles album.
4. The album also has "Tomorrow Never Knows," one of two Beatles songs inspired by RAW's friend Timothy Leary. The "Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream" and other lyrics are taken from a book, The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead by Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert and Ralph Metzner. The tune is primarily written by John Lennon, who picked up the book at a London bookstore.
5. The album jumps around to different sounds, giving multiple music points of view, analogous to RAW's technique of multiple viewpoints in his novels. "Taxman" and "She Said She Said" are hard rock albums with a heavy guitar sound, but "Eleanor Rigby" uses a string octet and "For No One" has a French horn solo by Alan Civil, a prominent classical musician. "Love You To" features all Indian instruments, with George Harrison playing sitar.
Some tidbits from the book: "Got to Get You Into My Life," a Paul song, is an ode to marijuana; the Rolling Stones had recently put out an album called "Aftermath," so when it was time to name the new Beatles album, Ringo suggested calling it "After Geography."
The sessions for Revolver also resulted in the single "Paperback Writer"/"Rain." As my friend Brett Cox has pointed out, "Rain" could be described as the first "alternative rock" song.
