An ad for RAW and Leary

 

The above ad for books by Robert Anton Wilson (Cosmic Trigger) and Timothy Leary (Neuropolitics) was posed by Mike Gathers on Twitter. 

From an underground newspaper in LA, I think. I can't find the Tweet where Mike said he found it. 

Prometheus Rising exercise and discussion group, Episode 97

By Apuleius Charlton
Special guest blogger

Over the course of this reading group, I have used Prometheus Rising as a series of lenses with which to examine the world, Wilson and myself. I have drawn upon the immediacy of the world as it has changed over the course of the past year and a half, as well as my experiences and thoughts when I have read Prometheus Rising in the past. The world does change rapidly, seemingly more rapidly as the future arrives anew every day; no one can fault Wilson for inaccuracy as far as that prediction is concerned. I have spent many of my posts concerning Prometheus Rising detailing my qualms with other predictions. I don’t feel the need to continue journaling my anxieties and quibbles. 

I am in full agreement with Wilson that stupidity is the main danger in the world and that intelligence increase is our best (only?) hope for a truly new dawn. I still maintain that stupidity continues having quite the moment amongst members of the human race but I’d like to consider RAWillumination. Here is something that could be considered social media that I think works to make the readers a little better and smarter over the years. Through his persistence, friendliness and discerning taste, Tom has built a place for people to gather and judging from the people I see commenting regularly, his work has attracted others who are earnest in their desire to share and learn with each other. I am not alone in having noted that this website is one part of our day that we know will be a bright spot. When Tom had to take a hiatus last month, sincere condolences were offered, showing that there is a true sense of community amongst the regulars. I’m sure many of you missed checking the blog for the week it was offline. 

This ramble is to say that I believe Tom is doing his part to increase intelligence, step by step- and look how others have built upon his work: Tom, in this reading group alone, has provided Eric a platform to display his years of knowledge of Wilson, Beethoven, Joyce and more. (I have hopefully occasionally added something of value.) Through their work and the responses of our dedicated commentariat, we are able to continue a dialogue with the dead as we continue to explore and debate their words. The good news is that Robert Anton Wilson is alive and well and living within all of us. 

As long as there are minds to meet and places to gather, we’ll continue to nurse the lives and ideas of the authors, musicians, artists and madmen that have inspired us all across space and time. We will continue to ascend, sometimes slowly and with great confusion, to something better than yesterday’s world. The bright and shining future might not arrive as soon as we wish, and I know that I still have much to learn about patience and acceptance, but as long as we are working on it, there isn’t an excuse to fall into the slough of despond. We continue to bend our shoulders to the wheel. 

Step by step, Prometheus rises. 

Robert Shea obituary in 'Green Egg'

While I was visiting Apuleius Charlton recently, we went to the local "metaphysical/Wicca" shop, where I picked up a copy of Green Egg magazine with an uncredited but useful obituary for Robert Shea in it (Vol. 27, No. 105, Summer 1994). This blog is about Robert Shea as well as Robert Anton Wilson; see the "Robert Shea Resources" at the right side of this page. The Management]

Bob Shea (February 14, 1933 -- March 10, 1994)

Bob Shea, co-author of the germinal Illuminatus! trilogy and author of many other historical and heretical writings, died of cancer in the arms of friends and his loving wife, Patricia Monaghan, after a sudden dramatic decline in his health. His last words before sinking onto a coma were, "Love is everywhere."

Robert Joseph Shea attended Manhattan Prep, Manhattan College and Rutgers University and worked as a magazine editor in New York and Los Angeles. In the 60's he edited the Playboy Forum where he met Robert Anton Wilson, with whom he collaborated on Illuminatus! After publishing Illuminatus!, Bob left Playboy to become a full time novelist. His novels include: 

• Shike, set in medieval Japan.

• All Things Are Lights, a story that entwines the fate of the Cathars of southern France with the occult traditions of Courtly Love and the troubadours.

• The Saracen, describing the intricate politics of medieval Italy.

• Shaman, tracing the fate of the survivors of the Black Hawk War in 19th century Illinois. 

• Lady Yang, a tragic story of an idealistic empress of medieval China (forthcoming).

A celebratory reading of Bob's works took place on March 26 in Winnetka, Illinois. More than a hundred people attended and many, including Bob's collaborator and dear friend, Robert Anton Wilson, spoke during the meditative interlude of Bob's friendliness and curiosity, cheerfulness and courage.

Patricia thanks everyone for their support, especially those who participated in Pray for Shea Day (Feb. 14, 1994). She assures us that, "It may seem like the prayers of hundreds of well-wishers went for naught. Certainly I had hoped for a dramatic improvement in Bob's health as a result of prayer day ... Yet curiously I believe our prayers may have been answered, for Bob's death was a quiet one and he was very happy in the days before it."

In the next few years, several more of Bob Shea's works will be published, including a collection of essays. Patricia requests that anyone having copies of Bob's work from magazines or other publications, or having letters from him which might be publishable, to please send copies to her at 1625 West 101st St., Chicago IL 60643.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Cancer Wellness Center, 5150 Gulf Road, Skokie IL 60077.

Jesse Walker's horror movie Top Ten

(Public domain image, via Wikipedia)

As we head closer toward Halloween, here is something sombunall of you might find useful: Jesse Walker's top ten, all time favorite horror movies, taken from his contribution to a Twitter poll. Here's the list:

Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Mulholland Drive (2001)
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Videodrome (1983)
The Birds (1963)
Safe (1995)
The Black Cat (1934)
Woman in the Dunes (1964)
Vampyr (1932)
Hour of the Wolf (1968)

I've only seen Mulholland Drive and The Birds, both very good. I hope if Jesse ever publishes his top ten science fiction movies, I'll run across the list. 

Friday links

 

New book by Jeffrey Kripal, The Superhumanities. 

The Cantos Project -- online project to annotate the Cantos of Ezra Pound. 

H.P. Lovecraft themed hot sauce.

AI rapper doesn't work out.

Finnegans Wake on Star Trek fandom. "‘All the time he kept on treasuring with condign satisfaction each and every crumb of trektalk, covetous of his neighbour’s word ...’ 

John Lilly and SETI

The Green Bank radio telescope. (Creative Commons 3.0 photo, NRAO/AUI/NSF - https://public.nrao.edu/gallery/green-bank-telescope/)

The New York Times runs an obituary for Frank Drake, the astronomer noted for his efforts to detect intelligent life. 

It's worth reading for its own sake, but I also was surprised by the mentions of John Lilly. After mentioning Drake's first attempt to detect an alien transmission, the obit by Dennis Overbye goes on to say:

A year later, in November 1961, 10 scientists, including luminaries like the young Carl Sagan and John Lilly, who was trying to learn to communicate with dolphins, convened at the Green Bank observatory to ponder the extraterrestrial question. (They did so secretly, fearing professional ridicule.) After Dr. Lilly’s research, they called themselves the Order of the Dolphin. 

[Green Bank is in West Virginia.]

RAW manuscript on Aleister Crowley found

Martin Wagner and Jesse Walker are reporting that a 72-page essay by Robert Anton Wilson on Aleister Crowley has been located at the Harvard University library. (Martin was the first to tell me about it, but Jesse has supplied details.) UPDATE: Jesse says I give him too much credit; see the comments. 

The essay is entitled "Do What Thou Wilt," and it is unclear what relationship it has to Lion of Light, the book-length piece on Crowley that RAW planned to publish. Rasa at the RAW Trust/Hilaritas Press has been notified and is pursuing the matter.

"It is an extensive survey of the biography and philosophy of Aleister Crowley, with the last two pages giving details and opinions of two of Wilson's earlier books."

More information here. 

More images at 'RAW Experimental'

Brian Dean has continued to add new images to RAW Experimental, his new site for producing new images of Robert Anton Wilson, using filters and AI on existing images. A new post at his RAW Semantics site  provides an update on what's going on: "I’ve added more images since the Maybe Day launch (July 23rd). The bigger your screen, the better, since you can then fully appreciate the difference between the original images and the upscaled versions. The case studies show plenty of before/after comparisons. See also the galleries for upscaled RAW images and filter effects applied to those high-resolution images. I’m also going to be adding a visual ‘memes’ section (when I get around to it), so stay tuned…"

With Brian's permission, I have switched out the image on this website to a "Cyberpunk comic-book" image from his website; for information about permissions, see the bottom of the "About" section. 

Prometheus Rising exercise and discussion group, Episode 96, chapters 18-19

Prometheus Rising, Chapter 18

By Eric Wagner
Special guest blogger

Dude, we’ve made it to the eighth circuit! Bob starts this chapter with a quote from Ulysses. Joyce provided both Leary and Wilson with many maps to the higher circuits.

About thirty years ago I repeatedly read the final novels of Philip K. Dick. While reading The Divine Invasion I had the idea of setting up a team of astral projectors who would try to restore the ancient library at Alexandria. About eleven years I got a group together, and we made the attempt without any apparent success. We also investigated the Kennedy assassination. I associated Bach’s Cello Suites with the Alexandria attempts and Beethoven’s late String Quartets with the Dallas 1963 attempts. 

Tim Leary divided each of the eight circuits into three phases, making the eighth circuit stages 22, 23, and 24. Both Leary and Wilson relate the eighth circuit to quantum mechanics. Leary mentions quarks in his discussion of Stage 22 in Musings on Human Metamorphoses (pg. 109) and in his discussion of Stage 23 in The Game of Life (pg. 278-279). Physicist Murray Gell-Mann, of course, got the name quark from Finnegans Wake. In The Game of Life Leary mentions Robert Anton Wilson in his discussion of Stage 23.

For the past few days I have wondered how many times the movement Stroke the Peacock’s Tail (right) appears in the 108 Movement Yang Long Form of Tai Chi. I finally figured it out this morning: eight times. (I don’t think the tai chi peacock has anything to do with the streaming service.) This mild coincidence of eights fits in with this mild chapter. I have far less visceral experience of the eighth circuit than I do of the other seven circuits. 

THE VOYAGE DEPENDS UPON STEP-BY-STEP, MOMENT-TO-MOMENT ACTIONS BY INDIVIDUAL SINGULARITIES. – Timothy Leary, The Game of Life (pg. 281)

Prometheus Rising, Chapter 19

I guess I would consider myself an Evolutionary Agent using the criteria on page 274 of Prometheus Rising. I don’t think I’ve mastered the metaprogramming circuit yet, although I think I’ve experienced it over the past 39 years. In 1983 my roommates and I decided to have a 123rd birthday party for Gustav Mahler on July 7. I spent the month before the party metaprogramming Mahler, reading about him, listening to his music, studying his scores. One time I woke up in the middle of the night hearing Mahler music in my head, but not music Mahler had actually composed. My mind had started creating pseudo-Mahler music for my first experience of metaprogramming.

I also don’t consider myself a “neuro-quantum” adept yet. In fact, I don’t connect with the eight circuit model as much as I used to. I find it a very useful model, but I look forward to even better models. On pg. 20 of Prometheus Rising Bob wrote:

Following Dr. Timothy Leary (with a few modifications) we shall divide this brain hardware into eight circuits for convenience. (“For convenience” means that this is the best map I know at present. I assume it will be replaced by a better map within 10 or 15 years; and in any case, the map is not the territory.)

Bob wrote Prometheus Rising in 1983, and he revised the text for the 1997 Second Revised Edition. Twenty-five years have passed since then.

Perhaps “more of Beethoven’s intelligence” (pg. 271) will help us find and/or create even better maps. Tim Leary had more interest than Bob did in contemporary music like rap and rock. I love how Tim wrote about Stevie Nicks and David Bowie, for instance. On page 275 Bob wrote:

By the time the Consciousness Revolution peaks, the Longevity Pill is widely available, cloning is normal and all the ideas in this book, including the most wild and radical ones, seem quaint and old-fashioned – i.e., about 2005 – we will probably be growing accustomed to thinking in terms of revolutions-per-year.

There is no reason to accept the tunnel-reality of this book as final. If you really understand the message, you will invent a bigger and better Future than I have suggested. As Barbara Marx Hubbard says:

THE FUTURE EXISTS 

FIRST IN IMAGINATION, 

THEN IN WILL, 

THEN IN REALITY.

I don’t think that happened by 2005, but perhaps it will happen in the next 23 years, or by next Tuesday after lunch.

In the mid-80’s I used to revel in reading Tim Leary while listening to Fleetwood Mac. I wonder how the synergy of texts and music will help us navigate the next few years. I thank you for joining us on this voyage. 

I wonder what “Meta-physiological cosmic vision” pre-capitulates in the book’s final line.

From RAW's lost Crowley book

Robert Anton Wilson at one point was going to publish a book called Lion of Light, about Aleister Crowley. I don't know how much of it got written, or what happened to it, but Jesse Walker has spotted an article from Green Egg magazine, "Crowley, Leary and Genetics," which is an excerpt from the planned book. The digital issue of Green Egg (Volume VI, No. 60)  can be checked out for an hour apiece from the Internet Archive. "Plus a bonus bit of Discordianism on page 10, and a RAW letter on page 34," Jesse notes.   

A few comments on the Beethoven podcast

I have finished the Hilaritas Press podcast on Beethoven starring Mike Gathers and Eric Wagner, it was very good, I plan to listen to it one more time to make sure I have absorbed everything. (It mentions this blog more often that the other HP podcasts have, but that's not why I liked it.) A few comments:

1. The discussion of Beethoven by Eric is really good, he does a good job for example of discussing the works of Beethoven written in C minor and what's happening with them.

2. Eric is invited to suggest a few pieces for Beethoven newbies, and he obliges, but I want to chime in. It seems to me some of the best choices are the blindingly obvious ones: The Fifth Symphony (I like the Szell/Cleveland Orchestra recording), the "Moonlight," "Pathetique" and "Waldstein" piano sonatas, the Fourth and Fifth piano concertos, the violin concerto. Beyond that, I agree with Eric in recommending the Seventh symphony. You can't go wrong trying some of the piano sonatas and other symphonies, some of my favorite pianists are Sviatoslav Richter and Alfred Brendel. I am particularly fond also of the third and 32nd piano sonatas and the third cello sonata. If you want more recommendations, see Tyler Cowen. 

3. At the end of the podcast, Eric gives an update on his Straight Outta Dublin book project about James Joyce and Robert Anton Wilson, I am relieved it is nearing completion and rather anxious to read it.

4. As Eric and Mike discuss, RAW liked what he liked on music and did not try particularly hard to "keep up," as he did with literary fiction, science fiction, etc. I unsurprised he did not pay a lot of attention to current pop music. I am more surprised he seldom mentions contemporary classical, such as Steve Reich, Lou Harrison, etc.

5. Eric and Mike are both Deadheads, I liked some of the Grateful Dead's records and I dutifully listened to some of Complete Road Trips album after listening to the podcasts, but I confess if I  am going to listen to live recordings, I'd rather listen to Miles Davis and his various bands, Frank Zappa and his bands, Sviatoslav Richter in performance and quite a few others ... what am I missing? 

6.  Let me once again recommend RAW's piece "Beethoven As Information," in The Illuminati Papers. 

Belated review: 'The Future Starts Here' is excellent

John Higgs is a wonderful writer and I am determined to read all of his books; I have read many of them. Lately, though, I've gotten a little behind. I've just finished The Future Starts Here: Adventures in the 21st Century. I had to get caught up: I want to read the book on William Blake, William Blake Vs. the World, and I am also eager to read the new one on James Bond and the Beatles, Love and Let Die. 

The Future Starts Here explores the technologies that are shaping our current world: Gender fluidity, social media, artificial intelligence, climate change, space exploration, the difference in attitudes between the generations, and so on, all with Higgs' characteristic wit and good sense. There's a twist to Higgs' exploration of these topics which the author reveals at the end of the book. 

Higgs acknowledges that the world faces important threats, but argues that they can be overcome and argues that dealing with them is better than giving in to pessimism. I agree with him. 

There are three big ideas for making a better world promoted in the book: Giving over half of the world to natural areas, allowing species extinction to be halted or at least seriously slowed; implementing a basic income, and overcoming excessive individualism to focus on collective action and networking.

My reaction to those ideas is mixed. The case for expanding natural ideas seems solid to me. About basic income, I am agnostic and still listening to arguments from both sides. As for the supposed excesses of individualism, often a theme in Higgs' works, I confess to remaining unconvinced; my reading of 20th and 21st century history does not convince me that excessive deference to individual rights and liberties is the driving force for crimes and disasters since 1900.

There's a lot in the book about climate change and I agree with Higgs that it's a big problem that requires real action. I do think that Higgs underrates the possible disaster of nuclear war, which I still see as a big threat. His contention that one European country invading another is a thing of the past seemed reasonable when it was written but unfortunately has not aged well. 

Still, this is a great book, with wonderful observations in every chapter. Most of the people I work with are much younger than me, and Higgs' discussion of today's young people is a particular delight. I'm giving this book five stars on Goodreads.

There were interesting synchronicities in the book, at least for me. For example, here are some of the sentences in the last paragraph of a book written in 2019, shortly before the pandemic: "Sometimes, a virus has to run its course before you can be cured. Some ideologies need to reach their failed, absurd ends before we can get them out of our system. This is how we will create the antibodies that will protect us from that virus in the future. That's what's happening now."

On a personal note, I wished my father, who died August 15 at age 90, could have read the book. The last book Dad read, I am pretty sure, is a copy of Higgs' Stranger Than We Can Imagine that I gave him. I kept thinking Dad would have enjoyed The Future Starts Here. In the text, John reveals that he was only 3 when his own father died. 

An interest in Robert Anton Wilson's writings permeates Higgs' writings, even in books that don't mention RAW directly, such as Stranger Than We Can Imagine. The Future Starts Here name checks RAW, deals with some of his ideas and features interviews with many prominent RAW fans, such as Daisy Campbell and Scott McPherson. 

See also Gregory Arnott's review of the book, written in 2020. 

Thursday links

Prop Anon posts another RAW class assignement. 

 "A Google spokeswoman said the company stands by its decisions."

David Lynch public service announcement. 

Premiere of Antero Alli film in Portland, Oregon. 

Upcoming John Higgs talk in Liverpool. 

Things that people blamed on jazz. 

Alan Moore in conversation with Stewart Lee. 

Jesse Walker's TV picks.