It's time to start getting ready for Maybe Day, which will be celebrated on July 23.
Bobby Campbell, who organized the four previous celebrations of the work of Robert Anton Wilson, has announced that Maybe Day will return this year. Bobby also put together the first Maybe Night event last December.
"Let this serve as still another clarion call for RAW and/or Erisian art, video presentations, writing, and whatever else besides!" Bobby writes.
Dennis Thompson, back in the day. (Creative Commons photo, source.)
I wasn't planning to do another blog post on the MC5, the rock band mentioned in Illuminatus!, but I caught the sad news that the band's drummer, Dennis Thompson, had died. Here is the New York Times obit.
Peggy Hitchcock and her friend from Tibet. (Source).
The New York Times reports on the death of Peggy Mellon Hitchcock, who supplied Timothy Leary with his mansion in Millbrook, N.Y.:
"Peggy Mellon Hitchcock, the energetic scion of a storied wealthy family who funded Timothy Leary’s psychedelic adventures — and famously helped him find the spot to do so, at her brothers’ estate in Millbrook, N.Y. — died on April 9 at her home in Tucson, Ariz. She was 90."
Another bit (the obit writer, Penelope Green, clearly had fun with her task):
"Mr. Leary and Ms. Hitchcock fell into an on-again, off-again love affair. (She described it to Robert Greenfield, Mr. Leary’s biographer, as 'a swinging door relationship.') Ms. Hitchcock had been dating Allen Eager, a jazz saxophonist who was also a heroin addict, Mr. Greenfield wrote, and when her mother heard that she was involved with Mr. Leary, she exclaimed: 'Oh thank God! She’s going out with a Harvard professor!' ”
Full obit here (if you read it, you get to find out about her other interesting friends, including the Dalai Lama.)
She was very wealthy, and when I read the article, I daydreamed about what I would do if I'd had that kind of money.
Matt Cardin has an essay up, "Initiation by Nightmare," which discusses the nature of Chapel Perilous, and how his thoughts on the matter were influenced by Robert Anton Wilson and other writers. Here's a bit:
"We’re all playing with fire, those of us who actively perturb consciousness, and also those of us who have such perturbations forced upon us by powers outside our ken or control. In the words of the weekly closing narration from a classic horror television series that I enjoyed in my youth, 'The dark side is always there, waiting for us to enter, waiting to enter us.' What I didn’t understand as an adolescent was that this is not mere poetic speech, nor is it mere aesthetic or intellectual entertainment for those drawn to the dark side of fiction, film, philosophy, and spirituality. This is deadly truth."
Posted on X by @RAWsemantics with the comment, "The exquisite fit of #RobertAntonWilson's philosophical 'transactionalism' to the philosophy of 'experientialism' described in 'Metaphors We Live By' (Lakoff & Johnson). Just one example."
It's a really long movie, so I was relieved it turned out to be excellent. The Wikipedia article about the movie lists four different major versions of the public domain film. I watched the Kino version, 197 minutes long, which has a soundtrack. I checked it out from Hoopla. Finding a free version to watch online is not difficult, there's one at the Internet Archive.
The influence on Illuminatus! apparently consists in the way it uses separate plotlines and switches abruptly from one to the other. There's a modern plot about poor people being abused by the rich and by the system. Another plot depicts the life of Jesus, another shows Belshazzar's Babylon under attack from the Persians, and another shows the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in France in 1572. The common theme is intolerance, not just religious intolerance, but the kind of intolerance that results in Prohibition and various moral crusades and moral panics.
I wasn't particularly looking forward to the life of Jesus stuff, and the actor playing The Nazarene, Howard Gaye, is kind of stiff, as if he's affected by the pressure of playing the Son of God. But the scenes from the New Testament are some of the best bits! The wedding at Cana is depicted, with the first miracle of Jesus being an intervention to make sure there's plenty of good wine for the wedding celebration. There's also a great depiction of the incident in which Jesus saves a woman from being stoned to death for adultery.
Although it dates back to 1916, in some ways Intolerance is more modern than I expected. A long movie with big crowd scenes anticipates many epics that came after. The plot about the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre depicting one religious faction killing people in another faction is unfortunately currently relevant. (While the plot depicts Catholics killing Protestants, Griffith shows that previously Protestants had carried out an attack on Catholics, and shows how one massacre becomes an excuse for another.) The jumps from one plotline to another are reminiscent of a recent film, Everything Everywhere All at Once, which to tell you the truth I didn't like all that much.
And there were other surprises. I did not expect the intensity of the violence. Some of the depictions of women in Babylon were sexier than I expected. I was also surprised by some of the crowd scenes. The huge sets in the Babylon scenes are really impressive. I did not expect such as "wow" factor from such an old movie.
Lots of critics of course have written about the movie. I couldn't find what Jesse Walker thought of it at his movie review site. The Wikipedia article says Pauline Kael considered it the greatest movie ever made.
Here is the entire review from Scott Sumner, one of my favorite bloggers: "Intolerance (US, 1916) 3.5 This rating doesn’t mean much as it’s both a great film and a deeply flawed film. Today, 1916 seems like ancient history, and thus this historical epic has an additional layer of meaning for 2019 viewers, as compared to what people saw in 1916. On the other hand, the images are less astonishing than they would have appeared to 1916 audiences. That trade-off is sort of a microcosm of life. Has any other major director ever produced a very liberal film immediately after producing a very conservative film?"
Some of Robert Anton Wilson's themes come up in the movie. It shows why Prohibition is wrong and doesn't work, and it depicts how the system is cruel to the poor.
In June, I'll pick another movie from RAW's top one hundred and watch it and blog about it. As with Intolerance, I'll announce my choice for anyone else who wants to take the opportunity to watch it, too.
"In this special edition, Jason Louv revisits Robert Anton Wilson's 'Cosmic Trigger' — a pivotal book that explores the frontiers of magical and mystical thought. This episode delves into the utopian visions and relentless optimism of the early days of the Magical Revival, qualities that Jason passionately seeks to reignite in today's occult circles.
"In this episode, Jason not only reflects on the book's impact on his own journey into the realms of magic and consciousness expansion but also discusses how its predictions and philosophies are more relevant today than ever. With discussions ranging from space colonization and intelligence augmentation to the philosophical implications of extended life spans, this episode is a profound reassessment of a future that's slowly turning into reality."
The above image is via Brian Dean from RAW Semantics, who writes (on X), "From right at the end of chapter 6 of The New Inquisition, where RAW writes about Schrödinger's 'the sum of all minds is one' (see my latest blog scrawl). Bob then adds: 'Did you get it that time?' (Non-plural implies non-local in this context)."
I asked Brian if he made the meme, and he answered, "Yes, with some help from AI of course. I fed it a ridiculously convoluted and not very specific prompt, expected nothing - and it returns this, complete with a sage who looks like RAW. Quite spooky, as if it read my mind!"
After I published yesterday's surprise news about a Prometheus Rising hardcover (I had no idea it was on the works and learned about it when I saw a social media announcement), I decided maybe I could learn more. So I asked Rasa how it came about and if more hardcover editions of Robert Anton Wilson's titles were in the works. Here's what he told me:
"We might offer hardcover editions of other titles, but this was an unexpected offer from Ingram that made this release possible. We are busy with other projects, but Ingram offered to do some of the leg work if we would publish the best selling book from our catalog, Prometheus Rising. We know that’s one book that people often go back to, to do the exercises or to just re-read, so making a hardcover seemed like a cool idea. We’ll keep you posted on future plans."
Hilaritas Press has just announced that a hardcover edition of Prometheus Rising is now available, from the usual book channel, such as this one. RAW fans can still get a paperback, audiobook or ebook, but this is now an additional option. The above video, only about half a minute long, aims to offer an idea of what you'll be getting.
If you check out the video and look closely, you'll see copy on the flaps on the book jacket. Rasa explains:
"On the inside flaps of the new hardcover's jacket is a bit of text from Cosmic Trigger II. In his description of the 8 Circuits, RAW used the same placement of Circuits 6 & 7 that he used in Prometheus Rising. That differs from Tim Leary's version, but it should be noted that Leary said Bob's Prometheus Rising description of the circuits was better than his. See the Hilaritas Press's edition for an afterword that goes into that issue in detail.
"Here's the text from Cosmic Trigger II that we added to the new hardcover's inside flaps."
• • •
Circuits 1 to 4
Leary distinguishes eight types of intelligence. The first four are:
Bio-Survival Intelligence: seems mostly genetic and tells an animal or human how to find the nourishing and “supportive” and how to avoid the predatory or toxic.
Emotional-Territorial Intelligence: tells an animal how to read the body-language of another animal and know what the other animal is feeling (and, hence, what it will probably do next.)
Semantic Intelligence: is based on genetic potential and early imprints but mostly is learned slowly, over years, from peers and instructors. It allows us to understand one or two symbol systems (or even several if we are clever) and perhaps to create a symbol-system of our own, sometimes.
Socio-Sexual Intelligence: allows us to manage our social and sexual relations in ways that keep us reasonably happy or at least out of jail.
Circuits 5 to 8
Leary’s other four types of intelligence, which are rare in our society, are:
Neurosomatic Intelligence: the “wisdom of the body” holistic physicians talk about;
Neurogenetic Intelligence: access to the “collective unconscious” or “species mind” where archetypes like the inward-turning spiral or King Kong are stored and, when activated, trigger leaps of intuition;
Metaprogramming Intelligence: the capacity to turn on and tune in to each type of intelligence as needed; and
Non-Local Intelligence: which enables one to endure “mystical” experiences without coming out of them as a raving loony.
This description of the Eight Circuits of Intelligence, aka, the Eight-Circuit Model of Consciousness comes from Robert Anton Wilson’s Cosmic Trigger 2: Down to Earth.
Cover for the new American edition of John Higgs' biography of Timothy Leary.
Some welcome book news from John Higgs in the latest newsletter: Two of his books of most direct interest to Robert Anton Wilson fans are about to finally be published in the U.S.
As I reported earlier,The KLF finally is going to be published in the U.S. and Canada. Quite a lot about Robert Anton Wilson in the book; it's a really weird and a really interesting book, even if you aren't particularly a KLF fan.
"I’m delighted to report that it will be published by Blackstone on 9th July, in paperback, ebook, and as an audiobook, read by me," John writes. "This is the original text, incidentally, not the 10th anniversary UK edition with the meta-commentary. That would be too bewildering for a book in its first printing. It is the ideal version for forcing on people with no interest in The KLF but who really need to read it nontheless." Here is the pre-order link.
"Not only that, but my first book I Have America Surrounded: The Life of Timothy Leary is also going to be republished in the US, thanks to Open Road. It will be available in print, ebook and audiobook, again read by me, from July 30th." No preorder link yet, but it should be up soon, he says.
John also recommends a must-see play in London, "This Is Memorial Device," based on a David Keenan novel. He also reports that two Beatles podcasts are ending and discusses his Dr. Who book.
