'Serpent Power' slims down

One bummer of the 1973 Robert Anton Wilson article I posted yesterday, "Serpent Power," is that it consists of four very large TIFF files. Bobby Campbell has taken those and put them together into one much smaller PDF, about 15 MB -- much easier to download and to deal with. The new and improved download link is here, and I've also changed the link under "Feature Articles and Interviews." (Right click the link to download.) Thanks, Bobby!

Tracking down the 'Serpent'

In the "Starseed" chapter of Cosmic Trigger I: The Final Secret of the Illuminati, Robert Anton Wilson mentions an article on "Tantric Yoga" that he published in September 1973 in Chicago Seed, an underground newspaper. A footnote explains that the piece is available at Northwestern University's collection of underground newspapers.

When I read that, I wondered if, in the age of the Internet, I could read the piece without having to travel to Chicago.

So I emailed Susan Lewis, a library assistant in the university's Special Collections section, and asked if it would be possible to obtain a PDF.

I got an answer back that the article ran in two issues of Chicago Seed, and for $25, the four pages could be scanned and made available to me.

So I bought them, and I'm making them available to the rest of you. The files (very large TIFF files) are here. I thought it was a good article; what do you think?

A RAW quote from 1973

Here is a quote from Robert Anton Wilson that you quite possibly have never seen before, because it comes from an article in a 1973 underground newspaper, Chicago Seed, and was never reprinted in any of his books:

People believe the damndest things. The average American, for instance, will tell you that torture was used as punishment in the middle ages, but has been abolished since then. He will then walk past a jail without any mental activity or rumination or any variety of dawning awareness that he has been talking nonsense. Locking people in cages is not torture, in the popular estimation. Why? Because only cruel nations in the dim past practiced torture; what we do, today, is by definition not torture. The demand that prisons be abolished only arises from a few eccentric and anarchist thinkers and is regarded as absurd. "But what will we do without jails?" people ask -- just as they once asked other reformers, "But what will we do without thumbscrews and iron boots?"

Or: consider the right to live on the planet. It is popularly believed that feudalism has been abolished; the people who believe it pay their monthly tribute (rent) to the lord-of-the-land, now abbreviated as landlord, just as if feudalism still existed. When really pissed off, they will have a "rent strike," and withhold the rent for a short time, until some "reform" is grudgingly granted. The idea that we have as much right to live on this planet as horses or birds or monkeys do, and don't have to pay anybody anything for that right, does not percolate.

And some even believe that slavery has been abolished. It has -- until the government decides to reinstitute the draft again, which it might at any time.

Tomorrow I will explain how I tracked the article down -- it's called "Serpent Power" -- and post links to download a copy.

R. Michael Johnson on ILLUMINATUS!

R. Michael Johnson has a typically erudite article on ILLUMINATUS! and Robert Anton Wilson's "Guerilla Ontology" at Suite 101. It's a short article written for general readers, but you're likely to learn something, anyway. (I didn't know that Edward Abbott's Flatland influenced the structure of ILLUMINATUS!) Don't forget to do the social media thing (e.g., "liking" it on Facebook) so that the piece can find a few more readers.

Michael also has a piece on Ezra Pound in case you need to brush up on the key RAW influence.

Philosopher Robert Nozick

I don't know whether Robert Anton Wilson and noted libertarian philosopher Robert Nozick knew each other's work; the only item I could find on the Internet pairing them together was a blog post by Julian Sanchez, mourning Nozick's death, one year after Nozick died on Jan. 23, 2002.

Recalling when he heard the news, Sanchez wrote, "A co-worker over at Laissez Faire Books, where I worked then, emailed me from the West Coast office assuming I’d heard, which I hadn’t. My first thought, after sitting stunned for a minute or two, was of Robert Anton Wilson, who has a character in The Illuminatus! Trilogy explain that 'all the great anarchists died on the 23rd day of some month or other…' "

When I recent read an interview with Nozick — conducted, as it happens, by the same Julian Sanchez — I couldn't help but think RAW and Nozick might have had an interesting conversation.

I thought, for example, that Nozick's criticism of Ayn Rand was interesting:

JS: Most of Invariances is asking, in one way or another, “What is truth?” In exploring how we come to know truth, and what sorts of truth we have access to, you seem to make relatively modest claims about the kinds of knowledge, and the kind of certainty, we can hope for.

RN: Evolution plays a large role in my discussion of necessary truths and metaphysical truths, and I ask “why would evolution have endowed us with such powerful cognitive capacities to know about all possibilities?” Maybe evolution just gives us ‘good enough’ theories like Euclidean geometry that are approximately true and able to get us around the world, but when we probe further we discover that they’re not strictly speaking accurate. That question about cognitive capacity connects up with one segment of the libertarian movement: that influenced greatly by Ayn Rand, that has axioms like the law of identity, “A is A” and all that, from which they think conclusions follow that most people, elsewhere in philosophy, don’t think follow from these logical truths.

I take evolution very seriously, and think that the capacities we have, including of apprehending a truth, have been strongly shaped, not to mention created, by evolution. So you could ask: “Why, then, do we have such powerful capacities as to give us these necessary truths, rather than truths that hold roughly and approximately at the actual world, and in similar worlds. The followers of Rand, for example, treat “A is A” not just as “everything is identical to itself” but as a kind of statement about essences and the limits of things. “A is A, and it can’t be anything else, and once it’s A today, it can’t change its spots tomorrow.” Now, that doesn’t follow. I mean, from the law of identity, nothing follows about limitations on change. The weather is identical to itself but it’s changing all the time. The use that’s made by people in the Randian tradition of this principle of logic that everything is identical to itself to place limits on what the future behavior of things can be, or on the future nature of current things, is completely unjustified so far as I can see; it’s illegitimate.

I was also struck by Nozick's distinction between two types of libertarians:

JS: So even if they have good politics, you don’t care much for the Objectivist approach?

RN: I’m going to alienate a number of your book orderers, if I didn’t already with what I said about Rand, but there was something startling about the attraction to non-initiation of force principles that the Randians had, at the same time that they were diligently acting as thought police. Bold entrepreneurs? Yes. But bold exploration of ideas? No.

JS: Why do you think it is that people of generally illiberal temperament would pick up classical liberal ideas? The combination seems mysterious.

RN: It is mysterious. Perhaps it has to do with the two sides of libertarian ideas. There is the boldness and excitement of libertarian ideas, the new possibilities for thinking, and for life in society that they open up, and there also are the sharp, and sharply reasoned, weapons they provide for attacking and even crushing other ideas. So perhaps it is not surprising that libertarianism has attracted two distinct types of temperaments, each one resonating to one of libertarianism’s two different aspects.

It seems to me that Robert Anton Wilson was a good example of the first type of temperament.

Aleister Crowley in 2012

This mock campaign Web site makes the case that despite certain handicaps (he's dead, he's English and he's not running for office) Aleister Crowley deserves your support in the U.S. 2012 election. I like the write-in campaign for Jimmy Page for vice president. And I learned how to pronounce "Crowley." Hat tip: Eva David at alt.fan.rawilson.

When the Music's Over

When the Music's Over, a science fiction anthology edited by Lewis Shiner, has a good short story by Robert Anton Wilson, "Von Neumann's Second Catastrophe," which as far as I know has never appeared anywhere else.

But that's not the only reason to hunt up a copy. It's a science fiction anthology, mostly originals, devoted to advancing peace and nonviolence. (Shiner donated his proceeds to Greenpeace). Many of the authors from the 1991 book are still major authors in the field -- I'm current reading Cowboy Angels, written by one of the writers here, Paul McAuley. I particularly liked the Bruce Sterling's and Pat Cadigan's stories, but the overall quality is quite good.

One oddity of the book, which I obtained from an Internet used book swapping site, is that many of the authors autographed my copy to "Ed." The autographs were inscribed in May 1991 in Austin. Who is Ed, and how did I wind up with his book?

All of Lewis Shiner's novels are available again, in definitive editions, from Subterranean Press. Shiner's interview with RAW is one of my favorites, and he went out of his way to be helpful when I asked to reprint it here.

Ezra Pound home for sale

This would make a good museum: A home in Rapallo, Italy, where Ezra Pound once lived is for sale.

Bonus oddball link: Indians infielder Orlando Cabrera is using an Ayn Rand novel to get psyched up for playing a new position. So who in the Tribe lineup reads Noam Chomsky?

The virtue of blood-sucking selfishness

Science fiction writer L. Neil Smith, who has made it clear he was influenced by ILLUMINATUS!, has announced the imminent publication of Sweeter Than Wine, his new "romantic novel of a ethical vampire." If you've been waiting for a novel about a vampire influenced by Ayn Rand, your wait may be over. Information here (scroll down.) To be honest, I find Smith a little strident and ideological, but your mileage may vary.

The announcement of the new novel came from Smith's email list, Group 523.

A few words on Cosmic Trigger

I've been re-reading Cosmic Trigger I, which I think is one of Robert Anton Wilson's best books.

I confess that I've never been a big fan of RAW's crusade against CSICOP, the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of the Paranormal. It seems to me that over the years, CSICOP has fared rather well, and the folks who seek to prove ESP exists haven't made their case. It there really is psychic phenomena, it ought to be able to withstand a little criticism.

So I might not seem to be the right audience for Cosmic Trigger I, which certainly has its share of the paranormal. But instead, I think it is a relentlessly fascinating book. And I think other folks who are a bit skeptical would like it, too.

The physicists mentioned in Sunday's blog post are prominently featured in Cosmic Trigger.

Michael Johnson annotates the new book

[If you missed it, Michael Johnson posted a long comment to Sunday's blog post about How the Hippies Saved Physics, which is literally all about the offbeat physicists in the Bay Area who greatly influenced RAW's thinking. Michael's comment is a useful annotation to the must-read book of the summer, so I am reposting it here everyone will see it -- Tom]

The Physics-Consciousness Research Group. See:

Illuminati Papers: 32 (diagram of "context-dependent language model of Nick Herbert); 56 ( Sarfatti on ETI contactees); pp.94-103

Leary's Info-Psychology: 33 (and 8th circuit); 49 (note Sarfatti in context); 129-131 (written by Nick Herbert)

Cosmic Trigger 2: 257 (Back To The Future best artistic expression of quantum logic: Sarfatti model fro Chris Lloyd); 267-268

Schrodinger's Cat Trilogy: 242 & 314, 426-427 (Herbert's QUIP); 274 (Capra's Tao of Physics); 343-344 (Sarfatti); 345-346 (Sirag's General Field Theory); 540-545

Trajectories May 1982 and Fall 1984: Nick Herbert and Bell's Theorem

Gnosis, Winter 1988-89:(Sarfatti and Faster-Than-Light ideas FTL); Edwin Harris Walker

Coincidance: 153-155 (Walker, Honegger, Sarfatti)

Semiotext(E) SF: 70-72 (Nick Herbert's wild particle physics story that includes RU Sirius)

Omni, Dec, 1979, "UFO Update" (Sirag's conjecture about time travellers)

Prometheus Rising: acknowledgment page: Sirag, Sarfatti, Herbert, who "clarified (RAW's) whole comprehension of epistemology;" 41 (and 8CB model); 183 (Barbara Honegger: cave paintings & 5th circuit yogic/shamanic brain: 30K yrs ago); 204 (Honegger's theory of synchroncity); 267-269 (Bell's Theorem and Sarfatti, et.al)

Mavericks of the Mind: 67-88 (Nick Herbert); 124 (Honegger); 125 (Walker)

Chaos and Beyond: 232-235 (review of Fred Alan Wolf's Eagle's Quest)

Everything Is Under Control: 138 (Sarfatti)

New Libertarian magazine Interview, 4/10-77: two pages on magick and quantum mechanics. Sarfatti as the head of the PCRG. RAW recommends Space-Time and Beyond, by Bob Toben, but Sarfatti says the ideas are his?

for another view of Sarfatti, see him as a North Beach denizen (San Francisco) in Herbert Gold's book on Behemia

Email To The Universe: 41 (Capra and Herbert); 244 (group mentioned); 223 (Mishlove might have been PCRG)

Michael Hollingshead interview (High Times?): RAW says he's the PCRG's "chief literary spokesman;" RAW talks about physicists who've used LSD

Wilhelm Reich In Hell: 33 (Capra and "fundamental holism")

see Sarfatti in Imaginary Weapons, pp.11-14

see Kripal's book on Esalen: 291-314 (Capra, Stapp, Sarfatti, F.A. Wolf, Nick Hergbert, Gary Zukav)

New Libertarian mag, RAW interview, 9/5/76: RAW recommends recent issue of Spit In The Ocean, for Sirag and Sarfatti on quantum consciousness Sarfatti as a "skeptical contactee"

Eight Circuit Brain by Antero Alli: 293-294 (mentions Saraffti and Sirag at RAW's salons in Berkeley hills, 1979)

I could list more if anyone's innarested.

Were they related to the SRI group with Targ and Puhoff: Scientologists? Who funded them? What role might Werner Erhard have played? How close was Ira Einhorn to the group?

How influential was Stapp? How did Barbara Honegger make it into the Reagan Administration? She wrote the first book titled October Surprise.

RAW had mentioned a few times that he sometimes played with the idea that he had been a "useful idiot" to the CIA or some other group.

RAW's friends, the hippie physicists

Today's New York Times Book Review prints a review of a new book, How the Hippies Saved Physics, a book by David Kaiser about "Science, Counterculture and the Quantum Revival."

The review is accompanied by a photograph of Jack Sarfatti, Saul-Paul Sirag, Nick Herbert and Fred Wolf. Anyone who has read Robert Anton Wilson's Cosmic Trigger and some of RAW's other works will recognize some of these names. [Update: I checked, and all of the people in the photograph are mentioned in Cosmic Trigger. Saul-Paul Sirag, in fact, wrote an Afterword for the book.]

The reviewer in the Times, George Johnson, finds the book a very entertaining read but says none of these physicists contributed very much to science.

Can't wait to read the book. Thanks to Supergee for pointing it out to me.

A Canadian rapper

Canadian rapper Noah23, on his influences: " “But yeah, William Burroughs and Ginsberg, Wu-Tang, Robert Anton Wilson, Bob Dylan, LSD, mushrooms, reggae, Bud­dhism, anarchy and alchemy are my favourite influences, ha ha.”

More here.