Pound's "The Spirit of Romance"

Over at Overweening Generalist, Michael Johnson has a post on "Gnostic Diffusion Down Through the Ages" that discusses Ezra Pound's book, The Spirit of Romance, which apparently talks about the Cathars in 13th century France and the "courtly love" movement, topics which are focused upon in the Robert Shea novel I just wrote about, All Things Are Lights.

While I try to figure out whether Shea might have been influenced by Pound's book, I wanted to point out that The Spirit of Romance is available as a free download from the Internet Archive.

Maybe "Richard Dawkins" is Richard Dawkins

John Higgs does an fine job of explaining Robert Anton Wilson's ideas, as you may have noticed if you've read his new book, KLF: Chaos Magic Music Money.

Here is another example of Higgs discussing RAW: His July 23, 2009, column for the Guardian on "Happy Maybe Day" explains "maybe logic" and why Wilson advocated an attitude of agnosticism in sifting through theories.

The comments section provides unexpected confirmation for Higgs' thesis that you should never be too sure of yourself.

Higgs' piece drew 134 comments, including from one person who proposed "Can't Be Arsed Day." What does that mean? What language do they speak over there?

Several of the commenters took Higgs to task for his use of a quote from Richard Dawkins, the famous atheist, and then Higgs defended his use on the quote, noting that Dawkins had Tweeted a link to the piece.

Then someone using the name Richard Dawkins (who I will call RichardDawkins1) weighed in, saying that he did feel misquoted. As for the Tweet (from RichardDawkins2), RichardDawkins1 said, "I did no such thing. I wouldn't know how to tweet to save my life."

I will note that as of AD February 27, 2013,  there is a Richard Dawkins Twitter account, seemingly authentic, with 624,824 followers. The owner of the account -- let's call him RichardDawkins3 -- has issued 8,834 Tweets. Perhaps RichardDawkins1 could save his life, after all, if he had to issue a Tweet to remain alive, as he has had (maybe, if he's the same person) 8,834 opportunities to practice the lifesaving maneuver. We report, you decide.

One more bit: Richard Dawkins1 says " 'Maybe Day' is, of course, admirable." So RAW fans can say that Richard Dawkins has endorsed maybe logic. Maybe.

Thanks to Nick Helweg-Larsen for the link. I'm pretty sure it's the real Nick Helweg-Larsen helping me out here, but as Mr. Higgs would tell you, you never know.

More JMR Higgs weirdness here.

Radio23.org

Has anyone listened to the programs offered at Radio23.org? I noticed him on Twitter; whoever runs it appears to be a RAW fan.

Masks of the Illuminati discussion part two

Dell edition, pages 35-76; Pocket Books edition pages 29-64; up to about 20 percent in an e-book (up to Sir John Babcock's answer to the I.N.R.I. question

"Joyce looked at it and at every part of it with a meticulous curiosity that seemed almost obsessive to Babcock," page 45 of Dell edition; RAW believes the cure for boredom was paying closer attention.

"a most singular person," page 46, Lenin.u

"You behold in me," page 48. Leftist statists like to claim RAW as one of their own, but notice how RAW claims Joyce for libertarianism.

"only the madman is absolutely sure," page 48. A succinct statement of Wilson's philosophy, and a restatement of his "maybe logic" philosophy, i.e. the world would be a saner place if people made a habit of qualifying their dogmatic statements with maybe, i.e. "Maybe the economy would be better off if the U.S. returned to the gold standard." Consistent with the workings of quantum mechanics, Wilson suggested using probabilities rather than certainties for many statements. A statement of Wilson's generalized agnosticism."

"a book so vile," page 51, the Necronomicon invented by H.P. Lovecraft. Dan Clore says references to Lovecraft's work permeates Masks.

"another hermetic dream" page 60. Although Masks supposedly originally was intended as "an ordinary detective story," the dream sequences suggest this plan was given up early in the process of writing the novel.

Paragraph beginning with "A true initiation never ends," page 62. Statement of a major theme of the novel.

UPDATE: Wikipedia article on George Cecil Jones.

Arthur Machen exhibition. Link via Dan Clore, who remarks, "Arthur Machen had a big influence on Masks of the Illuminati."

Robert Shea's "All Things Are Lights"

Robert Shea's All Things Are Lights has a snippet of prose at the beginning, a kind of overture, that I'd like to reproduce here:


“How much jousting have you done?”
“A little,” replied the young troubadour.
“A little!” the Templar said ironically. “In tournaments all over Europe, Count Amalric has bested hundreds of knights. Many times he has killed men. Of course, it is against the rules. But he is a master at making it look like an accident.” He looked at Roland with an almost fatherly kindness. “Indeed, Messire, the best advice I could give you would be not to enter the tournament at all.”
Roland laughed. “Such cautious advice from a Templar?”
“We fight for God, Messire. Have you as great a motive?”
“Yes, I do,” said Roland, seeing Nicolette’s eyes shining in the darkness before him. “I fight for love.”

The copyright owner, Mike Shea, has released the book under the Creative Commons license. You can purchase a copy from Amazon in Kindle format, buy a paper book at the same link (used copies are cheap) or download it for free; links for downloading are here and here.

All Things Are Lights is a historical novel of the Middle Ages. It's very straightforward, very different in style from Illuminatus! although I have labeled it a "thematic prequel" to Illuminatus! because it has many of the same concerns. You'll learn a lot about history, secret societies and courtly love if you read it, although it's possible you'll be too caught up in poor Roland's girl problems and survival problems to pay attention to all of those details. It would make a good movie or miniseries.

Various links

Yo La Tengo performing "The Love Song of R. Buckminster Fuller" on tour (hat tip, Dan Clore at Robert Anton Wilson fans on Facebook.)

Thurston Moore (of Sonic Youth fame) forms new band, Chelsea Light Moving, and releases song about William Burroughs, "Burroughs" as free download. Link is in this post.

Aleister Crowley paintings on tour (lots of images). (Clore again).

Excavation at home where James Joyce used to live. (Via Frater Khabs at the Facebook group).

FBI was monitoring Aaron Swartz's social media accounts. 

Congress considering national ID program

The geniuses in Congress, thinking hard about how to solve the immigration program, have a brainstorm on how to fix things: Forcing everyone to have a "high tech identity card" that essentially would function as a national ID.

Cory Doctorow's new novel is out

The most important libertarian novel in the last few years (in the broad sense of civil liberties and freedom, not "report to Ayn Rand for instructions") was Cory Doctorow's Little Brother, and now Cory has released a sequel, Homeland. 

(Plug for a group I belong to: The Libertarian Futurist Society, the group that gave Robert Anton Wilson his sole literary award, gave a Prometheus Award to Doctorow for Little Brother. The group gave Illuminatus! its Hall of Fame award. We will now resume regular programming after this brief commercial interruption.)

Reviewing Homeland in the Wall Street Journal, Tom Shippey wrote, "Homeland is as dead serious as 1984, as potentially important a 'novel of ideas,' with a much more engaging central character and an apparently inexhaustible supply of information on everything from brewing coffee to sneaky surveillance and how to defeat it."

I just bought a copy for my Kindle — I think Internet freedom is an important issue, so I decided to put my money where my mouth is — but as with his other books, Cory has released a free Creative Commons version. You can download it here. The link to download Little Brother for free is here.

Slate's Yglesias supports basic income guarantee

A proposal to replace or supplement the current social welfare system with a Basic Income Guarantee (proposed by Robert Anton Wilson and various other luminaries, such as Milton Friedman) continues to pop up now and then on the Internet. The latest I ran across was from Matthew Yglesias, the thoughtful economics blogger for Slate. Mr. Yglesias argues that instead of a minimum wage, we should have a guaranteed basic income, paired with an Earned Income Tax Credit. I think he makes an intriguing case.

'The Secret Life of Plants'

PQ writes about The Secret Life of Plants, a work that he first heard about while reading RAW's Cosmic Trigger. Surprisingly, the documentary based upon the book turned out to have another RAW connection: "The other important thing I want to point out is a funny synchronicity---as I mentioned, I'd originally heard about The Secret Life of Plants through a passing mention in Robert Anton Wilson's synchronicity-filled book Cosmic Trigger. Another memorable part of that book is RAW's discussion of the Dogon tribe in Africa that possesses an uncanny knowledge of the solar system, the universe, and especially the star Sirius. Long before scientific instruments could even prove it, this isolated primitive tribe knew that Sirius had another star orbiting around it. Not only that, they knew this second star takes exactly 50 years to make a full cycle."

I have been meaning to read more about the Dogon and Sirius and haven't gotten around to it. Real soon now, as the fans say.

Masks of the Illuminati discussion part one

Dell edition, pages 1-35; Pocket Books edition, pages 1-29; about the first 10 percent of an ebook such as a Kindle.

My notes will refer to the page number in the Dell edition.

Dedication: "To Graham, Jyoti and Karuna." Graham might be the name of Wilson's son, but the other surviving children when the book was published were Christina and Alexandra. (Patricia, known as Luna, had died, as described in Cosmic Trigger.) Can anyone help me out? UPDATE: In the comments, Rarebit explains that Karuna and Jyoti are Christina and Alexandra.

Note: The Great God Pan is by Arthur Machen. The King in Yellow is by Robert W. Chambers.  The two titles may be downloaded for free from Project Gutenberg (and other sources, such as Amazon).

"no wife no horse no mustache" page 4. Phrase that recurs in many of RAW's works. As Joe Malik explains in Schroedinger's Cat, he ran across an article of the same title in Reader's Digest and then refused to read it, reasoning that no real article could be as interesting as the mysterious and evocative  title. As I documented, there apparently really was such an article.

"Sir John Babcock" page 5: A descendant, one assumes, of the Babcocks featured in the "Historical Illuminatus" books.

"what manner of man is he" page 5. There are images of Aleister Crowley wearing a turban. Crowley wrote Clouds Without Water, the "accursed" book that bothers Babcock.

"he was wearing a turban and seemed some loathesomely obese Demon-Sultan" page 5. Image of Aleister Crowley.


"the Russian," page 7. Lenin.

The Black Brotherhood, perhaps not the usage intended, but the name of a group that opposed the persecution of the Cathars. About the Cathars, see  Robert Shea's novel, All Things Are Lights.

"Stately, plump Albert Einstein", page 12. This passage echoes the beginning of James Joyce's Ulysses. 

"Nur der wahnsinnige ist sich absolut sicher" page 20. Only the madman is absolutely sure.

"The figure that staggered into the shadow-dark Rathskeller ... " page 21. Echoes H.P. Lovecraft as Wilson earlier echoed James Joyce. Notice for example the use of the word "eldritch."

"The boy's mother was Lady Catherine (Greystoke) Babcock" and subsequent sentences, Page 27. This sounds like a nod to Philip Jose Farmer's Wold Newton family, which ties various characters in fiction (such as the Greystokes, e.g. Tarzan's family) into one family. Farmer and Wilson were fans of each other's work.

Suggest supplemental reading: "Joyce's Influence on Masks of the Illuminati," essay in Eric Wagner's An Insider's Guide to Robert Anton Wilson.

Significant Events in the U.S.Counterculture

Boing Boings posts a comic on "Four Significant Events in the U.S. Counterculture: 1958 and 1959." Many of you will enjoy the second event, but all are interesting.

Arthur Hlavaty on the 1950s SF classics

The latest issue of The New York Review of Science Fiction, prospering as an electronic publication under the helm of its new publisher, Kevin Maroney, has an excellent review of the Library of America's American Science Fiction: Nine Classic Novels of the 1950s. It's written by "Supergee," e.g. Arthur Hlavaty.

I subscribe to NYRSF and I read Arthur's piece on my Kindle, but it's been posted at the journal's Web site, so that everyone else can read it, too.

I recommend Hlavaty's piece to anyone interested in SF; you'll read a pithy discussion of Robert Heinlein's career as a novelist and perhaps learn something about Star Wars. The nine novels under discussion are The Space Merchants, Frederik Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth; More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon; The Long Tomorrow, Leigh Brackett; Double Star, Robert Heinlein;  The Shrinking Man, Richard Matheson; The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester; A Case of Conscience, James Blish; Who? by Algis Budrys, and The Big Time, Fritz Leiber. (While I'm generally well-read in SF, I've read only two of these, the Heinlein and the Sturgeon. I recommend both.)

Part of the fun of reviewing a work of this sort is to second-guess the choices that the Library of America made; Hlavaty says the obvious omission is Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, but he surmises, surely correctly, that a Bradbury collection must be in the works. Fahrenheit aside, he doesn't see any clear mistakes, although he argues for the inclusion of The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov. I would have pushed, instead, for The Dying Earth by Jack Vance. I'd like to believe Dying Earth is omitted because Library of America is planning a Vance collection, but I'm not holding my breath.