Does anyone know what's up, if anything, at Maybe Logic Academy? Activity there seems to have gone from spotty (last year) to nothing at all (this year). All of the "current courses" listed on the site are from last year. (The Cosmic Trigger course was cancelled. The Eric Wagner course was suddenly canceled and then suddenly revived. Toward the end of Eric's course, the forums malfunctioned and were never fixed.)
Maybe Logic Academy seems inactive, the official Robert Anton Wilson estate never seems to announce anything and the official RAW site never seems to change. (The latter probably makes sense. The logical step would be to use the official site to announce news, and there's never any news.)
It would be good for any and all of the above to become active, but that's not something that RAW fans can count on. Given that fact, it seems to me that ongoing unofficial efforts to keep RAW's legacy going at the various fan sites, Twitter accounts, Web sites and so on seem more important than ever.
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Monday, April 29, 2013
'I Have America Surrounded'
I'm trying to do my "homework," reading the Prometheus Award ballot (I've just started Sarah Hoyt's Darkship Renegades) but this month I also plan to treat myself by reading JMR Higgs' biography of Timothy Leary, I Have America Surrounded.
The promotional Web site for the book includes a FAQ. I liked this question and answer:
Why is the book called 'I Have America Surrounded'?
A friend sent me the rushes of one of Leary's last filmed interviews (with World of Wonder LA). He was very close to death at that point, very drawn and frail and clearly in a lot of pain. When the interviewer asked him about Nixon calling him 'the most dangerous man in America' he nodded solemnly and replied in a completely deadpan tone, "It's true. I have America surrounded." It just struck me as quintessentially Timothy Leary, very funny, utterly absurd and yet guaranteed to wind up anyone who doesn't get the joke. I can't imagine anyone but Leary coming up with that sentence, so it had to be the title.
In the FAQ, Higgs says it covers Leary's ideas such as imprinting, reality tunnels and the 8-circuit model, so it seems like the book would be good background for understanding many of RAW's ideas.
The promotional Web site for the book includes a FAQ. I liked this question and answer:
Why is the book called 'I Have America Surrounded'?
A friend sent me the rushes of one of Leary's last filmed interviews (with World of Wonder LA). He was very close to death at that point, very drawn and frail and clearly in a lot of pain. When the interviewer asked him about Nixon calling him 'the most dangerous man in America' he nodded solemnly and replied in a completely deadpan tone, "It's true. I have America surrounded." It just struck me as quintessentially Timothy Leary, very funny, utterly absurd and yet guaranteed to wind up anyone who doesn't get the joke. I can't imagine anyone but Leary coming up with that sentence, so it had to be the title.
In the FAQ, Higgs says it covers Leary's ideas such as imprinting, reality tunnels and the 8-circuit model, so it seems like the book would be good background for understanding many of RAW's ideas.
Sunday, April 28, 2013
A few links
PQ on "The Boston Mess and Finnegans Wake." Roman Tsivkin comments, "For Wake mystics like myself & @PQuadrino, Finnegans Wake 'predicts' many things, including the recent "boastonmess":
Twitter observation from Kevin Carson: "Anyone who thinks Miranda rights are something read to 'killers' because they 'deserve it' is a fucking asshole. Miranda rights are read to the ACCUSED because we don't trust the government to say who's guilty and who's not." Carson is very active on Twitter.
Tweet from Justin Amash, the "new Ron Paul."
News about the KLF paperback by John Higgs. But no announcement for publication in the U.S., at least not yet.
Gene Healy on the minimalist president, Calvin Coolidge. (Healy complains that the Amity Shlaes book was too long; I was more bothered by her writing style, which often included abrupt changes of topic in mid-paragraph. But like Healy, I was glad I read the book.)
Twitter observation from Kevin Carson: "Anyone who thinks Miranda rights are something read to 'killers' because they 'deserve it' is a fucking asshole. Miranda rights are read to the ACCUSED because we don't trust the government to say who's guilty and who's not." Carson is very active on Twitter.
Tweet from Justin Amash, the "new Ron Paul."
News about the KLF paperback by John Higgs. But no announcement for publication in the U.S., at least not yet.
Gene Healy on the minimalist president, Calvin Coolidge. (Healy complains that the Amity Shlaes book was too long; I was more bothered by her writing style, which often included abrupt changes of topic in mid-paragraph. But like Healy, I was glad I read the book.)
Saturday, April 27, 2013
Kill Decision by Daniel Suarez
I've been reading through the novels on the Prometheus Award ballot, and one of them is good enough I wanted to let you know about it; somebunall of you RAW fans must share RAW's concerns about the the national security state.
Kill Decision by Daniel Suarez is set in the present or near future. A series of terrorist attacks have taken place on U.S. soil, blowing up computer scientists, a human rights activist, and others. These are passed off by the government as bombings, but the truth is scarier: They are drone attacks. Eventually it is revealed that secret elements of the U.S. government are behind the attacks, and that those elements seek to unleash drones that aren't controlled remotely but are programmed to make kill decisions on their own. The technology obviously is about to spread to other countries, too. Suarez obviously is concerned about our endless wars foreign policy and the dangers of an out of control national security state. His book works as a fast-moving, well done thriller, but it is also quite disturbing.
On a related note, can any of you point to anyplace where RAW wrote at length about the National Security Act of 1947?
Kill Decision by Daniel Suarez is set in the present or near future. A series of terrorist attacks have taken place on U.S. soil, blowing up computer scientists, a human rights activist, and others. These are passed off by the government as bombings, but the truth is scarier: They are drone attacks. Eventually it is revealed that secret elements of the U.S. government are behind the attacks, and that those elements seek to unleash drones that aren't controlled remotely but are programmed to make kill decisions on their own. The technology obviously is about to spread to other countries, too. Suarez obviously is concerned about our endless wars foreign policy and the dangers of an out of control national security state. His book works as a fast-moving, well done thriller, but it is also quite disturbing.
On a related note, can any of you point to anyplace where RAW wrote at length about the National Security Act of 1947?
Friday, April 26, 2013
Michael Johnson on conspiracy theories
Michael Johnson takes on conspiracy theories and the Illuminatus! trilogy in a new post, and refers the reader to a number of books on conspiracy theories that he's read. (How does he find the time to read so many serious books?)
Michael suggests that one reason for the persistence of conspiracy theories is that they are fun: "With further and further connections and deeper, hidden orders uncovered, there's a quite-human neurobiological buzz of adrenaline...and "wonder and awe." And let's face it: delight. Conspiracies are exciting."
Michael suggests that one reason for the persistence of conspiracy theories is that they are fun: "With further and further connections and deeper, hidden orders uncovered, there's a quite-human neurobiological buzz of adrenaline...and "wonder and awe." And let's face it: delight. Conspiracies are exciting."
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Unmasking 'Masks'
In one sense, the Masks of the Illuminati discussion is coming to a close, but it another sense, it's still there, and will continue to be there. If you have gotten behind, or if you never started, there's nothing to keep you from cracking the book open, reading the comments from everyone, and perhaps adding your own comment. I'll continue to keep the links up for the online discussion. And, if you like, you can read Quantum Psychology and still participate in that online discussion, too.
A couple of commenters have asked if there will be a discussion of another RAW book, perhaps this time an essay collection. Is anyone else interested? I'm certainly open to it, but not right now; I'm very busy trying to read through the Prometheus Award ballot.
A couple of commenters have asked if there will be a discussion of another RAW book, perhaps this time an essay collection. Is anyone else interested? I'm certainly open to it, but not right now; I'm very busy trying to read through the Prometheus Award ballot.
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
PQ on Dick and Joyce
PQ is a very good blogger who often writes about baseball (his contrarian prediction that the Cleveland Indians would not be all that great despite all of the team's off season acquisitions seems spot on -- the team's currently 8-10) and hip hop. For the purposes of my blog, however, PQ stands out as someone who is good at writing about fiction. In his post "Retracing Recent Ramifications of Thought, Part 1 (VALIS, Duality and Finnegans Wake)," PQ talks about duality, tying together thoughts about Finnegans Wake and Philip K. Dick's Valis to a passage in Masks of the Illuminati.
The post is from PQ's A Building Roam blog, although the content overlaps with his Finnegans, Wake! blog
The post is from PQ's A Building Roam blog, although the content overlaps with his Finnegans, Wake! blog
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Posts on the last few days
Robert Anton Wilson on karma:
“We should all try to give out as much good energy to other human beings as we possibly can. I honestly believe that every bit of bad energy we put out has adverse effects that go on forever. This is the Buddhist doctrine of karma. The Buddhists believe that every bit of anger, resentment, hate, and so on that goes out passes from one person to another, without stopping. The same is true of good energy: every bit of good energy one puts out makes someone else feel a little bit better. I think if people were really conscious of this psychological fact, they would try very, very hard to put out nothing but good energy, no matter what happened to them. They would certainly not be so casual about passing on bad energy. All the bad energy in the world builds up like a giant snowfall, until we have a huge war. Nowadays, it can mean a total nuclear Armageddon. This is traditional Buddhism, as I say, but I think it's materialistic common sense, too. One only needs to study human behavior to realize it. I regard those people who make a career out of being nasty as emotional plague carriers.”
(Citation).
Related — at least in my mind — is this very good Michael Johnson post about good things and bad things that people have made happen in April.
Steve "Fly" Agaric has also weighed in on the last few days with a very different post.
A few sentences:
"At least with Alex [Jones] you get something different to the BBC and CNN FOX network dribble that would never entertain the idea of secret government interference and manipulation of events, due in part to their keeping in step with their corporate and/or government bosses. But I’ll leave the mainstream media critique for another blog. Here it’s Alex Jones, and the somewhat overly paranoid tone of his sensational claims of a hidden-hand behind many events of a significant terror factor to warrant a mention.
"Alex Jones and his team hit all the buttons, but, I think, hits on them so hard that the keyboard breaks and the noise becomes unbearable. If you can apply some surgical ‘maybelogic’ gloves when handling Alex and infowars, there is lots of good mental exorcise and deconstructive scenario-games to play. If you enjoy that sort of thing, which I do, due to my attention to the writing and side-steppt’ thinking of Dr Robert Anton Wilson, who i suspect a proper master craftsperson, creating good information mosaics that inform and delight."
“We should all try to give out as much good energy to other human beings as we possibly can. I honestly believe that every bit of bad energy we put out has adverse effects that go on forever. This is the Buddhist doctrine of karma. The Buddhists believe that every bit of anger, resentment, hate, and so on that goes out passes from one person to another, without stopping. The same is true of good energy: every bit of good energy one puts out makes someone else feel a little bit better. I think if people were really conscious of this psychological fact, they would try very, very hard to put out nothing but good energy, no matter what happened to them. They would certainly not be so casual about passing on bad energy. All the bad energy in the world builds up like a giant snowfall, until we have a huge war. Nowadays, it can mean a total nuclear Armageddon. This is traditional Buddhism, as I say, but I think it's materialistic common sense, too. One only needs to study human behavior to realize it. I regard those people who make a career out of being nasty as emotional plague carriers.”
(Citation).
Related — at least in my mind — is this very good Michael Johnson post about good things and bad things that people have made happen in April.
Steve "Fly" Agaric has also weighed in on the last few days with a very different post.
A few sentences:
"At least with Alex [Jones] you get something different to the BBC and CNN FOX network dribble that would never entertain the idea of secret government interference and manipulation of events, due in part to their keeping in step with their corporate and/or government bosses. But I’ll leave the mainstream media critique for another blog. Here it’s Alex Jones, and the somewhat overly paranoid tone of his sensational claims of a hidden-hand behind many events of a significant terror factor to warrant a mention.
"Alex Jones and his team hit all the buttons, but, I think, hits on them so hard that the keyboard breaks and the noise becomes unbearable. If you can apply some surgical ‘maybelogic’ gloves when handling Alex and infowars, there is lots of good mental exorcise and deconstructive scenario-games to play. If you enjoy that sort of thing, which I do, due to my attention to the writing and side-steppt’ thinking of Dr Robert Anton Wilson, who i suspect a proper master craftsperson, creating good information mosaics that inform and delight."
Monday, April 22, 2013
Masks of the Illuminati, Part 10
Pages 317-355 of the Dell edition; original Pocket Books edition pages 263-294; about 90 to 100 percent of an ebook. In other words, Part Five.
This is a chapter that seems to heavily parody Joyce, although I will let the Joyce scholars explicate in the comments.
Note that the final initiation in this section takes place under the influence of a hallucinogen, and that as I mentioned earlier, it has been suggested that the Eleusinian Mysteries were carried out with the help of a mind-altering drug. The connection between the ancient Greek rite and what happens to Joyce, Einstein and Babcock is made explicit in the text: "One night in the caves of Eleusis is enough for a lifetime, as the Greeks knew." (Page 352.) Note also that the initiation into finding new ways to see is the heart of Wilson's literary efforts. See, for example, the first sentence of his last book, Email to the Universe: "This book intends to change your way of perceiving/conceiving the world, without drums or drugs or Voodoo, simply by using words in certain special ways."
General Cambronne (page 330, and elsewhere) refers to an alleged incident at the Battle of Waterloo.
"I never knew just breathing could be so marvelous" Page 337. Possible double meaning, e.g. being alive is marvelous. But also meditation involving breathing is important in the East; there is yogic breathing, the awareness of breath meditation that is the most important practice in Vipassana, etc.
"hell to be the child of a genius," page 343, I have wondered if minding the children was mainly Arlen's job.
"He is like a refiner's fire," Malachi 3:2. Quoted in Handel's "Messiah." Handel was a favorite composer of Beethoven, as RAW no doubt knew.
"Beethoven probably explains it better than physics," and a reference to the "quantum symphony," Page 334. Beethoven, again, appears as a artist who represents the ecstatic experience. Note also that the list of the Secret Chiefs, pages 322-324, include three composers, two real, one satirical: Beethoven, Mozart and PDQ Bach.
This is a chapter that seems to heavily parody Joyce, although I will let the Joyce scholars explicate in the comments.
Note that the final initiation in this section takes place under the influence of a hallucinogen, and that as I mentioned earlier, it has been suggested that the Eleusinian Mysteries were carried out with the help of a mind-altering drug. The connection between the ancient Greek rite and what happens to Joyce, Einstein and Babcock is made explicit in the text: "One night in the caves of Eleusis is enough for a lifetime, as the Greeks knew." (Page 352.) Note also that the initiation into finding new ways to see is the heart of Wilson's literary efforts. See, for example, the first sentence of his last book, Email to the Universe: "This book intends to change your way of perceiving/conceiving the world, without drums or drugs or Voodoo, simply by using words in certain special ways."
General Cambronne (page 330, and elsewhere) refers to an alleged incident at the Battle of Waterloo.
"I never knew just breathing could be so marvelous" Page 337. Possible double meaning, e.g. being alive is marvelous. But also meditation involving breathing is important in the East; there is yogic breathing, the awareness of breath meditation that is the most important practice in Vipassana, etc.
"hell to be the child of a genius," page 343, I have wondered if minding the children was mainly Arlen's job.
"He is like a refiner's fire," Malachi 3:2. Quoted in Handel's "Messiah." Handel was a favorite composer of Beethoven, as RAW no doubt knew.
"Beethoven probably explains it better than physics," and a reference to the "quantum symphony," Page 334. Beethoven, again, appears as a artist who represents the ecstatic experience. Note also that the list of the Secret Chiefs, pages 322-324, include three composers, two real, one satirical: Beethoven, Mozart and PDQ Bach.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
O'Neill's space colony book free for Kindle this weekend
The High Frontier by Gerard K. O'Neill, a book advocating space colonies, is free as a Kindle book this week. (If you don't own a Kindle, you can download a Kindle app for whatever device you do use.)
As for why some of y'all might be interested, I will allow Eric Wagner to explain, from an entry from his An Insider's Guide to Robert Anton Wilson (still in print!).
O'Neill, Gerard (1927-1992). A scientist who suggested that planetside civilization didn't seem like the ideal location for a post-industrial, information-age society. He suggested instead self-supporting space colonies. Both Wilson and Leary have enthusiastically supported this idea. Wilson includes such colonies in Schroedinger's Cat.
As for why some of y'all might be interested, I will allow Eric Wagner to explain, from an entry from his An Insider's Guide to Robert Anton Wilson (still in print!).
O'Neill, Gerard (1927-1992). A scientist who suggested that planetside civilization didn't seem like the ideal location for a post-industrial, information-age society. He suggested instead self-supporting space colonies. Both Wilson and Leary have enthusiastically supported this idea. Wilson includes such colonies in Schroedinger's Cat.
Saturday, April 20, 2013
News of the day
At the end of the day Friday, I was startled by the news that the FBI wasn't going to read the captured Boston bombing suspect his Miranda rights. Isn't the evidence of guilt kind of overwhelming? Are we so terrified of terror that we can't observe the legal niceties anymore?
I don't mean to sound like the cliche libertarian, but with (1) The "war on terror" (2) the "war on drugs" and (3) the war on "hackers" and "pirates," I really wonder sometimes where this country is going.
I don't mean to sound like the cliche libertarian, but with (1) The "war on terror" (2) the "war on drugs" and (3) the war on "hackers" and "pirates," I really wonder sometimes where this country is going.
Friday, April 19, 2013
Reading lists!
1. Michael Johnson's Overweening Generalist blog had a recent posting, "What's a Generalist Good For?" which characterized his "favorite writers and intellectuals" but didn't name them. So, in the comments, I asked for examples. Michael obliged me:
Robert Anton Wilson, Philip K. Dick, Terence McKenna, Marshall McLuhan, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Robert Hass, Peter Lamborn Wilson/Hakim Bey, Tom Robbins, HP Lovecraft, Joseph Campbell, Raymond Chandler, William S. Burroughs, Timothy Leary, Clifford Pickover, Rudy Rucker, Thomas Pynchon, Douglas Hofstadter, Gregory Bateson, Colin Wilson and Giambattista Vico, Montaigne, Herodotus, Shakespeare, Freud and Lucretius as a mere start.
For "straight" or academic writers: Korzybski, Chomsky, Lakoff, Damasio, Peter Berger, Randall Collins, E.O. Wilson, Mark Monmonier, Oliver Sacks (recently come out in a big way as not all that "straight"!), Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Robert Sapolsky, and Elaine Pagels.
There's a very readable yet hardcore academic book by a colleague of Lakoff's at Berkeley: From Molecule To Mind, by Jerome Feldman. I read that over and over and over. I find it very trippy and totally wonderful...and I always wonder what he'd say if I told him this. I think the ideas about how language actually works is finally - probably - "right." And I consider this work an ideal extension of Korzybski. But it's only one boook. And yet: more than enough for me. Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow is becoming sort of like that for me, too. Nick Herbert's Quantum Reality has functioned like that for me for a long time.
I'm leaving out some people, but this is me typing an answer quickly...
I'd put my team up against the New York Intellectuals, any day, any time, any place.
2. Another RAW fan, Roman Tsivkin, is fluent in both Russian and English. I mentioned that I'm jealous he can read Nabokov in both Russian and English and he replied, "With Nabokov, there's no reason for jealousy. His Russian pales in comparison to his English (he admitted as much himself)." So I switched to being jealous that Roman can knowledgeably compare Nabokov's Russian novels with his English ones.
Anyway, I asked Roman for his favorite Russian writers, and he humored me, too:
The usual suspects: Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Gogol, Bely, Bulgakov, Ilf and Petrov, Babel, Lermontov, Mandelstam, Mayakovsky. The unusual suspects: Krzhizhanovsky, Shalamov, Pelevin, the Strugatsky bros. Mikhail Shishkin is my current fave.
Oh, almost forgot the wonderful Daniil Kharms. Russian-style Dada. Or, I suppose, Yesyes. Some examples.
3. Robert Anton Wilson's recommended book list (toward the bottom of the page.)
Robert Anton Wilson, Philip K. Dick, Terence McKenna, Marshall McLuhan, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Robert Hass, Peter Lamborn Wilson/Hakim Bey, Tom Robbins, HP Lovecraft, Joseph Campbell, Raymond Chandler, William S. Burroughs, Timothy Leary, Clifford Pickover, Rudy Rucker, Thomas Pynchon, Douglas Hofstadter, Gregory Bateson, Colin Wilson and Giambattista Vico, Montaigne, Herodotus, Shakespeare, Freud and Lucretius as a mere start.
For "straight" or academic writers: Korzybski, Chomsky, Lakoff, Damasio, Peter Berger, Randall Collins, E.O. Wilson, Mark Monmonier, Oliver Sacks (recently come out in a big way as not all that "straight"!), Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Robert Sapolsky, and Elaine Pagels.
There's a very readable yet hardcore academic book by a colleague of Lakoff's at Berkeley: From Molecule To Mind, by Jerome Feldman. I read that over and over and over. I find it very trippy and totally wonderful...and I always wonder what he'd say if I told him this. I think the ideas about how language actually works is finally - probably - "right." And I consider this work an ideal extension of Korzybski. But it's only one boook. And yet: more than enough for me. Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow is becoming sort of like that for me, too. Nick Herbert's Quantum Reality has functioned like that for me for a long time.
I'm leaving out some people, but this is me typing an answer quickly...
I'd put my team up against the New York Intellectuals, any day, any time, any place.
2. Another RAW fan, Roman Tsivkin, is fluent in both Russian and English. I mentioned that I'm jealous he can read Nabokov in both Russian and English and he replied, "With Nabokov, there's no reason for jealousy. His Russian pales in comparison to his English (he admitted as much himself)." So I switched to being jealous that Roman can knowledgeably compare Nabokov's Russian novels with his English ones.
Anyway, I asked Roman for his favorite Russian writers, and he humored me, too:
The usual suspects: Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Gogol, Bely, Bulgakov, Ilf and Petrov, Babel, Lermontov, Mandelstam, Mayakovsky. The unusual suspects: Krzhizhanovsky, Shalamov, Pelevin, the Strugatsky bros. Mikhail Shishkin is my current fave.
Oh, almost forgot the wonderful Daniil Kharms. Russian-style Dada. Or, I suppose, Yesyes. Some examples.
3. Robert Anton Wilson's recommended book list (toward the bottom of the page.)
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Various links
1. Review of new Arnold Kling book on the various political "reality tunnels."
2. Bryan Caplan on how to make yourself happy by putting yourself in a bubble. I can't follow all of his advice; I doubt I could do my job if I ignored all national and world news. On the other hand, this blog (and my Twitter account) have helped with suggestion number 7. If interested, see more recent posts on the topic at the same blog.
3. Three lessons from the Boston bombing coverage, by Jesse Walker. Somewhat related: Jeremy Weiland: "Thought experiment: imagine what explanation for the #bostonmarathon attack would be most disturbing to your personal political biases."
4. What your taxes pay for (other than entitlements).
5. Rudy Rucker's Turing and Burroughs, available free.
2. Bryan Caplan on how to make yourself happy by putting yourself in a bubble. I can't follow all of his advice; I doubt I could do my job if I ignored all national and world news. On the other hand, this blog (and my Twitter account) have helped with suggestion number 7. If interested, see more recent posts on the topic at the same blog.
3. Three lessons from the Boston bombing coverage, by Jesse Walker. Somewhat related: Jeremy Weiland: "Thought experiment: imagine what explanation for the #bostonmarathon attack would be most disturbing to your personal political biases."
4. What your taxes pay for (other than entitlements).
5. Rudy Rucker's Turing and Burroughs, available free.
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