Robert Anton Wilson Kitty

"PRAISE BOB! Celebrate Robert Anton Wilson Day, July 23, with this handmade tribute to the original Discordian." For $70 on Etsy.

Cosmic Trigger play in Boing Boing

The recently-completed run of the Cosmic Trigger play in London gets a nice writeup in Boing Boing.

The real news, though, isn't revealed until the last graph, which says that on July 23 this year — Robert Anton Wilson Day — there will be events in Santa Cruz.

This coming July 23rd, Santa Cruz will host a RAW celebration — a day of talks to celebrate his legacy, with contributions from Daisy Campbell, Erik Davis and Richard Rasa of Hilaritas Press, and an evening party with legendary DJ Greg Wilson. To receive information and details, subscribe to the newsletter on the website - or just tune in to the signals leading to the party. That's where you'll find the others! Fnord.

That's all I know, but the Cosmic Trigger play folks have promised more details soon, and when I get them, they'll be posted here.

Comments update: Join the Illuminati!

Since I instituted the policy some weeks ago of moderating comments posted to the blog, I've blocked a great deal of spam from being posted.

I have been surprised by the number of messages that offer membership in the Illuminati. For its sheer audacity and its naked attempt to appeal to idiots, this one stood out as entertainment:

peter micheal has left a new comment on your post "Masks of the Illuminati discussion part one":

Join the Illuminate cult online today and get instant sum of 5 million
dollars with a free home any where you choose to live in the world and also
get 200,000 dollars monthly as a salary… If you are interested please
kindly fill the following information to this email below
 [Email address redacted]

> Full name………………………………
> Country…………………………………
> State of origin……………………….
> Date of birth………………………….
> Sex……………………………………….
> Address……………………………….
> Phone…………………………………..
> Email address………………………
> Attach Scan I’d card,passport or driver license containing your full
details Tell us little about yourself…Attach scan school certificate.. No
dirty game, no human sacrifices and No evil….is a cut of peace, big aim
Illuminate group our  [email address redacted]

On a serious note, I recently finished a book called Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in the Silicon Valley by a former Facebook employee (among other adventures) named Antonio Garcia Martinez.

Martinez points out that Facebook manages to keep its feeds free of spam and porn. I'm not always a huge Facebook fan, but these seems like a real achievement, especially compared to Google, which simply abandons its users and forces them to weed out spam themselves. 

Bill Helmer interview coming soon

William 'Bill' Helmer

Adam Gorightly has announced that he will be interviewing William "Bill" Helmer soon about his days at Playboy magazine and his friendship with Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea. This is a great idea, and I'm looking forward to it.

In the meantime, you can read Helmer's piece on "The Bizarre Origins But Otherwise True History of The John Dillinger Died For You Society."  

The piece explains how Dillinger (and Helmer) made it into Illuminatus!

Email to the Universe discussion group, Week Seven

 

 

By Gregory Arnott, guest blogger

 

"LSD Dogs and Me"

Concerning RAW's love of our canine friends I thought I'd share a quote from The Universe Next Door (pg. 14-15 Pocket Books Edition):

"There was one species on Terra that lived in very close symbiosis with the domesticated primates. This was a variety of domesticated canines called dogs. The dogs loved the primates very much, and each species had learned a great deal from mimicking the other. The dogs had learned to achieve a rough simulation of guilt and remorse and worry and other domesticated primate characteristics. The domesticated primates had learned to achieve simulations of loyalty and dignity and cheerfulness and other canine characteristics."  

On our robotic nature: 

"There is no escape from our robothood unless and until we first recognize the fact. Only then can we learn to take control of our nervous systems and reprogram our individual realities." Leary and Wilson, Neuropolitics (quoted on page 89) 

& (from Illuminatus! pg. 402) 

"That's why the Zen Roshis say, 'One who achieves supreme illumination is like an arrow flying straight to hell.' Keep in mind what I said about caution, George. You can release at any moment. It's great up there, and you need a mantra to keep you away from it until you learn how to use it. Here's your mantra, and if you knew the peril you are in you'd brutally burn it into your backside with a branding iron to make sure you'd never forget it: I Am The Robot. Repeat it." 

I will testify that the use of psychedelic substances was a drastic experience that I'll never be the same afterwards. While my intake was nowhere as heroic as RAW's I will say that the world presents a lot more seemingly concrete variables than it ever had before. By the time I had tried LSD I had grown my own psilocybin mushrooms and was familiar with tripping; but lysergic acid diethylamide is an experience unto itself.  The revelation of just how baroque and overwrought our consciousnesses are is enough to keep you wondering...I imagine for the rest of my life. 

(On pg. 110 the name Lobachevsky appears in a different font- I don't have my New Falcon edition with me so I am unable to corroborate if this was intentional or not.) 

Concerning RAW's musings, as someone who recently emerged from being a male between 16-24 I will attest to how frustrating and crazed those years were at times ... now with my generation depending upon our parents well into our thirties I think it could be extrapolated this purgatorial time of societal/hormonal pressure has grown longer. Perhaps this can explain the number of young men making horses asses out of themselves arguing for the alt-right. 

The Provoked Wife was a Restoration-era play that dwelt upon gender relations in marriage. 

"Mary, Mary Quite Contrary" is RAW's conspiracy writing at its most streamlined. He pack a wallop of mysteries in this short essay which is well constructed from beginning to end. Considering the scrutiny that the work of Baigent, Lincoln, and Leigh faced (Baigent's name on pg. 123 is also in the odd font) after the release of The Da Vinci Code their work seems to have been mostly discredited...or at least its what "They" want us to think. 

It is a pity that RAW doesn't note Jean Cocteau's work with alchemical symbolism and his magical Orphic Trilogy. It could have helped set the atmosphere a little more. The relationship between Alchemy and Surrealism is documented through the lives and work of Cocteau, Duchamp, Daumal, and Dali...I'm sure there's more links that I just don't know about.

It is also worth noting that frequent commenter on the blog and RAW scholar Eric Wagner edited a poetry journal titled "Noon Blue Apples."  

midnight purple bananas

Next week we'll cover pgs. 129-159 up to "Part III: In Defense of the Damned"

How the CIA worked with drug traffickers

A new documentary on the History Channel, "America's War on Drugs," apparently tells the story of how the CIA has worked with drug traffickers.  It's available online at the link. I have not seen it yet, but it sounds interesting.

The Intercept has an article about the series:  "The war on drugs has always been a pointless sham. For decades the federal government has engaged in a shifting series of alliances of convenience with some of the world’s largest drug cartels. So while the U.S. incarceration rate has quintupled since President Richard Nixon first declared the war on drugs in 1971, top narcotics dealers have simultaneously enjoyed protection at the highest levels of power in America."

Hat tip, John Merritt.

Supergee also has a related post about a Reason podcast, appropriately tagged "War on some drugs." 

Saturday links

Episode of "Exploring the Bizarre." Features Valerie D'Orazio AND Adam Gorightly!

New England Journal of Medicine survey of the medical effects of providing health coverage to more people. It seems to show pretty conclusively that as many people as possible ought to be covered under Medicaid, or some other form of coverage. Via Tyler Cowen. 

New post by Oz Fritz in his Deleuze/Crowley series. And he likes early Genesis, as I do.

New Nick Herbert poem.

Jesse Walker finds a good one. (Above)

Bryan Caplan ask me anything.

I posted a couple of brief comments on Monday's episode of the online reading group, sorry for running late, it's been that kind of week.

Cosmic Trigger play news

Tom Baker as Robert Shea. Pic by Simon Annand

Michelle Olley has sent out an official news bulletin from the Cosmic Trigger play folks who recently completed a successful run of the play in London.

Two bits of news: If you attended the play, please fill out the audience survey (there is an handy button in the message).

Also, there's good news about the play finding an audience. "By the final week, we were completely sold out," Olley reports  

New RAW YouTube channel has lots of material [UPDATED]

Martin Wagner, the Austrian Robert Anton Wilson fan who has become an important figure in RAW fandom because of his diligence, has some fresh news.

Martin has created a new RAW video and audio channel on YouTube. This is a notable achievement because it has a great deal of material that is not currently available at the Robert Anton Wilson Fans site.

Here are links to some specific items:

Robert Anton Wilson Prisoner rap sessions "Many Happy Returns" (1978)

Prisoner rap session "Hammer Into Anvil" (1978)

The Prism Lecture.(1982)

Falcon Press event talk. (1987)

Trajectories #11 "An Hour With Robert Anton Wilson." (1992)

Trajectories #18 "A Summary of My Philosophy." (1997)

Unknown Lecture. (1987)

Bridge Psychedelic Conference Talk. (1991)

Something's Happening with Roy Tuckman (1988)

Something's Happening with Roy Tuckman (1989)

Something's Happening with Roy Tuckman (1990)

Ireland and Irish poetry lecture (1988)

Map of Consciousness (2002). 

KPFA Radio Interview (1989)

Coast to Coast with Art Bell, three hour radio show,  1997, apparently blocked in U.S.

William Reich in Hell (1999)

Richard Bandler seminar first lecture (2000)

Richard Bandler seminar second lecture (2000)

Richard Bandler seminar third lecture (2000)

Preparing for the 21st century (1988)

The channel also has some more well known and widely available material. Again, the channel link is here. 

UPDATE: Forgot to add that if anyone has old audio or VHS cassettes and wants to share with Martin, so he can share with everyone else, please email him at fnord@gmx.at

Interesting ebook project

I don't have time to do a long blog post today. But check out this interesting ebook project, Standard Ebooks. Via Supergee, who also has a link about children's books.

Tuesday links

 Ad for Illuminatus! from High Times in 1976. Thanks to @advantardeodus on Twitter for help. Source.

Beautiful new edition of Principia Discordia from Brazil.  Report from Adam Gorightly.

Download Dadaist magazines from a digital archive.

Ten music albums to "awaken you to magick and the occult." 

Solar and wind power use is growing quickly. 

Country and western music prediction.

Email to the Universe discussion group, Week Six

James Joyce

 [This week covers pages 85-104 in the Hilaritas Press edition, e.g. the beginning of Part II to "Get Your New York Garbage Online." -- The Mgt.]                                                                                           
By Gregory Arnott, guest blogger                                                                                                                                                                
I'm sure we're all familiar with the quotes that begin Part II of email to the Universe: they seem to be printed on all of Wilson's books.

"Joyce & Daoism" is an excellent little essay that encapsulates a lot of the overarching themes in Wilson's work. Like "The Celtic Roots of Quantum Theory" and "Black Magick" this essay would work well as an introduction to RAW's thought. Perhaps the most interesting bit about this piece is the date it was penned; a year before his publication in The Realist (where he would similarly attack the masculine aspects of Western religion). Herein RAW lays out his patrist/matrist dialectic which he develops further in Ishtar Rising, The Illuminati Papers, and Coincidance (the book of essays in which it can easily be argued the highlight would be his even more developed exegesis of Finnegans Wake.) When I first read FW nearly seven years ago I used the Coincidance essays as my Baedeker and enjoyed the novel thoroughly. With Father's Day approaching I think it is worth pointing out the work of Carol Loeb Schloss and Alan Moore which has indicated that Anna Livia Plurabelle was based heavily upon Joyce's daughter Lucia (who is my own daughter's namesake). As Joyce worked on his map of time, space, and consciousness he seemed to believe that by finishing his impossible work he might be able to save his daughter who had already been institutionalized as a schizophrenic.

The most interesting point I think RAW raises in this particular essay is that the acceptance in Ulysses is forced and something that Joyce didn't personally feel or accurately express until Finnegans Wake. So there's still hope that I might actually understand the Dao someday. During an interview with Barry Hughart, the author of the ultra-charming Bridge of Birds he cited the Daoist tradition of hiding their teaching in novels during the Confucian hegemony; if we are to understand Finnegans Wake as RAW wishes in this essay a clear connection can be espied.

Another wonderful quote from Mr. Adams disproving the "Christian" origins of this nation.

The "Movie Haiku" section speaks pretty clearly on its own and considering I haven't watched many of the movies herein I have nothing to add. My favorite was Chimes at Midnight, one of my favorite of Welles' performances.

Giambattista Vico 

"He Who Thunders From On High" concerns Vico's theory that our belief in god derives from our primitive fear of thunder. It also contains another one of RAW's brilliant logic experiments that points out that Abrahamic religions must believe in a donut god. This is comparable to the aforementioned Realist essay where Wilson asked the pressing question: how big is God's dick?

In "Get Your New York Garbage Online" RAW seems to be anticipating the text speak that would develop rapidly over the next few years.

Our next reading goes from pg. 105-116 before "Mary, Mary Quite Contrary."

Review of 'Cosmic Trigger' from OTO newsletter

RAW with Grady Louis McMurtry of the OTO

[This is a review of Robert Anton Wilson's Cosmic Trigger that ran in an Ordo Templi Orientis newsletter in 1978. Martin Wagner, who sent it to me, remarks that it's a real rarity. The newsletter was sent out from Grand Lodge Berkeley, and McMurtry is mentioned in Cosmic Trigger as a guest at a Crowleymass party RAW gave. -- The Management.]

COSMIC TRIGGER "FINAL SECRET OF THE ILLUMINATI."
by Robert Anton Wilson, And/Or Press, $4.95.

Having been a follower of the writings of Robert Anton Wilson for the past five years, I was delighted to see "Cosmic Trigger" published at last!

Up until two and a half years ago, Mr. Wilson was a brilliant, yet undeservedly obscure writer on subjects relating to the occult and evolving psychic potentials in the human species.

He first came to my attention in 1972 e.v. through a number of articles written for Gnostica News.

The one thing that impressed me then (and still does) is the originality in his approach to the subject, as opposed to the usual scissors and paste technique of so many authors.

In the fall of 1975 e.v. the "Illuminatus Trilogy" was published.  While I enjoyed this work very much, I felt that it was not a true representation of what Mr. Wilson was capable of producing.
I realized that I would have to wait a bit longer for a truly serious book.

In Oct. of 1976 e.v. (at the time he was writing "Cosmic Trigger") I was fortunate enough to have taken a class in Exo-Psychology from Mr. Wilson.

At that time I got a preview of the information he was correlating for "Cosmic Trigger", yet I had to wait another year before he was able to get the damned thing published.

Probably the most important aspect of "Cosmic Trigger" is Mr. Wilson's attempt to connect a wide variety of seemingly unconnected phenomena into a pattern, into a web of cognitive intelligence.

Rather than attempting to impose a structured view of reality on the reader, Mr. Wilson presents many models of viewing the universe, allowing the reader to create a unique point of view.

Pancakes from outer-space, Aleister Crowley, immortality, Timothy Leary, Quantum Mechanics, multiple universes, evolving DNA consciousness, the Iluminati, LSD, the Dog Star, etc.,etc., begin to form into a unique mosaic of the possible realities beyond the veil of the logical mind.

The book escapes the trap of merely relaying a bunch of unexplainable phenomena, such as was done by Charles Fort.  It also succeeds in transcending the limitations inherent in a guru-chela type of relationship.

The reader is given the impression of being a fellow traveler with Mr. Wilson rather than being the recipient of a lecture from some god almighty authority.

The book is also a very personal biography of the author.  It is a personal account of his unfolding consciousness.

Mr. Wilson goes beyond portraying second hand experiences, and explains many personal experiences with "THEM" in a most objective and non-dogmatic style.

I consider this book to be very important in the work of propagating the Law of Thelema.  This is one of the few books out to explain the importance of the work of Aleister Crowley beyond the usual "occult" category.

"Cosmic Trigger" is going to be read by a lot of people who normally would not be attracted to the occult, and will thus be an excellent introduction to Crowley to many people who normally wouldn't approach the "Great Beast" with an eleven foot pole.

The book does much in dispelling the malignant shadow of the "demon Crowley" which has been fostered on the general public for so long.

The book is also of special interest to those of us working with the O.T.O. through the auspices of Hymenaeus Alpha.

Cosmic Trigger contains many interesting tales about the Caliph, even though Grady's name was inadvertently spelled "McMurty" throughout the book.

(correct spelling: "McMurtry". Also, note that "Stephen McAuley" is not "Stephen McCaully's" correct name either.  Such errors are easy to make.
I blew the spelling of the Caliph's name on the caption of the photo on page 17 of this Newsletter!  Not only that, but Hymenaeus is incorrectly spelled on the Copyright notice for Issue #1 ... A note from your chagrined Editor.)

Oh well, Mr. Wilgus never claimed omniscience.

In the interest of historical accuracy, it should be noted that the story on page 161 of "Cosmic Trigger" concerning the Abramelin and Enochian entities got a bit jumbled.

Aleister told Grady that it was the Enochian Angles who "bite" and the Abramelin Spirits who "come for you," rather than the other way around as recorded by Mr. Wilson.  Nevertheless the essence of the transmission came through.

On the inside of the back cover, it is claimed that Mr. Wilson is a member of O.T.O.

To prevent any misunderstanding it should be noted that Mr.  Wilson was not initiated through the auspices of the Grand Lodge in Berkeley ("Possibly Franco-Haitian?")

A good friend of mine recently asked Mr. Wilson who he was initiated by.  He replied that he was initiated by a person in Virginia who broke with Mr. Grant.

He also stated that he was given the IXth degree by this person in return for elevating this person to the exalted position of "Grant Master of the Bavarian Illuminati."

Knowing Mr. Wilson's sense of humor, I tend to classify this story in the same file as the mysterious pancakes from Outer-Space.  I'm sure it would be interesting to the readers of this Newsletter if Mr. Wilson should verify, or retract this story in time for the next Newsletter.

"Cosmic Trigger" is a very complex and interesting book.  In a short review it is difficult to accurately convey it's many brilliant facets.  All I can say in conclusion is pick it up and decide for yourself.
It's going to be with us for a number of years.

by Frater Iakasa 93

P.S. If after reading "Cosmic Trigger" you have yet to discover the "final secret" of the Illuminati, read Mr. Wilson's introduction to "Zen Without Zen Masters" by Camden Banares.