Hilaritas posts 1989 RAW video

 

Hilaritas Press has posted a YouTube video of Robert Anton Wilson speaking at a 1989 conference on brain machines. 

"Hawk Ridge Productions" is Phil Farber's company, and Mr. Farber is the source of the video, Rasa explains.

"Phil and Djenába sponsored the Brain Machine Symposium in 1989, and recorded RAW’s presentation. The video is pretty rough, and Phil explains in the beginning about how the tech was not quite up for the event, but I cleaned up the audio as much as possible, and there was even a 3 minute segment in the middle where the audio was out of sync with the video – I fixed that," Rasa told me. 

"It’s a very cool video altogether because of the info," he said. 

The video is part of a new Special Hilaritas Press Presentations playlist Rasa has just created at YouTube. 

More information and credits for the video are here. 

Rapper Open MIke Eagle on RAW

 

Open Mike Eagle (Creative Commons 4.0 photo by Maximilianklein)

As part of a monthly series called Book Club, rapper Open Mike Eagle talks about his literary influences for Spin, and one of the writers he mentions (along with Tom Robbins and Grant Morrison and many others) is Robert Anton Wilson:

"Robert Anton Wilson is very similar to Tom Robbins in that his writing is led by his curiosity. He lays out mystical stuff through logical approaches and tries to blur the lines between where those universes are. He explores that quantum physics space that lives between both. He creates skepticism in a healthy way. I have a song called “4NML (Korzybski’s Lament)” on my album 4NML HSPTL; Korzybski’s concepts on language were introduced to me by Robert Anton Wilson’s books [including Prometheus Rising]. So the whole song is about how words are misleading and how language is just an inaccurate way to express most of the concepts that we’re thinking and feeling."

Thanks to Nick Helweg-Larsen for the tip. 

RAW's class on conpiracies

Prop Anon, who previously posted Robert Anton Wilson's class assignments for RAW's Maybe Logic Academy classes in Non Euclidean Politics and the Tale of the Tribe, has now begun posting more RAW material at this Chapel Perilous website.

This time, it's RAW's assignments for his MLA class on conspiracy theories. In the first posting on his site, Prop explains, "Conspiracy, Coincidence, and Code was part of RAW’s first batch of classes that were launched in 2004. This class, in particular, ran in the later part of 2004, and was a 12-week course. Wilson was in full form with this class, as he utilized his book Everything is Under Control as a workbook for participants to examine, analyze, and extrapolate upon what we learned. As such Everything Is Under Control was a required text, as was his third installment in the Cosmic Trigger series, Cosmic Trigger 3: My Life After Death. The last book requirement was a curious work from James DeMeo, entitled Saharasia. Wilson liked this book, as he believed DeMeo provided strong social scientific foundation to the claims made by Wilhelm Reich concerning the 'emotional plague'.”

New John Higgs newsletter

John Higgs has released another newsletter, largely about events where you can see him talk about the new book, Love and Let Die, or at least hear him in a podcast (such as the Beatles Book podcast I recently listened to). 

John also has a reform proposal to share about the British government: "The great majority of the British population, as the last couple of weeks show and all polling companies agree, are in favour of the monarchy. There is also a sizable minority who would prefer the country to be a republic. Then there’s my position, which sadly is an incredibly niche and unloved one. In my opinion, I think we should get rid of Charles and the house of Windsor, and appoint Merlin as our head of state."

What were your favorite exercises?

The colors of these flowers are inside your head (Photo by Alex Seinet for Unsplash.)

 Our Prometheus Rising reading and exercise group has almost come to an end. The first post went up in October 2020 and the 98th post went up last Monday, so that's about two years. Those were all of the posts scheduled by Eric Wagner when he conceived the shape of the reading group. But as you can see, I am doing one more blog post, and I know Eric has one more planned. But still, we will wrap up soon. 

This has been an unusually long reading group -- the upcoming one for Natural Law will be on a more normal schedule -- but that has been by design. Eric, when he conceived the reading group, did not want participants to simply read the chapters and comment. He really wanted people to take the time to work on the exercises, as Robert Anton Wilson intended.

I didn't do all of the exercises, but I did make a real attempt this time to do some of them. And looking back over the reading group, there were two that made a particular impression on me. 

One was the second exercise in Chapter Two of Prometheus Rising. That's the one where you sit in a room where you won't be interrupted for half an hour and think "I am sitting in the room doing this exercize because" and list as many reasons that you can think of. Wilson specifies that he wants you to come up with specific facts, not metaphysical speculations. 

In my post, as you can see, I came up with many reasons. I was struck by all of the ones I was able to come up with to explain why I was in a particular time and place, writing the post.

The other one that made a particular impression on me was the first exercise for Chapter 14, "If all you can know is your own brain programs operating, the whole universe you experience is inside your head. Try to hold onto that model for at least an hour. Note how often you relapse into feeling the universe as outside you." Trying to do that felt like I was looking from the outside at images in my brain.

I should probably go back and work on some of the other exercises. And I was curious which ones particularly worked for some of you.  

, 

Latest Oz Fritz video on Deleuze

 Oz Fritz has been doing a series of video lectures on the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze.  This morning I watched the above video (about 13 minutes) which references three different approaches to philosophy.

Oz mentions, "RAW was into Zen and this one has a Zen connection." Here is Oz' description of the video: "Discusses 3 orientations of philosophy or thought, the heights, the depth and the surface. These are represented by Platonism, Nietzsche & the Pre--Socratics, and the Cynics and Stoics. Symbolized by Platonic wings, Empedocles' sandal, and the philosophical staff blow. Connection with Zen. Empdeocles connection with magic and with Nietzsche. Vigorous attack on Platonism; the philosophical disease of Idealism which gets compared to manic depression."

For more, see Oz' blog.  The video series is about Deleuze's book The Logic of Sense.  The initial blog posting of the series is here. 

Oz also mentions (comment for this blog post) that the "Sangha" portion of this blog on the right side of the page, listing recent postings from other blogs, is no longer listing his recent blog posts. I have no explanation for this, other than that Blogger's features seem to routinely malfunction for no apparent reason, and Google does not make it easy to report these hiccups. For example, I can no longer post my own blog posts in advance; without explanation, the feature has stopped working. 

Hilaritas podcast on magick features Lionel Snell, aka Ramsey Dukes

Lionel Snell 

 "Lionel Snell on Magickal Thinking" is the latest Hilaritas Press podcast, which as usual was released on the 23rd. Follow the link to watch or to see the list of various apps/websites that have it; I know it's also on Podkicker, too, the main podcasting app I use. The link also has useful links, such as for Ramsey Dukes' website.  A useful biography is here. 

Bobby Campbell, Creative Weirdo

 

Podcast interviews of artist and writer Bobby Campbell are reliably interesting, and I enjoyed this two hour, 15 minute interview with Bobby on the Creative Weirdos podcast (I had to listen to it in several sittings.) Bobby talks about RAW in the interview by Todd Purse, and I was particularly interested in Bobby's discussion of magick and in his ayahuasca experience in South America. (Bobby says it happened before everyone else did it.) 

Check out Bobby's art. His new comics collection, Weird Comix #2, has just arrived on my Kindle app. 

Thursday links

Philip K. Dick holding a cat. (Source)

Strange Attractor Press Austin Osman Spare's 1906 tarot deck project. 

 Signed copies of the new John Higgs book are available. 

"When a government agency 'recommends' a policy, it's akin to a recommendation from Tony Soprano; it is inevitably interpreted as a mandate, obeyed by state and federal agencies, health insurers, and even pharmacies."

John Sinclair birthday celebration. 

Jesse Walker recommends a documentary series on conspiracy theories. 

When Michael Johnson discovered RAW

[Rasa recently added RAW scholar Michael Johnson to the roster of RAWnet, the group of "friends of the ideas of Robert Anton Wilson," and Michael wrote a short piece explaining how he ran across RAW's writings. I thought it might be of interest, so I reproduce it here. The Management.]

I was always attracted to writers who had encyclopedic minds and who seemed to know “everything” and especially those who wrote both fiction and non-fiction. I had gone on about a six-year bender with Aldous Huxley, and he was easily my favorite writer, and I still love him dearly. I was reading voraciously – including re-re-re-reading Aldous – when one night my wife and I went out to dinner, then browsed a local bookstore. I happened upon Right Where You Are Sitting Now and was immediately attracted to the form of the book and this Wilson dude’s varied interests, experiments, and tones. Then I noticed he wrote novels too, and in RWYASN there was a fiction piece, along with cut-ups – the book was dedicated to Burroughs and Philip K Dick – and I loved both of those guys too. But I confess I’d never even heard of RAW at the time. This was shortly before everyone got on Internet.

I bought the book and stayed up all night reading it. He did wild things to my nervous system and the book acted like a mild psychedelic for me. I went to work the next day on little sleep, came home and began re-reading RWYASN. Very soon after I bought and read every book I could find by him. Then I began re-re-reading and studying him closely, like I’d done with Huxley. No other writer has had such a profound effect on me as RAW has, and his writing has definitely created mental environments in which epigenetic effects have changed how my genes express themselves, which is all I could ask for in a writer.

John Higgs: New book, new podcast

The new John Higgs book Love and Let Die (about the Beatles and James Bond)  is out (in Britain, we have to wait in the U.S.) and as past of the promotional effort, John has given an interview to the Beatles Book podcast.  Topics covered include how Paul McCartney's James Bond theme song affected Paul's post-Beatles career, how history will judge critics of Paul's career and which Beatle is the most like James Bond.

My favorite Beatle when I was a young teen was George, then I switched to John, but now Paul is my favorite. At some point, I realized that John's image as the intellectual among the Beatles was oversold -- it was Paul who was the most interested in avant-garde electronic music, for example. 

Prometheus Rising exercise and discussion group, Episode 98, Chapter 19

 

Prometheus and the Oceanides and eagle Ethon - Scuplture by Eduard Müller (1872/79) at Alte Nationalgalerie Berlin. Photo by Christian Paul Stobbe for Unsplash. 

Prometheus Rising concludes with Chapter 19, a chapter without exercises in which Robert Anton Wilson discusses the implications for the future if people can advance along the eight circuits and increase their intelligence.

It's possible to nitpick at the inaccuracy of RAW's forecasts -- we didn't get a "Longevity Pill" and space migration by 2005 -- but I also thought the chapter was inspirational. Work is being done on space migration, intelligence increase and longevity.

A couple of chapter bits that caught my eye:

RAW writes, "Maurice Nicoll, physician, psychiatrist, student of Jung, Gurdjieff and Esoteric Christianity, wrote that 'the only purpose in work on consciousness is to decrease the amount of violence in the world.' This is Public Health Problem Number One in the nuclear age, the age of overkill." 

I wish this statement was dated, but I recently read that with Russia's military failure in Ukraine, the risk of nuclear war rises as Putin becomes more desperate. 

RAW also writes, "Most of the fifth-circuit adepts (aquarian conspirators) have learned Joyce's arts of 'silence, exile, cunning': they are invisible." I have been studying Epicureanism a lot  lately, and Epicurus advised his followers to "live unnoticed" so that they wouldn't be hassled over their unconventional views. 

The Hilaritas edition of Prometheus Rising ends with an afterward by Rasa. As I wrote in an earlier article, it largely focuses on why RAW flipped the sixth and seventh circuits when he wrote elsewhere about the Eight Circuit model. 

As a matter of housekeeping, this is the last Prometheus Rising online reading group post that Eric Wagner scheduled when he set the PR schedule back in August of 2020. Eric has told me, however, that he has one more post he wants to do, and I have one more in mind, and Apuleius can do one more posts, if he chooses. Still, we are almost done. I will announce a schedule soon for the Natural Law reading group I announced Friday. 

RAW interviews Colin Wilson

 

Another good find by Martin Wagner: Robert Anton Wilson interviews Colin Wilson for the April, 1985, "New Age Journal." Certainly they find some interesting topics to discuss and seem to agree on quite a bit.

Here is a question and answer I liked:

Robert Anton Wilson: How does all this connect to your interest in parapsychology?

Colin Wilson: Only accidentally. When I was first asked to write a book on the occult, I thought, “Christ, what a bore.” I have since written half a dozen books on the subject, but only because it is connected with the things that really interest me—brain functions, peak experiences, and so on. I agree with the yogis that in learning to discipline the mind one often activates certain paranormal powers, but they are trivial and should not be a matter of obsessive interest. Their only importance is that they show again that ordinary consciousness is not the limit of what our minds can do.

And here is Colin Wilson about his discovery that people can be healthy and happy:

My first real clue came from Abraham Maslow, after I published The Age of Defeat. He read it and wrote me a letter agreeing with me that writers should learn to stop being defeated, and he called my attention to his own research. When I read his works I was fascinated, because he was a psychologist who had gotten sick of studying sick people who talked about nothing but their sickness, and had started studying the healthy—something that had never been done before. He discovered that healthy people had with a fair degree of frequency what he called peak experiences, feelings of sheer happiness. They were not necessarily “mystical” experiences. One was described by a young wife watching her husband and children eating breakfast. Suddenly a beam of sunlight came through the window, and she thought, “My God, aren’t I lucky!” and went into the peak experience. Another was a young jazz drummer working his way through college who discovered one night he couldn’t do a thing wrong and went into the peak experience as he drummed. A hostess after a highly successful party, looking around the room at the cigarette butts trodden into the rug and the spilt wine, nonetheless suddenly had a peak experience. Reading these sorts of cases, I began to surmise that when you’ve had an intense peak experience it gives you an optimistic view of the universe, which is the opposite of the view of the criminal, who generally thinks the universe is a bloody awful place and the only thing to do to show your objection is to react violently.

Could this relate to Beethoven's statement, cited by RAW in "Beethoven As Information" in The Illuminati Papers? Beethoven allegedly said, "Anyone who understands my music will never be unhappy again."

The discussion of Colin Wilson aborting his suicide attempt reminded me of RAW on the Brooklyn Bridge, as discussed in Cosmic Trigger 2.