RAW reviews John Lilly

 

A really interesting discovery by Martin Wagner: Robert Anton Wilson reviews a book by John Lilly, Simulations of God: The Science of Belief.  The book review is published in 1976 in Gnostica magazine. 

I suspect many of you will want to read the whole thing, but here is a bit:

Dr. Lilly is no dingbat and Simulations of God shows the some keen scientific intelligence as his earlier books. Eventually, if we are not irrevocably wed to our old ideas of space and time, we must ask—as Tom Wolfe asked of McLuhan—but what if he’s right? Is it possible that disciplined work on rewiring the nervous system with LSD, sensory deprivation, and traditions derived from Sufism can actually make one a receptor for higher intelligences elsewhere in space-time?

All of the articles Martin has found ought to be integrated into the links at the Robert Anton Wilson Fans website.  Links also ought to be put up for Prop Anon's posts at Chapel Perilous. 

More cheery 'War on Some Drugs' news

Radley Balko. (Creative Commons photo by Gage Skidmore). 

Radley Balko, recently laid off at the Washington Post, a move that does that newspaper little credit, has recently launched a Substack newsletter. If you want plenty of evidence that the War on Some Drugs is corrupt and terrible, you'll find it in his writings. 

He recently reviewed warrants for no-knock drug raids in Little Rock, Arkansas. Obviously, no-knock drug raids are very dangerous, even when police carry them out at the right house. Here are some interesting sentences about the judicial review that supposedly takes place before such raids are authorized. (The police are supposed to list specific reasons for carrying out raids in such a dangerous manner, as Radley explains when you read the whole thing). 

"Of the 105 warrants I reviewed from Little Rock, LRPD officers requested a no-knock raid in 103. Of those 103, their request was granted in at least 101 (two were missing the page with the judge’s instructions). Of those 101, the police provided particularized information about why that suspect met the exigent circumstance exception in just eight. This means that at least 93 of the 103 no-knock warrants I reviewed were illegal."

So far, Radley isn't putting much of anything behind a paywall, so check him out. 

NY Times critic on Philip K. Dick

The New York Times has a book critic named Molly Young who writes a column/newsletter called "Read Like the Wind," which offers book recommendations for both old and new titles. (Apparently there are people who need book recommendations. I have recommended hundreds of books to myself, but only manage to read a few dozen every year.)

The latest column is called "The Essential Philip K. Dick," and Young discusses Dick and recommends ten of his books, with recommendations aimed at different reader interests, e.g. what to read if you are totally new to Dick, what to read if you want his best novel (Young says it is Ubik, which I still haven't read) and so on. I've read something like 5-10 Dick books, but Young is obviously is more well-read on Dick than I am, and apparently a bigger fan. The above photo from Twitter shows the license plate on her car. 

My favorite Dick novel is The Man In the High Castle. I haven't felt a huge urge to read him since reading Now Wait For Last Year a few years ago, although I suppose I ought to try Valis and Ubik. 

Here is Molly Young's website.  And you can follow her on Twitter. 

Hat tip, Nick Helseg-Larsen, although also I also take the Times and subscribe to Ms. Young's newsletter. 

Friday links

View in Wales from Iron Age hill fort. (Source). 

Jesse Walker has some suggestions for the British. 

Book recommendation (on psychotropic drugs). 

Old Halloween sounds. 

What Andy Partridge (from XTC) is doing these days. 

How AI will change the internet.  Let me know when I  can use AI to write this blog. 

Maybe democracy isn't going away after all. 

RAW cartoon

 

Via Prop Anon on Twitter: "Thee Semiotic Alchemyst transformed herself in computer software to provide this quick rundown of Robert Anton Wilson."

I can't figure out how to embed the short cartoon (one minute, sixteen seconds) into the blog post, but you can follow the link to watch. 

Natural Law: Celebrity endorsements!

"Absolutely essential and fun!" -- RAW Semantics

"The gateway drug!" -- @amoebadesign

"My new favorite in the Wilson essay collection genre!" -- Chad Nelson

I am hoping that some of you will be persuaded to join the reading group for Natural Law Or Don't Put A Rubber on Your Willy And Other Writings From A Natural Outlaw from Hilaritas Press that I announced a schedule for on Monday.  (Starts Nov. 28).

Although the title essay was published in a journal called New Libertarian and consists of an argument Wilson made with several prominent libertarians, I would argue that it's not a "libertarian book" or a "libertarian RAW book." As Chad Nelson explains in this interview, the book's theme is really about model agnosticism. (To be clear, a "RAW libertarian book" would be fine with me, some other time. But that doesn't really describe Natural Law, in my opinion, or Chad's). 

Still not convinced? Here are a couple of "celebrity endorsements" from the world of RAW fandom.

Brian Dean, who writes the RAW Semantics blog, is decidedly not a libertarian, as far as I can tell from reading his Twitter account. 

Here is his review of Natural Law on Twitter: " I grok RAW best thru his *BOOKS*, & I found NL absolutely essential (& fun). Take a weekend & read it properly."

The cover artist, Scott McPherson, also is not a libertarian. Brian Dean and I both liked the cover, which as Rasa points out, references a RAW quote,  "Every perception is a gamble, in which we see part, not all, (to see all requires omniscience) and 'fill in' or project a convincing hologram out of minimal clues. We all intuitively know the obvious and correct answer to the Zen koan, 'Who is the Master who makes the grass green?' "

When we discussed the quote on Twitter, Scott said that he liked the book so much he made a departure from his previous covers: "Aye, this one is aimed at the general public and wellness mob ;)  it's meant to look like an appealing  book you would see in the Sunday papers.... it's a trojan horse design ;)  meant to suck you in.....

"Going for the non RAW fans with this one  .... the gateway drug I call it."

Chad endorses the book, too, of course, but some people might question whether he is totally objective, as he edited the book. Rasa likes the book, too!

New Hilaritas podcast: Marshall McLuhan

The latest Hilaritas Press podcast is about another RAW influence, Marshall McLuhan, and features McLuhan's grandson, Andrew McLuhan. As per usual, there are links at the official site for those who want to go more in depth. 

The next episode, to be released on Nov. 23, will focus on Claude Shannon. This is another episode I am particularly looking forward to. Mike Gathers will interview the co-authors of A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age.

Proposed 'Natural Law' reading group schedule

When I read Natural Law Or Don't Put A Rubber on Your Willy And Other Writings From A Natural Outlaw from Hilaritas Press before it came out early this year (I was a volunteer proofreader), I thought it was really a good book. I hope that the new online reading group I announced a few weeks ago will serve to bring the book to the attention of more readers. I really do feel the book deserves a good reception, and the reading group is one of my efforts to aid the title. 

My proposal is to start the Natural Law reading group on Nov. 28, more than a month from now, and to cover the book in 18 weekly installments each Monday. 

The book consists of the original long Natural Law essay, once published separately as a long essay but a short book from Loompanics, and 12 additional pieces selected by Chad Nelson, the editor of the book. Although the 12 comprise most of the book, none are as long as the title essay. At the front of the book is a reprint of John Higgs' piece on Maybe Day, originally published in the Guardian newspaper in Britain on July 23, 2009, and Chad's introduction. 

Chad has agreed to write something  to kick off the reading group, and then I will take over, although I'm certainly open to guest bloggers.

So my proposal is to start Nov. 28 with something from Chad, then on Dec. 5 do a weekly post on the Higgs and Nelson pieces in the front. I think the long essay ought to be covered over three weeks,  with weekly blog posts from then on for each additional piece in the book. The last item in the book, "I OPENING," seems pretty significant to me, so I want to cover it with two blog posts, one from me and one from Chad, who has told me he also wants to write about it. 

If I am counting right, that comes out to  18 blog entries for a book that's 230 pages long in print -- a reasonable schedule, I think. I may not follow the schedule rigidly -- I reserve the right to make changes as we go along if the need arises -- but that's the plan. I'm certainly willing to listen to feedback.

A note on the availability of the text: For previous reading groups, readers have often been able to track down a library book, or to find a cheap used book of an older edition from New Falcon.

For Natural Law, I'm thinking these do not seem like options;  I doubt many public libraries carry the book. I can't find any evidence that it's in a library in Ohio, where I live, and Ohio is a big state that funds its public libraries more generously than any of the other 49 states. 

So you'll likely have to buy the book. It's $23 on Amazon and there is still no Kindle yet. 

As for the usual ebooks offered by Hilaritas, well it's complicated. There's no Kindle and Hilaritas has been working for months to straighten out a problem with Amazon on the matter.

There is an ebook for about $9 from Barnes and Noble, but that's a problem, too. I don't know how the file looks  on a Nook tablet, but on the Nook app on a smartphone, it's terrible, with lots of spaces that mess up the ability to read it normally. I have verified, however, that buying the ebook means you can read it on the Barnes and Noble website. Rasa has been trying to fix this, too. 

So unless you are OK with reading the book on  your computer, you may have to buy the actual paper book. If the Kindle or Nook situation gets fixed, I'll let you know. 

For more on the book, please see my interview with Chad Nelson and my shorter interview with Rasa. And thank you to Rasa for the book group graphic. 

R.U. Sirius channels Timothy Leary

Timothy Leary (Creative Commons photo by Philip H. Bailey.)

Timothy Leary, born on Oct. 22, 1920, was 75 when he died in Los Angeles in 1996.

He would have been 102 on Saturday, and to mark the occasion, author, publisher, musician etc. R.U. Sirius penned a tribute, "I Channeled Timothy Leary for his 102 Birthday (Happy birthday Tim)." Sirius knew Leary well, completed Leary's book Design for Dying and penned a biography of Leary, Timothy Leary's Trip Through Time.

Excerpt from the new piece:

“So what’s hell like, Timmy?”

“It’s not so much hot as boring. I mean, Lawrence Welk is in hell and Brian Jones is in heaven. Got that? It’s like one giant Church of the Subgenius prank just to mindfuck little Timmy. And all those French philosophers are in hell. Barthes, Derrida, Foucault, Baudrillard. Droning on and on. ‘Tim can I read you my essay about the post-dialectical dialectics of the isness of not being and gendered demonologies in hell?” Fuck no! Get out of here! I’d rather listen to Eldridge go on and on about how cool Kim il Sung is.”

 

Isaac Bonewits on RAW's 1976 Exopsychology class

 

Prop Anon has been posting a lot of documents at his Chapel Perilous website. The latest is another clipping from the Berkeley Barb, by the noted occult writer Isaac Bonewits, about a 1976 class on Exopsychology taught by Robert Anton Wilson, which had many of the same ideas and themes from Prometheus Rising and Cosmic Trigger. There is quite a bit of discussion of the Eight Circuit Model.

At one point in the class, Bonewits relates, "Wilson played a tape-recording designed to induce a "fifth circuit" experience (similar in many ways to a really good grass high). Everybody floated home after this and returned the next day, noticeably more relaxed." I wonder what the recording was? 

Will marijuana legalization continue?

The states in blue have legalized marijuana; green states have medical marijuana. Creative Commons graphic; more information here. 

Robert Anton Wilson used to write a lot about the "war on some drugs." 

With certain exceptions, political trends in the U.S. on regulation of drugs has generally gone in a direction Wilson would support, particularly the trend of legalization of marijuana. Since Wilson's death in 2007, many states have legalized the use of cannabis by all adults; the first were Colorado and Washington, in 2012.

Recreational cannabis currently is legal in 19 of the 50 states, and in the District of Columbia. As a practical matter, except for the Deep South/former Confederacy, many Americans are within driving distance of legal pot, although it remains illegal to bring pot from a state where it's legal to a state where it's not. The legal states are Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Washington.  (My former state, Oklahoma, is a weird outlier. Technically, it only has medical marijuana, but the laws are so liberal that in effect marijuana is legal there; anyone who wants a medical marijuana license can obtain one, and marijuana shops are everywhere. There are other nuances I don't have the time and space to go into; for example, Delta 8 THC is legally available in many states that still ban pot. And of course there are still many illegal and semi-illegal markets, including California, where taxes and regulations have made legal marijuana expensive.) 

This fall offers a test of whether this trend will continue. Voters in five states are considering marijuana legalization (North Dakota, South Dakota, Missouri, Arkansas and Maryland), while Colorado may legalize some psychedelics, including magic mushrooms. The details of the proposals vary; see this roundup. 

Prop Anon launches podcast

 Prop Anon has launched a podcast channel. "The Prop Anon Podcast explores the life and work of American novelist, Robert Anton Wilson through interviews and discussions with some of the most cutting-edge artists and thinkers around today.

"The Prop Anon Podcast presents interviews with Artists, Journalists, Comedians Comic Book Writers, Scientists, Community Activists, and Musicians as we think of ways to make existence, in the words of Bill Hicks, "a better ride" for everyone on Spaceship Planet Earth!"

The first episode is an interview with Joseph Matheny. It's the same interview I wrote about last year, "remixed for the podcast format and the message is still vital," Prop says. 

Article on Timothy Leary writing to RAW

 

Over at his Chapel Perilous website, Prop Anon posts a clipping from the Berkeley Barb from 1975, about Timothy Leary breaking his silence by writing a letter to Robert Anton Wilson. 

One wonders what the Barb's readers made of sentences such as "In the letter to Wilson, Leary also expresses his continuing concerns with escaping from the planet and achieving immortality...Wilson, like Leary, alleges to have received telepathic communications from what Leary calls 'Higher Intelligences' located somewhere in our galaxy." 

I had to convert Prop's document into a jpg file to post it here; I also found the clipping easier to read when I converted it into a PDF.