1974: RAW shares water

The Church of All Worlds, the invented religion I mentioned in yesterday's post, is largely based on Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land and the ideas and rituals therein, including the ritual of sharing water.

The Church of All Worlds website includes a chronology of important events in the history of the church. Here's the entry for 1974 (Tim is church founder Tim Zell, aka Oberzon Zell; MG is Morning Glory, Tim's main squeeze and soul mate):

MG and Tim are married in huge public Pagan handfasting in Minneapolis (April 14). Isaac Bonewits & Carolyn Clark officiate; Margot Adler sings Gwydion songs. Tim & MG share water with Robert Anton Wilson. Morning Glory ordained (Aug. 1). Tim & MG attend sci-fi Worldcon in Wash. DC (Labor Day), win 1st prize in costume contest as “most primal. 

Invented Religions by Carole M. Cusack

Useful background on Robert Anton  Wilson's cultural milieu is provided by Invented Religions: Imagination, Fiction and Faith by Carole M. Cusack, an Australian religion professor and scholar. This book, on very recent religions, includes a chapter on Discordianism, a chapter on the Church of All Worlds (originally inspired by Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land), a chapter on the Church of the Subgenius and a chapter on even more recent religions such as Jediism, Matrixism and the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Familiar names pop up in the bibliography, such as Eric Wagner (his An Insider's Guide to Robert Anton Wilson is cited several times) and Jesse Walker.

Robert Anton Wilson pops up all over the place, sometimes in ways that I did not expect. I knew that RAW contributed pieces to the journal Green Egg and read it, but I did not know it was published by the Church of All Worlds.

A couple of sentences from the book:

"Literary critic Scott McFarlane has argued that Heinlein could not control the reception of his narrative; 'it belongs to the world.' The readers of the Illuminatus Trilogy and other Discordian-influenced books and websites internalized the mythos, and externalized it as a legitimate narrative of meaning and religious inspiration. The founders of Discordianism are all dead, but the story lives on."

Paul Williams dies

There are many people named Paul Williams on Wikipedia but I am referring to the Paul Williams who founded Crawdaddy and served as Philip K. Dick's literary executor.

The Wikipedia article gives a good summary of his achievements. Here is a piece that emphasizes his role as Dick's literary executor. Here's the article in Rolling Stone.


Because interest in Philip K. Dick tends to fuel interest in Robert Anton Wilson (and vice versa), I would argue that Williams' efforts on behalf of PKD helped keep interest in RAW alive.

Science fiction super weirdo!

The excellent Ted Gioia has an article about Cordwainer Smith in the Atlantic.  Here is a sentence from the piece: " In a genre that rarely shows restraint, Cordwainer Smith may have been the loosest cannon of them all."

Via Roman Tsivkin (who called Smith "the science fiction author who out-PKD'ed PKD" and Supergee.

You can track down Smith's stuff and read it if  you are determined, although distribution of his work these days is the usual mess for dead SF authors. Most of his stuff is unavailable for Kindle, for example. The official website run by Smith's daughter has search tools to make it easier to find his books.

Bonus science fiction link: Dilbert and his buddies discuss Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics (March 28 strip).

RAW on James Joyce's greatness

PQ, featured in yesterday's post,  Tweets a provocative quote from Robert Anton Wilson: "James Joyce is more important than Jesus, Buddha, and Shakespeare put together."

There's no doubt that Wilson saw Joyce as a revolutionary writer, and I don't think it's a coincidence  that Masks of the Illuminati pairs Joyce with Albert Einstein, a revolutionary scientist. But it's also true that RAW knew he was being provocative. Here's a bit more of that question and answer:


CRNLA: Any more artistic opinions?

RAW: If I must. James Joyce is more important than Jesus, Buddha and Shakespeare put together. Pound is the greatest poet in English. Thorne Smith should be reprinted immediately, and would be enormously popular with the current generation, I wager. The novels that get praised in the NY Review of Books aren't worth reading. Ninety-seven percent of science fiction is adolescent rubbish, but good science fiction is the best (and only) literature of our times. All of these opinions are pompous and aggressive, of course, but questions like this bring out the worst in me. Artistic judgments are silly if expressed as dogmas, at least until we get an "artometer" which can measure objectively how many micro-michelangelos or kilo-homers of genius a given artifact has in it.


The interview is one of my favorites. You can read it here.

PQ, by the way, has begun his annual Major League Baseball preview at his blog. I await his prediction for the Cleveland Indians with a sense of foreboding.

PQ on the human brain

PQ at A Building Roam has a good post "On the Lofty Potential of the Human Brain."

"Soaking in certain books and lecture materials (mainly revolving around the works of Robert Anton Wilson and Timothy Leary) over the last few weeks has had me often floating in a deep, blissful and prolonged appreciation and consideration of the human brain, nature's astounding biocomputer," he writes, and there are references to discussions of Masks of the Illuminati at this blog, including comments from Oz Fritz.

Bonus link: Reason has published my review of Cory Doctorow's Homeland.

Masks of the Illuminati, Part Six

Pages 167-213 of the Dell Edition; Pocket Books pages 138-176; about 60 percent of an ebook

"I am seeking multi-dimensional vision. I wish to see deeply into Gothic novels, Zola novels and all other masquerades, and then beyond them." Page 173, Wilson's artistic credo, derived from reading Joyce.

"who  understands modern mathematics as well as Aleister Crowley, but aside from that his head is a swamp of mushy mysticism." RAW liked math and was accused of mushy mysticism.

Book Four by Aleister Crowley page 182, in spite of the fact that a book written in 1912 ought to be easily available in the public domain, I have not been able to locate a downloadable complete copy. The first three parts may be read online here. (Update: It appears everything is here -- see the comments.)

Page 184, to say "This is transitory" about all incidents and events is a key teaching of Buddhism.

"The Moral Majority," page 185, Wilson's opinion of the group, but also a way to signal that Wilson himself wrote "De Oculo Hoor," that it's not an authentic old document.

Libertarians and peace

Reason's Hit and Run blog and Jesse Walker call our attention to an important essay, "Libertarians and War: A Bibliographical Essay" by Anthony Gregory, a writer I admit I was not familiar before. It offers an excellent discussion of libertarian antiwar thought, with lots of links to books, essays and blog postings.

The sort of libertarian who reads this blog will perhaps notice the omission of Robert Anton Wilson, a prominent antiwar libertarian. On the one hand, this is understandable, as Wilson did not write any books devoted solely to antiwar themes or even any essays (that I can think of, at least -- please point to anything I've missed.) On the other hand, antiwar themes are a major component of Illuminatus!, arguably the most important libertarian novel of the last few decades, and antiwar statements permeate Wilson's work. A couple of examples: Wilson contributed a short story, "Von Neumann's Second Catastrophe," to Lewis Shiner's antiwar science fiction anthology, When the Music's Over, and Wilson wrote this in his essay, "Left and Right: A Non-Euclidean Perspective," reprinted in Email to the Universe: "I know I would kill an armed aggressor, in a concrete crisis situation where that was the only defense of the specific lives of specific individuals I love, although I would never kill a person or employ even minor violence, or physical coercion, on behalf of capitalized Abstractions or Government (who are all damned liars)."

I could write a long blog post pointing to other examples.

Auction the unemployed?

I continue to see discussion on blogs and social media from time to time about the idea of a guaranteed basic income, a concept that's been endorsed by folks such as Robert Anton Wilson and Milton Friedman. Here is variation on that idea: A basic income guarantee scheme that auctions the unemployed, providing everyone with the chance to work.

Various links

"The Internet is a surveillance state." From security expert Bruce Schneier.

New book about the guy who invented LSD (via Only Maybe.)

"Johnson said in court Thursday that the trial will delve into the hip-hop music culture and the notion that a secret society called the Illuminati has control over the success of some performers." (Via Michael Johnson -- not THAT Johnson -- at alt.fan.rawilson.)

RAW's 1963 attack on his future employer (not his most charitable piece) (via Michael Johnson at alt.fan.wilson).


Douglas Rushkoff has a new book out.

Ebook versions of The Da Vinci Code are free this week. (Kind of a dumbed-down version of The Widow's Son, if you aren't familiar with it.)

Image of the day

Jesse Walker has a daily feature on his Twitter account called "Your morning image," and sombunall of them are related to the topic of this blog. Here's the image that was featured Wednesday:

Blowing up the picture reveals that it is attributed to Voxx.org. It was featured in a posting about RAW put up after he died.  The About section of the Web site says, "Voxx is internationally known as an incredibly accurate and entertaining Psychic. She is prominently featured as America’s most accurate Love and Sex Psychic in the book, America’s Top 100 Psychics, (Simon & Schuster)."

A look back at space colony enthusiasm

If you read Robert Anton Wilson's writings in the 1970s and 1980s, you can't help but be struck by how optimistic he was that space travel, space colonies and lifespan extension would very soon transform everyone's lives.

The timetable didn't move along as quickly as Wilson expected, but he wasn't the only one who thought that great things were within reach. Reason magazine has published a review of a new book,   The Visioneers: How a Group of Elite Scientists Pursued Space Colonies, Nanotechnology and a Limitless Future. The book is by W. Patrick McCray, a California history professor.

According to Brian Doherty's review, The Visioneers focuses in particular on Gerard O'Neill, whose advocacy of space colonies was promoted in Wilson's Schroedinger's Cat trilogy, and nanotechnology guru Eric Drexler.

Doherty writes, "O’Neill and Drexler imagined progress in their respective fields faster than reality warranted. But it is too early to declare them prophets of what McCray calls 'failed futures.' I don’t think either of their stories is over, despite being entombed here in a book from an academic press."

These seems fair. Recent successes from SpaceX suggest there's hopes for space exploration optimists.

A check on Amazon reveals that McCray's book has several references to Wilson, described by McCray as a "Bay Area science fiction writer." The book appears to offer excellent background for Wilson's ideas (and Timothy Leary's ideas) on space exploration.

Hat tip: Jesse Walker.

Henry George in the Wall Street Journal

I had only heard of the 19th century economist Henry George because Robert Anton Wilson mentions him, so I was surprised to see Monday's front page article in the Wall Street Journal about the lonely band of George fans who still advocate his ideas.

The article doesn't really give much of an explanation of George's ideas, but the Wikipedia biography is here.

Masks of the Illuminati, Part Five

Pages 141-167 of the Dell Edition (end of Part Two); Pocket Books pages 117-138; under 50 percent of an ebook.

I just finished reading The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen.  Although it's listed as a "book" by Project Gutenberg, it's really just a long story. You can get through it in about an hour or so, and it's a good chiller.

Pan is an interesting god with many noteworthy characteristics (besides the fact that he looks like the Christian Devil). He was seen as an embodiment of paganism. From the Oxford Classical Dictionary, Third Edition:

"The ancients quite early associated Pan with the word 'all.' From this, word-play leads to the association which made Pan in the Roman period into a universal god, the All. It is in this context that we should see the well-known story in Plutarch which has sometimes been linked with the rise of Christianity, of a mysterious voice announcing the death of 'great Pan'."

Here is the famous "Great Pan is dead" passage from a translation of Plutarch's "The Obsolescence of Oracles":

""As for death among such beings, I have heard the words of a man who was not a fool nor an impostor. The father of Aemilianus the orator, to whom some of you have listened, was Epitherses, who lived in our town and was my teacher in grammar. He said that once upon a time in making a voyage to Italy he embarked on a ship carrying freight and many passengers. It was already evening when, near the Echinades Islands, the wind dropped, and the ship drifted near Paxi. Almost everybody was awake, and a good many had not finished their after-dinner wine. Suddenly from the island of Paxi was heard the voice of someone loudly calling Thamus, so that all were amazed. Thamus was an Egyptian pilot, not known by name even to many on board. Twice he was called and made no reply, but the third time he answered; and the caller, raising his voice, said, 'When you come opposite to Palodes, announce that Great Pan is dead.' On hearing this, all, said Epitherses, were astounded and reasoned among themselves whether it were better to carry out the order or to refuse to meddle and let the matter go. Under the circumstances Thamus made up his mind that if there should be a breeze, he would sail past and keep quiet, but with no wind and a smooth sea p403about the place he would announce what he had heard.  So, when he came opposite Palodes, and there was neither wind nor wave, Thamus from the stern, looking toward the land, said the words as he had heard them: 'Great Pan is dead.' Even before he had finished there was a great cry of lamentation, not of one person, but of many, mingled with exclamations of amazement. As many persons were on the vessel, the story was soon spread abroad in Rome, and Thamus was sent for by Tiberius Caesar. Tiberius became so convinced of the truth of the story that he caused an inquiry and investigation to be made about Pan; and the scholars, who were numerous at his court, conjectured that Ehe was the son born of Hermes and Penelopê."

The Wikipedia article on Pan is interesting. One passage:

"In 1933, the Egyptologist Margaret Murray published the book, The God of the Witches, in which she theorised that Pan was merely one form of a horned god who was worshipped across Europe by a witch-cult.[40] This theory influenced the Neopagan notion of the Horned God, as an archetype of male virility and sexuality. In Wicca, the archetype of the Horned God is highly important, as represented by such deities as the Celtic Cernunnos, Indian Pashupati and Greek Pan."

How do you like them apples?

Some golden apples from another Robert Anton Wilson community on Google Plus.

Can psychedelics enhance intelligence?

What were once fringe views about the possible benefits of psychedelics appear to be edging into the mainstream. Alternet runs a review of a book by Thomas Roberts that argues that psychedelics can enhance creativity and intelligence.

Reviewer Craig Comstock writes, "In 1999, while staying on the Big Island of Hawaii for a vacation, I stopped by a conference being held in Kona, on the subject of the effect of psychedelics on the arts and sciences and more generally on creativity. Among the speakers were a novelist, a composer, a screenwriter, a film producer, and a couple of painters who described what they owed to psychedelics, along with discussion of the role of these molecules in advertising and in the computer industry. There was talk of Kary Mullis' recent crediting of LSD's role in his Nobel Prize discovery of polymerase chain reaction, as well as unsubstantiated rumors of other scientific discoveries made while high. These people were talking about the stimulation not of healing, but of creativity."

Via Dan Clore on Facebook's RAW group.

Robert Anton Wilson's FBI file

Don't get too excited by my header title. There's apparently not much there. But as you'll see, anyone requesting information gets a validation of maybe logic.

I've been thinking about doing a Freedom of Information Act request for RAW's FBI file. When I checked, however, by Googling around the Internet, I discovered that at least two other people have been ahead of me.

Here is a link to documents posted at governmentattic.org, of 1964-1966 FBI file documents on RAW. It says, "File contains only an extract of “cross references” from one
FBI file. FBI notes other material has been destroyed." It says separately that records that appear to be responsive to the FOIA request have been destroyed.

The documents list courses offered at the Free University of New York, including "Anarchistic & Synergetic Politics" by Robert Anton Wilson and another RAW course, "Word Fallout: Literature as Insurrection." According to the FBI, Wilson described himself as a freelance journalist and lecturer on literature and science.

A handwritten note on the first page of the PDF notes that photocopy was given to the CIA. I liked the fact that the last page reproduced in the document is Page 23. I could not find anything in the document that identified who made the FOIA request to the FBI.

A journalist named Michael Morisy (this guy) made a FOIA request to the FBI earlier this year, asking for "all documents mentioning counterculture writer Robert Anton Wilson."

Morisy got a letter back saying that "no responsive main files were found." The letter does note that certain documents related to law enforcement and national security are excluded from being released. I think RAW would have enjoyed this next sentence of "information": "This is a standard notification that is given to all our requesters and should not be taken as an indication that excluded records do, or do not, exist."

So "maybe" there are FBI files on Robert Anton Wilson that the FBI won't release!

Illuminatus! and blaming the Gnostics for 20th Century ills

Illuminatus! inspires a blog post from David Chapman, "Illuminatus!, Voegelin and the politics of SBNR monism." Chapman discusses the "prescient postmodernism" of the work and talks about how the ideas of Eric Voegelin influenced the work (it was from Voegelin's work that the "immanentize the eschaton" catchphrase was born.) I'm a little bit unclear (and so is at least one of Chapman's commentators) about the relationship between Gnosticism and 20th century ills such as Nazism and Communism; isn't Gnosticism about self discovery, rather than trying to impose an ideology on others?

Chapman, by the way, has an interesting range of interests. He has a blog on Tibetan Buddhism, a blog devoted to his unfinished novel Buddhism for Vampires, and his meaningness blog, which includes the piece on Illuminatus! Chapman apparently also is the model for a character in a recent novel. 

Hat tip, Nick Helweg-Larsen.

Various links

Cover for the new Jesse Walker book.

Radley Balko on Rand Paul back in 2010, observation seems to have held up pretty well.

Thoreau at Unqualified Offerings on assassination by drone.

William Blake Saw the Fnords (at a Ted Hand blog).

Leaked audio from Bradley Manning released.

The Second Great Crypto War, from Reason.

Aleister X's RAW influence

Dangerous Minds runs an interview with Aleister X, a British rap artist based in Los Angeles. Excerpt:


DM: Robert Anton Wilson is one of the major influences for practically everyone at Dangerous Minds, and I see that you are also a fan of Discordianism. What is it about this “ideology” (term used loosely) that you like?

AX: RAW is a major influence on me as well.  I love the blurry lines between fact and fiction.  The mysterious secret origins of the original manuscripts surrounding The Principia Discordia is the most powerful thing about it.  A lot of shit started with that.
However, the timeline for shit starting looks like this: Lovecraft - Cubism – Surrealism – Crowley – Himmler – Hoffman - Welles – Discordia – Illuminatus!  Of course this is a Western–centric timeline, but that’s where the Mis/Disinformation Arts were perfected.  Discordianism “liked” me first!  

Hat tip, Dan Clore on Facebook.

Masks of the Illuminati, Part Four

Dell edition, pages 96-141; Pocket Books pages 80-117; ebook version, about 40 percent

Ye Genetic Archives, pages 105-106: Wilson ties Babcock to Philip Jose Farmer's Greystoke genealogy, about which more here.

Sir John's gamekeeper, page 106: "He summoned Dorn, the Babcock gamekeeper," page 37.

"She sounded Australian," page 110. See the comments by Oz and Cryptic Music for Part Three.

"That doctrine spawned the licentiousness that destroyed Greece and Rome," page 120. It's amazing how this meme persists; by the time the western Roman Empire fell in 476 A.D., the empire was thoroughly Christian. Edward Gibbon's theory that Christianity held destroy the empire has obviously problems -- it doesn't explain how the even more Christian eastern empire didn't fall -- but at least it has a connection with facts. [Page number corrected after I saw Oz's comment -- Tom]

Pages 120-122: Is it just me, or does Lola win the argument rather easily here?

Jude the Obscure, Page 124. "Clouds Without Water" seems to be a way to circulate occult knowledge under the guise of denouncing it; could the Epistle of Jude have a similar purpose to publicize sexual spirituality under the guise of denouncing it?

"And the Age of Science that came to Flower in the nineteenth century after the Magus of Nazareth, the true order of the Rose Croix did go Underground, as a seed that should be buried ere it Sprout," page 126, see Groupname for Grapejuice's theory on the "108-year Rosicrucian Cycle," referenced in this blog post.

"Amundsen reached the South Pole," December 1911.

Page 129, "Clouds Without Water," online copy here (don't click of you are worried about spoilers), hat tip, John Merritt.

"Lewis' The Monk," page 140 free online copy of The Monk by M.G. Lewis available here.

The Great God Pan, Arthur Machen, available here.

R.U. Sirius on Cypherpunk Rising

R.U. Sirius has a new article up, "Cypherpunk Rising," which argues that ubiquitous Internet surveillance and harassment of dissenters is likely to increase interest in encryption and the cypherpunk movement in general.

In related news, Hushmail is still around.

Hat tip, Dan Clore on Facebook.

'Mr. Blank' by Justin Robinson

Mr. Blank by Justin Robinson, was published in October 2012 by Candlemark and Gleam. The review in Publisher's Weekly explains, "The smart-aleck narrator of this sassy crime caper is an agent who uses so many aliases for his work in the information underground that his real name is never certain. When he’s nearly killed by someone wielding a stolen moon rock bolted to the chain that bound Joan of Arc to the stake, he has to puzzle out which of the numerous secret societies he works for wants him dead."

A contest held by Mr. Robinson's publisher seems suggestive of where the author drew some of his inspiration. "We’ve finally got a winner in our Mr Blank fnord-finding competition!"

Leonard Richardson's 'Constellation Games'

Internet is going to remain free, and I believe, I’ve believed since I was in my early twenties, that everything that accelerates the flow of information and communication benefits the human race, and every communication jam damages us. So internet is the greatest tool, or device, or gimmick, or whatever you want to call it, for accelerating the flow of information between peoples. It is, I think, the most revolutionary force in the history of humanity since the invention of the wheel--especially when Asia and Africa get online in a major way. That’s what I really look forward to.

                                                                               -- Robert Anton Wilson

To improve humanity's standard of living by adding connections and destroying inefficiencies.

                                                     Listed "Objective" in resume for Leonard Richardson

Everyone once in awhile, your faithful blogger posts about novels with a libertarian or civil libertarian theme that likely would be of interest to somebunall of you, and this will be one of those times. I'd like to take a moment to recommend Constellation Games by Leonard Richardson.

It's about a guy who writes code and reviews video games on his blog. When a coalition of friendly aliens arrives to visit Earth on a first contact mission, he plays alien games (some of them millions of years old) and reviews them on his blog, too.

This offbeat premise may sound trivial, but the novel rapidly becomes "bigger and bigger," covering the dangers of first contact between advanced and less-advanced civilizations, relationships, anarchist theory (the aliens are anarchists who oppose coercion), the dangers of censorship and the nature of art. There are fully developed characters, human, alien and artificial. And it's very funny. I laughed out loud many times.

Constellation Games was put out by a small, independent press, Candlemark and Gleam. It's the best SF  novel I've read in awhile.

Cory Doctorow's review of the book is here.

A nice moment for libertarians

I have lately felt like the characters in Schroedinger's Cat, bouncing from one universe to another.

I'd grown accustomed to my old universe, the one where libertarians never seem to win on any issue and never have any impact on the national conversation. My first sign that I had left that old universe occurred in November, when to my surprise, marijuana legalization actually passed in two states.

I'm apparently still in that alternate universe, because last night,  a Republican senator held the Senate up for many hours, filibustering on behalf of peace and civil liberties. Judging from my Twitter stream, libertarians and anarchists from across the libertarian political spectrum were delighted.

I'm going to miss this universe when I return to the old one. And I wish I could know what RAW would think of all this.

Leary papers open to public this summer

The Timothy Leary papers at the New York Public Library will open to the public this summer. I am assuming that will include any correspondence with Robert Anton Wilson contained in the more than 300 boxes of material that the library acquired in 2011 and has been processing since then.

I obtained the news in a Twitter exchange with Alison Rhonemus, an intern with the Leary papers at the New York Public Library.

Here is our exchange:

@jacksontom: @aerho When will correspondence between Tim Leary and Robert Anton Wilson become publicly available?

@aerho: @jacksontom I just spoke to the project archivist. The Timothy Leary Papers are scheduled to open this summer.

@jacksontom: @aerho Can we access them via digital images, or will we need to be physically present inside the library building?

@aerho: @jacksontom I keep to the born digital side of the collection. Once the papers open the reading room can tell you about document delivery.

Leary-based comic posted online

Io9 reports that a comic book based on Timothy Leary's book Exo-Psychology has been posted online. 

Io9's piece (by Lauren Davis) explains, "In his 1977 book Exo-Psychology, psychologist and psychedelic drug advocate Timothy Leary revealed his eight-circuit model of consciousness, his theory about the workings of the human mind and the future neurological "circuits" that humanity might someday access and utilize in our travels beyond Earth. In 1979, the theory was adapted into Neurocomics, a trippy comic book exploration of the mind, human evolution, and how we might journey to the stars.

"Rene Walter has posted the entire (NSFW) Neurocomics online, and it provides a fascinating look into Leary's peculiar transhumanist ideas. Neurocomics is certainly a product of its era and Leary's obsessions, blending evolutionary science, mysticism, Jungian psychology, notions of panspermia, cybernetics research, and psychedelic experiences to create a rather spectacularly illustrated manifesto on what he felt humans were capable of. Now it feels like an alchemical text of a not-too-distant era, one rife with optimism about what the future might hold."

Masks of the Illuminati Discussion, Part Three

Dell edition, pages 76-96; Pocket Books, pages 64-80; about 27 percent of an e-book. (Trying to do about 10 percent at a time, but the end of Part One seems like a good stopping point.)

William Butler Yeats, Page 80. From the Wikipedia biography:  "He was admitted into the Golden Dawn in March 1890 and took the magical motto Daemon est Deus inversus—translated as Devil is God inverted or A demon is a god reflected."

"the host turned out to be an American," page 81. James Joyce and Ezra Pound arguably were RAW's two favorite writers.

"A shy young lady named Hilda," page 82. H.D., prominent poet Hilda Doolittle, associated with Pound's  literary circle.

"Captain Fuller,"page 83 J.F.C. Fuller. 

Fuller's "Treasure House," The full title is "The Treasure House of Images" by J.F.C. Fuller.  It is posted here.

"In that hour National Socialism began." page 96. From the Wikipedia article on Wagner's Rienzi: 

The story that Adolf Hitler was so influenced by seeing Rienzi as a young man in 1906 or 1907 that it determined his political career (and that he later told Winifred Wagner "in that hour it all began") has been comprehensively disproved.[26] Nevertheless Hitler possessed the manuscript of the opera (which he had requested and been given as a fiftieth birthday present in 1939) and had it with him in his bunker, from which it was either stolen or lost,[28] so that its present whereabouts are unknown. Thomas Grey comments:

In every step of Rienzi's career – from ... acclamation as leader of the Volk, through military struggle, violent suppression of mutinous factions, betrayal and ... final immolation – Hitler would doubtless have found sustenance for his fantasies.

An interesting blog

A blogger who likes J.R.R. Tolkien, James Joyce and Robert Anton Wilson would seem to be very promising, and indeed Groupname for Grapejuice is an interesting blog. I got the same sense of discovery going through his postings that I got when I first discovered  The Oz Mix.

In a new blog post, PQ kindly mentions this blog's Masks of the Illuminati discussion and then writes, "I've got a new favorite blog and, as you can probably ascertain from reading this space, it's a weird one. Entitled Groupname for Grapejuice (a phrase from Finnegans Wake), this blog uses a mix of comparative mythology, occult knowledge, numerology, and some subjective free association to engage in what I can only call synchronicity detective work."

Robert Anton Wilson fans might want to try "The 108-Year Rosicrucian Cycle, Part One," which takes a sentence from Cosmic Trigger as a jumping-off point for a post suggesting that a 108-year period that began in 1904 came to an end in 2012.

Here is a passage relevant to our ongoing discussion of Masks:

If there is such a 108-year plan then who is behind it? It would seem that the Golden Dawn is a good place to start, although the scope of this plan would certainly be much larger than even this important occult organization. It is revealing to look at a list of people directly involved in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.

In addition to Yeats and Crowley, members included authors Gustav Meyrink and Bram Stoker, Allan Bennett, who introduced Buddhism to the West, Charles Williams, who formed the Inklings with C.S. Lewis and Tolkien, Algernon Blackwood, who heavily influenced H.P. Lovecraft, and so on. The combined cultural influence of these people on the 20th century to the present is gigantic. Is it because of this influence that the Hermetic philosophy is now everywhere, to the point where it seems to be built into the structure of events? Is it there by design?

The blog is written by znore, about whom no information is provided.

Richard Geis has died

Prominent science fiction fan Richard Geis has died. There are appreciations up from Supergee and Andy Porter.

One of Geis' famous fanzines, Science Fiction Review, published a memorable interview with Robert Anton Wilson. Excerpts ran in the Illuminati Papers; the full interview is reprinted at Rawilsonfans.com.

Physics paper mentioned in Illuminatus!

 Our friend Nick Helweg-Larsen, scouring libraries in England, finds a 1960s paper on physics. It's mentioned on Page 241 of The Eye in the Pyramid in Illuminatus! when Joe Malik says, "This tomorrow-today-yesterday time is beginning to get under my skin."

Simon sighed, "You want words to put around it. You can't accept it until it has labels dangling off it, like a new suit. OK. And your favorite word-game is science. Fine, right on! Tomorrow we'll drop by the Main Library and you can look up the English science journal Nature for Summer nineteen sixtysix. There's an article in there by the University College physicist F. R. Stannard about what he calls the Faustian Universe. He tells how the behavior of K-mesons can't be explained assuming a one way time-track, but fits into a neat pattern if you assume our universe overlaps another where time runs in the opposite direction. He calls it the Faustian universe, but I'll bet he has no idea that Goethe wrote Faust after experiencing that universe directly, just as you're doing lately. Incidentally, Stannard points out that everything in physics is symmetrical, except our present concept of one-way time. Once you admit two -way time traffic, you've got a completely symmetrical universe. Fits the Occamite's demand for simplicity. Stannard'll give you lots of words, man.

Nick emailed me a PDF of Stannard's paper, "Symmetry of the Time Axis," and I have uploaded it here so that the rest of you can read it. Some of the physics are beyond me, but some of the passages I do understand are pretty mind-blowing.