Over the weekend, Hilaritas Press published the ebook version of Email to the Universe, an anthology of Robert Anton Wilson short pieces and his last book. A print version should follow shortly, and we'll announce that when it becomes available.
Hilaritas Press is the publishing imprint of the Robert Anton Wilson Trust; the rights to 19 of RAW's books have reverted to the estate, and Hilaritas is republishing them in definitive editions. Email to the Universe follows the publication of Cosmic Trigger, Prometheus Rising and Quantum Psychology. Work also has advanced on the next book, Coincidance: A Head Test.
From the RAW Trust Newsletter (sign up for it at the Hilaritas Press site):
With the addition of color graphics (and a couple of new graphics) and the fixing of typos and other errors from previous editions, this new edition features an Introduction that we feel the book has always needed. Email to the Universe presents an extraordinary collection of writings spanning 45 years of RAW's writing career. R. Michael Johnson gives us the back story behind the collection of this collection, along with a fine appreciation for the historical context and relevance RAW's writing has on the present. Michael, freelance writer, blogger, rock guitarist, and Robert Anton Wilson-ologist, was the founder of the Usenet group alt.fan.rawilson.
Writing a back cover blurb for this new edition of Email to the Universe was a bit of a challenge. RAW covers so many topics that giving a brief description of the book seems impossible. In addition, as Michael notes in his introduction, RAW was well aware that the form of a book conveys its own message. I guess you just have to read it to understand why it is one of Bob's most popular books, but to give you an idea of how difficult it is to classify this book, from his introduction, here's Michael's list of sumbunall of the book's topics . . .
Atheism, model agnosticism, quantum theory, the many problems of hard-core ideologues, androphobia, James Joyce, dreams and Carl Jung, Korzybski and neurosemantics, magick, Vico and “theotopology,” the subconscious mind and movies, psychedelic drugs and expanded perception, Nietzsche and self-perception, the labyrinthine enigmas and conspiracies involving a small church in the south of France and Vatican banking conspiracies and the Mafia, drug-dealing and modern European fascism; Philip K. Dick, anarchism and libertarian thought, Timothy Leary, Einstein, the erroneous perception of what’s commonly referred to as “normal,” multi-valued logics, alternative economic ideas, literary modernist figures, sexual magick, the occult and secret societies, and the poverty of Euclidean “Left-Right” framing in political thought.
Holy Chao!
* There's a new Afterword as well! We asked RAW's old friend, counter-culture icon Paul Krassner if we could include his essay "Keep the Lasagna Flying" as the Afterword for Email to the Universe. Paul enthusiastically agreed and rewrote a tiny bit of the piece for the occasion.
AND, thanks once again for a great cover from Scott (amoeba) McPherson!
A special enormous amount of gratitude goes to Gary Acord, husband, dad, computer programmer, Gaeilgeoir nua, and "just a fella that likes to help," who contributed greatly to the digital and editorial preparations for this new Hilaritas Press edition. And many thanks as well to Tom Jackson, of rawillumination, for his intrepid help in proofreading!
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