Saturday links

YouTube interview with Chinese SF writer Liu Cixin. About 25 minutes, very interesting, I watched all of it. He seems optimistic about technology the way RAW was.

Thoughts on the NFL player protests, from Don Boudreaux.

Amazon to adapt Snow Crash, Ringworld.  Via Cat Vincent on Twitter, worth following. 

Richard Rasa's online alchemy oracle. 

Event that features John Higgs, Cat Vincent, others. 

Bobby Campbell to do new illustrations for RAW novels

The next books being reprinted in revised editions by Hilartas Press are Coincidance: A Head Test and the three Historical Illuminatus books: The Earth Will Shake, The Widow's Son and Nature's God. (Full list of publication schedule available here.)


I've gotten the go-ahead from the Robert Anton Wilson Trust to share some news: Bobby Campbell is doing new illustrations for the Historical Illuminatus books. (I share news as soon as I can, but I support RAW's heirs and don't want to "scoop" official announcements without checking.)

Bobby says:

"I’m currently drawing new chapter illustrations for the Historical Illuminatus Chronicles, which is a bit odd, since I had just done this same job back in 2010, but New Falcon has the book rights to my artwork, and so Hilaritas Press asked me to give it another go.

"It's a wonderfully challenging experience, being forced to top my previous best work, but I sure am having fun with it."

Richard Rasa, editor of Hilaritas Press, wants to point out that the new editions will have higher resolution reproductions of the illustrations.

"Really nice updating from his previous New Falcon edition versions! We are also very excited that the new books will have his graphics in 300dpi, unlike New Falcon’s much lower resolution!" he wrote in an email to me. 

The illustration above, which Richard Rasa made for this blog post, illustrates the difference in resolution. Left, a New Falcon drawing, right a new one for the Hilaritas Press edition. 

Hugh Hefner has died

 Hugh Hefner (Creative Commons photo).

Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner, who inadvertently played a role in the creation of Illuminatus!, has died, age 91.

The New York Times obit is available. You can also read the Chicago Tribune article. 

Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea were both editors at Playboy magazine, and many of you know the story about how that experience helped create Illuminatus! The magazine received many letters with wild conspiracy theories, and one day, sitting in a Chicago bar after work, Shea suggested writing a novel in which the conspiracy theories were true.

Wilson's Schroedinger's Cat trilogy has a character which obviously is based upon Hefner.

Several years ago, I contacted Playboy and asked to interview Hefner. I had asked my newspaper editor whether she would be interested in a story, and she said, "Sure." I would have used some of the interview for the paper, and some for a posting here. I never got a response, so that's one that got away. 

Robert Anton Wilson on Donald Trump

This seems topical.

Hat tip, Bobby Campbell.

Joshua Norton: The movie!

 Emperor Joshua Norton

Jesse Walker, working hard to cover the Robert Anton Wilson beat at Reason magazine, posted on Friday to reveal that Columbia Pictures actually made a short movie about Norton, about nine minutes long.

Jesse isn't guessing that the picture will replace "Casablanca" or "Citizen Kane" as your favorite old movie. "Let me warn you up front: This is a clumsily made movie with stilted acting and, in one scene, one of the most cringeworthy blackface performances you'll ever see. But there are moments when the acting is so far removed from natural behavior that it stops seeming bad and starts to feel like some strange David Lynch experiment. And surely there's something inspirational in the film's final line: 'He was insane, but—strange as it seems—honesty and sympathy won him an empire of voluntary subjects'."

Jesse also links to the Emperor's Bridge Campaign. 

Look who's quoting RAW on Twitter

Brian Eno. Creative Commons photo.

Here is the Tweet. I've been an Eno fan for years, and I'm guessing Oz Fritz will be pleased, too. If you haven't heard Eno's solo albums, you've probably heard some of the songs he produced for U2 and Talking Heads or some of his collaborations, such as David Bowie's "Heroes."

Hillary Clinton thought about campaigning on basic income

Jesse Walker has an interesting post up at Reason: Hillary Clinton considered making basic income one of her campaign proposals.  (This was an idea Robert Anton Wilson was interested in, hence the attention I pay to it here and in other posts.)

Clinton talks about it in her new memoir:

Before I ran for President, I read a book called With Liberty and Dividends for All: How to Save Our Middle Class When Jobs Don't Pay Enough, by Peter Barnes, which explored the idea of creating a new fund that would use revenue from shared national resources to pay a dividend to every citizen, much like how the Alaska Permanent Fund distributes the state's oil royalties every year. Shared national resources include oil and gas extracted from public lands and the public airwaves used by broadcasters and mobile phone companies, but that gets you only so far. If you view the nation's financial system as a shared resource, then you can start raising real money from things like a financial transactions tax. Same with the air we breathe and carbon pricing.

Once you capitalize the fund, you can provide every American with a modest basic income every year. Besides cash in people's pockets, it would also be a way of making every American feel more connected to our country and to one another—part of something bigger than ourselves. I was fascinated by this idea, as was my husband, and we spent weeks working with our policy team to see if it could be viable enough to include in my campaign. We would call it "Alaska for America." Unfortunately, we couldn't make the numbers work. To provide a meaningful dividend each year to every citizen, you'd have to raise enormous sums of money, and that would either mean a lot of new taxes or cannibalizing other important programs. We decided it was exciting but not realistic, and left it on the shelf. That was the responsible decision. I wonder now whether we should have thrown caution to the wind and embraced "Alaska for America" as a long-term goal and figured out the details later.

Walker comments: "The basic income has libertarian fans too, but in liberland "cannibalizing" other arms of the government is a feature, not a bug. You replace a bunch of separate bureaucracies with a single, simpler, less intrusive, and (if the numbers work out right) cheaper program. That's the big draw. I don't suppose it's news that Hillary Clinton isn't Milton Friedman, but it's telling that she saw this as a dealbreaker."

Should RAW join Heinlein in the libertarian encyclopedia?

 Robert Heinlein (Creative Commons photo via Wikipedia)

The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism, a project of the Cato Institute's Libertarianism.org, has been put online. Now everyone can read its entries on "John Stuart Mill," "Murray Rothbard," "Pornography," "Public Choice Economics" and on other individuals and issues.

The encyclopedia contains an entry on Robert Heinlein, one of RAW's favorite writers, and also a favorite of many other SF fans. The piece is written by Amy Sturgis, a libertarian scholar who has a Ph.D. in intellectual history.

There's no entry for Robert Anton Wilson, so I wrote to Aaron Ross Powell, director and editor at Libertarianism.org, asking if there would be new entries and if RAW could be considered. Powell made no commitments but told me that new entries were planned and explained that Jason Kuznicki is the editor of the encyclopedia and will be overseeing that. (I follow Kuznicki on Twitter).

I discovered the Illuminatus! trilogy in the 1970s in college, at about the same time that I learned that someone with my oddball set of beliefs, not fitting well on the usual left-right axis, was a "libertarian." Quite a few other people were making similar discoveries at the time.

Author Jeff Riggenbach, who has written a series of podcasts/articles on important figures in libertarianism, did one on Robert Anton Wilson. Here is a paragraph from that piece that captures Wilson's status as a libertarian figure:

... he became extremely well known. Nonetheless, he never let his fame go to his head. He continued to write for small, low-budget periodicals, including libertarian movement periodicals like Sam Konkin's New Libertarian, of which he was a contributing editor from sometime in the late 1970s through the 1980s.

He also showed up now and then at libertarian gatherings of various sizes and types. I still remember how startled I was one day in 1981, when I was chairing a panel on civil liberties at the national Libertarian Party convention in Denver. I had been chatting with my fellow panelists and letting them know how I'd be managing things, and I hadn't been paying much attention as the room filled up. So when, at last, I stood to make a few introductory remarks and looked out at the crowd that had gathered, I almost jumped out of my skin when I realized that the man sitting in the middle of the front row, virtually under my nose, was none other than Robert Anton Wilson, then in his late 40s and at the height of his fame.

Here is another bit of Heinlein news: SF critic Farah Mendlesohn has a crowdfund campaign going for a book on Heinlein. It's a good sign that Supergee recommends supporting the campaign.

German WW I submarine found with 23 bodies

Here's the link. Apparently this is real.

Hat tip, Michael Johnson. 

A RAW Halloween

Just wanted to share. Source.

Computers and pop culture -- was RAW there first?

 Timothy Leary

A comment on yesterday's computer chat post: The observation that computers are to modern popular culture what drugs were to the 1960s has, I thought, long been attributed to Timothy Leary. The quote that I've usually seen is "PC is the LSD of the 1990s," which in this Wikipedia article is attributed to a 1994 book, Chaos and Cyber Culture. 

So I was interested when I noticed that in the 1986 chat reprinted Monday, Robert Anton Wilson said that "electrons are the psychedelics of the 80s."

So was the observation from RAW first, and did Leary get it from him?

A 1986 online chat with Robert Anton Wilson

A Commodore 64 computer with a disk drive. If you didn't have a monitor, you could use a TV set as the monitor. 

[Here is a cultural artifact from the early days of the personal computer revolution, the 1980s, when people connected via bulletin board systems rather than the Internet. But this 1986 computer chat features Robert Anton Wilson. A note at the end of this says that chat took place using a Commodore 64 computer, which is a computer I used to use.

Richard Rasa passed on the link to me, along with a recent email from the source, Ralph Fucetola. Mr. Fucetola wrote, "During April 1986 Bob was visiting us in Morristown when an online chat was arranged. We used my Commodore 64 connected to an old vacuum tube monitor. No graphic interface, just the Turing purity of terminals and typing.  The transcript has been posted to various places, including the POEE site, but does not seem available there anymore. I found a copy of the transcript on on old hard drive and just posted it here: http://www.LifeSpirit.org/RAW-1986-chat.html -- enjoy!"

-- The Mgt.]

Robert Anton Wilson - Online Chat, April 1986

Originally Posted on Friday, February 09 @ 23:07:35 GMT to the POEE Web Site
Apparently-To: fnord-l@ubvm.bitnet
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.fnord-l
Date: Sun, 10 Nov 1991 13:27:32 PST
From: Mike Morgan DTN 592-5565
Subject: Wilson on CI$
Location: LifeSpirit Parsonage, Morristown, NJ

-----------------------------------------------------

Found this on a FidoNet board...
[70310,273]
WILSON.CO 13-Apr-86(14-Apr-86) 30945 16
Keywords: ROBERT ANTON WILSON CO ILLUMINATI OCCULT ETC..
Online conference with Dr. Robert Anton Wilson, leading occultist and former movie critic for Playboy magazine

_____________________________________________________________________________

(Sysop Jim) OK, quiet peoples.

(Sysop Georgia) I present Dr. Robert Anton Wilson

(**Bob Wilson**) Cocaine is natures way of telling you the Vatican Bank

(**Bob Wilson**) needs your money more than you do

[READ MORE to continue...]

(Ben Rowe) Bob, since magick, and the cabala play such a role in your

(Ben Rowe) books, I'm curious to know just what you attitude towards

(Ben Rowe) such things is, here in the real(?) world. Could you state

(Ben Rowe) your feelings briefly?

(**Bob Wilson**) I regard majik and cabala as doorways to

(**Bob Wilson**) archeological levels of the human brain.

(Ben Rowe) Do you practice any form of it yourself?

(**Bob Wilson**) Yes.

(Ben Rowe) Care to say what kind?

(**Bob Wilson**) Ritual invocation, gematria.

(Avatar) To follow up on Bens question

(Avatar) Are you presently a member of any secret societies or occult orders

(Avatar) and which and could

(Avatar) you tell us your the names and your grade within them?

(**Bob Wilson**) That would be telling.

(**Bob Wilson**) Ippsissimus maximus of the Illuminati

(**Bob Wilson**) and toenail of the Head Temple of the High Preithood of Eris Esoteric.

(Avatar) Amusing to the last.

(Peter da Silva) I'm not sure what book this was in, I think maybe "Right Where you are Sitting Now"

(Peter da Silva) you were talking about the possible future of human sexuality. I thought that

(Peter da Silva) the sorts of things you were talking about were rather pedestrian. Were you...

(**Bob Wilson**) Define pedestrian?

(Peter da Silva) Well, you only considered two sexes, to begin with.

(**Bob Wilson**) Oh.

(Sysop Jim) A major oversight, no doubt.

(Rodney) When will the next volume of THE HISTORICAL ILLUMINATUS be out

(Rodney) and will there be more to follow?

(**Bob Wilson**) It will be finnished a year after I finisih writing it

(**Bob Wilson**) There will be five volumes in this series, of course.

(peter) do you think machines will ever be smatrter than people?

(**Bob Wilson**) they're already smarter than some people.

(Sysop Georgia) true!

(peter) Too right!!

(Peter da Silva) Can I be obnoxius some more?

(**Bob Wilson**) Yes.

(Peter da Silva) Back to my previous question/comment/speech/

(Peter da Silva) You didn't seem to get too heavily into the possibilities of bioengineering

(Peter da Silva) as touched on by such people as John Varley (Ophiuchi Hotline, Titan, etc)

(Peter da Silva) have you any more thoughts on the subject now that technology has begun to

(Peter da Silva) catch up on you?

(**Bob Wilson**) I think we can engineer immotal superhuman beings in many dimensions

(**Bob Wilson**) of superiority to us. I hope we can learn to re-engineer ourselves

(**Bob Wilson**) neurologically

(**Bob Wilson**) to become more superhuman than our creations by learning from them.

(Peter da Silva) How about technological immortality?

(**Bob Wilson**) To understand anything, you must be able to make a working model of it

(**Bob Wilson**) The more we model the human brain, not only through bioengineering

(**Bob Wilson**) but through computers , themore we can make better brains for ourselves.

(Peter da Silva) Can't build a working model of a turing machine. We think we understand that.

(Avatar) First - do you think western

(Avatar) civilization will survive

(Avatar) the next century, and what do you think will be the significant events

(Avatar) which will characterize its existance? Second

(Avatar) What do you think of the "magic" energy machine of Joesph Newman

(Sysop Jim) Ah! Glad you asked that one.

(**Bob Wilson**) Just heard of the Newman machine two days ago

(**Bob Wilson**) Too soon to form an opinion.

(Sysop Jim) On the first question then.

(**Bob Wilson**) I think western civilization will survive

(**Bob Wilson**) It will be increasingly like a libertarian, pagan, psionic

(**Bob Wilson**) science fiction novel, probably by me.

(Avatar) thanks

(Sysop Jim) As we say in the old country, Ahlevai.

(Geoff) Hi Bob...

(Geoff) A question about skepticism

(Geoff) As one of the resident skeptics, I've always advocated "keeping your

(Geoff) B.S. detector turned up on high" when investigating

(Geoff) these strange phenomena

(Geoff) my question... what degree of skepticism is appropriate

(Geoff) and when is it time to turn skepticism off?

(**Bob Wilson**) Skepticism should be dialectical

(**Bob Wilson**) doubt A, then doubt NOT A,

(**Bob Wilson**) then doubt both A and NOT A

(**Bob Wilson**) then doubt your own ability to doubt enoough.

(Geoff) GREAT!!

(**Bob Wilson**) Doubt also Doubt

(**Bob Wilson**) itself

(Ben Rowe) A crowley fan, I see.

(**Bob Wilson**) , Experiment with Alternative belief systems,

(**Bob Wilson**) enter alternative, cognitive grids

(**Bob Wilson**) and as the Zen Master said when asked the way of the Tao

(**Bob Wilson**) "Move!".

(Geoff) Thanx, Bob. And welcome to CIS!!!

(Ben Rowe) Bob, one of the perpetual arguments here

(Ben Rowe) is about the degree to which subjective phenomena, such as

(Ben Rowe) the results of magickal invocations, can be usefully

(Ben Rowe) dealt with from a an "objective", scientific viewpoint.

(Ben Rowe) Could you tell us your feelings as to the place of

(Ben Rowe) objective enquiry in such fields?

(**Bob Wilson**) Buddha said, "doubt, and find your own light"

(**Bob Wilson**) ritual is to the inner sciences what experiment is to the outer sciences

(**Bob Wilson**) believe nothing on faith

(**Bob Wilson**) test all things

(**Bob Wilson**) enter every reality tunnel

(**Bob Wilson**) if there are only cannabils inside

(**Bob Wilson**) close the door quickly

(**Bob Wilson**) and move to the next reality tunnel.

(**Bob Wilson**) Fear nothing, never complain

(**Bob Wilson**) Thannx.

(Sysop Jim) "Test all things" Applying what tests?

(Ben Rowe) I take it that means you think science is pretty much useless in that area

(**Bob Wilson**) If the hypothesis gets the result you want

(**Bob Wilson**) tentatively continue the hypothesis

(**Bob Wilson**) If the hypothesis busts

(**Bob Wilson**) make a better hypothesis.

(**Bob Wilson**) As John Lilly says, "science is the Yoga of the West"

(**Bob Wilson**) "Yoga is the science of the East".

(**Bob Wilson**) Do the experiments , watch the results

(**Bob Wilson**) I don't see that that's not scientific.

(Sysop Jim) hmmmm, sounds like good ol' hard scientific method to me.

(Ben Rowe) The problem we run into here seems to be more in finding some basis

(Ben Rowe) to talk about such things. The objectivists wont accept the

(Ben Rowe) "evidence" of the subjectivists such as myself, and vice versa.

(Ben Rowe) any ideas about finding a common ground for this sort of discussion?

(**Bob Wilson**) Objectivists are disciples of Ayn Rand

(**Bob Wilson**) see mmy definition of "disciples" under NEW AGE in religion SIG.

(Ben Rowe) I used the wrong word.

(Ben Rowe) I mean "wedded to objective thinking?

(Ben Rowe) I dunno, I lost track again.

(Peter da Silva) I wish I had your optimism about the future, BOB. I don't see

(Peter da Silva) libertaria any time soon

(Peter da Silva) Can you give any of your thoughts as to *how* it will come about?

(Peter da Silva) (wonder if I can get a straight answer this tim)

(**Bob Wilson**) I will do my part, the part only I can do

(**Bob Wilson**) from my position in space-time

(**Bob Wilson**) I believe others are doing the same thing

(**Bob Wilson**) from their space

(**Bob Wilson**) Do what thou Wilt shall be the Whole of the Law

(Peter da Silva) Sigh...

(Sysop Jim) Peter, these ARE straight answers. Remember, space is curved. Follow up?

(Peter da Silva) Was hoping for a scenario or prediction

(Peter da Silva) not an oath of allegience

(Peter da Silva) Right now the authoritarians seem to be winning

(Peter da Silva) and my position in space time is a bummer.

(**Bob Wilson**) Sorry...

(**Bob Wilson**) you created that reality tunnel

(**Bob Wilson**) you can find your way out...

(**Bob Wilson**) You built the Trap...

(**Bob Wilson**) you know the design

(**Bob Wilson**) better than anyone...

(rich*) Bob, ALL phenomona subjective. Is not search for objectivity

(rich*) really search for means of communicating those that are

(rich*) more subjective than others? Does "science" really have any

(rich*) meaning as an "object/idea" unless applied?

(**Bob Wilson**) Can't understand your terminology

(**Bob Wilson**) Question meaningless

(**Bob Wilson**) in my reality tunnel

(**Bob Wilson**) Try Again!.

(rich*) Everything is subjective

(rich*) Inability to express ideas makes it so,

(rich*) but recourse to science demands

(rich*) communication in terms others understand, no?

(**Bob Wilson**) That means as little to me as everything is green

(**Bob Wilson**) If everything is Green, we still need separate words

(**Bob Wilson**) for the kind of green that looks like Red

(**Bob Wilson**) and the kind of green that looks like blue

(**Bob Wilson**) If everrything is subjective, we still need words

(**Bob Wilson**) for the subjective things that everybody seese

(**Bob Wilson**) the subjective things that only one person sese

(**Bob Wilson**) and the subjective things that you break your leg on,

(**Bob Wilson**) and the subjective thkngs that are called, "the Ballad

(**Bob Wilson**) of the Long Legged Bait"

(Avatar) The model that modern science uses to explain the world

(Avatar) in terms of atoms, mollecules, particles, and fields works quite well

(Avatar) for many things that we do, but is occasionally assaulted

(Avatar) by interesting loopholes like rains of hazel nuts, ancient rocks

(Avatar) containing live frogs, screwups in space and time, etc.

(Avatar) What extensions to conventional science have you found most

(Avatar) effective to enable you to model anomalous events

(Avatar) and could you explain some of them to us?

(**Bob Wilson**) JUNG's theory of synchronicity (psychologically-induced

(**Bob Wilson**) space time relativity)

(**Bob Wilson**) Bell's theorem

(**Bob Wilson**) of non-local hidden variables

(**Bob Wilson**) trancending space-time

(**Bob Wilson**) Persinger's theory of geo-magnetic fluctuations

(**Bob Wilson**) linked to human brain function

(**Bob Wilson**) I wonder if the link works both ways.

(**Bob Wilson**) Edwin Harris Walker "the complete quantum anthropologist (proceedings

(**Bob Wilson**) of the American Anthropological Association,

(**Bob Wilson**) 1974) unifying Bell theorem with psychokinetic experimental

(**Bob Wilson**) results.

(**Bob Wilson**) Garfinkel

(Sysop Jim) How about Gell-Mann's Law? "Extraordinary Claims require Extraordinary Proof"?

(Avatar) Of "Simon and Garfinkel"?

(Sysop Jim) Sorry, GA

(**Bob Wilson**) Garfinkel on reality glossing and Leary on imprinting of reality

(**Bob Wilson**) tunnels

(**Bob Wilson**) not when they become ordinary by repitition

(Sysop Jim) If I may, anecdotal or scientific repetition?

(**Bob Wilson**) Both.

(Robby) xaire!

(Robby) hello to bob and don and the new jersey thelemites and libertarians

(Robby) ddid you hear about the Guiness Heiress kidnapping ?

(Sysop Jim) Do you know what he's talking about, Bob?

(**Bob Wilson**) Tell me all about it!

(Robby) She was kidnapped a few days ago in dublin

(Robby) whiteboys or orange men i dont know

(**Bob Wilson**) I don't know.

(Robby) did you read my 1904 thing?

(**Bob Wilson**) No.

(Robby) 93

(Peter da Silva) Problem with tuning perception of reality is it doesn't get you off the

(Peter da Silva) front lines (unless I'm psychotic & dreaming we're in authoritarian state

(Peter da Silva) while we're in libertarian paraidise. If so, please wake me up). So, please

(Peter da Silva) quit treating me like

(Peter da Silva) parapsychologist at the AAAS & give some indication as to how transition

(Peter da Silva) is to occur.

(Sysop Jim) Ha!

(**Bob Wilson**) Breath normally, eat less sugar... eat foods...

(**Bob Wilson**) get high frequently...

(Peter da Silva) Hey! I quit putting sugar in my coffee already!

(**Bob Wilson**) learn to meditate, stop being afraid and angry...

(**Bob Wilson**) you are surrounded by a network of love. ...

(**Bob Wilson**) take down the bricks, remove the armour...

(**Bob Wilson**) there is nothing to fear. Stop Complaining...

(**Bob Wilson**) have chicken soup once a day...

(Peter da Silva) Do chicken fajitas count?

(Sysop Jim) I hope you're getting all this down, Peter.

(Peter da Silva) In my print buffer.

(Ben Rowe) and eat your spinach and wear your rubbers...

(**Bob Wilson**) Learn to laugh, learn to give...

(**Bob Wilson**) lighten up your act, and remember who made the grass green...

(Peter da Silva) Newton.

(Robby) we all do

(**Bob Wilson**) and who put the insect monsters in your reality tunnel...

(Peter da Silva) Or was that Maxwell?

(Peter da Silva) You did.

(Sysop Jim) and stop asking such tough questions.

(Peter) Do you believe in GOD? ga

(**Bob Wilson**) God is a ridiculously small human concept

(**Bob Wilson**) compared to the coherent intelligence

(**Bob Wilson**) of universe. Everything doesn't need to have

(**Bob Wilson**) a primate Alpha male in charge

(**Bob Wilson**) to be an intelligent system.

(Mark) Can you tell me the formula for AUM (or where to find said formula)?

(**Bob Wilson**) Don't know the laws relating to communication

(**Bob Wilson**) of such information. Don't want the owner

(**Bob Wilson**) of this machine busted.

(Mark) Data source?

(**Bob Wilson**) Who makes the grass green?

(Robby) magick in theory and practice by a.c.

(**Bob Wilson**) Oral Tradition!

(Robby) true

(Sysop Jim) What is AUM?

(Peter da Silva) Ultimate acid.

(**Bob Wilson**) Those who know do not speak...

(Mark) Drug to convert neophobes into neophiles.

(Sysop Jim) I see. hokay, Kaci?

(kaci) dare i digress and ask

(kaci) what persinger's theory of geo flux is??

(**Bob Wilson**) Drug obsolete,

(**Bob Wilson**) electrons are the psychedelics of the 80's

(Peter da Silva) "Turn On, Tune In, Link Up"?

(**Bob Wilson**) And shine like stars....

(Sysop Jim) KAci asked about Persingers theory, Bob.

(**Bob Wilson**) Persinger

(**Bob Wilson**) has found statistical links between geomagnetic cycles

(**Bob Wilson**) and fortean data anomalistics and parapsychology

(**Bob Wilson**) See his space-time transients and unusual events(co-author (kaci) in what kind of perodicity?

(**Bob Wilson**) LAFRENSERIE and brain-mind bulletin circa

(**Bob Wilson**) December 1985... I hope....

(**Bob Wilson**) Anomalistics coorelate with earthquake activity and strong psychic

(**Bob Wilson**) experience with low geomagneticactivity.

(rich*) what physical means is postulated for

(rich*) existance and use of psychic powers/uses?

(**Bob Wilson**) The careless postulate vague psycho-kinetic energies

(**Bob Wilson**) Persinger postulates measurable geomagnetic fields

(**Bob Wilson**) Walker derives psychokinetic effectsfrom basic equations

(**Bob Wilson**) of non-local quantum connectedness.

(ELAD) I have found this discussion interesting.

(ELAD) but, sorry to say...i am not familiar with

(ELAD) mr. wilson''s books

(ELAD) since there was no bio at the beginning

(ELAD) I would appreciate his book listing

(ELAD) and books that he recommends.

(**Bob Wilson**) "This I like"

(**Bob Wilson**) The book of the Breast , sex and drugs

(**Bob Wilson**) Illuminatus!, Cosmic Trigger, The Universe Next Door

(**Bob Wilson**) the Homing Pidgeons, the Trick Top Hat, Neuropolitics

(**Bob Wilson**) Right Where You are Sitting Now, Masks of the Illuminati

(**Bob Wilson**) The Illuminati Papers

(**Bob Wilson**) Prometheus Rising, The Earth Will Shake

(**Bob Wilson**) The Widows Son, and two I'd rather forget.

(Sysop Jim) And numerous issues of Playboy, yes?

(**Bob Wilson**) I only wrote the short editorials on why pot should be legalized

(**Bob Wilson**) abortion should be legalized, victimless crimes should be abolished

(**Bob Wilson**) the draft should be abolished, and a few similar ideas

(**Bob Wilson**) now trite and soon to be conservative. Even Buckley now agrees with me

(**Bob Wilson**) about drugs.

(**Bob Wilson**) remember the Zen Master who said, "move".

(Peter da Silva) Sorry... can't stop asking hard questions... is my role here

(Peter da Silva) 2 questions this time. 1) have you read and if so what do you think of

(Peter da Silva) Julian Jayne's book "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the

(Peter da Silva) Bicameral Mind". 2) I wish you would write some Science Fiction (where

(Peter da Silva) defined as so:- a SF writer is embarassed by his inconsistencies, a fantasy wrietr

(Peter da Silva) is proud of them). 3) (I lied) Do you really think there *are* psychedelics

(Peter da Silva) of the '80s?

(**Bob Wilson**) Jane's model interesting. So is Stan Gooch in total man.

(**Bob Wilson**) I prefer Pribram hologram model and Leary 8 circuit model.

(Peter da Silva) (of course)

(**Bob Wilson**) Inconsistencies of my books are inconsistencies of quantum

(**Bob Wilson**) mechanics, which is why new scientist magazine called me

(**Bob Wilson**) "most scientific of all science fiction writiers"

(**Bob Wilson**) ... I blush....

(**Bob Wilson**) But facts are facts.

(**Bob Wilson**) Thank you for exchanging electrons, the psychedelics of the 80's.

(Peter da Silva) If these are psychedelics, I'm going back to drugs.

(Sysop Jim) ha!

(Sysop Georgia) ha!

(**Bob Wilson**) Have a high Holiday...

(Robert Wiggins) Bob, I've been readig you for many years (more than 10) now

(Robert Wiggins) (I even have Sex and Drugs in hardcover)

(Robert Wiggins) and wanted to tell you I _still_ go back to read

(Robert Wiggins) "10 Reasons to Get Out of Bed in the Morning"

(Robert Wiggins) that appeared in Oui magazine. My question is

(Robert Wiggins) mundane (but I'm enjoying the conversation here)

(Robert Wiggins) do you know of a place in NYC that carries your books

(Robert Wiggins) (and/or Leary's)

(**Bob Wilson**) Thou art beat

(**Bob Wilson**) Forbidden planet and Laissez Faire books

(**Bob Wilson**) Weisers

(**Bob Wilson**) ga

(Robert Wiggins) Lassez Faire! (sound of hand slapping forehead)

(Robby) are you the BOBO of subgenius fame

(**Bob Wilson**) That would be telling.ga

(Robby) i saw de Selby today he was wearing pink

(**Bob Wilson**) Others said, "he was a pink elf"

(**Bob Wilson**) but he was glad to be there and meet all of you

(Robby) de self-by?

(**Bob Wilson**) I did not invent de Selby. As professor LACKANOOKIE says,

(**Bob Wilson**) "TIJENTIEN, TIEN JEN TAO , de Selby TZU JAN

(**Bob Wilson**) ". Very roughly, the earth creates people, the sky creates earth

(**Bob Wilson**) de Selby became what he always was".

(Peter da Silva) What are the two books you don't

(Peter da Silva) want to remember, and what do you think of

(Peter da Silva) Steve Jackson's game "Illuminati"?

(Sysop Jim) Sheeeeesh, more tough questions!!!

(Peter da Silva) Natch

(**Bob Wilson**) When did you stop eating your wife...

(**Bob Wilson**) ...no wait...

(**Bob Wilson**) When did you stop beating your wife?

(Sysop Jim)

(Peter da Silva) I like the first one better.

(Sysop Georgia) heehee!

(**Bob Wilson**) and was there ever a dog that praised its fleas

(Avatar) OK - I am honored - two quickies

(Avatar) What is your birthdate? and do you believe in Death after Life?

(**Bob Wilson**) January 18th, 1932

(**Bob Wilson**) Death and Life are unscientific

(**Bob Wilson**) concepts, as such

(**Bob Wilson**) All we know is the tuned-in and the not tuned-in

(**Bob Wilson**) The not tuned-in may be tuned in

(Sysop Jim) /TUN DEATH /MON LIFE

(**Bob Wilson**) with the proper technology or neurology

(**Bob Wilson**) We are made out of the debris of exploding stars

(**Bob Wilson**) the not-tuned-in is not non-existent since non-existence

(**Bob Wilson**) is a metaphysical concept operationally stars , people, quarks

(**Bob Wilson**) Tune in, or tune out

(**Bob Wilson**) the dance is eternal

(**Bob Wilson**) LO! The happy moron, he doesn't give a damn

(**Bob Wilson**) I wish I was a moron.... MY GOD!

(**Bob Wilson**) Perhaps i am!

(**Bob Wilson**) Love to All

(**Bob Wilson**) Stop being afraid, Peter

(**Bob Wilson**) Goodnight.

(Peter da Silva) Not in my program.

(Sysop Jim) Quick! Someone get this man a subscription to CIS!

(Sysop Jim) Thank you for a most unforgettable Conference Bob. We hope to be

(Sysop Jim) seeing you here again. GA

(Avatar) This is the most fun I have had in ages - It was better than sex

(Peter da Silva) Your poor wife.

(Sysop Jim) Well, lets not push it, but it was quite enjoyable.

(Sysop Georgia) thanksbob! it was great!

(Robert Wiggins) Thanks, Bob. Good to finally meet you.

(Sysop Georgia) eric we need that transcript.

(Sysop Jim) Seriously, Bob, please do consider becoming a fixture here.

(Eric) I have most but not all

(Eric) was anyone else recording?

(Peter da Silva) Bye Bob. May you live in interesting times.

(Sysop Georgia) for a while

(Sysop Georgia) then he sneaked off.

(Sysop Jim) Thank you all for coming, and for being so orderly.

(Avatar) I have it all in my little ramdisk

(Robert Wiggins) Eric, I have the second half.

(Sysop Jim) the preceding program was brought to you by

(Sysop Jim) the Paranormal Issues section of the Issues Forum.

(Sysop Georgia) wow!

(Eric) My compliments to the G.O.

(Pat Hardy) Bye Bob...good music, good lovers, good games always. Bye.

(Sysop Georgia) avatar can u dump it in dl10?

(Peter da Silva) Orderly? I obviously didn't try hard enough.

(Sysop Jim) Normal conferences held every Sunday at 8PM Eastern.

(Avatar) i hate to say it - but i have never

(Avatar) uploaded before

(Sysop Jim) Executive Producer: Georgia Griffith

(Sysop Georgia) jimwillteach u.

(Sysop Jim) Producer: Bill McLaughlin

(Sysop Jim) Director and Moderator: Jim Speiser

(Sysop Jim) This is Don Pardo, goodnight everyone!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note: I'm not sure where this item came from, I recently discovered it sitting in a disused folder at the bottom of an abandoned hard disc, but thanks to whoever sent it.

~Rev. St. Syn, KSC

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

10 September 2017

I recall this chat which happened in the LifeSpirit Parsonage living room in Morristown in 1986. The chat used my Commodore 64 on a vacuum tube monitor, no graphic interface.

To the best of my recollection it is an accurate transcript, and so very RAW!

Rev Esnur (Ralph Fucetola JD)

Russ Roberts on reality tunnels

Russ Roberts

He doesn't use the phrase "reality tunnels," but I thought Russ Roberts explored the concept nicely in his piece, "The World Turned Upside Down (and what to do about it)."

Excerpt:

The world is a complex place and it’s hard to know what is going on. So we grope around in the dark trying to make sense of what is happening and what explains what we observe. We manage to convince ourselves that we are seeking the truth and we have found it. Trump is evil or Hillary is evil. Black people are the victims of a conspiracy by white people to oppress them or white people are being marginalized as their majority status dwindles. The country is on the wrong track. (Everyone believes this one). And subtlety is not our strong suit as human beings. We like simple stories without too much nuance.

So we manage to convince ourselves that the evidence speaks so loudly, so emphatically, that we have no choice but to declare our allegiance to a particular tribe as a result of that evidence. The red tribe. Or the blue one. Or the white one. Or the black one. It rarely crosses our minds to notice that causation is probably going the opposite direction — the tribe we are in. 

Roberts is the author of How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life and "co-creator of the Keynes-Hayek rap videos."

Links for readers

Anybody who reads a blog about a cult writer probably is a reader, so here goes. I've tried to include links to a variety of sites, so that there is something for everyone.

Lit.hub is a site that emphasizes serious fiction and which sends out an email newsletter which I subscribe to. It has a  leftist orientation and pays a lot of attention to black writers. I suspect anyone interested in literary fiction (even nonleftists) would find it interesting.

Tor.com stands out as a site for people who like to read science fiction, as opposed to the "media" folk who focus on movies, TV shows, etc. Tor is an outstanding SF publisher, but the site also covers writers published by others.

The site includes a series of "Five books" recommendations, such as "Five books for the Psychonaut," which discusses Illuminatus!

The Butterfly Language blog author, Val D'Orazio, has just put together a site linking to all of the comics she has written or edited.  Val also reviews a lot of books, and she's a huge RAW fan; many of the books she discusses would interest readers of this blog. 

Nonfiction readers can browse Marginal Revolution books, "A browsable database of books discussed on Marginal Revolution, sorted by the month of their posting." Marginal Revolution is the blog of Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok. Tyler especially reads a lot of books, particularly nonfiction, but also fiction.

J.P. Donleavy, author of The Ginger Man, has died. It's an interesting story. See Supergee's post, and follow his link. This sounds like a book Robert Anton Wilson would have read.

The new blog for the Prometheus Award has material which (I hope, as I'm involved) would interest many science fiction readers.

My suggestion for people who like mysteries is to "friend" Annthelibrarian on Goodreads. Mysteries are mostly what she reads and her recommendations are reliable. (Disclosure: Guess who she's married to?)  She recommends the Detectives Without Borders blog. You can find me on Goodreads as "Tomj."

Friday links

From Matthew Watkins: "A spate of fnords around #Canterbury c.2014 is documented in my new experimental-cosmic-local history http://youareherebook.com "

Rand Paul tries to force a vote on endless war. 

How they voted on above link.  

SF author Jerry Pournelle has died.

Free NASA ebook on Saturn as seen by Cassini, great images. (Via Daily Grail on Twitter.)

Big political shakeup in Britain.


Was Nietzsche a dope fiend? 

How a small occult publisher changed America. 

A new one from Steve Jackson Games

Steve Jackson Games has a Kickstarter for a new game, Conspiracy Theory. The pitch:

"This fast-playing black card/white card game will reward your ability to sell your deranged ideas to the other players.

"In Conspiracy Theory, you explore who’s really doing what, to whom, and why . . . and how they are keeping it secret. And you have to convince the other players that your theory is best.

"This is a stand-alone game by Illuminati designer Steve Jackson, for 3 or more players, and it takes an hour or more to play."

The Illuminati game was inspired by Illuminatus! as Jackson acknowledged.

Lewis Shiner asked about the game when he interviewed RAW.

SHINER: Do you know about Steve Jackson's Illuminati game?

RAW: Everybody I meet thinks it's based on my Illuminatus! novels and I'm getting royalties on it. He claims it's not based on the novels, so I'm not getting royalties on it. Different lawyers give me different opinions. Decide for yourself.

 

Hat tip, Jesse Walker. 

A libertarian novel about the war on drugs

Michael Johnson recently posted a comment that included a quotation from Terrance McKenna when I posted an item about a California initiative to legalize psychedelic mushrooms.

I recently read a new novel about the war on drugs, Drug Lord by Doug Casey and John Hunt. It's part of a series of libertarian propaganda novels by the duo, second in a series. Apparently I like libertarian propaganda novels, because I enjoyed both of the first two books, and I intend to keep reading the series. The characterization in the books is not the authors' strong suit — everyone is either too good to be believed or one-dimensionally evil — but I like the constant flow of ideas, and the plotting isn't terrible.

Did you ever read the classic article from the Onion mocking the Libertarian Party, "LA Efficiency Chosen as Site of 2000 Libertarian Convention"? The piece was illustrated with a photo the purported to show the Ohio and Vermont delegations:

The first novel in the series, Speculator, about gold mining in Africa, was aimed more at the guy on the left, while the second novel would seem to be aimed at the guy on the right.

Drug Lord begins with a quote from Terence McKenna:

If the words "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" don't include the right to experiment with your own consciousness, then the Declaration of Independence isn't worth the hemp it's written on. 

Timothy Leary is mentioned, approvingly, in the novel.

The plot concerns a new antidepressant which is inhaled and works more quickly than conventional antidepressants. Users discover, however, that in high doses, the drug allows people to think more clearly about issues they have been repressing, and the drug becomes an underground drug nicknamed Naked Emperor. (One of the effects, naturally, is that many people "see the light" and become libertarians.) Naked Emperor is rather like the spiked tomato juice handed out by some of the characters  in Illuminatus!

There's a lot in the book about how the government (mostly represented by the FDA) and the pharmaceutical companies combine to prevent true competition in the marketplace, keeping drug prices high and reducing choice. 

Mozart's Freemason opera coming to a theater near you

Scene from a production of The Magic Flute

Yesterday, I checked the Metropolitan Opera's schedule for live broadcasts to local movie theaters, and noticed something interesting: Mozart's Masonic opera, Die Zauberflote (e.g., The Magic Flute) is going to be shown on Oct. 14. Isis and Osiris are invoked in the course of the plot, and the main characters have to undergo an initiation. Given Robert Anton Wilson's interest in Mozart, I'm surprised that he never talked about this opera (as far as I know).

This performance (and other operas in the broadcast schedule) are available in many movie theaters across the country. Opera isn't for everyone, of course, but if you are into it, the broadcasts offer loud, clear sound and a great view of the action. I'm hoping to attend the Mozart broadcast.

Visiting California

Robert Anton Wilson lived much of his life in various places in California. There must be something about the state; many of the comments posted on this blog come from California residents.

My wife and I just finished our annual vacation. Originally, we had planned to come to California in June, so that I could see the Santa Cruz production of the Cosmic Trigger play. When that was canceled, we moved our vacation to September, which is when we usually take it.

Tippi Hedren in 1965 (Creative Commons photo by Sunrise 657)

My wife is a fan of Shambala, the big cat sanctuary run by Hollywood actress Tippi Hedren, best known for starring in Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds." The sanctuary has various fund-raising events, including "Shambala at Sunset" events several times during the summer. We attended one of the sunset events on Saturday.

 Tour guides led us through to inspect the animals. I took a bunch of photos of the tigers, the lions, etc.

After the tour, supper is served. Tippi (who lives on the site of the sanctuary, near Palmdale) came out to talk to the guests.

Tippi Hedren chats with guests at our table.

Celebrity guests are part of the draw for these events, and on Saturday, Ms. Hedren was supplemented by Peter Marshall, a singer, actor and game show host. Readers of this blog who are not extremely young will remember Marshall's long run hosting the "Hollywood Squares" game show on TV. After supper, Hedren and Marshall came onstage and answered questions from the audience. Marshall told stories about Paul Lynde, what a pain the neck Lucille Ball was to work with, and so on. Hedren was mostly asked about her animals.

Tippi Hedren and Peter Marshall.

My wife is very interested in cats; we also visited Cat Therapy, a "cat cafe" in Santa Barbara.

Eight Ways to Listen to Beethoven

1820 portrait of Beethoven by Joseph Karl Stieler

[Completing our trilogy of Beethoven postings, this is a reprint of a compilation by Eric Wagner originally posted in January 2011. See also RAW's essay, "Beethoven as Information," from the Illuminati Papers. -- The Mgt.]

Eight Ways to Listen to Beethoven

I. As for music – where did we first hear it, who sang or hummed to
us, and against what part of her body were we held? - Prometheus
Rising (revised edition), pg. 48.

II. We are not talking about mere increase in linear IQ – third-
circuit semantic cleverness. We are talking of also the kinds of
right-brain intelligence that Nicholl acquired from Jungian
neurogenetic research and Gurdjieff’s meta-programming techniques. We
are talking of say, Beethoven’s intelligence, which so disturbed
Lenin, who could not bear to listen to the Appassionata (Sonata 23)
because it made him “want to weep and pat people on the head, and we
mustn’t pat them on the head, we must hit them on the head, hit them
hard, and make them obey.” More of Beethoven’s intelligence is
needed, desperately, to create a signal that the current Lenins cannot
ignore, that will make them weep, and stop hitting heads. – Ibid, pg.
277

III. The left-handed, on the contrary, specialize in right-brain
functions, which are holistic, supra-verbal, “intuitive,” musical and
“mystical.” Leonardo, Beethoven and Nietzsche, for instance, were all
left-handed. Traditionally, left-handed people have been the subject
of both dread and awe – regarded as weird, shamanic, and probably in
special communication with “God” or “the Devil.” – Ibid, pg. 98 – 99.

IV. “To me, the Hammerklavier sounds like an unsuccessful
attempt at Tantric sex. And the Seventh and Eighth Symphonies sound
like monumentally successful attempts.” - Frank Dashwood in
Schrödinger’s Cat Trilogy, pg. 426.

V. Beethoven, we remember, was left-handed. Since the left
hand is neurologically linked to the polymorphous right brain, one
might say he was genetically inclined to right brain activities, that
is, to sensing coherent wholes, to plunging into neurosomatic bliss
almost “at will,” and to sensory-sensual raptness and rapture.
Everybody “knows” that the Sixth Symphony is “pantheistic,” but
whether Beethoven was an ideological pantheist or not, that way of
responding to nature is normal and natural right-brain Circuit V
functioning. That is, anybody on the Fifth Circuit will “talk like a
pantheist” whether or not he has developed a “philosophy” about
pantheism. The miracle of Beethoven is not that he felt the universe
that way – a few thousand fifth-circuit types throughout history have
also felt and sensed nature that way – but that he mastered the third-
circuit art of music with such skill that he could communicate such
experiences, which is precisely what the ordinary “mystic” cannot
do. - Prometheus Rising, pg. 183.

This progression, from primate emotion to post-hominid tranquility,
from “man” to “super man,” is the Next Step that mystics forever talk
of; you can hear it in most of Beethoven’s later, major
compositions. – Ibid, pg. 188.

VI. Beethoven, to cite him one more time, said, “Anybody who
understands my music will never be unhappy again.” That is because
his music is the song of the Sixth Circuit, of Gaia, the Life Spirit,
becoming conscious of Herself, of Her powers, of Her own capacities
for infinite progress. - Ibid, pg. 204.

VII. Mind and its contents are functionally identical: My wife
only exists, for me, in my mind. Not being a solipsist, I recognize
the converse: I only exist, for her, in her mind. Lest the reader
exclaim, like Byron of Wordsworth, “I wish he would explain his
explanation!”, let us try it this way: If I am so fortunate as to be
listening to the Hammerklavier sonata, the only correct answer, if you
ask me suddenly, “Who are you?” would be to hum the Hammerklavier,.
For, with music of that quality, one is hypnotized into rapt
attention: there is no division between “me” and “my experience.” -
Ibid, pg. 219.

VIII. Mystics stammer, gibber and rave incoherently in trying to
discuss this. Beethoven says it for them, without words, in the
fourth movement of the Ninth Symphony. The words of Schiller’s “Ode
to Joy,” which Beethoven set to this virtually superhuman music, are a
linear third-circuit map conveying only a skeleton key to the multi-
level meanings of the 8-circuit “language” of the melodic construction
itself, which spans all consciousness from primitive bio-survival to
meta-physiological cosmic fusion. – Ibid, pg. 269