Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea. Blog, Internet resources, online reading groups, articles and interviews, Illuminatus! info.

Wednesday, July 31, 2024

Robert Shea on the 'Illuminatus!' book covers

 



On X, Grouchogandhi, K.S.P. posts a letter from Robert Shea about the covers of the original Dell paperbacks of Illuminatus! 

It's a June 28, 1975 letter from Shea to Greg Hill. The relevant text says, "I'm enclosing copies of the cover proofs for the first two volumes of Illuminatus! Hope  you like them, Wilson and I both do. Amazingly the artist, Carlos Victor, is Argentinian and doesn't speak a word of English. He had to have the book described to him by Fred Feldman, the editor who is working on it. Marvelous job by Feldman, the interpreter and the artist." 

Apparently the full name of the artist was Carlos Victor Ochagavia. 

Tuesday, July 30, 2024

'Tales of Illuminatus' Kickstarter update


The Kickstarter for Tales of Illuminatus launched one week ago, and it has 23 days to go. It has collected $957 in pledges so far, about 42 percent of the $2,300 goal.

Adam Gorightly did a nice posting at Historia Discordia to support the cause.  Obviously, with Adam on board, it's a pretty cool project, so please consider lending a hand with publicity at your blog or social media account, and maybe even making a pledge! 

More here about Tales of Illuminatus. 

Monday, July 29, 2024

Joshua Ryman on RAW


Joshua Ryman (X.com photo)

On X, Joshua Ryman reposts the @RAWilson23 posting on my comments about the new Eric Wagner interview, and writes, "The best writers are the ones that compel you to go read ten others - not so you can understand what this guy is banging on about (looking at you, Pynchon), but so you can understand WHY they're banging on that way.

"RAW led me to Joyce, Sade, Heinlein, Burroughs, and more."

Sunday, July 28, 2024

Annotating Michael Johnson I


A comment on Bobby Campbell's excellent new interview with Michael Johnson, focusing on Illuminatus!  I am quoting Michael's comments in italics, the boldface is mine, then my comments are below:

Nota bene RAW's naming of three filmmakers when discussing modernistic structure in literature. Why can a lot of us watch Intolerance, Battleship Potemkin and Breathless and "get it" while our eyes glaze over when we try to sample Ulysses? It's too much for me to get into now, so I'll try to get back to answering your question: RAW (and I don't know how much Shea had to do with this; perhaps more than I thought?) was thoroughly steeped in Pound/Joyce/ Burroughs and other modernist experiments and and structure, and he had linked this to Shannon's literally world-changing equation for Information Theory: the more we can't guess what's going to come next, the more information in a text, and when there's a very high level of information, the reader's consciousness is likely to be altered in ways they haven't experienced with...let's say: best-sellers. In this, the editing of Illuminatus! "is" style, which "is" content. Which “is” energy.

I don't want to minimize Shea's contributions to Illuminatus!, which include the fact that it was based on his original idea, he got the book contract for them from Dell, etc., but my own guess is that Shea had little to do with the unusual structure and prose of Illuminatus!; as far as I can tell, Wilson was the one who was the Joyce fan and the Burroughs fan. Also, Illuminatus! seems more in Wilson's writing style than Shea's; I'm pretty sure Wilson rewrote the final draft. 

It also seems to me that most of the literary references in Illuminatus! are to writers Wilson was interested in. 

In the 1985 interview published in Science Fiction Review in 1985, Shea cites his favorite "contemporary writers" as "John Fowles, Romain Gary, Norman Mailer, Yukio Mishima, Vladimir Nabokov, George Orwell, Thomas Pynchon, J.R.R. Tolkien and Robert Penn Warren." In the Outworlds interview, he says, "I've read very little H.P. Lovecraft. I’ve read very little H.P. Lovecraft. The use made in Illuminatus! of Lovecraft’s material is largely Wilson’s contribution." 

I've read all of Shea's novels. While they share some themes with Illuminatus!, in format they are quite traditional, with clear beginnings, middles and ends, clear prose, cliffhanger endings at the end of the first book in a series, etc. 

Certainly references to Ayn Rand and Tolkien are at least as likely to be Shea as Wilson, Shea certainly contributed to  the anarchist theory discussion, and the reference to the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine" seems more likely to be Shea than Wilson, as Shea was the documented Beatles fan.  I would also guess that much of the narrative tension of the Illuminati vs. Celine and his allies is from Shea, not Wilson. 

But to get back to Michael's original point, Wilson was the one "thoroughly steeped in Pound/Joyce/ Burroughs and other modernist experiments and and structure" and I think the structure and style of Illuminatus! is really more Wilson than Shea, based on all of the novels they each wrote as "solo artists." 

Michael's comments about what sets Illuminatus! apart are really interesting, and you should read all of them rather than just my excerpt to get a sense of what he's talking about (second question and answer).

I have to go and get started on my day, but I will likely offer other blog posts on the interview, it is quite long and interesting. 





Saturday, July 27, 2024

Eric Wagner on life-changing RAW books


Eric Wagner is the author of An Insider's Guide to Robert Anton Wilson. Please note that if you buy it, you want this one,  the June 2020 updated edition. Cover by Bobby Campbell. 

Bobby Campbell's Maybe Day 2024 offerings include two interviews by Bobby with two Robert Anton Wilson scholars, Michael Johnson and Eric Wagner, about the Illuminatus! trilogy (a great idea which I wish I had thought of). You should read both interviews. I'll blog later about Michael's interview, but I want to highlight a bit in the interview with Eric. 

Bobby asks Eric how he came to read Illuminatus!, and Eric explains.  (He still remembers which bookstore he bought the three original paperbacks from. I wish I could remember where I bought my three paperbacks. I still have them.)

Eric then says,

"Reading Schroedinger's Cat and Illuminatus! I began to become obsessed by Wilson. I next started Masks of the Illuminati in the beginning of September, and stopped after a few pages. I had a sense that if I continued reading it, my life would change radically. I decided to continue, and my life took a left turn. At that point I considered Robert Heinlein my favorite author. I majored in math in college and I had worked three summers at IBM, planning to work for them after I graduated. I ended up changing my major to English and have spent much of my life teaching English."

Speaking for myself, I read Illuminatus! first before any other RAW books. I read the trilogy in the 1970s, when the three titles first came out, and the experience changed my life, too. Many Illuminatus! and RAW fans seem to feel the same way. But Eric's interview seems like a particularly vivid example of the effect Wilson's writing has, at least on his really serious fans. 


Friday, July 26, 2024

Mike Gathers interviewed on the Eight Circuit model

 

 

As promised in an earlier announcement, the latest Hilaritas podcast, above, features Mike Gathers as the person being interviewed, by guest host Zach West. It's the Maybe Day release. The topic is the Eight Circuit model, as created by Timothy Leary and developed by Robert Anton Wilson and Antero Alli; Mike relates in the course of the interview how he's studied it for years. I thought the podcast was quite interesting. 

Mike is a therapist who says the model's main usefulness for him is as an overarching framework that he can use in incorporating the various psychological theories and forms of therapy he has studied. (As an aside, I enjoyed the description of what it was like to attend Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado.) Listening to the podcast, I better understood why Mike is such a Grateful Dead fan.  There was no discussion of James Heffernan's book, and I wondered if Mike had read it. 

Toward the end, Mike mentions wanting to write a book about the model. I hope he does. I hope someone offers him a book contract, or that he offers himself a contract, so to speak, and gets to work. I would buy it. 

Here are some Mike Gathers links.   And also here is a playlist for Mike's Eight Circuit videos posted on YouTube. 




Thursday, July 25, 2024

Oz Fritz on the 23 enigma


Oz Fritz' contribution to the Maybe Day celebrations is a new blog post, "The 23 Enigima & The Western Lands by William S. Burroughs."  Here is a paragraph that might perhaps give you the idea:

"The 23 Enigma – encountering a network of synchronicities and coincidences related to the number 23 – seems quite familiar to many readers of Robert Anton Wilson. He laid out his experience with this phenomenon in Cosmic Trigger – the Final Secret of the Illuminati. Multiple listings to Twenty-three appear in the Index beginning with William Burroughs telling him about it and recurring frequently until nearly the end of the book. The importance of this engima to Wilson's Hermetic development cannot be overstated. He compared it to the flash of insight Dr. James Watson received walking down a spiral staircase leading him to consider DNA as spiral-shaped, an intuitive hunch that led to cracking the DNA code. This opened up the world of Science and applied Technology to all kinds of new beneficial healing advances for humanity. '23 was my spiral staircase, my intuitive signal.' ( CT I p. 46, Hilaritas). The 23 Enigma served as an entry point for Wilson to crack, actually more like construct, the code of numerology and correspondence found in the science of Cabala. I contend that this also brought beneficial healing advances for some parts of humanity through his writing and teaching."

The new blog post is the third in Oz' "on contemporary and ancient Books of the Dead." Links to the first two posts are at the top of the post. 

Wednesday, July 24, 2024

Please support the Kickstarter for 'Tales of Illuminatus'


There's a lot to absorb in all of the material posted yesterday for Maybe Day at the Maybeday.net website. I read and listened to quite a lot, and I expect to write about some of it during the next few days.

I read the first section of Tales of Illuminatus pretty much right away, and it's a very promising start. And I want to talk for a moment about the new Kickstarter launched for the first issue of the projected series of comic books covering the entire trilogy. 

I've made a pledge and I'm hoping many of you will join me.

We can all hope that someday there will be a TV miniseries adaptation of Illuminatus! on Netflix or Apple or Amazon Prime or some other video streaming service, and that it will be artistically and commercially successful, boosting a work many of us believe deserves wider attention. There have been efforts to get that done that haven't come to fruition yet. As of right now, the Tales of Illuminatus project by Bobby Campbell and his collaborators, which they are obviously working very hard on, is what we've got as a way to draw attention to the original work.  The new Tales of Illuminatus Substack is a good place to find out more about what's going on. 

The guy helming the project, Bobby Campbell, has spent many years promoting everybody else's projects, for example at his Maybe Day website (which has an archive of past Maybe Day collections) and at his Robert Anton Wilson account on X/Twitter, which has more than 6,000 followers. I personally owe Bobby a lot for his support and generosity, and the new Kickstarter is -- maybe -- a way to pay him back a little bit. 

UPDATE: Help in getting the word out would also be useful. If you are on social media, or you have a blog, or some other way of reaching people, please consider providing a signal boost. 

Tuesday, July 23, 2024

Happy Maybe Day!


Today, July 23, is Maybe Day. Please go to Maybeday.net for many of this year's offerings and for an archive of past Maybe Day celebrations put together by Bobby Campbell. You'll get a release of the first part of Tales of Illuminatus, the new graphic novel adaptation of Illuminatus! Please check out the Kickstarter page to support the project. 

Steve "Fly" has released The First Trip, the music album supporting the Tales of Illuminatus project. 

Here's a great new interview with Michael Johnson about Illuminatus! And you also get a Bobby Campbell interview with Eric Wagner!

Oz Fritz has a new blog post up, "The 23 Enigima & The Western Lands by William S. Burroughs."

See also, at Maybeday.net, new articles by Iain Spence and Don Dulchinos! 

Please see also, below in a separate post, my own contribution to Maybe Day. 


Maybe Day special: Robert Shea on Illuminatus!


Bobby Campell's illustration for the Illuminatus! online reading group. 

[I am working on an anthology of Robert Shea's nonfiction pieces and of interviews with Shea, similar in format to many of the Robert Anton Wilson anthologies. In light of the focus on Illuminatus! for this year's Maybe Day celebration, I thought I would share an excerpt from the work-in-progress: Shea's thoughts about Illuminatus!, culled  from his zines. Many of these thoughts are mailing comments, made to other members of The Golden Apa. The Management.]

[In a mailing comment to Robert Anton Wilson] I was stunned by your comment [to] Kevin, wherein you say you brooded over why you couldn’t finish a long book and then, collaborating with me, finished one. You see, I’ve been going around telling people that I never completed a book project before writing Illuminatus! and it was my collaboration with you, and your example of joyful productivity that taught me how to write and finish novels. I never realized that Illuminatus! was a breakthrough book for both of us. I guess I sort of assumed that you had never before written a book simply because you hadn’t gotten around to it, whereas I, who had started a number of novels and never finished any, had a “problem.”                                                             

                                                                     ***

TODAY IS JUNE 22, 1988, FEAST OF THE MARTYRDOM OF ST. JOHN DILLINGER. HAIL ERIS. ALL HAIL DISCORDIA. 23 SKIDOO.

                                                                     ***

Bob Wilson on the myth of John Dillinger’s penis – Wilson may answer this, too, but I can’t resist – ah – inserting my own recollections. We first heard the myth about the Smithsonian keeping Dillinger’s penis stashed away when a Playboy reader queried the “Advisor” about it. One of our researchers called the Smithsonian and said, “What I’m about to ask  you may sound ridiculous, but we’ve received a serious question from a reader about it.” Before she could continue, the man on the other end said, “No, we do not have John Dillinger’s penis here.” He went on to say that people called to ask about it several times a year. 

As for it being 23 inches long – when Dlllinger was cruelly assassinated and murdered a photograph of him lying on a tilted morgue table was published in the Chicago Daily News. He was covered with a sheet and seemed to have an enormous erection. Actually, the sheet was thrown over him and a lever that controlled the tilting of the table, but in the photograph the lever looked like part of Dillinger. Some Chicago papers published the photo retouched, with the sheet flattened out. 

                                                                ***

There is and always has been an awful lot of  hokum around everything to do with the uncanny, esoteric, the occult, the paranormal, the supernatural, the mystical.  Throughout this century and in past centuries as well. That is why I appreciate, as a needed corrective, even the knee-jerk skepticism of such groups as the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal.

But it also happens to be true that people can get useful philosophical and moral ideas from dubious sources. I’ve quoted Robert Anton Wilson’s observation that Buddhism would still be valuable even if the Buddhist texts turned out to be forgeries. A lot of people have the same feeling about Castaneda; it doesn’t matter whether Don Juan ever really existed.

I hope it won’t seem too immodest to say that there are people who claim to have gotten a lot, philosophically, out of Illuminatus! and Shike, even though both novels are clearly labeled fiction. It seems to me that ideas have a life of their own, and that it may be important, in evaluating an idea, not to consider the source, but rather to consider its possible usefulness to one’s own belief system.

But ideas are ideas and facts are facts (yes, I know this is a terribly stodgy Aristotelian/Newtonian/Cartesian way of looking at things, but there it is: I seem to be struck with it).

                                                                    ***

Do you still read/like Korzybski? Wilson says Korzybski’s ideas, though absorbed by him many years ago, are still influential in his thinking. Mine, too.

                                                                  ***

Indeed Jim Frenkel does have good taste; he was one of the five editors at Dell who worked on Illuminatus! He’s the one who described it as, “The anarchist acid-rock answer to Lord of the Rings.”

                                                                       ***

I’ve run into a fair number of people who believe world events are manipulated by the Illuminati or some similar conspiracy. This always poses a moral dilemma for me, because I want to be honest and tell them novel was intended to spoof such notions, but I don’t want to take away their reason for buying the book and recommending it to their friends. 

                                                                       ***

The Masons have always been pretty open about being behind the U.S. government. Look at the eye and the pyramid on the dollar bill. They’re so brazen they even put their headquarters on 23rd Street. 

                                                                     ***

Re: Fans wanting to be disembodied intelligences: It strikes me as interesting in this connection that there are a number of sf stories on the theme of brains in boxes or brains removed from people and installed in machines, or minds or brains transplanted from one body to another, sometimes to an alien body. And higher intelligences are sometimes portrayed as beings of pure energy. We used this idea in Illuminatus! – but note that it was the Illuminati who wanted to get rid of their bodies, not our heroes and heroines.

I’m a student of Zen, and Zen teaches that mind and body are one. 

I don’t feel knowledgeable enough to comment on Judaism’s attitude towards the body, but Catholics are taught that the body is “the temple of the Holy Spirit,” and that they are obligated to take good care of it. The obligation to  maintain good health comes under the Fifth Commandment, “Thou shalt not kill.” This is interpreted to mean that it is forbidden to injure oneself. My sense is that many Catholics don’t give much thought to this obligation, or to the rest of the Fifth Commandment. 

                                                                 ***

Another thing I want to make perfectly clear, to quote a famous Illuminatus, that, as I have said again and again and again, to quote another one, that I am not only not an expert on conspiracy theory, I don’t even believe in the damned things. I cannot speak for Bob Wilson on this point, but I know one of my intentions in writing Illuminatus! was to poke fun at the conspiracy paranoia besotting both Right and Left in the U.S. in the late 60s and early 70s.

                                                                  ***

Bob Wilson and I once had a bit of a run-in with Roger Ebert at a press party at the Biograph Theater promoting a book called Dillinger, Dead or Alive, which asserted that Dillinger had not been killed at the Biograph in 1934 but is, in fact, still living. Since this idea had also occurred to the authors of a Certain Trilogy, we showed up to express our support of the proposition that Dillinger lives. Ebert got the notion that we were making fun of his friend’s book. A contretemps ensued. Hail Eris! [Dillinger: Dead or Alive? by Jay Robert Nash and Ron Offen was published in 1970]. 

                                                               ****

Your essay caused me to think some more about how I feel about people masturbating to sex scenes I have written, and I’ve decided my attitude is more complicated than just being flattered that I had written something sexy enough to turn somebody on. I definitely would not be embarrassed and would be rather pleased, but it’s occurred to me that I did have different intentions in writing the two scenes you refer to. In writing Illuminatus! Bob Wilson and I agreed that we would incorporate some out-and-out pornographic writing into the novel, and pornography is meant to turn people on sexually. So that was what I was trying to do when I wrote the cocksucking scene between George and Mavis on the beach, which is what drove my actor friend to bring himself off.

When I was writing Shike I was trying to bring to life on paper an imaginary world and its people. I was thinking more about clearly expressing what was in my imagination than about how it might affect the reader. Jebu and Taniko’s first erotic encounter was something happening between them, and it was my job to describe it as well as I could and not to manipulate the reader’s sexual feelings. The George-Mavis scene was written somewhat in the crude style I recall  from the typewritten pornographic stories that were passed around in my high school classes. Even after passing through Bob Wilson’s typewriter, it retains that flavor. The Jebu-Taniko scene was written in what I  hoped was a subtle, delicate style that seemed appropriate for the Japanese characters. Which is to say that while I wouldn’t mind somebody being moved to masturbate – or to look for some  nice person to have sex with – after reading the Jebu-Taniko scene, it would seem to me that the reaction wasn’t all that relevant to my intention. After all, I wouldn’t want to write anything that would make people want to stop reading.

                                                                      ***

Last September, Yvonne and I saw the Lyric Opera’s production of The Magic Flute. I’m becoming more and more of a lover of Mozart’s music, and this has certainly done much to hasten the process. Of the libretto of Die Zauberfloete, no less an illuminated being than Goethe declared its “high meaning will not elude the initiated.” Besides the music, I was entertained by the sets, which were, of course, full of pyramids. One pyramid had the word “WEISHEIT” over its entrance, which I at first misread as “WEISHAUPT.” At the end, an orange sun arose and appeared centered in a gigantic triangle. The evening would have been complete if the sun had opened a bright red eye and winked at me. Highly recommended, in whatever form you might have access to it. Die Zauberfloete was first presented in Vienna on Friday, Sept. 30, 1791, fifteen years after the founding of the Bavarian Illuminati and six years after its suppression by edict of the King of Bavaria. 

                                                                      ***

It is relatively easy when you are writing a wild book like Illuminatus! to come up with funny stuff. But most historical novels tend  not to lend themselves to a lot of humor although there are exceptions, and when my head is in the historical novel mode it does not produce much humor – except in minor ways, like a couple of Perrin’s songs in All Things. 

                                                                    ***

Yes, there really is a Fernando Poo. It is named after the explorer Fernando Poo, who landed there in 1492. Whence comes the well-known rhyme, “In fourteen hundred ninety-two, Fernando Poo discovered Fernando Poo.” Some people spell his name Po, but they are just spoilsports. 




Monday, July 22, 2024

My ten best books of the century (so far) list

From my list. 

The New York Times recently put out a list of the 100 best books of the century (e.g., the first quarter century, of course). And here is a list of "ten best" books by Stephen King and other authors.   Here is the list compiled from reader favorites. 

Here isTyler Cowen's ten best list

Here is Freddie Deboer on the Times' list. 

 I don't know that my list would necessarily be any worse than anyone else's, so here is my ten best list (in no particular order):

Email to the Universe, Robert Anton Wilson.

Anathem, Neal Stephenson.

Ha'Penny, Jo Walton.

Surface Detail, Iain Banks.

Somnium, Steve Moore.

Too Like the Lightning, Ada Palmer.

The Scythian Empire, Christopher Beckwith.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke.

The KLF: Chaos, Magic and the Band who Burned a Million Pounds, John Higgs.

The United States of Paranoia, Jesse Walker. 

Bonus culture link: My new Substack piece on classical music on Hoopla. 



Sunday, July 21, 2024

'Magick Show' Kickstarter continues


The Kickstarter for Magick Show, the Richard Metzger "documentary collection," is continuing. See the website for updates. As of today, $27,757 was pledged toward the $65,000 goal, and there were 29 days to go.

Here is a profile of Grant Morrison from the Times (of London) that mentions Magick Show. ("Morrison has now offered to share his skills, agreeing to cast spells and create personalised magical symbols to donors to a Kickstarter fundraising appeal for Magick Show, a documentary on modern occultism created by Richard Metzger, the American broadcaster and author.")

The Dangerous Minds website has been doing daily "Magick Show Diary" pieces with various guests; scroll down for Douglas Rushkoff interviewing Metzger about the project. Sign up for a newsletter at the website.





Saturday, July 20, 2024

Steve 'Fly" Pratt paints the van to promote Illuminati Records Ltd.



Steve "Fly" Pratt has painted a van in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, to publicize his launch of Illuminati Records Ltd., his music project to support Bobby Campbell's Tales of Illuminatus project.

In his latest Substack newsletter, Steve writes, "I recently found some spray paint on the street while biking and decided to use it to construct some art. I like the challenge of not choosing the colour scheme, using what I was gifted from some unknown painter who probably ditched the Montana Black aerosol after some street activity. 

"Over three days, and in all weather conditions I decorated the guest caravan at Green Tribe Amsterdam: a self-sustaining community of alternative culture, art, and agriculture based in Amsterdam."

Steve also posted images, of which the above is one. 


Maybe Day is Tuesday! 




Friday, July 19, 2024

New 'Tales of Illuminatus!' newsletter points to Maybe Day


Bobby Campbell issues a new Tales of Illuminatus newsletter, and the title of the newsletter, "Tuesday! Tuesday! Tuesday!," is a reminder that Tuesday is Maybe Day:

"So this Tuesday (7/23) is the big Maybe Day launch of the TALES OF ILLUMINATUS! overture :))) We’ll have the first 12 pages of issue #1 available for your bewilderment, along with a smorgasbord of other maybe logical novelties, and also the kickstarter pre-sale for the print & digital editions of our sense shattering first issue will open and run from July 23rd - August 23rd."

The Kickstarter page has been prepared and is ready for launch. 

More here. 

Thursday, July 18, 2024

Prop Anon update


Jaime Reynolds of the Klaxons 

Prop Anon has put out his latest newsletter. There's no announcement yet on the Robert Anton Wilson biiography; he writes:

"Some great things are in the works with my book Chapel Perilous: The Life and Thought Crimes of Robert Anton Wilson. I will have more news for you soon about that."

Also, the promotional website for the book has been revamped, Prop interviews Jaime Reynolds of the band The Klaxons  and Prop offers a RAW quote and some political thoughts. More here. 

Wednesday, July 17, 2024

New Hilaritas podcast will turn tables on Mike Gathers

The first episode of a Mike Gathers video series on the Eight Circuit Model of Consciousness, about 18 minutes long. 

Mike Gathers is usually the guy asking the questions when the Hilaritas Press podcast is released every month. But when Maybe Day is celebrated on July 23, next week, he'll be on the podcast answering questions.

"Our next podcast,  coming on Maybe Day July 23rd,  will feature Zach West interviewing Mike Gathers about the 8 Circuit Model," Rasa reports. "They had an amazingly good discussion on the subject."

Rasa also says he's been looking at videos on YouTube on the Eight Circuit Model of Consciousness, and says the ones by Mike are reliably good. Here is a playlist. 

As for the other videos, Rasa remarks, "Some are certainly better than others, but it’s interesting to see the differences." Here is one of the others. 


Tuesday, July 16, 2024

RAW and Lucretius on selective perception


Photo by Ochir-Erdene Oyunmedeg on Unsplash

Robert Anton Wilson asked, "Who is the master who makes the grass green?" He explained, "Our brain receives millions of signals. We select a small portion and call it reality. That's what a Reality Tunnel is!" 

I am reading an old book-length poem, On the Nature of Things by the Roman poet Lucretius, and I ran across a passage that makes the same point:

"Since images are tenuous, the mind cannot see them distinctly, other than the ones it makes an effort to perceive, and thus, except for these, they all perish, apart from those for which the mind itself has been organized by its own efforts. The mind, then, makes itself ready, hoping things will take place so that it can perceive what follows on from each particular thing." 

(From Book Four; I am quoting the Ian Johnston translation. I read a lot of books about Epicureanism). 

 

Monday, July 15, 2024

New book on brain change

 


The June issue of BookPage,  a free publication handed out in public libraries, has a review of a new book by a neurologist that purportedly offers brain hacks based on science for making changes in your life. Rewire: Break the Cycle, Alter Your Thoughts and Create Lasting Change is by Nicole Vignola. The review quotes her as saying, "The brain is your hardware, and the memories, thoughts, habits and behaviors within it are the software."

The official page for the book says that Vignola explains "The principles of neuroplasticity."


Sunday, July 14, 2024

New Brian Eno documentary


 Brian Eno. Creative Commons photo, details here. 

"This documentary about Brian Eno is never the same twice. Thanks to a software program, the length, structure and contents of the movie are reconfigured each time it's shown. It's the only way the musician would agree to the project."

Full article here.  Hat tip, Jesse Walker.

Compare with the "About Bob's Works" page on the official Robert Anton Wilson website.  It says, "Click here to reload the page and get a new About Bob's Works essay." 

Saturday, July 13, 2024

Kickstarter begins for Richard Metzger's 'Magick Show' documentary

Trailer for Magick Show 

A Kickstarter has begun for Richard Metzger's Magick Show, a documentary billed as "A sprawling documentary project made BY occultists FOR occultists!"

You can donate any amount to help the cause; rewards start at $99. If you kick in $10,000, "Grant Morrison will personally cast a spell for you! Includes live consultation with Morrison to define your personal goal, after which he will create and charge an original, one-of-a-kind sigil artwork and ship it to you," plus you are named an executive producer and you get various other goodies.  (More from Grant Morrison here.)

Friday, July 12, 2024

More 'Tales of Illuminatus' news


As we get closer to Maybe Day, July 23, Bobby Campbell is releasing more Tales of Illuminatus news, in the form of a brand-new newsletter. You can read the "secret history" of how Bobby met Robert Anton Wilson (if  you didn't read it when you bought the Hilaritas Press edition of The Walls Came Tumbling Down), which all of y'all should buy and read),  get some free life advice from RAW, get some music news and more. (The life advice is aimed at young people, but maybe it's useful to everyone). 


Thursday, July 11, 2024

Prometheus Awards announced

 


(Press release on the latest awards. Illuminatus! won the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award in 1986, the only literary award that I know of given to the work -- The Management.)

The Libertarian Futurist Society, a nonprofit all-volunteer international organization of freedom-loving science fiction fans, has announced Prometheus Award Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction winners.

The 44th annual Prometheus Awards will be presented online, most likely on a Saturday afternoon in mid- to-late August, in a Zoom awards ceremony with three-time Best Novel winner Victor Koman as a speaker and presenter.

The Prometheus Award for Best Novel

Critical Mass, by Daniel Suarez (Dutton) has won the 2024 Prometheus Award for Best Novel for novels published in 2023.

Set in the inner solar system, this fast-paced science fiction thriller follows engineer-entrepreneurs striving against the odds to use space-mined materials to build infrastructure in space for commercial development.

Heroic characters risk their lives in an audacious mission to complete a space station, allowing construction of a nuclear-powered spaceship and rescue of stranded crew members on the distant asteroid Ryugu. The resourceful band must achieve their goals amid shortsighted opposition, censorship, shifting alliances and international tensions of Earth governments.

Unusually realistic in depicting the perils of living and working in space, Suarez achieves a high level of plausible engineering speculation. Government is shown as the problem and cooperation through free enterprise as part of a space-based solution to problems on Earth.

Included is a plausible depiction of the creation of a functional, private, decentralized currency beyond the reach of Earth, relevant in this era of inflationary government fiat money.

Visit the Prometheus Blog for an in-depth review of Critical Mass  that illuminates how this novel fits the distinctive dual focus of the Prometheus Award on quality and liberty. 

The other 2023 Best Novel finalists were Theft of Fire, by Devon Eriksen (Devon Eriksen LLC); Swim Among the People,  by Karl K. Gallagher (Kelt Haven Press); God’s Girlfriend, by Dr. Insensitive Jerk (AKA Gordon Hanka) (Amazon); and Lord of a Shattered Land,  by Howard Andrew Jones (Baen Books).

 The Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction

The Truth, a 2000 novel by Terry Pratchett (HarperCollins), won the 2024 Best Classic Fiction award and will be inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame.

First nominated for the Prometheus Award for Best Novel in 2001, when it became a finalist, The Truth is part of Pratchett’s humorous but historically informed Discworld series.

This story revolves around the incidental founding by a struggling scribe of the Discworld’s first newspaper, using the newly invented printing press in the city of Ankh-Morpork. Amidst cutthroat competition, shadowy opponents, a political crisis and threats to a free and independent press, the newspaper evolves in the free market – just as real newspapers did historically.

All too timely in its focus on misinformation and its affirmation of the value of freedom of speech and the press as a bedrock principle sustaining free societies while serving as a vital check on criminality and corrupt government, the novel portrays how journalists find and report the facts (or not) and strive to communicate "the truth.”

Smart and sly, hilarious but serious, The Truth ultimately offers an inspirational tale of underdogs fighting for the truth against formidable opposition.

Visit the Prometheus Blog for an in-depth review of The Truth  that illuminates how it fits the distinctive dual focus of the Prometheus Award on quality and liberty.

The other Prometheus Hall of Fame finalists were Orion Shall Rise, a 1983 novel (Timescape) by Poul Anderson; "The Trees," a 1978 song by the Canadian rock group Rush; and Between the Rivers, a 1998 novel (TOR) by Harry Turtledove

Prometheus Awards History

The Prometheus Awards, sponsored by the Libertarian Futurist Society (LFS), was first presented in 1979, making it one of the most enduring awards after the Nebula and Hugo awards, and one of the oldest fan-based awards currently in sf.

For more than four decades, the Prometheus Awards have recognized outstanding works of science fiction and fantasy that dramatize the perennial conflict between liberty and power, favor voluntary cooperation over institutionalized coercion, expose the abuses and excesses of coercive government, and/or critique or satirize authoritarian systems, ideologies and assumptions.

Above all, the Prometheus Awards strive to recognize speculative fiction that champions individual rights, based on the moral/legal principle of non-aggression as the ethical and practical foundation for peace, prosperity, progress, justice, tolerance, mutual respect, civility and civilization itself.

All LFS members have the right to nominate eligible works for all categories of the Prometheus Awards, while publishers and authors are welcome to submit potentially eligible works for consideration using the form linked from the LFS website’s main page.

While the Best Novel category is limited to novels published in English for the first time during the previous calendar year, Hall of Fame nominees — which must have been published, performed, broadcast or released at least 20 years ago — may be in any narrative or dramatic form, including novels, novellas, stories, films, television series or episodes, plays, musicals, graphic novels, song lyrics, or verse.

The Best Novel winner receives a plaque with a one-ounce gold coin, and the Hall of Fame winner a plaque with a smaller gold coin.

Wednesday, July 10, 2024

American edition of Higgs' 'KLF' book now on sale


John Higgs announces that the U.S. edition of The KLF: Chaos, Magic and the Band who Burned a Million Pounds has been released. This link provides a place to order the book, the ebook and the audiobook (which is narrated by John.) This is a weird, wonderful book with quite a bit about Robert Anton Wilson and I recommend it, even if you are not a particular fan of the KLF. 

Here's a new interview with John about the book. 



Tuesday, July 9, 2024

Grant Morrison to aid Richard Metzger's 'Magick Show' documentary



Grant Morrison (Creative Commons photo, details).

 Announcement via the reviving Dangerous Minds website:

"Grant Morrison is to offer three individuals a 'personal magick spell cast just for them' as part of a new crowdfunding scheme on Kickstarter to fund the post-production of Magick Show. A documentary described as a 'masterclass in the occult' and created by Richard Metzger of Dangerous Minds and Disinformation, and produced by media theorist Douglas Rushkoff.

" 'I'm thrilled to be part of this momentous occasion,' said Grant Morrison. 'Quite simply it's the best show about magic ever made! The best, least sensationalized, most informed presentation of what contemporary magic is and how it works that I've ever seen onscreen.' Morrison looks forward to becoming part of the Magick Show community. 'It is time to call together the next generation of occultists, expose them to their lineage, and initiate them into the larger culture of practising magicians'."

Monday, July 8, 2024

Jesse Walker on a new book about Charles Fort

 


A new book has just been released on  Charles  Fort, Think to New Worlds: The Cultural History of Charles Fort and His Followers by Joshua Blu Buhs. The book came out on July 3, but Jesse Walker must have gotten his hands on an early review copy, because Jesse's review already has posted at Reason

Jesse writes that Buhs has produced an "engaging study," and says, "Joshua Blu Buhs makes a strong case in Think to New Worlds: The Cultural History of Charles Fort and His Followers that the eccentric writer cast a long shadow, leaving a mark not only on the world of Bigfoot hunters and UFO buffs but also in literature, where his fans stretched from the modernist avant garde to the science fiction pulps.

More at the link. 

Sunday, July 7, 2024

Substack would have been great for RAW


On Twitter, one of my favorite accounts, Joshua Ryman, posts this bit: "I think Bob would have loved X/Twitter," as an intro to the graphic, above. 

Yes, Robert Anton Wilson would have been good on Twitter, he had many pithy thoughts; in a recent post, Jim O'Shaughnessy shares this RAW quote, ""The sad man lives in a sad world; the happy man lives in a happy world; the angry man lives in an angry world—at the end of the valley of decision, there's always a choice." 

But given his money woes, what I really wish is that Substack, or something like it, had come along earlier. Many writers are able to make a living sharing their thoughts on the platform, and I think RAW would have had a good following and would not have had to worry as much about making a living. 

Saturday, July 6, 2024

RAW's 'Everything Is Under Control' still a cheap Kindle

 


I have a habit of checking the Kindle monthly sale of books under $4,  and I was surprised to see that for July, Everything Is Under Control: Conspiracies, Cults, and Cover-ups by Robert Anton Wilson is on sale again, for about $4. Not quite as cheap as the about $3 I spent when it was on sale in May, but still pretty cheap.

Before I made it a point to crusade on the Internet on behalf of RAW, I had a website devoted to George Alec Effinger, another writer I regard as underrated. (It doesn't exist anymore after Google withdraw support for the site; I have to try reconstitute it). When Gravity Fails, one of his better-known novels, currently is just $2 for Kindle. 

Friday, July 5, 2024

'Tales of Illuminatus' update: Todd Purse, Steve Fly


Bobby Campbell has already issued another Tales of Illuminatus newsletter (sign up for your own copies), and in the new issue he highlights contributions to the project from two of his collaborators, Todd Purse and Steve "Fly" Pratt.

Purse, an artist, has been sending Bobby artwork. "Much like how the magic of the original Illuminatus! Trilogy was found in the collaboration between Bob Wilson & Bob Shea, I'm hoping mine & Todd’s team work will indeed make the dream work :)))" Bobby writes.

Steve Fly will release a new LP, The First Trip, on Maybe Day., i.e. July 23, as Bobby releases a new installment of Tales. He has released a flurry of new albums recently at his Bandcamp site.  See his newsletter for music updates. 

More on Tales of Illuminatus. 


Thursday, July 4, 2024

RAW movie club: All That Jazz

 

Image by Bobby Campbell 

Continuing the project of watching films from Robert Anton Wilson's list of his 100 favorite movies, I have chosen All That Jazz from 1979. for the next film. I wanted something more modern after the two previous old back and white films. And the movie is free on Tubi. I am attempting to pick movies that everyone can watch for free. I'll watch it in the next couple of weeks and do a post.

Previously featured as "RAW movie club" films: The Maltese Falcon and Intolerance. 

Wednesday, July 3, 2024

New 'Tales of Illuminatus' newsletter launches



Tales of Illuminatus is the new graphic novel adaptation of the Illuminatus! trilogy that is being published in sections on the Internet and which later will be issued in paper form. You can read an introductory bit, with more to be published on July 23 later this month, Maybe Day. And you can read my interview with Bobby Campbell about his project. 

Bobby has now launched a new Tales of Illuminatus newsletter on Substack. Please go here to sign up for future issues so you'll be caught up with the project. 

The first issue has some nuggets of new information about the project. The credits have been updated: "Created by Bobby Campbell w/ Nick Helweg-Larsen & Todd Purse, along with musical accompaniment by Steve Fly & Dan Robinson, and a rapidly growing cast of luminous creative visionaries, TBA in due time!"

Also, the Kickstarter for the first issue, "The Hidden Light," will make pre-orders available beginning July 23; no link yet, but when it becomes available I will let you know. "The first issue will debut at the Small Press Expo in Bethesda, MD, USA on Sept 14 & 15, and at a release party in the Crown Room at The Queen in Wilmington, DE, USA on Sept 18. (Ticket info, Bands, etc, TBA!"


Tuesday, July 2, 2024

RAW fans should take a look at the latest Oz Fritz blog post


Oz Fritz' latest blog post, "Joyce, RAW, Crowley and the Book of the Dead," explores the work of Robert Anton Wilson from several angles, including the influence of James Joyce on Wilson. It also looks at  the new Hilaritas version of Reality Is What You Can Get Away With, examining it as a journey through the Bardo, discusses contemporary books of the dead (such as Finnegans Wake) and asserts, "Bardo episodes appear in all of RAW's fiction in various forms: dreams, drug experiences, magick, meditation visions, etc." There's a lot here, and I thought it was one of Oz' best pieces.

And speaking of death and the Bardo, there is also this anecdote:

"Incredulity trigger warning for the forthcoming anecdote that relates to the experience of being dead and not knowing it. A shaman I once worked with whom I found credible, told me that after the collapse of the World Trade Center towers on 9/11/2001, he felt a calling to travel there in his body of light to tell the the spirits of the recently deceased what had happened. He claimed that they didn't know they were dead. They had no idea of what happened. He was providing a public service by telling them."

I don't know whether I "believe" that story, but it's a great anecdote!

I apologize to Oz for not noticing his blog post earlier; it has a similar title to his previous piece, and I didn't realize it was new. But judging from the comments he's drawn, other people also agree it was an especially good blog post. 

Monday, July 1, 2024

Maybe Day is coming soon!

 


I just wanted to remind everyone that Maybe Day 2024 will be later this month, July 23! 

July 15 is the deadline for sending your contributions or links to Bobby Campbell. Details here.