I am always happy to pass on recommendations for Cosmic Trigger 2: Down to Earth, which is one of my favorite Robert Anton Wilson books, and perhaps maybe a bit underrated. I am currently slowly re-reading it.
The Nocturnal Reveries blog has a post about all 3 of the Cosmic Trigger books, and here in full is what he writes about the second book (it is his favorite of the series, which of course is not the received wisdom):
"Part 2 was by far the most enjoyable in the Cosmic Trigger series. Wilson tells more of his life story in this one, and he comes across as the witty, interesting guy I know he was. He had spent much of the time between writing this and the first book in Ireland, and this is apparent in his writing. Much of the book is taken up with discussions on his 'Irish' upbringing, James Joyce and the modern Irish legal system. He also gets into the P2 conspiracy. Honestly, you could read and enjoy this one without picking up the other 2 entries in the series. It actually deals with the earliest parts of his life more thoroughly than the first entry in the series, so it’d be a fine starting point."
2 comments:
I suspect the preference for the best Cosmic Trigger volume depends on what the reader wants to get out of it. If biographic info on RAW then perhaps II or III seems best. If esoteric info, then definitely volume I. CT I was the first RAW book I read, I hadn't yet developed the interest to learn more about the author. That volume introduced me to Crowley, Gurdjieff, Lilly, Reich, Fuller and Leary, probably others too I'm forgetting like Nietzsche. The Sufi heart opening exercise, the final secret of the Illuminatti, Cabala, synchronicity, and correlating science with paranormal phenomena all changed my life.
Holy moly! This is the guy who came up with the interesting idea that The Sex Magicians might have been a magickal act to get Illuminatus! published. That's mentioned in the new edition of The Sex Magicians in Gregory Arnott's afterword where he notes, "The magical wank has become a popular enough idea
in magic that many think it is the basic premise of magical
practice: one amusingly ingenious interpretation of The Sex
Magicians even posited that the novel was published to crank
Illuminatus! into public existence."
The "holy moly" is in reference to the worst review of Cosmic Trigger: Final Secret of the Illuminati I've ever read. I mean both in terms of the review being negative, and that the reviewer doesn't seem to appreciate what has made that book one of RAW's most popular. That's too bad.
It is interesting to see the guy's view of CT3. RAW wrote one essay in that book that seems like it is a right wing attack on feminism. I guess the guy didn't get to the end of that, or his wife's snorting in disapproval when hearing the audio book meant that he missed the end of that essay, where RAW asks the reader if they got the wrong impression from that provocative essay. This guy got the wrong impression, and didn't bother to dig deeper.
When I got to that site to read a review of the three Cosmic Trigger books, I was thinking, "This seems cool. I'll have to pass it on." Yeah. That won't happen.
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