Re-reading 'Cosmic Trigger 2': A net of jewels

Cosmic Trigger 2: Down to Earth is one of my favorite Robert Anton Wilson books, and I re-read it every few years. I have just completed my latest re-read.   I've mentioned for years that it's one of my favorites, and in fact I was allowed to write a "Foreword" for the Hilaritas Press edition.

Here is  one recurring motif I noticed this time. As the book describes, when Wilson was in his twenties, he had two great frustrations. He had trouble getting his writing career going, and he was frustrated in his search for a romantic companion. 

Both of these problems had a "happy ending" of course, and I found passages in the book that link together Wilson's two great partnerships, one that largely launched his writing career and one that gave him a happy personal and family life. 

I noticed in the latest re-read that there's a lot in the book about networking; for example, Wilson talks about the John S. Bell's Theorem and how it apparently "showed that the universe was non-locally 'connected' or perhaps more precisely, non-locally correlated."  

This can be read as a metaphor for connections between people, and the book references two important connections Wilson made. One is the one with Robert Shea that resulted in Illuminatus!, which largely launched the book writing career for both men. The story of Illuminatus! is covered in the first book of the series, Cosmic Trigger I: Final Secret of the Illuminati, and Wilson does not repeat the story in CT2. But there is a scene in the book which describes Wilson and Shea participating in an antiwar demonstration together and then taking refuge in a Chicago tavern.

In the Shea scene,  Wilson records that in the bar, "I looked at the silvery mirrors with me and Shea and a room full of strangers in them: a net of jewels, each of which reflects and is reflected in each of the others." (Page 30)

Toward the end of the book, Wilson describes meeting Arlen Riley, a writer and New York intellectual, and the storyline in those chapters concludes  with a description of their marriage.

At the wedding, the officiating Buddhist priest asks Wilson and his bride to repeat the traditional triple vow, used in all schools of Buddhism, to rely upon the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha; at the time, Wilson did not know what the Sangha was (it's  the community of Buddhists). The chapter then offers various definitions of the Sangha after Wilson had read up on the subject, and the jewels recur in his favorite description: "I prefer to consider it an unbounded net of jewels each of which reflects and contains the reflection of each of the others."

With your indulgence, I may have other blog posts about other features of the book.