Now with no advertising

 

Piccadilly Circus in London. Photo by Tânia Mousinho from Unsplash. 

I don't know how many of you have noticed, but RAWIllumination is no longer showing advertising.

Some months ago, I decided that the ads on this blog were too intrusive, so I changed the layout to keep advertising but to make sure the ads didn't really get in the way of reading the blog. At some point, through no action of mine, the ads got disconnected completely and disappeared from the site.

Google now has a notice in the settings, "There is an issue with the AdSense details you originally used to connect this blog. You can reset the connection by using the button below to remove AdSense, then return to this screen and follow instructions on how to reconnect."

I wasn't getting much money from ads, anyway, so I lean toward just keeping them off. I'd be interested in any feedback. 

What we read last month

As usual, you are invited to share in the comments what you read last month.

What Mark K. Brown read:

The Politics of Ecstasy by Timothy Leary  9/7   
The Origins and History of Consciousness by Erich Neumann  9/13   
Little, Big by John Crowley  9/15   
City of a Thousand Suns by Samuel R. Delany  9/18   
The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell   9/21   
Between Planets by Robert A. Heinlein  9/24   
The Classical Style: Hayden Mozart Beethoven by Charles Rosen  9/29  
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz  9/30  

I asked Mark what he thought about the Crowley (I have been meaning to read John Crowley) and he wrote, "Excellent! I highly recommend it.

"It's funny. I had remembered it was really good, but not how good. It should appeal to many readers of your site."

I didn't do as well as Mark, but I did read five books:

Transmentation | Transgression: Or, a Spark on the Eve of the Five Hundred Year Burn (The Formation Saga Book 2), Darkly Lem.
A Cabinet of Byzantine Curiosities: Strange Tales and Surprising Facts from History's Most Orthodox Empire, Anthony Kaldellis
Trogs: A Second American Revolution (The Dust Mites Saga: A Second American Revolution), James Alton Bacon.
Beyond Addiction: How Science and Kindness Help People Change, Jeffrey Foote and others.
Crossing: A Transgender Memoir, Deidre Nansen McCloskey, 

Seems like I read a lot of science fiction and a lot of books about the Roman Empire. 

Kickstarter for "Saucers, Spooks and Kooks" Blu-ray

 Saucers, Spooks and Kooks was a recent book about UFO disinformation by Adam Gorightly. It's been made into a movie. Now there is a Kickstarter to produce Blu-ray and VHS tape versions. 

"We are taking Saucers, Spooks and Kooks out of the digital matrix and pressing it into the definitive physical formats it deserves: a premium, boutique-quality Blu-ray and an ultra-limited, analog VHS tape. 

"This is an artifact of high-strangeness that you'll want to hold in your own two hands, this Kickstarter is the only way it gets manufactured."

More information at the link.

Kyle MacLachlan on David Lynch

Kyle MacLachlan at the Cannes film festival. (Creative Commons photo by Georges Biard, source). 

While I've never found any evidence that Robert Anton Wilson was a Twin Peaks fan (Robert Shea was), many RAW fans (such as me) loved Twin Peaks, so I thought I would share a couple of interesting articles.

The New York Times ran a nice profile of MacLachlan in which he talks about Lynch.  When I read it, I found an older article I had missed, "How David Lynch Invented Me," penned by MacLachlan. Excerpt: 

"He was drawn to mystery because he understood mystery as a conversation — a collision of differences, interpretations, perspectives. Not a message sent down from an all-knowing source.

"A mystery leaves room for other people to get in there. It is two-way communication."

Higgs and Matheny: Big in Italy and Japan

I've received two interesting newsletters via email recently, and in the interest of trying to get caught up, I am going to mention both of them here.

In his latest newsletter, John Higgs announces a translation into  Italian of his book about David Lynch. "I’m honoured that the Italian director Alex Infascelli has written a new foreword for this. More details are here."  Still no U.S. edition, apparently. 

John also covers some public appearances, recommends a book and posts a music video. 

Joseph Matheny's newsletter provides an interesting update (of sorts) on his latest work in progress and has this news:

"I was recently notified that there will be a chapter about my work in the following academic publication:

"Publication: NEW GAME ART – The Aesthetics of Play and Worldbuilding

"BNN, Inc., November 2026

"Language Japanese

"More info as I receive it."

Lots of other interesting stuff in the newsletter, including a mention of the surrealist poet Harry Crosby, kind of a wild character. I knew of Crosby from an account in Lucy Moore's Anything Goes: A Biography of the Roaring Twenties.

Maybe Logic on Reddit

 

Bobby Campbell has revived and refurbished the Maybe Logic subreddit.

More at the link, including the rules for posting, but everyone is invited to stop by and post: "Post anything related to Maybe Logic, Robert Anton Wilson, Illuminatus!, Discordianism, Hilaritas Press, Maybe Day, Maybe Night and really anything connected to the vast constellation of artists, writers, and ideas that comprise this multifaceted countercultural milieu."

'The Classical Style' reading group, week 19

Portrait of Franz Schubert (source). 

Epilogue

By ERIC WAGNER
Special guest blogger

            

Thank you for taking this voyage with me. I love this book dearly. This final Epilogue serves as a transition to Rosen’s 1995 masterpiece The Romantic Generation.

 I love Rosen’s discussion of Schubert in the Epilogue. When I first read The Romantic Generation it surprised me that he didn’t write more about Schubert. This Epilogue makes clear that Rosen sees Schubert as a transitional figure from the classical style to the Romantic generation. Yes, I had read The Classical Style before I read The Romantic Generation, but this distinction about Schubert’s unique transitional role did not become clear to me until about the fifth time I read The Classical Style. Like Thomas Pynchon, I seem a slow learner.

Ezra Pound tended to translate works he found important. In the same way, Rosen recorded works he found important, and I love his playing of the Schubert sonata he focused on in the Epilogue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MD5Rijhkb98&list=OLAK5uy_m2R9E7kdRS8G7yMB3FMM_n-N7lPABHlmo

New Adam Gorightly book, 'Agent of Disruption: The Many Lives of Fred Crisman'

 

Discordian Historian Adam Gorightly, mentioned many times at this blog because of his books and articles on Discordianism, UFOs, etc. has a new book out: Agent of Disruption: The Many Lives of Fred Crisman. It's on Bookshop, so you can support a local bookstore if you order it (also on Amazon and Walmart). 

Official blurb: "An international man of mystery with alleged intelligence agency connections, Fred Lee Crisman left behind a Walter Mitty-like legacy populated by flying saucers, assassination conspiracies, and alleged encounters with those nasty little inner-earth dwellers known as the Deros.

"Strap in yourself in for this long strange trip down memory lane to Maury Island, Dealey Plaza, and all points in between as we explore the many lives of Fred Lee Crisman, a true agent of disruption."

More about the book when I find out more, but here is an article by Adam about Mr. Crisman. 

'Tales of Illuminatus' update

On Bluesky, Bobby Campbell announces that now that the Kickstarter campaign has concluded, single copies of Tales of Illuminatus! #3 "Opus Chao" are now available. You can also buy copies of the first two issues, all available here.  But note that Bobby adds: "This is the last call on single issues of TOI #1-3! Only have a small batch of these left and only going to keep the TPB [trade paperback of all 3 issues] in print after this :)))"

Bobby also reports: 

"The second and final phase of fulfillment has now begun :)))

"The digital versions of Tales of Illuminatus! - The Kether Trip and Illuminatus! Skeleton Key #1 are now available!

"The print versions are being produced as we speak, with shipping set to begin during the first week of October.

"At which point the only item left to be shipped will be the cassette tapes, which should be ready to go within the next few weeks."

Also, Bobby announces: 

"Refurbishing my old blog and archiving my various disparate nonsense :)))

"Here's a quarantine era curve ball re: the high weirdness of the 1970's."

Friday links

Illustration from RAW Semantics post. 

RAW Semantics on AI. He invites comments from RAW fans, and I have chipped in. 

Michael Johnson also recently wrote about AI. Michael writes that rich tech people "are trash," this seems to me to lack nuance (while I'm no Elon Musk fan and I feel let down by Big Tech politics in general), see my comments to the RAW Semantics post. 

Tyler Cowen posts a lot on AI. here is a recent post. "Snap out of it you sad sacks, hope you can recognize negative emotional contagion when you see it!"

"People are still saying that Dick’s novels are turning into reality. But it’s not a joke anymore. It’s feels more like a warning." Ted Gioia on Dick's seven best novels.   I do think he's found some of the best books, I read Flow My Tears the Policeman Said recently and enjoyed it. 

Natural Law Theory Is Obviously False. Bentham's Bulldog Newsletter. 

"I think that whether the right reforms in any meaningful way or continues its slide into stupidity and genocidal vibes will depend on election results. Parties are always responding to messages from voters, and this will continue to be true going forward." From "Why Non-White Voters Must Crush Republicans."

'Modern Occultist' recommends 'Prometheus Rising'

 

The folks at Modern Occultist have put out a short video on the "Top Five Books for Chaos Magic Beginners" which includes Prometheus Rising by Robert Anton Wilson. (For some reason, I could not find a way to share the code and post the video directly here, as I usually would do).

The magazine also  has begun a new podcast series  and has released its fall issue.  The home page for the magazine is here. 

New Hilaritas podcast: Wingate and Turetzky

Dr. Douglas Wingate & Dr. Rachel Turetzky return to the Hilaritas podcast. Here is the blurb:

"Guest host Zach West chats with Dr. Douglas Wingate & Dr. Rachel Turetzky of Eight Circuit Ascension who have recently released a practical workbook and created an online metaprogramming certification course over at Psychedelics Today. Doug, based in Oregon, is a licensed psilocybin facilitator and Chinese-medicine practitioner. Rachel brings complementary depth in psycho-spiritual practice and education. They discuss the new course, the rapidly shifting legal landscape, early developmental imprinting, and the practical art of metaprogramming, and more."

More information here.  The two also appeared in a previous episode.

Michael Johnson on Luna and Sen. Charles Piercy's daughter

Sen. Charles Percy 

Michael Johnson has a new Substack piece up: "When Tragedy Bridges Politics," about the death of Robert Anton Wilson's daughter Luna, as described in the first Cosmic Trigger book, and the murder of U.S. Sen. Charles Percy's daughter. 

I thought it was one of Michael's better pieces, but it's also good background for the upcoming online discussion group for Wilson's Schrödinger's Cat books. There is discussion about passages  in the first book of the trilogy, The Universe Next Door, describing the grief of the character Benny "Eggs" Benedick, who as Michael says is "a very Wilson-ish character." 

Michael posted about Luna's death on Saturday morning, the same morning I posted the sad news about the death of another one of Wilson's daughters, Alexandra Gardner. Kind of a sad synchronicity.