Tales Of Illuminatus!

 https://talesofilluminatus.substack.com/

 

tekk a LOOK

Orientalism And Modernism - The Tale Of The Tribe

When I lived in New Orleans 2003-04 I was browsing a bookshop and stumbled upon the book "Orientalism and modernism" by Zhaoming Qian. The book travelled with me to New York, Chicago and back to the Bay Area and onto the UK, finally sitting on my shelf today, in Amsterdam. Everytime I go back to it I'm rewarded with enriched mental images. 

For any studying the tale of the tribe as outlined by Robert Anton Wilson, "Orientalism and Modernism" is my recommended introduction, getting at central themes such as being/non-being and contextualizing them in multicultural discourse orbiting poetry, the language of the tribe. 

This book, for me, reflects some of the reasons why Wilson included the relatively obscure scholar of far-eastern art and poetry: Ernest Fenollosa, in his dozen or so...historical modernist influencers (Bruno, Vico, Nietzsche, Yeats, Joyce, Pound, Korzybski, Fuller, Shannon, McLuhan, Welles)

I'd argue that some techniques employed by early Chinese poets predate the modernist tendencies and explorations of beingness, demonstrable/evidenced in the analysis of ellipsis, juxtaposition...plus symmetry with natural forms. Beautiful stuff. Toward a language of Daoism and quantum mechanics?       

 Good day.

--Steve Fly    

 

Author: Zhaoming Qian 

Subjects

Asian Studies, Literature and Literary Studies > Literary Criticism

Chinese culture held a well-known fascination for modernist poets like Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams. What is less known but is made fully clear by Zhaoming Qian is the degree to which oriental culture made these poets the modernists they became. This ambitious and illuminating study shows that Orientalism, no less than French symbolism and Italian culture, is a constitutive element of Modernism.
Consulting rare and unpublished materials, Qian traces Pound’s and Williams’s remarkable dialogues with the great Chinese poets—Qu Yuan, Li Bo, Wang Wei, and Bo Juyi—between 1913 and 1923. His investigation reveals that these exchanges contributed more than topical and thematic ideas to the Americans’ work and suggests that their progressively modernist style is directly linked to a steadily growing contact and affinity for similar Chinese styles. He demonstrates, for example, how such influences as the ethics of pictorial representation, the style of ellipsis, allusion, and juxtaposition, and the Taoist/Zen–Buddhist notion of nonbeing/being made their way into Pound’s pre-Fenollosan Chinese adaptations, Cathay, Lustra, and the Early Cantos, as well as Williams’s Sour Grapes and Spring and All. Developing a new interpretation of important work by Pound and Williams, Orientalism and Modernism fills a significant gap in accounts of American Modernism, which can be seen here for the first time in its truly multicultural character.

Review of Fly On The Tale Of The Tribe by Gregory Arnott

My broadest respects and thanks to Gregory Arnott for the kind generous and brilliant review and for sharing a part of his journey alongside and within the theme park.

And thanks to Tom Jackson of RAWillumination for the BLOG POST.

--Steve Fly

Artwork by Bobby Campbell

Gregory Arnott reviews Fly’s ‘Tale of the Tribe’

By Gregory Arnott
Special guest blogger

I was a latecomer to Maybe Logic Academy — I was there for its final hurrah in a semester that saw one of the classes I enrolled in cancelled and another with only two active students and an absentee teacher. I can’t even remember how I found out about it — something to do with how one can wander over the Internet while working a boring office job. Anyways, that was where I first heard about The Tale of the Tribe.

Later, after I had read more about the Tribe and had read TSOG where the most complete piece of information on the book was in print at the time, I was talking about it to my friend as we stood outside looking at the stars on a hot West Virginia night; Robert Anton Wilson was basically going to explain communication, the Internet, and what was going on. My friend laughed — “finally!” he exclaimed. Robert Anton Wilson had been dead at least five years.

To say that Wilson’s unfinished Tale felt like a loss is an understatement. In one issue of Alan Moore’s Tom Strong the perfect man finds his heart’s desire as an illusion conjured up by a malignant alien intelligence; a copy of Joyce’s sequel to Finnegans Wake, Finn Wakes Agen. In Steven Moore’s Somnium the protagonist in the protagonist’s novel finds himself in a library of unwritten novels. There’s something sublime about an unpublished work or some valuable manuscript lost to time; it has been easy for me to remain tantalized by the lost promise of the Tribe.

This is all a rather lengthy way to say I was excited when I saw the release of Steven “Fly” Pratt’s Fly On The Tale of the Tribe. Pratt’s book is slim but dense with information — it’s playful and thought provoking. Fly deals with the Current Situation and how Wilson’s ideas have endured into our young century; appropriately for one of the torchbearers of model agnosticism, the book is full of promise and puzzles. Like Higgs at the end of Stranger Than We Can Imagine, Pratt seems to bank on agnosticism as a solution to the increasingly chaotic information climate: but that’s beside the point as I believe Pratt is more interested in inspiration than pontification.

Much of the book is invitational — Pratt repeats throughout that it is critical to create one’s own “tale of the tribe.” One excellent example is given earlier in the book when Pratt points out that his and RAW’s cast of characters are all male — Pratt gives an example of a female “tribe” beginning with Ada Lovelace. Later in the book Fly lays out the schemes for two later tale of the tribe courses that could be reconstructed by the intrepid student. Pratt also gives a healthily circumspect view of Ezra Pound and his complicated life; at one point Pratt seems to decide upon using Ernest Fenollosa as the primary touchstone for Pound’s contribution to the tale of the tribe, ideogrammic language,  as a deft sidestep when the fascist taint becomes too much with Pound. Of course Pratt makes sure to mention that Pound’s antisemitism was a phase that the poet regretted in later life. Everyone’s happy.

The most interesting ideas, for this reader, were the discussions of the hologrammic prose exemplified by Finnegans Wake and, this part really hooked me, Alan Moore’s Jerusalem. Fly is one of the few commentators I’ve seen who have given Moore his due: Jerusalem is a monumental masterpiece that will rank high among our race’s literary achievements if Providence is kind enough to ensure some sort of posterity. Fly is able to explicate how breathtaking the scope of the work is, as it encompasses art, magic, and the facets of our reality, and we seem to have similar tastes, go figure, since we both consider the chapter “Round the Bend” as the crowning achievement of the novel. (He even shares my love of Moore’s The Black Dossier!) In many ways “Round the Bend” serves as a magnificent realization of Tom Strong’s lost novel — it is a sequel or a continuation of Finnegans Wake. The whole of Jerusalem could be seen as something similar or as an essential commentary on Joyce’s goals but that would belie the empirical majesty of Moore’s work.

While talking about the epic Cosmic Trigger play produced and directed by Daisy Eris Campbell Fly waxes rhapsodical: “Co-create a Universe, a theatre of the mind where each and everyone of us can work on many levels of synchrony, consider set and setting, speech and place. Make the invisible visible.” Marching orders to make one’s head turn.

Pratt’s little book will give the reader a lot to think about and chew on — it is a text that is meant to send you into the hinterlands of language to find the foundations of our reality. I’ve brushed over a lot of Fly’s work in the book, partly for the sake of length and partly because I am still figuring out my thoughts and plans for the ideas he brings to the table. Suffice to say that this is an indispensable piece of scholarship for the RAW fan and an all around Important Book. RAW’s original book may have not been able to come to life but Fly proves that the tale of the tribe is still being told and is ready to be explored at any moment. Personally, I’m just grateful Fly made sure to include Moore in RAW’s canon. The book’s cover art is by, the Tenniel to RAW’s Carroll, Bobby Campbell whose illustrations implicitly make a connection between Fly and the green-skinned Mescalito. Pay attention.

As a postscript to the Maybe Logic story — it was through Maybe Logic that I found Tom’s blog so even when the initial attraction is in bits and pieces it can lead to something satisfying. The tale of the tribe isn’t over until the last monkey stops squawking.

http://www.rawillumination.net/2019/05/gregory-arnott-reviews-flys-tale-of.html

Support me at www.patreon.com/stevefly

A note to Bob

Dear Bob,

the world seems so messy without you, and we all miss your social commentary and King Kong like presence on the underground. Raw heads still turn to you for the clearest perspective on any particular issue, be it concerning intelligent signals from outer space, the perils of totalitarian government, any conspiracy you can think of, no matter how wild or crazy (as nothing could be stranger than the truth) We miss your humor and willingness to confront the boogie man in every corner of the cultural living room, where others fear to tread.

new readers are discovering your books daily, both fiction and non-fiction (oh whats the difference these days?) i dream of picking apart the bride of Illuminatus with a 10'000 strong, open on-line community, and to witness the films and games and weird works dedicated to you light up your face. Shit, it's easy to forget how well you're ideas are preserved due to your due diligence when writing. You might chuckle to see us all pushing onwards into the dark woods with the world on our shoulders, taking on the TSOG with art and magic. May you rest in peace, and continue to extrude your ubiquitous entanglement with those who wish to tune in. Please visit at any time.

--Steve Fly

Robert Anton Wilson & Steven 'fly' Pratt: A Serial Killer In The Whitehouse

A teaser from my full audio interview with Dr Robert Anton Wilson, recorded at his humble home in Capitola/Live Oak/Santa Cruz, California (looking out over the Monterey Bay).

This recording was rediscovered in a jumble-bunch of mini discs--if you can remember that flash-in-the-pan format--only last week. I made my first round of rough chapter edits, and here is part 6 out of 32.

Please share the good news and in he meantime visit:
www.rawilson.com
&
raw360.net
&
www.rawillumination.net
&
maybelogic.blogspot.com
&
www.cosmictriggerplay.com

Love ALL the more people
x
steve fly agaric 23

The Medium is the Massage--Marshall McLuhan (FULL FILM)

A member and nodal point within the tale of the tribe, Marshall McLuhan made a great impact on the thinking and writing of Robert Anton Wilson. McLuhan, like Wilson performed by example the role of an 'intellectual celebrity' (sadly missing in 2015 pop culture?) as Richard Metzger put it, at Dangerous Minds. McLuhan speaks VOLUMES about political showbusiness (election show-business) and hundreds of other cultural phenomena that can help all of us process the billions of signals we have to deal with today, in our hyperconnected global village.

I find the number of views on youtube of this video very very sad indeed. To me this experimental TV show from 1967 acts like a unique time-capsule (a sharable time-capsule) capable of describing the genius of James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Norbert Weiner, Buckminster Fuller and Robert Anton Wilson, all-at-once. You really should try and find time to watch this, or at least bookmark it. (you might want to open a new tab and use your search window to search some terms and names)

Perhaps I am over sensitive?

--Steve Fly

THE MEDIUM IS THE MASSAGE

Robert Anton Wilson's Pulp Illuminations by Erik Davis

Robert Anton Wilson's Pulp Illuminations

A talk at the Esoteric Book Conference, September 2014

 By Erik Davis

illuminatus

Here is a talk I gave at last year’s wonderful Esoteric Book Conference about Illuminatus!, the occult, and the tension between high and low magic in the 1970s.

http://techgnosis.com/robert-anton-wilsons-pulp-illuminations/

I highly recommend the EBC: the perfect (for me) Venn Diagram between esoteric scholarship and practicing occultism, the overlap being book nerdship, friendly enthusiasm, and good gender representation (key for occult conferences). 

Cosmic Trigger Play and The Tale of The Tribe

PART 1: TTOTT and PLAY

"Fuck God In The Ass"--Ed Sanders

"If you can't say FUCK in public, then the terrorists have won.--D. Scott Apel.

Towards the radical abolition of time as history, in favour of a more flexible playtime where 1994 and 1977 (for example) feedback to each other through the porthole of stagecraft. The Strange Intimacy in the dramatic plays of W.B Yeats, partly influenced by Ernest Fenollosa and his contact with the Noh play tradition of Japan. Within, the accumulation of techniques taken in the Poundian' sense of that phrase. The exploitation of lighting, stage projection, sound effects and costume all-at-once in a Wellesian' fashion, sharp transitions. Ritualistic and ceremonial jams with space for improvisation and embellishment, yes. The fair and rare scientific language of higher states of consciousness, further clarified and made new by actors and stage magix, singing, dancing, shouting.

The process of time and humans gathered together: actors, props, lights, sound, projections, choreography, costume, writing, production, promotion, not to mention food travel shelter and personal hygiene. All this, ALL THIS came together in a unique intersection point, or series of intersection points, to lean on a phrase from Burroughs. The words and the lights and the sounds and the ears hearts minds and bodies of both performers and co-conspirators, the audience co-mingled, wrestled together with a Robert Anton Wilson Universe.

Often times i felt the words jump of the script and into the walls, or the mouth or face of another. Letters are OFF the wall. Language of poetry thrown up onto the stage, balls and all. Total transformation of mind and ALL that resembles it. The sheer rush of hearing the wise words of RAW, and many of his cohorts projected into the air with such finesse, attention to inflection, cadence, the swing of the word, amped-up expressive decoration and embroidery.

Cosmic Trigger Play, in my humble opinion, and to curve your ear a little, might have been to the delight of RAWs tribe. I mean to say, RAWs unfinished great work 'The Tale Of The Tribe' criss-crosses with Cosmic Trigger Play in that TTOTT players William Butler Yeats, Marshall McLuhan, Orson Welles, and Perhaps Joyce and Pound may have enjoyed the stage play IMHO...Bruno, Vico, Nietzsche, Fenollosa, Shannon and Bucky too (google em' & git bck. to me with yr/ thoughts) I'm getting at, or digging into an idea about the hermetic nature of theatre, the multi-media of it ALL, and how the new play satisfies many of the quality critters that Robert Anton Wilson invoked in his last great unfinished work TTOTT. At least TTOTT represents the direction i would like you, dear reader, to ramble into. Please excuse my using it as a playful spring board to get into reviewing the play itself.

RAW would have been moved and inspired if he were around to see the Cosmic Trigger Play. He would have loved it. Sorry to invoke a cliche' yet i think it important to consider RAWs position on current events, and not just political and or metaphysical but concerning the creative arts and new media, to attempt to reconsider some of his critical thoughts on the art and culture, social psychology and a further refined focus on theatre. Makes sense right? (you can find all the details about the who to the what now if you type 'Cosmic Trigger Play' into any search engine. But wait.

Okay, maybe the best way to push onwards is git' the 23K (x4) and do it all again. Cosmic Trigger pulling remains an open game, the new Universe sits gleaming in the moonlight. Sparkling, full of stars orbiting planet word. A Cosmic Trigger Play pulled off and etched into the mind-body-speech of a sleepless crew of initiates. A crew ready to roll. Let's go get em'. (Already feeling terribly confined here in word-world, trying to talk a bit about Bob and the TTOTT and the play and ALL).

Tom Robbins once stated words to the effect that if roughly 15% of the population were reading and acting upon the works of Robert Anton Wilson we might see a new enlightenment/renaissance, or something equally epic and encyclopedic. Of course i agree, and you can find loads of my writings across the web echoing this sentiment. READ HIM. Go to the source.

The tale of the tribe brings together a dozen innovators from history, reaching back to Giordano Bruno (16th century) and into the 21st Century (Claude Shannon). A current of renaissance men, who share a part to play in both the gestation of ideas and influences upon Robert Anton Wilson, and upon Internet. Yes, INTERNET. RAW seemed to be a BIG fan of Internet. I feel he would have supported Wikileaks, Snowdon, EFF, Open Source Projects, Chaos Computer Club meetings, Anonymous, Aaron Swartz, Jacob Applebaum, Cory Doctorow and most Internet rights activists. And i think he would find facebook an amusing distraction from his hologrammic prose.

Lets co-create a new Universe or theatre of the mind, where each and everyone of us can think and act in multiple dimensions, working on many levels, in synchrony, considering set and setting, speech and place-time. Making the invisible visible. Let's do it again to the gates of eternity.

---

PART 2: THANKS TO ALL THE COSMIC CREW

Thanks to those wise beings who donated food to the backstage area and those who were kind enough to buy a cast or crew member a well deserved drink. Greg and Wolfy and the Liverpool crew. Mario Dimaggio of Immersive Dome Theaters, and Toby Philpott who helped manage the Maybe Logic Dome at the Find The Others Festival, and all the other performers and exhibitors. The London Film crew who set up at lost, the random helping hands all over the place, the Cosmic Trigger Band, optimistic ideas from Harvey Webb, music and good vibes from Youth, and the phalanx of other musicians and DJs who performed at the 'Find The Others' festival, and those who played in London. My friends Emily, Scott Groves and Kev Lane for showing up. Lisa Lovebucket and crafts, Beccy Strong photography, Jonathan Greet photography. And on...

All the strong willed ones who helped transport the entire set and many of the crew back and forth to locations in Liverpool, and in London.Special thanks to John Sinclair, Caleb Selah, CHU and all those who supported the crowd fund launch party and donated time, services, equipment and money to the whole trigger pulling process. Alan Moore for continued support. All the supportive video clips from Douglas Rushkoff, Nina Conti, Irving Rappaport, Alan Moore, Jamie Reid, Bill Nye, John Higgs and those i forgot. To Jack Sarfatti for agreeing to meet with Nic Alderton for an interview in S.F. Special thanks to Rick Rasa, Sandhya Sanjana, Michael Ray, Matt Black, Youth, Tim Eggmond, Dominick Clementson, Caleb Selah and all the voices of the cast for all the musical contributions.

A standing ovation for the hundreds of cuddly crowd-funders and thousands of supporters across the planet who re-tweeted, forwarded by email or better yet spread the word-by-mouth of the impossible play made possible. Big up. And a nice one to the reviewers and those who published in support of the project, in particular the Liverpool Confidential and the Independent. And, finally, to those who did not get a mention, it really sits with you now, so thanks in anticipation. I feel fortunate to have had such a schooling process collaborating with the following sleepless crew:


Actors
Oliver Senton - Robert Anton Wilson
Kate Alderton - Arlen /Jano Watts / Miss Portinari
Dixie Mcdervitt - Luna / Ensemble
Lee Ravitz - Kerry Thornley / Simon Moon / George Dorn
Andrew Mackbean - Dr Timothy Leary / Hagbard Celine
Josh Darcy - Ken Campbell / Gary Kerstein / Greg Hill / Ensemble
Tom Baker - Aleister Crowley / Robert Shea / Ensemble
Daisy Campbell - Mavis / Prunella Gee
Claudia Egypt Bolton - Eris / Ensemble
Robert Wells - Slim / Goat Boy / Ensemble
Katy-Anne Hellis - Karuna Wilson / Angel / Paula / Ensemble
Larry Sidorczuk - Albert Hoffman / Ensemble
Nick Helweg Larson - Postman
Irving Rappaport - Jaques Vallee / George Harvey Webb / Ensemble
Peter Wilson - William Burroughs
Nick Marcq - Alan Watts
Michele Watson - Lead Ensemble
Amanda Maye Steele - Ishtar (wed/thu/sat mat)
Elizabeth Sandford-Richardson - Ishtar (fri)
Katy Claire - Ishtar (sat)
Robert K.G Temple - As himself (sat)

Team
Daisy Eris Campbell - Writer and Director
Michelle Watson - Conferestival Director
Dominic Search - General Manager & Webtech
Nadia Luijten - Stage Manager & Social Media
Claudia Boulton - Production and Popery
Nic Alderton - Production, perks and Film
Polly Wilkinson - Graphic Art & Merchandise
Scott McPherson - Projections and Virals
Steve Fly - Music Director
Chris Farncombe - Lighting Design
Sadie Spencer - Lighting Desk
Padrigo Brown - Scenery & Props Maester
Dominick Clementson - Sound Desk (wed/thur)
Josh Chedwin Evans - Sound Desk (fri/sat)

Credits
Christian Wach - Website Design
Jonathan Greet - Stills Photography
Andrew Ab - Stills Photography
Adam Clark - Stills Photography
Bobby Campbell - Initial Artwork
CHU - Illuminatus Set Painting
Gary Acord - Initial website hosting
Lee Isserow - Camera Liverpool
Michelle Olly - Promotions & Vibes

---

PART 3: RE:VERSE-RIGGER

thus was it in time
here with discordian sounds
of Sun Ra and Tim Leary
in my head 1973 1993 to infinity
time has come ready

1950s & 1990s mixed with
Nixon era cointelpro paranoia
3 stooges of interplay
on many levels

Bogart and Saul Goodman
totally Orson unhinged
gates of eternity
hyperreal investigation

trigger pulled
lasagna launched
comets and interstellar
regions crossed
acid Crowley Lilly love scene

timespace and speechspaces
reshaped to travel-time
the eternal nowness of
Robert Anton Wilson
Universe breathing
chanting enochian

captured and shored by
Daisy Eris and her pirate ship
of initiates bound for planet mu
mu unbound from the page to
the stage pulling it all
off

blowing minds out of time
into-starseed-spaces
light body voice speech
enactments towards
decohere...
cosmic trigger
with claritas humanitas
and hilaritas

Black Mass Scene - Visual Projections and Photo by Hagbard Celine

PART 4: SOURCES AND RESOURCES

http://cosmictriggerplay.com/

http://www.rawillumination.net/2014/11/cosmic-trigger-play-news-roundup.html

http://maybelogic.blogspot.nl/2014/11/cosmic-event-in-london.html

http://boingboing.net/2014/03/17/raws-the-cosmic-trigger-as-a.html

http://maybelogic.blogspot.nl/2014/09/cosmic-trigger-re-play.html

https://www.flickr.com/search?text=cosmic%20trigger%20play&sort=relevance

Steve Fly at the drums - Photo by Jonathan Greet

The RAW-OTO-Illuminati Rabbit Hole

Over the years (as RAW notes in Cosmic Trigger) some suggested that he was the Real Head of the Illuminati, which of course RAW would never actually confirm or deny—not because it was either true or false—but because it was more amusing to let people believe whatever they wanted to believe… and it probably didn’t hurt book sales of Illuminatus!either. Whatever the case, around 2003 I posed to RAW this very same question, inquiring if he was indeed the one and only Head of the Illuminati, and his answer, in typical satiric fashion, was “No, I’m the toe.” This wasn’t exactly the response I was looking for, but just the same I asked if he’d appoint me an Illuminati High Priest, to which he didn’t hesitate one second: “You are hereby appointed.” And although this lofty position hasn’t improved my sex life or finances to any measurable degree, you must admit it’s one hell of an honor belonging to a secret order associated with Robert Anton Wilson.--Adam Gorightly, http://historiadiscordia.com/the-raw-oto-illuminati-rabbit-hole/

Starseed Transmissions intersection point: July 23

Starseed Transmission intersection point

The following are some notes i made while revisiting the RAW high weirdness around the date July 23, 1973, and some of the influences and experiments he mixed together during those weeks.

Press play. Go. Pull it. The Cosmic Trigger Play.

http://cosmictriggerplay.com/

Daisy Eris Campbell and a merry band of Discordians (including Steve Fly) are on a mission to stage Robert Anton Wilson's auto-biographical musings "Cosmic Trigger" as an original theatre production.

The Dam conspiracy conspiracy conspiracy

The Dam conspiracy conspiracy conspiracy

“what the thinker thinks, the prover proves”—recurring theme in the book Prometheus Rising, by Robert Anton Wilson.

Everything seems connected. Some things seem more interconnected than others. Networks connect. New information travels fast. Novelty powers the meme-space race. Reality, from the whole tribes perspective, maybe only what trends on twitter when the question is asked. Its as if relativity is getting more relative, to paraphrase a saying, while the exponential information explosion ripples ever outward, or inward, pulsing, simultaneously. Pull and push.

Dam Conspiracy everywhere! but which ones are worth the time and effort pursuing, if any? And to what end? Do you really hope to piece it all together, create the one singular, most probable scenario universe to one particular space-time event? Or is this an exorcise in information warfare, defense in the art of ratting out the fake and untruths from the real and true. Good luck with that. Perhaps simply thinking in probabilities takes us much closer to the truth?

In my estimation, the whole purpose of The Illuinatus Trilogy, and the collected works of RAW are to force one to think, to decide for yourself what is real, what is put on, what is mostly put on and a little bit real, and/or mostly real with a little bit of put on. Reality is both what YOU make it, but also how those around you perceive it in the ideaspaces we share. This is not to deny that things happen as we perceive them, that would be falling into solipsism, that I aim to avoid like the void. 

“whatever you say it is, it isn’t”—Alfred Korzybski

The conspiracy, in one sense, is that our brains, and our hearts and senses all seem to push toward making meaning and truth, and beauty for that matter, out of the signals we receive. What these signals are, how they came to be what they are, and why we put them into patterns and recognizable forms, symbol systems, pictures, song, remains as much a mystery as proposing what is outside the limits of the inflating universe. 
My purpose for writing this is not to put down conspiracy research, or theories, or individuals who propose them, but simply to try and reinforce what RAW says so much better than anybody else I have known, read or heard tales about:

“According to Alfred Korzybski, any “idea” or mental state is a brain circuit which the brain itself can contemplate, thereby having an idea about the idea, or a mental state about the mental state, etc. There is no theoretical or real limit to the higher ordering process; it is the “infinity within” of which mystics speak.—Dr Robert Anton Wilson, the metaprogramming circuit, Prometheus Rising, pg. 195.

Alfred Korzybski, should be at the very top of any serious conspiracy researchers list of founding individuals who developed principles and methodology for doing good honest research. At the least this may lead to a kind of probabilistic reasoning, or a system of communicating based upon a wide array o f data.
RAW for instance, crafted complete books of non-fiction abiding by the pretty strict rules of English Prime (E-Prime), or English language with the remove of beingness, or the beingness of isness. A major cause for confusion in Aristotelian either/or reality tunnels: see politics, religion and the music press. I advise any conspiracy researcher worth their weight in paperclips, to delve into E-Prime, for the sake of sanity. Familiarize yourself with disinformation and the ego tripping wizards of what is, often accompanied by the ongoing lyric of ‘I’. The mix of fact and metaphor. The mix of ‘isness’ with ‘I’ ness...running wild into the cage of certainty.

“to is, or not to is, maybe NOT a question worth thinking about too long”—Steve fly

Don’t get me wrong, ‘I’ would call myself a conspiracy researcher due to having read most of RAWs output, and I have built my own scheme of things, based on what I have read and heard, seen and intuited in my own life. RAW would probably list Alfred Korzybski, Ezra Pound, Karl Popper, Carl Oglesby, Noam Chomsky and Paul Krassner as some of his top conspiracy theory quality critters. Read them. Search each one at DuckDuckGo.com, or another search engine and see for yourself why these individuals and their ideas are important for us all now, and how they distinguish themselves from the popular sensationalist ‘pop conspiracy boom’ co-opted by the global entertainment market, and questionably extended the reach of the gov-corp disinformation ops themselves. I once met Richard Metzger who started up Disinformation.com, and who was a good friend of RAW, the use of the word disinformation by no means refers to him or the website by that name, Metzger flipped in back in the face of the gov-corp disinfo IMHO.

Let RAW clarify for us, once again:

“Every secret police organization is engaged in both the collection of information and the production of misinformation euphemistically called “disinformation.” That is, you score points in the secret police game both by hoarding signals (information units)—hiding facts from competitors—and by foisting false signals (fake information units) on the other players. This creates the situation I call Optimum SNAFU, in which every player has rational (not neurotic) reasons for suspecting that each and all may be trying to deceive him. As Henry Kissinger is alleged to have said, anybody in Washington who isn’t paranoid must be crazy. Maybe the UFOs really exist objectively—or maybe the whole UFO phenomena is a cover for a secret police disinformation ploy. Maybe there are Black Holes where space and time implode—or maybe Black Holes were invented to befuddle Russian scientists and send them into “the little man who wasn’t there” semantic spookery. Maybe Jimmy Carter really exists—or maybe he is, as National Lampoon once claimed, an actor named Sidney Goldfarb trained to project an attractive down-home “image”. Perhaps only three alpha males at the top of the security pyramid really know the answers to these questions—or perhaps these three are being deceived by certain subordinates, as Lyndon Johnson was deceived about Vietnam by the C.I.A.—Robert Anton Wilson, The SNAFU principle, Prometheus Rising. Pg. 226.

To continue, I suspect one good measure of a characters contribution to humanity could be based on how much, and in what way, they share signals. With particular focus on factual, useful, scientific tools that help benefit all humanity, simplifying the equation, creating a new synthesis, balanced, fair, funny and obviously to the benefit of all. Like a good contract. 

I am leading to a critique of the new whistle blower phenomena, and the way in which the information is communicated. When filtered through some of the most balanced sources that I personally like and can get along with, like boingboing.net, the Guardian, The Huffington Post, io9, dangerous minds, etc; still lack the attention to the whole human organism that a character like Amiri Baraka and Alan Moore exhibit. I mean in the special cohesion found in great works of art, often more detailed and obscure, the sense of time when reading a novel vs. a typical blog entry or news item. The urge to fill in the missing information often pulls us toward massive generalizations about our senses,  processes sensed and how everything fits together, self, the individual in history, and our moving experience of wakefulness, now.   

Each to their own, and give thanks to the wondrous diversity of forms we can get our information, in the age of global Internet. However, I feel a good question concerns the difference between scripture and regular writing? How do we create special writing and communication that celebrate the human traits of humanity, the triumph of the individual over the state, over ideology and the deceptions of perceptions. How to break free from alphabetical chains, categorical cages and get beyond language?

RAW might point us to James Joyce, Marshall Mcluhan, Ernest Fenollosa and Ezra Pound in this respect. All whom dipped a toe to five into the future and dared to propose, and to perform by example a whole new style, a new synthesis, an innovation and condensation of past knowledge and psychological craftsmanship into never before seen language. Language art, the art and crafts of poetry, and the antidote to the infinite conspiracy conspiracy conspiracy regress, IMHO.

James Joyce might be my favorite conspiracy author,the master of connectivity in language.  I think that Joyce and Pound, Yeats, and Burroughs stole back the fire from the big bad thief, they stole back the arts of disinformation, the double cross, Orwellian double-speak, and created quintuple agents with missions way beyond anything any Harvard spy professor or Oxford/Cambridge cocka could compete with. Not a chance. And the great Irish poets and writers--to call up a nationality and apply a stereotypical and misleading title for them--stand atop the world in the field of capturing the tragic/comic truth of life, whole. Or, truths in the plural. True enough I like to think. A strong maybe, probably true, like the second law of thermodynamics. 

If you choose to follow any of this advice about reading RAW and checking out some of his in depth works  concerning the characters I mention above, or not, please go ahead and have some fun with it, write your story, your own conspiracy, pull it apart and build it up again. Do it again. Critique your own strongest arguments. Eventually you may be able to meditate upon such activity before engaging, and save a lot of time and effort which cd. be applied elsewhere, perhaps working toward gaining some agency, or agency on behalf of your local community with which to at the least install protections, possibly some semantic standards with which to weed out disinformation at the root?

In light of the principle that blinkered and limited perception shrinks and limits the universe, we could say that the common jewel of the conspiracy theorists tackle-box--the all powerful, all controlling super Illuminati--makes the biggest fool out of those who shout the loudest. That is, unless the shouting turns to singing, dancing, storytelling, jokes and some good old fun such as RAW and Robert Shea demonstrate in Illuminatus Trilogy! And RAW demonstrates throughout his entire life's work as a writer, teacher, playwright, scientfic philosopher, and genuinely really nice guy. Read him! Compare this with the monotonous paranoid ravings of those who proclaim to have discovered some universal truth about a highly complex historical event, no jokes, no alternative models, just an advertisement to sell books or other schwag. 

“It is what it is”—James Brown

“Nothing is”—Sun Ra

--Steve fly
Amsterdam, 26/3/14  

Robert Anton Wilson: further musings by steve fly

 Robert Anton Wilson: further musings by steve fly


Robert Anton Wilson spent over 50 years producing original thoughts and ideas, criss-cossing academic boundaries like a flock og migrating birds. All-at-once an independent scholar, social critic, comedian, playwright, poet and novelist. RAW lived through WWII, the cold war, the 1960s counter culture explosion, the digital technological millennium and the globalization of humanity by way of the world wide web. RAW kept a front row seat next to other great scientific philosophers of the 20th/21st century, observing patterns and communicating with great care and attention to language, meaning and clarity, what he suspects is going on.

RAWs approach to the questions confronting all American citizens, and so by default the entire planet, currently under the boot of the U.S.A, are critical alternative perspectives and insights desperately lacking from both the public and academic discourse, and that have new roads into almost every department of any existing academic center you care to think of. Yet, what i find most stimulating about RAW and his ideas circles around his fierce independence and adherence to the principle of thinking for oneself, questioning everything and constantly reformulating based upon new data.

Every human being on earth can benefit from literacy, and RAWs particular take on the human condition features the development of language and critical reasoning as tools to enable good functioning in a chaotic universe, inhabited by shadows, distractions, illusions and disinformation. I feel that RAW left us all with examples of how best to confront confusion, propaganda and low level information warfare, his life as a case study and scientific experiment, in the tradition of R. Buckminster Fuller and Dr John Lilly, where they're own mind-body system is recognized to be a scientific laboratory itself, and so the nervous system and linguistic operating system also can be seen as scientific instruments.

It strikes me, when i surf around the web and more often read newspaper headlines and/or watch TV shows, that in 2013 a large proportions of professional scientists, and almost ALL politicians seem to have not picked up on this principle of 'inprobable objectivity' at all. On the contrary, the direction of most political and popular scientific discourse seems to be skewed towards materialist ideology and a 'bad' use of language, manipulated and squeezed through various filters to attract either/or investors, voters, or whatever ends maybe required, e.g, higher carbon monoxide limits, or the use of genetically modified seeds. There are an increasing amount of people waking up the coercion and trickery played by authoritarian structures, so as to keep the position of authority right where it is, with a centrist, top down, capitalist model. An Aristotelian war-head.

RAWs ideas and special writings smash away hundreds of rotten foundations that support these authoritarian monsters, often targeting the strongest parts of his opposing arguments, so as to be sure to totally demolish them. RAW has referred to himself as a libertarian anarchist, and a 'guerrila ontologist' in the past. I think these descriptions help distinguish his kind of constructive and cheerful criticism from the dull speculations and sensational garbage i detect in many of today's so called 'exposers of the truth' not least those who claim to be uncovering the all powerful 'Illuminati'. A hugely popular meme in 2013, largely due to the bastardization of RAWs ideas, along with a handful of others during the 1960s war on some culture.

 --Steve Fly Agaric
23 November 2013.
Amsterdam

Panorawma for Robert Anton Wilson (2013)

Panorawma
(for Robert Anton Wilson)

handcrafted study
in every direction:
Robert Anton
Wilson’s 360

digital artefacts now
fly thru a CHU space, hand
drawn appliances
of raw sciences

fresh crafted platforms
state-of-the-art in house
to look around use fingers
gyroscope, arrows or mouse

visit Washington cash spill
illuminate, cool off
cook listen wash-up
go to pot or

grill, open calendoor
playback answer
machine

to zoom: pinch or use the + & - icon
aim beyond language
Into SPACE, go on

explore rich n’raw media
behind hots-pots
cooking
panorawma views
you choose

--Steven ‘fly’ Pratt. 23^rd January 2013.
www.raw360.net

Shannon Info, Jung-Paul Synchro, digital holographic DNA cosmology stuffing

Is preparing food for my nerdrons: Claude Shannon's Information Theory and DNA sequencing as fresh news that seems to me a hopeful avenue for some cutting edge research: 

"What they prove is that there is a channel capacity that defines a maximum rate of information flow during the process of sequencing. " It gives the maximum number of DNA base pairs that can be resolved per read, by any assembly algorithm, without regard to computational limitations," they say."http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27689/

it's a long wynding story, if you wanna' likkle primer, watch this short video about Claude Shannon. I see this being useful as providing a framework (Shannon's infomation theory) for thinking about human DNA RNA synthesis, and calculating better--more efficiently--so as to speed up the emerging DNA based medicine and therapy. It could be useful for every single aspect of human biological medicine, and at the same time, makes an explicit link between 'digital bits' and 'the biological 'binary' aspects of biology. '

So, to continue on this tip, and explain myself a little, it's been my hunch over the last 3 or so years that the 'holographic principle' co-founded by Dutch Nobel prized physicist: 'Gerard t'hooft' and 'information theory' as developed by Claude Shannon, underly a somewhat hermetic 'unified theory'. The above link to DNA sequencing, and the following link to 'cosmological' BIT Theory, if you like, are examples for the seriousness of this pretty 'far out' idea that, in some sense, the whole universe seems contained within each atom! or you could say a 'Digital' Universe, or better yet Multi-verse. As above, a new 'Digital' DNA information theory, and below:

"Hogan’s noise arises if space is made of chunks. Blocks. Bits. Hogan’s noise would imply that the universe is digital."http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=is-space-digital

 p.s Physicist Jack Sarfatti has proposed similar idea's that include Shannon's maxim's, and a neurological-cosmological ratio. I picked up on these ideas via Dr Robert Anton Wilson, who I suspect picked up some of these ideas from Jack, Saul Paul Sirag, David Bohm and others from the now legendary Bay Area based 'Physics Consciousness Research Group' that he attended.

--Steve Fly
 

GOD IS IN THE NEURONS: A DOCUMENTARY EXPLAINING 'MIRROR NEURONS, OR EMPATHY NEURONS:

Atom and Archetype: The Pauli/Jung Letters, 1932-1958 Edited by C. A. Meier

 

Atom and Archetype:
The Pauli/Jung Letters, 1932-1958
Edited by C. A. Meier
With a new preface by Beverley Zabriskie
Translated by David Roscoe

PAULI AND JUNGIAN ANALYSIS

In his physics, Pauli sought a unified field. But his personal life was one of fragmentation and dissociation. Within one year, his mother poisoned herself in reaction to his father's involvement in an affair, and Pauli plunged into a brief marriage with a cabaret performer. At thirty, he turned to Jung for help.

Jung, in his 1935 lectures at the Tavistock, offered the following example of dreams effecting change:

I had a case, a university man, a very one-sided intellectual. His unconscious had become troubled and activated; so it projected itself into other men who appeared to be his enemies, and he felt terribly lonely because everybody seemed to be against him. Then he began to drink in order to forget his troubles, but he got exceedingly irritable and in these moods he began to quarrel with other men. . . and once he was thrown out of a restaurant and got beaten up.¹⁶

Jung saw that "he was chock-full of archaic material, and I said to myself: 'Now I am going to make an interesting experiment to get that material absolutely pure, without any influence from myself, and therefore I won't touch it.'" He referred Pauli to Dr. Erna Rosenbaum, "who was then just a beginner . . . I was absolutely sure she would not tamper." Pauli applied the same passionate brilliance to his unconscious as to his physics. In a five-month Jungian analysis, Pauli recorded and spontaneously illustrated hundreds of his dreams. "He even invented active imagination for himself He worked out the problem of the perpetuum mobile, not in a crazy way but in a symbolic way. He worked on all the problems which medieval philosophy was so keen on."¹⁷ For three months, "he was doing the work all by himself, . . . for about two months, he had a number of interviews with me . . . I did not have to explain much." Jung believed Pauli "became a perfectly normal and reasonable person. He did not drink any more, he became completely adapted and in every respect normal . . . He had a new center of interest." Jung had thirteen hundred of Pauli's dreams as the basis for his research into alchemical symbolism in a modern psyche. "At the end of the year I am going to publish a selection from his first four hundred dreams, where I show the development of one motif only."¹⁸
The physicist F. David Peat believes Jung's assessment of Pauli's state after his termination with Dr. Rosenbaum was too positive. Pauli's new "reasonableness" didn't last, and later he again drank excessively.
While Pauli's work aimed toward a "psychophysical monism," his intense inner tensions seemed to manifest physically in the so-called Pauli Effect, when his mere presence caused laboratory equipment to explode or fall apart.¹⁹ His internal "monotheism" and his sharp critical acumen and tongue earned him the titles "scourge of God," "the whip of God," and "the terrible Pauli." Even in the midst of personal disarray, Pauli kept his stance as a scientist of such rigor that he was called "the conscience of physics." Asked whether he thought a particular physics paper was wrong, he replied that was too kind--the paper was "not even wrong."²⁰ Heisenberg's account of a 1927 conversation reveals that, in his youth, Pauli was concerned about the distinctions between knowledge and faith.²¹ Heisenberg saw that behind Pauli's
outward display of criticism and skepticism lay concealed a deep philosophical interest, even in those dark areas of reality or the human soul which elude the grasp of reason. And while the power of fascination emanating from Pauli's analyses of physical problems was due in some measure to the clarity of his formulations, the rest was derived from a constant contact with the field of the creative and spiritual processes for which no rational formulation as yet exists.²² For Pauli, the creativity of science included considerations of the psyche. In science, he subscribed to the quantum uncertainty theory that the position and presence of the observer changes the perception and reality of what is observed. To that thesis--that one cannot measure the wave and the particle at the same time--he added a psychological dimension, observing that insofar as the scientist must opt to know "which aspect of nature we want to make visible . . . we simultaneously make a sacrifice, . . . [a] coupling of choice and sacrifice."²³ Pauli demonstrated the value of intuition to science's empiricism. As Weinberg recounted,

physicists in the early 1930'swere worried about an apparent violation of the law of conservation of energy when a radioactive nucleus undergoes the process known as beta decay. In 1932 Wolfgang, . . . Pauli proposed the existence of a convenient particle he called the neutrino, in order to account for the energy that was observed to be lost in this process. The elusive neutrino was eventually discovered experimentally over two decades later. Proposing the existence of something that has not yet been observed is a risky business, but it sometimes works.²⁴

In a metaphysical leap, Pauli referred as well to "forms belonging to the unconscious region of the human soul" and stated that "the relation between a sense perception and Idea remains a consequence of the fact that both the soul and what is known in perception are subject to an order objectively conceived."²⁵ He acknowledged that he had realized in a dream that the quantum-mechanical conception of nature lacked the second dimension, which he found provided by the archetypes of the unconscious.
It seems, however, that he could not find his way to the uncertainty, the "choice and sacrifice" that allows for reparation within analysis. While Pauli knew "that a truly unified view must include the feeling function, since without feeling there is no meaning or value in life, and no proper acknowledgment of the phenomenon of synchronicity," M.-L. von Franz said that he later sought only a "philosophical discussion of dreams":

He wrote to me . . . [and] made it clear that he did not want analysis; there was to be no payment. I saw that he was in despair, so I said we could try. The difficulties began when I asked him for the associations which referred to physics. He said, "Do you think I'm going to give you unpaid lessons in physics?" . . . He wanted something, but he didn't want to commit himself. He was split.²⁶

Van Erkelens speculates that Pauli would have had to submit to a transference and to a deeper Eros than "his inner urge to develop a unified view of matter and spirit." For whatever reasons, von Franz and Pauli were not able to achieve the relational bond that holds and contains explosive emotional material and so allows surrender to one's unconscious and to a suffered analytic relationship.
Jung and Pauli corresponded and later met, not for analysis but for a comparison of ideas--Pauli pursuing Jung's synchronicity thesis and Jung fostering Pauli's understanding of the archetypal and collective factors in the psyche. Through their contact, William James's two fields, to which both Jung and Bohr had been attracted, come together again. Von Franz writes that the

notion of complementarity introduced by Niels Bohr to provide a better explanation for the paradoxical relationship between waves and particles in nuclear physics can also be applied to the relationship of conscious and unconscious states of a psychic content. This fact was discovered by Jung, but it was particularly elaborated by Wolfgang Pauli.²⁷

http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s7042.html

COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Published by Princeton University Press and copyrighted, © 2001, by Princeton University Press. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher, except for reading and browsing via the World Wide Web. Users are not permitted to mount this file on any network servers. Follow links for Class Use and other Permissions. For more information, send e-mail to permissions@press.princeton.edu

RAW and PHYSICS CONSCIOUSNESS RESEARCH GROUP (RAW Illumination)

From http://www.rawillumination.net/

 

Michael Johnson annotates the new book

[If you missed it, Michael Johnson posted a long comment to Sunday's blog post about How the Hippies Saved Physics, which is literally all about the offbeat physicists in the Bay Area who greatly influenced RAW's thinking. Michael's comment is a useful annotation to the must-read book of the summer, so I am reposting it here everyone will see it -- Tom]

The Physics-Consciousness Research Group. See:

Illuminati Papers: 32 (diagram of "context-dependent language model of Nick Herbert); 56 ( Sarfatti on ETI contactees); pp.94-103

Leary's Info-Psychology: 33 (and 8th circuit); 49 (note Sarfatti in context); 129-131 (written by Nick Herbert)

Cosmic Trigger 2: 257 (Back To The Future best artistic expression of quantum logic: Sarfatti model fro Chris Lloyd); 267-268

Schrodinger's Cat Trilogy: 242 & 314, 426-427 (Herbert's QUIP); 274 (Capra's Tao of Physics); 343-344 (Sarfatti); 345-346 (Sirag's General Field Theory); 540-545

Trajectories May 1982 and Fall 1984: Nick Herbert and Bell's Theorem

Gnosis, Winter 1988-89:(Sarfatti and Faster-Than-Light ideas FTL); Edwin Harris Walker

Coincidance: 153-155 (Walker, Honegger, Sarfatti)

Semiotext(E) SF: 70-72 (Nick Herbert's wild particle physics story that includes RU Sirius)

Omni, Dec, 1979, "UFO Update" (Sirag's conjecture about time travellers)

Prometheus Rising: acknowledgment page: Sirag, Sarfatti, Herbert, who "clarified (RAW's) whole comprehension of epistemology;" 41 (and 8CB model); 183 (Barbara Honegger: cave paintings & 5th circuit yogic/shamanic brain: 30K yrs ago); 204 (Honegger's theory of synchroncity); 267-269 (Bell's Theorem and Sarfatti, et.al)

Mavericks of the Mind: 67-88 (Nick Herbert); 124 (Honegger); 125 (Walker)

Chaos and Beyond: 232-235 (review of Fred Alan Wolf's Eagle's Quest)

Everything Is Under Control: 138 (Sarfatti)

New Libertarian magazine Interview, 4/10-77: two pages on magick and quantum mechanics. Sarfatti as the head of the PCRG. RAW recommends Space-Time and Beyond, by Bob Toben, but Sarfatti says the ideas are his?

for another view of Sarfatti, see him as a North Beach denizen (San Francisco) in Herbert Gold's book on Behemia

Email To The Universe: 41 (Capra and Herbert); 244 (group mentioned); 223 (Mishlove might have been PCRG)

Michael Hollingshead interview (High Times?): RAW says he's the PCRG's "chief literary spokesman;" RAW talks about physicists who've used LSD

Wilhelm Reich In Hell: 33 (Capra and "fundamental holism")

see Sarfatti in Imaginary Weapons, pp.11-14

see Kripal's book on Esalen: 291-314 (Capra, Stapp, Sarfatti, F.A. Wolf, Nick Hergbert, Gary Zukav)

New Libertarian mag, RAW interview, 9/5/76: RAW recommends recent issue of Spit In The Ocean, for Sirag and Sarfatti on quantum consciousness Sarfatti as a "skeptical contactee"

Eight Circuit Brain by Antero Alli: 293-294 (mentions Saraffti and Sirag at RAW's salons in Berkeley hills, 1979)

I could list more if anyone's innarested.

Were they related to the SRI group with Targ and Puhoff: Scientologists? Who funded them? What role might Werner Erhard have played? How close was Ira Einhorn to the group?

How influential was Stapp? How did Barbara Honegger make it into the Reagan Administration? She wrote the first book titled October Surprise.

RAW had mentioned a few times that he sometimes played with the idea that he had been a "useful idiot" to the CIA or some other group.

http://www.rawillumination.net/

I FIRST MET DR. WILSON... (from September 2006)

Introduction 2010:

Hi, I met BOB a number of times between 2000 and 2005 in the USA, and regret not being allowed back into the U.S due to VISA issues, to see him again before he passed on. While he was still with us I already started a piece of writing that started to describe his influence upon me and how that amplified since traveling to America to meet him and having a most excellent adventure.

The following is what I wrote in mid 2006 while living with my parents at their home near Stourbridge in the West Midlands of England. I thought it was about time I put this up, as its just sitting on my hard-drive gathering moss, enjoy, love, steve.

P.S I now have the audio recording I made from the Prophets conference I can share here.

Universe Contains a maybe monday by rawmemorial


I first met Dr. Wilson on the 17th December 2000 A.D at the Prophets Conference in Palm springs, California, only 4 days after Al Gore said ""This is America, and we put country before party."  conceding  to Bozo the clown in what might have been the most crooked election in U.S history, although the 2004 election may prove to even topple that.  RAW opened his presentation titled "The Universe contains a maybe" with the line "George W. Bush is the president of the United States...maybe?" and continued to keep the audience smiling and in high spirits all throughout his epic, encyclopedic sit-down comedy cornucopia. 



Six years on, and RAW seems as optimistic and cheerful as he ever was, perpetually glossing the world and its "other" with practical and scientific solutions, models, metaphors for our human condition. His alchemical unity of science and mysticism through the lenses of social psychology, humor and poetry illuminates, to me in (2006), the observation that language and the "other" places beyond language will provide us, the stewards of spaceship-earth, with new portals of discovery that can help nurture communication between different people's, nation's and species. His humble wisdom and teachings are an immortal kind of "Timespace capsule" as any bookshop or internet search will indicate his increasing presence throught the mediasphere, to not speak of his rather under acknowledged shadow as countercultural legend and outer head of the inter-galactic super Illuminati.



I would like to extend my gratitude to Dr. Robert Anton Wilson for his time and patience towards his merry tribes of interacting readers and processing patients everywhere. I will also take this opportunity to thank my family, friends and fellow poets for their critical support and optimistic humour that helped sustain me, as an independent artist within various challenging environments.
--
I first met Dr. Robert Anton Wislon in Palm Springs California at the Prophets conference where i was fortunate to have been asked to provide assistance to Bob throughout the conference, we enjoyed dinner together and had a Manhattan or two together with Paul Krassner and his wife.

Later in different company we shared a fragrant bit of Marijuana - a recent cannabis-cup winning weed called Williams Wonder which transformed Bob into the image of Yoda before my eyes, wise, old and green. The wonderful weed was provided courtesy of Richard Metzger. 

Earlier that day i had offered Bob some Liberty Cap mushrooms i had carried some 6000 miles with me in my pants, Lovingly picked from the Wychbury hills in the West Midlands of England close to where i grew up, alas Bob turned down my offer but seemed to enjoy my wry smile and laughed with surprise when i produced the mushrooms.

AHA! At the Prophets Conference 2000 A.D in Palm Springs i had gave Bob a copy of a book called the Stargate Conspiracy by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince and he was reading it while at the conference and even talked a little of his initial impressions of the book. I gave this book to him because he was mentioned in the book and i felt an author should at the very least have a copy of any book they are mentioned in. 

Two and half years later i gave another text to Bob at his home in Santa Cruz, the book was "The Cosmic Serpent" by Jeremy Narby that i had with me and wanted to leave with Bob when i discovered he had not read it plus the fact that it had recently come up in an e-mail Bob received. Another 2 years later - September 2004, myself and over 50 other critters were exchanging blooks, essays, poetry, art and music with Bob during various courses he led at the new internet based Maybelogic Academy. 



In San Francisco i saw Bob on four occasions, two at the learning annex San Francisco and one of these events i was an assistant in video taping the event for Soundphotosynthesis archive. I also worked upon some editing of this presentation afterwards but am unsure if the recording is finished and available at Soundphotosynthesis. Another in S.F event was called Pantheon conference 2001, held at the Renaissance hotel - i sent a Manhatten to his table as i knew what his favorite drink was.

On september 10th 2002 i travelled to Bob's home in Capitola and spent three or four hours that felt like several days in fascinating conversation with him.  A partial textual transcription of the recording from this afternoon has been published in the online magazine (Maybelogic Quarterly Vernal Equinox 2006) co-created by members of the maybelogic academy. Considering that i turned up to Bob's house with no credentials, without flashing an I.D card, or waving a press pass or PHD.

I introduced myself as Fly Agaric on BOB's intercom and he simply asked me if i wanted to come up. He treated me with upmost respect and trusted me in his own personal home space, he allowed me to set up some recording equipment and fiddle with his electric plugs, drink cans of Guinness and smoke weed on his balcony. I mean... What a Giza! And to then continue to entertain me with his razor wit and encyclopedic trademark intelligence, me, a nobody from England, a young cosmic Schmuck with a passion to know more about what the hell is REALLY going on, and a lad who had found the living oracle and was now engaging with him, laughing a lot, feeling comfortable and having fun.

You might ask yourself how many other 72 year old celebrity writers, comedians and philosophers would tolerate such things, i mean imagine tracking down Dan Brown to his house, getting buzzed in and then only 20 minutes later drinking Guinness, smoking pot, eating Marijuana brownies and having a right good chin wag? More reasons to read Robert Anton Wilson, i discovered that day another secret of the Illuminati - be humble. 



The next time i met Bob was at the launch of his first and only biographical Movie premiere in Santa Cruz on the auspicious date 23 July 2003 (30 full years after his first telepathic experiences with doggies from the double star system Sirius.) On this occasion i was also celebrating my own contributions to this movie project and the very generous title given to me by Deepleaf productions of "Associate Producer". I felt ecstatic! After the show i saw Bob briefly while getting into a jaguar and riding off into the Santa Cruz night like the final scene from the Usual suspects. This was the last time i saw Bob in the flesh, he had the physical attributes of a Chan Buddhist monk, an Irish Bard and a witch. He also looked to me like Xavier from the X-men in the year 2023 but with wild Einstein-white hair. Always well dressed in a dinner jacket and a ruffled enbroidered silk shirt, his Celtic spiral ring  beaming off his large blue eyes, his speech slightly slurred due to a recent pair of teeth i believe, he must have wore out his last pair on that senator from Washington D.C? Yeah, i suppose Bob was like a grandad figure to me because of his age and appearance but also his influence upon this particular journey (all the way from New orleans) and my current life in America to some extent, having originally came to America to hear his presentation "The Universe contains a maybe" at the Santa fe Prophets conference, but he became Ill and could not make it.

This incident led to me being asked to help Bob at the next conference in Palm Springs - Dec 2000 A.D, and so it goes. My own journey into Chapel perilous had begun. Fortunately i was among kind family in the Bay area and got treated with much love and respect by the inhabitants, i was given food, lodging, access to the internet, gigs and the kind of trust and respect you might expect from close neighbors of fifteen years.

The Utopia i had only imagined was real, San Francisco, Oakland, California, with all the creative forces and cultural waltzing, i was living in a novel, and my friends reflected for me the kind of hero's and positive forces within classic stories and myths, tales - lending a helpful hand, asking you to come to the party, the show, the art opening. I began to feel and tune in the vibe, you know the VIBE, it seemed everybody was from somewhere else on the map, all around the world. I could feel the same kind of optimism and technological embrace and multicultural celebrations that i often get from reading RAW in some sense, although my gloss is skewed or maybe not skewed in a RAW fashion because i read him so damn much.


Steven James Pratt (September 2006)