Robert Anton Wilson | |
|---|---|
 Wilson in 1991 | |
| Born | Robert Edward Wilson (1932-01-18)January 18, 1932 Brooklyn, New York, U.S. |
| Died | January 11, 2007(2007-01-11) (aged 74) Capitola, California, U.S. |
| Spouse | |
| Philosophical work | |
| Era | 20th-century philosophy 21st-century philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | |
| Main interests | |
| Notable works |
|
| Notable ideas | |
Robert Anton Wilson (bornRobert Edward Wilson; January 18, 1932 – January 11, 2007) was an American writer,futurist, psychologist,[1][2] and self-describedagnosticmystic. Recognized withinDiscordianism as anEpiskopos, pope and saint, Wilson helped publicize Discordianism through his writings and interviews.[3] In 1999 he described his work as an "attempt to break down conditioned associations, to look at the world in a new way, with many models recognized as models or maps, and no one model elevated to the truth".[4] Wilson's goal was "to try to get people into a state of generalizedagnosticism, notagnosticism about God alone but agnosticism about everything."[5]
In addition to writing several science-fiction novels, Wilson also wrote non-fiction books onextrasensory perception, mentaltelepathy,metaphysics,paranormal experiences, conspiracy theory, sex, drugs, and what Wilson called "quantum psychology".[6]
Following a career in journalism and as an editor, notably forPlayboy, Wilson emerged as a majorcountercultural figure in the mid-1970s, comparable to one of his coauthors,Timothy Leary, as well asTerence McKenna.[7]
Born Robert Edward Wilson inMethodist Hospital, inBrooklyn, New York, he spent his first years inFlatbush, and moved with his family toGerritsen Beach, in alower middle class area, around the age of four or five, where they stayed until relocating to the then-socioeconomically analogousSouth Slope section (in part to facilitate an easier high school commute for Wilson) when he was thirteen. He hadpolio as a child, and found generally effective treatment with the Kenny Method (created byElizabeth Kenny) which theAmerican Medical Association repudiated at that time. Polio's effects remained with Wilson throughout his life, usually manifesting as minor musclespasms causing him to occasionally use a cane, until 2000, when he experienced a major bout withpost-polio syndrome that would continue until his death.[citation needed]
He attended Catholic grammar schools before securing admission to the selectiveBrooklyn Technical High School. Removed from the Catholic influence at "Brooklyn Tech", Wilson became enamored ofliterary modernism (particularlyEzra Pound andJames Joyce), the Western philosophical tradition, then-innovative historians such asCharles A. Beard, science fiction (including the works ofOlaf Stapledon,Robert A. Heinlein andTheodore Sturgeon) andAlfred Korzybski's interdisciplinary theory ofgeneral semantics.[8] He would later recall that the family was "living so well ... compared to theDepression" during this period "that I imagined we werelace-curtain Irish at last."[9]
Following his graduation in 1950, Wilson was employed in a succession of jobs (including ambulance driver, engineering aide, salesman and medical orderly) and absorbed various philosophers and cultural practices (includingbebop,psychoanalysis,Friedrich Nietzsche,Alfred Korzybski,James Joyce,Bertrand Russell,Carl Jung,Wilhelm Reich,Leon Trotsky, andAyn Rand, whom he later repudiated) while writing in his spare time. He studiedelectrical engineering and mathematics intermittently at theBrooklyn Polytechnic Institute from 1952 to 1957 before enrolling in an English education undergraduate program atNew York University from 1957 to 1958 but did not complete a degree at either institution.[8][10]
After having smokedcannabis for nearly a decade, Wilson first experimented withmescaline inYellow Springs, Ohio, on December 28, 1961.[8] Wilson began to work as a freelance journalist and advertising copywriter in the late 1950s. He adopted his maternal grandfather's name, Anton, for his writings and told himself that he would save the "Edward" for when he wrote theGreat American Novel. He later found that "Robert Anton Wilson" had become an established identity.
He assumed co-editorship of theSchool for Living'sBrookville, Ohio-basedBalanced Living magazine in 1962 and briefly returned to New York as associate editor ofRalph Ginzburg's quarterly magazine, calledfact:, before leaving forPlayboy, where he served as an associate editor from 1965 to 1971. According to Wilson,Playboy "paid me a higher salary than any other magazine at which I had worked and never expected me to become aconformist or sell my soul in return. I enjoyed my years in the Bunny Empire. I only resigned when I reached 40 and felt I could not live with myself if I didn't make an effort to write full-time at last."[9] Along with frequent collaboratorRobert Shea, Wilson edited the magazine'sPlayboy Forum, a letters section consisting of responses to thePlayboy Philosophy editorial column. During this period, he coveredTimothy Leary andRichard Alpert'sMillbrook, New York-based Castalia Foundation at the instigation ofAlan Watts inThe Realist, cultivated important friendships withWilliam S. Burroughs andAllen Ginsberg, and lectured at theFree University of New York on 'Anarchist and Synergetic Politics' in 1965.[11]
He received a BA, MA (1978) and PhD (1981) inpsychology from Paideia University, which was an accredited university in California at the time he graduated in 1981 but later on became unaccredited and then closed.[12][13] Wilson reworked his dissertation, and it found publication in 1983 asPrometheus Rising.[14]
Wilson married freelance writer and poet Arlen Riley in 1958.[14] They had four children, including Christina Wilson Pearson and Patricia Luna Wilson. Luna was beaten to death in an apparent robbery in the store where she worked in 1976 at the age of 15, and became the first person to have her brain preserved by theAmerican Cryonics Society (which was called the Bay Area Cryonics Society at the time).[15] Arlen Riley Wilson died on May 22, 1999, following a series of strokes.[16][17]
Richard Metzger: You have studied the Illuminati for years. Have you come to any conclusion about their aims?
Robert Anton Wilson: Usually when people ask me that question, I give them some kind of a put-on, but I can't think of a good and original put-on that I haven't done several times before.So I'll tell you the truth, for once. After investigating the Illuminati and their critics for the last 30 years, I think the Illuminati was a short lived society of free thinkers and democratic reformers that formed a secret society within Freemasonry, using Freemasonry as a cover so they could plot to overthrow all the kings in Europe and the Pope. I'm very happy that they succeeded in overthrowing all the kings, I just wish that they had completed the job and gotten rid of the Royal family in England too, but they did pretty well on the continent. I'm sorry they haven't finished off the Pope yet, either, but I think they're still working on the project and I wish them luck.
Among Wilson's 35 books[19] and many other works, perhaps his best-known volumes remain the cult classic series[20]The Illuminatus! Trilogy (1975), co-authored with Shea. Advertised as "afairy tale for paranoids", the three books—The Eye in the Pyramid,The Golden Apple, andLeviathan, soon offered as a single volume—philosophically and humorously examined, among many other themes, occult and magical symbolism and history, thecounterculture of the 1960s,secret societies, data concerning authorH. P. Lovecraft and author and occultistAleister Crowley, and Americanparanoia aboutconspiracies andconspiracy theories. The book was intended to poke fun at the conspiratorial frame of mind.[21]
Wilson and Shea derived much of the odder material from letters sent toPlayboy magazine while they worked as the editors of its Forum.[22] The books mixed true information with imaginative fiction to engage the reader in what Wilson called "guerrilla ontology", which he apparently referred to as "Operation Mindfuck" inIlluminatus! The trilogy also outlined a set oflibertarian and anarchistaxioms known asCeline's laws (named after Hagbard Celine, a character inIlluminatus!), concepts Wilson revisited several times in other writings.
Among the many subplots ofIlluminatus! one addressesbiological warfare and the overriding of theUnited States Bill of Rights, another gives a detailed account of theJohn F. Kennedy assassination (in which no fewer than five snipers, all working for different causes, prepare to shoot Kennedy), and the book's climax occurs at a rock concert where the audience collectively face the danger of becoming a mass human sacrifice.
Illuminatus! popularizedDiscordianism and the use of the term "fnord". It incorporates experimental prose styles influenced by writers such asWilliam S. Burroughs,James Joyce, andEzra Pound.[23] Although Shea and Wilson never co-operated on such a scale again, Wilson continued to expand upon the themes of theIlluminatus! books throughout his writing career. Most of his later fiction contains cross-over characters fromThe Sex Magicians (Wilson's first novel, written before the release ofIlluminatus!, which includes many of his same characters) andThe Illuminatus! Trilogy.
Illuminatus! won thePrometheus Hall of Fame award for Best Classic Fiction, voted by the Libertarian Futurist Society[24] for science fiction in 1986, has many international editions, and found adaptation for the stage whenKen Campbell produced it as a ten-hour drama. It also appeared as two card based games fromSteve Jackson Games, one a trading-card game (Illuminati: New World Order). Eye N Apple Productions andRip Off Press produced a comic book version of the trilogy.
Wilson wrote two more popular fiction series. The first, a trilogy later published as a single volume, wasSchrödinger's Cat. The second,The Historical Illuminatus Chronicles, appeared as three books. In between publishing the two trilogies Wilson released a stand-alone novel,Masks of the Illuminati (1981), which, due to the main character's ancestry, fits into the timeline ofThe Historical Illuminatus Chronicles and, while published earlier, may qualify as the fourth volume in that series.
Schrödinger's Cat consists of three volumes:The Universe Next Door,The Trick Top Hat, andThe Homing Pigeons. Wilson set the three books in differingalternative universes, in which the cast of characters remains almost the same aside from variations in names, careers and background stories. The books cover the fields ofquantum mechanics and thevaried philosophies and explanations that exist within the science. The single volume describes itself as amagical textbook and a type ofinitiation. The single-volume edition omits many entire pages and has many other omissions when compared with the original separate books.
The Historical Illuminatus Chronicles, composed ofThe Earth Will Shake (1982),The Widow's Son (1985), andNature's God (1991), follows the timelines of several characters through different generations, time periods, and countries. The books cover a range of topics, including (but not limited to) the history, legacy, and rituals of theIlluminati and related groups.
Masks of the Illuminati features historical characters in a fictionalized setting, and contains a blend of occult history. IntermixingAlbert Einstein,James Joyce,Aleister Crowley,Sigmund Freud,Carl Jung,Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, and others, the book focuses onPan as well as other occult icons, ideas, and practices. It also includes homages, parodies and pastiches from both the lives and works of Crowley and Joyce.
Wilson's play,Wilhelm Reich in Hell, was published as a book in 1987 and first performed at theEdmund Burke Theatre inDublin, in San Francisco, and in Los Angeles. It features many factual and fictional characters, includingMarilyn Monroe,Uncle Sam, andWilhelm Reich himself. Wilson also wrote and published as books twoscreenplays, not yet produced:Reality Is What You Can Get Away With: an Illustrated Screenplay (1992) andThe Walls Came Tumbling Down (1997).
Wilson's bookCosmic Trigger I: The Final Secret of the Illuminati has been adapted as a theatrical stage play by Daisy Eris Campbell,[25] daughter ofKen Campbell the British theatre maverick who stagedIlluminatus! at the Royal National Theatre in 1977.[14] The play opened on November 23, 2014, inLiverpool before transferring to London and Brighton.[26] Some of the costs were met throughcrowdfunding.[27] Wilson's book is itself dedicated to "Ken Campbell and the Science-Fiction Theatre Of Liverpool, England."[28]
In his nonfiction and partly autobiographicalCosmic Trigger I: The Final Secret of the Illuminati (1977) and its two sequels, as well as in many other works, Wilson examinedFreemasons, Discordianism,Sufism, the Illuminati,Futurology,Zen Buddhism,Dennis andTerence McKenna,Jack Parsons, the occult practices ofAleister Crowley andG.I. Gurdjieff,Yoga, and many otheresoteric orcounterculture philosophies, personalities, and occurrences.
Wilson advocatedTimothy Leary's8-Circuit Model of Consciousness and neurosomatic/linguistic engineering, which he wrote about in many books includingPrometheus Rising (1983, revised 1997) andQuantum Psychology (1990), which contain practical techniques intended to help the reader break free of one'sreality tunnels. With Leary, he helped promote the futurist ideas ofspace migration,intelligence increase, andlife extension, which they combined to form the word symbolSMI²LE.
Wilson's 1986 book,The New Inquisition, argues that whatever reality consists of it actually would seem much weirder than we commonly imagine. It cites, among other sources,Bell's theorem andAlain Aspect's experimental proof of Bell's to suggest that mainstream science has a strong materialist bias, and that in fact modern physics may have already disprovedmaterialistmetaphysics.
Wilson also supported the work andutopian theories ofBuckminster Fuller and examined the theories ofCharles Fort. He andLoren Coleman became friends,[29] as he did with media theoristMarshall McLuhan andNeuro Linguistic Programming co-founderRichard Bandler, with whom he taught workshops. He also admired James Joyce, and wrote extensive commentaries on the author and on two of Joyce's novels,Finnegans Wake andUlysses, in his 1988 bookCoincidance: A Head Test.[30]
Although Wilson often lampooned and criticized someNew Age beliefs, bookstores specializing in New Age material often sell his books. Wilson, a well-known author inoccult andNeo-Pagan circles, usedAleister Crowley as a main character in his 1981 novelMasks of the Illuminati, also included some elements ofH. P. Lovecraft's work in his novels, and at times claimed to have perceived encounters with magical "entities" (when asked whether these entities seemed "real", he answered they seemed "real enough", although "not as real as the IRS" but "easier to get rid of", and later decided that his experiences may have emerged from "just my right brain hemisphere talking to my left").[31] He warned against beginners using occult practice, since to rush into such practices and the resulting "energies" they unleash could lead people to "go totally nuts".[32]
Wilson also criticized scientific types with overly rigid belief systems, equating them withreligious fundamentalists in theirfanaticism. In a 1988 interview, when asked about his newly published bookThe New Inquisition: Irrational Rationalism and the Citadel of Science, Wilson commented:
I coined the term irrational rationalism because those people claim to be rationalists, but they're governed by such a heavy body of taboos. They're so fearful, and so hostile, and so narrow, and frightened, and uptight and dogmatic ... I wrote this book because I got tired satirizing fundamentalist Christianity ... I decided to satirize fundamentalist materialism for a change, because the two are equally comical ... The materialist fundamentalists are funnier than the Christian fundamentalists, because they think they're rational! ... They're never skeptical about anything except the things they have a prejudice against. None of them ever says anything skeptical about the AMA, or about anything in establishment science or any entrenched dogma. They're only skeptical about new ideas that frighten them. They're actually dogmatically committed to what they were taught when they were in college.[33]
In a 2003 interview withHigh Times magazine, Wilson described himself as "model-agnostic" which he said
consists of never regarding any model or map of the universe with total 100% belief or total 100% denial. Following Korzybski, I put things in probabilities, not absolutes ... My only originality lies in applying thiszetetic attitude outside the hardest of the hard sciences, physics, to softer sciences and then to non-sciences like politics, ideology, jury verdicts and, of course, conspiracy theory.[34]
Wilson favored a form ofbasic income guarantee; synthesizing several ideas under the acronym RICH. His ideas are set forth in the essay "The RICH Economy", found inThe Illuminati Papers.[35] In an article critical of capitalism, Wilson self-identified as a "libertarian socialist", saying that "I ask only one thing of skeptics: don't bring up Soviet Russia, please. That horrible example ofState Capitalism has nothing to do with what I, and other libertarian socialists, would offer as an alternative to the present system."[36] By the 1980s he was less enthusiastic about the socialist label, writing inPrometheus Rising that he "does not like" the spread of socialism.[37] In his bookRight Where You Are Sitting Now, he praises thegeorgist economistSilvio Gesell.[38] In the essayLeft and Right: A Non-Euclidean Perspective, Wilson speaks favorably of several "excluded middles" that "transcend the hackneyed debate between monopoly Capitalism and totalitarian Socialism"; he says his favorite is the mutualist anarchism ofBenjamin Tucker andPierre-Joseph Proudhon, but he also offers kind words for the ideas of Gesell,Henry George,C. H. Douglas, andBuckminster Fuller.[39] Wilson also identified as an anarchist and described his belief system as "a blend of Tucker,Spooner, Fuller,Pound, Henry George,Rothbard, Douglas,Korzybski,Proudhon andMarx."[40] Wilson spoke several times at conventions of the AmericanLibertarian Party. He included Benjamin Tucker'sInstead of a Book, Henry George'sProgress and Poverty, and Gesell'sThe Natural Economic Order in a list of 20 book recommendations, "the bare minimum of what everybody really needs to chew and digest before they can converse intelligently about the 21st Century."[41]
Robert Anton Wilson and his wife Arlen Riley Wilson founded the Institute for the Study of the Human Future in 1975.
From 1982 until his death, Wilson had a business relationship with theAssociation for Consciousness Exploration, which hosted his first on-stage dialogue with his long-time friendTimothy Leary[42] entitledThe Inner Frontier.[43][44][45] Wilson dedicated his bookThe New Inquisition to A.C.E.'s co-directors, Jeff Rosenbaum and Joseph Rothenberg.
Wilson also joined theChurch of the SubGenius, who referred to him as "Pope Bob".[46] He contributed to their literature, including the bookThree-Fisted Tales of "Bob", and shared a stage with their founder, Rev.Ivan Stang, on several occasions. Wilson also founded the Guns and Dope Party.[47]
As a member of the Board of Advisors of theFully Informed Jury Association, Wilson worked to inform the public aboutjury nullification, the right of jurors to nullify a law they deem unjust.[48]
Wilson advocated for and wrote aboutE-Prime, a form of English lacking all forms of the verb "to be" (such as "is", "are", "was", "were" etc.).[49]
"Is", "is.""is"—the idiocy of the word haunts me. If it were abolished, human thought might begin to make sense. I don't know what anything"is"; I only know how it seems to me at this moment.
— Robert Anton Wilson,The Historical Illuminatus Chronicles, as spoken by the character Sigismundo Celine
A decades-long researcher into drugs and a strong opponent of what he called "the war on some drugs", Wilson participated as a Special Guest in the week-long 1999 AnnualCannabis Cup in Amsterdam,[50] and used and often promoted the use ofmedical marijuana.[51] He participated in a protest organized by theWo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana in Santa Cruz in 2002.[52]
On June 22, 2006,Paul Krassner reported onThe Huffington Post that Wilson was under hospice care at home with friends and family.[53] On October 2,Douglas Rushkoff reported that Wilson was in severe financial trouble.[54]Slashdot,Boing Boing, and the Church of the SubGenius also picked up on the story, linking to Rushkoff's appeal.[55][56] As his webpage reported on October 10, these efforts succeeded beyond expectation and raised a sum that would have supported him for at least six months. On October 5, 2006, Wilson responded to the support by posting the following comment on his personal website, expressing his gratitude:
Dear Friends, my God, what can I say. I am dumbfounded, flabbergasted, and totally stunned by the charity and compassion that has poured in here the last three days.
To steal from Jack Benny, "I do not deserve this, but I also have severe leg problems and I don't deserve them either."
Because he was a kind man as well as a funny one, Benny was beloved. I find it hard to believe that I am equally beloved and especially that I deserve such love.
Whoever you are, wherever you are, know that my love is with you.
You have all reminded me that despite George W. Bush and all his cohorts, there is still a lot of beautiful kindness in the world.
Blessings,
Robert Anton Wilson[57]
On January 6, 2007, Wilson wrote on his blog that according to several medical authorities, he would likely only have between two days and two months left to live.[58] He closed this message with "I look forward without dogmatic optimism but without dread. I love you all and I deeply implore you to keep the lasagna flying. Please pardon my levity, I don't see how to take death seriously. It seems absurd."
Wilson died five days later, on January 11 at 4:50 am, just a week short of his 75th birthday.[59] After his cremation on January 18 (also his 75th birthday), his family held a memorial service on February 18 and then scattered most of his ashes at the same spot as his wife's—off theSanta Cruz Beach Boardwalk inSanta Cruz, California.[60][61]
A tribute show to Wilson, organized byColdcut andMixmaster Morris and performed in London as a part of the "Ether 07 Festival" held at theQueen Elizabeth Hall on March 18, 2007, also includedKen Campbell,Bill Drummond andAlan Moore.[62]
Wilson appears as a fictional version of himself inTimothy Leary's 1979 book,The Intelligence Agents. It features a fullfacsimile reproduction of an article ostensibly authored by Wilson, titled Marilyn's Input System, fromPeeple Magazine of March 1986.[63]
| External audio | |
|---|---|
 Audio excerpt of a reading of Chapter 1 by Ken Campbell and Chris Fairbank. Books-at-Beat-Time. |
Wilson appeared in the 1998 German film23 Nichts ist so wie es scheint. He has approximately two minutes featured as himself, with the main actor, portraying hackerKarl Koch, meeting Wilson at the annual German Computer Hackers Convention in 1985. The film is a biographical piece about Germany's infamous computer hackers, and the 1985 meeting in Germany between Wilson and Koch is authentic. Wilson spoke at the 1985 German Computer Hackers Convention, warning of a future in which governments would have total digital control over the citizen. He signed one of his books for Koch. These events are depicted in the film.
Psychologist Robert Anton Wilson (1992) has called the resulting worldview a "reality-tunnel" or "reality-labyrinth."
These results take on a surreal quality today, when, as psychologist Robert Anton Wilson (2002) noted, there is no "war on drugs," only a war on some drugs.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
