Robert Anton Wilson

Not sure, but it was published as three separate books initially, because of the length. Later they were finally able to publish it as one volume.

Never felt the least bit cumbersome to me, that is, I was never wanting it to end as I get with some other books. I was never checking the chapter to see how much more to go. It is always perfectly relevant for me.

I know what you mean got it on audiobook about 2 years ago still fresh and relevant af.
I Also read Prometheus Rising every now and then puts me in a whole new atmosphere every time.

Illuminatus ''is'' like Foucault's Pendulum but with blowjobs

He was the beginning of my spiritual journey. His optimism is admirable. I think psychedelics should be used sparingly, if at all, but still have mad respect for this guy.

It is the same Guy. Funny interview btw

Maximum pseud who read a few popsci books on physics and now thinks he has the intellectual ability and authority to provide "philosophical" interpretations of QM.

Korzybski and Bateson are pretty cool, but RAW went full retard with that esoteric shit.

>holy cow

It's spelled "chao", senpai.

> authority

on what issues is he wrong?

You are the only person who gives "authority" to anyone else - I have never come across any writer who was more aware of this than RAW.

I liked Prometheus Rising, but after reading Cosmic Trigger, I lost all respect for him.

I'm a PHOTOGRAPHER not a NERD. Medium jpeg only.

How come?

PR introduced me to interesting writers and theories (like other posters mentioned), and it had a "think independently" type message.

Cosmic Trigger was more "out there", and not in a good way. Uri Geller, seriously? That guy is a joke. I could stomach the peyote man/sirious messages stuff, but not Uri.

Also the message devolved into generic hippy "love everyone" stuff. The final nail for me was the part where his daughter is beaten by a black kid, and he tells her that its a punishment from karma for slavery.

lmao

Uri is a bullshit con, but that's not on RAW he dosn't push it as true.

His daugther was murderd not just beaten, he choose to look at it from a buddhist POV, that shit made me weep like a bitch, he does seem like a cuck but in a way "forgiving" something like that is the epitome of a buddhism.

>he tells her that its a punishment from karma for slavery
This is not what happened.

His explanation (to himself, not her) about karma is more immediate. It's not about past lives, it's a metaphor for the fact that he COULD go and use this experience to generate anger and hatred and action AGAINST others, or he could recognise that those kids have fucked up lives and its not a problem isolated to any one person. He could take this experience to actually DEEPEN his compassion for the human race, and right action would come out of it, rather than aggression.

You clearly have such a shallow and literal interpretation of his work, it's no wonder you took the Uri Geller section seriously, too.

What's the difference between the Illuminatus trilogy and the Schrödinger's cat trilogy?

It's like an expended universe explored in the latter without Shea pure RAW

Mind being a little less cryptic?

They are completely different books, set in the same universe. ILLUMINATUS was written by Wilson and Shea, Schroedinger was written by Wilson alone.

It's just as good if not better, though I still feel Illuminatus is a better introduction to the kind of work he's doing.

The Illuminatus trilogy was a co-authorship work it came before Schrödinger's cat as Wilson went on to explore the characters and themes on his own. It's more sci fi and very funny.

Ahh, I see. Thanks guys. So does Illuminatus have some actual good points about reality and life, or is it just a joke book? I'm about to put off reading Gogol for Illuminatus, and Illuminatus is quite long, so I just want to make sure it's worth it

Totally Worth it, but why not both

Fuck yes, yes it does. However, these may or may not also take the form of jokes. You will miss a lot if you go in with the attitude of "is this bit a joke, or making a valid point?" Wilson is rarely doing only one thing at a time.

I think he got this make them laugh to enlightenmen approach from Alan Watts and a bit from Crowley.

this is right 2bh.
as convenient as it is for RAW's defenders to point out that he never took any of his thought too seriously, it shouldn't be immune to criticism.
as interesting as some of the ground RAW covered was, he was ultimately a hippy. he also associated with the likes of the king charlatan tim leary. i mean, you guys should really take his advice and not take every word he says as of divine importance.
nobody's perfect and neither is RAW. try being your own flawed person.

Damn that's deep bro.

>king charlatan tim leary
Oh, so you're one of THAT lot, huh?

I never said RAW was immune to criticism, that would be insane. But the criticism is not immune to criticism either.

> Divine importance

Nigga he is a Monty Pyton acid trip mixed with some literature fuck off

>thinks leary is legit
Oh, so you're one of THAT lot, huh?
i like RAW you moron. doesn't mean i can't dislike parts of his work.

>He WAS a hippy
What point is this actually making? If RAW was pushing any agenda, it was to not think like this.

>thinks Leary is legit
Legit what? I never knew the man personally, though I've read his work and find it really interesting.

See, you're too focused on who you imagine people are, you're playing the celebrity game instead of the ideas game.

I think that the whole Human Potential Movment failed bc of that hippie shit which in turn was a cold war thing, revolution and all that, leary was a usefull idiot for the commies, should have stayed in Harverd and be lagit. Huxley was right Psychedelics are for the few.

please, as much as being aware of the fact that you have your own view of the world (reality tunnel), it doesn't stop you from having it. RAW was not an exception.
aren't people driven to their ideas by who they are? reading RAW should teach you that much.

leary had some decent ideas before he got a taste of fame, everything he did after that was absolute shit.
yup. if he didn't sensationalize the entire thing and pursued serious research he would've been a lot more interesting.

In what way has the movement failed? Fucking hell, look at the enormous boosts in humanist and existential psychology, the increasing freedom that many people have to choose their own path in life, the explicit drug culture where people can explore their own consciousness openly... It was never going to happen overnight.

I'll never understand the conviction than Leary and his group hindered anything. The movement is going strong.

>you can be aware of the reality tunnels but you still have one
>aren't people driven to their ideas by who they are
These statements are both true, but they ignore the fact that both Wilson and Learys work highlighted the possibility of changing both of these things (reality tunnels, and who "you" are), and changing them quote often. I would go so far as to say that Illuminatus is a huge demonstration of this ongoing possibility.

I think it is extremely limiting to dismiss the work on the grounds of one role that the authors played sometimes. It's not an argument.

Of course he hindered it, he brought attention to it in such a sensationalized fashion which drew the attention of the government to crack down on it.
Sure there's research being carried out now but it's still sensationalized, it's not plain and dry as it should be it's always some moron talking about it in some inspirational cultish fashion. People (esp. americans) are always happier to be stuck in a perpetual "A-HA moment" limbo than to really discover things.

The "hippie shit" was a by-product of a mass amalgamation of Eastern and Western worldviews. It is easy to look back and laugh at it now, but it reflected deep and lasting changes to Western culture way beyond the cliche hippie tropes.

>Someone tries to deliver the amazing possibilities of LSD and Eastern wisdom to anyone who wants to be a part of it.
>government cracks down because "NO ONLY WE GET TO SAY WHAT PEOPLE CAN DO RARRR RARRR RARRR, YOU TOO WEIRD AND HIPPIE"
>You get mad at Leary and not the government.

Fuck... Huxley was close to and supported Leary, despite his initial apprehension.

That's just wrong, both RAW and Leary were quite consistent in their worldview throughout their lives.
>I think it is extremely limiting to dismiss the work on the grounds of one role that the authors played sometimes.
Have you read his works? The overarching theme is pretty obvious.

>have you read his works
Yes. Are you saying that Wilson does NOT explore the validity of contrasting worldviews in his books?

He entertains the idea sure but suggesting that he didn't have his own worldview implanted into all of his works and was functioning as some purely objective human being is just delusional.

He even says that good writing is like controlled schizophrenia. Perhaps some attempts were more successful than others, but his entire span of work has quite a consistent theme about jumping from one reality tunnel to another, for real.

No it has a consistent theme about the possibilities of universal love.
Don't take being able to understand someone else's worldview as being able to actually inhabit it.

Have you ever tried any of his methods? From Prometheus Rising for example? Have you ever done acid?

I think you're really missing the point about psychological relativism that is a huge part of his work.

Look at how Cosmos Trigger begins... I DON'T BELIEVE IN ANYTHING.

The idea is that, after doing the work changing reality tunnels very often, you can start to consciously CHOOSE which one you want to be in. He chose universal love a lot of the time. But be does not say that makes it more or less valid than any other.

I agree, but the thing is we needed a new modern spiritual/psychedelic institution of some sort to help cure the system not bring it down, god knows christ church is bankrupet, but the times and leary the P.T. Barnum of drugs were too hang on spitting in the well their drinking from

this seems like the appropriate place to ask, would anyone be kind enough to share "The KLF: Chaos, Magic and the Band who Burned a Million Pounds" by john higgs?

i literally haven't been on Veeky Forums for months and i come in here to request this book and this thread pops up, what the fuck

Of course I have but I don't see what that has to do with anything. I'm talking about RAW's beliefs on the WORLD not on the mind, which you're claiming he's apparently exempt from.
>I DONT BELIEVE IN ANYTHING
He did. He just chose not to take it too seriously.

>Wilson says I (the metaprogrammer) don't believe in any ideas being more objectively true than anything else.
>you say he does
Stalemate?

Any large-scale institutionalised form of enlightenment will fail, and mysticism will become religious dogma. Leary was ultimately pushing people to start their own religions, even wrote a book with practical advice for how to do it.

But that's what I said?
There's a difference between not believing in anything (at which point you wouldn't be human) and not believing that your beliefs (or anyone elses) are better than others.

synchronicities

i'm as much of a dana scully-type sceptic as is humanly possible and even i get freaked out at how impossibly perfect the timing of some things is, maybe in a few hours someone'll randomly dump the book i'm after or something, weirder things have happened.

ok what the fuck i opened the catalog a second ago thinking huh boy isn't orgone some whacky leftfield shit let's find something similar and this fucking thread pops up

>But that's what I said.
I know, hence the greentext.
>not believing anything means not being human.
Not true, beliefs are not stable constructs, and you CAN exist without them. This is what many Eastern practices are about, living and existing without persistent thoughts.

Bump

hes a faggot like every 20th century drugs / consciousness guy except john c lilly

Do you think Lilly thought his mates RAW and Leary were faggots too?

i'm sure he didn't

he was too busy buttfucking dolphins in his tanks to worry about the sexuality of mere humans

I'm getting the feeling that Kafka and this guy are trying to convey the same thing in different ways. Anyone agree?

Yes the wierd parable in the end of the Trial sounds like a jewish zen koun to me, also bureaucracy is a stage in the discordian calender and this stuff pops up in RAW all the time