R.A.W. (Robert Anton Wilson)

[jakesteele]

This thread is an homage to R.A.W. (Robert Anton Wilson), may he R.I.P. This guy and his writings have played an important role in the molding of my perceptions toward reality and existence. The first thing I ever read of his was the The Illuminatus! Trilogy. I was completely taken with those books. In approx. 1987 I read Prometheus Rising, which played a pivotal role in the way I looked at my perceptions and conclusions that I had formed in my own personal Reality Tunnel.

I went to see him lecture once and I bought a signed copy of The New Inquisition but I just couldn’t get into it mainly because I didn’t get what he was getting at. It was the first time I heard of “Fundamental Materialism”. Being a huge fan of science and the scientific method, I just didn’t get it. Now, years later, in light of all the ruckus over skepticism/debunker, psuedoskepticism, etc., I want to read it, but woe is me...I can’t find my autographed copy anywhere…oh, well, I’m just going to have to buy it again (sort of like The White Album every time they change formats)

I am wondering what peoples’ thoughts and opinions are about Robert and what books, particularly The New Inquisition, have others read.

Discussion, please.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Anton_Wilson

"My goal is to try to get people into a state of generalized agnosticism, not agnosticism about God alone but agnosticism about everything."[

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Inquisition

The New Inquisition

Summary
“ It seems to me that existence - at this point I have doubts about 'the' 'universe' - is a lot like a Rorschach ink-blot. Everybody looks at it and sees their own favorite reality-tunnel ”
—Robert Anton Wilson,
commenting on absolutism
[citation needed]
The New Inquisition is the author's term for what he refers to as a tendency within mainstream science to forbid certain forms of theories from being classed as "science." He cites the cases of Wilhelm Reich, Rupert Sheldrake, and the Mars effect controversy, among others, in support of a central claim that a materialist bias within the scientific community has led to some speculations and theories he claimed were unjustly thought of as unscientific.
Like all of Wilson's books, The New Inquisition makes one think, and look at the world in a completely new way. Wilson is one of the most brilliant and open minded writers around, and he is funny to boot. Both fundamentalist theists and fundamentalist atheists ought to avail themselves of his books.
"The New Inquisition" basically sends the fundamentalist materialists (such as Richard Dawkins, et al) a big and well-deserved thump upside the head. As biologist J.B.S. Haldane remarked, "The universe is not only queerer than we imagine, it is queerer than we CAN imagine". Or Spinoza's remark that the human mind is to the mind of God as a dog is to the Dog Star. Anyone, scientist or theologian, who thinks they can explain anything away uncritically is dead wrong. We live in an era where materialistic science is accepted as uncritically as the Catholic Church was in the Middle Ages. If more people read "The New Inquisition" (and other of Wilson's books) we might start to change that and think for ourselves.

[Twain Shakespeare]

My name is Twain Shakespeare. As Twain I am left-brain, skeptical, cynical, and fundamentally agnostic. As Shakespeare, I am right-brain and autonomic nervous system, poetic, mystic, and easily gnostic, if I give in to the temptation, and I use Leary's fifth, sixth, and sometimes seventh circuit to grok. I haven't often achieved eighth circuit.

I had read Robert Heinlein, and suffered a bout of Objectivism after reading Rand. I had rejected hell and everything connected with it when I was eight, and became what could now be described as a Wiccan in my animist pantheist neopagan Freudian way. I had a world view in which Einstein modeled my universe, Darwin was my model for life, Marx for society, and Freud for the mind. All of these were summed up in Wilhelm Reich.

I was investigating quantum mechanics. I was 19. I read Schrodinger's Cat, Vol II. It was like lighting a match in a bathtub full of gasoline. If Reich showed me why and how most people are willingly slaves, robots, or even dead, RAW hints at what freedom might be like, even in the midst of the emotional plague.

Have you read Reich?

That's how I discovered RAW, who I suspect is the single philosopher who has affected me most. Both my null and B hypotheses of the nature of my existence are developed in terms of his psychology of perceptions and reality tunnels, and his are the primary philosophical arguments I use for describing myself as fundamentally agnostic (unless the B hypothesis of mysticism is correct in its hard, gnostic form)

I have never read the New Inquisition though, as having read about the progress of atomism, heliocentricism, Darwinism, etc from heresy to dogma, and about the treatment of Reich and Velikovsky, and having experienced the persecution open minds experience when they hit the immovable object of Faith all my life, I thought it would just make me pointlessly angry to read Wilson write so insightfully about things I have already been angry about.

Those are some experiences and opinions on RAW.

Please continue the conversation

May your experiences be groovy. Twain and Shakespeare

[jakesteele]

Hey, thanks for replying to my thread. I had originally read The Illuminati Trilogy back in the hippie day and was very taken with it, but more as entainment. The book that really had a profound metaphysical impact on me was Prometheus Rising. I knew right away that this guy was tapped into something exceptional that I could learn much from. The PR book I consider to be one of the top 5 most impactful things in my life along with The Teachings of Don Juan (all of the books), In Search of the Miraculous(by P.D. Ouspensky about G.I. Gurdjieff's teachings) and Trances People Live by Stephen Wolinski.

IMHO, RAW was an amazing character. As I mentioned, I went and saw him with a buddy here in Seattle many years ago. He started talking about the Illuminati and went into great intricate detail. I told my friend later that I thought the guy had to have a genius I.Q. I was in the business world working for Sprint Long Distance and my buddy is a court reporter, so we were both wearing business suits and we stuck out like sore thumbs in the crowd. I went up front to meet him afterwards and buy his book The New Inquisition, which he signed. He looked at my buddy and I in our suits and slightly raised and eyebrow of suspicion like were two 'overcover' spies. He got an impish smile and signed my book "Hail, Eris!". Unfortunately, I since lost the book after trying unsuccessfully to read it several times. This was before I had any idea about CSIOPS and pseudoskepticism. Oh, how I wish I had the book now. I am getting another, copy, though.

[The_Grand_Illusion]

[Twain Shakespeare]

Yeah, Jake, puter crashes and life contemplations kept me from responding. One thing I found most important in Reich, as an actor, is how everyone is either hypnotized, or hypnotizes himself by learning to use the "metaprogramming Fifth circuitry Leary talked about. It is amazing how easy it is to switch from existential nausea to mystic exhileration, even if that is the hardest trick.
I think "metaprogrmming" is the key to skepticism.
How much should one do it, and how deeply does it go? On the intellectual level I find it easy to shift back and forth between world views I am familiar with. On a deeper level, I had, for example, "believed" in predestination as deeply as Mark Twain or Kurt Vonnegut. After reading RAW, I experimented with "believing" each quantum mechanical theory of time, in turn, and found I tended to perceive the world that way.
And I learned that if I expect statistical normality, I perceive it, but it seems also, if I expect qunatum mechanical effects on the macro-level, I perceive those.
Gald to see you here, too, GI (have to think of a better abbreviation

[The23rdman]

I know this is a massive thread revival from the depths of the forum, but I wanted to add that I'm very much influenced by RAW. I too read Illuminatus! when I was younger (about 19) and then pretty much everything he wrote after that although I've only just read Masks of the Illuminati. I consider Quantum Psychology to be his most important work as, if worked through faithfully, it can seriously unhinge us from our entrenched belief systems and reality tunnels.

Through RAW I also read Reich, Leary and a host of other influences and try, as much as I can, to incorporate E-Prime into my language. It does seem to be true that the majority of people are not programmed to see that use though and instead read absolutes. I am fascinated by this.

[Twain Shakespeare]

[The23rdman]