Robert Anton Wilson

Robert Anton Wilson


Aka "RAW" He's the one who Co-wrote the Illuminatus! Trilogy with Robert Shea, not to mention his other books.

His Homepage can be found here: [rawilson.com]

Rumors are he was also involved in the Principia Discordia somehow.. (with Kerry Thornley)

Music
A couple of records too..

* Secrets of Power (Comedy) * The Chocolate Biscuit Conspiracy (Punk)

Films
(excerpt from imdb as of 01/02/2005 + slightly modified due to wiki format limitations)

Actor

 * 1) The Gospel According to Philip K. Dick (2001)
 * 2) T·neis da Realidade, Os (1996) ... aka Who Is the Master Who Makes the Grass Green?

Himself

 * 1) Children of the Revolution: Tune Back In (2005) (filming)
 * 2) Maybe Logic: The Lives and Ideas of Robert Anton Wilson] (2003) (V) (http://www.maybelogic.com)
 * 3) 23 (1998) .... Himself... aka 23 - Nichts ist so wie es scheint (Germany) (Note: English subtitles for this movie exist _online_ (added by author))
 * 4) Arise! The SubGenius Video (1992) (V) .... Himself .. aka Arise! SubGenius Recruitment Film #16 (USA)
 * 5) Borders (1989) .... Himself

if you want his books and audio ,start SoulSeek and use its search function. seems a good place to find his stuff or buy his material.

Links

 * RAW related changes on this wiki


 * RAW's official homepage


 * http://www.rawilsonfans.com/
 * http://www.deoxy.org/rawbib.htm
 * Excerpts from a lecture (requires real audio)


 * Robert_Anton_Wilson
 * Robert_Anton_Wilson

On Anarchism
From a 1977 interview-by-mail with Neal wilgus.

Q: Would i be right in saying you probably lean more toward the libertarian form of anarchism than the classical leftist variety?

A: My trajectory is perpendicular to the left-right axis of terrestrial politics. I put some of my deepest idealism into both the Leftwing anarchism of Simon Moon and the Rightwing anarchism of Hagbard Celine in Illuminatus!, but i am detached from both on another level. ...

Interview excerpt
KBOO-FM Interview with Robert Anton Wilson by Cliff Walker 1990 (or so) on KBOO FM, Portland, Oregon

Cliff Walker: Hi, my name is Cliff Walker. Welcome to KBOO, Robert!

Robert Anton Wilson: It's great to be here.

Walker: Robert is the author of The Illuminatus! Trilogy, Schrödinger's Cat, Masks of the Illuminati, and the most recent series, The Historical Illuminatus Chronicles-- those are the novels. Some of my favorite non-fiction: Sex and Drugs, Cosmic Trigger, Prometheus Rising, and the brand new one, Quantum Psychology. What is Quantum Psychology about?

Wilson: Quantum Psychology is about the fact that we can never know reality the way we know our models of reality.

Walker: So what are some of the ideas you are trying to share in this book?

Wilson: Chiefly, that the paradoxes in quantum mechanics don't just exist in quantum mechanics. They exist in every area of knowledge. Modern art has gotten to be very relativistic, just like modern physics. We're even getting relativistic films, these days. Total Recall, with Schwarzenegger, is about a man that doesn't know which memories are real and which are implanted. And there's a new movie, Jacob's Ladder, which has a similar theme. These are very similar to the themes of my novels, curiously enough!

The world is moving into a new era in which we're beginning to realize every instrument creates a different reality-tunnel. Every brain is a different instrument. The instruments we make, to do science, turn out to have the same limitations as the instrument we started with -- which is our own brain. Every instrument reveals a partial reality: a yardstick doesn't tell you the temperature; a Geiger counter doesn't tell you the weather. Every instrument has its limitations. Every brain has its limitations -- except the brains of the Pope, and, er, the Ayatollah, and George Bush, and the members of C.S.I.C.O.P.

All: [laughter]

...

continued on http://www.deepleafproductions.com/wilsonlibrary/texts/raw-inter-90.html

(This text is, to the best of our knowledge, in the public domain and is available for your pleasure and education. It is transmitted under the "Fair Use" rulings regarding the 1976 Copyright Act for non-profit academic, research, and general information purposes.)

Wiki Commentary
(Kunda writes:) Robert Anton Wilson (RAW) to me...has been nothing short of a liberating experience. I can't explain the frustration, paranoia, stress and just torture I have been somewhat liberated from by reading his work. He has taught me how to inject humor into conspiracy, perspective where there was paranoia, education instead of fear and ignorance, expansion of information, befreinding and tapping into a whole social circle that consisted of some really genuinely kickass folks, and brain change because mine was starting to smell.

Being human is quite a trip, its the same old questions at the root of our problems, we dont know why we are here, where we came from, where we are going, what to do in the meantime, we suffer, we die, and we try to make do. Slowly, we are learning more and more, constantly learning. We have ideas/interpretations/metaphors about all these questions but nothing concrete - nothing "AHA!!! Thats it!!". These metaphors/myths/interpretations also seems to shape our experiences. They are like maps that we follow and every map shows the terrain around us differently. But the maps are not the terrain itself, 'the menu is not the meal'. So what happends when we realize that by clinging to certain maps we put up massive filter to filter signals from the totality of the terrain around us that doesn't fit our map's description of the terrain. Maybe the results of this are Wars, Inquistions, Holocausts, violence etc..

The above blurb is a map in of itself and this is RAW's gift to me, a map for other maps that is aware of it being a map and leaves room for the idea of 'maybe' and 'uncertainty', and if ever need be to replace a 'better' mapping system. To quote RAW,
 * Certitude is siezed by some minds, not because there is any philosophical justification for it, but because such minds have an emotional need for certitude

One of the tools that he bequeathed to me is learning about language (symbols), how powerful they are on human nervous-systems. How that nagging gut feeling I get when pigeonhold into asking/answering certain question in a certain context was quite justified. In other words, the tool of comprehending and responding accordingly to when I am 'being forced into the straight jacket of Aristotelian true/false logic", which is the underlying logic of western society today, and maybe the source of our sombunall misery.