ROBERT ANTON WILSON

One of the most original minds now on the planet belongs to Robert Anton Wilson, a San Francisco guru. Once an editor of Playboy magazine, Wilson quit and went on welfare to become a writer. In collaboration with the late Robert J. Shea, Wilson wrote a trilogy of satirical fantasy novels in the mid-1970s called Illuminatus! These established his reputation.

The Illuminatus! novels send up the notion of conspiracy theories in politics. They assume that every conspiracy theory ever postulated by cranks is indeed true. For example, in the Kennedy assassination, there really were shooters on the grassy knoll. There were also shooters on the overpass. In fact, there were shooters anywhere anyone said there were shooters!

According to Wilson and Shea's novel, the F.B.I. was indeed involved in Kennedy's death. So was the C.I.A. So were the Communists and the Cubans. So was the Mafia.

According to Illuminatus!, history is really a perpetual struggle between two secret organizations. The first, the Illuminati, struggle to bind the world in chains of perfect order. The second, the Discordians, attempt to frustrate all the schemes of the Illuminati, to establish total social and intellectual chaos. The clash between the two organizations, richly imagined through several centuries and many remarkable characters, seems to illuminate the intellectual ideas of totalitarianism (including collectivism) and anarchism (including capitalist libertarianism).

On his own Wilson has since published a series of strange non-fiction works, as well as two more fictional trilogies.

Wilson's fiction other than the Illuminatus! novels, for example, his Schrodinger's Cat trilogy, is enjoyable. But I admire more his non-fiction works. Invariably richly humorous, they show an encyclopedic knowledge of both the crank ideas of the 20th century and the truly important ones.

Wilson calls himself a "guerilla ontologist;" he is nearly a (non-violent) nihilist. If his works can be said to advocate anything, what they advocate is extreme skepticism, particularly in philosophical metaphysics. And they rescue from oblivion nearly forgotten research and thinkers, and challenge readers to re-examine all basic beliefs.

I admire Wilson's extraordinary mind. It sometimes seems that he has read everything, and thought about the most fundamental epistemological problems of science and philosophy: for example, the well-known riddles inherent in the structure of quantum physics.

Everything Wilson touches, he illuminates with strange light.

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Books by Robert Anton Wilson

PLAYBOY's Book of Forbidden Words. Playboy Press, 1972.

Sex and Drugs: A Journey Beyond Limits. 1973.

The Sex Magicians. 1973.

The Book of the Breast. Playboy Press, 1973.

The Illuminatus! Trilogy (with Robert J. Shea). Vol. 1, The Eye in the Pyramid;  Vol. 2,    The Golden Apple;  Vol. 3, Leviathan. New York: Dell Publishing, 1975.

The first of Wilson's three trilogies. Terribly funny, well-written, well-characterized, very memorable.

Cosmic Trigger. Berkeley, California: And/Or Press, 1977.

Cosmic Trigger 2.

Cosmic Trigger 3.

Neuropolitics (with Timothy Leary and George Koopman). 1978.

The Illuminati Papers. 1980.

The Schrodinger's Cat Trilogy. Vol. 1, The Universe Next Door;  Vol. 2, The Trick    Top Hat;  Vol. 3, The Homing Pigeons. 1980-1981.

Ishtar Rising or, Why the Goddess Went to Hell and What to Expect Now That She's    Returning. Las Vegas: Falcon Press / Golden Dawn Publications, 1989.

This is a slightly updated revision of The Book of the Breast. It contains a new Introduction.

Masks of the Illuminati. 1981.

The Historical Illuminatus Chronicles. Vol. 1, The Earth Will Shake. New York:    Bluejay Books, Inc., 1982. Vol. 2, The Widow's Son.

Right Where You Are Sitting Now. 1983.

Prometheus Rising. Phoenix, Arizona: Falcon Press, 1983.

Coincidance: A Head Test. Tempe, Arizona: New Falcon Publications, 1988.

Quantum Psychology: How Brain Software Programs You & Your World. Tempe,    Arizona: New Falcon Publications, 1990.

Reality is What You Can Get Away With. New York: Dell Publishing, 1992.

An illustrated screenplay.

The Walls Cames Tumbling Down. Tempe, Arizona: New Falcon Publications, 1997.

Everything is Under Control: Conspiracies, Cults, and Cover-ups. New York:    HarperCollins Publishers, 1998.

Related Book

Malaclypse the Younger [Greg Hill]. Principia Discordia or, How I Found Goddess and What I Did to Her When I Found Her. San Francisco: Rip-Off Press, 1970.

Greg Hill and Kerry Thornley (aka Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst) invented the religion of Discordianism. This is the book that explains the religion. The fifth printing (the so-called "Fifth Edition") is published by Loompanics Unlimited, Port Townsend, Washington (1980?). It contains new material and an introduction by Wilson.

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Last modified: 11:54 AM 7/20/2002