Robert Anton Wilson, "Occupation: Mind Fucker" - The great and legendary novelist and philosopher Robert Anton Wilson has finally slipped this mortal coil, as was announced on his official and new blogger site. Pretty much his last official professional act was to start a blog from his deathbed in December 2006. A survivor of childhood polio, he passed after a long illness on Thursday, January 11, 2007 - a week short of a 75th birthday.
His best-known work was the Illuminatus! trilogy from the 1970s, a perhaps only partly fictionalized synthesis of every kind of conspiracy theory Wilson and co-author Sheas could mash together. Some of it seemed clearly ridiculous and impossible, some of it probably true. It was high comedy and a grand apocryphal history.
My favorite books of Wilson's though were the historical Illuminatus novels he wrote later, prequels telling the stories of the ancestors of the modern Illuminati characters during the time of the French and American revolutions. Sigismundo Celine, the star child, had all kinds of lovely adventures with Freemasons, magicians, the Marquis de Sade, priests and dungeons and what not.
He managed to turn all kinds of paranoia and conspiracy theories into great fun, kind of a Dr. Strangelove strategy of transubstantiating darkness into light. He was very conscious of wanting to carefully put the most optimistic interpretation of events that he could reasonably justify. You'd likely come away from a RAW book suspecting that there really is significant truth to a lot of even the cheesier conspiracy theories.
But Wilson was especially important as a "guerilla ontologist," as he sometimes described himself, or as he listed himself last month in his official Blogger profile, "Occupation: Mind Fucker." He was really good at illuminating the ways in which our primitive mammalian biology tends to limit and actively subvert our best higher, more rational intentions. Thus, he's been very useful to me in sorting the wheat from the chaff in the pronouncements of alpha males both physical and spiritual - politicians and priests alike. His guerilla ontology of being baroquely skeptical of even -- especially -- his own epistemological ability is for one thing the most precise counterargument to the surety of Ayn Rand's "objectivism." It's also a pretty sure prescription for basic humility.
Naturally, Wilson was best pals with his colleague Timothy Leary. In fact, the best introduction to Robert Anton Wilson for new readers would probably be Prometheus Rising, a non-fiction examination of human developmental psychology based on Tim Leary's 8-Circuit model of human consciousness. Wilson uses that as a framework for creatively synthesizing such psychological ideas as Maslow's hierarchy and the Milgram experiments with classic religious beliefs and practices, Patty Hearst, UFOs, the Miracle of Fatima and all kinds of groovy stuff. You could consider this particular book maybe the best, most nearly straightforward codification of the intellectual framework upon which his fictional works are strung.
Article comments
1 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
Nice write-up, Al--I'll never look at the stars in quite the same way.
2 - Joe Erjavec
That was a nice review of his writing and his life.
3 - Natalie Bennett
This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net, which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States. Nice work!
4 - Paul Levinson
I never had the pleasure of meeting him, but I was proud - and still am - that he cited my Digital McLuhan as a book worth reading.
5 - Al Barger
Paul Levinson- That is TOTALLY COOL! If RAW recommended your book, that's one of the coolest literary endorsements you could ever get.
Also, thank y'all for your kind words.
And remember: If you don't SEE the fnords, they can't eat you.
6 - Richard Marcus
Al
I had the extreme pleasure of being entirely confused and befuddled by the Illuminatus Triology every time I picked it up. Thank you for this timely reminder of one of the truely wonderful books out there. One as shame that the mind behind it has moved on.
"Will always be one of the voices..." offers the world of explanation for so much.
Great review old buddy, keep the faith, however you need to.
cheers
Richard Marcus
(Beady Eyed Canadian with my head full of lies and proud of it)
7 - M Stokes
A voice in my head for years as well, Wilson will live long in the heads of many fans.
8 - Al Barger
Thank you for your kind words, Brother Marcus. I would return the display of affection, but I'm afraid that people will say we're in love.
Here's a favorite quote though, and probably his best bit of practical RAW wisdom.
9 - SHARK
RAW = One of the great minds of the late 20th century.
Most of America (including the media) has no idea what a wonderful treasure has been lost.
I first read RAW some 30 years ago -- and he's always been one of the most powerful [literary] influences on my life. I probably go back and reread RAW once every few months, sometimes weeks; there's always an epiphany hidden somewhere in there that I had forgotten.
What a rare mind he had.
No wife, no horse, no mustache,
Shark
10 - SHARK
My special favorites:
The Universe Next Door (trilogy)
Masks of the Illuminatus
Cosmic Trigger (series)
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PS: Happy birthday, Robert!