Talk:Robert Anton Wilson
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From Robert Anton Wilson:
"Some believe him to be one of the last surviving futurist thinkers."
-- This strikes me as kind of a big claim. Anything to back it up?
Right. Who are the "some" who believe him to be a "last" futurist? We need some names, here.
...and it's a pretty ridiculous claim in light or Vernor Vinge, Robert Forward, Greg Bear... --LDC
Thing is, Wilson's 'futurism' is really happening---Vinge and Forward, Bear, none of their futurist ideas have the same significance as Wilson's, for one fundamental reason.
He addresses real ongoing battles, such as that between the proponents of Chaos and those of Order. Although many regard Illuminatus! as a spoof, it is actually only a half-spoof. Much of its content refers to real entities, such as the Illuminati and the Erisian Liberation Front.
You don't believe me?
Explain the Earth Liberation Front or the Great Seal of the United States of America, or the AOL symbol, etc.(Eye in the Pyramid).
Not to mention the Falun Gong movement vs. the Chinese government, or the natural recurrence of the number 23 (Chromosomes, wave frequency, etc.).
These entities exist memetically, and thereby sustain themselves in the ongoing battle to counterbalance eachother. At the present moment, humanity is experiencing an excess of order, which may or may not culminate in a One World government. Naturally, Chaos proponents are more vicious than ever.
Oh, did I mention that I'm Justified and Ancient myself?
Keep this in mind, Mu is the 12th letter of the Greek alphabet. 12*12=144. 144 is the number of Light in many forms of the Hebrew Cabala. Mu Mu therefore equals Light.
J.A.μ.μ.
{Then of course there's the GWB thing...}
What? That George W. Bush is distinguished from his father by a single letter in most cases, that being the letter W, which is the 23rd(!) letter of the English alphabet?
{Well, the GWB-666 thing, too} {And the 'isness' thing described in Quantum Psychology...Googlism is a collection of sentences containing 'is.'
Interestingly, I believe that at one point there was a science fiction novel of sorts written of the Rosicrucian Order... Though pretty documentedly the Order existed in real life long before this science fiction novel was published (it was a Renaissance tome, their equivalent to utopian science fiction if I remember)...
I'll have to research this again, as my memory on the matter is sketchy, but I'm sure that someone wrote a novel on the Rosicrucians (who was a Rosicrucian) and spoke of them in a very positive light, describing their enemies and such as well...
Well, this just sounds very resonant with RA Wilson's whole Illuminatus! thing... He's obviously a huge Libertarian, and considering that it's happened in the past, what do you think of the possibility that the J.A.M.M is real, and Wilson is a member?
It just seems as though there are far too many JAMM and *LF (generally KLF or ELF) groups for them ALL to have been formed just in lieu of his books. They can't be that goddam popular, can they?
One thing's for sure, the Illuminati, at least metaphorically, exist, and their symbolism is all over the place. Chances are, the JAMM exists in some form in reality as well.
We now know that the Rosicrucian Brotherhood really did exist. Thomas Jefferson was a member, actually... (It exists today as well, but perhaps not in its original form. I have a couple copies of the Rosicrucian Digest...)
My favourite RA Wilson quote:
“The Fundamentalist Christians have told me that I am a slave of Satan and should have the demons expelled with an exorcism. The Fundamentalist Materialists inform me that I am a liar, a charlatan, fraud and scoundrel. Aside from this minor difference, the letters are astoundingly similar. Both groups share in the same crusading zeal and the same total lack of humor, charity, and common human decency. These intolerable cults have served to confirm me in my agnosticism by presenting further evidence to support my contention that when dogmas enter the brain, all intellectual activity ceases.”
-Robert Anton Wilson, Cosmic Trigger
The infamous 'Eye in the Triangle' seems to have a deep connection with the Sirius star system (a trinary star system, as believed by the Dogons and later confirmed by science in 1995). The pentagram also bears connection to Sirius (it was a symbol for Sirius in Ancient Egypt, as well as in several other cultures).
The pentagram consists of five triangles, typically with either 3 points pointing up or 2 points pointing down. 2-3-5. I actually have a theory that much of the 23-5 archetype that arises all over the place has to do with fractal patterns. Carbon-based organisms tend to include pentagram-based formations (apples, starfish, human hands, flowers, etc.), and this has to do with the Golden Mean, which directly relates to the pentagram geometrically, and is the rate of exponential growth in most carbon-based organic systems, as well as several non-organic (in the sense of non-carbon-based) systems, such as the Stock Market.
Therefore 23 and 5 showing up all over the place directly relates to the Pentagram, which also directly relates to the Holy Chaos, which portays a pentagram in opposition to an apple. The inner pentagon of a pentagram can be seen in crystals, and the outer star formation in carbon-based organisms like the Apple.
23 and 5 perhaps have so much synchronicity surrounding them because of a sort of Pythagorean ratio that shows up in all systems based on Phi (1.6180339).
Obviously, the Pythagoreans were obsessed with the pentagram and Phi (tatooed the pentagram on their palms and did a secret vesica pisces handshake).
Pythagoras' name means literally 'I am the Serpent', and in his esoteric religion, he apparently spoke of Sirius as being in some way sacred.
Get this: the eye in the pyramid was thought to have been adopted by Pythagoras as a symbol whilst travelling through Egypt, learning the secret alchemies of Thoth.
Thoth was the Egyptian god of wisdom, and was sometimes metaphorically called 'The Serpent of Wisdom'. It is thought by some that Thoth and the Mayan god Kukulcan are actually the same entity...
The Eye in the Pyramid archetype actualy may have originated with the Triple-Goddess symbolism associated with Sirius. Sirius was referred to by some ancient sects as 'The Mother Star'... The Greek word for this Great Mother was either written as a single letter, Mu, or as two succeeding letters, MU MU. Mu Mu also denotes Light, which was said to emanate magnificently from SIRIUS (and it does, of course, in comparison to other stars besides the Sun).
Light was/is known as the Menstruum of the Red Dragon to alchemists and high-level Freemasons. This relates to the ISIS myths.
Believe it or not, the ancient Egyptians referred to ISIS as actually being Sirius at one point in their history, and related Orion to her husband, Osiris. She was said to be the 'Bringer of Light'...
Which is interesting, because the Eye of Horus, deeply associated with ISIS, was one version of the Eye in the Triangle archetype... And, to the Freemasons at the turn of the 19th century, the Eye in the Pyramid was called 'The Eye of Lucifer'. Lucifer means 'light bearer'... Light is the Menstruum of the Red Dragon. The Red Dragonn is ISIS. Red as a colour has also been associated with Sirius for thousands upon thousands of years because Sirius appears red when it is close to the horizon...
- Khranus
From Robert Anton Wilson: Ideas R.A.W. entertained many ideas that many would reject. A few are:
Economic abundance not through anarcho-primitivism but though technological means "The RICH Economy"[1] Men's Rights "Androphobia: The only respectable bigotry"[2]
1) I don't think it is informative to say that many have rejected a given idea. It would be more informative if we know that this "many" refers to a particular group, groups or the mainstream. 2) I don't think saying that these ideas have been rejected by mainstream thinkers is correct. In fact, the second one, Men's Rights has certainly not been rejected by most people. Most people, in my own estimation, are at least in favor of equal rights for men (that is, equal to women's rights). And if you read the article, RAW was arguing that men should have equal rights and respect. To the extent that this position has been rejected it is on the basis of whether the bigotry exists not whether it should. The first article is a bit more dubious in that it, as presented, would likely be rejected by the mainstream as it is utopian. I don't think it would be rejected, however, because of a mainstream preference for anarcho-primitivism as the heading seems to suggest.
I think it would be appropriate to remove this section and replace it with a sentence or two relating RAW's tendency toward utopian and idealistic libertarian political thought. - Archibaldtort
Did RAW in fact call himself the first to introduce Model Agnosticism to the social sciences? Where? Also, the article calls him a better advocate of Leary's model than Leary. That certainly fits my experience, but it doesn't seem NPOV. I seem to recall that Leary received positive scientific attention at one point. Do we have a good source for this perception? Dan 06:25, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Maybe RAQ's major influences should be mentioned. My impression is that he's more of a synthesizer than an originator. Leary is already mentioned. But why not mention Alfred Korzybski, Buckminster Fuller, Paul Watslavick, and so on?
I'm not Slavic, either.
More synchronicity?
http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=1687552
(audio)
Removed sentence concerning the amazing randi for 3 reasons. 1st and shakiest is that it tends to promote a non neutral pov. 2nd is relevence i.e. that sentence may be ok for the wiki entry on randi but it doesn't have much if anything to do with RAW. 3rd it is simply not true. A cursory reading of the cosmic triggers, the new inquisition,etc will clearly demonstrate that what he objects to is the fundamentalist position that states no other world veiws ever have any relevance. In other words he is objecting to fundamentilism and the refusal by Randi et. al. in applying scientific methadologies when investigating "weirdness". The criticism is for technique not reallity tunnel. Murph 07:22, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I think it's wrong to call RAW a libertarian in the US sense of the word. Here's an excerpt from an interview (http://www.deepleafproductions.com/utopialibrary/text/raw-inter-utopia.html):
"I tend to shy away from the word anarchist, because most people think it means bomb throwing. And a lot of people who consider themselves anarchists seem to think that too. But I can’t use libertarian, because the people who got their grip on that word are even less rational by my standards. I guess "decentralist" is the word I’d have to pick out for myself."
Maybe someone more familiar with him could take a look at this.
Clarification.
Has anyone thought of actually RAW personally, and just asking him to clarify? An interview process is not that difficult, and most individuals in RAW's position relish any and all opportunities to talk about themselves and their ideas. Might as well do it while he's still alive, right? KevinHFeeley 18:22, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
- should be easy for anyone with time enough;
Robert Anton Wilson c/o Permanent Press PO Box 700305 San Jose, CA 95170