Interview with Robert Anton Wilson
From an old inverview with RobertAntonWilson, the author of the "Illuminatus" trilogy ...
Well, the Illuminati was a secret society in Bavaria in the 18th Century. A certain number of paranoid individuals believe the Illuminati still exists and has either taken over the world, or taken over most of the world, or something like that. I discovered the anti-Illuminati literature in the late 60's when there were all sorts of weird conspiracy theories going around. And then I discovered there were two ambiguities connected with the Illuminati. First, there are those who say the Illuminati don't exist, versus those who say the Illuminati still exist, and then among those who say the Illuminati do exist, there are two schools of thought: those who claim they're the arch-villains of all history, and those who claim they're the heroes who are trying to liberate the human race from superstition and ignorance. And so, I decided a group that ambiguous, where we don't know whether they exist or not, and we don't know whether they're the good guys or the bad guys, they're the perfect symbol, to me, for all the confusions of the age we're living through, and all of the rampant paranoia of our time. Conspiracy theories have never been more popular, not even in Nazi Germany.
- .. The eye on top of the pyramid, let's start with, the eye on top of the pyramid represents the transcendental ego as distinguished from the normal ego. It represents your awareness of your role as an evolutionary agent with all past generations holding you up to the position you're in now. The pyramid represents all past generations and the open eye represents your realization of your oneness with all past generations, especially all past generations of magicians. Reality, as we call it, is the temporary resultant of continuous conflict between rival gangs of magicians and shamans. The eye in the triangle by itself represents the Eye of Horus. Horus is the lord of two horizons in Egyptian mythology; that means he's the lord of the rising and the setting son, birth and death, and all other opposites. War and meditation are two of his chief characteristics.
- .. I think it's a great example of the evolutionary function of stupidity. When the government made psychedelic research illegal in the 60's, scientific, open above-board research I mean, that did not stop research, the research just went underground, together with a great deal of partying and hell-raising and whatnot with those drugs. I thought it was the stupidest thing the government ever did, but in retrospect I think stupidity has an evolutionary function, because when they stopped that research, all the leading researchers in the field went into other areas, and so we've discovered dozens of other ways of rapid brain change. Lilly worked on his isolation tank, others went into biofeedback. Stan Grof, who came to this country seeking scientific freedom because he felt he didn't have enough scientific freedom in Czechoslovakia, he came to this country seeking scientific freedom and they told him he couldn't do any more LSD research, so he went to work on breathing techniques and the effect of sound on the brain, and has developed some very interesting post-Reichian, post-yogic techniques of brain change. So, by and large, the stupider the establishment is, the smarter the rebels become. Establishment stupidity is the greatest spur to creativity in evolutionary history. That's why I think Reagan has been a godsend to this country. He's brought more stupidity to Washington than anybody in my lifetime, and there's been a tremendous upsurge of creativity while he's been in there.
- .. I could talk all day about that! Joyce was more interested in synchronicity more than any other writer before me, and he influenced me a great deal. My fascination with synchronicity grows more out of Joyce than out of Jung. Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake are all about synchronicity, and they came out long before Jung ever wrote anything on the subject. Joyce fascinates me because of many other things. In Ulysses, he was the first one to write a relativistic novel, the first Einsteinian novel. Every other novel before Ulysses had one point of view, which was supposed to be the objective point of view, and in Ulysses, Joyce refuses to give you an objective point of view. He gives you about 54 different points of view, and leaves it up to you to decide which of the various narrative voices you're going to believe. And I find that a very appropriate style for the 20th Century, it's entirely compatible with relativity and quantum mechanics . . . the amount of deception and propaganda in the 20th Century world, where you can't take anything at face value. It's compatible with modern philosophy, everything from Nietzsche and Wittgenstein on, we've learned more and more about how the mind creates its own reality-tunnel; it's entirely compatible with modern psychology and neurology and cultural anthropology.
- .. Yes, I got the idea from William Erwin Thompson, the anthropologist. He pronounces New Age as "Newage" so it rhymes with sewage. And I thought, boy there sure is enough of that around, isn't there, New Age sewage. Just because there's a slight chance people may not have read my other books, and may read The New Inquisition, and think I'm only against one type of fundamentalism, I decided to make the sequel to it, an attack on the imbeciles on the other side. And so, I'm going to tear into Ramtha and all these other sages who come back . . . the main thing Ramtha proves is you can be dead 40,000 years and still be a bore. That may be interesting news, but that's . . . Everything I've heard from Ramtha sounds like an editorial from the Reader's Digest in 1958 or something.
- ..
I regard that as a game rule of the Catholic game. If you want to play the Catholic game, you've got to accept that rule. Like if you want to play baseball, you've got to accept the rule of the umpire, who is considered infallible. I don't believe umpires or popes are de facto infallible, it's just a game rule. I choose not to play the Catholic game. I'd find myself terribly constricted to live in a world where some right-wing Polish schlimazel is supposed to be infallible. I'd sooner accept Randi as infallible than the Pope.
Source: http://www.nii.net/~obie/1988_interview.htm
Comments
I regard that as a game rule of the Catholic game. If you want to play the Catholic game, you've got to accept that rule. Like if you want to play baseball, you've got to accept the rule of the umpire, who is considered infallible. I don't believe umpires or popes are de facto infallible, it's just a game rule.
This is one of the best explanations I've ever heard of most organized religions. I grew up in a non-demominational Christian background, I went to the kinds of churches with names like "XYZ Bible Chapel", the focus was always on the Bible rather than rituals, the building or the pastor. So I've always had a skeptism of religions that take the "vessel of God" approach, whether it's a Catholic pope or a Mormon temple. But I also realize that the Bible is another rule of the game (or rather an entire rulebook), and religion comes down to having faith in something whether that's God, the Bible, Joseph Smith, the Pope, mother earth or yourself. -- GeneMerrill
- I rather liked that one as well. I need to find a way to make comments more public on the main page because once people make them they pretty much disappear. Ideas? -- Adam.
Something like that would be good, it's just a matter of how to do it. Just a simple line counter might be useful. Really I should figure out a way to have the RSS feed update on changes and comments or something. I dunno ... sometimes I love wiki and sometimes it drives me crazy. Maybe I'll start using PyBlosxom ... or Kwiki or something. -- Adam.
Im using blosxom on wsmf.org, the word schweeet was made just for it. Im using pollxn for comments. As to the RAW interview, dead on. RAW is one of the folks who hits the nails home on a plethora of topics. Talk about synchronicity, yesterday i finaly found a copy of semiotext(usa) for sale on the net. Its on its way to my waiting hands. The issue is packed with lots of RAW goodness, in fact its packed with so much goodness from so many people that even nearly 20 years down the road I still go back to that source for many ideas and images. It will be great to have it on hand once again. -- TomWsmf