Robert Anton Wilson (born Robert Edward Wilson; January 18, 1932 – January 11, 2007) was an American author, futurist, and self-described agnostic mystic.
compared to the Depression" during this period "that I imagined we were lace-curtain Irish at last." Following his graduation in 1950, Wilson was employed in a succession of jobs (including ambulance driver, engineering aide, salesman and medical orderly) and absorbed various philosophers and cultural practices (including bebop, psychoanalysis, Bertrand Russell, Carl Jung, Wilhelm Reich, Leon Trotsky and Ayn Rand, whom he later repudiated) while writing in his spare time.
Wilson began to work as a freelance journalist and advertising copywriter in the late 1950s.
He studied electrical engineering and mathematics at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute from 1952 to 1957 and English education at New York University from 1957 to 1958 but failed to take a degree from either institution. After having smoked marijuana for nearly a decade, Wilson first experimented with mescaline in Yellow Springs, Ohio, on December 28, 1961.
He studied electrical engineering and mathematics at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute from 1952 to 1957 and English education at New York University from 1957 to 1958 but failed to take a degree from either institution. After having smoked marijuana for nearly a decade, Wilson first experimented with mescaline in Yellow Springs, Ohio, on December 28, 1961.
He studied electrical engineering and mathematics at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute from 1952 to 1957 and English education at New York University from 1957 to 1958 but failed to take a degree from either institution. After having smoked marijuana for nearly a decade, Wilson first experimented with mescaline in Yellow Springs, Ohio, on December 28, 1961.
Wilson reworked his dissertation, and it found publication in 1983 as Prometheus Rising. Wilson married freelance writer and poet Arlen Riley in 1958.
Advertised as "a fairy tale for paranoids," the three books—The Eye in the Pyramid, The Golden Apple, and Leviathan, soon offered as a single volume—philosophically and humorously examined, among many other themes, occult and magical symbolism and history, the counterculture of the 1960s, secret societies, data concerning author H.
He studied electrical engineering and mathematics at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute from 1952 to 1957 and English education at New York University from 1957 to 1958 but failed to take a degree from either institution. After having smoked marijuana for nearly a decade, Wilson first experimented with mescaline in Yellow Springs, Ohio, on December 28, 1961.
He later found that "Robert Anton Wilson" had become an established identity. He assumed co-editorship of the School for Living's Brookville, Ohio-based Balanced Living magazine in 1962 and briefly returned to New York as associate editor of Ralph Ginzburg's quarterly, fact:, before leaving for Playboy, where he served as an associate editor from 1965 to 1971.
He later found that "Robert Anton Wilson" had become an established identity. He assumed co-editorship of the School for Living's Brookville, Ohio-based Balanced Living magazine in 1962 and briefly returned to New York as associate editor of Ralph Ginzburg's quarterly, fact:, before leaving for Playboy, where he served as an associate editor from 1965 to 1971.
Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, and lectured at the Free University of New York on 'Anarchist and Synergetic Politics' in 1965. He received a B.A., M.A.
He later found that "Robert Anton Wilson" had become an established identity. He assumed co-editorship of the School for Living's Brookville, Ohio-based Balanced Living magazine in 1962 and briefly returned to New York as associate editor of Ralph Ginzburg's quarterly, fact:, before leaving for Playboy, where he served as an associate editor from 1965 to 1971.
Luna was beaten to death in an apparent robbery in the store where she worked in 1976 at the age of 15, and became the first person to have her brain preserved by the Bay Area Cryonics Society.
Wilson also wrote and published as books two screenplays, not yet produced: Reality Is What You Can Get Away With: an Illustrated Screenplay (1992) and The Walls Came Tumbling Down (1997). Wilson's book The Final Secret of the Illuminati has been adapted as a theatrical stage play by Daisy Eris Campbell, daughter of Ken Campbell the British theatre maverick who staged Illuminatus! at the Royal National Theatre in 1977.
That horrible example of State Capitalism has nothing to do with what I, and other libertarian socialists, would offer as an alternative to the present system." By the 1980s he was less enthusiastic about the socialist label, writing in Prometheus Rising that he "does not like" the spread of socialism.
Wilson, a well-known author in occult and Neo-Pagan circles, used Aleister Crowley as a main character in his 1981 novel Masks of the Illuminati, also included some elements of H.
Wilson reworked his dissertation, and it found publication in 1983 as Prometheus Rising. Wilson married freelance writer and poet Arlen Riley in 1958.
Wilson actually spoke at the 1985 German Computer Hackers Convention, warning of a future in which governments would have total digital control over the citizen.
Most of his later fiction contains cross-over characters from "The Sex Magicians" (Wilson's first novel, written before the release of Illuminatus!, which includes many of his same characters) and The Illuminatus! Trilogy. Illuminatus! won the Prometheus Hall of Fame award for Best Classic Fiction, voted by the Libertarian Futurist Society for science fiction in 1986, has many international editions, and found adaptation for the stage when Ken Campbell produced it as a ten-hour drama.
With Leary, he helped promote the futurist ideas of space migration, intelligence increase, and life extension, which they combined to form the word symbol SMI²LE. Wilson's 1986 book, The New Inquisition, argues that whatever reality consists of it actually would seem much weirder than we commonly imagine.
The book includes homages, parodies and pastiches from both the lives and works of Crowley and Joyce. ==Plays and screenplays== Wilson's play, Wilhelm Reich in Hell, was published as a book in 1987 and first performed at the Edmund Burke Theatre in Dublin, in San Francisco, and in Los Angeles.
He also admired James Joyce, and wrote extensive commentaries on the author and on two of Joyce's novels, Finnegans Wake and Ulysses, in his 1988 book A Head Test. Although Wilson often lampooned and criticized some New Age beliefs, bookstores specializing in New Age material often sell his books.
In a 1988 interview, when asked about his newly published book The New Inquisition: Irrational Rationalism and the Citadel of Science, Wilson commented: I coined the term irrational rationalism because those people claim to be rationalists, but they're governed by such a heavy body of taboos.
Gurdjieff, Yoga, and many other esoteric or counterculture philosophies, personalities, and occurrences. Wilson advocated Timothy Leary's 8-Circuit Model of Consciousness and neurosomatic/linguistic engineering, which he wrote about in many books including Prometheus Rising (1983, revised 1997) and Quantum Psychology (1990), which contain practical techniques intended to help the reader break free of one's reality tunnels.
Arlen Riley Wilson died on May 22, 1999, following a series of strokes. ==The Illuminatus! Trilogy== Among Wilson's 35 books, and many other works, perhaps his best-known volumes remain the cult classic series The Illuminatus! Trilogy (1975), co-authored with Shea.
Polio's effects remained with Wilson throughout his life, usually manifesting as minor muscle spasms causing him to use a cane occasionally until 2000, when he experienced a major bout with post-polio syndrome that would continue until his death. He attended Catholic grammar schools before securing admission to the selective Brooklyn Technical High School.
He described this approach as "Maybe Logic." Wilson wrote about this and other topics in articles for the cyberpunk magazine Mondo 2000. ==Economic thought== Wilson favored a form of basic income guarantee; synthesizing several ideas under the acronym RICH.
He participated in a protest organized by the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana in Santa Cruz in 2002. ==Death== On June 22, 2006, Huffington Post blogger Paul Krassner reported that Wilson was under [care] at home with friends and family.
... ==Probability reliance== In a 2003 interview with High Times magazine, Wilson described himself as "model-agnostic" which he said consists of never regarding any model or map of the universe with total 100% belief or total 100% denial.
He participated in a protest organized by the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana in Santa Cruz in 2002. ==Death== On June 22, 2006, Huffington Post blogger Paul Krassner reported that Wilson was under [care] at home with friends and family.
Obviously touched by the great outpouring of support, on October 5, 2006, Wilson left the following comment on his personal website, expressing his gratitude: On January 6, 2007, Wilson wrote on his blog that according to several medical authorities, he would likely only have between two days and two months left to live.
Robert Anton Wilson (born Robert Edward Wilson; January 18, 1932 – January 11, 2007) was an American author, futurist, and self-described agnostic mystic.
Obviously touched by the great outpouring of support, on October 5, 2006, Wilson left the following comment on his personal website, expressing his gratitude: On January 6, 2007, Wilson wrote on his blog that according to several medical authorities, he would likely only have between two days and two months left to live.
The play opened on November 23, 2014 in Liverpool before transferring to London and Brighton.
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