What's next for Hilaritas?

With the release of the three "Historical Illuminatus Chronicles" books by Hilaritas Press, the publishing imprint of the Robert Anton Wilson Trust, I thought it might be interesting to take a quick look at how they've done so far, and what's up next.

Here is the list of planned publications on the publisher's home page:

1 ~ Cosmic Trigger I: The Final Secret of the Illuminati (1977)
2 ~ Prometheus Rising (1983)
3 ~ Quantum Psychology (1990)
4 ~ Email to the Universe (2005)
5 ~ Coincidance: A Head Test (1988)
6 ~ The Earth Will Shake (1982)
7 ~ The Widow’s Son (1985
8 ~ Nature’s God (1988)
9 ~ Cosmic Trigger II: Down to Earth (1992)
10 ~ Cosmic Trigger III: My Life After Death (1995)
11 ~ Sex, Drugs and Magick: A Journey Beyond Limits (1988)
12 ~ The New Inquisition (1986)
13 ~ Ishtar Rising (1989)
14 ~ Reality Is What You Can Get Away With (1992)
15 ~ Wilhelm Reich in Hell (1987)
16 ~ The Walls Came Tumbling Down (1997)
17 ~ TSOG: The Thing That Ate the Constitution (2002)
18 ~ Natural Law, or Don’t Put a Rubber on Your Willy (1987)
19 ~ Chaos and Beyond (1994

I've boldfaced the books that have come out so far, and as you can see, Rasa is making good progress. I'm excited to see that Cosmic Trigger II:  Down to Earth is coming up next, as it's a particular favorite of mine. As you can see, definitive editions of some quite interesting books will be out soon.

Find the others in Pittsburgh the last weekend of July

Time to find the others? Here's an update on Confluence, the science fiction convention in Pittsburgh at the end of July, where I can guarantee you'll meet at least three hardcore RAW fans: Bobby Campbell, Greg Arnott and myself. Confluence (July 27-29) [link] is a well-run science fiction convention that has been around for years; the main writer guest of honor, Catherynne Valente, is considered a major figure. I just finished the audiobook of her interesting and unusual novel, Radiance.

I asked the convention if we could have a panel discussion devoted to Robert Anton Wilson, and a few hours in one of the rooms for some RAW programming. My panel request ultimately was rejected. The only official time the convention offered was a slot at 3 p.m. Sunday.

So here are how things are shaking out at this point; much of the RAW programming will be unconnected to the convention, which means that anyone who makes their way to Pittsburgh can take part, without having to buy a convention membership:

Bobby Campbell will have an art show at the convention of his interior illustrations for the new Hilaritas Press editions of the Historical Illuminatus books. It's the only place this year to see the art in North America (please see the flyer below). You will have to have a convention membership to see it and to attend his Sunday talk. 

At 4 p.m. Friday, I will interview Prop Anon via Skype about his new biography of Robert Anton Wilson. I'll probably do this from my hotel room, figuring out some way to let people know the room number via Twitter direct message or text message once I find out. Friday night, Greg and I will likely get together for dinner and drinks at some convivial location, and any other RAW fans in town are invited to join us.

I have reserved space from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Anchor and Anvil Coffee Bar in Coraopolis (the same town in Pennsylvania where the convention is being held); I plan to give a presentation on Robert Shea, and Bobby Campbell has a couple of presentations he can offer, one on his adventures illustrating "Historical Illuminatus" and one on the Kenneth Noid-Dominos Pizza incident.

Saturday night there will be another gathering, probably in a hotel room, and Greg will give a couple of talks, one on RAW as a magician, and one on how RAW's views on marijuana prophesied the wave of legalization sweeping the country. Sunday will feature Bobby's talk.

There should be other opportunities to get together for coffee, meals, etc. I do plan to attend some convention programming, as time permits. 

I had a Skype conference call with Bobby and Greg and they both said lots of interesting things. More than an hour flew by before I had to leave to do my chores (my cat was biting me to remind me it's time for his snack). They've both promised to save some of their best thoughts for Pittsburgh, so if you don't show up, you're fucked.

Flyer for Bobby's art show, exclusive (in this hemisphere) to Confluence. 

Supergee on 'The Earth Will Shake'

[Continuing the gala celebration over the publication of the Hilaritas Press editions of The Historical Illuminatus books, here's Arthur Hlavaty's review of The Earth Will Shake from "New Libertarian" Volume 4, Number 13 from April 1985. Thank you to Martin Wagner for sharing it with me. and to Mr. Hlavaty for giving me the go-ahead to share this with you. -- The Mgt.]

New Illuminatus! book!

The Earth Will Shake by Robert Anton Wilson 

Reviewed by Arthur D. Hlavaty

It has been said that the writings of Robert Anton Wilson encourage paranoia. That's at best an oversimplification, but those who believe it are not entirely mistaken, for two reasons:

1 Wilson's writings encourage new ways of looking at the world, seeing patterns which are not obvious to others, and while this sort of thinking can lead to scientific breakthroughs and brilliant new literary approaches, it is also found in paranoids. 

2 The publication history of Wilson's writings, from the five-year delay of Illuminatus! to the present, is enough to raise the possibility of Sinister Forces trying to keep the words from the eyes of the public. (On the other hand, those writings also remind us that we should be wary of blaming on conspiracy that which can more simply and convincingly be attributed to incompetence.)

The work at hand continues that lamentable tradition. The Earth Will Shake was published in hardcover, late in 1982, by J.P. Tarcher. At least, they said they published it. I suspect they released it on a need-to-know basis. Living in a university town, with several good bookstores besides the college bookstore, I never saw a copy for sale and had to go up to New York to purchase it. People all over the country reported similar difficulties. But now, a few months after the announced publication date (of course), there is a paperback edition available. I've seen it.

Is it worth the wait? You bet. Like all of Wilson's prior fiction, alone and in collaboration, it offers the interest of complex ideas, entertainingly worked out. More than that, it represents a major improvement in literary merit. It opens with a stunning scene of a murder at High Mass, in which the images of Transubstantiation and Mystical Presence mix with the physical fact of sudden and violent death. The characters, though similar to those in earlier Wilson books, are more fully developed and rounded than ever before. The scene -- 18th-century Italy, with its complex mazes of theological and Enlightenment speculation, revolutionary movements and conspiracies -- is richly delineated.

My one caveat would be that the book is, as indicated on the cover, the first of a series, and thus is somewhat incomplete and openended. Other than that, I recommend the book unreservedly. -- ADH

 

Bobby Campbell on the Historical Illuminatus books

The above is one of Bobby Campbell's arresting new illustrations from the new edition of The Widow's Son, one of the three "Historical Illuminatus" books that have just been published by Hilaritas Press, the publishing imprint of the Robert Anton Wilson Trust.

Bobby has now written a new article on how to came to do the new illustrations, and there is also new information in the piece that I've never seen anywhere else about Robert Anton Wilson's literary influences as he wrote he first novel in the trilogy.

Bobby notes that  the same week he was listening to an audiobook version of James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, he noticed a very similar scene from Wilson in The Earth Will Shake about "Sigismundo Celine being indoctrinated into the Catholic version of hell."

When Bobby raised the matter in a Maybe Logic Academy online course being taught by Wilson, Wilson wrote “No writer ever knows consciously all the influences on his work
but I did know the influence of Portrait of the Artist on Earth Will Shake & two others you didn’t mention: Huckleberry Finn by Twain and Intruder in the Dust by Faulkner. Replace religious bigotry with racism and you’ll see the Mississippi/Napoli parallel."

Wilson also wrote, "Huck Finn decides that even if hell exists, he’d rather go there than send Jim back to slavery, the most moving scene in American literature to me; I can’t even write this brief summary of it without tears coming. Siggy makes a similar choice I’m not as good a writer as Twain.”

Bobby's illustrations from the book will be displayed in the art show at Confluence, the SF convention being held in Pittsburgh July 27-29. Bobby will be at the convention, and so will Greg Arnott and myself. More on that soon.

HIstorical Illuminatus books released!

The RAW Trust and Hilaritas Press have announced the release of all three of Robert Anton Wilson's "Historical Illuminatus!" books, in print and as ebooks: The Earth Will Shake, The Widow's Son and Nature's God. 

All three feature beautiful new covers by Scott McPherson and wonderful new illustrations by Bobby Campbell (about which more tomorrow). And the marketing features this quote:

"Against the epic backdrop of the French and American revolutions, the inimitable RAW lays bare the secret history of the Enlightenment, while almost casually re-inventing the historical novel in the process. The result is a heady, psychedelic brew of satire, intrigue, magic, high adventure and life-changing philosophy, seasoned with the wry, compassionate humanism which is Wilson's trademark. Astonishing and unforgettable."

– Grant Morrison, New York Times best-selling author, Comics Legend,
Chaos Magician, creator of The Invisibles and other great graphic novels

Full announcement here.  I've linked the purchasing pages of the books to their titles above.

Monday links

Catch 23 apparently went well. 

"Parenting Win! This Illuminati Member Sends His Kids To School With Adorable Little Messages Hidden On Their Lunch Money"

Opinion piece on basic income from Annie Lowrey, author of a new book on the subject. 

New play featuring Kate Alderton, directed by Oliver Senton.

Chad Nelson is a cat spokesman now. 

Dolphins and John Lilly

John Lilly

Days of the Dolphin: Cetaceans in Cold War Science and Science Fiction (Part One) by Michael Grasso does not get around to giving examples of dolphins in science fiction. We have to wait for the sequel, which Grasso promises to offer soon. But his summary of the research of John Lilly leaves little doubt in my mind that Lilly's writings helped inspire the character of Howard the dolphin in Illuminatus! Lilly and RAW were mutual admirers, so I was interested in Grasso's piece. 

Thanks to Jesse Walker for calling my attention to the piece. 

Robert Anton Wilson poem

Via Martin Wagner on Twitter. Martin says this was first published in 1997.

RAW's guided meditation and piece on Proudhon

Martin Wagner's Robert Anton Wilson Archives site has uncovered a guided meditation that RAW wrote. In the piece, published in The Witches‘ Almanac: Aries 1976 to Pisces 1977, Wilson suggests recording the piece and then playing it back while sitting "relaxed but alert." I'll record it and give it a try.

Martin also has uncovered an earlier piece, "Proudhon’s Economics: Socialism without Tyranny." Proudhon is mentioned in the appendix of Illuminatus! The firat paragraph:

Benjamin Tucker considered The General Idea of the Revolution in the 19th Century Proudhon’s best book—“the most wonderful of all the wonderful books of Proudhon”—and he may well have been right in that judgment. Like many of the greatest works of the last century this “most wonderful book” comes to us from a prison cell: a fact which is probably far from insignificant. It is not without cause that the letters of Bartolomeo Vanzetti, the Pisan Cantos of Ezra Pound, “The Ballad of Reading Gaol,” Nietzsche’s Antichrist, the best poems of Antonin Artaud, Van Gogh’s two or three greatest canvases, Koestler’s Darkness at Noon, and several other of the most significant cultural products of this age, were produced by men who were at the time unwilling “guests of the State.” Nor is it idle to note that some time has been served (unproductively, alas!) by Ford Madox Ford, Nijinsky, Seymour Krim, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Jim Peck, and almost everybody else worth a damn as a serious thinker or artist. It is getting to the point where, as Eustace Mullins noted in his biography of Ezra Pound, lack of a police or psychiatric record is looked on, by avante garde, as a sign that a man has sold out.

According to Martin, this was published in" Way Out" in September 1962. It must have been about the time Wilson was arrested and briefly jailed in a civil rights protest in Antioch, an incident he describes is Cosmic Trigger II.

Sandusky, Ohio, a Freemason city

Above is the original plat for the city of Sandusky, Ohio, which is celebrating its 200th anniversary this year. A Freemason named Hector Kilbourne laid out the city streets to reproduce the mason's compass and square design. Masons in Sandusky, where I work for the local newspaper, say Sandusky is the only city in the U.S. with a masonic street design. (More information from Mr. Kilbourne's lodge, which still exists.)

I had to work on Independence Day, covering events in Sandusky. That included the masons from Sandusky's Science Lodge 50 holding a ceremony to dedicate two cornerstones that will mark the 200th anniversary of the city, and their lodge. Ohio Grand Master mason, Rick Schau, a 33rd degree mason from Springfield, is the guy in the top hat.  I snapped a picture.

I talked with the masons after the ceremony, and along with my other questions, I pointed out that Sandusky had early German settlers. I asked if there's any indication that members of the Bavarian Illuminati had settled here. They said they didn't know anything about that.

More basic income news

An academic I've long admired, Michael Munger, has a new book out that discussed the gig economy and makes a case for the basic income. The book is Tomorrow 3.0:
Transaction Costs and the Sharing Economy. Here is the description from Cambridge University Press:

With the growing popularity of apps such as Uber and Airbnb, there has been a keen interest in the rise of the sharing economy. Michael C. Munger brings these new trends in the economy down to earth by focusing on their relation to the fundamental economic concept of transaction costs. In doing so Munger brings a fresh perspective on the 'sharing economy' in clear and engaging writing that is accessible to both general and specialist readers. He shows how, for the first time, entrepreneurs can sell reductions in transaction costs, rather than reductions in the costs of the products themselves. He predicts that smartphones will be used to commodify excess capacity, and reaches the controversial conclusion that a basic income will be required as a consequence of this new 'transaction costs revolution'.

Here is a review.  He also discusses basic income in this podcast, which I'll listen to when I finish my current audiobook.

Also, a New Yorker article on basic income, which references several recent books, including the Annie Lowrey book I mentioned earlier. 

Article on 'Prometheus Rising'

"More than just a generic self-help or pop-psychology text, Prometheus Rising is invaluable reading for any student of self-advancement, and alchemical theurgy, although everyone will enjoy and benefit from reading this work."

So says Ansir, in a new piece at the Dark Fragment blog. 

One quibble: Why not post the cover for the authorized Hilaritas Press edition?

Book notes

. 

I have just finished reading Robert Shea's The Saracen: Land of the Infidel. It is a morally complex and very vivid historical novel, set in 13th century Italy. It ends with an exciting cliffhanger. In this post, I explained how to get it and Shea's other novels as free ebook downloads.

I will soon read the sequel, The Saracen: Holy War, but first I am finally reading John Higgs' Watling Street. It discusses the history of Britain, focusing upon a very old road that runs from Dover to north Wales.

I am not far into it, but this paragraph feels like a key:

We have a choice of histories in these islands. Those that are focused on royal houses or social movements are inherently political. Accounts that begin with military victories, such as the Roman or Norman Conquest, follow a victor's script. Watling Street is more neutral, because a road does not care what those who travel along it are planning. As a result, the history of this particular road tells a story quite unlike the histories we are used to. 

There seems to be a quiet shoutout early on to Robert Anton Wilson fans. Higgs notes in the Introduction that as he walks along a road in Milton Keynes on the day of the summer solstice, 23,000 people are gathered in Stonehenge. He notes that Milton Keynes has a population of 230,000. And on the first page of the first chapter, he mentions that is in a tunnel in Dover, 23 meters below the surface.