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Robert Anton Wilson (born Robert Edward Wilson, January 18, 1932 – January 11, 2007) was an American author and polymath who became at various times a novelist, philosopher, psychologist, essayist, editor, playwright, futurist, civil libertarian and self-described agnostic mystic. Recognized as an episkopos, pope, and saint of Discordianism, Wilson helped publicize the group through his writings, interviews, and strolls.Wilson claimed in Cosmic Trigger: Volume 1 "not to believe anything", since "belief is the death of intelligence". He described this approach as "Maybe Logic.". Wilson saw his work as an "attempt to break down conditioned associations, to look at the world in a new way, with many models recognized as models or maps, and no one model elevated to the truth". His goal being "to try to get people into a state of generalized agnosticism, not agnosticism about God alone but agnosticism about everything".
Wilson suffered from polio as a child, the 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 school, subsequently Brooklyn Technical High School to remove himself from the Catholic influence. While working as an ambulance driver Wilson attended New York University, studying engineering and mathematics.
He worked as an engineering aide, a salesman, a copywriter, and as associate editor of Playboy magazine from 1965 to 1971. In 1979 he received a Ph.D. in psychology from Paideia University in California, later he reworked his dissertation, and it found publication in 1983 as Prometheus Rising. Wilson married freelance writer and poet Arlen Riley in 1958; they had four children. Their youngest daughter Luna—beaten to death in an apparent robbery in the store where she worked in 1976 at the age of 15—became the first person to have her brain preserved by the Bay Area Cryonics Society. Arlen Riley Wilson died in 1999 following a series of strokes.
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 Robert Shea. 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.P. Lovecraft and author and occultist Aleister Crowley, and American paranoia about conspiracies.
Wilson wrote two more popular fiction series. The first, a trilogy later published as a single volume, was Schrödinger's Cat. The second, The Historical Illuminatus Chronicles, appeared as three books. In between publishing the two trilogies Wilson released a stand-alone novel, Masks of the Illuminati (1981) A play by Wilson, Wilhelm Reich in Hell (published as a book in 1987 and first performed at the Edmund Burke Theatre in Dublin.
In the nonfiction and partly autobiographical Cosmic Trigger I: The Final Secret of the Illuminati (1977) and its two sequels, as well as in many other works, Wilson examined Freemasons, Discordianism, Sufism, the Illuminati, Futurology, Zen Buddhism, Dennis and Terence McKenna, Jack Parsons, the occult practices of Aleister Crowley and G.I. Gurdjieff, Yoga, and many other esoteric or counterculture philosophies, personalities, and occurrences.
Wilson's 1986 book, The New Inquisition, argues that whatever reality consists of it actually would seem much weirder than we commonly imagine. Wilson also supported the work and utopian theories of Buckminster Fuller and examined the theories of Charles Fort. Although Wilson often lampooned and criticized some New Age beliefs, bookstores specializing in New Age material often sell his books. 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, included some elements of H. P. Lovecraft's work in his novels, and at times claimed to have perceived encounters with magical "entities" .
Wilson also criticized scientific types with overly rigid belief systems, equating them with religious fundamentalists in their fanaticism. 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. They're so fearful, and so hostile, and so narrow, and frightened, and uptight and dogmatic... I wrote this book because I got tired satirizing fundamentalist Christianity... I decided to satirize fundamentalist materialism for a change, because the two are equally comical... The materialist fundamentalists are funnier than the Christian fundamentalists, because they think they're rational! ...They're never skeptical about anything except the things they have a prejudice against
Robert Anton Wilson and his wife Arlen Riley Wilson founded the Institute for the Study of the Human Future in 1975. In 1976 Robert Anton Wilson founded the Starflight Network, a society to propagate the philosophy of Dr. Timothy Leary. From 1982 until his death, Wilson had a business relationship with the Association for Consciousness Exploration, which hosted his first on-stage dialogue with his long-time friend Timothy Leary.entitled The Inner Frontier. Wilson dedicated his book The New Inquisition to A.C.E.'s co-directors, Jeff Rosenbaum and Joseph Rothenberg.
Wilson also joined the Church of the SubGenius, who referred to him as Pope Bob. He contributed to their literature, including the book Three-Fisted Tales of "Bob", and shared a stage with their founder, Rev. Ivan Stang, on several occasions. Wilson also founded the Guns and Dope Party and its corresponding Burning Man theme camp. A decades-long researcher into drugs and a strong opponent of what he called "the war on some drugs", Wilson participated as a Special Guest in the week-long 1999 Annual Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam, and used and often promoted the use of medical marijuana. Wilson co-founded and became the primary instructor of the Maybe Logic Academy, named for his agnostic approach to all knowledge.
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.He closed this message with "I look forward without dogmatic optimism but without dread. I love you all and I deeply implore you to keep the lasagna flying. Please pardon my levity, I don't see how to take death seriously. It seems absurd." He died peacefully five days later, on January 11 at 4:50 a.m. Pacific time.
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The Life and Times of Robert Anton Wilson part 1 (49min. 40mb)
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