Robert Anton Wilson or RAW (January 18, 1932 – January 11, 2007) was a prolific American novelist, essayist, philosopher, psychologist, futurologist, anarchist, and conspiracy theory researcher.
He described his writing as an "attempt to break down conditioned associations--to look at the world in a new way, with many models recognized as models (maps) and no one model elevated to the Truth."[1] And: "My goal is to try to get people into a state of generalized agnosticism, not agnosticism about God alone, but agnosticism about everything."[2]
(...)
In Cosmic Trigger I: The Final Secret of the Illuminati (1977) and other works, he examined Discordianism, Sufism, Futurology, Zen Buddhism, Dennis and Terence McKenna, the occult practices of Aleister Crowley and G.I. Gurdjieff, the Illuminati and Freemasons, Yoga, and other esoteric or counterculture philosophies. He advocated Timothy Leary's eight circuit model of consciousness and neurosomatic/linguistic engineering, which he also wrote about in Prometheus Rising (1983, revised 1997) and Quantum Psychology (1990), books containing practical techniques intended to help one break free of one's "reality tunnels." With Leary, he helped promote the futurist ideas of space migration, intelligence increase, and life extension (SMI²LE). The New Inquisition is quite a serious but very entertaining book arguing that reality is much weirder than we commonly imagine, and citing, among other things, Bell's theorem and Alain Aspect's experimental proof to suggest that mainstream science has a strong materialist bias, and that in fact modern physics has already disproved materialist metaphysics.
(...)
Ironically, considering Wilson long lampooned and criticized new age beliefs, his books can often be found in bookstores specializing in new age material. He was a well-known author in occult and Neo-Pagan circles; he wrote about Aleister Crowley and his ideas, and used him as a main character in his novel Masks of the Illuminati. Elements of H. P. Lovecraft's work are also found in his novels. He claimed to have perceived encounters with magical "entities," and when asked whether these entities were "real", he answered they were "real enough," although "not as real as the IRS" since they were "easier to get rid of."[citation needed] He warned against beginners using occult practice, since to rush into such practices and the resulting "energies" they unleash can lead people to go "quite nuts."[citation needed] Instead, he recommends beginners start with general semantics, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Zen Buddhism, basic meditation, etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Anton_Wilson
Robert Anton Wilson Home Page:
http://www.rawilson.com/main.shtml
