Martin Wagner's big RAW discovery: 'Actually I found it three times'

Martin Wagner (image from Hilaritas Press website). 

Martin Wagner initiated the project that resulted in the new RAW book, Lion of Light, when he located Robert Anton Wilson's lost essay, "Do What Thou Wilt," in the Harvard University library; he emailed Jesse Walker and I about his find, and I posted about it here and told Rasa.

(To be clear, that discussion was initiated on Sept. 3 last  year by Jesse Walker, who told Martin and I in an email that he'd found part of the "lost" essay at the Internet Archive. Martin replied that he knew about that, but added, "Meanwhile, the (only existing?) Do what thou wilt : an introduction to Aleister Crowley typescript incl. a letter to Herb Roseman arrived at the Harvard Library."  We were talking about finding someone to physically go over to the Harvard library and look at the manuscript, and I wrote, "Or maybe I should tell Rasa, and he will contact Harvard on behalf of the RAW Trust, which would hold the rights?" Jesse replied, "It would be good to let Rasa know anyway -- and I'll bet they'd have the best chance of persuading Harvard to copy it for them." I then wrote to Rasa on Sept. 6 last year, sharing our discussion so far, and Rasa immediately got to work.)

But Martin had been on the trail of the work for years; when I asked for his account of finding it, he said, "Actually I found it three times." 

Martin also helped with the production of the Lion of Light book by sending over a list of other RAW pieces that discuss Crowley.

I wrote to  him asking to find out more about his discovery. Here is his account:

"Actually I found it three times, firstly in 2018 in a LAShTAL (a forum devoted to AC) thread from 2007, after RAW passed away:

I have been looking through boxes of Gordon Press oddities that I had recieved from Herb(the man behind the rebel press) for a copy of Mr. Wilson's piece he had written on Crowley and sent to Herb for possible printing it via the Gordon Press.

"I informed Rasa, Jesse and you, Jesse's reply:

That "Herb" would be Herb Roseman, who was slated to publish three Wilson books back around 1969/70 that did not materialize.

"But the LAShTAL user who posted this wasn't active anymore.

"A few years later I came across it on the website of Weiser Antiquarian Books, a bookshop for rare, secondhand, and out-of-print books on comparative religion, mysticism, and the occult, which I checked from time to time:

https://www.weiserantiquarian.com/pages/books/59624/robert-anton-wilson/an-original-typescript-do-what-thou-wilt-an-introduction-to-aleister-crowley-along-with-a-typed

"Last year I searched for the title and found it via Google on worldcat: https://www.worldcat.org/de/title/1250281680

"Later that year, I was asked if I had more Crowley material and sent a list of essays and digitized book forwewords & intros which were used in Lion of Light." The email was sent to Mike Gathers, Michael Johnson, Oz Fritz, Rasa and others. 

Here is last year's blog post on the third discovery that launched the new book. 

See also my 2018 blog post. 

And see my 2018 post on "Missing RAW books," which mentions five books, including Starseed Signals. Hilaritas  has done a good job in dealing with this. 

Here is Martin's website (you can click for an English version). 

Prop Anon reads from RAW's 'lost' Crowley essay

 

As I mentioned in a September blog post, Martin Wagner recently determined that Harvard University's library has an unpublished 72-page essay by Robert Anton Wilson about Aleister Crowley. In that September blog post, I wrote, "The essay is entitled 'Do What Thou Wilt,' and it is unclear what relationship it has to Lion of Light, the book-length piece on Crowley that RAW planned to publish. Rasa at the RAW Trust/Hilaritas Press has been notified and is pursuing the matter."

Prop Anon, author of an upcoming RAW biography, contacted the library and was able to obtain a copy of the essay. In the video above, he reads from the essay. 

RAW's letters to Green Egg

Many of Robert Anton Wilson's most pungent thoughts came not from books, or articles, or interviews, but from letters he wrote to various publications.

Martin Wagner has performed a useful service by gathering together thirteen letters RAW wrote to Green Egg. (Some of the texts have appeared on this blog, some at the Robert Anton Wilson Fans website, but some are available only because of Martin's efforts). Read a few of the letters and you'll see what I mean. This is good stuff, as alive as your current favorite Substack newsletter. Good for you, Martin.

Probably a good book could be compiled from RAW's letters.

RAW on rock music

 

From SEVEN DAYS, Volume 1, Number 8, May 23, 1977, via RAW Archives (e.g., Martin Wagner) on Twitter. 

Two more RAW articles at Chapel Perilous

 

Prop Anon has posted two more articles by Robert Anton Wilson at his Chapel Perilous website.

"Extra-Terrestrial TV," from the Berkeley Barb, is a piece that discusses claims that aliens were about to do a broadcast on TV. 

"Hefner Vs. the Narcs" is also from the Berkeley Barb and concerns the death of Bobbie Arnstein, an aide to Hugh Hefner. It's a piece that was already reprinted by Martin Wagner. 

Prop recently completed his biography of Robert Anton Wilson and has been posting many articles and documents he uncovered during his research.

RAW reviews John Lilly

 

A really interesting discovery by Martin Wagner: Robert Anton Wilson reviews a book by John Lilly, Simulations of God: The Science of Belief.  The book review is published in 1976 in Gnostica magazine. 

I suspect many of you will want to read the whole thing, but here is a bit:

Dr. Lilly is no dingbat and Simulations of God shows the some keen scientific intelligence as his earlier books. Eventually, if we are not irrevocably wed to our old ideas of space and time, we must ask—as Tom Wolfe asked of McLuhan—but what if he’s right? Is it possible that disciplined work on rewiring the nervous system with LSD, sensory deprivation, and traditions derived from Sufism can actually make one a receptor for higher intelligences elsewhere in space-time?

All of the articles Martin has found ought to be integrated into the links at the Robert Anton Wilson Fans website.  Links also ought to be put up for Prop Anon's posts at Chapel Perilous. 

RAW on the attempted Ku Klux Klan revival

Martin Wagner unearths yet another Robert Anton Wilson article, "The Rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan," about attempts to revive and rebrand the violent, racist organization. The feeling that the Klan is yesterday's news hangs over the article and is made explicit toward the end:

The final word seems to come from a former insider. Bill Hendrix, an ex-Grand Dragon of the Southern Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, was an active Kluxer for 15 years. Then, in 1960, he resigned as Grand Dragon and persuaded his members to dissolve the Southern Knights entirely. “I cannot agree to such things as bombings and burning schools,” he told newspapermen at the time. “But that is what the Klan is going to have to turn to unless it agrees to go along with the laws. I see no way to stop racial integration, and it looks to me like the best thing to do is accept it.” Interviewed in 1964, Mr. Hendrix said he still feels the same way, and emphasized that it was “criminal elements” within his own Klan that led him to dissolve it. “The same elements are taking over Shelton’s Klan right now,” he said. “There is no way of keeping them out. You can’t watch every member all the time.”

The piece was published in Fact magazine in 1964. 

About "23," the German movie that features RAW

Scene from the movie; RAW has just finished autographing books for fans. 

Thanks to the kind efforts of Martin Wagner, I now know quite a bit about the German movie 23 Nichts ist so wie es scheint (in English, ""23 - Nothing is what it seems,") a 1998 German film about hacker Karl Koch. The film is available at the Internet Archive. 

Martin points out that RAW appears in the movie, playing himself.

At RAW's Wikipedia entry you'll find an actor section, which says

Robert Anton Wilson appeared in the 1998 German film 23 Nichts ist so wie es scheint. He has approximately two minutes featured as himself, with the main actor, portraying hacker Karl Koch, meeting Wilson at the annual German Computer Hackers Convention in 1985. The film is a biographical piece about Germany's infamous computer hackers, and the 1985 meeting in Germany between Wilson and Koch is authentic. Wilson spoke at the 1985 German Computer Hackers Convention, warning of a future in which governments would have total digital control over the citizen. He signed one of his books for Koch. These events are depicted in the film.

RAW can be seen about 13 minutes into the film. There are scenes of the protagonist reading Illuminatus!

A clip which shows RAW speaking has been circulating on Twitter.  Brian Dean (of RAW Semantics) noted it and wrote, "The embedded video here looks well-produced, but since I don't speak German, I don't know what they're saying (it's about RAW/Illuminatus, etc):"

I called Martin's attention to it on Twitter, and he has kindly supplied a translation:

00:08:59,500 --> 00:09:01,980

Something I want to show you...

93

00:09:03,300 --> 00:09:06,500

His associates found it in his desk.

94

00:09:10,500 --> 00:09:12,900

- 'National Research Award'...

 Great haircut!

95

00:09:13,100 --> 00:09:14,900

- I won it when I turned 14.

96

00:09:15,100 --> 00:09:16,500

That's the author...

97

00:09:16,700 --> 00:09:17,900

Robert Anton Wilson

98

00:09:18,100 --> 00:09:19,500

- He looks strange.

99

00:09:19,700 --> 00:09:20,700

- Dad made a mistake...

100

00:09:20,900 --> 00:09:22,100

thought it was a kid's book.

101

00:09:22,300 --> 00:09:25,700

When he knew the truth, he confiscated it.

102

00:09:27,700 --> 00:09:29,700

Now it's all mine again.

103

00:09:30,300 --> 00:09:33,100

- "Nothing is true. Everything's permitted.

104

00:09:33,300 --> 00:09:36,300

World history is war between secret societies."

105

00:09:36,500 --> 00:09:39,100

- Wilson says the world isn't what it seems.

106

00:09:39,300 --> 00:09:41,100

A secret society controls all

107

00:09:41,300 --> 00:09:43,100

the Illuminati.

108

00:09:43,300 --> 00:09:45,300

But Hagbard Celine is a rebel,

109

00:09:45,500 --> 00:09:47,700

an anarchist on a submarine.

110

00:09:47,900 --> 00:09:50,500

From there he fights Illuminati.

111

00:09:55,100 --> 00:09:57,500

He has a computer on the a sub

112

00:09:57,700 --> 00:10:00,500

computing risk of World War III with simulations.

113

00:10:00,700 --> 00:10:01,700

- Mmmhm

114

00:10:01,900 --> 00:10:03,700

- Computer's named, "Fuck Up".

115

00:10:03,900 --> 00:10:04,900

- What?

116

00:10:05,100 --> 00:10:09,300

- Fuckup: First Universal Cybernetic Kinetic Ultra-micro Programmable

117

00:10:09,500 --> 00:10:11,500

If you want, I'll lend it to you.

118

00:10:11,700 --> 00:10:12,900

- I guess.

119

00:10:13,900 --> 00:10:22,100

"Reality at last, Ten bottles of wine, all empty too fast!"

120

00:10:22,500 --> 00:10:26,900

Pizza anyone?

121

00:10:33,820 --> 00:10:36,100

- End this now or I'll call the cops

122

00:10:36,420 --> 00:10:37,700

Alex

123

00:10:37,900 --> 00:10:41,500

- Who pissed on the mailboxes? What a mess!

124

00:10:41,900 --> 00:10:43,300

- Who's that whiner?

125

00:10:43,500 --> 00:10:46,500

- My landlord.

126

00:10:50,500 --> 00:10:54,300

My landlord says he'll call the cops. It's over. Go home.

127

00:11:02,100 --> 00:11:05,300

"Beate didn't take 'Illuminatus,'

128

00:11:05,700 --> 00:11:07,700

Alex only read parts on sex and drugs.

129

00:11:08,300 --> 00:11:10,300

He plain, 'didn't get it.'

130

00:11:11,300 --> 00:11:13,620

What Wilson's wrote about assassinations was riveting.

131

00:11:13,820 --> 00:11:18,100

I repeatedly read it, and sought other believers.

132

00:11:18,380 --> 00:11:21,660

BBS were populated by people like me.

133

00:11:22,220 --> 00:11:24,500

I got a computer and joined my peers.

134

00:11:24,900 --> 00:11:26,500

Just a simple computer.

135

00:11:27,100 --> 00:11:30,100

Only a Commodore, but it served my needs.

136

00:11:46,300 --> 00:11:49,180

I felt I discovered a new continent.

137

00:11:49,380 --> 00:11:54,100

I visited my global neighbors.

138

00:11:55,900 --> 00:11:58,900

It didn't take long to choose a name

139

00:12:21,860 --> 00:12:25,500

On a BBS where 'Illuminatus' was argued,

140

00:12:25,700 --> 00:12:29,900

I read Wilson would visit a Hamburg Chaos Computer Club meeting.

141

00:12:38,500 --> 00:12:40,900

Many computer freaks attended from all over Germany.

142

00:12:41,300 --> 00:12:45,300

Many were inert but some had skills.

143

00:12:45,700 --> 00:12:50,100

It's like converting a harmless child's toy into a bomb.

144

00:12:50,300 --> 00:12:54,500

'Scarabeus' hacked Frankfurt airport's flight arrival board

145

00:12:54,700 --> 00:12:57,700

'Conan' took-over Luxemburg's power grid.

146

00:12:57,500 --> 00:13:01,500

'Fishball' had an illegal mail server at GAC.

147

00:13:02,420 --> 00:13:04,100

Then there was 'David' from Hannover.

148

00:13:04,300 --> 00:13:06,100

His net-name was 'Goliath'.

149

00:13:08,820 --> 00:13:11,100

- We're now discovering that the true source of wealth

150

00:13:11,300 --> 00:13:14,500

is information, and it increases as it's shared.

151

00:13:14,900 --> 00:13:19,700

"Wilson said computers will revolutionize society.

152

00:13:20,300 --> 00:13:23,700

Information will be more important than money.

153

00:13:24,100 --> 00:13:28,500

Knowledge is power and will be controlled by few.

1962 letter by Robert Anton Wilson on psychopaths and anarchism

Another Martin Wagner discovery: A 1962 letter to the editor by Robert Anton Wilson, asserting that a libertarian society would not produce psychopaths. Here is the claim: "How will anarchism handle psychopaths? The same way the Zuni handle Suicides, the Trobrianders handle homosexuals, and Summerhill handles bullies. It will not produce them."

This seems a bit naive to me and an early formulation of ideas that RAW developed later on in more depth. But see what you think. 

Published in Volume 23, issue 23 of Freedom, apparently an anarchist publication. 

RAW interviews Colin Wilson

 

Another good find by Martin Wagner: Robert Anton Wilson interviews Colin Wilson for the April, 1985, "New Age Journal." Certainly they find some interesting topics to discuss and seem to agree on quite a bit.

Here is a question and answer I liked:

Robert Anton Wilson: How does all this connect to your interest in parapsychology?

Colin Wilson: Only accidentally. When I was first asked to write a book on the occult, I thought, “Christ, what a bore.” I have since written half a dozen books on the subject, but only because it is connected with the things that really interest me—brain functions, peak experiences, and so on. I agree with the yogis that in learning to discipline the mind one often activates certain paranormal powers, but they are trivial and should not be a matter of obsessive interest. Their only importance is that they show again that ordinary consciousness is not the limit of what our minds can do.

And here is Colin Wilson about his discovery that people can be healthy and happy:

My first real clue came from Abraham Maslow, after I published The Age of Defeat. He read it and wrote me a letter agreeing with me that writers should learn to stop being defeated, and he called my attention to his own research. When I read his works I was fascinated, because he was a psychologist who had gotten sick of studying sick people who talked about nothing but their sickness, and had started studying the healthy—something that had never been done before. He discovered that healthy people had with a fair degree of frequency what he called peak experiences, feelings of sheer happiness. They were not necessarily “mystical” experiences. One was described by a young wife watching her husband and children eating breakfast. Suddenly a beam of sunlight came through the window, and she thought, “My God, aren’t I lucky!” and went into the peak experience. Another was a young jazz drummer working his way through college who discovered one night he couldn’t do a thing wrong and went into the peak experience as he drummed. A hostess after a highly successful party, looking around the room at the cigarette butts trodden into the rug and the spilt wine, nonetheless suddenly had a peak experience. Reading these sorts of cases, I began to surmise that when you’ve had an intense peak experience it gives you an optimistic view of the universe, which is the opposite of the view of the criminal, who generally thinks the universe is a bloody awful place and the only thing to do to show your objection is to react violently.

Could this relate to Beethoven's statement, cited by RAW in "Beethoven As Information" in The Illuminati Papers? Beethoven allegedly said, "Anyone who understands my music will never be unhappy again."

The discussion of Colin Wilson aborting his suicide attempt reminded me of RAW on the Brooklyn Bridge, as discussed in Cosmic Trigger 2. 

RAW manuscript on Aleister Crowley found

Martin Wagner and Jesse Walker are reporting that a 72-page essay by Robert Anton Wilson on Aleister Crowley has been located at the Harvard University library. (Martin was the first to tell me about it, but Jesse has supplied details.) UPDATE: Jesse says I give him too much credit; see the comments. 

The essay is entitled "Do What Thou Wilt," and it is unclear what relationship it has to Lion of Light, the book-length piece on Crowley that RAW planned to publish. Rasa at the RAW Trust/Hilaritas Press has been notified and is pursuing the matter.

"It is an extensive survey of the biography and philosophy of Aleister Crowley, with the last two pages giving details and opinions of two of Wilson's earlier books."

More information here. 

A RAW poem

GNOSTICA, Volume 4, Number 4 December 1974. Via Martin Wagner. Source. 

RAW on magick

The newest discovery revealed by Martin Wagner is a Robert Anton Wilson article, "Magick." The byline is given as the "Abbey of Thelema," but Martin says it is likely RAW. It's from Green Egg, December 1975. 

The article is in two parts, a definition of magick and then two experiments.

Two quotes from the article:

"Magick assumes the existence of an “astral” realm apart from the known physical and energetic universe known to modern science."

“Magick, like science and unlike religion, is not dogmatic, does not ask for faith, and positively encourages scepticism and original thinking/research.”

 

RAW on Marilyn Monroe, and Raymond Chandler

 

Marilyn Monroe in 1953 (public domain photo). 

A good RAW piece, "The Goddess & Marilyn Monroe—The Golden Graveyard," published in 1989 and reprinted by the hard working Martin Wagner.

The beginning: 

"In the 1950s, LIFE Magazine took a poll of artistic preferences among groups designated by them as high-brows, middle-brows and low-brows. Only two artists then alive were equally popular with both high-brows and low-brows. One, of course, was Raymond Chandler. The other, to the surprise of many, was Marilyn Monroe."

Another bit:

"If 'Marilyn' was a true Sex Goddess, in the Jungian sense, the Mask had, magically, devoured the woman behind it. Norma Jean learned to act, to dance, to sing—to switch from comedy to drama to musicals with apparent ease—but still feared that the Mask would fall off in public and her naked terrors would be revealed. Long before her death, she was 'the late Marilyn Monroe' in Hollywood lore because of the crippling anxieties that often kept her off the set for hours while she fought to conquer her doubts and uncertainties."

There are other good sentences. 

Wilson and Shea on Illuminatus! in 1976 article

Martin Wagner's latest discovery is a gem: A short but insightful article/interview on Illuminatus! published in 1976 in Bookletter and written by Bill Henkin. 

Even the usual description of the authors one would expect for such a piece is well done:

"Neither of them looks dangerous. At forty-two, they’re both a bit portly. Robert Shea, about six feet, is modishly attired like a successful magazine editor—which he is, at Playboy. Robert Anton Wilson, some inches shorter and with a slight Vandyke, resembles nothing so much as an arcane medieval scholar without his robes. He is the author of Sex and Drugs: A Journey Beyond Limits, Playboy’s Book of Forbidden Words, The Book of the Breast (all Playboy Press), The Sex Magicians (Jaundice Press), and the forth-coming Prometheus Rising: A Magick Manual for the Space Age. He’s an initiated witch in the New Reformed Orthodox Order of the Golden Dawn, and a voodoo priest in the Socicdad Magico de Chango. They look fine to invite home to dinner, but they’ve just unleashed a holy terror on the world, intended to rend the fabric of reality as it is generally perceived."

RAW on reality tunnels and the eight circuits

Martin Wagner announces yet another rediscovery, a Robert Anton Wilson piece called "How to Tell Your Friends From the Apes," published in 1985 in Magical Blend. Much of it covers material also covered in Prometheus Rising.

Excerpt:

"It appears that the simple Aristotelian idea that we are either conscious or unconscious (asleep or awake is inadequate. We have seen a whole spectrum of consciousness; it seems clear that each level of consciousness opens many possibilities for reality-tunnels, and that consciousness has evolved, and it is still evolving; we absolutely cannot predict what we might become and what we might know after the next evolutionary leap. In particular, the seemingly net intractable problems of life on this planet—such as injustice, exploitation, crime and, above all, war—seem to be maintained by rigid reality-tunnels which prevent further learning or which “hypnotize” us so that we do not see who were or what we are doing. But such mechanical stupidity or maya, or “sleep-walking” is, in this perspective, an early evolutionary state out of which we are, as individuals and as a species, slowly growing toward higher and higher levels of awareness."

Lots of other material at Robert Anton Fans Germania, both in German and English. 

RAW on the evils of taxation

Despite the title, "Economics in One Lesson," the latest discovery brought back to light by Martin Wagner, is not a discussion of economics by Robert Anton Wilson so much as it is a discussion of the alleged terrible effects of heavy taxation on his attempts to make money from a new book. Although in hindsight, Wilson's real problem was that Playboy Press was incompetent in marketing and selling Sex, Drugs and Magick, a really good book that is currently the subject of Apuleius Charlton's ongoing online discussion (latest entry here) and which recently was reprinted by Hilaritas Press. 

RAW's essay is a rather libertarian argument, even though it was published in Gnostica in 1975, and the title plays off of Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt, a book that's very popular with libertarians and free market types. 

See also this short Martin reprint.

RAW on war, peace and world government

The latest rediscovery of Martin Wagner is "How to Think About War and Peace," self published by Robert Anton Wilson in 1962 in the journal Way Out. 

It is written as a book review for a now probably largely forgotten book, How to Think About War and Peace by Mortimer Adler, published in 1944 when World War II was still raging. 

The book apparently argues in favor of world government as an antidote to war, and RAW pushes back, arguing as an anarchist in favor of "the voluntary association of small human-size communities in which the local rules are made locally by those who actually do the work. Such communities might occasionally fall into conflict, as did the communes of the Middle Ages, but they will not be able to throw the rest of mankind into an uproar along with themselves, and a man in Peru need never be afraid, under that anarchistic system, that a disagreement between a man in Moscow and a man in Washington might result in the incineration of Lima."

RAW on Paul Krassner

"He Makes a Career Out of Being Offensive," Martin Wagner's latest discovery, is a 1965 piece in PHOTO magazine, Robert Anton Wilson's tribute to Paul Krassner and The Realist. 

"The editorial policy of The Realist is quite simple, according to Krassner: 'The things I print have one thing in common: they couldn’t be printed anywhere else.' In following this editorial line, Krassner has been almost super-humanly impartial."

Many examples are offered; Martin also links to the RAW articles in the Realist archive. 

RAW defends Timothy Leary

Timothy Leary, Robert Shea, Patricia Monaghan, Jeff Rosenbaum, Gillie Smythe at an Association for Consciousness Expansion gathering in Cleveland.

Yes, Robert Anton Wilson defended Timothy Leary in other places, too, but the article newly reprinted by Martin Wagner, "Must We Cage Genius?," seemed particularly impassioned and interesting to me. 

Here is RAW's one-paragraph description of Leary:

All right, Timothy is (has been, will be again) a cocksman, a social butterfly, a lothario, a boozer, a joke, a rowdy, a fun-lover, a hedonist, a sensualist, a rascal. Like Shelley and Shakespeare and Mendeleyev and Uncle Looie. He has also done scientific work which is universally regarded as important in his profession; done more controversial scientific work which may be even more important than that already recognized; written first-rate poetry; made a heroic and athletic jail break at the age of 49; given more love and compassion and understanding every week for ten years than most of us give in our life-times; made dumb political blunders; lied to some of his persecutors and some of his friends; told the truth repeatedly under great hazard to himself; made many women happy and some women sad; and looked at his species with a more remarkable dispassionate analysis than any contemporary writer, scientific or literary. The last claim is a subjective evaluation by me; the rest can be documented with case histories.

Here is RAW's one sentence description of the point of the First Amendment:

Dr. Leary’s felony is exactly that which the Constitution was intended to protect: speaking in favor of ideas that are genuinely new, genuinely offensive, genuinely unpopular.

A couple of questions about the piece: Is the "famous astronomer" referenced in it Carl Sagan? And who is the unnamed physicist who worked on the Orion Project?