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Showing posts with label The Realist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Realist. Show all posts

Friday, April 30, 2021

RAW in 1960: A mystic but not a theologian [UPDATED]


Issue No. 14 of the Realist, December 1959 and January 1960,  (available here as part of the Realist Archive Project) has an "impolite interview" of Alan Watts, conducted by Robert Anton Wilson. Hat tip to @antlerboy on Twitter for pointing to it.  [UPDATE: In the comments, Prop Anon says both Paul Krassner and Wilson did the interview.]

As I was looking at the issue, I noticed something else. A. Finley Schaef, pastor of First Methodist Church of Astoria, N.Y., pens a very brief letter to the editor, printed under the headline "Accusation." It says, "Mr. Robert Anton Wilson's chronic rage against the Church notwithstanding, my impression is he is just another theologian in the Antichrist's clothing."

An editor's note in reply (I assume Paul Krassner) says, "Coincidentally, I accused Mr. Wilson of more or less the same disguise when he chose to title his column in Issue #13 'Notes of a Skeptical Mystic' rather than 'Notes of a Mystical Skeptic.' His response, to both Rev. Schaef and myself:

" 'I admit that I am a mystic. I deny that I am a theologian. For an interesting distinction between mysticism and theology, see Alan Watts' Myth and Ritualism in Christianity. If I were to be pinned down, I would describe myself in Erich Fromm's words -- 'a non-theistic mystic'.' "


Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Archiving of The Realist is complete

Ethan Persoff has announced that the effort to compile a digital archive of Paul Krassner's "The Realist" (1958 to 2000) is now complete.

This is an important announcement for Robert Anton Wilson fans because RAW frequently published here.

Jesse Walker of Reason magazine posts about the completion of the archive and recommends Wilson's (anonymous at the time) article about working as an editor for a "schlock factory," while Joel Schlosberg also posts about the project and suggests reading Krassner and Wilson's interview with Albert Ellis. Bandito notes at alt.fan.wilson, "Ethan Persoff put a hell of an effort into this over the last 3-4 years. He deserves a hell of a round of applause."

For earlier posts from this blog about the Realist, including links to various Wilson pieces, a please click the label for this post.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

More RAW material from The Realist

"Bandito" (aka Mike Gathers) has been working hard to make more Robert Anton Wilson material, via the pages of The Realist (see this and this), and he has just published an update at alt.fan.wilson.

Here's the latest, from a posting at alt.fan.wilson a couple of days ago:

"The Anatomy of Schlock" by A Nonymous Hack
http://www.ep.tc/realist/62/03.html
This article was published the in _The Best of The Realist_ by RAW
without the pseudonym.

Also: a longer version of the Ellis interview by Wilson & Krassner:
http://www.ep.tc/realist/albertellis/index.html
From Ethan, the one who maintains The Realist Archive:
"JUMPING IMMEDIATELY to the rare RAW item: We're aware of the good
Robert Anton Wilson community interest in this archive. So here, for
you, is a complete scan off the very rare booklet: "An Impolite
Interview Interview with Albert Ellis" which expands the material
from Realist #16 into a full 32 page document, and was only
distributed via mail order. Also includes Alan Watts and Lenny Bruce
pages, and a surprising list of upcoming Realist interviews. Some of
these interviews happened, some did not. The list is interesting."

Thursday, August 5, 2010

More on the Wilson document trove at The Realist

In an earlier post, I reposted information from tireless Wilson scholar 'bandito' about articles by Robert Anton Wilson published in The Realist that have come to light. 'bandito' is Mike Gathers, who worked with Michael Johnson to track down many of the pieces archived at Robert Anton Wilson Fans.

Gathers has put up a new posting on alt.fan.rawilson, seeking to clarify the distinction between the newly-discovered articles and articles from The Realist already made available at Robert Anton Wilson fans. He notes that indexing of The Realist should be completed in a few months, allowing a complete picture of RAW material available there.

Here's the text of the latest bandito communique:

When Tom Jackson reposted this to his blog, I realized that my post
was a bit confusing. To add to the confusion, let me say that the
links below have not been added to rawilsonfans.com.

However, the following have been posted at rawilsonfans.com for some
time:

From Paul Krassner’s The Realist
“Man Becomes What He Hates” No 6, February 1959
"The Semantics of God" No. 8, May 1959
letters to the editor regarding "Semantics of God" No. 9, June/July
1959
"negative thinking - Detergent Democracy” No. 10, August 1959
"negative thinking - a column of miscellaneous heresies” No. 11,
September 1959
"negative thinking - Sex Education for the Modern Liberal Adult" No
12, Oct 1959, reprinted in The Best of The Realist
"negative thinking - The Morality of Head-Hunting" No 14, Dec 1959/
Jan1960
"negative thinking" No 15, Feb 1960
"negative thinking - The Doctor with the Frightened Eyes" No. 16,
March 1960, reprinted in Coincidance
"negative thinking - Letter to a Lady in Iowa" No. 17, May 1960
"negative thinking - Semantics of the Soul" No. 18, June 1960
"negative thinking - Is Capitalism a Revealed Religion?” No. 27,
June 1961
"negative thinking - What I Didn't Learn at College" No. 29, September
1961
"negative thinking - (Hugh Hefner)" No. 41, July 1963
"Timothy Leary's Psychedelic H-Bomb" No. 52, August 1964
"negative thinking - The Anatomy of Schlock" 1965? reprinted in The
Best of The Realist
“Thirteen Choruses for the Divine Marquis” No. 67, May 1966,
reprinted in Coincidance
"The Cybernetic Revolution" No. 72, December 1966
"The Great Beast – Aleister Crowley" Nos. 91-B, C, 92-A, B; 1971-72
“The Future is Coming!” No. 111, Winter 1990, reprinted in part in
Cosmic Trigger 2
"Out of the Innsmouth Triangle" No. 120, Summer 1992

the realist archive project completes in a few months and we'll have
the full picture.




Wednesday, July 14, 2010

New Wilson material uncovered

Robert Anton Wilson published many articles in "The Realist " before becoming a full time freelance writer, as I (and my learned commenters) discussed here.

'bandito' has now published a more complete list of links to articles from that magazine, in a posting at alt.fan.rawilson, and says many of the links have not been posted before. Apparently the list eventually will be reproduced at rawilsonfans.com, but I also will post them here.

Here's is bandito's posting:

Wilsoniacs,
I have been fairly diligent at tracking The Realist Archive and
posting links to Wilsonian articles as they come out. Due to me
being busy with other things, and having handed over the hosting of
the site to Matheny's gPod/Alterati/Hukilau consortium, I have been
lax in updating the website with these links.

However, after some brief correspondence with the owner/creator of the
Realist Archive I realize I have missed many new articles. Anyhow,
here is the complete list of links not yet updated to rawilsonfans.
Many of the triple digit issues are articles that have not been posted
here before as I just discovered their existence today.

# http://www.ep.tc/realist/14/14.html
# http://www.ep.tc/realist/16/14.html (Ellis interview by Krassner and
RAW?)
# http://www.ep.tc/realist/19/07.html
# http://www.ep.tc/realist/20/23.html
# http://www.ep.tc/realist/22/05.html
# http://www.ep.tc/realist/29/10.html
# http://www.ep.tc/realist/30/13.html
# http://www.ep.tc/realist/65/
# http://www.ep.tc/realist/108/
# http://www.ep.tc/realist/114/05.html
# http://www.ep.tc/realist/117/03.html
# http://www.ep.tc/realist/124/
# http://www.ep.tc/realist/133/03.html
# http://www.ep.tc/realist/140/03.html

Saturday, June 26, 2010

Wilson and The Realist

If you enjoy reading Robert Anton Wilson, perhaps you should take a moment to thank Paul Krassner.

Before he began publishing books in the 1970s (he actually published before before ILLUMINATUS!), Wilson wrote a variety of short pieces. Many of them were published in The Realist, the satirical counterculture magazine put out by Paul Krassner.

In an introduction to "Three Articles from the Realist" in Wilson's essay collection, COINCIDANCE, Wilson explains, "Paul Krassner's iconoclastic journal, The Realist, has published more of my writings than any other American magazine, and there was a period in the late 1950s and early 1960s when I might have given up writing entirely if Paul had not gone on publishing my work. I think everybody in the 'counterculture' owes a great debt to Paul Krassner, but I perhaps owe him more than anyone else."

There's an Internet archive site for The Realist here.