Unsplash photo by Matthew Brodeur

It's not the election result that got the most attention, but I wanted to note that an effort to roll back marijuana legalization failed miserably in Massachusetts, with voters opposing it by about 3 to 1.

As Scott Sumner notes, this is despite a wave of propaganda in the media:

Puritan busybodies on both the left and the right are now telling us that marijuana legalization was a mistake that the public has come to regret. In Massachusetts, voters were recently given a chance to go back to the old system of putting young mothers in prison for selling a few ounces of pot. Here's what they decide.

Don't believe the Puritans.

Here is Jacob Sullum's report at Reason, which notes that support for legalization has generally risen in states that have approved it. 

 "Illuminatus! Skeleton Key #1: Extra Kether

Photo by Dave Adamson on Unsplash

 "Robert Anton Wilson: Useful Idiot?" New Substack by Michael Johnson.

 New Joseph Matheny Substack. Includes archive of his old blog.  

The latest bad news about pro football. 

Anecdote about Patrick Stewart and Sting (bottom of the newsletter). 

Recommendations from John Higgs. 

Bobby Campbell recommends "You Can See Everything." 

[I'm going to post the main news from his latest Substack newsletter -- The Mgt.]

Hi Everyone,

Just wanted to drop a few updates your way about my work. I've recently wrapped the successful Kickstarter campaign for the Chapel Perilous: The Life & Thought Crimes of Robert Anton Wilson audiobook. I'm also currently working on another book, or pamphlet, that deals with an aspect of Robert Anton Wilson's thought and work. My hope is to have a class that will coincide with the book's release.

I'm also dealing with some intense life situations at the moment. My landlord never renewed my lease, and I've been doing the car life thing for the past month. Overall, it's not so bad, however, it would be better to have some sort of home base rental secured to keep the wheels on this Chapel Perilous bus moving.

The triple whammy at the moment is that I have a pretty bad physical injury. I've had it since April of this year and I haven't really said anything about it since now, because why would I? But I saw a doctor recently and they said I need surgery to fix what's going on, and so I have a surgery date set for January. After the surgery I should be able to get back to being able to work physical labor jobs and gigs again, but there is a two-month recovery time I need to abide by after the surgery.

So, I find myself in a bit of a bind at the mo. As such, I created a GoFundMe to help spread the word and to humbly accept whatever support any of you could muster. For those of you who know me, I don't really like asking for things like this, but I would not be asking if it was not existentially necessary.

Alternatively, if you would prefer to support my work long-term, upgrading to a paid Substack subscription today will directly fund this transition. As a tangible thank-you, anyone who transitions to a paid subscriber tier this week will receive a free digital copy of my book emailed straight to their inbox.

The Hilaritas Press page for Maybe Magick has endorsements by Lon Milo DuQuette, Joseph L. Flatley, Oberon Zell and Cat Vincent. 

I bought the book as a preorder, obtaining it as soon as October 31 arrived, but if you are on the fence and haven't bought it  yet, I might be worth reading what the four had to say.

Lon Milo DuQuette wrote, "Maybe Magick: Notes from an Evolving Nervous System is maybe master Bob's single most secret-busting, awe-inspiring exposition of the esoteric arts and sciences of Magick. Every page is a thunderous reminder why I fell in love (and continue to love) this man's scintillating wit and wisdom. (or maybe not)."

The other three statements at at the link. 

Here is the official blurb:

What if magick is neither supernatural nonsense nor solemn occult theater, but a practical way of tinkering with the machinery of perception? Robert Anton Wilson spent a lifetime investigating the confounding territories where magick, science, psychology, language, and belief overlap. Maybe Magick gathers essays, introductions and interviews charting three decades of exploration, tracing the evolution of a mind learning not to mistake certainty for evidence. The result is funny, provocative, skeptical, and occasionally liable to upend your favorite assumptions. Wilson does not ask you to believe in magick. He asks a more interesting question: what happens when you try it? 

The editors for the book were Mike Gathers, Oz Fritz, Dave Skelton, Tom Clisson and Alan Chapman. Oz, Dave and Alan all wrote pieces for the book. Cover and design by Rasa. 

Having worked with Hilaritas for my Robert Shea book, I know how much work and care goes into producing a Hilaritas Press title, and I have heard enough from the editors to know a great deal of labor went into this new book. 

More information here, includlng endorsements and links to purchase the book. 

Steve "Fly" Pratt has released two music recordings that tie in to the ongoing Tales of Illuminatus comic book adaptation by Bobby Campbell: The First Trip and, this year, K9 Rapture by DJ Flai, which was made available as part of the Tales of Illuminatus 3 packages. So if you supported Bobby's project, you may have heard the music. I bought K9 Rapture as part of my package. I'm going to listen to it today as I run my errands. 

Steve made lots of music available at other places. Much of it can be streamed at SoundCloud.  See also his Deep Scratch website and his music at Bandcamp. He also has a Patreon site. 

The historian and writer Thaddeus Russell has a new book out, Savior and Seducer: A Renegade History of the United States in the World, and as Robert Anton Wilson was interested in World War II revisionism, I thought the book might be of interest to sombunall of you. 

"The Case Against the 'Good War' Still Stands," the latest issue of Russell's Substack newsletter, written as a rebuttal to a bad review, outlines Russell's arguments about World War II.

"In the book's World War II chapters ... I argue that American policy under Franklin Roosevelt transformed two regional wars, one in eastern Europe and the other in eastern Asia, into a global conflict that killed more than sixty-five million people. I also argue that American intervention ensured the fulfillment of the Holocaust," Russell writes.

"...much of the book's discussion of World War II is devoted to Hitler's ideology, which always included commitment to conquering all of Poland and western Russia for Lebensraum ('living space'). He claimed these territories as part of a 'Greater Germany' once inhabited by Teutonic peoples whom he regarded as ancestors of modern Germans. This was racial imperialism, to be sure. But as I also show, it was an imperialism that ended in eastern Europe.

"Hitler had for decades written and spoken extensively about his lack of interest in colonies outside Greater Germany, hoped for an alliance with Britain and the United States, and, according to virtually every historian of the Third Reich, invaded the West in the spring of 1940 only as a defensive measure to secure Germany's western flank before advancing eastward."

Russell also contends, "American moves toward war through 1941 eliminated the Jews' usefulness to Hitler as hostages against intervention while immigration restrictions blocked their escape. Whether the extermination decision came in the spring or fall of that year, I interpret this reversal of the emigration policy as a response to America's de facto entry into the war. This is the basis for my argument that the six million would have lived had the United States stayed out of the war."

I don't know what to make of all this. I've put the book on hold at my local library. 

The Hilaritas Press edition of the first book of the Cosmic Trigger trilogy. 

Cosmic Trigger; The Final Secret of the Illuminati, first published in 1977 and published in a new edition by Hilaritas Press in 2016, is one of Robert Anton Wilson's most popular and influential books. It's the first in three Cosmic Trigger books that RAW published. (The second one, Cosmic Trigger II: Down to Earth, also available as a Hilaritas edition, is a personal favorite of mine.) 

With the 50-year anniversary of the publication of Cosmic Trigger I looming, Mike Gathers has  suggested that something should be done to mark that anniversary. Rasa was pleased by the suggestion and has decided that a new hardback edition, with some sort of extra features, would be a good idea. Ideas for what to have in the new edition are now being discussed. 

I've finished the two books I planned to read for Halloween. A few comments:

Twice As Dead by Harry Turtledove is an urban fantasy, set in Los Angeles in the years following World War II. The protagonist is a mixed-race detective. There are vampires, ghosts and other supernatural beings. The detective has a talking cat who periodically kills rats that are sent by the detective's enemies to snoop on him. I thought it was one of Turtledove's better books.

The Return by Walter de la Mare has a protagonist who falls asleep at a graveyard. When he wakes up and returns home, he and others discover his face has changed to resemble the person who was buried where the hero took his nap. There is not much else that actually happens in the book and the reader is left wondering if the protagonist is experiencing everything he describes or suffers from mental illness. At first I was a little disappointed by the book, but then I started noticing how atmospheric and poetic many passages were.  I started marking them. 

"After all, what is every man?" he talked on; "a horde of ghosts -- like a Chinese nest of boxes -- oaks that were acorns that were oaks. Death lies behind us, not in front -- in our ancestors, back and back, until -- "

Another passage:

The still grave face beneath the shadow of its veil had never turned, though the moon poured all her flood of brilliance upon the dark profile. And once when as if in sudden alarm he had lifted his head and looked at her, a sudden doubt had assailed him so instantly that he had half put out his hand to touch her, and had as quickly withdrawn it, lest her beauty and stillness should be, even as the moment's fancy had suggested, only a far-gone memory returned in dream.

One of the characters is named Herbert Herbert, so I wondered if Vladimir Nabokov referenced the novel when he named the main character in Lolita Humbert Humbert. But whereas Humbert Humbert liked very young girls, Herbert Herbert surrounds himself with very old books. 

De la Mare also wrote ghost stories and I plan to hunt them up. 

RAW daughter Christina Pearson, who runs the RAW Trust,  is still facing open heart surgery, now scheduled for Oct. 27 at last report. I wanted to note that the Gofundme to help her has exceeded its goal, as people have rallied around her, but the site is still taking donations, if you can afford to help. 

Over the last few years, I have bought many books from Hilaritas Press, the publishing imprint for  the Robert Anton Wilson Trust. Many of these books have been editions of RAW's works, but many also have been works by other writers. What I've almost always done is buy the book as soon as it was released.

This time, I am doing something different. I have preordered Maybe Magick, the latest compilation of RAW's writings, due for release Oct. 31.

I don't suppose that my one order will make much difference, and several preorders by other fans likely won't make much difference, ether, but preordering books  helps  them become a success. As ChatGPT explains, "the biggest reason is that preorders can influence how publishers, bookstores, and the media judge a book's prospects for success. A preorder is more than a promise to buy a book: it can help build momentum before the book even reaches store shelves." Follow the link for a longer explanation.

Here is the Amazon page to preorder. Here is the Bookshop page.  You can also preorder from Barnes and Noble. 

Of course, I will still cover the full announcement when the book is released. 

The above is probably from Rasa. Posted on Bluesky by Klaster Chaosmos, who posts a lot of Discordian/RAW-related material. 

Damien Echols has a new book out. As he was one of the writers invited to contribute to the Hilaritas Press edition of Sex, Drugs & Magick, I thought there might be some interest among RAW fans. 

The book is The Alchemy of the Broken Blade: Forging Inner Transformation from the Fire of Experience and it features a forward by Mitch Horowitz. Here is some of the book blurb:

"The Alchemy of the Broken Blade is a field manual for those walking through the fire. It is for anyone who's been shattered―by trauma; by grief; by the long, slow erosion of purpose in a world that worships distraction; that demands everything and gives little back. The Alchemy of the Broken Blade weaves a path for personal transformation through ritual, discipline, and relentless presence.

"Bestselling author Damien Echols delivers a practical tool kit for personal transformation and healing, not based on theory but on lived experience. He shares a spiritual practice born from extremes: From a wrongful conviction that led to death row, solitary confinement, spiritual breakdown, and resurrection, Echols spent years clawing his way out of despair and into a life he could stand inside again. And through that process, Echols discovered a path―not clean or easy but sacred."

The author's bio begins, "Damien Echols is an American author who first became known as one of three teenagers, the West Memphis Three, wrongly convicted of a triple murder in 1994. DNA evidence secured his release from death row in 2011, after which Echols authored several autobiographical and spiritual/magickal books."

A possible portrait of Christopher Marlowe. (Source). 

Fascinating article from the Guardian: 

"Dramatic new evidence concludes that the play Edward III should be added to William Shakespeare's canon, and also that it was a major collaboration with his contemporary rival Christopher Marlowe.

"The history was published anonymously in 1596, and it has long been thought that Shakespeare wrote at least a few scenes. However, Dr Rory Loughnane, a leading scholar and co-author of the research, told the Guardian that computerised textual analysis pushed the case 'beyond any reasonable doubt' that the Stratford-born playwright was the principal writer."

Here is a sentence from the article I particularly enjoyed: "The researchers used various forms of computerised linguistic analysis in comparing Edward III with securely attributed works by 10 dramatists active between the late 1580s and the mid-1590s. In one test, 23 segments - 'the lion's share' - were identified as being written by Shakespeare, while nine segments were classified as Marlowe, whose works include Doctor Faustus."

Shakespeare of course was born on April 23. 

The Washington, D.C., headquarters of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. Creative Commons photo, source. 

The David Lee essay I referenced yesterday had a sentence that jumped out to me: "Well, judging by nearly everyone (but not all) the people I've ever met on the Discordian scene, I'd assumed anyone handling RAW's legacy would be fairly politically Left, and on board with proper climate science."

The assumption that everyone who is a RAW fan is a leftist seems uninformed. But when I make that remark, I am really pointing a finger at myself.

I got interested in RAW when I was in college. I was in a small group of Libertarians at the University of Oklahoma. We were all big fans of the Illuminatus! trilogy, which came out in the 1970s, when I was in college.

I assumed at the time -- and thought for many years -- that most, or at least very many, RAW fans are libertarians. Launching this blog about 16 years ago taught me this was not true. In Britain particularly (David Lee is British) RAW fans tend to be Labour Party types. There are a few British libertarians, but apparently only a few. In the U.S., there are in fact plenty of RAW fans among libertarians. But it's not clear to me that they outnumber people into magick or Bernie Sanders fans. 

It took me awhile to realize that Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea attracted a wide range of weirdos, rather than just the sort of weirdos I hung out with in college. Do other RAW fans make that same mistake? 

 Michael Johnson on secret compartments in books. 

Dave Lee on Robert Anton Wilson and the yoga of hope, an essay he says was rejected for the upcoming RAW book on magick.  

Libbie Grant on  "The 13 Best Weird Literary Novels."

Edrith on 31 science fiction books to read, novels and collections. 

"Nonetheless, we have to hold our noses and vote for Democratic candidates, at least at the Federal level. The country is safest when the same party doesn't control the White House and both houses of Congress."

My contribution on the My9albums meme. also see above. Also, Jesse Walker's version. 

For years, we have had online reading groups at this blog, with posts that discuss a book a section at a time  and comments by other readers. In each case, I have put together links for each book, so that if you want to read it later, you can read the blog posts  and the comments. All of those links may be accessed by scrolling down the right side of this page.

I spent some  time today creating a page with links for all of the posts by Eric Wagner about The Classical Style by Charles Rosen, so now that's available, too. 

Here are other online reading  groups, indexed by links: Illuminatus!, Vineland by Thomas Pynchon, Natural Law by RAW (the Hilaritas version), Prometheus Rising by RAW, Nature's God by RAW, The Widow's Son by RAW, The Earth Will Shake by RAW, Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov, The Beethoven Quartets by Joseph Kerman, Email to the Universe by RAW, Cosmic Trigger by RAW, Coincidance by RAW, Masks of the Illuminati by RAW and Quantum Psychology by RAW. Read or re-read one of these books and see what the rest of us had to say about it! Again, look at the right side of the page and scroll down to find the book. 

I probably need to figure out a way to make it easy to find all of these reading groups. Maybe I will put up a list. 

The next online discussion group will be for the Schrödinger's Cat trilogy. That will start in January, using the one-volume edition; more details soon. 

Diagram from the new Oz Fritz blog post

In January, we will start an online discussion group on Schrödinger's Cat. Oz Fritz isn't waiting for the discussion of this seminal RAW work to begin; he has a new blog post up, "Robert Anton Wilson, The Rosy Cross and The Night of Pan," which discusses RAW's use of Cabala in the work. Oz remarks,

"This may seem fanciful to those who don't know Wilson or wish to deny his Cabala. The book Maybe Magick, scheduled for release at the end of this month (October, 2026) has a couple of articles (at least) that illustrate the complexity of his Cabalistic reckoning. Another example can be found in the introduction I wrote for Lion of Light."

And in the same post, Oz calls the trilogy a "Manual of Shamanism."

I'll have details up soon about the planned reading group. 

Bobby Campbell has announced that the trade paperback of the first three issues of the Tales of Illuminatus trade paperback of the first three issues  (pictured) and the paper edition of Skeleton Key #1 (Michael Johnson's zine of commentary) have been mailed to people who had them included in their Kickstarter packages.  I'm pretty sure that completes fulfillment for all of the people who supported the project with their pledges for the third issue. 

The Beatles in August 1966, the month Revolver was released (with disc jockey Jim Stagg). Public domain photo, source. 

I've had trouble finding anybody else  yet who thinks this is a big deal, but I think it's a big deal! If you live in the U.S. and you have a library card for a public library, you can likely listen to any Beatles album or song you like, for free, without advertising.

The reason for this is that most public libraries in the U.S. offer Hoopla Digital, a product accessed via a smartphone app or website that offers streaming movies, TV shows and music albums, along with digital books and comic books. While Hoopla offers many (but not all) classic rock artists, including the Rolling Stones, Elton John, Led Zeppelin and The Who, it did not have The Beatles (although it had solo albums by former Beatles.)

A few days ago, however, Hoopla suddenly announced it had the rights for the Beatles. I immediately checked out Let It Be (Super Deluxe) (57 tracks), Revolver (Super Deluxe) (63 tracks) and Rubber Soul (Super Deluxe) (68 tracks). I didn't listen to any albums, super deluxe or otherwise, I just reveled in being able to listen to songs such as "Drive My Car," "Norwegian Wood," "Rain" and "Nowhere Man" over and over again. 

A couple of posts on this blog of possible interest: "Yellow Submarine bleg,"  (see the comments), "I think I know where the yellow submarine in 'Illuminatus' comes from" and "Why 'Revolver' is the best Beatles album for RAW fans." 

In his latest newsletter, Joseph Matheny provides a look at what he's attempting with his latest work in progress, Art is War. 

"ART IS WAR, and I have never been more convinced of that than now. If you are an artist, this is your call to arms (your art is your praxis).

"Be a ronin instead of joining and supporting the feudal castles, i.e., the corporate raiders taking over the world of art, such as Disney, A24, and a plethora of other similar parasites.

"Seek out and support independent artists and/or make your own.

"Form art groups and, instead of falling for the old divide-and-conquer tactics corporate feudalists use to keep us separate and weaker, support each other. Bind together."

More here, including book notes, links and information about a new book, anonymously written, on "The joy of being nobody." 

A recent photo of Jesse Walker posted on Facebook. Wait, we found somebody who still uses a typewriter? 

This sounds pretty good. From Jesse Walker:

"I went on a podcast hosted by a couple of ex-CIA guys. It was about 30 minutes of them asking me questions about one of my books, then about 20 minutes of me asking them questions about life in the CIA."

The book of course is Jesse's The United States of Paranoia. The podcast is called Mission Implausible, here's the link to Jesse's episode. 

Bonus link: Judy Woodruff interviews Jesse on how conspiracy theories shaped America. 

Jacob Sullum, senior editor at Reason magazine

Jacob Sullum, routinely excellent when writing about what Robert Anton Wilson called the "war on some drugs," has a new piece up at the Reason magazine website, "How Murdering Suspected Drug Smugglers Became the New Normal."

Sullum discusses the Trump administrations policy of "remotely killing 227 people in cold blood without any semblance of due process" (as of late August this year) and then goes into detail about just how immortal and illegal the program is. As you might expect, the same people who bombed an Iranian girls school insist they are never wrong when they order a boat strike. 

I enjoy Halloween, and each October I try to do Halloween-related reading. 

Last year, I did well. I read a sprawling old Gothic novel, Melmoth the Wanderer, by Charles Robert Maturin. Very atmospheric. 

This year, I am about halfway through Twice As Dead by Harry Turtledove, a fantasy about a detective in Los Angeles, a few years after World War II. It has vampires, ghosts, etc. Not really scary, but Halloweenish and fun. 

Before the month ends, I hope to get to the Standard Ebooks edition of The Return by Walter de la Mare.  

As Brett Cox mentioned in a recent blog post, A Night in Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny also is a possible Halloween read. "There are people who reread it every October, a chapter a day for 31 days," he noted. 

The skeleton key zine, left, with the trade paperback of the first three issues of Tales of Illuminatus! Bobby Campbell illustration. 

Folks who purchased certain packages of items in the Kickstarter campaign got a nice bonus: Illuminatus Skeleton Key #1, by R. Michael Johnson. it's a pretty hefty publication, 44 pages along, and it explains both the ongoing adaptation by Bobby Campbell and also many of the allusions the original trilogy. Michael says he has read Iluminatus! about 20 times and he is the ideal person to tackle such a project.

I haven't received my paper copy in the mail but I have downloaded my PDF version and I have been reading it. I assume at some point it will be available as a standalone, but I haven't spotted it yet at, for example, the Weirdoverse gift shop on Etsy. 

Here is a bit in Michael's essay about how immersive the original trilogy was:

Consider: when you sit with a text - comix, films, novels, whatever - when you're engaged with the text...you're gone, man. For the time being you're "in" another world - the "world" of the novel, comic, or film...and what is "reality," then, anyway? Sure, your engagement with other worlds doesn't negate your primary reality - you know, the one where you gotta get out of bed and brush your teeth? That one? It's as real as it gets, no? But notice how "real" certain texts seem to you when you engage with them in all those times which are spent in non-primary "reality." Are these Other Worlds a threat to my primary "reality"? This is something we are all faced with, all the time, though we might not annotate it this way. Or so I submit to you as something true: when we leave our primary reality for the realities contained in books and other media: our minds meld with these alternate realities. 

Certainly for many people (such as me), reading Illuminatus! was a life-changing experience. I know a guy back in Tulsa who has a very fancy edition of Lord of the Rings, and he told me he re-reads it every year. At this point, my friend must really have Frodo,  Gandalf, et al. in his head! 

Lots  more Michael discussion of Wilson and Shea at the Overweening Generalist Substack.