Notes on Robert Anton Wilson — Cosmic Trigger I — The Final Secret of the Illuminati (2)
Section 2: Sirius Heresy
Wilson continues his quest training his mind to, among other things, experience spontaneous hallucinations, synesthesias, and other manipulations of subjective reality, primarily by smoking marijuana and experimenting with ill-defined trance states to alter his mental meta-programming. He describes stoned yoga as “…a method of freeing the nervous system of conditioned perception.” I suppose I’ve never looked at it that way, but true from a certain point of view. In context this chapter is narrated from his time as an editor at Playboy in the late 60’s, when the government was shitting on hippies, an exploding of the crazed anti-drug mob that was fed by, and ate, Dr. Leary. The anti-drug hysteria and drug crackdown was reaching fever pitch, so the LSD wasn’t as good and basically everyone smoked weed all the time while everyone freaked out about everyone smoking weed all the time.
A lot of his feelings expressed in the beginning of this section are so relevant to our time it’s scaring the living shit out of me. It continues in Wilson’s stream of consciousness as he dumps his brain on us, telling the story of his journey while researching his seminal masterpiece.
The heresy hunt begins
To reiterate some of our purpose here: To create the most clear picture of what going on around you, what Wilson would call “practical intelligence,” is to receive as many signals as possible around you from as many sources as you can, no matter how warped or stupid the source may at first seem in the “fluid” reality described in the last section-Adhering so tightly to our own bubble-wrapped conception of reality is what keeps people far more stupid than they need to be. To Dr. Leary we are experimenting with what he called neurological relativism: No two people perceive reality through their individual sensorium the same way. Quite frequently here Wilson describes himself as his personae The Libertarian, a testament to free speech and against book burning and censorship by government and its propogandist media goblins.
Systematic lying creates what communications scientists call a “disinformation situation” in which everybody eventually begins to distrust, demonize, and diabolize everybody else.
You don’t say?
We document here how Dr. Leary was treated by the US Government and though I don’t care for his public persona as some counter-culture guru myself, Leary was still treated with absolute barbarity. Did his public appearances and speeches add to a growing drug problem in the 1960’s that persists to this day? Probably, yes, to some degree or another, but to slam him in solitary and treat him like a dangerous gangster was just wrong.
…the terroristic campaign described by Leary, he himself was repeatedly arrested, convicted of owning two joints of marijuana (he claimed it was a frame-up, but the liberals weren’t interested in his claims, since the cops are the new gods of corporate liberaldom.
You don’t say?
All this happened in broad daylight, with the liberals and the ACLU unable to recognize that the Constitution was being mauled and mangled in a fashion similar to the famous “Red Terror” of the early 1950s.
You don’t say?
Wilson The Libertarian reminds us of the appalling treatment of both Dr. Leary and another rare thinker, Dr. Wilhelm Reich, inventor of the orgone accumulator. They gave Leary 40 years, threw him in irons, spent time in solitary, all of this for this brilliant and gentle and yes, extremely eccentric man who had a rather gross public personae. His theories and delivery were far from mainstream thought, but it was abominable to treat him like public enemy #1. Dr. Reich died in prison after the US Government destroyed his orgone accumulators and burned all of his research in what has been called the worst example of censorship in modern US history. The man was a director at one of Freud’s clinics. He was an amazing and eccentric scholar who just wanted to help people be full of holy orgasm energy and they burned all of his books at his own expense in a public incinerator in the middle of NYC for all to see. Don’t miss this: The US Government, at the behest of the FDA, had a distinguished psychiatrist and researcher publicly humiliated and thrown in prison to die for distributing what people might today call “misinformation.” These are real events that happened in the 1950’s and 60’s with the blessings and encouragement of liberal politicians at the time.
Discordianism
Discordianism is a satirical religion invented by some of Wilson’s friends in 1958 that worships the Greek goddess of chaos, Eris. If you have read anything about or by The Church of the Subgenius you get the idea ( there’s a documentary?). Bob is Eris, or maybe Bob is Eris and the anti-Eris because Bob is selling galaxies of Pure Slack. What is Slack, you ask? Well friend, Salvation is just $10 away!
As I was saying: Discordianism is a satire of Western monotheism with an interesting and I’m sure effective method of evangelism:
The Socratic Approach: Start a conversation by starting an argument about X. If they do not agree, continue on down the list.
The Blind Assertion: Insist that what you are saying about X is correct. Forcefully. X=X goddammit.
The Faith Bit: Insist that one must have faith in X, without faith, all is lost. Be somber and apologetic about their damnation if they deny X.
The Argument By Fear: Remind them of what happens when X is angered, and that they are in no existential position to question X.
The First Clause Ploy: Point out that all of the things they think are good come from X. (When X = Eris, all the bad things come from X)
The Argument By Semantical Gymnastics: If they counter by pointing out that good things are random or due to natural phenomena, agree with them and state yes, those random natural phenomena come from X.
The Figurative Symbolism Dodge: If all else fails, confide in them that X is just a symbol of a metaphysical reality form, more of an art that you have to be into or you’ll be left behind by the cool people. Tell them to follow you on Substack and move on.
Wilson claims that he and his Discordian friends planted tons of conspiracy theory stories in underground news media back then about the Illuminati and the Kennedy Assassination. He states that some stories were more erudite and subtle, and others were just deranged by design. I’m not sure I believe everything he’s saying here, but if any bit of it is true he’s a goddamn hero.
First Law of Discordianism: Convictions cause Convicts
Neurological Model Agnosticism.
Whatever you believe imprisons you.
The Beginning of Telepathic Transmissions from Sirius
Wilson describes his telepathic messages from Sirius, describing them as coming from an “angelic and melodious” voice, believing the transmissions to come from the Holy Guardian Angel due to his experimentations with Crowley’s methods. He is fairly rational about them, electing to accept the neuro-metaprogrammed reality that the messages were coming from a Higher Intelligence. He is also quite critical of this voice he hears, calling it trite at times and a bit patronizing. It does not share any cosmic wisdom deeper than “forgive those that wrong you” and “the check is in the mail it will be here Thursday.” Bummer.
Random Illuminati Interlude
Descriptions of The Illuminati have nothing to do with the historical accuracy of the group as a known entity, it is the concept of a secret society of human beings positioning themselves for or possessing some hegemonic control that may or may not be malevolent. A cult, if you will. It echoes of primal witchcraft superstitions, “demon worshippers” etc, generally considered confabulation by anthropologists who have sought to study these evil witches and worshippers. Could there be an extraterrestrial force who, as Crowley suggested, was marshalling its forces to invade and take over the planet with the help of a secret group of powerful individuals preparing the way for their coming? An invasion from another star or another universe, postphysical, transfinite, and hungry? Maybe Lovecraft was onto something. Maybe it’s just paranoia and LSD. Maybe.
The Last Secret of The Illuminati: one becomes so skeptical that you are finally open to considering even the unthinkable.
Mystic Sirius, Notes
Binary star magnitude 1.4, 8.6ly away in the constellation Canis Major, brightest star in the sky that is actually a star (Venus is brighter). Also called the Dog Star, in Greek called Sothis, follows at the foot of Orion the Hunter, his eternal companion and guardian — It has a similar reference as the Dog Star in the Rig Veda as well. Positioned in the zodiac sign of Cancer, closer to Gemini than to Leo in the night sky hinting at the influence of Mercury. Cancer’s element is Fire of Water, it is the sign the sun moves into at solstice, ruled by the Moon and exalted by Jupiter, represented by the 18th Hebrew key ח (Cheth or Heth, Fence) and thus its number is 18. 18th Sephirotic path The House of Influence: “(by the greatness of whose abundance the influx of good things upon created beings is increased) and from the midst of the investigation the arcana and hidden senses are drawn forth, which dwell in its shade and which cling to it, from the cause of all causes” — it lies between Binah (Understanding, Mother) and Geburah (Strength, Judgement). 18 is the number of the Greek god Apollo, with the angel Muriel who is Abaddon the Angel of Death, and with the Egyptian gods Sopdet (called Sothis by the Greeks, coincidentally of course), Khephra (the scarab — Spontaneous Creation — The eternal rebirth of the Morning Sun) and Hormakhu (The sun-disk), and of the Sphinx. In the Western occult tradition it is associated with the Magical Power of casting enchantments.
In the tarot due to its location in Cancer, Sirius is thus associated with Atu VII: The Chariot; a king sits meditatively, pulled by holy sphinx. It represents the act of expressing the will, a complex arcana representing very primal forces in the upper boughs of the Tree of Life as the Chariot traverses the path across The Abyss from the feminine understanding of Binah to the rigid masculine expression of the will in Geburah-The glyph Cheth, though commonly called Fence, represents the Holy Grail, within which is the Secret of the Universe. Positively expressed it is life, generativity and hope. Negatively it is dogmatic violence, moralistic authority and careless expression of the Will.
Given the divinatory properties, we may perhaps see how Sirius fits in to the Crab and The Chariot. As noted, the Chariot is associated with the god Apollo, twin of the huntress Artemis. Apollo is god of the sun, the protector and the lawgiver, the personified masculine figure, disciplined and rational — attributes associated with the Sephirot of Geburah positively expressed. Sothis the goddess was a life-bringer whose bright star heralded the flooding of the Nile, of the most ancient of the Egyptian gods, her image absorbed into those of both Isis and Anubis in later kingdoms. Sothis the dog then perhaps, much like Apollo, brings life, provides protection and brings knowledge — companionship, magic and wonder from the dog days of prehistory.
Additionally as an aside, the Hebrew character Cheth means Fence and is key 18. Cheth is 18, but written out fully the glyph’s number is 418, a magic number representing the connection between the material and mystical world.
4 + 18 reduces to 2 + 3 and we very quickly find in the glyph another 23.
The enigma continues👽
Next: We go on welfare with the Gods of Egypt and Our Lady of Space
Originally published at https://dissidenttower.substack.com on March 15, 2022.
