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Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007)

Author of The Illuminatus! Trilogy

73+ Works 19,754 Members 192 Reviews 117 Favorited

About the Author

Novelist, Teacher and Former Playboy Editor Robert Anton Wilson

Series

Works by Robert Anton Wilson

The Illuminatus! Trilogy (1975) 4,527 copies
Principia Discordia (1965) 1,471 copies
Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy (1988) 1,425 copies
Prometheus Rising (1983) 1,301 copies
Masks of the Illuminati (1981) 786 copies
The Earth Will Shake (1982) 610 copies
The Widow's Son (1985) 506 copies
The Illuminati Papers (1980) 483 copies
Nature's God (1988) 345 copies
Coincidance : A Head Test (1988) 300 copies
Semiotext(e) SF (1989) — Editor — 247 copies
Wilhelm Reich in Hell (1987) 189 copies
Schrödinger's Cat III: The Homing Pigeons (1981) — Author — 148 copies
Email to the Universe (2005) 99 copies
The Sex Magicians (1973) 10 copies
O livro dos illuminati (1999) 3 copies
Tale of the Tribe (2001) 2 copies
Cosmic Trigger Vol.I (1993) 1 copy
Illuminatus #3 (1991) 1 copy
Ascensão de Prometeu (2013) 1 copy

Associated Works

The Eye in the Triangle: An Interpretation of Aleister Crowley (1970) — Introduction, some editions — 270 copies
Disco 2000 (1998) — Contributor — 97 copies
When the Music's Over (1991) — Contributor — 63 copies
Historia discordia : the origins of the Discordian Society (2014) — Introduction — 43 copies
Great Tales of Madness and the Macabre (1990) — Contributor — 24 copies
Disinformation: The Complete Series (2003) — Contributor — 8 copies
Lazy Man's Guide to Death and Dying (1983) — Introduction — 8 copies
The Witches' Almanac: Aries 1976 to Pisces 1977 (1976) — Contributor — 8 copies
Gnostica 27 : Vol. 4, No. 3, November 1974 (1974) — Contributor — 3 copies
Gnostica, Vol 5 #2, #38 (1976) — Contributor — 2 copies
Gnostica 28 : Vol. 4, No. 4, December 1974 (1974) — Contributor — 2 copies
Fortean Times 68 — Contributor — 2 copies
Fortean Times 58 — Contributor — 2 copies
Gnostica News, Volumes 1 & 2 — Contributor — 1 copy
Gnostica 29 : Vol. 4, No. 5, January 1976 (1976) — Contributor — 1 copy

Tagged

American (62) anthology (112) biography (88) consciousness (88) conspiracies (107) conspiracy (649) conspiracy theory (131) counterculture (163) discordia (117) discordian (116) discordianism (180) drugs (110) esoteric (109) fantasy (356) fiction (1,422) fnord (193) humor (334) Illuminati (416) literature (63) magick (80) metaphysics (61) non-fiction (404) novel (221) occult (308) omnibus (60) paperback (62) philosophy (533) politics (66) psychology (366) raw (193) read (269) religion (259) Robert Anton Wilson (210) satire (112) science fiction (1,130) secret societies (114) sf (293) to-read (531) unread (118) weird (88)

Common Knowledge

Members

Reviews

With a quarter of the book being appendices and the characters realizing they're in a book this is where this series goes from metafiction into a winking declaration of Truth, or maybe fiction that might as well be fact. If you come into it expecting a conclusion that would make sense of the nonsense you've spent 600 pages trying to decipher you will be disappointed. Much like a koan, the book isn't supposed to make sense on the surface level, it's supposed to make sense to you, in a flash of enlightenment. Or illumination.… (more)
 
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A.Godhelm | 3 other reviews | Oct 20, 2023 |
The concluding book of the trilogy offers less autobiography and more on the topics that were preoccupying RAW late in life. The cultural touchstones of Rodney King and OJ Simpson being recent memory, as well as his disdain for HW Bush, gives you a sense of where this stands on the timeline. Some events like the Reich saga are gone from public consciousness, but a lot of the discussion around social topics hasn't moved an inch in 30 years. Wilson would undoubtedly have continued morphing his opinions had there been more entries.… (more)
 
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A.Godhelm | 2 other reviews | Oct 20, 2023 |
It's a fascinating time capsule into the 60s and 70s, with boundless optimism for the future, for the development of mankind, for immortality and psychic powers. It's also, of course, extremely dated, and wrong in most of its predictions. The biographical notes weave in and out of the narrative but it never really becomes a RAW biography - and that's to its advantage.

Audio note: It's engagingly read but has a couple of audio mistakes with redone lines.
 
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A.Godhelm | 13 other reviews | Oct 20, 2023 |
Reread after decades. Holds up pretty well. A mystery of sorts in which a naive young man is lured into an occult organization which is not what it seems. The mystery is solved with the aid of chance acquaintances, James Joyce and Albert Einstein.
 
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ritaer | 6 other reviews | Sep 8, 2023 |

Lists

Awards

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Associated Authors

Kerry W. Thornley Introduction
Robert Sheckley Contributor
T.L. Parkinson Contributor
Daniel Pearlman Contributor
Rachel Pollack Contributor
J.G. Ballard Contributor
Lorraine Schein Contributor
John Shirley Contributor
Lewis Shiner Contributor
Luke McGuff Contributor
Ivan Stang Contributor
Bruce Sterling Contributor
Kerry Thornley Contributor
Ian Watson Contributor
Don Webb Contributor
Colin Wilson Contributor
T. Winter-Damon Contributor
Sol Yurick Contributor
Thom Metzger Contributor
Jacob Rabinowitz Contributor
Bob McGlynn Contributor
Sharon Gannon Contributor
Hakim Bey Contributor
David Life Contributor
Bruce Boston Contributor
Paul Di Filippo Contributor
Philip Jose Farmer Contributor
Hugh Fox Contributor
Michael Blumlein Contributor
Greg Gibson Contributor
Nick Herbert Contributor
Ernest Hogan Contributor
Richard Kadrey Contributor
James Koehnline Contributor
Ron Kolm Contributor
Marc Laidlaw Contributor
William Gibson Contributor
John Higgs Introduction
Carlos Ochagavia Cover artist
Udo Breger Translator
Israel Regardie Introduction
Timothy Leary Foreword
John Thompson Illustrator
Ken Campbell Narrator
Pociao Translator
René Taschner Übersetzer
Christopher Hyatt Introduction
Donald Holmes Foreword
Clara Cohan Cover designer

Statistics

Works
73
Also by
22
Members
19,754
Popularity
#1,097
Rating
3.9
Reviews
192
ISBNs
236
Languages
14
Favorited
117
Touchstones
88

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