Prometheus Rising

This book does a good job of presenting the circuits operating in the brain, based on Timothy Leary's models and is as convincing as any offered by Freud, Jung and subsequent theorists though influenced too by these. Its account of the process of brainwashing is also convincing. Wilson is good company as a writer, lacing the theory with informal humour and thought provoking exercises where he is arguably more insightful than most academic thinkers. But he loses me a bit in the last three circuits. It's not that I would deny totally that these exist but am not sure how influential they are. I'm willing to admit the right-brain where these are located plays a part in brain function that's not fully understood but a lot of what Wilson show more states is largely speculative. The positive effects of yoga I believe are overstated. Many of his predictions for the future haven't been realized but it still reads entertainingly as a prognosis from his situation at the time. I enjoyed the eclectic mix of Leary, Crowley and Joyce. Where else would you get it? Maybe Colin Wilson mined similar territory. Robert Anton was certainly an open-minded thinker. A lot of his readers seem to come to him as bright teenagers but I don't think I'm too old to learn something from him! show less

This is perhaps the closest Wilson came to a textbook on the subject of the 8 circuit model. While he essentially follows the same theme is in most of his works, Prometheus Rising comes closest to a flat-out lecture on the subject. An absolutely fascinating read that had tremendous influence on my thinking. I used to highlight the sections that I thought were particularly insightful, but after multiple readings I found that there was more highlighted than not!

A bit overly speculative, but that's the 'point' at times. Robert Anton Wilson was the trickster god of the 20th century, with Leary his John the baptist. Once you realize he's laughing both at you, himself, and 'with' you, then there's still a long way to walk in his writing. And that's a blessing if that's the case, because he has a written voice like nothing else out there.

This was the very first Robert Anton Wilson book I read. As the blurb says, it will reverse every mental polarity in you, well according to none other than Philip K Dick it will. Robert Anton Wilson deserves to be read by every inquiring mind. His books are incisive, thought-provoking, and humorous. The man's obvious love of humanity and the human psyche shine through. I thoroughly recommend all of his books (I now own 15 of his works), but this is where I started and it might be the best place for you too. This book, and indeed most of RAW's work doen't tell you WHAT to think, but HOW to think. There is a crucial difference, and this is apparent upon reading this. Highly recommended

Strongly informed by Leary's 8-circuit model of personality but given Wilson's inimitable spin, this is practical psychology at its most freewheeling and subversive. The utopian futurism has dated, but don't let that put you off.

Imagine trying to make sense of an amalgam of Timothy Leary's eight neurological circuits, G.I Gurdjieff's self-observation exercises, Alfred Korzybski's general semantics. Aleister Crowley's magical theorems, and the several disciplines of Yoga; not to mention Christian Science, relativity, quantum mechanics, and many other approaches to understanding the world around us! That is exactly what Robett Anton Wilson does in Prometheus Rising. In short, this is a book about how the human mind works and what you can do to make the most of yours.

'Bob has done it again for the first time ever! This book is everything I ever wanted to write in a practical guidebook on how to get here from there, and he's-as usual-first in print again! Just the show more exercise on finding quarters has paid for the book many times over.'-E.J. Gold

'Robert Anton Wilson speaks for that tiny but indispensable minority who are changing the way we think. To read him is to learn what the future holds, how to be part of the future and how to help create the future.'-Robert Shea

'The man's glittering intelligence won't let you rest. First he shocks, then he enlightens. One is never the same after reading him. With each new book I wlecome his wisdom, laced with his special brand of crazy humor.'-Alan Harrington, author of The Immortalist

Novelist, teacher and former Playboy Editor Robert Anton Wilson is the author of the Cosmic Trigger trilogy; Quantum Psychology; The wall Came Tumbling Down; The New Inquisition; The Illuminatus! trilogy (with Robert Shea); Reality Is What You Can Get Away With; Ishtar Rising; Wilhelm Reich in Hell; Sex & Drugs; Chaos & Beyond and other works.

Contents

Preface to the second edition
Introduction
1 The thinker and the power
2 Hardware & software: The brain and its programs
3 The oral bio-survival circuit
4 The anal emotional territorial circuit
5 Dickens & Joyce: The two-circuit dialectic
6 The time-binding semantic circuit
7 The time-binding dialectic: Acceleration & deceleration
8 The 'moral' socio-sexual circuit
9 Mindwashing & brain programming
10 How to brain-wash friends & robotize people
11 The holistic neurosomatic circuit
12 The collective neurogenetic circuit
13 Introduction to the metaprogramming circuit
14 The meta-programming circuit
15 Different models & different muddles
16 The snafu principle
17 Quantum evolution
18 The non-local quantum circuit
19 Prometheus rising
Appendix show less

This is, likely, the one book of RAW's that I still have a copy of on a shelf somewhere. I read it nearly 20 years ago and I can't say I remember it well or would even necessarily still find it insightful. That said, it had a dramatic impact on me at the time I read it and open my mind to a lot of possible different ways of looking at the world around me.