.png)
.png)
.png)
Robert Anton Wilson, Leary, Transhumanish Meta-Agnosticism, and Chapel Perilous. (Part 1) With Gabriel Kennedy
Dec. 07, 2024. 10 mins. read.
8 Interactions
Neural circuits, collective minds, and cosmic insights—explore the legacy of Robert Anton Wilson and Timothy Leary's evolutionary psychology in this must-read two-part interview with Gabriel Kennedy.
The Illuminati. Discordianism. Operation Mindfuck, Reality Tunnels. Model Agnosticism. These memes are part of the vocabulary of contemporary culture because of one man: Robert Anton Wilson. And should I mention to Mindplex readers that he was also an early transhumanist, even if he did not necessarily use the word?
Over the last month, the counterculture has been celebrating the release of the long awaited biography Chapel Perilous: The Life and Thought Crimes of Robert Anton Wilson by Gabriel Kennedy. There follows a two-part interview with Gabe.
But first I want to explain the Leary/Wilson paradigm to Mindplex readers who may be unfamiliar with it; Timothy Leary and Robert Anton Wilson were transhumanists decades ahead of the thinkers later called transhumanists (except for F.M. Esfandiary).
Let’s take a look at the vision that was put out into the world in the mid-1970s by this pair.
The theory – developed by Timothy Leary in the mid-1970s and then expanded upon by Science Fiction writer and philosopher Robert Anton Wilson – proposed that there are ‘circuits’, or neural patternings, or potentials for intelligence and experience, residing inside the human skull
waiting for the time when they will be useful for human or posthuman survival and/or enjoyment. It was a sort-of evolutionary psychological system that presumed that human evolution didn’t end with unaltered 20th century humans, but rather that we were going to become posthuman and post-terrestrial in some interesting, exciting and pleasurable ways.
In simplistic terms, Leary/Wilson proposed that – both as individuals and as a species – ordinary pre-mutant humans have always evolved through four stages of development dealing with –
- Approach or avoidance
- Territory and power
- Language and physical dexterity
- Socialization
When a civilization becomes advanced enough to offer some of its privileged members leisure time, this provides them the opportunity to open somatic potentials and experience the brain and body not merely as an implement for survival, but as something one can derive pleasure and increased intelligence from, to enjoy sensual, visionary, playful, fluid and creative mind-states. And some survival value ultimately comes from this: as human societies grow more sophisticated around an increasing need to satisfy desires for aesthetic and sensual experiences and insights. They called this the 5th brain circuit.
Naturally, with Leary involved, each higher circuit could also be opened up by a drug or drugs: in this case marijuana.
The next circuit or potential Leary theorized was the 6th ‘neuro-electric’ or ‘metaprogramming’ circuit. [EDITOR’S NOTE: Some texts list the neuro-electric circuit as the 6th and the neuro-genetic as the 7th; others – such as Prometheus Rising – invert this order. The correct ordering is left as an exercise to the reader.]
Here the being begins to experience the body and brain as something one can drive and control, and reprogram. Leary/Wilson theorized that these evolutionary potentials in the brain would open up under evolutionary conditions brought on by communications media and brain technologies (and, of course, they could be – and had been – opened up temporarily and prematurely by using psychedelic drugs).
The next circuit – circuit 7 – has to do with experiences of collective consciousness. Here the individual is understood not just as an individual but as a branch of the great tree of life. Mastering this circuit would open us up to biological intelligence: genetic engineering, biotechnology, the ability to control our biology and alter and enhance ourselves in ways that would have seemed science fictional and superhuman to average 20th century humans. (High dose psychedelic experiences were said to open us up to genetic intelligence.)
This was the idea of shared minds; minds hooked up, speeded up, linked up – what would become the networked, online world, perhaps ultimately extending out to direct mind linkups and borg-like collectivities of mind.
Finally, the eighth circuit promised molecular (nanotech), atomic and ultimately quantum control over matter, the universe and everything. (Only the most powerful drugs, like DMT, Ketamine and high dose LSD were said to open up visions of these realms.) With the acronym SMI²LE,
Leary/Wilson also proposed that the goal of 1970s humanity should be Space Migration Intelligence Increase and Life Extension.
Only RAWilson Remains
The mindshares of the great counterculture celebrities of the 1960s and 1970s, even including Leary (as compared to a mediocrity like, say, Joe Rogan), shrink into the distance, Robert Anton Wilson’s legend continues to grow. Now we have the first and only lucid and highly detailed biography of this working-class writer and compassionate family man who was the unlikely spreader of extravagantly puckish and anarchistic tropes.
What comes across in the bio, aside from the amount of energy it must have required to do what Bob Wilson did against the physical and financial obstacles he faced, is the essential kindness of the man, a kindness that radiated outward to family and friends (daughter Christina is a major source), and to the esteemed author Gabriel Kennedy, who organized and wrote this entire effort while often unhoused but unbowed. He deserves a lengthy holiday in Chapel Marvelous!
I’ll let Gabriel tell the story in this two-part piece. In part two, we may learn the answer to the eternal question – how many writers does it take to find a light switch?
Note: Friends and fans of Robert Anton Wilson often referred to him as RAW or as Bob
R.U. Sirius: We can catch up on Bob’s private life in a while, but let’s start with philosophy. After all, the story of Bob’s life is largely that of an inveterate reader and thinker; and of someone who sampled a lot of philosophic tendencies and movements. One influence that remained with him throughout his life was the work of Alfred Korzybski and General Semantics. Can you give our Mindplex readers a brief summary regarding Korzybski and his influence on Robert Anton Wilson’s philosophy and writings?
Gabriel Kennedy: Sure. RAW discovered Science and Sanity, Korzybski’s most famous book, while roaming the stacks of a New York City Library as a teenager. He became immediately fascinated by everything Korzybski discussed in the 800-plus-page book. He wrote that he became so intrigued that he read that giant book in one weekend! He was smitten with the question Korzybski raised, which is “What is reality?” In answering that, Korzybski lays down a framework for applying the hard and soft sciences to get at the notion of perception.
It’s been 91 years since Science and Sanity was published, so science, especially neuroscience, mind-body science, and psychoneuroimmunology, has progressed since then. However, at the time, Wilson thought it was revolutionary information. Korzybski loved calculus and thought that math was a more efficient way of communicating information than linguistic languages, and he aimed to make the English language, at least, as efficient as calculus. Bob loved math at the time so he immediately locked into Korzybski’s style of writing and expression.
Besides Korzybski’s style, Bob found instant value in the content of Science and Sanity. For instance, the phrase “the map is not the territory” was introduced to Bob in Korzybski’s book. The phrase essentially means that there are events happening outside of our perception and our knowledge of the world outside of us, and this is true for every human. Therefore, no person will ever be able to create a map that perfectly replicates the living breathing moment of any location or space; it’s impossible. With that as an axiom in Korzybski’s system, General Semantics then becomes about recognizing how often we mistake our maps of anything with the living breathing manifestation of matter we are encountering.
To me, General Semantics is based on another Korzybskian phrase that RAW loved, which is “organism-as-a-whole-interacting-with-environment-as-a-whole.” Korzybski came up with this around the time that the term ‘ecosystem’ was coined, but it’s pretty much the same thing. The last important part of Korzybski’s system that Bob loved was K’s rejection of Aristotle’s logical system. Korzybski believed that Aristotle’s principle of the excluded middle, which states that for every proposition, it is either true or false, was inaccurate. Wilson agreed with Korzybski and dedicated his career seeking to prove the number of ways things can be both/and instead of either/or.
Korzybski also wrote a bit about stagecraft magic in the book. He wrote about how people willingly let the stage magician fool them, because they want the magic. The insight here is twofold. One, people crave magic. Two, people will willingly hypnotize themselves into believing in someone of something that tells them to do so. For Wilson, Science and Sanity and General Semantics, was also a tool for achieving psychological liberation from the litany of authoritarian systems that exist in the world, from religious cults to countries.
RU: Continuing on the philosophical influence tip, Aleister Crowley figures large in RAW’s very influential original Cosmic Trigger book. I see this as similar to his early tendency to embrace individualist anarchism as also discussed in your book. Crowley’s “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law” was a slap in the face of centuries of religious repression and guilt. It allowed for the emergence of the kind of bold ambitions represented by the transhumanist tendencies of this site, a tendency that Bob also embraced. Please say a little about how Bob interacted with Crowley’s philosophy and practices and how you see it relating to some of the bold attitudes in late 20th century counterculture.
GK: Wilson became enamored with Crowley’s work after being introduced to it through a biography called The Eye in the Triangle by Israel Regardie, the English-American Occultist and writer. In a few short years, RAW worked his way through much of Crowley’s magical system and developed his own insights. There is an anti-authoritarian appeal that Wilson found in Crowley’s work, as well as the use of sex and drugs to attain states of magical consciousness. These are two brief examples of Crowley’s influence on later 20th century counterculture.
I spend a lot of time in my book unpacking two major Crowleyian ideas that had an influence on Wilson. First was Crowley’s notion of Scientific Illuminism. Wilson believed that Crowley synthesized the Western Esoteric Tradition with Yoga, in which an empirical practice resides, and skepticism. Crowley essentially updated the Magic(k)al map for Wilson, and he spoke about Thelemic rituals in an analytical cross-cultural pan-scientific way. In his work, Crowley created, or revealed, a tradition of Scientific Illuminists, magically-infused scientists, who are the ones creating the really big ideas in history. Wilson added Jack Parsons, the inventor of the first rocket engine and a leader in the Los Angeles O.T.O., to the list. He also put Timothy Leary on the list. Maybe he added John C. Lilly to the list. I would. And I would add Wilson to the list, too.
Ultimately, RAW loved the idea of synthesizing the spooky a-causal connections found in magic with the proven methods of science to craft a new science of understanding for humanity.
Perhaps the most enduring influence of Crowley’s work on RAW was the British scoundrel’s obsession with the concept of the Holy Guardian Angel. Of course, Crowley did not create the concept of a Holy Guardian Angel, nor did he create the ritual that supposedly puts a magician in touch with their HGA, but Crowley made it his stated purpose in life to turn people on to their Holy Guardian Angels. I find this amusing to no end because Crowley was the Great Beast… Mr. 666 himself, but this relation to the HGA may reveal that at the core Crowley was a Christian mystic. Some will contest this, but I think RAW would agree. I dedicate more than a few pages in my book to Wilson’s own views on the Holy Guardian Angel, and how one can contact him, her, they, them, or it!
Tune in next week for more of this discussion about Chapel Perilous: The Life and Thought Crimes of Robert Anton Wilson, with Gabriel Kennedy.
Let us know your thoughts! Sign up for a Mindplex account now, join our Telegram, or follow us on Twitter.
0 Comments
0 thoughts on “Robert Anton Wilson, Leary, Transhumanish Meta-Agnosticism, and Chapel Perilous. (Part 1) With Gabriel Kennedy”