Other Resources

"Robert Anton Wilson is the unacknowledged elephant in our cultural living room: a direct and indirect influence on popular books, movies, TV shows, music, games, comics, and commentary."

* Robert Anton Wilson: Searching For Cosmic Intelligence by Jeffrey Elliot

STARSHIP: For those who have not read Illuminatus! and would like to know something about the storyline of the book, how would you describe its contents?

WILSON: I like the description by John White, in his review of the book, who said, "It's a journey through paranoia to metanoia. "Paranoia is a state of mind in which one is able to see that everything is connected, which indeed it is, but the paranoid sees everything in the form of a conspiracy directed at him. In metanoia, you see that everything is connected, but in a very funny, comical, and ultimately triumphant way. I would say that the end of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is the greatest expression of metanoia in Western art. Every successful mystic has a basically metanoid outlook on life. Anyone who has ever taken LSD has experienced a few hours of metanoia.

* Man Bites Dogma interview with Michael Dare

DARE
You've painted a rather bleak picture of a conspiratorial world. Are there any positive actions we can take to change things?
WILSON
In my books, I'm trying to show people how to free their own minds. I think that's the first step. People have got to become less mechanical and more aware. My books are all constructed as mindfucks, to get the readers to open their brains up, receive new signals, and come out of their conditioned patterns of thought and perceptions.
Ongoing cultural influences
Whole essays can be written about the influence of this set of books on later culture. If you care to submit them, we will find a place for them, because people see influences anywhere from books (The DaVinci Code) to television (Lost) and places in between.
The most recent (and highly recommended - as I have already enjoyed 75% of it - 25 Nov 2012) that I came across was John Higgs' Kindle book about the KLF, which covers Bill Drummond's influence on the design of the original stage show, Ken Campbell, through the Justified Ancients of Mummu music, and taking in Alan Moore, and a whole series of synchronicities surrounding the whole work, before and since.