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From interview with Robert Anton Wilson:
DARE
Are there any existing political systems you admire?
WILSON
Scandinavian socialism. I found the Scandinavians to be about the most admirable people in Europe. clean streets, a low
crime rate, a general air of high civilization - luxuries for all and a total absence of slums, poverty, and ugliness. They
seem very happy and productive, with one of the most way out futurist movements in the world. They're the California of Europe.
I hate to sound like a Marxist, which I'm not, but the reason you haven't heard about Scandinavian Socialism is because
the media of this country is controlled by rich people who are scared shitless of socialism. They want Americans to think
there's only one type of socialism, Soviet Communism, which is the kind of place where dissident scientists get thrown in
lunatic asylums, all of which is true. Americans are paranoid about Russians but Scandinavians regard them with amusement;
they're those backwards people who think that you can only have socialism by putting all the poets and painters in jail. The
Scandinavians reward their poets and they don't put anyone in jail for dissident political opinions.
DARE
Aren't you scared of getting in trouble, of finally saying the one thing you shouldn't have said?
WILSON
We're all living in a world in which one cannot apply one's highest ideals without getting into a lot of trouble. I've
gotten in trouble, but I haven't gone to jail, which shows I may have more common sense than Tim Leary. I certainly don't
claim to be more intelligent than him. He's the most intelligent human being I've ever encountered.
DARE
Do you share his conclusions about LSD?
WILSON
LSD breaks up habitual circuits of the brain. It opens new circuits, breaks down old circuits, and there's no evidence
whatsoever that it destroys brain cells. LSD is very much a metaprogramming device, it changes the basic programs, that's
why it's dangerous. It creates acute paranoid states in bureaucrats who've never used it.
To get the best out of it needs a scientific or religious approach, one or the other. People who are just tripping
for the fun of it are more likely to imprint a whole new reality tunnel or personality on themselves that they weren't looking
for. If you're going to do LSD, you should decide the changes you're aiming at and structure the trip to lead to that kind
of change.
There's no doubt that you can change every part of your personality with LSD, that's why Leary calls it a reimprinting
drug. It changes basic imprints which are much more rigid than conditioning. There's no doubt that I am a different person
than I am before I took it.
I was a statistical materialist before I started experimenting with LSD, that is I didn't believe the laws of the
universe were absolutely deterministic because I knew enough quantum mechanics to know that it broke them down. But I was
still a statistical materialist, everything could be explained by the accidental permutations of little hunks of energy that
solidify into matter. I was perfectly satisfied with that explanation of the universe, and I never realized that I was as
dogmatic about it as any Catholic was about their faith. After LSD impacted on me, I became a total agnostic, and I'm not
dogmatic about anything any more. I know that every system I make up is my own brain making up a system. None of the systems
is big enough to include the whole universe, so all of my beliefs are only relatively true. Some are undoubtedly wrong because
I'm not that brilliant that I never make a mistake.
There are a lot of people who don't realize how conceited they are. By asserting with such certitude the things they
believe in, they don't realize that they're saying "I'm the smartest person in the world, I can answer all the questions."
People like Carl Sagan. I just don't know how he can be so sure of everything when, by and large, the more intelligent you
get, the more you realize you can't be sure of anything.
DARE
What is the next stage in evolution?
WILSON
The model I use is adapted from Leary. The oral-bio-survival circuit is what the amoebas operate on - taste everything.
Babies operate on that too. That's the circuit we go back to whenever we're in danger, and depending on what we imprinted
there, we will either attack or run away.
Then there's Freud's anal circuit, which has to do with claiming territory and status within it. That's when we go
through the mammalian rituals concerning who runs the family, outsmarting our brothers and sisters and trying to run the whole
show, imprinting our domination and submission reflexes. It's why people can hold jobs; their boss becomes a father substitute
and they attach all their reflexes to him.
Next there's the rational circuit in which we do our abstract reasoning with words and mathematics, and the sociosexual
circuit where we imprint the pattern of how we relate to people; with what degree of amity or sexuality. Everybody has a different
imprint, and society has only one general set of rules, so everybody is a heretic as far as that circuit is concerned. Those
four circuits are the natural child, the adoptive child, the adult, and the parent in Berne's system.
Beyond that is the neurosomatic circuit, where, through yoga or drugs or body work like Rolfing, one gimmick or another,
you are able to turn on to your own body in a new way, and instead of just reacting to the conditioned and imprinted programs
on the first four circuits, you are able to relax and go with the flow and enjoy life.
The sixth circuit is the neurogenetic circuit, which has to do with morpho-genetic resonances, coming in contact
with the experience and religious symbols of your ancestors, learning that they've been controlling you below the level of
consciousness all your life. This is what Shamanism traditionally deals with. Jungian psychology was the first attempt to
deal with it scientifically, now we've got dozens of others trying to bring people into harmony with archetypes of the collective
unconscious or genetic heritage.
The next is the metaprogramming circuit, which is learning how the brain can work on the brain, how you can imprint
different identities and reality tunnels as you go along. Before you get to that circuit, you have no idea what true freedom
really is, you're being manipulated all the time whether you know it or not. It's the circuit where you develop true choice.
DARE
How do you get there?
WILSON
If you do a lot of work on the 5th and 6th circuits, the 7th tends to click on. First you get a lot of synchronicities,
meaningful coincidences, accidental reinforcement from your environment, like someone coming by to loan you a book that's
exactly the one you were looking for. Jung found that his patient's dreams had more and more symbols out of Greek and Egyptian
and Hindu mythology as they progressed into that circuit, even without studying them consciously. They pulled them out of
the collective unconscious, which I think is actually the morphogenetic field.
Above that there's the non-local quantum circuit, which is the circuit in which we get true out of body experiences,
cosmic identification with the whole of existence.
We're learning so much about the latter four circuits, which Leary calls the extraterrestrial circuits, that we're
moving into a new stage of evolution. More people are on the fifth circuit than ever before in history, and there are growing
sixth and seventh circuit minorities. It's not an accident. We're changing just as we have to change. These circuits were
there, ready to be used, when we got to this point in evolution. Earlier, mankind could just coast along on the first four
circuits, and only visionaries and mystics and poets ever turned on the higher circuits. Now everyone does it.
DARE
How to you teach people to turn on their higher circuits?
WILSON
You've got to teach with humor to make the pill palatable. Besides, humor is the essence of realizing our true situation
in space and time. We are these tiny fallible beings crawling around on a relatively small planet, and anybody who pontificates
dogmatically about anything is giving evidence that they are an idiot, even if you agree with them. They shouldn't sound that
certain. We think we're so damn smart and we know so fucking little.
new poems:
"Dead Pacifists"
must we be nice
to the parasites
and the virus only doing it's job?
my soul, they allow me to keep
but my life they wish to rob
"How We Forget"
The length of a dawning
of linear time
Shall bounce back the breath
of a yawning divine
Rivers of words, blurring
elongated, wash up abrupt
on the beach of consiousness
As I drift inbetween worlds
Madness winks from a neighboring nook
Mi largo perdido amigo
The familiar, fetal-shaped brain groove
Snuggled, warm, hidden but for dreams
Sleep is sacred
How soon we forget
The power of belief
Imagination's holes
In reality's net
"Tea 'n Turkey"
manic thinking
caffeine's masterplan
settle down
tryptophan
carbon dating
aiding man
history
grains of sand
"Pleading The Fifth (Dimension)"
Outside of time
A true poet gives no pause
To accumulate the disease
Of mortality
The mind will still move
Yet the pen will not scribble
No ripple
Will reach those inside
From Robert Anton Wilson's Ishtar Rising or, Why the Goddess Went to Hell and What to Expect Now That She's Returning:
"Cary Grant was once told, "Every time I see you on the screen, I think, 'I wish I was Cary Grant.'"
He replied, "That's just what I think!"
I've been repeating that story ever since I first heard it, and it never fails to amuse audiences, all of whom seem
to understand it immediately. Everybody groks that Archie Leach, the poor boy from Liverpool who became "Cary Grant"
never fully believed in "Cary Grant," since Cary was, after all, his own invention. On the other hand, here's a
similar story, which I also like to tell, that produces very mixed reactions, with some people laughing and others looking
puzzled or slightly offended.
An art dealer once went to Pablo Picasso and said, "I have a bunch of 'Picasso' canvasses that I was thinking
of buying. Would you look them over and tell me which are real and which are forgeries?" Picasso obligingly began sorting
the paintings into two piles. Then, as the Great Man added one particular picture to the fake pile, the dealer cried, "Wait
a minute, Pablo. That's no forgery. I was visiting you the weekend you painted it." Picasso replied imperturbably, "No
matter. I can fake a Picasso as well as any thief in Europe."
Personally, I find this story not only amusing but profoundly disturbing. It has caused me to think, every time I
finish a piece of writing, "Is this a real Robert Anton Wilson, or did I just fake a Robert Anton Wilson?" Sometimes,
especially with a long novel, I find it impossible to convince myself that I know the answer. After all, as Nietzche said,
"there are no facts, only interpretations"...... "
a song I wrote (long before I read the above):
"What's That Something Else?"
Everything is an interpretation of something else
Everything is an interpretation of something else
Everything is an interpretation of something else
Everything is an interpretation of something else
But what's that something else?
But what's that something else?
But what's that something else?
But what's that something else?
And how can I feel it?
Without becoming it?
And what's that something else?
Where's that something else?
Is it hiddin in the sky or ground?
Or is it inside ourselves?
Everything is an interpretation of something else
But what's that something else?
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