Status
Available
Call number
Series
Collection
Publication
Berkeley, Calif. : And/Or Press, c1977.
Description
The book that made it all happen! Wilson at his classic best. "Cosmic Trigger" deals with a process of deliberating induced brain change. Explore Sirius, Synchronicities, and Secret Societies; Crowley, Christ and Karma; Dope, Death and Divinity. And, of course, The Illuminati. Wilson has been called "One of the leading thinkers of the Modern Age." The critics rave!!
User reviews
LibraryThing member lithicbee
I try to open my mind up as much as possible when reading R.A.W.'s books, because it is more fun that way. Skipping the self-medication and sex magick bit, the basic thesis I think anyone can draw from this is that it is good to keep an open mind and believe "six impossible things before
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breakfast," as long as no one else is getting hurt by it. This book suffers a little looking back, because many of the predictions regarding scientific cures for aging and death, or the state of manned space travel, are sadly not in evidence in today's world (or at least they have not been shared with us). Wilson's optimism and enthusiasm for ideas of progress that guaranteed the singularity occurring by 2012 seem naive at this point, but I am sure Wilson would remain optimistic were he with us today, and just push the dates back further. Show Less
LibraryThing member DavidSwindle
The quintessential Robert Anton Wilson book. I really need to read it again.
LibraryThing member Ogmin
A great read. In spite of their mystic insights and cosmic aspirations, RAW and Leary were vulnerable human beings living in a dark age. Wilson provides a surprisingly graphic glimpse of life as the sixties became a memory and the backlash began; the onset of the troubling karmas which are still
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with us. But even more amazing is the revelation of the great heart and holy spirit by which we are empowered to rise above it all. The final secret is that love, truth, intelligence and the good humor of friendship ultimately outshine all difficult and oppressive conditions. Show Less
LibraryThing member latefordinner
R. A. Wilsons books are not the occult themed mystery stories they appear to be. They are in fact attempts at ontological subversion, by trying to create states of cognitive dissonance in the reader thereby freeing the reader from preconcieved ideas and assumptions that can distort and color the
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perception of reality. Many years after reading this and other R.A.W. books I discoverd the academic discipline of General Semantics founded by Alfred Korzbyski that says all human experience is in fact an abstraction that is mediated by culture, language and the nervous system itself. Only by maintaining a constant awareness of this fact can we free ourselves from its limiting confines. This is the essential lesson of Zen Buddhism and is the secret of the true practitioner of the mystical arts. Show Less
LibraryThing member Miro
Science has followed a difficult road since the early Greeks first launched the project. It seems that the earliest texts were mostly lost when a Christian mob burnt down the great library of Alexandria in A.D. 415. The Romans did little abstract thinking and the Middle Ages saw its almost complete
It's worth saying this because "Cosmic Trigger" is a return to the science stifling Middle Ages of magic, alchemy and mysticism. Wilson has really written a guide book to the New Age (- a misnomer if ever there was one ), stating in the preface that he "does not believe anything" as he sets out on his exploration outside consensus reality.
Not believing anything is O.K. The problem is that his exploration ignores the very thing (scientific method) that gives him tools like computers, electric light etc. So the book isn't an investigation at all - it's more of an invitation to join in the fun.
He clearly favours the mystic way that has made up most of our history. You can call it Religion/ New Age/ Magic or anything that you want but you can't get away from the fact that it's the stagnant pond that almost drowned the likes of Galileo and Darwin.
Look at it another way and you could take it as an exciting fantasy ride but it still has the look and feel of pap. But then having said that,most religious texts probably also looked like pap at the time that they were written and you can't say that they haven't been influential.
If the test is whether more people believe year by year then unfortunately you have to give the New Age some consideration. Keywords are; superstition, fear, fantasy, occult, ancient knowledge, so put it all together and you could ask yourself whether it would be possible to combine the Bermuda Triangle, Atlantis, pyramids and UFOs all on one page. Well yes, you can;
Page 225; "As for the prediction that I would dive into the ruins of Atlantis: after I got back from England, an occultist named Alve Stuart contacted me and invited me to join an expedition to the Bermuda Triangle to investigate various legends, including the idea that part of Atlantis was down there, and reports from natives of the area that UFOs are often see rising from the waters...A month later Charles Berlitz claimed to have found a sunken pyramid in the Bermuda Triangle. He claimed it was twice the size of the pyramid of Cheops..."
Or some notes on the difficulty of research;
Page 89; "At this point in the internal voyage, the Shaman knows that he is far, far into the underground vaults of Chapel Perilous and that the way back to the robot-reality of the domesticated hive is not going to be easy."
Page 3; "..my interest in the Illuminati was to lead me through a cosmic Fun House featuring double and triple agents, UFOs,possible Presidential assassination plots, the enigmatic symbols on the dollar bill, messages from Sirius, pancakes from God-knows-where, the ambiguities of Aleister Crowley, some mysterious hawks that follow Uri Geller around, Futurists, Immortalists, plans to leave this planet and the latest paradoxes of quantum mechanics."
My own favourite is the 23 enigma. After all, what if there are aliens? (re. Fermi "Where is everybody? Where are the signs of other life?).
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disappearance.It's worth saying this because "Cosmic Trigger" is a return to the science stifling Middle Ages of magic, alchemy and mysticism. Wilson has really written a guide book to the New Age (- a misnomer if ever there was one ), stating in the preface that he "does not believe anything" as he sets out on his exploration outside consensus reality.
Not believing anything is O.K. The problem is that his exploration ignores the very thing (scientific method) that gives him tools like computers, electric light etc. So the book isn't an investigation at all - it's more of an invitation to join in the fun.
He clearly favours the mystic way that has made up most of our history. You can call it Religion/ New Age/ Magic or anything that you want but you can't get away from the fact that it's the stagnant pond that almost drowned the likes of Galileo and Darwin.
Look at it another way and you could take it as an exciting fantasy ride but it still has the look and feel of pap. But then having said that,most religious texts probably also looked like pap at the time that they were written and you can't say that they haven't been influential.
If the test is whether more people believe year by year then unfortunately you have to give the New Age some consideration. Keywords are; superstition, fear, fantasy, occult, ancient knowledge, so put it all together and you could ask yourself whether it would be possible to combine the Bermuda Triangle, Atlantis, pyramids and UFOs all on one page. Well yes, you can;
Page 225; "As for the prediction that I would dive into the ruins of Atlantis: after I got back from England, an occultist named Alve Stuart contacted me and invited me to join an expedition to the Bermuda Triangle to investigate various legends, including the idea that part of Atlantis was down there, and reports from natives of the area that UFOs are often see rising from the waters...A month later Charles Berlitz claimed to have found a sunken pyramid in the Bermuda Triangle. He claimed it was twice the size of the pyramid of Cheops..."
Or some notes on the difficulty of research;
Page 89; "At this point in the internal voyage, the Shaman knows that he is far, far into the underground vaults of Chapel Perilous and that the way back to the robot-reality of the domesticated hive is not going to be easy."
Page 3; "..my interest in the Illuminati was to lead me through a cosmic Fun House featuring double and triple agents, UFOs,possible Presidential assassination plots, the enigmatic symbols on the dollar bill, messages from Sirius, pancakes from God-knows-where, the ambiguities of Aleister Crowley, some mysterious hawks that follow Uri Geller around, Futurists, Immortalists, plans to leave this planet and the latest paradoxes of quantum mechanics."
My own favourite is the 23 enigma. After all, what if there are aliens? (re. Fermi "Where is everybody? Where are the signs of other life?).
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LibraryThing member JonathanGorman
Difficult to give this one a rating. It is a wonderful historical piece and gives an interesting view of what life in the Berkeley was like for some folks. Also obviously influential on later fringe culture. (I'd be willing to wager that this along w/ Illuminatus had at least some impact on The
However, the writing does fail into the trap where Wilson seems to take a lot of his source material at face value, or attempts to convince the reader it's unlikely to be a hoax or that mundane explanations are less likely than radical ones.
There is interesting conflict internally as Wilson's "Skeptic" thoughts seem to be lurking in the unconscious even during some of the more outrageous claims.
If you have any interest in Berkeley in the 60s/70s, Leary or like Philip K. Dick's trippier writing like VALIS, this is worth a read.
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Invisibles.However, the writing does fail into the trap where Wilson seems to take a lot of his source material at face value, or attempts to convince the reader it's unlikely to be a hoax or that mundane explanations are less likely than radical ones.
There is interesting conflict internally as Wilson's "Skeptic" thoughts seem to be lurking in the unconscious even during some of the more outrageous claims.
If you have any interest in Berkeley in the 60s/70s, Leary or like Philip K. Dick's trippier writing like VALIS, this is worth a read.
Show Less
LibraryThing member RandyStafford
My reactions to reading this book in 2004.
"Foreword", Timothy Leary, Ph.D -- Basically an account of the syncretic blend of weirdness the reader can expect from Wilson, who seems to be Leary's friend.
Cosmic Trigger: The Final Secret of the Illuminati, Robert Anton Wilson -- This book provided some
Wilson, at least the Wilson writing in the years after this book came out, struck me as something of a radical skeptic -- willing to entertain most notions, unwilling to firmly believe or disbelieve any. He lives in the perennial world of maybe. To be sure, there is some of that here. Wilson, like many occultists and pseudoscientists, carefully notes he doesn't fall for just any idea, that self-delusion and hoaxing exist, but he doesn't note that too often or often enough. I found it interesting that he claims that Aleister Crowley tried to bring a scientific method to his occult studies -- to believe nothing except by proof and to keep careful notes.
However, the Crowley Wilson describes seems to have neglected the importance of controlled experiments, alternate explanations, and replicability. Science is more than just hypothesizing and keeping records. Wilson too easily falls into the common pseudoscientist's habit of citing one alleged paranormal event as proof of another. For instance, he uncritically accepts the validity of Kirlian photography (as evidence of auras around humans -- this book came out at the height of the Kirlian photography craze) and cattle mutilations. He also too easily dismisses skeptics by implying that they unreasonably imply UFO contactees and other experiencers of the paranormal are lying. The more frequent explanations that skeptics give is sincere misperception and later embroidering and conflating of accounts and events. On the other hand, Wilson does point out the common themes of several occult principles and experiences. Even if you explain these as hallucinations and perceiving bogus patterns in reality there is a mystery worth investigating here. Why do the same archetypes and themes show up again and again? What is it in the human brain that makes these themes common and appealing?
Of course, scientists are operating using the same brain as mystics so it's not surprising that people like Timothy Leary and the quantum mystics-physicists cited here should try, like Fludd and other medieval occultists, to unify everything into systems, systems of spirit and science, occult and reason. The material on Leary and his work was interesting (Wilson was a friend of Leary's and wrote several books with him). Leary comes across initially as a serious scientist who got sidetracked into the systematizing obsession noted above (but, then, scientists are supposed to systematize). Wilson describes his charm and likeability. (Even G. Gordon Liddy, one time prosecutor of Leary and then lecture buddy, noted that Leary was a charming, likeable, nice guy but that he wouldn't take any food or drink offered by him. The latter is unfair if Wilson is correct in stating that Leary was strictly against giving drugs to people unaware.) The problem was Leary, like psychologists in the era before magnetic resonance imaging and the other biopsychiatric tools of the last fifteen years, was grappling with a difficult subject without adequate tools. He fell back to the predictable position psychologists usually do in that position: trying to explain the brain and consciousness using contemporary technology, here computers and computer programming and logic circuits (there is also traces of the notion of RNA memory).
Putting aside the notion of terrestrial life being seeded by alien intelligences, Leary's notion of human evolution has a couple of problems. First and foremost, it assumes that there is a purpose to human evolution instead of all evolution, including human, simply being the selection of a species members to survive best in the environment the species currently finds itself in. Second, there seems to be a Lamarckian feel to it with, if I understood Leary correctly, DNA being rewritten via experiences. To be fair to Leary, his ideas have a kernel of truth in them. The human brain is altered by experiences of all kind, drugs, including neurotransmitters, do affect the quality of consciousness, environment does influence the expression of genes even if it doesn't delete or add genes. I read with interest the success of Leary using LSD and other psychedelic drugs in a controlled program of psychotherapy. I think that research should have continued (providing there was ethical guidance for playing around with the brain chemistry of experimental subjects) in this field and that psychedelic drugs shouldn't have become taboo in any circumstance. I believe I've recently read of modern research confirming that LSD did have some therapeutic value. I also find Leary's claim that LSD could be used if the context, setting, and consent of the patient were controlled. I suspect that most horrible experiences of people on acid were the result of those not being controlled. (I was reminded of Philip K. Dick's claim that he would give people contemplating taking LSD a Rorschach test first to see if they would have a bad trip. I was also reminded of the lethal effects on the unwitting CIA employee who was given LSD.) Certainly, I have personally known people who have taken LSD and had good, harmless experiences, and I have no reason to disbelieve them. I did find Wilson's account of the brutal death of his daughter and confirmation of the rumor that he had her cyronically suspended interesting. (May 16, 2004)
"Afterword", Saul-Paul Sirag -- Physicist Sirag uncritically accepts the powers of Uri Geller and then goes off onto some incomprehensible numerological manipulations of physical values in an attempt to reconcile Special Relativity and quantum physics.
"Foreword", Timothy Leary, Ph.D -- Basically an account of the syncretic blend of weirdness the reader can expect from Wilson, who seems to be Leary's friend.
Cosmic Trigger: The Final Secret of the Illuminati, Robert Anton Wilson -- This book provided some
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interesting autobiographical material on Wilson. I note confirmation of my theory that engineers seemed to be attracted to outre ideas by the fact that Wilson started out training to be an electrical engineer before switching to mathematics (which may explain why he has such a good grasp of quantum physics). He admits to being of an analytical mind and fascinated by puzzles. I would say, in his case, the analytical mind likes to create puzzles where none exist as well as solve them. In his mind, pattern seeking behavior is in overdrive, and that accounts for the sometimes delightful and interesting connections he makes between the occult and/or (a favorite conjunction of Wilson who eschews binary logic) science and/or conspiracy theories as well as his seeming encyclopedia knowledge of the occult and conspiracy theories. I came away with more and less respect for Wilson. Wilson, at least the Wilson writing in the years after this book came out, struck me as something of a radical skeptic -- willing to entertain most notions, unwilling to firmly believe or disbelieve any. He lives in the perennial world of maybe. To be sure, there is some of that here. Wilson, like many occultists and pseudoscientists, carefully notes he doesn't fall for just any idea, that self-delusion and hoaxing exist, but he doesn't note that too often or often enough. I found it interesting that he claims that Aleister Crowley tried to bring a scientific method to his occult studies -- to believe nothing except by proof and to keep careful notes.
However, the Crowley Wilson describes seems to have neglected the importance of controlled experiments, alternate explanations, and replicability. Science is more than just hypothesizing and keeping records. Wilson too easily falls into the common pseudoscientist's habit of citing one alleged paranormal event as proof of another. For instance, he uncritically accepts the validity of Kirlian photography (as evidence of auras around humans -- this book came out at the height of the Kirlian photography craze) and cattle mutilations. He also too easily dismisses skeptics by implying that they unreasonably imply UFO contactees and other experiencers of the paranormal are lying. The more frequent explanations that skeptics give is sincere misperception and later embroidering and conflating of accounts and events. On the other hand, Wilson does point out the common themes of several occult principles and experiences. Even if you explain these as hallucinations and perceiving bogus patterns in reality there is a mystery worth investigating here. Why do the same archetypes and themes show up again and again? What is it in the human brain that makes these themes common and appealing?
Of course, scientists are operating using the same brain as mystics so it's not surprising that people like Timothy Leary and the quantum mystics-physicists cited here should try, like Fludd and other medieval occultists, to unify everything into systems, systems of spirit and science, occult and reason. The material on Leary and his work was interesting (Wilson was a friend of Leary's and wrote several books with him). Leary comes across initially as a serious scientist who got sidetracked into the systematizing obsession noted above (but, then, scientists are supposed to systematize). Wilson describes his charm and likeability. (Even G. Gordon Liddy, one time prosecutor of Leary and then lecture buddy, noted that Leary was a charming, likeable, nice guy but that he wouldn't take any food or drink offered by him. The latter is unfair if Wilson is correct in stating that Leary was strictly against giving drugs to people unaware.) The problem was Leary, like psychologists in the era before magnetic resonance imaging and the other biopsychiatric tools of the last fifteen years, was grappling with a difficult subject without adequate tools. He fell back to the predictable position psychologists usually do in that position: trying to explain the brain and consciousness using contemporary technology, here computers and computer programming and logic circuits (there is also traces of the notion of RNA memory).
Putting aside the notion of terrestrial life being seeded by alien intelligences, Leary's notion of human evolution has a couple of problems. First and foremost, it assumes that there is a purpose to human evolution instead of all evolution, including human, simply being the selection of a species members to survive best in the environment the species currently finds itself in. Second, there seems to be a Lamarckian feel to it with, if I understood Leary correctly, DNA being rewritten via experiences. To be fair to Leary, his ideas have a kernel of truth in them. The human brain is altered by experiences of all kind, drugs, including neurotransmitters, do affect the quality of consciousness, environment does influence the expression of genes even if it doesn't delete or add genes. I read with interest the success of Leary using LSD and other psychedelic drugs in a controlled program of psychotherapy. I think that research should have continued (providing there was ethical guidance for playing around with the brain chemistry of experimental subjects) in this field and that psychedelic drugs shouldn't have become taboo in any circumstance. I believe I've recently read of modern research confirming that LSD did have some therapeutic value. I also find Leary's claim that LSD could be used if the context, setting, and consent of the patient were controlled. I suspect that most horrible experiences of people on acid were the result of those not being controlled. (I was reminded of Philip K. Dick's claim that he would give people contemplating taking LSD a Rorschach test first to see if they would have a bad trip. I was also reminded of the lethal effects on the unwitting CIA employee who was given LSD.) Certainly, I have personally known people who have taken LSD and had good, harmless experiences, and I have no reason to disbelieve them. I did find Wilson's account of the brutal death of his daughter and confirmation of the rumor that he had her cyronically suspended interesting. (May 16, 2004)
"Afterword", Saul-Paul Sirag -- Physicist Sirag uncritically accepts the powers of Uri Geller and then goes off onto some incomprehensible numerological manipulations of physical values in an attempt to reconcile Special Relativity and quantum physics.
Show Less
LibraryThing member ritaer
How many predictions of the futurists failed to come to fruition--space colonies, life extension, immortality, Interesting relic of the era, insights into what many thought was going to happen.
LibraryThing member A.Godhelm
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
Audio note: It's engagingly read but has a couple of audio mistakes with redone lines.
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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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Language
Original publication date
1977
Physical description
269 p.; 22 cm
ISBN
0915904292 / 9780915904297
Local notes
RR Inscribed by author on fly leaf
Other editions
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