Comments on: RAW Week: "Hello, fellow tripper," by R.U. Sirius

By: acoastwalker

acoastwalker — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 12:22:00 +0000

The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy kickked off as a radio play. I wonder if RAW would have taken off in popular culture if some of his work had the same treatment.

By: PlatformAgnostic

PlatformAgnostic — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 10:52:00 +0000

RU, thank you for this. RAW deserves wide love and readership. He gave me the maps for the undiscovered country of my brain.

By: Gareth Branwyn

Gareth Branwyn — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 08:58:00 +0000

Yes, I thought Sturgeon’s Cosmic Rape and Spinrad’s Agent of Chaos in many ways prefigured Illuminatus! for me.

By: Wreckrob8

Wreckrob8 — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 07:04:00 +0000

Now what do I do? Reread Pynchon on speed? I still have my copy of Gravity’s Rainbow. Wait and read RAW for the first time? There is a copy of Illuminatus! trilogy in the post?

By: victorvictorian

victorvictorian — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 06:50:00 +0000

i’ve been startled lately to learn so many of my younger friends have never read Illuminatus! this post made me feel some of the same eye-opening enthusiasm i felt when first reading, first these, and then every RAW book i could get my hands on.

he and Timothy Leary really shaped my world view and approach to thinking in a lasting way. the main thing i learned from both and took to heart was “Question Reality” and then question all of your own assumptions, biases and predilections. i need to revisit these books as an adult with a more functional and accurate worldview to really reap the humor.

getting my hands on Mondo 2000 and The Golden Dawn also helped

By: Franz

Franz — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 04:55:00 +0000

I once ran across a book in the SF section of a used book store. It’s author…Robert Shea. I had no money, so unfortunately I cannot say it was the SAME Robert Shea. I’ve always tried to find said book again, but sadly never have. I’ve always felt that NOT being able to find it again was somewhat apropos for a book by the possible co-author of Illuminatus!. I’ve never searched for it online, because I get a kick out of thinking that, just maybe, I saw into the Universe Next Door just for a moment.

By: Nicky G

Nicky G — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 02:28:00 +0000

Reading the last 100-someodd pages of the Illuminatus! Trilogy for the first time, while tripping, is a, shall we say, interesting and significant experience.

Not that I’d know.

By: David Wahl

David Wahl — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 01:25:00 +0000

Really enjoying RAW week. Prometheus Rising was my entry point, but this article makes me want to go back and reread the trilogy this weekend.

By: hypersomniac

hypersomniac — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 23:24:00 +0000

Randomly flipping through channels, I found out Bob Thurman married Tim Leary’s ex, resulting in Uma. Small, crazy world. Fnordgasm.

By: Genre Slur

Genre Slur — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 23:21:00 +0000

Theodore Sturgeon’s More Than Human, and the Cosmic Rape are two books that “bleshed” me. Thank you Sturgeon — after I discovered RAW/Shea’s I!T I knew they had read you.

By: EvilTerran

EvilTerran — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 22:26:00 +0000

Robert Shea was only involved with the Illuminatus trilogy, as far as I know — RAW wrote most of his books by himself.

Comparing Illuminatus to its follow-up, Schroedinger’s Cat, which RAW wrote alone, I get the impression Shea’s influence made for a book that was more… shall we say… sober.

By: John Ohno

John Ohno — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 22:24:00 +0000

Robert Shea certainly was an influence (compare the Illuminatus trilogy to to Masks of the Illuminati, and you’ll see a clear difference), but whereas RAW continued to push out book after book and article after article after the Illiminatus trilogy and amass a fairly substantial and dedicated fanbase, Shea did not. I’m not sure why; he may have produced some other things afterward, but I’m not aware of them.

In regards to RAW versus PKD, there’s certainly a similarity. I’d argue that the primary difference is that RAW was happier and more gleefully flippant than PKD, but (as RAW himself mentions in Cosmic Trigger) they appear to have gone through very similar experiences, and the whole process appears to be part of a pattern of experience that is well-documented historically (if confusing in all accounts — Cosmic Trigger is as far as I can tell the most complete, general, understandble, and reader-friendly attempt at producing a survey of the properties of such experiences).

By: planettom

planettom — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 22:11:00 +0000

I haven’t read these books, although I’ve sort of gotten some of it through osmosis, the way you can have not read Lovecraft and yet get the whole Cthulhu things.

If you hang out at a science fiction convention, somebody eventually makes a fnord joke. And I’ve played the Illuminati card game.

But what I was wondering is… all these posts about RAW, makes him seem Phillip K. Dickian.

But what of Robert Shea? How much was his contribution to these books?

By: Matthew Petty

Matthew Petty — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 21:35:00 +0000

It seems to me that someone needs to do a Pete Frame-style Family Tree of all these counter-culture characters. Here’s the font: http://www.fontspace.com/frankenfonts/ff-nosebleed