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Coincidance: A Head Test
Includes: Dance through Religion for the Hell of It; The Physics of Synchronicity; James Joyce and Finnegan's Wake; The Godfather and the Goddess; The Poet as Early Warning Radar; Mammary Metaphysics; and, The Married Catholic Priests Convention.
No, the spelling of the title is not a mistake. Dance a mad dervish whirl of coincidence and synchronicity with Robert Anton Wilson and his dancing partners James Joyce, the Marquis de Sade, William S. Borroughs, Carl Jung, Timothy Leary, Bobbie Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe and a host of others.
Coincidance is one of Wilson's personal favorites. If you liked Prometheus Rising or Quantum Psychology, you will love Coincidance!
No, the spelling of the title is not a mistake. Dance a mad dervish whirl of coincidence and synchronicity with Robert Anton Wilson and his dancing partners James Joyce, the Marquis de Sade, William S. Borroughs, Carl Jung, Timothy Leary, Bobbie Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe and a host of others.
Coincidance is one of Wilson's personal favorites. If you liked Prometheus Rising or Quantum Psychology, you will love Coincidance!
258 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
About the author
Robert Anton Wilson
128 books1,592 followersRobert Anton Wilson became, at various times, an American novelist, essayist, philosopher, polymath, psychonaut, futurist, libertarian and self-described agnostic mystic. Recognized as an Episkopos, Pope, and Saint of Discordianism by Discordians who care to label him as such, Wilson helped publicize the group/religion/melee through his writings, interviews, and strolls.
He described his work as an "attempt to break down conditioned associations, to look at the world in a new way, with many models recognized as models or maps, and no one model elevated to the truth."
"My goal is to try to get people into a state of generalized agnosticism, not agnosticism about God alone but agnosticism about everything."
He described his work as an "attempt to break down conditioned associations, to look at the world in a new way, with many models recognized as models or maps, and no one model elevated to the truth."
"My goal is to try to get people into a state of generalized agnosticism, not agnosticism about God alone but agnosticism about everything."
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
April 14, 2024
The book is called Coincidance which is a word from Finnegans Wake. It combines coincidence and dance. It’s the dance of synchronicity throughout nature.
If there is a thesis hidden in these random explorations, it might be that nonsense has its own meanings…dialectical Marxism (the Groucho variety) can answer questions that sane, sober people can’t even ask in the first place.
”Uncertain and demonstrably uncaring whether it’s a piece of literary criticism, metaphysical discussion, or anthology of diverse, esoteric writings, this remarkable compendium is best seen, in the spirit of its title, as a glorious, accidental dance of meaning, modernism, and mythology.”
Alan Moore, from the introduction
There is so much in this remarkable volume that I could write a lengthy essay, but I will attempt to keep to a reasonable review length. RAW described this collection as being about Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, which is accurate on one level, as several of the pieces are directly about that novel, and others tie into the theme of synchronicity that Wilson pulls from It. Yet RAW’s remarkable mind ranges across so much erudition, ridiculousness, sublimity, hilarity, and mystery here that it is simply staggering.
He opens with an amazing essay — Sycnchronicity and Isomorphism in FINNEGANS WAKE. This long, weird piece is so good that it (Almost, almost) makes me want to read Finnegans Wake. I usually have little regard and no patience for Joyce as an author, but Wilson does the work of mining the brilliance from this incomprehensible dream of a novel, exposing the maddening plethora of obscure coincidental connections buried in Joyce’s text. In this piece, Wilson manages to make Joyce’s incomprehensible tricksiness and punning entertaining, as he ferrets out Joyce’s labyrinth of esoteric references and connects them in an infinite regress riverrun stream of consciousness.
Wilson returns to Joyce and to Finnegans Wake in several more piece, but mixes in so much more. He gives us pieces of astute literary criticism, examining both Allen Ginsberg’s Kaddish and Other Poems, (The Poet as Defense Early Warning Radar System) and Tennessee Williams’ Suddenly Last Summer (The Doctor with the Frightened Eyes). He ranges from the serious in An Interview with Sean McBride, in which he presents the grand old man of Irish politics and public life, to the “seemingly” silly, in The Motherfucker Mystique, in which he dives into the etymology of the monarch of all English language obscenities, complete with illustrative ballads, and the distinction between a Baaaad Motherfucker and a Signifying Motherfucker.
But there’s more! In Mammary Metaphysics Wilson gives us Boobies and Goddesses and Matriarchy, oh my! — musings, history, anecdotes, esoteric secrets, and Freudian analysis from RAW’s Book of the Breast. Then there’s Thirteen Choruses for the Divine Marquis, my favorite piece in the collection. In explanation, I give you these quotes:
So: after 150 years we are ready to look de Sade in the face, eyeball to eyeball. He comes on, always, like a Zen Master, shouting right into our ears: “Tyranny or Anarchy, you must choose, answer now!”
and, quote from Sade himself:
”My neighbors’ passions frighten me infinitely less than do the law’s injustices, for my neighbors’ passions are contained by mine, whilst nothing checks the injustices of the law.”
Also notable here are several RAW poems — surprisingly interesting:
As Wilde found, wit is no defense.
Nor skeptic Joyce’s common sense:
Defeat itself becomes a joy
In the last three bars of Danny Boy.
Then there’s Religion for the Hell of It , a fascinating and funny piece on odd, prankster, outsider religions. Capping it all off, an outstanding interview with RAW himself, added to this collection because it gives such an amazing overview of his primary ideas throughout his work.
I write down quotes to share as I read through a work. There were so many fascinating, thought provoking ones in this collection that I couldn’t possibly share them all. Read it yourself. Delve into the fascinating mind that was RAW’s. By the end, you will be much closer to understanding the most significant question Wilson posed —
Who is the master who makes the grass green?
If there is a thesis hidden in these random explorations, it might be that nonsense has its own meanings…dialectical Marxism (the Groucho variety) can answer questions that sane, sober people can’t even ask in the first place.
”Uncertain and demonstrably uncaring whether it’s a piece of literary criticism, metaphysical discussion, or anthology of diverse, esoteric writings, this remarkable compendium is best seen, in the spirit of its title, as a glorious, accidental dance of meaning, modernism, and mythology.”
Alan Moore, from the introduction
There is so much in this remarkable volume that I could write a lengthy essay, but I will attempt to keep to a reasonable review length. RAW described this collection as being about Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, which is accurate on one level, as several of the pieces are directly about that novel, and others tie into the theme of synchronicity that Wilson pulls from It. Yet RAW’s remarkable mind ranges across so much erudition, ridiculousness, sublimity, hilarity, and mystery here that it is simply staggering.
He opens with an amazing essay — Sycnchronicity and Isomorphism in FINNEGANS WAKE. This long, weird piece is so good that it (Almost, almost) makes me want to read Finnegans Wake. I usually have little regard and no patience for Joyce as an author, but Wilson does the work of mining the brilliance from this incomprehensible dream of a novel, exposing the maddening plethora of obscure coincidental connections buried in Joyce’s text. In this piece, Wilson manages to make Joyce’s incomprehensible tricksiness and punning entertaining, as he ferrets out Joyce’s labyrinth of esoteric references and connects them in an infinite regress riverrun stream of consciousness.
Wilson returns to Joyce and to Finnegans Wake in several more piece, but mixes in so much more. He gives us pieces of astute literary criticism, examining both Allen Ginsberg’s Kaddish and Other Poems, (The Poet as Defense Early Warning Radar System) and Tennessee Williams’ Suddenly Last Summer (The Doctor with the Frightened Eyes). He ranges from the serious in An Interview with Sean McBride, in which he presents the grand old man of Irish politics and public life, to the “seemingly” silly, in The Motherfucker Mystique, in which he dives into the etymology of the monarch of all English language obscenities, complete with illustrative ballads, and the distinction between a Baaaad Motherfucker and a Signifying Motherfucker.
But there’s more! In Mammary Metaphysics Wilson gives us Boobies and Goddesses and Matriarchy, oh my! — musings, history, anecdotes, esoteric secrets, and Freudian analysis from RAW’s Book of the Breast. Then there’s Thirteen Choruses for the Divine Marquis, my favorite piece in the collection. In explanation, I give you these quotes:
So: after 150 years we are ready to look de Sade in the face, eyeball to eyeball. He comes on, always, like a Zen Master, shouting right into our ears: “Tyranny or Anarchy, you must choose, answer now!”
and, quote from Sade himself:
”My neighbors’ passions frighten me infinitely less than do the law’s injustices, for my neighbors’ passions are contained by mine, whilst nothing checks the injustices of the law.”
Also notable here are several RAW poems — surprisingly interesting:
As Wilde found, wit is no defense.
Nor skeptic Joyce’s common sense:
Defeat itself becomes a joy
In the last three bars of Danny Boy.
Then there’s Religion for the Hell of It , a fascinating and funny piece on odd, prankster, outsider religions. Capping it all off, an outstanding interview with RAW himself, added to this collection because it gives such an amazing overview of his primary ideas throughout his work.
I write down quotes to share as I read through a work. There were so many fascinating, thought provoking ones in this collection that I couldn’t possibly share them all. Read it yourself. Delve into the fascinating mind that was RAW’s. By the end, you will be much closer to understanding the most significant question Wilson posed —
Who is the master who makes the grass green?
February 26, 2023
I wish I'd known this centered around Joyce's Finnegans Wake so much before going in, as I would have read it beforehand. As it stands, I'll be returning to this book upon reading that one; such is the charismatic, intellectual power of this book. At times as absurd as it is prophetic, it encapsulates on many of the liberties of the counterculture movement to provide a truly mind-boggling exploration of synchronicity. One day, I hope to rival it - God knows I have the materials, already. Another stellar book from Robert: I may bump it up upon re-read, we will see.
---
Part One
The essay on synchronicity and isomorphism in Finnegans Wake is equal parts absurd and inspiring. Some of the connections are genuinely profound, others seemed stretching - but what do I know? I've only just ordered the novel, now. Either way, I've been recognising more and more overlaps between the writings of Joyce and I. Portrait and Dubliners are also on the way. Either way, I appreciate this essay. It's a brilliant demonstration of synchronicity and strange loop recursiveness (and, perhaps, some apophenia).
Werewolf Bridge kicked ass for a lot of reasons.
He opens The Motherfucker Mystique discussing his first book - the Playboy one on naughty words - and now disappointed he is with it's final form. This chapter comprises some of the erudite and witty parts cut from that book at the editor's request. I love the anecdote on Stagolee - I've got a tombstone disposition and a graveyard mind. I'm a bad motherfucker and I don't mind dyin’ - and Shine - You're the king of the ocean, the king of the sea, But you gotta be a swimmin' motherfucker to outswim me particularly entertaining.
How to Read / How to Think is rife with fascinating and cutting commentaries, moments that make one stop and reconsolidate what they know with what they're learning.
I'm just going to make a collage of my favourite quotes:
Kaddish is a fantastic closer to chapter one.
Part Two
He begins chapter two with a lengthy, incredible sequel essay concerning Joyce once more. Then he segues into three essays from The Realist - which comprises insulting Death of a Salesman (I can't disagree with his takes) and praising works which stare death, reality, and life in the eyes (Saturn Devouring his Sun, King Lear, Moby Dick).
The Marat/Sade essay is viciously good. I didn't understand large swathes of it, unfortunately (unacquainted with the subject matter), but have had my interest piqued quite a bit.
Equally fascinating is Wilson's portrayal of Marilyn Monroe as 'one of the great artistic engineering feats of U.S. history' - how Norma Jeane Mortenson evolved herself through force of will into the 'Goddess' of design she envisioned (and how this façade concealed the real Normal, nonetheless suffering). This spirals into, ostensibly, a series of conspiracies involving Leary, the Kennedy's, and LSD rife with mafia involvement. Believe what you want of it - these are only coincidances, of course.
The following chapter, The Physics of Synchronicity is perhaps the best chapter yet. In it, he denotes numerous examples of coincidences. Now, what astounded me and my father, is that when I read the part on Freud and Jung's synchronicity experience in 1909, me and my dad experienced a moment of 'coincidence' involving the postman. My father was quick to reject it as coincidence, but I broke down the chance until he was willing to concede the probability of what happened happening as it did when it did had a higher probability than he first assumed.
Only to return to the text and find similar incidents of people experiencing coincidence midway through reading the same anecdote. Uncanny.
Kammerer's work seems fascinating, it's a shame Jung and Pauli never read his work -
He then goes onto discuss Bell's theorem on entanglement and causality.
Sounds remarkably like the Urizenic hemispheral disconnect denoted by John Higgs in his book Blake vs The World which I've just finished reading. All of my reading is synchronised by this point.
I agree profusely. In every way.
For over a decade, I've analysed the latent and manifest content of my life's story as if a dream, and have discovered plenty in the process.
This can't be ignored: the division is not as dimetric and absolute as believed, but there is still a division of labour where some faculties are concerned. For instance, speech comprehension and production (Wernicke/Broca areas (which, granted, are often found in the left hemisphere)).
Part Three
I absolutely need to return to the pertinent essays upon reading Finnegans Wake.
The essay on religion is insightful, least of all because I was born into the Mormon (never truthfully believed) religion and am, myself, ordained by the Universal Life Church (and the Church of Dude). Quite coincidental, eh?
And here we are - 2023!
Wiser words were never spoken.
Likewise hilarious are the Society of Fred Mertz (wherein the founder believes all wisdom can be attained by rewatching Love Lucy and paying extra attention to what Fred says), and the Camp Crusade for Cthulhu -
And I genuinely laughed at this part of Robert's breakdown of the Discordian Society -
This chapter was hilarious.
Part Four
Again, I NEED to return to this book upon reading Finnegans Wake. I have some other Joyce books lined up for me, as I never realised how alike we are in sombunall ways. Either way, I yelled, "YES!" when Wilson said Joyce's 'W' denoted a particle aspect and also means 'Mountain' in Chinese - as that's the second thing I thought upon seeing the article, itself (namely due to my recent reading of 19 Ways of Looking at Wang Wei which defined that character among others). The first thing I thought, upon seeing it, was the symbol for PSI [Ψ] which has been repurposed to mean Wave Function Ψ in Quantum Mechanical terms. How interesting a coincidence; slightly frustrating that △ is used by Joyce, instead, to stand for the wave aspect of matter, though.
I've not even read the novel and know a masterpiece essay of analysis and investigation when I see one. Absolutely stellar; every page yells fascination.
And then we are taken to an interview with Robert Anton Wilson included by the editors -
I'll end on that last quote. I learned a large amount of Esperanto, and outside of equipping me with the psycholinguistic skills to understand various facets of learning a language, it hasn't served me much and mostly slipped into willing decay in my memory storage.
---
Part One
The essay on synchronicity and isomorphism in Finnegans Wake is equal parts absurd and inspiring. Some of the connections are genuinely profound, others seemed stretching - but what do I know? I've only just ordered the novel, now. Either way, I've been recognising more and more overlaps between the writings of Joyce and I. Portrait and Dubliners are also on the way. Either way, I appreciate this essay. It's a brilliant demonstration of synchronicity and strange loop recursiveness (and, perhaps, some apophenia).
Werewolf Bridge kicked ass for a lot of reasons.
He opens The Motherfucker Mystique discussing his first book - the Playboy one on naughty words - and now disappointed he is with it's final form. This chapter comprises some of the erudite and witty parts cut from that book at the editor's request. I love the anecdote on Stagolee - I've got a tombstone disposition and a graveyard mind. I'm a bad motherfucker and I don't mind dyin’ - and Shine - You're the king of the ocean, the king of the sea, But you gotta be a swimmin' motherfucker to outswim me particularly entertaining.
How to Read / How to Think is rife with fascinating and cutting commentaries, moments that make one stop and reconsolidate what they know with what they're learning.
It is so short because No Governor is a very tiny magazine and cannot print long pieces; it is so mordant because I wrote it at a time when I was beginning to suspect that the younger generation of Americans are so ill-educated that one virtually has to write in baby-talk before they can understand anything one is saying.and, of course, funny. He dissects interpretation - the purely superficial and the extracted latent content - via Henry James's The Turn of the Screw
I'm just going to make a collage of my favourite quotes:
Yeats's great poem on the 1916 Irish rebellion contains the line, "A terrible beauty is born." Stress "terrible" when reading it aloud; then stress "beauty." Which meaning did Yeats intend? Or did he intend both? [...]
Blake wrote, "May God us keep / From single vision & Newton's sleep." Leaving aside for the moment his animus against Newtonian mechanics, could "single vision" refer to what I have been calling mechanical reading and mechanical thinking? [...] "To ascribe predicates to a people is always dangerous.”
—Nietzsche, unpublished note, 1873 [...]
"all women," "all men," "all plumbers," etc. are fallacies because the world consists of a phalanx of individuals. In Korzybski's handy notation, we never meet the groups; what we encounter are woman1 – woman2 – woman3 – etc. [...]
One Zen master, when asked what Zen "is," always replied with the single word, "Attention." What the hell did he mean? [...]
In San Francisco I read a review of John Huston's recent movie, Victory, which described it as "exciting." In the Irish Tribune yesterday I read another review which described it as "dull." Is the excitement or dullness "in" the movie, or was it in the nervous systems of the reviewers?
Colin Wilson argues that when we say, "Life is boring and meaningless," it means that we are boring and meaningless. Can there be any truth in this? If it requires work and re-reading etc. before the reader finds the clues that reveal the narrator is (consciously or unconsciously) deceptive, is that "unfair" to the reader? Is it unfair to try to provoke the reader to work and thought? Should all books be for the lazy?
Kaddish is a fantastic closer to chapter one.
Lord Lord Lord caw caw caw Lord
Part Two
He begins chapter two with a lengthy, incredible sequel essay concerning Joyce once more. Then he segues into three essays from The Realist - which comprises insulting Death of a Salesman (I can't disagree with his takes) and praising works which stare death, reality, and life in the eyes (Saturn Devouring his Sun, King Lear, Moby Dick).
"All these people who go around protesting against the nuclear tests," a friend of mine once said to me—"they never have the guts to face the problem in the only place where it can be handled—by facing the thing in themselves, in all men, that wants the Bomb to go off."
The Marat/Sade essay is viciously good. I didn't understand large swathes of it, unfortunately (unacquainted with the subject matter), but have had my interest piqued quite a bit.
Equally fascinating is Wilson's portrayal of Marilyn Monroe as 'one of the great artistic engineering feats of U.S. history' - how Norma Jeane Mortenson evolved herself through force of will into the 'Goddess' of design she envisioned (and how this façade concealed the real Normal, nonetheless suffering). This spirals into, ostensibly, a series of conspiracies involving Leary, the Kennedy's, and LSD rife with mafia involvement. Believe what you want of it - these are only coincidances, of course.
The following chapter, The Physics of Synchronicity is perhaps the best chapter yet. In it, he denotes numerous examples of coincidences. Now, what astounded me and my father, is that when I read the part on Freud and Jung's synchronicity experience in 1909, me and my dad experienced a moment of 'coincidence' involving the postman. My father was quick to reject it as coincidence, but I broke down the chance until he was willing to concede the probability of what happened happening as it did when it did had a higher probability than he first assumed.
Only to return to the text and find similar incidents of people experiencing coincidence midway through reading the same anecdote. Uncanny.
Kammerer's work seems fascinating, it's a shame Jung and Pauli never read his work -
He concluded that coincidence represents an acausal principle in nature, as distinguished from the causal principles science had hitherto studied. He compared the acausal coincidental principle (ACOP, we shall call it for short) with gravity, noting that gravity acts on mass, while ACOP acts on form and function. [...] The ACOP (acausal coincidental principle) Jung and Pauli called synchronicity because they assumed it was at right angles to causality and structured in space, not time. That is, the synchronicities (from the Greek, syn, together, and chronos, time) happen at the same time. The relation between synchronous events, according to Jung, is basically psychological. [...] ACOPs are by no means only synchronous. They are often separated by days or even years.
He then goes onto discuss Bell's theorem on entanglement and causality.
Honegger believes that the right hemisphere ego consciousness is continually trying to assert its existence and communicate with the left hemisphere ego, which Western adults think is their only ego. The right-side ego usually communicates via dreams, as noted by Freud and Jung, but if the left-sided ego remains deaf to these messages, the right hemisphere creates Freudian slips or hysterical symptoms to get the ego's attention.
Sounds remarkably like the Urizenic hemispheral disconnect denoted by John Higgs in his book Blake vs The World which I've just finished reading. All of my reading is synchronised by this point.
This would explain a great many of the ACOPs collected by Jung, Kammerer, Koestler and others; it might even explain the Hardy-Harvie experiment, in which randomizing led to more order rather than more disorder. And it throws all of the data of parapsychology into a new perspective: instead of separate paranormal abilities such as ESP, precognition and telekinesis, there might just be one ACOP—acausal coincidental principle—appearing to us in many forms to which we give those names. [...] According to Honegger, we should analyze such ACOPs the way Freud and Jung analyzed dreams to see what unconscious messages they contain.
I agree profusely. In every way.
For over a decade, I've analysed the latent and manifest content of my life's story as if a dream, and have discovered plenty in the process.
The uncanny, then, is just the right hemisphere's way of violently . capturing our attention. Of course, recent evidence suggests that the right brain-left brain dichitomy is not as absolute as once believed; Honegger's model is only the latest, not the last, word on this subject.
This can't be ignored: the division is not as dimetric and absolute as believed, but there is still a division of labour where some faculties are concerned. For instance, speech comprehension and production (Wernicke/Broca areas (which, granted, are often found in the left hemisphere)).
Part Three
I absolutely need to return to the pertinent essays upon reading Finnegans Wake.
The essay on religion is insightful, least of all because I was born into the Mormon (never truthfully believed) religion and am, myself, ordained by the Universal Life Church (and the Church of Dude). Quite coincidental, eh?
Oddly, the belief that the world is on the edge of a revival of goddess-worship has been expressed by some eminent scholars, including historian Arnold Toynbee, psychologist Carl Jung, poet Robert Graves and anthropologist Joseph Campbell. Witches know this and are fond of quoting these authorities when being interviewed on TV.
And here we are - 2023!
The Javacrucians, a group which looks suspiciously like a parody of the Rosicrucians, has selected the less-controversial caffeine as its sacrament. It also has the simplest theology in history, teaching that one thing only is necessary for salvation, the American Coffee Ceremony—a variation on the Japanese Tea Ceremony. This is performed at dawn, and you must face east, towards the rising sun, as you raise the cup to your lips. When you take the first sip, you must cry out with intense fervour, "GOD, I needed that!" If this is performed religiously every morning, Javacrucians say, you will face all life's challenges with a clear mind and a tranquil spirit.
Wiser words were never spoken.
Likewise hilarious are the Society of Fred Mertz (wherein the founder believes all wisdom can be attained by rewatching Love Lucy and paying extra attention to what Fred says), and the Camp Crusade for Cthulhu -
The Campus Crusade for Cthulhu generally appears on the scene at any university where the Campus Crusade for Christ is well entrenched, and is mostly devoted to annoying the former. [...] The Campus Crusade for Christ has bumper stickers which members flaunt on their automobiles declaring "I Found It." The Cthulhu-ists have their own bumper stickers saying "It Found Me."
And I genuinely laughed at this part of Robert's breakdown of the Discordian Society -
Discordianism shuns dogma but has one catma, the Syadastan Affirmation, which reads,
"All affirmations are true in some sense, false in some sense, meaningless in some sense, true and false in some sense, true and meaningless in some sense, false and meaningless in some sense, and true and false and meaningless in some sense."
Discordians call this the Free Mantra—unlike the Transcendental movement, they charge no fees—and insist that if you repeat it 666 times you will achieve Spiritual Enlightenment, in some sense.
This chapter was hilarious.
Part Four
Again, I NEED to return to this book upon reading Finnegans Wake. I have some other Joyce books lined up for me, as I never realised how alike we are in sombunall ways. Either way, I yelled, "YES!" when Wilson said Joyce's 'W' denoted a particle aspect and also means 'Mountain' in Chinese - as that's the second thing I thought upon seeing the article, itself (namely due to my recent reading of 19 Ways of Looking at Wang Wei which defined that character among others). The first thing I thought, upon seeing it, was the symbol for PSI [Ψ] which has been repurposed to mean Wave Function Ψ in Quantum Mechanical terms. How interesting a coincidence; slightly frustrating that △ is used by Joyce, instead, to stand for the wave aspect of matter, though.
Joyce was paying close attention to modern physics while writing FW . On page 51 he alludes to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle: "that sword of certainty which would identifide the body never."
I've not even read the novel and know a masterpiece essay of analysis and investigation when I see one. Absolutely stellar; every page yells fascination.
The curious reader may pursue this isomorphism further in my book Prometheus Rising , (Hilaritas Press, 2016) or simply by meditating on the fable of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. [...] Joyce, an anarchist, probably knew the favorite English anarchist joke, which was to urge people to vote for Guy Fawkes, “the only man to ever enter Parliament with honest intentions.”
And then we are taken to an interview with Robert Anton Wilson included by the editors -
The word “Coincidance,” is a Joycean word and signifies the dance of coincidences in nature similar to the Jungian concept of synchronicity, or an acausal event unlikely to occur by mere chance. [...]
There are two opposites that keep conflicting all through Finnegans Wake : one represents space and dogma and the other represents time and music. The spaceman is always trying to prove there is something wrong with the timeman. The timeman feels that both of them are necessary and he is not trying to prove that there is something wrong with the spaceman. [...]
Well, Guerrilla Ontology is a term I coined several years ago. I recently found out that Edward de Bono has been teaching the same sort of thing for many years. He calls it lateral thinking . What it amounts to is: most thinking is a continuation from your initial premise and you draw more and more conclusions which is the way a system of mathematics develops. But mathematicians discovered over a hundred years ago that there is another way of thinking: that’s to start off from a different set of assumptions and build up a different system which is what de Bono calls lateral thinking. It’s to get out of the set created by your original assumptions and move sideways, as it were, and start from different assumptions and build a different system. That’s what I’m always doing in my books. I call it Guerrilla Ontology. [...]
Interviewer: You’ve talked about loops. How does one break out of his or her loop and change their reality?
Wilson: By doing what you’re afraid of. That is one of my basic principles – progress is only made by what Kierkegaard called a leap in the dark. He had a different meaning than me, now that I think of it; he didn’t mean quite what I mean. He leaped into a very snug, safe place. But the real leap in the dark is to try to find out what has conditioned you all your life and how much of that you can kick over, and try to become your own opposite.
Getting back to Nietzsche, I think that’s really what Nietzsche was trying to do. I think one of the funniest things about Nietzsche is the realization that he was a very shy, timid, celibate man who was so nervous and sensitive he couldn’t even drink coffee, much less alcohol. Most of Nietzsche’s books are an attempt to shake himself up. He was also a very compassionate man. [...]
Literal artificial languages like Esperanto and Ido, and so on, have never caught on because the time wasn’t right for them. They were premature. My hunch, and it’s just a hunch, is that they are not going to catch on. I think the international language will emerge organically from computer networking. It will be a computer language.
I'll end on that last quote. I learned a large amount of Esperanto, and outside of equipping me with the psycholinguistic skills to understand various facets of learning a language, it hasn't served me much and mostly slipped into willing decay in my memory storage.
October 16, 2022
A carefully presented collection of stand alone articles & previously unpublished pieces. Not necessarily the best place for someone new to RAW’s work but definitely of interest to those who have already enjoyed the likes of Prometheus Rising & Cosmic Trigger.
The deep dives into the holographic synchronicity & symbolism in James Joyce’s labyrinthine novels might be a bit much for some, but I, not having read any Joyce found Wilson’s accessible & conversational style entertaining enough for me to be able to grasp the concepts he uses this to convey.
The deep dives into the holographic synchronicity & symbolism in James Joyce’s labyrinthine novels might be a bit much for some, but I, not having read any Joyce found Wilson’s accessible & conversational style entertaining enough for me to be able to grasp the concepts he uses this to convey.
February 10, 2014
I am astounded by R.A.W. I cannot even fathom how he is able to make this many connections in such an witty and well-versed way. Can't wait to read more by him.
July 8, 2014
Re-read this to prepare for Joseph Campbell's Mythic Worlds, Modern Words. One of my favorite RAW collections of essays.
June 12, 2019
An interesting book, but seemingly largely derivative of Wilson's other thoughts on these same matters. I enjoyed the read, but I wasn't nearly as blown away by original observations as I was by his more famous "Prometheus Rising."
As with PR, though, it's full of interesting thoughts and quotations, such as...
-The scandalously funny narrative appeared to offer a new and sophisticated way of viewing magic which did not involve forfeiting rationality in favor of some frankly ludicrous pseudo-philosophy or other, and which apparently did not require an amputation of the sense of humor.
-“The Immaculate Conception maculates conception.” --Nietzsche
-One is reminded of a story about Mark Twain and his very fashionable and respectable New England wife, who once tried to cure him of his salty riverboat speech. Mrs. Twain noted every cuss word he used all week long and then woke him Sunday morning and read it all back to him. Twain listened calmly and commented, “You have the words, my dear, but you haven’t got the music yet.”
-Patriarchy is so nervous of rivals in the West that the poet has come under considerable suspicion at many times, is often thought of as “queer” in one sense or another and, in the most anal cultures, often seems to be deliberately ignored or starved into submission.
-“Which way will the sunflower turn surrounded by millions of suns?” --Ginsberg
-“Absence, the highest form of presence.” --unknown Dublin student
-Stephen fears there might be a malign reality in the God he has rejected, and that any act of submission might open him up to invasion and re-enslavement by that demonic Catholic divinity.
-Maybe Hell is so popular, and nuclear war (man-made Hell) is so popular with the people who dig Hellfire theology, because the masses want to suffer more than they want anything else.
-“God,” after all, is just a shorthand symbol for our attitude toward the nature of the universe.
-“I do not, however, propose either massacres or expulsions. Such dreadful things have no place in the enlightened mind. No, do not assassinate at all, do not expel at all...Let us reserve the employment of force for the idols; ridicule alone will suffice for those who serve them.” --Marquis de Sade
-According to Dr. Ellis, in a lecture at the N.Y. General Semantics Society, most neurotics -- i.e., most civilized people -- go around with a little internal voice saying “You are a no-good shit.” (“You are homosexual,” “You are a coward,” “You are a helpless neurotic” are three variations on the main theme.)
-“Although the prodigious spectacle of folly we are facing here may be horrible, it is always interesting.” --de Sade
“The only difference between me and a madman is that I am not mad.” --Dali
As with PR, though, it's full of interesting thoughts and quotations, such as...
-The scandalously funny narrative appeared to offer a new and sophisticated way of viewing magic which did not involve forfeiting rationality in favor of some frankly ludicrous pseudo-philosophy or other, and which apparently did not require an amputation of the sense of humor.
-“The Immaculate Conception maculates conception.” --Nietzsche
-One is reminded of a story about Mark Twain and his very fashionable and respectable New England wife, who once tried to cure him of his salty riverboat speech. Mrs. Twain noted every cuss word he used all week long and then woke him Sunday morning and read it all back to him. Twain listened calmly and commented, “You have the words, my dear, but you haven’t got the music yet.”
-Patriarchy is so nervous of rivals in the West that the poet has come under considerable suspicion at many times, is often thought of as “queer” in one sense or another and, in the most anal cultures, often seems to be deliberately ignored or starved into submission.
-“Which way will the sunflower turn surrounded by millions of suns?” --Ginsberg
-“Absence, the highest form of presence.” --unknown Dublin student
-Stephen fears there might be a malign reality in the God he has rejected, and that any act of submission might open him up to invasion and re-enslavement by that demonic Catholic divinity.
-Maybe Hell is so popular, and nuclear war (man-made Hell) is so popular with the people who dig Hellfire theology, because the masses want to suffer more than they want anything else.
-“God,” after all, is just a shorthand symbol for our attitude toward the nature of the universe.
-“I do not, however, propose either massacres or expulsions. Such dreadful things have no place in the enlightened mind. No, do not assassinate at all, do not expel at all...Let us reserve the employment of force for the idols; ridicule alone will suffice for those who serve them.” --Marquis de Sade
-According to Dr. Ellis, in a lecture at the N.Y. General Semantics Society, most neurotics -- i.e., most civilized people -- go around with a little internal voice saying “You are a no-good shit.” (“You are homosexual,” “You are a coward,” “You are a helpless neurotic” are three variations on the main theme.)
-“Although the prodigious spectacle of folly we are facing here may be horrible, it is always interesting.” --de Sade
“The only difference between me and a madman is that I am not mad.” --Dali
January 31, 2008
Most of the text is assembled articles and such from RAWilson prolific past, centering on critical analysis of James Joyce. Other topics addressed in the typical "Pope Bob" aplomb are de Sade, Catholic Priests with kids, and, naturally, that phenomenon affectionately dismissed as "coincidence".
Robert Anton Wilson's website
Robert Anton Wilson's website
February 5, 2010
a bit too much joyce for my liking. the other essays were excellent. the joyce stuff wasnt bad but will be more interesting when i get around to reading the material.
August 13, 2020
I had forgotten how much I enjoyed this romp. Wilson's analysis of James Joyce's Finnegans Wake is delightful and fun. The way he leaps from reference to reference left by Joyce is playful and insightful. The other pieces here (including the wonderful "Religion for the Hell of It") are interesting and entertaining in their own right, and they help build and carry the reader through to the conclusion of the book. The one part I did not enjoy so much was "No Waters in Cherry Valley by the Testicles," which uses a variety of the cut-up technique (inspired by Burroughs), but the result is often jarring and incongruous, not to mention too obvious in parts.
There are two notes to make about this particular re-printing of this book by Hilaritas Press. The number of typos far exceeds what I would find acceptable for a book this length, even accounting for the tough subject matter and numerous references in Joycean language and symbols. Hilaritas has been pretty good on this front with their other books, but this one seems to have gotten away from them. Secondly, I need to applaud the inclusion of "Overlooking Martello Tower," a recently rediscovered interview with RAW from the time he was working on this book. The lengthy interview works as a pretty good encapsulation of RAW's body of work.
There are two notes to make about this particular re-printing of this book by Hilaritas Press. The number of typos far exceeds what I would find acceptable for a book this length, even accounting for the tough subject matter and numerous references in Joycean language and symbols. Hilaritas has been pretty good on this front with their other books, but this one seems to have gotten away from them. Secondly, I need to applaud the inclusion of "Overlooking Martello Tower," a recently rediscovered interview with RAW from the time he was working on this book. The lengthy interview works as a pretty good encapsulation of RAW's body of work.
April 26, 2020
The four part essay which primarily deals with Finnegans Wake has been more illuminating the more often i read it (this reading was probably my 4th time.) The other essays and such arre, as always, a fascinating glimpse into the mind of RAW and that of current 20th century insanities.
April 6, 2020
I need to read this again now that I am more aware of synchronicity...
June 13, 2021
Solid early works of RAW collected in book form.
October 5, 2023
I can't decide if I'm relieved that I no longer have to read 'Finnegan's Wake' for myself...or if I'm now really excited to do just that. Hmm.
January 6, 2017
Amusing and outdated. Neuroscience has gone beyond Robert Anton Wilson's day and he has not been around to update his own ideas in light of it, and it shows in this collection of essays.
Bob's appeal is in moments of genius and insight scattered through information overdose and a barrage of concepts.
He mostly makes it work in his books, but in this collection the moments of genius are indistinguishable from the overflow of dubious information based on 1960's theories of physics, James Joyce and so called synchronicity.
It is now 2017 and unfortunately Bob's work has dated on every level, the physics, the psychology and the psychadelic esoterica.
Neuroscience, psychology and current physics journals have gone far beyond this wild hippie approach to philosophising the universe, and as such what no doubt seemed like deep and brilliant insight back when this was written, now just comes off as the lengthy windbaggery of someone who believes themselves to have divulged the secrets of the universe.
Whilst it is nothing new to have to wade through Bob's work to find the good bits, the lack of paragraphs, the endless reams of barely connected concepts come through in Coincidance as the ravings of a madman or a daytripping hippie on acid, rather than a prophet.
It just wasn't convincing. Perhaps 2017 is an era of cynicism and the wrong time to be reading it, maybe back in the day it made sense. But Bob's work is less than half as brilliant as he seemed to think it is and more than half as word salad as he secretly feared it was.
Bob's appeal is in moments of genius and insight scattered through information overdose and a barrage of concepts.
He mostly makes it work in his books, but in this collection the moments of genius are indistinguishable from the overflow of dubious information based on 1960's theories of physics, James Joyce and so called synchronicity.
It is now 2017 and unfortunately Bob's work has dated on every level, the physics, the psychology and the psychadelic esoterica.
Neuroscience, psychology and current physics journals have gone far beyond this wild hippie approach to philosophising the universe, and as such what no doubt seemed like deep and brilliant insight back when this was written, now just comes off as the lengthy windbaggery of someone who believes themselves to have divulged the secrets of the universe.
Whilst it is nothing new to have to wade through Bob's work to find the good bits, the lack of paragraphs, the endless reams of barely connected concepts come through in Coincidance as the ravings of a madman or a daytripping hippie on acid, rather than a prophet.
It just wasn't convincing. Perhaps 2017 is an era of cynicism and the wrong time to be reading it, maybe back in the day it made sense. But Bob's work is less than half as brilliant as he seemed to think it is and more than half as word salad as he secretly feared it was.
February 22, 2022
I would rate the essays on Joyce 5 stars. They were strange and fascinating. The rest of the book was uneven. Some really amazing essays and some half baked ones with ideas that haven’t aged well. That’s a compilation for you though.
July 8, 2022
Acquired Sept 21, 2002
City Lights Book Shop, London, Ontario
City Lights Book Shop, London, Ontario
July 26, 2008
Another excellent RAW example. This one might go too far off topic for some; but excellent nonetheless.
December 12, 2008
Make sure you've read Finnegan's Wake and are generally aware of the literary crit about it before reading this book. Then it will break you in good, warm ways.
Read
June 11, 2010I am really digging this one. The essay on Joyce has got me itching to read something other than Finnegan's Wake.
October 30, 2011
Varied topics covered in this collection. More serious and less humourous than other works by RAW, but it is a constant source of nourishment for the brain. Dense in places, but never unreadable.
April 4, 2012
Worth the read for the essay on religion alons. The Finnegans Wake stuff is stellar as well.
Read
December 20, 2012Great if you like the works of RAW....
February 23, 2014
A classic, bob is my idol!
September 9, 2013
This book sucks, but i loved it.
March 27, 2015
Great book, especially if you are into James Joyce.
April 12, 2015
Quite the wild ride. Not my normal fare, but it was a recommendation by the hubby, who has a bit of a fascination forr Robert Anton Wilson.
December 20, 2015
I never know how to explain this book. It's really out there.
May 23, 2016
The exegesis on Finnegans Wake nearly made my head explode... In a good way
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews