Right Where You Are Sitting Now: Further Tales of the Illuminati

by Robert Anton Wilson

Book Overview

Discusses consciousness, the nature of God, sexuality, human knowledge, robots, and the future. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0915904659
• ISBN13: 9780915904655
• Release Date: January 1982
• Publisher: And/Or Press
• Length: 207 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Good ole-fashioned mind-bending fun...

A collection of short stories, essays, poems, and experiments in cut-up writing, this book is a kind of counter-culture grab-bag of contrarian thinking, scientific futurism, anti-authoritarian political rant, and what Wilson generally calls "guerilla ontology." Some of this stuff comes off a bit dated--in the psychedelic woo-woo sense. But there are still surprising gems of speculation to be found in these 200-odd pages and if it's not all brand new one is pointedly reminded of just how basically--one might even say hopelessly--conservative the mainstream is because all-too-many of these ideas still haven't been absorbed into our general culture. In other words, if you've already taken for granted the majority of what you read in this book you can congratulate yourself...you're about fifty years ahead of the curve in relation to the majority of people in this country. On the other hand, some of Wilson's rants--such as those against environmental fascism and the alarmist politics of manufactured scarcity--are eerily prescient to what's going on, well, to borrow the title, "right where you are sitting now." Wilson is an entertaining writer...irreverent, passionate, playful, unpredictable in the best sense, and non-lethally serious. He'll make you think, make you laugh, and make you scratch your head in wonder. This is a lot more of a reaction than most books will elicit from an intelligent reader. It may be somewhat overpriced new, but if you can grab yourself a used copy, I say go for it.

"Nobody is entitled to anything . We want a budget director who is mean as a Junkyard Dog."

This is the first book I've read by this author;but it certainly won't be the last. It was "Further Tales of the Illuminati",on the cover that caught my attention. The best way I can describe my experience reading it is it reminded me of watching those old black & white cowboy movies and seeing the wheels on the wagons as they spun frontward,backward and even momentarily seemed to stop. The book wanders all over the place,sometimes very lucid and down to earth and at other times so far removed from reality that maybe it's lost in space. Not having has any experiences with LSD or Heroin;I can only imagine what it does to ones consciousness from reading Wilsons ramblings. I have experienced Demoral and Morphine and it was quite the experience. The chapter "The Persecution And Assassination of the Parapsychologists as Performed by the Inmates of the American Association for the Advancement of Science under the Direction of the Amazing Randi" has to be some of the most hilarious thoughts I've ever come across. I have actually sat through sessions that were just about like these;but failed to notice at the time how ridiculous 'brilliant" people can get;when they really apply themselves--they become almost unstoppable,and the only defence one has is to leave. Wilson can come up with lines that will knock your socks off like; "He has the distinction of being called the Father of the Hydrogen bomb, why anybody would claim paternity in such a case is a mystery to the uninitiate.The Novelist would personally rather be dubbed the Father of the Bubonic Plague;but,you know,different strokes for different folks; different scenes for different genes,etc,"or different lanes for different brains;or different models for different muddles." Or how about this; "It was an axiom of his philosophy that ten thousand trained witnesses reporting something which doesn't fit the local tunnel-reality have less credibility than two drunken participants in an auto accident." How better descriptive can you get? This book is loaded with stuff that will awaken ideas that will set your mind in motion--actually,spinning is more like it. Wilson covers everything from God, Bucky Fuller,Emperor Norton of the United States,Ecology,Having Fun with Your Head,and just about everything that you thought you had figured out; or did you? If you want to read something really different ;you'd have a difficult time finding something better than Wilson to try.

Not Wilson at his best, but some definite treasures

This book resembles a collection of essays, except he has tied them together with cut-up sequences like those found in his Illuminatus! Trilogy. He covers a variety of subjects, including a description of the method used to produce the cut-ups.I didn't find this book as dazzling as some of his others, the cut-ups didn't seem to work as well as in Illuminatus!, and it even dragged a bit at times. However, the book certainly does have some great parts. For example, "The Persecution and Assassination of the Parapsychologists as Performed by the Inmates of the American Association for the Advancement of Science under the Direction of the Amazing Randi" is required reading on Mr Randi, and I keep the book on hand so that I can pass it off to anyone who mentions the Randi Prize.

Do NoT rEaD tHiS rEvIeW- and other logical types

A perrenial favorite of mine. Wilson is my hero; next to Burroughsian beats, Leary the Mad Leprechaun, and Quantum Physics-- which by no coincidance, RAW got me hooked on. Wilson has spun a titillating web of Indraic beauty in the omnidirectional expanding noos-sphere. Have fun with your head and read this or any of Wilson's mind candy manuals...HOO!