Off to Pantheacon / RIP RAW

Something I wrote this afternoon for my LJ blog during an incredibly slow day at work....

Off to Pantheacon this weekend! Can't miss this one, as it includes not one, but two memorial celebrations of the life of Robert Anton Wilson, not to mention the official Meme-Orial at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk on Sunday (to which I have scored a ticket). RAW's writings and lectures were a major influence on me during a time when I was trying to sort out and understand some strange experiences and unexpected "reality tunnels" that I had wandered into earlier in my life. I discovered him through the "Illuminatus Trilogy" some 20 years ago and nothing "was" the same after that. I'm yet another person whom Pope Bob helped to see the Fnords. I've been a proud card-carrying Discordian Pope for many years now, except during those sad intervals when one would go through the wash and have to be replaced. (Card, that is, not Pope. Popes require dry cleaning.) In my old wallet I always kept one displayed next to my drivers license so I could confer instant pope-dom on any store clerk who had to process a check from me.

I've been to many a P-Con and always enjoy them despite self-identifying as only nominally Pagan these days I suppose - sort of a Beltane-and-Samhain-Pagan, in the manner of my Christmas-and-Easter-Christian upbringing. At least that's how I see myself in comparison to many P-Con regulars who are intensely devoted to their various traditions and paths. But good-on-em, says I! I enjoy the company, perspectives and spirits of most of my Pagan brethren and cistern immensely - far more than I do that of the more conventionally religious. Me, I follow the word of the Prophet Carlin: "I'm not an atheist or an agnostic. I'm an acrostic - the whole thing puzzles me." I have no idea what is really going on - I can only make some intuitive leaps and guesses and surmises about what seems to me to be going on, and to be content and comfortable in the Mystery, and to enjoy the humor in it all.

And that's where the late Dr. Wilson comes in. With brilliant logic and disarming, outrageous wit, he helped me see that it can be okay, comfortable, even desirable, to live in a "maybe state", not falling entirely for anyone else's BS (Belief System) and definitely not entirely for my own BS. None of us has any idea or way of knowing what the hell is Really going on, we can only hypothesize about it based on the highly subjective feedback provided by our nervous systems as filtered through early-life imprinting, cultural conditioning, media brainwashing, etc. Given this, we have no business telling others what they "ought to believe" or certainly not what God will do to them (or tell us to do to them) if they don't.

For me, beginning to learn to think like this was incredibly liberating. Mind you, I had spent some years in my young adulthood mired in fundy/evangelical Jesus-freak Christianity (one of the "strange experiences and unexpected reality tunnels" I mentioned above). After freeing myself from that, I ventured out into the spiritual landscape, exploring Celtic and Native American Shamanism, Sufism, Wicca and the Western Hermetic Tradition, investing some years if intensive study in the latter. I came to realize that, despite my denials, what I was seeking was not enlightenment, salvation, oneness with the Great Whatever, or whatever, but a simple comforting certainty about it all - the same need for certainty that fuels fundamentalism of all persuasions. The realizations I gained from RAW's talks and writings were very helpful in readjusting my perspective - my reality tunnel - about it all with humor, fearlessness, curiosity and compassion. Thus inspired, I delved into a study of Ericksonian language patterns, NLP, hypnosis and the magick and mechanics of language and belief. I have come to understand that beliefs can be harsh masters but good servants, provided they are given the right mixture of nurturing and discipline. Otherwise, they tend to pilfer the silver and raid the liquor cabinet. And, above all, The Whole Thing is far too important to take seriously.

I am looking forward to celebrating the good doctor in grand Discordian style on three different occasions this weekend, to lifting a tipple of uisca beatha (or two or three or...) to his memory, and to continuing to catapult the lasagna.

"Like what you like, enjoy what you enjoy, and don't take crap from anyone."
---Robert Anton Wilson, 01.18.1932 - 01.11.2007

www.rawilson.com/
robertantonwilson.blogspot.com/
impermanentpress.com/pages2/raw-tix.html

Wishing you a happy and blessed [insert year-end festivity and/or religious observance of your choice here]

Dear friends and family around the world,

There is much afoot in the world these days to inspire bouts of despair
and bah-humbuggery, and I can bah-humbug with the best of them, but
despite it all the human spirit still perseveres and human hearts still
join together to make merry and celebrate at the slightest provocation.
Here in the northern climes at this time the days are short and
generally grey and the nights are long, dark and cold. And yet, we still
come together to celebrate in hope and expectancy inspired by the
gradual return of the light and the turning of the wheel of the year,
and by whatever religious traditions we choose to take comfort it. And
so I wish you all a joyful, blessed and generally satisfactory Yule,
Winter Solstice, Christmas, Chanukkah, Kwanzaa, Saturnalia, Capricorn, Festivus,Hogswatch or whatever other particular observance of the season of the year you prefer (did I miss any?). May it be filled with love, gusto and
gratitude; and may you enjoy good health, contentment and prosperity and
realize all your hearts' fondest desires in the New Year.

All the best,

Pookah

Victory of the Loud Little Handful by Mark Twain

The loud little handful - as usual - will shout for the war. The pulpit will - warily and cautiously - object... at first. The great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, "It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it."

Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded, but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the antiwar audiences will thin out and lose popularity.

Before long, you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men...

Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.

Mark Twain, "The Mysterious Stranger" (1910)

Quote for the Day

Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.
John Stuart Mill, English economist & philosopher (1806 - 1873)

The Dalai Lama is 70 today...

There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness.
....Quote from the Dalai Lama, in honor of his 70th birthday today.

Quote for the Day

the world is not respectable: it is mortal,
tormented, confused, deluded forever;
but it is shot through with beauty,
with love, with glints of courage and laughter;
and in these, the Spirit blooms...

George Santayana

Patriotic Quotes for July 4th Weekend

"A political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your commander in chief."
....George W. Bush, Campaign Speech, Oct. 26, 2004

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
— George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004

Patriotic Quotes for July 4th Weekend

..the citizen who thinks he sees that the commonwealth's political clothes are worn out, and yet holds his peace and does not agitate for a new suit, is disloyal; he is a traitor.
- Mark Twain, "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court"

Patriotic Quotes for July 4th Weekend

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public!"
-Theodore Roosevelt

Patriotic Quotes for July 4th Weekend

"When a whole nation is roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice,
I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and purity of its heart."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson