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Ok, I’ll give you a synopsis of some of the important points for me:
I first read his trilogy as a teenager in a two-horse town hundreds of miles away from civilisation. There was a book shop there called ‘The Book Shop’ right next door to a music shop called ‘The Music Shop’. The only occult material in ‘The Book Shop’ was the large stack of King James bibles they used to hold open the door during the summer.
Some Head must have left the three volumes of Illuminatus along with a few Richard Brautigans in a knapsack which a friend and I discovered one day while raking through his attic. Maybe it was a cousin or an older brother, I don’t remember. Anyway, my friend wasn’t much of a reader and when I saw them I said I liked the covers and he gave them to me.
The first pleasure was the Brautigans. They were so old and temperature damaged that they fell apart in my hands as I read. I’d decadently throw pages over my shoulder as I finished them. I really loved those books but they didn’t even begin to prepare me for Illuminatus, those books changed me forever. On first reading, the trilogy triggered what can only be described as a series of dramatic initiation experiences that continue to unfold many years later and which I would not change for anything. That was the intention of the two Roberts all along of course. Those books are very carefully constructed.
A few years down the line. I’m in a city now. I’m doing a lot of acid and loving it. A friend and I are talking to each other about how this is the highest we’ve ever been. It’s impossible to get any higher. Why don’t we take some more and see what happens? He says yeah and then chickens out. I do it.
Later, I’ve escaped the insanity of beefheart, the butthole surfers and bongwater and I’m lying on my back on top of a hill beside the canal. I’ve had more acid and hash than I’ve ever consumed before and more than I will ever have again. Amazingly I’m surrounded by animals, birds and insects who’ve come to say hello. My mind is wide open. I close my eyes and I make contact. I am abducted by aliens. They take me to another dimension where they teach me a morphing multidimensional language made of Sound and vision. They are the most joyful loving beings I have ever encountered. I have never been happier or more at home. They ask me if I want to stay with them forever or come back here and help the world get to where they are in the future. I very nearly stay but then I remember my family.
When I come back to earth, years? Months? Hours? Later, it turns out I now have magical powers. I can read peoples minds, I can make things happen just by thinking about them, I never lose at cards, not once in months and I am bombarded with esoteric information and synchronicity from every angle. every phenomenon seems to be a particular dealing of God with my soul…. Or maybe it’s the devil.
I’m starting to freak my friends out. I’m really freaking myself out. Too much power. Too little control. No idea what the fuck is going on. This goes on for about a year. Somehow, eventually, i shut myself down. Switch it all off.
A few months later I come across a copy of cosmic trigger in a bookshop and RAW explains what has been happening to me. He helps me see I’m not mad. That what has been happening is not unique. Rare, but not unique. Thank you Bob. I don’t think I’ve ever been lower than that hole you dug me out of then. Even later on I come across Terrence McKenna’s books which help me slowly come to terms with my close encounter. He describes them perfectly.
Things return to normal for a while. I forget about lots of things I wish I’d written down. I force myself into square holes. I stop doing acid and become a drinker instead.
Years later I’m reading the invisibles. It’s good. Not nearly as tightly constructed as the Illuminatus books and obviously heavily influenced by RAW but good all the same. I imagine the effect it would have on a younger me. I kind of tail off after the first volume and don’t pick another one up until the issue where Grant asks his readers to beat one off in the letters pages. I do it. Forget about it. And forget about the invisibles for a while.
I get sick. The doctors can’t find anything wrong with me but I feel like I’m dying. I search everywhere for a cure. I’m reading RAW’s website and he talks about NLP in one of his pieces so I give that a shot. I sign up for a 7 day training with Bandler and McKenna. One day Bandler’s wearing an eye in the triangle ring. I acknowledge it and we talk for a bit. He tells me I should seriously study magic. That night I buy condensed chaos and it actually dawns on me for the first time that I am is a magician. I feel really stupid. How come it took so long?
A few months later I’m in my flat and the Guardian Guide falls onto the floor open at a picture of Grant Morrison as I’m trying to put it in the bin. He literally seems to leap off the page and beckon me to read the article. it's funny and cartoon like. In my opinion, it was one of the most amazing pieces of magic I’ve seen. It turns out he’s giving a talk at the ICA that night. I go down and thankfully get in on a returned ticket. Grant is astounding. The best public speaker I’ve ever seen. Adorable too. He talks a lot about magic and tells us how he sees his writing as being in the same tradition as Illuminatus. How, yes, The Invisibles would never of happened without Illuminatus. Sadly I’m still too ill to stay and have a drink with him afterwards and hear him play records.
I hit the books. Study and practice. I drop chaos magic and get into Crowley instead. Much more like it. I stop drinking and start doing psychedelics instead again.
I’m on the maybe logic mailing list and they ask for suggestions about which courses RAW could teach online. I suggest Magic 101. I doubt I’m the only one. In their first term they have a Crowley 101 course. I sign up. It’s apparent from early on that Bob’s ill but he still contributes as much as he can. I am sad and joyful at our few personal exchanges. I make a stupid group servitor to try and help both of us get well. It doesn’t work. lust for result is a bitch. He teaches me lots of things about humility and optimism and magic before the course, after 10 weeks, ends. That was a couple of years ago, I’ve known he’s been dying ever since.
Thankfully, eventually, I get well in many different ways. I finally read the invisibles from beginning to end. It’s great. I discover Barbelith and It’s really cool. I lurk for ages until i get round to asking for a membership which then takes months to arrive. Meanwhile Barbelith, in my opinion, seems to become a pretty unwelcoming place to be. I say so very soon after getting my suit and obviously upset a few long-term members. So what. I move on and find somewhere else less abrasive and better suited to me where I can talk about magic, occasionally dropping by here to see if there’s anything interesting happening in the temple.
I come to Barbelith this morning and see the awful mess on the temple carpet and cannot restrain myself...
i apologise for my over reaction, it was only one poster and they seem suitably embarassed. i am glad to see that others have been more respectful since.
i'd personally say my thinking has moved on a lot from RAW's work. I don't hero worship him any more although he's still my idea of what heroes should be like. funny, wise and compassionate. i do have problems with some of his stuff too. i practice a type of ritual magic which doesn't inolve any of his exercises and i'd rather sit down with Agrippa, Crowley or Regardie of an evening. He did initiate me and many others with his writings though and for that I'll be forever grateful. He's a gateway for a lot of people to the deeper stuff, training wheels if you like. he knows it too, somebody once asked him if he was the head of the illuminati and he laughed and said he was more like a toe-nail. |
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