Mar 6, 2025
If you’ve heard me speak for more than five minutes you’ve probably caught me dropping a Robert Anton Wilson reference (or several). Wilson is one of the most interesting (and underappreciated) writers I’ve ever come across — a Nostradamus for modern times.
I was delighted to sit down with Gabriel Kennedy, author of the excellent biography Chapel Perilous: The Life and Thought Crimes of Robert Anton Wilson. I could talk about this stuff for days, and we had a blast discussing Wilson’s ideas, influence and impact. Consider it a beginner’s guide to avoiding cosmic schmuckery.
I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. For the full transcript, episode takeaways, and bucketloads of other goodies designed to make you go, “Hmm, that’s interesting!”, check out our Substack.
Important Links:
- Chapel Perilous: The Life and Thought Crimes of Robert Anton Wilson; by Gabriel Kennedy
- The Thinker and the Prover; by Jim O’Shaughnessy
- Gabriel’s Substack
Show Notes:
- The most interesting man of the last fifty years?
- How can we escape chapel perilous?
- The anti-determinist, rock & roll philosophy of Bob Wilson
- Tune in: a 30 minute masterclass on the influences, ideas and impact of Robert Anton Wilson
- How to avoid becoming a cosmic schmuck
- Who influenced Wilson the most?
- Why you should read Wilson
- Gabriel as World Emperor
- MORE!
Books & Articles Mentioned:
- The Thinker and the Prover; by Jim O’Shaughnessy
- Chapel Perilous: The Life and Thought Crimes of Robert Anton Wilson; by Gabriel Kennedy
- Prometheus Unbound by Robert Anton Wilson
- Quantum Psychology: How Brain Software Programs You and Your World by Robert Anton Wilson
- The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea
- Cosmic Trigger Volume I: Final Secret of the Illuminati by Robert Anton Wilson
- The New Inquisition: Irrational Rationalism and the Citadel of Science by Robert Anton Wilson
- Prometheus Rising by Robert Anton Wilson
- Quantum Psychology: How Brain Software Programs You and Your World by Robert Anton Wilson
- The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot
- From Ritual to Romance by Jessie L. Weston
- Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
- Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics by Alfred Korzybski
- On the Einstein Podolsky Rosen Paradox; by John S. Bell
- How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival by David Kaiser
- Character Analysis by Wilhelm Reich
- Man Meets Dog by Konrad Lorenz