Robert Anton Wilson might be the last philosopher, or at any rate, his writing is philosophy for the axial age, when most people have stopped looking for hidden truths or anything obscure. I bought this one new in consequence of trying to set up a book fair for this fall in Denver (October of '23 or so). Wilson has so many books with Illuminati in the title I thought this might have been a new one on me. In fact I own a previous version of this one, but I'll take this opportunity to tell a story. In this book, Wilson's voice is more "poppy" or deliberately snide-esque, perhaps to draw in readers potentially too snide by demeanor or too conditioned to brook his revelations. My mom recently passed. I once recommended Wilson's Cosmic Trigger trilogy to her. She looked up his name and came upon something online written in the aforementioned snidely tone and said she didn't like his voice. I persisted, saying he does that sometimes, and his Cosmic Trigger trilogy was/were three of the most "important" (or something like that) books I'd read. After she died, I found all three copies of the Cosmic Trigger trilogy in one of her bookcases, annotated and with colored tabs highlighting passages deemed significant. I haven't opened any of them yet.

More great essays by RAW. coex!coex!coex! is worth the price of the whole book.

A quick, blazing head-banger of an introduction to various aspects of RAW's thought, comprised of quick & discrete essays written pseudonymously, expanding on some of the themes from the Cosmic Trigger series and his other works like Prometheus Rising and Coincidance. I especially recommend "Ten Good Reasons to Get Out of Bed in the Morning" and "Coex! Coex! Coex!" (which further reinforces my belief that RAW was just as good a reader of James Joyce as many of the more canonical experts on Joyce, such as Harry Levin, Harry Blamires and the Joyce biographer Richard Ellman). Also great were the RAW interviews by 'Conspiracy Digest'. Robert Anton Wilson joked about playing tricks on his readers (He learned this either from Joyce or Aleister Crowley) I have no way of being sure whether 'Conspiracy Digest' even interviewed RAW, or even whether any of the short pieces in this volume were printed elsewhere, or even how much of what is presented as fact IS actual fact. Which is not really the point. Nevertheless, an indispensable volume in the RAW oeuvre. As Phillip K Dick said upon reading Wilson, "I was astonished and delighted".
All Hail Discordia.

Mostly wild conspiracy based speculation. The author did shine in the some of the books reviews included--in those there was a surprising amount of insight which made me look at the author being reviewed in a different light. Otherwise most of the book reads like bad stream of consciousness writings of a psychotic person.

trying WAY too hard. not very funny and not very though provoking....bleh.

Learn to program yourself to realize your potential. A mindblowing book designed to make your think.

Good relaxing reading

Fun, occasionally illuminating supplement to RAW's loopier fiction. Particular good complement to SCT. His section on the RICH economy makes the whole book worthwhile.

Poor RAW hasn't got far enough out of his own reality tunnel to quite grasp the nuance of feminism, but other then that it's a great pseudo philosophical exercise.

Robert Anton Wilson enjoys provoking people through his books. In 'The Illuminati Papers,' he explains how to abolish stupidity and how the government ensures that we remain docile and not too clever, just to keep our declining society functioning. People are often trapped in their mythic bubbles. Robert Anton Wilson tries to break these bubbles so that each of us becomes enlightened

Always fascinating

Libertarian, futurist, psychologist, optimist, enthusiast, all round thinker, harsh social and political critic. Literary, occult, commentator. Space migration, intelligence increase and life extension. Psychological and intellectual liberation. What’s not too like? Don’t agree with everything. But always fascinating.

I have been reading this book off and on since I got it at the beginning of 2006. I kept it in my car and when I went to have coffee or lunch somewhere and I didn't have homework, I'd pull it out and read one or two of the "articles".

In short, I loved it. All of it. I love this man and his thoughts. Its perfect blend of intellectual stimulii and dry, sardonic humor makes me want to SMI2LE. =)