Cosmic Trigger III: My Life After Death is the third book in the Cosmic Trigger series, a three-volume autobiographical and philosophical work by Robert Anton Wilson.
The third volume in Wilson’s Cosmic Trigger series begins with an analysis of a faked internet news story announcing the author’s death, in February 1994. Wilson discusses this with his usual humor, and then uses it as a springboard into philosophical meditation on broader issues relating to the nature of ‘truth’ and existential questions about death and reality. Indeed, much of the book is concerned with the mutability of reality; the different layers or ‘masks’ of experience, in a Nietzschean sense. Wilson uses the example of Elmyr, the art forger, to explore issues such as authenticity and consensus reality. Another key figure throughout is Orson Welles. Wilson comments on the techniques Welles used in his films, relating their effects to the relativistic conceptualization of reality that Wilson associates with the use of marijuana.
He also carries on his examination of information density and its move ‘steadily westward’ which he touched upon in the second volume of the series. In this regard, and elsewhere in the book, Wilson embraces the ideas and philosophy of R. Buckminster Fuller.
Other concepts explored are postmodernism and political correctness; and he use the example of militant feminism to demonstrate how dogmatic adherence to any belief system can result in intolerant and even dangerous ideologies, suggesting that dogmatic and extreme feminism has made androphobia acceptable (he uses the term 'androphobia' in reference to the fear/hatred of all men on ideological grounds, rather than in the psychological sense). Although this argument could be construed by some as sexist, it is made clear that he is in agreement with the basic aims of traditional and mainstream feminism (i.e. the equality of women and men) and he only opposes the most extreme strains of feminism, and he also states that he is in agreement with many of the goals of political correctness, yet opposes the ‘fascist’ tactics used by some of its adherents to force its ideals on people.
Other topics include LSD, science fiction writer Philip K. Dick, and the potential pitfalls of blindly accepting ‘expert’ opinion; all loosely connected by the underlying theme of the perspectival and relative construction of reality.
Discordianism is a belief system based around Eris, the Greek goddess of strife and discord, and variously defined as a religion, philosophy, paradigm, or parody religion. It was founded after the 1963 publication of its holy book, the Principia Discordia, written by Greg Hill with Kerry Wendell Thornley, the two working under the pseudonyms Malaclypse the Younger and Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst.
Misandry is the hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against men or boys.
Political correctness is a term used to describe language, policies, or measures that are intended to avoid offense or disadvantage to members of particular groups in society. Since the late 1980s, the term has been used to describe a preference for inclusive language and avoidance of language or behavior that can be seen as excluding, marginalizing, or insulting to groups of people disadvantaged or discriminated against, particularly groups defined by ethnicity, sex, gender, sexual orientation, or disability. In public discourse and the media, the term is generally used as a pejorative with an implication that these policies are excessive or unwarranted.
Feminazi is a pejorative term for feminists that was popularized by politically conservative American radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh.
Robert Anton Wilson was an American author, futurist, psychologist, and self-described agnostic mystic. Recognized within Discordianism as an Episkopos, pope and saint, Wilson helped publicize Discordianism through his writings and interviews. In 1999 he described his work as an "attempt to break down conditioned associations, to look at the world in a new way, with many models recognized as models or maps, and no one model elevated to the truth". Wilson's goal was "to try to get people into a state of generalized agnosticism, not agnosticism about God alone but agnosticism about everything."
The Illuminatus! Trilogy is a series of three novels by American writers Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, first published in 1975. The trilogy is a satirical, postmodern, science fiction–influenced adventure story; a drug-, sex-, and magic-laden trek through a number of conspiracy theories, both historical and imaginary, related to the authors' version of the Illuminati. The narrative often switches between third- and first-person perspectives in a nonlinear narrative. It is thematically dense, covering topics like counterculture, numerology, and Discordianism.
Dogma, in its broadest sense, is any belief held unquestioningly and with undefended certainty. It may be in the form of an official system of principles or doctrines of a religion, such as Judaism, Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, or Islam, as well as the positions of a philosopher or of a philosophical school, such as Stoicism.
A worldview or a world-view or Weltanschauung is the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing the whole of the individual's or society's knowledge, culture, and point of view. A worldview can include natural philosophy; fundamental, existential, and normative postulates; or themes, values, emotions, and ethics.
Anti-authoritarianism is opposition to authoritarianism, which is defined as "a form of social organisation characterised by submission to authority", "favoring complete obedience or subjection to authority as opposed to individual freedom" and to authoritarian government. Anti-authoritarians usually believe in full equality before the law and strong civil liberties. Sometimes the term is used interchangeably with anarchism, an ideology which entails opposing authority or hierarchical organization in the conduct of human relations, including the state system.
Theoretical psychology is concerned with theoretical and philosophical aspects of psychology. It is an interdisciplinary field with a wide scope of study.
Carnivalesque is a literary mode that subverts and liberates the assumptions of the dominant style or atmosphere through humor and chaos. It originated as "carnival" in Mikhail Bakhtin's Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics and was further developed in Rabelais and His World. For Bakhtin, "carnival" is deeply rooted in the human psyche on both the collective and individual level. Though historically complex and varied, it has over time worked out "an entire language of symbolic concretely sensuous forms" which express a unified "carnival sense of the world, permeating all its forms". This language, Bakhtin argues, cannot be adequately verbalized or translated into abstract concepts, but it is amenable to a transposition into an artistic language that resonates with its essential qualities: it can, in other words, be "transposed into the language of literature". Bakhtin calls this transposition the carnivalization of literature. Although he considers a number of literary forms and individual writers, it is François Rabelais, the French Renaissance author of Gargantua and Pantagruel, and the 19th century Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky, that he considers the primary exemplars of carnivalization in literature.
F for Fake is a 1973 docudrama film co-written, directed by, and starring Orson Welles who worked on the film alongside François Reichenbach, Oja Kodar, and Gary Graver. Initially released in 1974, it focuses on Elmyr de Hory's recounting of his career as a professional art forger; de Hory's story serves as the backdrop for a meandering investigation of the natures of authorship and authenticity, as well as the basis of the value of art. Far from serving as a traditional documentary on de Hory, the film also incorporates Welles's companion Oja Kodar, hoax biographer Clifford Irving and Orson Welles as himself. F for Fake is sometimes considered an example of a film essay.
Cosmic Trigger I: The Final Secret of The Illuminati is the first book in the Cosmic Trigger series, first published in 1977 and the first of a three-volume autobiographical and philosophical work by Robert Anton Wilson. It has a foreword by Timothy Leary, which he wrote in the summer of 1977.
Cosmic Trigger II: Down to Earth is the second book in the Cosmic Trigger series, a three-volume autobiographical and philosophical work by Robert Anton Wilson.
The Ultimate Nullifier is a fictional device of immense power appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The device made its first appearance in Fantastic Four volume 1, issue #50, in which Johnny Storm retrieves it from the home of Galactus to employ against Galactus himself. The Nullifier appears as a small, hand-held metallic device with no apparent functionality. When first introduced in 1966, it was described as the only known weapon in the universe capable of inspiring fear in Galactus.
Difference and Repetition is a 1968 book by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. Originally published in France, it was translated into English by Paul Patton in 1994.
This glossary of philosophy is a list of definitions of terms and concepts relevant to philosophy and related disciplines, including logic, ethics, and theology.
Aurel Thomas Kolnai was a 20th-century philosopher and political theorist.
The term chapel perilous first appeared in Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur (1485) as the setting for an adventure in which sorceress Hellawes unsuccessfully attempts to seduce Sir Lancelot. T. S. Eliot used it symbolically in The Waste Land (1922). Dorothy Hewett took The Chapel Perilous as the title for her autobiographical play, in which she uses "the framework of the Arthurian legend, Sir Lancelot, to create a theatrical quest of romantic and epic proportions."
Knowledge and the Sacred is a 1981 book by the Iranian philosopher Seyyed Hossein Nasr. It was originally presented as his Gifford Lectures, which he delivered in 1981. The book is an exposition of perennial philosophy and has been described as a summa of the traditional perspective. It reflects Nasr's desire to revive what he refers to as the sacred quality of knowledge as opposed to knowledge based on sense perception and reason.
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