Hello there!

I'm sure most of you know about pope Bob, however I haven't seen any reference to him in this forum, and I was wondering whats your opinion on him, specially regarding the work on the 8 circuits.



Cheers!
Andy

All I know of him is what I gleaned from reading Prometheus Rising, which was fun and interesting and made a lot of good points in interesting ways.

Seems smart, thoughtful, and willing to think about things in new and unusual ways.

I really love Robert Anton Wilson, he was pretty much the first 'spiritual' author I got my hands on. I have only read Cosmic Trigger (blew my mind), Prometheus Rising (loved it to bits) and Illuminati (did not like). I also like the fact that when you read him, you get a strong whiff of the era from which he came and that he was writing from. In my mind he came from the same stream as Leary and Christopher Hyatt, a stream that seems to have gone mostly dry due to the deaths of all three mentioned.

More on him: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1422743250837892881#

- great documentary, shows a lot about him personally as well as revealing some of his ideas

Prometheus Rising was a game-changer for me, and lead me on to Crowley who eventually lead me to Buddhism and the DhO. PR also introduced me to several other big influences (Korzybski, Gurdjieff..).

I found the 8 circuit model very useful in my own self-observation and as an integrative nexus around which I could hang all this cool new knowledge. To this day whenever I see people getting carried away by their emotions I still think "C2 influencing C3." When I think about how people tick, I often find myself coming back to a basic version of the 8 circuit model (particularly the lower 4 - I think the upper 3 or 4 are a bit more dubious/overlapping) although nowadays I think of it as the "human holarchy" - each "circuit" transcending and including its "lower", with the power still flowing primarily from the lower circuits (survival comes first!)

Bob found a lot in Buddhism and its view of the self (empty, shifting). I always wondered what he would have said if he had actually found something like the DhO and experienced enlightenment for himself. I think he had a lot of magical experience and some heavy samadhi/jhana concentration stuff from his Crowley work, but not much in the way of fundamental insight as its defined around here. Then again, his general understanding of neurological relativism and epistemology are brilliant, not to mention hilarious.

I think Quantum Psychology (a "follow-up" of sorts to PR) is a more comprehensive and penetrating book. I go back to it often, although PR certainly had the biggest influence. Thanks Bob!

I never answered you back, shame on me! Thank you all for your answers.

I was reading today The Cosmic Trigger, Vol I, and in the chart of page 213 Bob equates the different circuits like this:

--------------------------------Individual ------------------------------------- Life

Circuit I ------------- Infant Bio-Survival passivity -------------- uni-celular life

Circuit II ------------- "toddler" emotional politics (Ego) ------------- vertebrate life, territoriality, hierarchy

.
.
.
.

Circuit VIII ------------- Satori--------------------------------------- cosmic union

The question is, do you think with "satori" he was talking about the same stuff we talk here? So that in working through the nanas we work in some way through the circuits too?

I've been wondering how RAW's and Leary's stuff correlates to what we do (if it does in anyway). Any thoughts?

Thanks you

Andy

Hi Andres,

First Energy Gates, now RAW. You and I have been reading the same books!

So anyway, I have no insight practice, just getting started, but I agree with what has been said on this thread. I consider RAW to be one of my two great teachers.

That said, I also agree with what's said here that he did not experience stream entry. I would put his discussion of samadhi up as either theoretical or powers/siddhis.

Hmmm, note also that some practitioners, for instance Shinzen Young who I just listened to a ton of, would equate what RAW I think calls "Dharshan" with Samadhi. That is, the experience of becoming one with an object. I do think RAW had this level of experience, but again with my limited practical knowledge this seems more like concentration than insight.

Have you heard "Namu Amida Buddha"? Very beautiful short audio track with Bob talking about a branch of buddhism. Out there on bit torrent if you do that sort of thing.

Hi Bruce, thanks for your answer!



Me? torrents? never! I have heard that talk, thanks for the recommendation.

What practices have you done from RAW?

I love Bob, his work changed my entire way of thinking and turned me on to so many things I probably wouldn't have encountered otherwise. As for his use of Leary's 8-circuit model, he took that entire model and presented it in a far more practical way than Leary himself did which probably did more to keep the model fresh and relevant than Leary's later work could have.

All in all, he was a great thinker and his work had a far reaching effect in modern culture. A sad loss to the world but he left a great body of work behind him.