Cosmic Trigger - reload

Spring Equinox, and we sense stirrings in the Cosmic Trigger camp - get the T-Shirt and help fund another glorious adventure.

 For several of the Maybe Logic crew witnessing (or performing in) the heroic performance in Liverpool and London formed a highlight of last year.

Triumphant performance in Liverpool, 2014

ILLUMINATUS! READING GROUP STARTING ON MONDAY FEB. 24

Press release from RAWIllumination.net

Website RAWIllumination.net to sponsor online group reading of 1970s cult literary work “Illuminatus!” starting on Feb. 24.

An online reading group plans to spend more than a year doing a page-by-page analysis of an unusual 1970s cult novel that has never gone out of print.

Illuminatus! by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, originally published as a series of three science fiction paperback originals, was  influenced by writers as diverse as James Joyce, William Burroughs and H.P. Lovecraft. The book reads at first like a thriller about a vast conspiracy, albeit one that uses an obscure theological term, “immanentize the Eschaton,” in the first sentence. But it also has elements of fantasy and the occult and spends many pages discussing political theory.

The ostensible subject of the book is the Illuminati, an alleged secret society that seeks to control the world and is still the subject of many conspiracy theories. Many of the book’s protagonists are either battling the Illuminati or struggling to figure out what is really going on.

The work makes liberal use of Discordianism, a tongue-in-cheek religion devoted to worship of the Greek goddess Eris, who was blamed for starting the Trojan War, and of the Kabbalah, an esoteric mystical system that began as part of Judaism. The text also reflects the authors’ strong interesting anarchism and libertarianism.

Readers of the RAWIllumination.net website will participate in an online discussion of the book beginning on Feb. 24. The discussion will proceed at a pace of 10 pages a week, to give readers time to untangle many of the esoteric references and meanings in the text. The slow pace also will allow time for readers who missed the initial announcement to get caught up and participate. The standard paperback edition has 805 pages, so the discussion is expected to take well over a year. 

Each week, an entry on a 10-page section of the book will be posted on the website’s blog, and readers will be invited to weigh in using the comments.

The book began as a joke in a Chicago bar. The two authors, Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea, were editors at Playboy magazine in 1960s, responsible for the Playboy Forum, a section of letters from readers. Many of the letters dealt with speculation on who had killed the Kennedys and other conspiracy theories. 

   

The two editors, who were friends, had a habit of going to a bar every payday. One day, Shea jokingly suggested that the two collaborate on a novel that would take seriously every crazy conspiracy theory that had been sent in by a reader. The idea caught the pair’s imagination, and they began work on the book that became Iluminatus!

Issued beginning in late 1975 as three mass market paperbacks, The Eye in the Pyramid, The Golden Apple, and Leviathan, Illuminatus!  was reissued beginning in 1984 as a one-volume trade paperback and has remained in print ever since. It also is available as an ebook and an audiobook. 

Illuminatus! received good reviews from publications such as the Village Voice but was generally ignored by major literary magazines, newspapers and book reviewers. It won only one literary award, the relatively obscure Prometheus Hall of Fame Award, in 1986. It has received less attention from major literary critics than two broadly similar works written at about the same time, Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon and Mumbo Jumbo by Ishmael Reed. It has nonetheless enjoyed a strong cult following from its initial publication and there are many websites on the Internet devoted to it or to one of its two authors. 

The two authors never collaborated on another book, although they remained close friends, but Illuminatus! helped them launch their literary careers. Wilson quit his job at Playboy and became a freelance writer. He eventually published more than 30 books, including novels and essay collections. He died in 2007. Shea continued to work for Playboy, but after he lost his job at the magazine, he began sending out proposals for novels and began a successful second career as a historical novelist. He died in 1994.

Cosmic Trigger Play Update

Ho Ho Hail Eris!
An update for the Cosmically Enthused
Hail n that you marvellous cosmic types,

Firstly a quick update for the as-yet uninitiated:

Plan is to stage an adaptation of Cosmic Trigger by Robert Anton Wilson, with scenes from Illuminatus! woven through, as well as a dramatised peek backstage at the original Liverpool production (directed by my dad, Ken Campbell). To be funded by crowd, staged by enthusiasts and encircled within a festival of Higher Intelligence. We've had a successful read-through of the first draft, done a talk with some scenes WATCH HERE and folk have started sending in money, despite not yet launching an official crowd-funding campaign...

Right, consider yourself initiated. And when you send in your £23 or $23 you will also become a Discordian Pope. And if you're already a Discordian Pope, then I'm excommunicating you until you cough up.

And for those of you who are Popes, here's what's happening:

All I can say is this show seems to want to happen, and bad. I'm surfing wave after wave of good will around this project, and please, keep the support coming....

So, the big news is we have the option on the rights from the Wilson and Shea estates! - Heartfelt thanks to Christina Wilson and Mike Shea for their permission to proceed with this adventure.

And we are days away from a production website. Thanks go to Dom, Gary and Bobby for this.

We have a production company: "This Book Changed my Life Productions", for projects in the genre of impossible to adapt, non-fiction life-changers. Thanks, Greg.

And we have more offers of help than you can shake a stick at. Thanks to Michelle for collating all these offers. We will be gathering one and all when the time is ripe for Britain's Got Cosmic Talent - an open-door audition event for artists, musicians, actors, mystics and ontological guerrillas who feel they simply must be involved. We agree! This event will be repeated when we get ourselves Stateside...

I've been on a crowd-funding masterclass, gleaned many good tips and have a filmmaker on board to make the campaign video. Thank you, Nic.

Thanks too to Nick and Tom for their help with spreading the word.

We have a date and venue for our next jamboree: Liverpool AirSpace 22-23rd February (follow link for some readings from Illuminatus from Liverpool actors). More talks, more scenes, more John Higgs, and songs for a Cosmic musical number or two - thanks to Richard who is on a roll. This will go up on YouTube for those who can't be there live.

And I am working on some really special rewards for the crowd-funding push (which we hope to launch in April):

an exclusive, never-before-heard interview with Shea and Wilson backstage at the NT
Ken Campbell box-set of recordings of his one-man-shows - not previously available!
The audio recording of the original Illuminatus! production
All beautifully presented in collectors' editions - oh yeah baby. Thanks to Nadia and Scott for help with this. This is subject to being able to clear all the relevant rights. Ah, bureaucracy...

And all this is thanks to the donations you have made so far - extra special thanks to Nina and Monk!

YOU ARE STILL WELCOME TO DONATE, OR YOU CAN WAIT UNTIL THE OFFICIAL CROWD-FUNDING LAUNCH - OR BOTH!

Donating before we launch the crowd-funding campaign will get you on the guest list to an exclusive after-show party - only available to the Inner Circle of early supporters.

DONATE HERE email address: cosmictriggerplay@gmail.com

I'm going to ground for January, to get this darn second draft written, so please forgive me if I'm even slower than usual in replying to your emails. And if you see me on Twitter, boot me off.

I'll send a quick note when the website is up and running, and there will be contact details on there for other members of the team to contact if you want to get involved.

One other way you might wish to help is to put together a bit of research for me while I'm writing the second draft. I'll give you a subject and you condense what you discover into an easy-digest page or two. If that appeals, then email with the subject RESEARCH HELP.

See you on the other side.

May you achieve Pure Slack this Christmas.

xx xxx Daisy


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