Profane Illuminations: Robert Anton Wilson’s Hedonic Ascesis
Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies July 7, 2021 E. Davis
Robert Anton Wilson blended anarchist, psychedelic, and occult themes into a pluralistic view of reality that combined pragmatic skepticism with an esoteric embrace of altered states of consciousness. His 1975 Illuminatus! trilogy, co-written with Robert Shea, wove these elements into a satirical conspiracy fiction. Wilson's personal experiments with psychedelic drugs and sexual magic, described in his 1977 book Cosmic Trigger, led him to develop a self-reflexive theory of visionary practice that offered a deconstructive and libertarian vision of gnosis. The essay contextualizes Wilson's visionary pragmatism using Foucault's concept of "technologies of self" and Sloterdijk's "anthropotechnics," and traces his debts to Aleister Crowley, Timothy Leary, and John Lilly.