SLITHER HITHER WEIRDOS AND WITCHES, here’s a rare interview between one of the most influential luminaries of the past century and my psychic paragon and personal patriarch … the brilliant Robert Anton Wilson and my father, Tom Ross!

The PragMagick #podcast gets personal for episode ten, and in the warmest way! I reminisce about the metaphysical foundations ushered in my youth by my father’s own collection of weirdos and witches. Be sure to read the article following these “show notes” for an in-depth look into this week’s episode!

If you find yourself with some extra time and want to show your support with just a few clicks, please review and rate through your podcast application or post your thoughts on social media and tag the show. A couple clicks is like a digital butt-pat to the podcast and an invaluable psychic fist-bump to me!

– Revel Rosz

EPISODE REMARKS:

Finally, I’m introducing a piece of personal history into the tenth installment of my MULT-MEDIA GRIMOIRE ; my ever-evolving HYPERSIGIL that is PRAGMAGICK.

There is method to my madness in commemorating the tenth episode of PRAGMAGICK by showcasing someone else’s interview with the late, great Robert Anton Wilson (or RAW as fans know him). This is because the following dialog is actually irrefutable proof of the strong tether I’ve held to the metaphysical community since I was a youngin’. The auditory resemblance between yours truly and the host of the following interview, TOM ROSS, should be evidence enough…

The following interview between RAW and TOM was filmed in the year 1991. I was the ripe age of five, and according to my father (Tom Ross) I was actually there. Albeit, I was most likely in the green room – doodling, making a ruckus or whatever little tykes are wont to do at such an age.

Yes, the pony-tailed, baby-faced “new age” heartbreaker picking RAW’s brain (see video below) is the man responsible for half my genetic code. I am honored that I have him to blame for the psychical curiosity and weird witching that became my biggest passions within this “reality tunnel” (to borrow a RAW term…)

This interview was a segment for my father’s public access show called STORMWATCH and I remember the set very clearly. So much so that I remember the banana yellow blouse my father was sporting during this interview, and I suspect that may be why he decided to filter the footage black and white when he archived it! I digress…

The following discussion couldn’t have been more relevant if it had been conducted today.

RAW was almost soothsaying the modern political atmosphere, specifically that of the American Presidency and it’s then election. He also addresses the undercurrent of Illuminati paranoia as far back as 1991. But that’s not all, they touch on RAW’s book the COSMIC TRIGGER, the number 23 and the “Cosmic Giggle,” aliens… there’s so much brilliant punch in this short discussion.

It’s truly a revelatory RAW moment for both strangers and FNORD-heads alike. A great introduction to RAW’s kinetic contribution to the great metaphysical pantheon.

The COSMIC TRIGGER re-entered my consciousness during my turbulent twenties. I had started to reconstruct my personal, foundational tenets after torrid bouts with heavy psychic issues when the wondrous and whimsical elements of my childhood were finally given proper assessment. I was finally ready be mired in the Discordianism, magicks, revelations and philosophical satire that make RAW such a revered figurehead of the metaphysical community, let alone a major player in my childhood.

Just last year, my father gave me his cherished personalized and signed edition of COSMIC TRIGGER– the very copy that was the crown artifact and mantlepiece of my my fathers’ homes throughout the years (pictured above.) Receiving this heirloom was of such monumental honor that the only analogy I can compare it to would be a father ceremoniously gifting their athletic son a college ring (or whatever traditional dads do, anyway.)

As for the Cosmic Trigger / Cosmic Giggle Factor: The synchronicity of me being 5 years old at the time this interview and their subsequent conversation about the number is not lost on me. Not to mention 23 also happens to be the day of the month I was born…

1991 was two years after Tim Burton’s BATMAN had entered my everything, and right before the YEAR PUNK BROKE, before I would contort into a brooding little bastard for the rest of my youth. But back then, my childhood was interlaced with my Dad’s own community of witches and weirdos, as evidenced here. Back then, he was running rampant with the aquarian conspirators and brain trippers that shuffled in and out of the The Aquarian Conspiracy author Marilyn Ferguson’s Los Angeles Compound.

It has been said that I bounced on Tim Leary’s knee when he’d pop into that compound. I had also shared gazes and youthful pleasantries with Alduous Huxley’s wife, Laura* (Pictured below with Marilyn Ferguson at Ferguson’s compound.)

*I accidentally refer to Mrs. Huxley as “Helen” in the podcast- my bad!

That Ferguson compound forever imprinted in me a lust to find a similar atmosphere as an adult artist. That electric energy of continual thought and creation, of deep dives and dalliances with esoteric thought and occult devotions were so terribly influential to me. So much so, in fact, that I subconsciously went on to establish a similar one myself (see: W†H)! I realized recently that my magickal art collective, WE THE HALLOWED, has everything to do with those years at the compound. Funny how influential even the seldom remembered memories can conform one’s trajectories!

As a matter of fact, “PRAGMAGICK” is derived from a Ferguson book of a similar name, one compiled by writers Pat Perrin and Wim Coleman. They once took me shopping for comic books so I could explain the stories and backgrounds of these characters for a project about modern myths (if I remember correctly.) Both of them were contributors to Ferguson’s BRAIN MIND BULLETIN, a “New Thought” zine edited by Ferguson. The zine was popular within the proto-brain-hacking community and among “New Age” psychology circles. They compiled the zines into a tome that would haunt my home for most of my life, PragMagic, and eventually, inspire me to utilize “magical thinking” to help conform my subconscious. It was such a revelatory book for me that I cribbed the title of that compilation for this very podcast. My spelling of PRAGMAGICK with a ‘K’ is both tribute and salute of their work.

NEXT EPISODE will conclude with an interview and discussion with TOM ROSS himself.

We’ll rap about these magnetic years rubbing psychic elbows with luminaries like RAW, Timothy Leary and Marilyn Ferguson. Also, we’ll touch on his own artistic mysticism as a creative; he recently released an esoteric masterwork he claims is the first novel specifically written for Artificial Intelligence.

That’s my Dad.

As always, I’m forever grateful for those listening and sharing in this heavy, psychic exorcism with me. When it comes down to it, the motto for WE THE HALLOWED‘s intention rings truer than ever. Death can’t hold artists or thinkers. The only way to achieve immortality-to live on long after we’re gone-is through the creation of art and ideas. So with that..

¡HAUNT ON!

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