Various medical authorities swarm in and out of here predicting I have between two days and two months to live. I think they are guessing. I remain cheerful and unimpressed. I look forward without dogmatic optimism but without dread. I love you all and I deeply implore you to keep the lasagna flying.
Please pardon my levity, I don't see how to take death seriously. It seems absurd.
RAW 
(typed from his bedside at his fnord by the sea)
Saturday, January 6, 2007
Do Not Go Gently Into That Good Night
438 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 1 – 200 of 438 Newer› Newest»Hi Bob!
Sad to hear, I hope you'll have a painless transition to the next stage. I'd like to take this opportunity to tell you how much you've changed and influenced my life. I don't know where I'd be if I never read your books.
Thank you so much, you really are one of the finest beings in this universe!
The pasta will always fly.
I want to tell you that me and my other off-line friends admire you.
You're a great mind.
Thank you and may you be well here or somewhere else.
i have no idea what to say, but i'll try
your work has done so much to better the appreciation i have for my life and the enjoyment of it as to be beyond measure
THANK YOU
Bob,
I love you. You have shared so much with me. Now I want to share something with you! It is written in the Book of Thern.
"In the End the gods shall determine to create the End of Things. Then shall they witfully make nothing of what unwittingly they made at the very Beginning of Things, which will be (as it ever was) the establishment of Nothing, wherein are there no things. And thus all things that create the Allness--yea, these minute and palpable things that constitute the particularity of particular things and too those great and wobbly things that form the generality of general things--will be no more, excepting only those that never were at all.
"For in the End the gods shall in accord with the wonder of their wisdom uncreate All That Is but none of What is Not. And from this mighty mingling of the newly increate with the eternally nonexistent shall spring forth a New World. And it shall be a very good one, perfect, and without flaw.
-The Book of Thern
Book XIII, Chapter 1, verses 331-337
Hi Bob
I have only just discovered your work and already the previously rigid foundations have begun to crumble. I now get to see the rest of my life through the wondrous new prism which you have given to me. I look forward to merging with you come the eschaton. Goodnight and Goddess bless.
This may seem like a tasteless thing to ask (or a tasteless way to ask it), but I mean it in all sincerity. Now that you have things in retrospect, would you like to come back as an ant or as a grasshopper?
Dear Bob,
I love you too.
My dad's close to the edit himself.
He's a Sartrean existentialist turned sufi mystic. Please take it easy on him in the next plane.
Thanks.
I love you
you are the man
everyday I tell people about and talk about what I've learned from your books
thank you
- Jesse
Gee whiz, what a coincidence - I'm dying too! Yay! We're all going to die! Woo-hoo!
Of course, I probably have more than two days or months before that happens (or do I?).
Thanks, Bob, for making us laugh at death - again.
See you in the next world!
(Hopefully all those Republicans, Christians, Muslims, Democrats, Satanists, Carl Saganists, Scientologists, American Idol Addicts, Ketchup-On-Drive-Thru-Burger Fanatics, Cellphone-ologists and other assorted Creepy Dogmatists will skip the next world and go directly to their dumbassed "Heavens" and/or "Hells" and leave me be for an eon or two - Gawd, I can barely think straight with all these FREAKS around!)
Trippo Marx
Parker Lane, Austin, Texas, USA, Earth, Milky Way Galaxy, Unfashionable End of This Universe
i'm no medical authority, but I have the idea that sometimes, a little version of goddess sits on my shoulder, and tells me things, that I may or may not consider to have some truth. She agrees with you that the medical authorities are guessing, and that they're not the most reliable guessers out there.. thank goddess you don't believe anything, hahaha, most of all medical authorities. Even if they mean well:)
I love you uncle Bob, tomorrow i'm teaching a class on the beach where lasagna can learn how to fly. The sign-up list was almost full just now. It's an up and coming thing, flying lasagna. You're ever the trendsetter..:)
Bob, I just wanted to wish you luck and many adventures in the times ahead for you.
I love your books. Along with a hundred thousand other things, they are a big part of why I am what I am now. I can never thank you enough for the ideas you exposed me too. I had some lectures on tape you did a few years ago. I could have listened to you talk about James Joyce for days!
I will definitely miss your wit and wisdom, but I'm not sad. Death will be the greatest adventure of all. Enjoy it!
I love you and wish you all the best!
In the name of Wilson and Hutz, Underdog World Strike!
Good job, Dr. Wilson.
I moved to San Francisco five years ago to invite you for dinner. The dinner never happened, and I've gone back to New York. Isn't that how it works?
Thank you.
When I was 15, the doctors told my mother that she had 6 months to year to live. Fifteen years later, she died. That was only because they performed a very high-risk surgery. She was in a lot of pain and wanted to go. Don't listen to the doctor's BS. It's only our own BS that keeps us alive! Hang in there! We love you...
you mean a great deal to me bob, and for that i thank you.
Hey Bob, there's an interesting article called "The Great Afterlife Debate. Micheal Shermer v. Deepak Chopra". @ http://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/debates/afterlife.html
Good luck man, good luck, and godspeed.
Sir -
I met you at a book signing in Austin TX at Fringeware - you signed the event flier with a large "23" for me for a friend of mine who really didn't "get it."
Your "Cosmic Trigger" was suggested to me several years earlier in New Jersey by both my girlfriend and my best friend independently with in one week of one another.
Such a fun and great book - its the paperback edition with the painting by Sallie Glassman.
I won't go on and on - but really you have made me THINK and I thank you for it.
Understanding the current dilemma -still feel better soon.
Dreiundzwanzig-ly yours,
Phil
hey bob, thanks for the laughs.....and thanks for showing me how to honour my freedom. i am busily passing that message along.
bless you brother.
it's true. death is remarkably absurd. so is life.
i fly lasagna in your honor and celebrate with the riccota of wisdom and the noodles of awe-inspiring peace. and the sauce? that's all the squishy fun in between.
Dear Robert,
I just got my "Email to the Univese" day before yesterday, can't put it down because it fills me with glee and mist. The tears flowed from my heart to yours as I read, "Another Midnight Haiku
Dark, dark: no waves splash,
no barking dogs, no wind.
Just the sound of no sound."
deliscious you as always now.
Love, Tamara & Ishtar Rising
I had to post for the 23rd comment. Good luck and safe and meaningful journey.
Bob,
Oh how I wish I could shake your hand and tell you how much your work has meant to me. You are truly one of my personal heroes.
Please consider this a hearty handshake and a sincere thank you for being one of the most influential people in my life.
Tom W.
Death is far too important to take seriously.
Love always, and thank you. - Rob
Dear Sir,
Because your death would cause great inconvenience for the German Discordian Empire, I hereby forbid you to die. If you still insist on dying, the fine will be 17 tons of flax, payable in the next world.
Yours sincerely,
Rüdiger von Finckendorff, NPIAB.
Bob! Don't go just yet. You've got to at least wait to see how this new movie "The Number 23" turns out. I understand Jim Carey is a big fan of yours. If I don’t see your name in the credits there’ll be feces flying at the screen.
Here’s the link to the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnMp5rW56J8
Movie-shmoovie.
I hope you realize just what a profound mark you've left on the collective consciousness of the human race. You've shattered so many paradigms, blown so many minds... made SO MANY people BETTER people. You know how fucked up things are these days? Just imagine how much MORE fucked up it would be if you hadn't done such an amazing job UNfucking-up people. :-P
Thank you so much for everything you've done for us all.
Dear Robert Anton Wilson:
Thank you, kind sir, for everything you've done for our species. You are a guiding light, and the shadow show you cast on the walls of our collective cave have always been good humoured, kind, and truly inspirational.
If I remember rightly, in 'Cosmic Trigger' you mention how Dr Leary considered himself as a reincarnation of everyone that he'd ever learned from: the embodiment of their lives and teachings, the next link in a long and illustrious chain. And I couldn't agree more. For I will always endeavour to keep your teachings alive and the Hope flowing strong and True... For I have only to open one of your masterpieces and you are always there, smiling back at me.
Long live the Mighty RAW!
Excelsior!
p.w
XVII
Thanks for the books, Robert. I hope, however, that you will be with us for much longer.
Again, thank you for the work and the chance to send you this "thank you" note.
At Christmas, my mother gave me a Stouffer's lasagne... and it was BETTER than what she had made me all the time I was growing up! Try it!
We love you!
How I love you! This all feels brimming with jocoseriosity, so I just had to re-read your "Cheerful Reflections on Death and Dying" from Email To The Universe, and it was palliative. In a 1975 piece that you collected for The Illuminati Papers, "A Few of the Things I Know About Her," you write of Her, your goddess, your muse, and at one point say, "I know that even though my heart may sing with the ecstasy of Her, and my brain whirl with the mystery of Her, one part of me will live in misery forever, until I am entirely lost in Her."
Are you ready to enter Her? You make it sound pretty goddamned enticing!
RAW for MVP of the 20th C!
(where P=Philosopher)
You're a fuckin' good man, Robert Anton Wilson! :)
thank you. thank you. thank you.
Dear Rob:
I remember discovering your books as an undergraduate nearly twenty years ago, and the extraordinary way they opened up my thoughts and perspective. You have indeed made a difference.
Sincerely,
Kevin Bart
Our thoughts and love are with you. Thank you for the life you have lived and the teaching you have given.
What "I" faces death? Not eternity.
Among other things, I see 23 everywhere I go. Keep in touch with us... we're listening!
Oh yea: I recently noted the quote from George Carlin in David Jay Brown's wonderful book of interviews, _Conversations On The Edge Of The Apocalypse_: "I have learned more from Robert Anton Wilson than from any other source." Jays! Not a bad plug at all, at all! Almost as good as the one from Philip K. Dick. What an enormous influence you've had on the avant thinkers out there, Bob!
Dove sta memoria...Hilaritas...fnord.
Howdy,
I hope you opt for cryogenics. The possibility of never reading another RAW book makes me terribly sad.
Either way I'll see you on the other side.
Conscious In A Coma
Hey, Bob! I just want to mention here that I attended your seminars at the Masonic Temple in LA back in about '87, and they changed my life. Hell, your writings changed my life (and I discovered them when I was 23, hoo-hah), and have influenced much of my own work since then.
I want to thank you for being a mentor to me even if you never knew it; for opening minds and expanding horizons; for being one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century; for turning a whole generation on to Leary and Joyce and ee cummings and yourself and tons of other stuff.
You, Mr. Wilson, are a rockstar philosopher god -- just as wrong as any other, but enough right at the proper times. And right enough to know always that you were merely human, and to teach those of us who adore you to take it in the proper spirit.
Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that your impact on my life was enormous. Your words hit a target and had an effect. Your teachings will live with me always. You transcended politics, philosophy, religion, and everything else, wrapped them up into a neat package, then drop-kicked them into model agnosticism.
fnord.
Now here's to hoping that you can remember those fifth, sixth and seventh circuit teachings, and kick the snot out of whatever is doing the nasty to your first and second circuits right now. 'Cause I'm really hoping you'll be around for at least a century, if not more. (Sister Kenny was right once; maybe she can do it again.)
Love, peace and hope. And 23 skidoo. You amazing, talented, intelligent, world-changing bastard, you.
Sincerely,
One of your many students.
NASA reports that lasagna has been observed 2300 miles above the earth, held in constant orbit between the forces of gravity and levity. While you wait to cast off mortality, rest assured that your work, like the lasagna, will keep flying. Current and future generations will absorb the RAW vibe via the printed page, over the Internet, through telepathy and from information technologies that have yet to be imagined or designed. Love forever!
stay happy, and thank you for the books!
The pasghetti flieth on.
Now as to this silly business about two days or two months ... the doctors told my dad he had six months to live.
Seven years later, my father walked back into that same doctor's office. In fact, six months after *that*, my father attended the doctor's funeral.
Doctors are guessing. Guess differently. We love you deeply and will let you fly on if we need to, but I have a hunch you've got a lot more miles in you than the doctors think.
Not only lasagne will fly forever, whatever happens, your name will do the same. It is on a DVD mounted on the New Horizons spacecraft on its way to Pluto - and after that, it will leave the solar system and who knows? Maybe it will visit the dwarf planet Eris.
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/ecard/certificate/
reprint.php?insertedIDreprint=178000
But Bob, not only your name will live on. Thanks to your books and audio tapes, your ideas will survive as well, in the minds of the people you have inspired. And in the years to come, your thoughts and your voice will speak to even more people, many of whom are not even born today.
You were one of the most original thinkers of the 20th century, but many of your insights will be even more important in the 21st. Your book „The New Inquisition“ changed the way I think, and for that, I will love you forever. And that's the trick: As long as you are loved, you can never die.
I love you, mr. Wilson. good luck, where ever you are going. and thanks for everything.
pash! the doctors told me at first that my condition was nothing and that i should buck up. then they told me that it wasn't that bad and that i should exercise more. then they told me that i have several serious conditions and that there is nothing they can do about it.
and, of course, since bed-ridden people don't make much scratch, they aren't taking the 'make the rest of my long crappy life better' kinda approach.
i seriously need some occult magick, here. anyone out there recruiting? can i skip the freemasons? i get bored easily, and have no ability to subvert my will, nor will to do so.
speaking of which, i was just tossing the spaghetti around the other day, and my friend was wearing his 'if you can read this then you are a pope' shirt, with the wonderful head of bob on it, and i thought, 'huh, i guess we're all children, even the ones with the big decisions to make, and we all throw spaghetti, even if the spaghetti are depleted uranium tipped bunker-buster nukes launched at a hole in the ground holding a bunch of archaic idealists speaking arabic.'
and then i thought, fuck!, i've got a lot of people to talk to!
i'm a bit tarot fan, let me just say that the breakdown of the suits and the court card in 'prometheus rising' has been infinitely useful. but i get the idea, bob, that you are a bit prejudiced against the cups. the king of cups is a rapist or sociopath? the queen someone to not fuck? now, as an air sign, i have my frustration with water, but as an aquarius i must say that bridging emotional with reason is very powerful. and people of water have saved my life before, from emotional overkill, so i can't take that worried approach.
i have a secret to share...there is a website, out there, and it has the illuminatus trilogy on it.
the whole book.
i've told people about it. poor people, who would never be able to buy the book.
i'm sorry, bob, but i know you understand, just how important the ideas in that book are. those ideas found you, and they resonated, like a stone in a sink, and now the waves are over the edge of the ship!
bout time!
with love
spaceorgasm.blogspot.com
I will fling lotsa pasta in your honour, sir.
I hope you have much more than 2 weeks or 2 months to live and I'm hoping that the A.M.A. dogma-junkies have this one incorrect (as they often seem to do).
I will be sad to see you leave the planet...but I want you to know that you have reached 'non-locality'--as many of us have your works in our minds...much like the music of Beethoven, the words of Joyce and the sayings of earlier prominent philosophers.
Goddess bless you, Bob!
P.S.: As a cool synchronicity, I've nearly finished reading "The Silence Of The Lambs" and the pic for this post has ol' Tony Hopkins as Hannibal..awesome!
Hail Eris.
I suppose this might be my chance to say thank you, Bob. As with nearly everyone else who has commented, you've been an inspiration (shame on you).
I hope those doctors are full of shit, and tomorrow you wake up feeling fine. But if that isn't the case, I'll see you next time 'round, my friend.
All hail Discordia.
Dearest Mister Anton Wilson,
I saw you partially empty the Imperial College lecture theatre. 1995?
Place was 1/2 full of people shouting "All hail Bob!" and 1/2 full of mindcare professionals. Psychiatrists and the like.
You called the pope some phenomenally rude names and a lot of mindcare professionals got up and left. Which cleared the air nicely.
My big brother always insisted that was an old Aleister C. trick.
Just wanted to say a truly heartfelt thank you for all the books. My two brothers and I have read the lot. One runs an avant garde jazz band, I'm a medical secretary, and the other's a tree surgeon.
We love you.
So I'm sending you all our love. About 200Gb of it. In a zip file.
cnadillac.
sorry, fnord.
Danke für alles!
Uwe!
I've wanted to come by and say hello to you, Mr. Wilson, for three years now. But I still haven't made the road trip from here in Austin, Texas, to there in California. I said hello to you once when you were promoting Everything... in Austin. I felt foolish because I was so nervous. So ever since, I've wanted to see you while I was not in a nervous and awkward state of mind. For now, I will say I love you, and I love everything you've written, and I love doing the QP and PR exercises. Rage, Mr. Wilson, against the dying of the light.
-Jeff Britt
or, Brig. Gen. Jodo "Dozen" Donuts, Ret.
d o z e n d o n u t s @ g m a i l . c o m
Hello Bob ¡¡ Keep on rowing gently ¡¡ I'm sure your charisma will last longer than their temples ¡¡ You are always welcome to the shrine between my temples ¡¡
HUGE HUG ¡¡
POT BLESS YOU ¡¡
Enjoy whatever time you have (I have small doubt you will).
Love and joy to you and us all.
"Be careful what you wish for -- especially in a German whorehouse." - Mother Teresa
My current opinion (i.e. stupid idea I can't prove) is that we are immortal patterns in the information sea which on its surface has the wave patterns we call 'reality'. If this is so, then what we have is more or less isomorphic to the 'quantum immortality' hypothesis (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_immortality and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness_causes_collapse ). But of course (and I always tell people this when we discuss The Secret and What the Bleep) RAW was on to this data 25 years ago!
I second rmjon23 (hey ya Michael!) re: George Carlin. I too have told people that Uncle Bob taught me more than ANYBODY. Others have been very helpful/informative but it was Bob who offered a framework that held it all together, when others who were experts in one area paid too little attention to the Big Picture.
Q: How many Robert Anton Wilsons does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Who needs lightbulbs? Bob beams love at you and then you get off your ass and illuminate your own damn self.
As Borat said: "Fuck off, Death!"
As a fellow Brooklynite, I just wanted to tell you that you have changed my life immeasurably, and uncontrollably too...all for the good, in the end. Thank you for being...blessed be!!!
Hi Bob!
Thanks, Bob, for making us laugh at death - again... I love you, mr. Wilson. You unlocked my eyes. Thank you for being one of the most influential people in my life in my art inspiration. Very good - smile, at death. Success on new road of life, good luck, where ever you are going. and thanks for everything.
(grammatical error)23 23/23
Hello Bob, I'm still rather convinced that I'm living in one of your novels, but I also think that maybe I am you and that I am living in my own novel disguised as you. You might be my archetype agnostic.
Anyway, I am glad to hear that you find death absurd. I myself, though a youth and no where near the territories you are treading, find myself having a difficult time in believing in the concept of death. I will not believe it I guess until it happens. But even then, I don't think I'll be able to grasp it. I think you and Leary may have set a trend for thinking and truly believing in immortality. Its been a few generations, and the seeds have been subconsciously planted in my mind. Thanks for that. IAO, Evoe I adore thee.
"His students said to him,
When will te kingdom come?
Yeshua said,
It will not come because you are watching for it. No one will announce, "Look, there it is," or "Look, there it is." The father's kingdom is spread out upon the earth and people do not see it." The Gospel of Thomas
Good fortune Bob, may the next Heaven be as interesting as this one. All my love with all sincerity...
-S.
Thank you for teaching me so much about this life. I hope that when we make the transition to the next life, you'll be there to teach us about that one, too. :)
Dearest Bob,
How can I say?
You have raged more than anything I've encountered against the dying of the clear light, as it were.
You are Wise, and Good, and Wild, and Grave, and your words have forked much lightning, and so... i feel you can go as gently as you wish, if you wish.
Thinking of you and reading you much just now; Love and Blessed Be.
Jack Henry.
Let each pursue his Will as a strong man that rejoiceth in his way, as the course of a Star that blazeth for ever among the joyous company of Heaven.
My best wishes to Robert for the journey ahead: your wonderful writings have been among my fondest companions for the past 27 years...
p.s. I've taken to referring to you in my head as the Subtle Erisian Heresiarch, after stephen dedalus' musings in Telemachus.
I hope it's not too fanciful a title coz I'm a nascent writer myself and I might dedicate my first novel to you when I write it (seriously, your work means that much to me mate :-)).
Or maybe I'll just put 'To Bob - what a bloke'.
My Love and gratitude once more, blessings,
Jack.
brazenraddish@hotmail.com
Увидимся в 2012м. Спасибо.
Goddess bless, Bob.
Io Eris.
Cosmic Trigger and the Illuminatus Trilogy changed my life, for the better, and they still do
love you Bob
peace
dave
Hi
Whatever afterlife you end up in, I hope that whenever you get there, whether it's two days, two months, two years or two decades, that you turn it on its head as thoroughly as you did this one. Gods know that it's made this ride a hell of a lot better.
In the meantime, though, I'm going to continue enjoying your periodic posts here. Thanks for keeping us informed.
Heya Bob. Here's some more lyrics inspired by you.
Twenty-three
Child of force and fire
Spilling sacred blood
Like the hunter at midsummer
When the Nile floods
Had a vision I was flying
You were riding me
Acid races across the sky in
Lucid Dream 23
Her kisses brush like light wind against the skin
In the night, yeah
Seduction by number
"Captain Clark welcomes you aboard"
Bitten by the dog star
Hair is the only cure
I love it when you're such a bitch
With hermetic politics
And a virus punchcard
That says Eris Esoteric
Awaken from your slumber
Strike the bell at dawn
Arise my supernatural horror
Thy will be done
~~~~~~~~~
I have a few long word things memorized that I say/chant in between songs, while improvising with some other musicians: "Apocalypse" by William Burroughs, Liber AL chapter II, and a long rambling bit on Hindu Philosophy by Alan Watts that I've seen titled "OM: the sound of Hinduism" or "Who Puts It On?"
I'd come and recite them for you, except I'm broke and in NY.
Thanks for having a blog.
Thank you for opening my eyes to possibility. It changed my life and eased the transitioning from one view to another, an effect that never fades. You freed my mind, sir, and I will always be grateful.
- Sheta
Bob, you changed the world for the better. Thanks.
Do not. And go, knowing that you changed many people's lives in distant lands. I read your books in Malaysia, a gift from friends who live there.
Bob... While I, like many others, may never have the opportunity to meet you in person, know that you have touched this humble seeker & countless others in mind & spirit. Which ends up doing a body way more good than milk & beats a handshake, anyhow. I for one hope to honor your gifts: to think critically, love all, laugh often & well (particularly at myself), & have a hella-good time doing it all. With that thought... I wish you peace & love.
Bob,
Thanks for the comfort of knowing there are others. Your works and suggestions give me the ammunition to quietly fight the fuckheads.
"...Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
I discovered your work 10 years ago and I've never been the same since.
Thank you for following your star and being who you are. You've enriched the minds of many, myself included.
Much love
Thank you for everything, sir. You provide illumination. :)
You've made an undeniable impact on my life and the lives of those I've introduced to your work. There is no proper way to impart the amount of gratitude I feel, so I'll just say, "Thanks, Bob."
Let the Doctors guess. I suspect that you'll go when you're good and ready. Tomorrow or 100 years.
Robert - Good move, not to give in to the "inevitability" of anything. If many of us hadn't defied the seeming inevitability of continued one-party Republican rule, we wouldn't have Nancy swinging the gavel. (However imperfect the Democrats, the lesser of two evils is indeed lesser and the realistic choice. I will never forgive Nader for his arrogance and meddling, however much I otherwise respect him.)
As for taking death lightly, and the "survival" question: We don't think that a computer program needs the original computer it ran on to "survive." If the same process can run elsewhere, it is "real" and the machinery is irrelevant. So, why the big deal about the decay of one's brain? If whatever constitutes your mind (and I'm not saying it is mere logical data, just that it is not bound) can "run" elsewhere, like in some platonic, immaterial, modal-realist supercomputer a la Frank Tipler, then it is still alive. Yeah, a sobering thought. Why not?
Hi, Robert --
Some Guy here, so I imagine. Say hi to Arkanos-by-the-Sea (if you get out that way -- looks kind of like Santa Monica). Thank you for Trigger and Illuminatus (they hit me in the best & tender years) and the others I'll read some day. Love & Best... 9996
Thanks for everything, Bob! Keep in touch.
I want to thank you for your relentless dedication towards removing the veils of deception. You've done this with grace and humor. Life became infinitely more enjoyable, for me, the second I began reading the Illuminatus Triology back in 1993. I constantly send you love and gratitude. My latest and greatest piece of writing, written and posted last night, would not exist if not for you. The fire you have shared with all of us will continue to rage and spread accross this crazy zoo planet.
Keep up the good work in th enext life, whatever it may be.
Your work helped lift me out of solipsistic nihilism and set me on a rather more bizarre (and enjoyable) path. Thank you so much for living as you have lived and doing what you've done.
May the afterlife completely defy any expectations you could possibly have had about it. I suspect you'll enjoy it better that way.
Hello,
Sending you speedy recovery wishes from kelly & stevyn in colorado. I wanted to tell you about the denver zine fest in march we are organizing, be wicked if you could attend and speak.
we own a tiny bookshop here and can't keep your work in stock as it is so hot!
get well, we all need you!
stevyn
ironfeather journal
I think the communique would be more effective to let you know while you are alive, rather than in eulogy, as to how much your work has shaped the way I've unthought my way to where I am today.
I've been in touch with Leary, P-Orridge, had Burroughs phone # but waited too late to figure out something to say to him - and I wouldn't want the opportunity to pass again to give a heartfelt THANK YOU.
You restored a sense of play in my universe.
The Mage ages not.
if only I could convey what your work has meant to me in a short response. so long, and thanks for all the mad fishmongers.
"When we are born, the world rejoices - but we cry...
when we die, the world cries - but we may be on our way to liberation"
- Padmasambhava, the Tibetan Book of the Dead
Thanks Bob, I hope you continue to puzzle and stump your doctors. Hell, you learned to walk twice this lifetime already, I say go three for three. :-)
Love,
John Scott Erigene
I'd just like to let you know Bob that you have been an inspiration of mine, especially in the last few years...
thank you so much for the amazing books and thoughts.
Stay cool, the lasagna's on it's way.
Well shit, Bob - I've never known whether to send you boxes of candy and flowers or dog turds and dead rats. Leaning toward the tendancy to stick apart, however, I elected to do neither.
See, I had this Pope thing landed on me at the tender age of 15 (quite a while back, mind you) and since somewhere near that time I have noticed a clear seperation in my perception of the world, pre- and post-Pope.
It was early enough that I can't necessarily pin it all on you or your books, or any single external influence. All I know is, trying to live life amongst the Uninitiated and the Others (you know who You are) is no small feat, once you're on the other side of the looking glass.
In any case, checking in on your thought stream from time to time has certainly provided some sense of at least kinship at arm's length. Not that I trust you enough to actually buy into your writing as a sine qua non, or anyone else's for that matter. And sincerely, thanks very much for that.
Both thats. I think.
Much love and affection, I hope you feel better, however you'd prefer.
And I love you, too.
Thanks, Bob.
-Ragnarok 2012
Good journey Bob. Now make sure you keep in touch with us eh?
Love and Joy,
Prenna
From J Keats.
WRITTEN IN DISGUST OF VULGAR SUPERSTITION
The church bells toll a melancholy round,
Calling the people to some other prayers,
Some other gloominess, more dreadful cares,
More harkening to the sermon's horrid sound.
Surely the mind of man is closely bound
In some black spell; seeing that each one tears
Himself from fireside joys, and Lydian airs,
And converse high of those with glory crown'd
Still, still they too, and I should feel a damp, -
A chill as from a tomb, did I not know
That they are dying like an outburnt lamp;
That 'tis their sighing, wailing ere they go
Into oblivion; - that fresh flowers will grow,
And many glories of immortal stamp.
The first time I read Cosmic Trigger was during the dog days of 2002. For that alone I could never thank you enough.
We love you Bob. Thank you so much.
hi rob,
hope you´re going steady!
i had to laugh about "the dead zen master" riddle!
have a nice time!
mark from europe
In death or in life, may you be blessed.
Wishing you all that is good, Mr. Wilson.
You cannot now know how many people you have helped, informed, and made laugh.
When you finally join the All/Void Ain Soph Aur -- then you will know completely.
From RealMyth
Hail Bob!
Your words were the first nails that cracked open the shell of my youthful dogmatism. For the last 20 years, since I first read the Illuminatus trilogy, whenever I need to break myself free of whatever mindtrap I'm caught in I know I can use your words to pry myself loose. I will be saddened if I can never find new words from you, but know that your life and work has added to mine immeasurably. Without you, I'd be a very different man, and likely a much less interesting and free one.
Salaam, Fnord, Ia, and Namaste.
Hi Bob,
Thank you for everything.
I've been trying to get in contact as I've convinced a magazine I sometimes write for (The Idler - www.idler.co.uk) to run a piece on you. Was kinda hoping for an interview, you know, just by email or whatever. You'll have other priorities right now.
Much love.
Dan.
fnord.
since when have doctors ever been known for their great predictions?
you live forever bob.
with love.
Hail Eris!
I wish you a fun afterlife ; if there is such a thing.
Dear Pope Dr. Wilson,
It is my sad duty to inform you that your unique services have been deemed essential to the continued operation of this facility, and as such your previously approved vacation to The Great Hereafter has been postponed indefinitely until further notice. We apologize in advance if you receive multiple copies of this apology in advance. I salute you in the name of the porpoise horde.
Regards,
Dr. Dantz D. Revohloosjzun, Esquire.