I met Bob at a gathering in San Jose a month prior to this interview. It was a series of surreal moments. At one point I looked around the table at the coffee shop and found myself—a twenty-something, pony-tailed (it was 1991) kid sharing a creamer with authors; Robert Anton Wilson, Michael Talbot, Fred Alan Wolf and my employer, Marilyn Ferguson. It was like one of those parlor game scenarios, "Who in the world, living or dead, would you most like to have coffee with?" I would be disqualified because my scenario had four people instead of just one. Four of the people who helped liberate my consciousness the most to date, and seemingly interested in my thoughts about holographic universes, quantum realities and if I would kindly pass the sugar.

I did pass the sugar. It was the least I could do.
— Tom Ross

[from wikipedia.org]

Robert Anton Wilson or RAW (1932–2007) was a prolific American novelist, essayist, philosopher, psychologist, futurologist, libertarian, and conspiracy theory researcher.

||| RAW Official Website |||

He described his writing as an "attempt to break down conditioned associations — to look at the world in a new way, with many models recognized as models (maps) and no one model elevated to the Truth." And: "My goal is to try to get people into a state of generalized agnosticism, not agnosticism about God alone, but agnosticism about everything."

On January 6, 2007, he wrote on his blog that according to several medical authorities, he was likely to have only between two days and two months left to live, closing his message with

"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."

He passed on peacefully five days later, on January 11 at 4:50 a.m. Pacific. His remains were cremated on January 18 with his family holding memorial services on February 18, 2007. His ashes were scattered at the same spot as his wife's - off the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk in Santa Cruz, California.

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Works by Robert Anton Wilson

• Playboy's Book of Forbidden Words (1972)
• Sex and Drugs: A Journey Beyond Limits (1973)
• The Sex Magicians (1973)
• The Book of the Breast (1974)
• The Illuminatus! Trilogy (1975) (with Robert Shea)
    - The Eye in the Pyramid
    - The Golden Apple
    - Leviathan

• Cosmic Trigger I: The Final Secret of the Illuminati (1977)
• Neuropolitics (1978) (with Timothy Leary and George Koopman)
• The Game of Life (1979) (with Timothy Leary)
• The Illuminati Papers (1980)
• Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy (1980–1981)
    - The Universe Next Door
    - The Trick Top Hat
    - The Homing Pigeons

• Masks of the Illuminati (1981)
• The Historical Illuminatus Chronicles
    - The Earth Will Shake (1982)
    - The Widow's Son (1985)
    - Nature's God (1991)

• Right Where You Are Sitting Now (1983)
• Prometheus Rising (1983)
• The New Inquisition (1986)
• Wilhelm Reich in Hell (1987)
• Natural Law, or Don't Put a Rubber on Your Willy (1987)
• Coincidance (1988) {ISBN 1561840041}
• Neuropolitique (1988) (with Timothy Leary & George Koopman)
• Ishtar Rising (1989) [[revision of The Book of the Breast]]
• Semiotext(e) SF (1989) (editor, with Rudy Rucker and Peter Lamborn Wilson)
• Quantum Psychology (1990)
• Three-Fisted Tales of "Bob" (edited by Ivan Stang) (1990)
• Cosmic Trigger II: Down to Earth (1991)
• Reality Is What You Can Get Away With: An Illustrated Screenplay (1992)
• Chaos and Beyond (1994) (editor and primary author)
• Cosmic Trigger III: My Life After Death (1995)
• The Walls Came Tumbling Down (1997)
• Everything Is Under Control (1998)
• TSOG: The Thing That Ate the Constitution (2002)
• Email to the Universe (2005)