Robert Anton Wilson, Author, Cult Figure, Dies at 74

Goddess Revivalism, the Bavarian Illuminati, and Paranormal Reality; The Lunatic Fringe Loses One of It's Leaders

Acclaimed novelist Robert Anton Wilson died this past Thursday at his home in Monterey, California, from complications of Post-Polio syndrome. He passed away early in the morning, surrounded by friends and family.

Wilson's books redefined the American conspiracy theory, and recreated contemporary mysticism. Beginning in the 1970's with his cult classic, The Illuminatus! Trilogy, Wilson constructed a world where reality bends to our fantastic dreams and our dark fears. Along the way he created new conspiracies, most notably The Bavarian Illuminati, who most people have heard of, but no one knows anything about.

Wilson admits to concocting the organization with Robert Shea, co-author of The Illuminatus! Trilogy. The novels also introduced the world to it's latest new religion, Discordianism, which Wilson created with his friends Kerry Thornley and Greg Hill. The religion, which worships Eris, the Goddess of chaos and is based on weirdness and personal philosophy, has been fervently adopted by many of Wilson's fans and shows no sign of going away. It has spawned hundreds of lunatic fringe writers and artists, most of whom publish in obscurity on the Internet.

His novels, such a The Schrodinger's Cat Trilogy and The Historical Illuminatus Chronicles, expand human potential and hammer at preconceptions of truth and reality. In his books, characters are driven mad, secret histories are revealed, everything comes into question, and enlightenment always comes in the end. From Masonic secrets to aliens posing as gods, to Einstein and James Joyce contemplating the Loch Ness Monster, no mythos or paranoia was too strange.