Now go forth, my Integralists!  Go forth and speak integral meta-comment!

I see from C4, that Boing-Boing has posted that Robert Anton Wilson is with us no longer.

Having spent a couple of evenings at lectures with the man, and at a dinner awhile ago, as well as being deeply influenced by his books - going back to the age of 18 (WAY too early to be reading RAW, by the way), I came to deeply care for the man. (The most influence was the books, only reinforced by the few times I spent with the man.)

Like all of us, he is a study in contrasts, with absolutely overwhelming "positive" attritbutes - incredibly intelligent, terrifically funny, deeply adventurous (even at his advanced age - one evening before we went to dinner, he was decided to go to dinner on the back of a guys motorcyle, and has just met the guy), as well as very sensitive, and deeply generous, always creative.

You couldn't do much better than spending an evening with Robert Wilson.   A fascinating man, always keeping things interesting, enlivening, funny, and warm.

He wasn't perfect, by any means.  In my own judgement,  he was still in "screaming rage" against the injustices of the world, power for power's sake, selfishness, greed, mindless conformity.  He never stopped paying attention to politicsHis whole stance was a giant "FUCK YOU!" against those things - of course, in his case, expressed much more wittily and funnily than the simple curse. 

The question is, is that "bad"?   When is the proper time to "accept" in a spiritual way, when is the proper time to rage against the injustices, because you CARE?   No one embodied that contradiction more than Robert Anton Wilson.

He also is one of the last of the "old men" of the sixties - and that's important, in a way I will ATTEMPT to explain.

Leary, Watts, Wilson, even though they were INVOLVED with the 60's, they were PRE-boomer.  The ponderous seriousness, the "all about me" of the boomer generation, also reflected in the boomer teachers - you never got that vibe from them.  It WASN'T about them, it was about the world - the spirituality, the adventure, the fun, the caring, the tragedy.   The "cause" was about US, together.  In most, but not all (sombunall as Wilson would say) of the teachers/spiritual adventurers today, there is that self-absorbtion, as an undercurrent. 

I've spent a lot of time around "spiritual masters", or "some of the people who "empower" you. 

If you had ever had a chance to spend with an evening with RAW, you are - entertained, challenged, listened to, enraged - ENGAGED, in a most HUMAN way - in the best of human ways. 

I would take that - over the spiritual masters.   Believe me - it's a lot more interesting.