I just finished Cosmic Trigger I by Robert Anton Wilson.  On one level, this book is about conspiracies, coincidences, and the possibility of ongoing contact with alien intelligences from the star Sirius.  You know, all that crazy stuff that fills the “New Age and Occult” section of your local bookstore.

But on another level, Trigger is a book about thought, and the validity (or not) of beliefs, and about deliberately playing with how you think.  Wilson acknowledges this explicitly in the Preface to the New Edition:

…many people still believe that I “believe” some of the metaphors and models employed here.  I therefore want to make it even clearer than ever before that

I DO NOT BELIEVE ANYTHING

…It seems to be a hangover of the medieval Catholic era that causes most people, even the educated, to think that everybody must “believe” something or other, that if one is not a theist, one must be a dogmatic atheist, and if one does not think Capitalism is perfect, one must believe fervently in Socialism, and if one does not have blind faith in X, one must alternatively have blind faith in not-X or the reverse of X.

My own opinion is that belief is the death of intelligence.  As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes a certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence. [...] Belief in the traditional sense, or certitude, or dogma, amounts to the grandiose delusion, “My Current Model” — or grid, or map, or reality-tunnel — “contains the whole universe and will never need to be revised”.

Trigger, more than anything, is a book about trying different reality models on for size and seeing how they fit.  While Wilson characterizes his philosophical position as agnostic, his approach in the book could be equally well characterized as a kind of philosophical polytheism.  Whitman said “I am large, I contain multitudes”, and Wilson acknowledges this state of being explicitly by referring to himself in the third person by a number of different titles, sometimes two or three in the same paragraph: e.g. the Skeptic, the Materialist, the Hedonist, the Shaman, the Scientist, etc.

Most Western adults have probably experimented at least a little bit with alternate belief systems from the one they were brought up in. But for the vast majority it was probably as a sort of spiritual serial monogamy - one belief system supplanted another.  By contrast, what Wilson advocates and exemplifies, is more like spiritual polyamory.  The ability, in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s words, “to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function”.  Or five ideas, or twenty-four.

It’s worth making some distinctions here.  This is not about the trend in modern pop-philosophy and personal development literature towards a “belief buffet” approach to life - a little denatured monotheism here, a little Buddhist psychology there, a smidge of paganism and a dash of karma.  This also is not about mere intellectual understanding - being an armchair scholar of philosophy can be fun and rewarding, but Wilson is advocating something a little more active and immersive.

No, this book is about being able to look at the world from multiple fully-realized, internally-consistent, and very possibly contradictory vantage points at the same time.  The ability to see a chance meeting with someone you’ve been thinking about, for instance, as a) a meaningless coincidence; b) an expression of the Jungian collective unconscious; c) an intervention into your life by a singular divine or superhuman will; d) the result of your own intentions working at a distance; or e) the conscious, unified Universe playing games with Itself.  Or any number of other explanations.

Why is this important, and why write about it here?  Even in the most ecumenical and open-minded circles, there is often an implicit pressure to define yourself.  Just as there has always been a subtle but undeniable urgency to finding that “one right person” to spend my life with, I’ve often felt as if I’m somehow incomplete until I can say “I’m an Xist”.  Where “X” is some kind of philosophy or ideology, either traditional or a synthesis.  But this is a form of self-limitation.  I see the philosophical/spiritual plurality that Robert Anton Wilson exemplifies as perhaps one of the greatest forms of abundance a person can embrace.  It’s a meta-philosophy for life, a philosophy for dealing with philosophies and for coping with all the weirdness and contradiction out there by being weird and contradictory yourself.

And if nothing else, it’s good brain exercise.  Just as arguing for policies you don’t actually agree with in debate class will help you sharpen your understanding of your own beliefs, embracing philosophical plurality will help you see your preferred point of view (if you have one) in a clearer light.  And possibly kick you out of some mental ruts you didn’t even know you were in.  Most acrimonious debates over topics from table manners to politics stem from the basic inability of either participant to comprehend where the other is coming from.  The same way an occasional weightlifting session can make all of your daily exertions easier, periodically stretching your mind around a whole new worldview will improve your perspective on all of your day-to-day interactions.  At least, that has been my experience.

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avdi on January 27th, 2009 | File Under Uncategorized | -