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November 3, 2002

Robert A. Wilson uses a walker to help him get around his apartment.
Sentinel Photo by Dan Coyro

Menace or medicine?

Those who use it talk about medical marijuana

By WALLACE BAINE
Sentinel staff writer

It’s a warm and buttery autumn afternoon, and Jyoti Robinson stands grinning with her arms spread wide on the broad sidewalks of Pacific Avenue. "When you see me walking down the street, what do you think?"

Uh, gee ... a petite 40-ish woman, no different than most people?

"Exactly," she says, like a school teacher who’s just gotten the answer she wants from a reluctant student.

The point is, Robinson — known around town as Jyoti Prather before her October wedding — is not like normal folk.

"I am missing more body parts than you can even imagine," she says. "I mean, I have the bare minimum you need to stay alive."

Robinson, 46, is a cancer survivor, and she does mean "survivor."

She was never supposed to live to see George Bush become president — that’s the first George Bush.

On an October day in 1987, she was told she had six months to live. Since then, she’s had seven major surgeries, some lasting up to 16 hours.

Because of the ravages of a rare form of abdominal cancer, many of her organs were removed. Others have been taken out in surgery, scrubbed off, the tumors on them cauterized, and the organs replaced.

Where most of us have a digestive tract that’s a long meandering mountain road, Jyoti’s is a thin, straight, short road.

At the time of her diagnosis, she was a vegetarian. She didn’t drink. She didn’t take drugs. She didn’t smoke tobacco or marijuana.

Now, all but the last still hold true.

Jyoti Robinson is one of a legion of Americans who use marijuana to offset the suffering of severe disease or injury.

There’s no ambivalence on Robinson’s part about the potency of marijuana as medicine.

It helps her with nausea and appetite (two of its most cited properties). But Robinson and her doctor also believe it helps with her body’s motility — that is, it slows down her too-brief digestive process and allows her body more time to draw nutrients from the food she eats.

This is a season of reckoning for the divisive issue of medical marijuana use.

The Sept. 5 federal raid on the home and garden of Michael and Valerie Corral, directors of the Santa Cruz-based Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana (WAMM), has brought Santa Cruz and the Corrals into the center on the national debate on pot and its medicinal benefits.

A federal court ruling earlier this week prohibits the government from revoking the license of doctors who prescribe marijuana. That decision has turned up the heat on an issue that’s also become an explosive theme in the fall campaign. Nevada and Arizona will vote on measures to decriminalize the medical and recreational use of marijuana.

California is one of eight states with active medical marijuana laws that directly contradict the federal government’s stance on pot.

The White House, the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Office of National Drug Control Policy (the dominion of the "drug czar") all consider marijuana an illegal and dangerous drug with no medicinal benefits.

You can get an opinion on marijuana — pro and con, mild and strong — from millions of healthy Americans. But the people with the most immediate insights on the issue are the ones who live it every day: the patients.

Their perspective is more personal and experiential than the politicians, the law enforcement officials, even the doctors arguing one or another side of the issue.

Consider the story of Suzanne Pheil, who has provided the pro-marijuana side with its most potent symbolic image yet.

Pheil, 44, suffers from post-polio syndrome and has limited use of her legs.

She was napping at the Corrals’ home when the Sept. 5 raid occurred. She says she awoke that morning with five DEA agents pointing loaded weapons at her, demanding she get out of bed.

"Surrealistic is the best way I can describe it," said Pheil of the incident that got national attention when it was reported in Time magazine earlier this week.

"I was told to stand up, and I had to tell them, ‘I can’t. Can you see my crutches over there on the floor.’

"They had me handcuffed to the bed, sitting there for an hour. I had to ask for sips of water."

Pheil had polio as an infant. About 15 years ago, while she was living in Hawaii, she was struck "like a ton of bricks" with the degenerative effects of post-polio syndrome, which is poorly understood today and nearly unheard of then.

She was told that she might have multiple sclerosis or ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease).

The pain was severe and constant. Pain-killing drugs were leaving her impaired and debilitated. One day, driving home from a therapy session, the mother of three pulled over to the side of the road and faced a horrifying decision.

"I was saying to myself: I can’t live in pain like this. I’m going to have to end it. Nothing’s worked.

"With all these drugs, I’m just going to decline and live in pain. I just can’t do that.

"I was actually planning how to do it. I didn’t want it to be too messy."

Finally, her obligations to her children squelched the idea of suicide. She continued to live in pain. "It’s so overwhelmingly severe, you can’t think of anything but getting out of pain. It obsesses you."

Then she began smoking pot.

"It was a dramatic improvement," she said. "I really changed my attitude about pain. Yeah, I’m in pain. But you know, it’s not the worst thing in the world. I’m going to go outside and smell the flowers and look at the sunset."

Jyoti Robinson had a similar a-ha moment.

One day, at the height of her illness, surrounded by friends and family, she was dry heaving, so sick she could barely lift her head.

Someone suggested they go to emergency room. But Jyoti didn’t want to go to the hospital.

"Then Valerie (Corral) showed up," Robinson recalled. "She rolled this joint and said, ‘Smoke this.’

"I said, ‘No, I can’t smoke anything.’"

But she did smoke it.

Within a few minutes, the immediate crisis passed and Robinson began feeling better. Her appetite returned.

"For anyone who’s been around me and seen me so sick, and seen the positive effects of medical marijuana — my mother included — seeing is believing," she said.

Harold Margolin of Santa Cruz went in for cervical fusion surgery six years ago, and the surgeon nicked his spinal chord. For six months, he couldn’t walk. Now he gets around on a cane.

Margolin still suffers from the neurological pain of the incident, mostly in his feet. He’s been given painkillers that do some good, but not without serious side effects.

For three years, life was "pretty horrible," he said, until his accountant, who was suffering from AIDS, suggested he try marijuana.

Dubious but desperate, Margolin did just that.

"And a funny thing happened," he said. "Pot is not a painkiller, per se. But what it does, it allows you to take a step back from your pain and be more objective about it. It allows life to come back into you. You lose the obsession with pain."

Before that experience, Margolin spent his time like the stereotypical pothead might spend his time: laying around the house and watching a lot of TV because the pain wouldn’t allow him to do much more.

Now that he uses pot to manage his pain — four puffs at a time, he says, between 16 and 22 puffs a day — he is able to participate on task forces and boards of directors and be a volunteer for WAMM, as well as work out three days a week.

Most people who use marijuana for medical purposes can easily be led into political discussions on the topic. They’ll point to everything from Christian fundamentalist influence in the government to the power of pharmaceutical companies as reasons for pot’s continuing prohibition.

They are reluctant to talk about marijuana’s intoxicating properties, however, insisting that using pot as medicine isn’t about getting high.

In many cases, that’s true, the idea being that people in pain are so "low" that even the strongest pot can only bring them back up to sea level.

But there’s also an awareness that any acknowledgment of pot’s psychoactive power will give ammunition to the prohibitionists.

Robert Anton Wilson has no such worries.

Wilson, who lives in Capitola, is the celebrated author of novels, screenplays and philosophical tomes, including "The Illuminatus Trilogy," "Prometheus Rising" and the "Cosmic Trigger" series — all of which question the basic premises of reality.

A protégé of Timothy Leary and a leading connoisseur of conspiracy theories, Wilson (RAW to his fans) is a genuine American freethinker. If the counterculture issued membership cards, Wilson would carry one.

Wilson, 70, also suffers from post-polio illnesses and experiences tremendous pain in his legs. His condition makes swallowing difficult and exhausting.

Pot is invaluable in managing pain, says Wilson, but the high shouldn’t be ignored.

"I do get high on pot, and that’s part of the cure," he said.

"I really think one of the reasons marijuana has proved so effective with so many different conditions is that feeling good is good for your health.

"If you feel happy — you get the giggles, you have all the symptoms of being high — that’s boosting your immune system and helping you."

Two years ago, the increasing pain in his legs led to incidents of falling down. His doctor suggested getting in touch with Valerie Corral who, as it turned out, Wilson already knew as a participant in his weekly "Finnegan’s Wake" discussion group.

Even Wilson, the 1960s counterculture icon, was doubtful about pot’s potency to stem his pain.

"My experience with pot in the past was that it magnifies sensation and speeds up consciousness," he said. "I certainly didn’t want this sensation magnified. That would just make things worse.

"But there’s a paradox about it. It magnifies good sensations, but tends to block out bad ones."

Wilson takes his marijuana in capsule form, one of the many ways WAMM prepares marijuana for patient use. There are also marijuana-laced muffins and soy milk, THC-powered rubbing alcohol for topical use, tinctures and, of course, the smokable form.

Some patients are paying close attention to the issue in Europe, where inhalers and oral sprays are being developed.

The U.S. government has long suggested alternatives to marijuana, most specifically Marinol, a synthetic compound of THC, the primary active ingredient in pot.

"It’s apples and oranges," said Joshua Schiffman, a resident at Stanford Medical School and an activist for the use of medical marijuana. "Marinol is a chemical compound of just one of the ingredients, THC. With cannabis, you get the benefits of all the organic compounds working together."

Financial concerns are also primary in the decision to take Marinol or marijuana.

A bottle of 60 Marinol capsules with 10 milligrams each of active ingredient (the strongest prescription available) can run from $800 to $900.

Marijuana is a weed that can be grown at little cost in the backyard.

"My medicine cabinet contains a huge array of different things," said Suzanne Pheil, who finds that marijuana is also helpful in reducing painful spasms in her legs. "I go with the philosophy of the least harmful things first, and then you build up.

"I’m only 44. I have a lifetime ahead of me, and these heavy painkillers and muscle relaxants and anti-depressants and anti-inflammatories, they all have huge side effects, and they’re all really hard on the liver, the kidneys and the stomach in the long run."

Pheil, like other patients I spoke to, loves the idea of self-sufficiency that cannabis provides, the idea that just like vegetables, flowers and herbs, you can grow your own medicine.

But still there’s a stigma when it comes to use of marijuana. Santa Cruz has proven to be a tolerant, even encouraging community when it comes to medicinal marijuana. That’s not necessarily the case everywhere.

Because she is such an unusually long survivor of an aggressive cancer, Jyoti Robinson is often called on by others to provide comfort or inspiration. A family member called her looking for advice. Her husband was on a heavy regime of chemotherapy and was not taking it well.

"The first thing I said was, ‘Try medical marijuana,’" said Robinson. "Man, you would have thought that I just said, ‘Get a gun and tell him to blow his brains out.’ There was dead silence.

"‘You got to be kidding,’ she said. He was in all this pain. She kept saying, ‘He’s in agony. I just can’t watch him.’ But they just wouldn’t go there."

"Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that the government should appoint a czar to supervise medical practices and prosecute doctors and patients who don’t follow his orders," said Robert Anton Wilson, who favors a California secessionist movement and, when he dies, wants his ashes blown into the face of the Drug Czar.

"Here I am, an old man without a wife, all alone," he said. "And to feel good and find myself chuckling over some weird thing is a wonderful experience."

Patients dealing with immediate issues of debilitating pain and mortality now feel they must also fear legal sanctions, despite the passage of California Proposition 215 in 1996, which legalized the medical use of marijuana.

Some fear that their homes will be seized, their children separated from them.

But the legal struggle has also given patients a will to fight and participate in the political battle, who otherwise would have little but their condition on which to dwell. From that will to fight comes hope.

"Oh, I have hope," said Robinson, who says that her home has been raided twice by law enforcement.

"I’m alive because I have hope. What must be understood about all this is that you cannot have a force without an equal and opposite reaction to that force.

"For all the depths of fear and the depths of pain you experience in this battle, the sheer joy of being here now is what you get later when you face those fears."

Contact Wallace Baine at wbaine@santa-cruz.com.

Ram Dass and medical marijuana

By WALLACE BAINE
Sentinel staff writer

For 30 years, when Ram Dass has spoken, Santa Cruz has listened.

For a significant part of the West Coast cultural literati, Ram Dass has always been a font of wisdom — as a writer, spiritual leader, pilgrim in the science of consciousness and counterculture icon.

In the debate over medical marijuana, Ram Dass should have a stronger voice than usual. He’s a patient as well as an advocate.

But ironically, on an issue where words are flying hot and fast, for the 71-year-old "Be Here Now" philosopher, words come in a trickle.

In 1997 Ram Dass had a stroke that slowed but didn’t stop him. On Thursday, a documentary film on his life, "Fierce Grace," will be screened at the Rio Theatre in Santa Cruz as a fund-raiser for the Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana.

In interviews, Ram Dass now speaks haltingly, often laboring to articulate his ideas. That he even bothers is a testament to the man’s indomitable spirit.

"In using medical marijuana," he said by phone from his Marin County home, "I stand back from my life and stand back from the stroke and witness my soul."

The former Harvard psychology professor uses marijuana to relieve pain in his limbs and control his body’s spasms.

Santa Cruzan Harold Margolin, who uses marijuana to control severe neurological pain, says that Ram Dass was an inspiration to him in his understanding of marijuana’s medicinal power.

"The way Ram Dass says it, we operate generally on a gross level of existence," Margolin explained. "When he smokes marijuana, he is able to rise to the soul level of existence and be a witness to his pain, instead of experiencing it.

"When I heard him say it three years ago, I didn’t understand it. I thought about it a long time, and now I can take a step back and view my pain as just another thing that happens in your life."

As is his habit, Ram Dass tends to talk compassionately about people on the other side of the ideological fence.

"The people who are supporting the war against cannabis, they’re feeling tricked," Ram Dass said. "They want to see themselves as compassionate.

"But the case of Valerie and Michael (Corral) has put the government in a very anti-compassionate stance.

"Everybody in this culture has a heart, and everybody has compassion in that heart. In this case, something has to give. And people don’t want their hearts to give."

If you go

WHAT: ‘Fierce Grace: The Life and Times of Ram Dass.’ A benefit for the Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana. Sponsors say Ram Dass will speak after the film.

WHEN: 7 p.m. Thursday.

WHERE: The Rio Theatre, 1205 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz.

TICKETS: $20.

DETAILS: 423-8209.

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8 November, 1996

Click HERE for the interview in Real Audio

Nardwuar: Who are you?
Robert Anton Wilson: Okay, Im Robert Anton Wilson to my readers, Bob Wilson to my friends, and "that old crank" to my neighbors.

Robert Anton Wilson, are you a witch?
Was that "a witch" or "a bitch?"

A witch! Robert Anton Wilson.
Which kind of witch?

You know a witch. Youve done a few readings in Victoria. Thats like the witching capital of Canada. Are you a witch, or did you gravitate there?
I have been a witch I probably still am a witch.

What happened to Timothy Learys head?
Well, there are various versions of that, the accepted version is that he gave up on cryonics, and had his whole body cremated. But theres a myth or a legend going around, or a rumour that may be true, for all I know. And that was all put on to prevent the authorities from interfering with his plans to commit suicide when the cancer got too painful, and have his head preserved, and so actually it was only his body that was cremated. The head was preserved, secretly. I dont know whether thats true or not; as I say, its a rumour. Theres another rumour going about, that the Fed.'s have seized his ashes because of a high quality of controlled substances in his ashes, and nobody knows what the street value might be.

So, where is Hitlers cock?
Wheres what?

Wheres Hitler's cock? Is Hitlers cock right next to Timothy Learys head? Where do they hide these things, Robert Anton Wilson? Wheres Hitlers cock? Wheres Timothy Learys head?
Well, I dont know where Learys head is hidden. Hitlers cock, I assume, went up in the bunker with the rest of Hitler.

Robert Anton Wilson, are you a CIA agent?
Ahh, if I were, I would deny it.

Are you an agent of disinformation?
Absolutely, and information.

So how come you havent been knocked off? Doesnt that lead to the fact that you are a CIA agent, or that you are an agent of disinformation, Robert Anton Wilson?
Well, I tell you that Mae Brussell accused me of being an agent of the Rockefeller conspiracy. And I confessed that it was true, and I that my cellar is stacked high with gold bars that are brought every month, by David Rockefeller, personally. And Im sure, up until her death, that she went around showing that letter to prove to people that I had confessed. People who want to believe such things are perfectly free to believe them. Woof, woof, woof.

Robert Anton Wilson, you mentioned Mae Brussell. Are you aware of the work of Dave Emory, her kind devoted follower, cause he does a show, every week on CiTR Radio in Vancouver.
Yeah, he does a show here too. I listen occasionally. One night, he got so tangled in his conspiracy theory that I thought that he was accusing the Unification Church of masterminding the bombing of Pearl Harbour. And I asked my wife, "Is he really saying that the Unification Church bombed Pearl Harbour?" She said, "No, but it is almost that tangled!"

And hes here every Sunday night, on CiTR Radio in Vancouver, 10:00pm-12:00am. But youre right here, right now on CiTR Radio. You are, indeed, Robert Anton Wilson, arent you, Robert Anton Wilson?
Well, thats what I claim, others claim that Im an android that the CIA put in my place after they murdered me. But I claim that Im still Robert Anton Wilson and not an android impersonating Robert Anton Wilson.

Robert, Im continually fascinated with Timothy Leary. Was he a CIA agent? Did the CIA supply him with LSD? Dave Emory and Mae Brussell go on all about that, and in the book Acid Dreams, theres mentions of it as well: Timothy Leary being a part of the CIA, and having the LSD supplied to him.
Well, I remember once we were both speaking at NYU about virtual reality software and hardware, and some group put out a leaflet, outside, saying that Leary and I were both CIA agents, and I showed it to Tim, because I knew this would amuse him. And he said, "Gee, I wish this was legal evidence, I could make the CIA pay me for the last 18 years." But, if he was an agent, he was really a sucker, because he never collected a penny from them.

Robert Anton Wilson, you don¹t really believe or deny stuff. You kinda look "in between" there. You don¹t believe it; you dont deny it. You believe that somewhere between belief and denial is the truth. Is that true?
Well, my general feeling is that most of the world falls in the category between 100% proven or 100% disproven. And we live among millions and millions, or as Carl Sagan would say, millions and millions of maybes, and only a few definite yess and nos here and there. And theyre usually only temporary.

Why should everyone know about William Reich? Who was William Reich? What should people know about William Reich?
Its actually Wilhelm, which influenced his psychology profoundly. Imagine, growing up in a country with an absolute monarch and having the same name as him, and a last name that means "state" in German. Wilhelm Reich its like he was named after the state and head of state. He was a psychologist who developed theories so radical that, like Leary, he landed in jail. He fared even worse than Leary; they not only threw him in jail, they burned all of his books, too. He was thrown out of the psycho-analytical society for being too Marxist; thrown out of the Communist party for being too Freudian; thrown out of the Socialist party for being too anarchistic; thrown out of Sweden for doing the kind of research that made Masters and Johnson famous twenty years later, but he did it twenty years too soon, and the world was not ready for it. Then, he came to this country where he was thrown in jail as a cancer quack for publishing results in which he didnt claim to cure cancer at all but said it might be useful and it was worthy of "further investigation." And anybody who made that many enemies must have had something important to say. I think that Reichs books are very important, Im glad that theyre back in print again.

Did he really battle UFOs in the desert with an orgone gun?
He thought he did. Thats the stage of his career thats the most controversial, but my personal opinion is that at very end Reich did turn paranoid. Somebody whod been persecuted as persistently as he had for a period of thirty years began to see persecution everywhere, and I think that he went over the edge. He imagined that he was being persecuted from outer space as well as from this planet.

Robert Anton Wilson, how could an orgone gun thwart a UFO? What was the idea behind that?
He believed UFOs were some kind of living ... he had different theories about the UFOs but at one point he believed that UFOs were living matter... living energy form that was hostile to orgone, which is the life energy. And its sorta like the UFOs were sorta like the kind of thing that turns land into deserts and people into old crabs or cranks.

Why were people so scared of orgone research?
Well, partly if Reich was right, almost most every doctor and psychiatrist in the world has got to go back, and start over and study Reich, and give up their present ideas, which nobody likes to hear. And the other part is that his theories are very radical, sexually. He believed in extreme sexual freedom, not rampant promiscuity, but an extreme right to choose. And total abolition of laws that try to govern peoples sexual behavior.

Robert Anton Wilson, who flies UFOs? Theres some people like Bill Lynn, who believe that secret service agents are flying these UFOs with stolen Tesla technology, that it isnt actually aliens, its actually stolen Tesla technology flying these UFOs, and theres no aliens at all. What do you think about that?
Well, my two favourite theories about UFOs are the Personger theory. Personger is a Canadian who lives in Ottawa, a behavioural scientist. That means he doesnt want to be called a psychologist. Personger offers the model that UFOs are energy fluctuations which cause poltergeist disturbances, flying furniture, electrical malfunctions, car motors stalling, televisions going on and off, refrigerators turning on and off... that kind of thing. Strange lights zooming around and if you get too close, it alters your brain waves, and causes you to hallucinate. That theory seems very plausible, and accounts for a lot of UFOs. But theres also a theory I like, by John Kiel, which says that theyre an intelligent energy form, that¹s coexisted with us from the beginning of time, and has been playing head games with us. They are the same ones, as Kiel sees it, who pass themselves off as angels and demons in the middle ages, and as dead relatives when spiritualism was popular, and now theyre passing themselves off as extra-terrestrials, but theyre an energy form that is very indifferent to human beings, but loves playing games and deceiving us. Those two models make more sense to me than the idea that theyre all hallucinations or the idea that theyre spaceships.

What do you think about Tesla technology? Because, this guy, Bill Lynn, believes that theres going to be an invasion on July 5th, 1998. Do you believe that the world is going to end on July 5th, 1998, as the teachings of William Cooper, William Cooper, Robert Anton Wilson, have taught us? Do you believe that aliens are going to come on July 5th, 1998, but it isnt actually aliens, its actually the government flying these UFOs, and the government is going to round us up.
Well, according to the Church of the Subgenius it is July 5th 1998. But its the Xists from planet X who are coming, and everybody who is tithing away one-tenth of their salary every month to the Church of the Subgenius will be picked up by the pleasureships of the love goddess and taken to the planet of immortality, and everybody who is not tithing to the Church of the Subgenius will be destroyed by atomic deathrays, and thats known as the rupture, and that theory is just as plausible to me as the one you mentioned.

Because Tesla technology was said by this guy, named Bill Lynn, to have forced Hitler into World War II. Like, Hitler was bribed to enter World War II. And, well, actually ... is Hitler dead, Robert Anton Wilson?
Well, if hes not, hes about 106, now, and probably fairly harmless. Ive never heard of anybody 106 who could do much serious harm.

When did Hitler die?
I think he died in the bunker in 1945. Im sorry, Im rather conservative about that issue. I agree with the majority of historians.

So, you don't think that he was at a Worlds Fair, in Albuquerque in 1967 with Eva Braun?
No no, that was Lee Harvey Oswald.

Robert Anton Wilson, what am I gonna do if my dads a Mason? What am I gonna do if I suspect my dad is a Mason? What should I do?
Well, what do you want to do?

Well, how can I spot a Mason? You know, what should I do if my dads a Mason? What should I do, Robert Anton Wilson?
Well, I wouldnt do anything about it. Ask him if you can join.

How can you spot a Mason, if people out there are wondering what a Mason looks like? You know, are there any characteristics, for the listeners out there in Radioland? How can people spot Masons?
Well, they all have three eyes. The third eye is generally closed, but if you see somebody whose forehead is very furrowed its not from worries; its because theyre trying to conceal their third eye.

Why have people always blamed the Masons? They have three eyes! Everyones kinda teasing them! Come on, they are nice guys. I mean, Mr. Cunningham on Happy Days wearing a Fez. What did he do wrong?
I dont know. As far as I can make out, most of the anti-Masonic propaganda in the world emanates from extremely paranoid right-wing Christians who are paranoid about everybody else, not just the Masons.

Is there anybody whos not mad at you?
Yeah, Ive got thousands and thousands of friends and fans all over the world.

Have you done anything to get Masons mad?
No. Ive never gotten a nasty letter from a Mason. Ive got lots of nasty letters from fundamentalist Christians and from fundamentalist materialists and from Marxists.

I was looking through some newsgroups on the Internet and some Christian guy had a quote from you... he was quoting you. He was quoting Robert Anton Wilson. A fundamentalist Christian was quoting you!
Oh yeah, a lot of them have been plagiarizing me for years, without quoting me directly. A lot of them have found that selective passages from my books, out of context , are very useful to them. I dont mind that at all, I regard that as a marvelous joke.

Have you ever snuck into a Masonic lodge and maybe seen a Mason sacrificing a rabbit?
Ive been in Masonic lodges, Ive spoken at Masonic lodges, but Ive never seen anyone sacrificing a rabbit. I¹ve never seen anyone copulating with a goat. I dont believe any of those legends.

Are you jealous that Masons have secret places to meet, like at Disneyland? Isnt there a secret place hidden above the Pirates of the Carribean? They have a little club, The 33 Club, where the Masons hang out, Robert Anton Wilson?
I think that everyone has the right of free association. Im against forcing people to open their doors and let anybody in; thats where Im most at odds with the liberals in my country. I think that everybody has the right to associate with who they want to associate with.

Is there a secret club at Disneyland that you are aware of Robert Anton Wilson?
All I know about Disneyland is that above Snow Whites castle, Disney is supposed to be cryogenically preserved, in a special room above Snow Whites castle. I have a friend who goes to Disneyland every New Year¹s Eve and drops acid. And when he reaches the peak, he goes and talks to Mickey Mouse about all of his problems, and Mickey never fails. Mickey always gives him the correct answer to guide him for the next year. Hes the only man I know of whose god is visible, tangible and gives clear unambiguous answers. Hes a happy man. I wish I had a religion that worked that well.

Youre Robert Anton Wilson, arent you, Robert Anton Wilson?
Unless Im an android impersonating him.

Whats been going on with space migration? The space migration SMILE scenario. Has anything new been happening with that?
Well, yeah, there¹re more and more people who have spent time in that space station up there. Were learning more and more about human beings in space. And were having a lot of Mars probes going off in the near future.

What do you think about all of the Mars probes blowing up ... you mentioned the face on Mars?
Its Moses Horowitz ...

Yeah, the face on Mars. Guys like Richard Hoagland believe that there are giant cities made of glass on Mars, big skyscrapers. And the same thing on the moon, although the glass is now broken. And that the Martian moon, Phobos, is really a giant hollow spaceship, and everytime a probe goes near Mars, probes get blown away, because they get too close to Phobos. Are you aware of this, Robert Anton Wilson?
I must prefer Professor Finnigans, who I really think has really demonstrated that the face on Mars is Moses Horowitz.

Do you believe that man landed on the moon?
Uh, yeah, Neil Armstrong, a 33rd degree Mason. Isnt that a funny coincidence?

But wasnt the moon landing faked? Faked! In Area 51! Robert Anton Wilson, dont let us down!
It wasnt the moon landing that was faked; it was World War II. World War II never happened. It was a conspiracy between Ghandi, representing the IIluminati on the Earth plane, and Madame Blovatski representing the IIluminati on the astral plane. And they put everybody in a deep trance and showed old films of World War I, and everybody thought that there was a new World War. That was to scare us into not having any more world wars. So, the revisionists who claim that the holocaust never happened, they only got part of the picture; they are not skeptical enough. Not only did the Holocaust never happen, the whole damn war never happened. There was never a Hitler or a Winston Churchill. It was all faked.

And the opinions expressed are those of Robert Anton Wilson, and only Robert Anton Wilson. Robert Anton Wilson, does John Travolta believe that God is a reptile brain, directing us from the far side of the galaxy?
No, John Travolta believes that God is a dead man buried at the bottom of the Pacific, named L. Ron Hubbard.

But isnt that what the Scientologists believe, that God is a giant reptile brain, directing us from the far side of the galaxy, and theyre totally frightened by Prozac? Why are Scientologists so frightened by Prozac, Robert Anton Wilson?
Well, everytime Travolta wins an award, which he has a distressing habit of doing lately, because hes a good actor. He keeps winning awards. Everytime he gets up he thanks L. Ron Hubbard; he doesnt thank the reptile brain on the other side of the galaxy. So I think L. Ron Hubbard is his god.

Did L. Ron Hubbard ever get interviewed by you, while you were working for Playboy, Robert Anton Wilson? Did you ever make contact, you and L. Ron Hubbard?
No, thank God, Ive never had any contact with him and Ive had as little contact as possible with any member of Scientology.

So, Robert Anton Wilson, who will spot the widows son? Whats the new inquisition? Robert Anton Wilson?
I find some of your questions pretty hard to field.

Ah, speaking of fields, as W.C. Fields said, "Sometimes you have to take the bull by the tail and look the facts in the face." Well, since the Vancouver-based series The X-Files has been mentioning "23" quite frequently, has this increased your book sales, at all?
I wont know until I get my next royalties statement, but Ive noticed how much theyre borrowing from me, but theyre not the only ones. Im the most frequently "borrowed from" author around, I sometimes suspect.

So, youre not a paid critical consultant for The X-Files?
Oh, no, they just read my books and use whatever they can get away with.

How do you feel about somebody ripping you off like that? Are they doing a good job ripping you off? Could they do better?
Well, hell, theyre not as funny as I am. The only thing that treats these things as humourously as I do in my books is the film Repo Man. Thats got everything The X-Files has, and plus comedy. Which, I think you could say of my books ... having everything The X-Files has, plus comedy!

Have you been in contact with the "Hef" at all? What was it like hangin out with him in the seventies? Have you had any contact with him since then? Did you hang out with him in the 70s, when you were an editor at Playboy?
Well, no. I met him two or three times. The only time he ever said anything that ever stuck with me was, "Man, what a crazy shirt." I was wearing a yellow silk shirt. [laughs] And thats the most intimate communication we ever had together. Sorry!

Did you ever hang at the Playboy Mansion? Like in the hot tub with James Caan at your side, smokin a nice one?
I visited the mansion a few times, but I never got into the hot tub.

Was James Caan in the hot tub?
I dunno. [laughs] I went there a few times when Hefner invited all of the editors of the magazine to come over to see a new movie, before it premiered, and otherwise, I worked at the office, and didnt have anything to do with Hefner. Sorry.

What is your required reading list? A listener called earlier in the show and wondered what your required reading list is. Robert Anton Wilsons recommended reading list, do you have anything?
As the matter of fact, in the latest issue of my magazine Trajectories, which is available at P.O. Box 700305, San Jose, CA, 95170. Send $20, and you get 4 issues. In my next issue, I have a recommended reading list, which is not the greatest books or my favourite books, but books that I wish everybody would read, so that they would be more rounded. And the list is, if I can remember it: Ulysses, by James Joyce; The Cantos of Ezra Pound; Science and Sanity, by Alfred Gorgibski; Shakespeare; Ovid; Chaucer; Justine by De Sade, because it raises all of the questions that nobody can answer; two books by Nietszche, The Anti-Christ and Twilight of the Idols; The Open Society and Its Enemies by Sir Carleton Popper; and Gullivers Travels, by Jonathan Swift.

Winding up here, Robert Anton Wilson, Ive heard that it isnt George Washington on the American dollar bill, but instead its Adam Weishaupt, founder of the IIluminati. Is that true?
Well, theres some evidence of that. And the people who want to know more about that can find the evidence presented in my novel IlIuminatus, which is widely available in all the better bookstores.

So, no little hints for us just now, if we dont have any bucks, Robert Anton Wilson. A little hint about George Washington and Adam Weishaup?
I prefer people to read the books, because I dont get paid for these interviews, but I do get paid by the book.

But were paying for this phone interview! Were paying to interview you. Its costing us by the hour. So, winding up here, Robert Anton Wilson, have you heard any good conspiracy theories lately that you havent written books about, so that you wont have to charge us for it.
Well, my current favourite conspiracy theory is the one that Hoagland is putting forth, that NASA has tonnes and tonnes and tonnes of evidence that there is life on Mars, and theyre hiding it all. I cant imagine why they would hide it; his explanations on why they would hide it dont make make much sense to me. But I think thats the most amusing and bizarre conspiracy theory around.

Robert Anton Wilson, would you, lastly, leave us with something special, for the listeners out there in Radioland? Would it be possible to give an indulgence to the listeners out there and make them popes. Please, a little indulgence for everybody?
Yes, as a Discordian pope, I have the authority to make everybody a pope who hears my voice. If you really and truly want to become a Discordian pope, then just repeat after me: Spectacles, testicles, brandy, cigars. You are now absolutely infallible and must excommunicate every other Discordian pope you meet, because we Discordians must stick apart.

Is there anything else you would like to add to the people out there in Radioland? Why should people care about Robert Anton Wilson? Why should they care about you?
Well, I tell you, "sex" is not the answer. "Sex" is the question; "yes" is the answer. So come see me.

Thanks so much, Robert Anton Wilson. Right now were going to end with a song by Buddy Knox, called "I Think Im Going to Kill Myself." So, keep on rockin in a free world and doot doola doot doo
Doot doo.

RAW picture by Lincoln Clarkes

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