[UA] Mr. Wilson

[Ian Young]

Carl writes regarding Robert Anton Wilson's curious literary reference...

>     It ain't a coincidence, either. One of the webpages he listed for
> that above-mentioned conspiracy was Anders Sandberg's Mage: 
> the Ascension page, *the* Mage webpage for ideas about M:tA.  
> Either RAW didn't clue into the fact that Anders was talking about 
> an rpg, or he had a fine time screwing with gamer's heads.

That's the hallmark of Robert Anton Wilson -- mix and match fact, fiction
and rumor so readily that the casual reader can't discern one from the
other.  He seems very much of the opinion that there should be no "casual"
readers, and that, to get the real story, you should never take anything
you read at face value -- including what *he* writes, whether it be fiction
or non-fiction.

Wilson himself has added warnings to various books that he has included
outright lies in the text, and that, though he won't point them out to you,
you should be wary of them.  It's a great passive defense for a writer --
did he get his facts wrong when researching the background, or did he
*intend* to include a falsehood to mess with the minds of dupes?  

So, did RAW really take Anders' Mage Page seriously, or did he intend to
include it as a red herring?  We'll never know, and he'll probably never
tell us.  Just be aware that if you go about laughing at him for
accidentally taking a RPG seriously, he may well be laughing at you for
essentially the same reasons.

Gone again,
Ian