I have heard several on this list talk positively about Robert Anton Wilson,
I confess I've never read anything by him and always considered that a lack
in my education. Recent events have made me feel less guilty about it.
Even by junk science standards the work of Immanuel Velikousky is really
stupid. He says that in historic times the planet Jupiter spit out a "comet"
that collided with Earth and bounced off and then, through various
gravitational gymnastics, parted the Red Sea and somehow caused all the
miracles in the old testament. This "comet" then went into a circular orbit
around the sun and became the planet Venus! To call this idea idiotic would
be a unjust insult to all the fine self respecting idiots the world over.
The late great Carl Sagan had great fun pocking holes in this ignorant theory,
not that that's what made him great, it was too easy, like shooting fish in
a barrel.
While poking around in the Science section of my local bookstore today I ran
across a misfiled book that belonged in the "new age" section next to the UFO
and Bigfoot books, it was called "Carl Sagan and Immanuel Velikousky" by
Charles Ginenthal. I didn't read it, but after thumbing through it for
5 minutes I could see it was a revolting attack on the life of Sagan and a
deification of Velikousky. On the back of the book was a blurb by Robert
Anton Wilson, he said this trash was "an excellent and erudite destruction
of Saganism". I don't want to destroy "Saganism" and reading something by
Wilson has just dropped about 164 places on my "to do" list.
John K Clark johnkc@well.com
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