The Starseed Signals: A RAW Perspective on Timothy Leary

In 1974 Robert Anton Wilson wrote a book about the ideas and tribulations of his friend Dr. Timothy Leary. Intriguingly this book would not be published until some 46 years later having been put aside and then lost for decades. In 1986 RAW wrote The New Inquisition which had as a partial focus the persecution of Timothy Leary and Wilhelm Reich. In some respects The Starseed Signals seems like an earlier attempt to address that same kind of injustice as the book was written while Leary was experiencing an inquisition a victim of the Nixon administration and the general punitive zeitgeist.In his introduction to the book John Higgs writes Whats remarkable about this previously lost and unpublished-until-now manuscript is not only that RAW puts forward the case for Learys ideas but he does so at the time when Learys reputation was at its lowest. The sixties were over and the paranoia of the 70s had begun. Leary was yesterdays man lost somewhere deep within the American prison system denounced by former friends and rumoured to be snitching on the entire counterculture.RAW addresses Learys troubles with insights that will intrigue historians while also offering delights for those who value Learys many contributions to various fields in the social sciences. Of particular note is RAWs early description of the Eight Circuits Model of Consciousness which we learn had been a collaborative effort between the two friends. The Starseed Signals stands as a unique title in the Robert Anton Wilson canon offering a revealing and very personal look at the tumultuous early years of the 1970s. As John Higgs notes You get the Timothy Leary you deserve as we know. But perhaps we also deserve the Timothy Leary that Robert Anton Wilson got.