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Schrödinger's Cat #2
Schrödinger's Cat II: The Trick Top Hat
Book by Wilson, Robert Anton
254 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1980
1 person is currently reading
210 people want to read
About the author
Robert Anton Wilson
120 books1,709 followersRobert Anton Wilson was an American author, futurist, psychologist, and self-described agnostic mystic. Recognized within Discordianism as an Episkopos, pope and saint, Wilson helped publicize Discordianism through his writings and interviews. In 1999 he described his work as an "attempt to break down conditioned associations, to look at the world in a new way, with many models recognized as models or maps, and no one model elevated to the truth". Wilson's goal was "to try to get people into a state of generalized agnosticism, not agnosticism about God alone but agnosticism about everything."
In addition to writing several science-fiction novels, Wilson also wrote non-fiction books on extrasensory perception, mental telepathy, metaphysics, paranormal experiences, conspiracy theory, sex, drugs, and what Wilson called "quantum psychology".
Following a career in journalism and as an editor, notably for Playboy, Wilson emerged as a major countercultural figure in the mid-1970s, comparable to one of his coauthors, Timothy Leary, as well as Terence McKenna.
In addition to writing several science-fiction novels, Wilson also wrote non-fiction books on extrasensory perception, mental telepathy, metaphysics, paranormal experiences, conspiracy theory, sex, drugs, and what Wilson called "quantum psychology".
Following a career in journalism and as an editor, notably for Playboy, Wilson emerged as a major countercultural figure in the mid-1970s, comparable to one of his coauthors, Timothy Leary, as well as Terence McKenna.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
May 2, 2019
A paranoid schizophrenic far-right religious fanatic begins receiving messages from god to kill a popular stage magician whose teachings form a disruption to various staid conservative American values. He also begins receiving noise signals (sex scenes, occult images, philosophical precepts, bits of memory) all of which appear elsewhere in the book, happening to other characters. Fortunately (?) he's able to sift through the chaos, which he classifies as confusion tactics by the devil, to isolate the real message, from god, that he commit murder. And unfortunately, he does. How does he know which message was the "true" message amidst the mess of information he's receiving? Clearly he doesn't, since everything he sees is part of the book's narrative reality EXCEPT the bit he chooses as the one real message in the mess of inputs (all of which, since he is hearing voices in classic paranoid schizophrenic mode, originate in fact in his own brain). From this, he chooses to believe the one bit of information that conforms to his preexisting biases / world view. This is essentially a parable of how we all comprehend reality, thus it's a crux of the novel. We don't perceive reality, no one can perceive that. We perceive our own perceptions, which exist in our own minds, not in the external world. We all have to sift through the (often contradictory) contents of our thoughts to create our own "reality tunnel", Wilson's representation of the narrow path of comprehension that any one perspective is inherently restricted to. Put simply: each of us constructs all of reality from the information existing in our own brains. This would be solipsism, but I don't think Wilson would say we're actually so isolated. We exist amongst other subjective reality tunnels, all different, amongst other lives, and with an open mind / empathy we can reroute our reality tunnels at will. Maybe it's only when we don't that we end up letting our own reflected thoughts tell us to kill a stranger.
This is one understanding of The Trick Top Hat, one very specific reality tunnel I selected through careful filtering of the perceptions/reflections generated during my reading of it. Perhaps because it conforms to certain inclinations I already possess. Wilson never says all of this, exactly, and he also says a lot of pure nonsense. Sophomoric gags, Pynchonesque conspiracies, postmodern authorial confusion, male gaze erotic fantasies, Valis-like spiritual confusion. Noise noise NOISE pulverized into little bite sized intercuts of received information. It's an invitation to sift one's philosophical reality from the dross. In an interview with Robert Anton Wilson jammed somewhere into the middle, he comments on how his prior Illuminatus Trilogy constructed its world then discredited it, leaving the literal reader to dismiss anything he'd said, and the astute reader to create meaning from selective understanding of what is true and what is false. This, supposedly, is how secret societies function: revealing and debunking themselves so that all the information is there, but none of it looks true. This novel feels like a more complicated and ambivalent version of that process.
Why, for instance, is the whole middle-part essentially porn? Not in any prudish sense of obscene content -- sex is sex, it's fine -- but in the formal sense of the sex scenes (an orgy, a few trysts, an orgasm research lab, various isolated moments of repression coming undone) largely overrun and outweigh the scientific/philosophic/narrative content. There are a few reasons for this. It's the general postmodern deintellectualization trick of inserting sex, the great unifier, to broaden its appeal (but to who -- as I said, it's very male gaze... and even to this particular mostly-male gaze, that sort of thing gets boring, let alone presumably to other reader-gazes). In another self-explanation, we hear about the life experiences of the purported author of the book-within-a-book-within-a-book we're reading, Roberta Wilson, who was eight when WWII began, thirteen when it finished, and lived continuously through other wars and conflicts, including of course the the conflagration of Vietnam, only to find that the popular entertainment media was a mess of "violence and mayhem." That violence, war, and mayhem should be mass culture and sex deemed obscene (my reality tunnel of Wilson believes he would say) is the true obscenity. This is not exactly a radical position, but it remains a fair one. So yes, why not let the erotic replace the aggressive as the filler plot? Again, if only it wasn't so trapped in male fantasy. I don't think Wilson had bad intentions, but he puts forth a world where the sexual revolution continues further past the seventies, and allow me to ask: who was most liberated by the sexual revolution? The freedom of that era went most to those who were already freest, men, and this asymmetry seems to be sadly maintained in Wilson's "utopian" fantasy. The men are scientists, authors, publishing magnates, philosophers, while the women are pop stars, models, "tantric engineers" which is Wilson attempting to bestow honor and respect on the important work being done by the prostitutes who are still, after all, serving the men of the story. This came out of the 70s and it shows. It might completely drive you from the pages. Fortunately the women, whatever their vocations here, are never portrayed as frivolous or unintelligent, and though it may only be the exception that underlines the rule, Wilson also put a black women anarchist in the whitehouse of his utopia.
This is worth noting a little further, because another of the (surprise!) very smart things Wilson has to say here is obliquely embedded in it. The first acts of President Hubbard were to abolish non-voluntary work (advances in automation), poverty (guaranteed basic income), and prison (vast realignment of penal codes, which in turn makes most crime cease to exist, and thus criminals). This is all well and good as far as utopias go (and can we have it please), but the bit that jumped out at me was that it wasn't accomplished by evolutionary processes, but by vast sudden realignment of all of society so that it shakes out in a new form and the problems of transition are worked out as a matter of course. This may be extremely optimistic (utopian) but from the depths of 2019, as slow evolutionary improvement of our country in even the most basic ways (health care, immigration, you name it) is trapped in brutal deadlock or degrading further, it seems that other means are not working out. The Situationists, in 1968 calling for a mass societal change that would then lead to its own solutions, would have agreed. The New Green Deal is fervently opposed on various practicalities that in no way make it less essential for basic human survival. Slow evolutionary change based on having all the solutions and answers ready is at a standstill. What we're doing isn't working. What do we have to lose? So I appreciated this vastly underdeveloped side point tucked away between the erotic acts.
So this is smart, it's stupid, it's intriguing, it's dated and objectionable. Robert Anton Wilson holds a Ph.D in Psychology from a disaccredited Alternative University once operating in California. His understanding that LSD may expand one's choice of reality tunnel is based on close association with Timothy Leary. Take from this what you may. He's a questionable oracle at best, but aren't all oracles? It's up to you then: choose your reality tunnel and toss out the rest. It's your reality.
This is one understanding of The Trick Top Hat, one very specific reality tunnel I selected through careful filtering of the perceptions/reflections generated during my reading of it. Perhaps because it conforms to certain inclinations I already possess. Wilson never says all of this, exactly, and he also says a lot of pure nonsense. Sophomoric gags, Pynchonesque conspiracies, postmodern authorial confusion, male gaze erotic fantasies, Valis-like spiritual confusion. Noise noise NOISE pulverized into little bite sized intercuts of received information. It's an invitation to sift one's philosophical reality from the dross. In an interview with Robert Anton Wilson jammed somewhere into the middle, he comments on how his prior Illuminatus Trilogy constructed its world then discredited it, leaving the literal reader to dismiss anything he'd said, and the astute reader to create meaning from selective understanding of what is true and what is false. This, supposedly, is how secret societies function: revealing and debunking themselves so that all the information is there, but none of it looks true. This novel feels like a more complicated and ambivalent version of that process.
Why, for instance, is the whole middle-part essentially porn? Not in any prudish sense of obscene content -- sex is sex, it's fine -- but in the formal sense of the sex scenes (an orgy, a few trysts, an orgasm research lab, various isolated moments of repression coming undone) largely overrun and outweigh the scientific/philosophic/narrative content. There are a few reasons for this. It's the general postmodern deintellectualization trick of inserting sex, the great unifier, to broaden its appeal (but to who -- as I said, it's very male gaze... and even to this particular mostly-male gaze, that sort of thing gets boring, let alone presumably to other reader-gazes). In another self-explanation, we hear about the life experiences of the purported author of the book-within-a-book-within-a-book we're reading, Roberta Wilson, who was eight when WWII began, thirteen when it finished, and lived continuously through other wars and conflicts, including of course the the conflagration of Vietnam, only to find that the popular entertainment media was a mess of "violence and mayhem." That violence, war, and mayhem should be mass culture and sex deemed obscene (my reality tunnel of Wilson believes he would say) is the true obscenity. This is not exactly a radical position, but it remains a fair one. So yes, why not let the erotic replace the aggressive as the filler plot? Again, if only it wasn't so trapped in male fantasy. I don't think Wilson had bad intentions, but he puts forth a world where the sexual revolution continues further past the seventies, and allow me to ask: who was most liberated by the sexual revolution? The freedom of that era went most to those who were already freest, men, and this asymmetry seems to be sadly maintained in Wilson's "utopian" fantasy. The men are scientists, authors, publishing magnates, philosophers, while the women are pop stars, models, "tantric engineers" which is Wilson attempting to bestow honor and respect on the important work being done by the prostitutes who are still, after all, serving the men of the story. This came out of the 70s and it shows. It might completely drive you from the pages. Fortunately the women, whatever their vocations here, are never portrayed as frivolous or unintelligent, and though it may only be the exception that underlines the rule, Wilson also put a black women anarchist in the whitehouse of his utopia.
This is worth noting a little further, because another of the (surprise!) very smart things Wilson has to say here is obliquely embedded in it. The first acts of President Hubbard were to abolish non-voluntary work (advances in automation), poverty (guaranteed basic income), and prison (vast realignment of penal codes, which in turn makes most crime cease to exist, and thus criminals). This is all well and good as far as utopias go (and can we have it please), but the bit that jumped out at me was that it wasn't accomplished by evolutionary processes, but by vast sudden realignment of all of society so that it shakes out in a new form and the problems of transition are worked out as a matter of course. This may be extremely optimistic (utopian) but from the depths of 2019, as slow evolutionary improvement of our country in even the most basic ways (health care, immigration, you name it) is trapped in brutal deadlock or degrading further, it seems that other means are not working out. The Situationists, in 1968 calling for a mass societal change that would then lead to its own solutions, would have agreed. The New Green Deal is fervently opposed on various practicalities that in no way make it less essential for basic human survival. Slow evolutionary change based on having all the solutions and answers ready is at a standstill. What we're doing isn't working. What do we have to lose? So I appreciated this vastly underdeveloped side point tucked away between the erotic acts.
So this is smart, it's stupid, it's intriguing, it's dated and objectionable. Robert Anton Wilson holds a Ph.D in Psychology from a disaccredited Alternative University once operating in California. His understanding that LSD may expand one's choice of reality tunnel is based on close association with Timothy Leary. Take from this what you may. He's a questionable oracle at best, but aren't all oracles? It's up to you then: choose your reality tunnel and toss out the rest. It's your reality.
September 9, 2016
It's great......if I only I knew what was going on.
August 6, 2022
This is definitely a trilogy that has to be read in order to understand it. Very quirky, but entertaining if you can get your head into it. I am enjoying it but it is a book and series that unless you are a serious sci-fi fan, you will not understand it. It jumps around and shifts timeline often so pay attention.
February 2, 2018
At a time when my left leaning and right leaning friends on Facebook are busy convincing me of the solid realty of Reality Tunnels, it is refreshing to escape into a novel made up of parallel universes and quantum jumps from one to the next. By the end of this second novel in the trilogy I'm in love with Markoff Cheney, the vengeful anarchist dwarf. He seems to remain the same bitter trickster in each parallel reality.
March 4, 2018
Book 2 in the Scrodinger's Cat series did not disappoint. A continued mad cap adventure that pursues human evolution through another parallel universe to the first book in the series, "The Universe Next Door." This time instead of a more dystopian world that is filled with vile politicians and nuclear threat, we get a universe with all the same characters but where the leader of the free world is a black female scientist who starts humanity on the next step in its evolution.
Wilson is simply one of the greatest writers ever, one that is often lost because he wrote pulp SciFi and challenges many of our ideals and realities in a way that is very uncomfortable for many readers. I wouldn't recommend this for everyone, but if you can stretch your reality to take in something crazy and genius that will make you question your beliefs, than I could not recommend it enough!
I look forward to the last in the series and know this is one I will read again and again finding something new and mind-bending each round.
Wilson is simply one of the greatest writers ever, one that is often lost because he wrote pulp SciFi and challenges many of our ideals and realities in a way that is very uncomfortable for many readers. I wouldn't recommend this for everyone, but if you can stretch your reality to take in something crazy and genius that will make you question your beliefs, than I could not recommend it enough!
I look forward to the last in the series and know this is one I will read again and again finding something new and mind-bending each round.
September 20, 2011
Well now that I have book 2 of the "Shrodinger's Cat Trilogy" under my hat, I'm less sure I am enjoying this trilogy or more sure I need to be high while reading it. It may simply be that it is a product of it's time, but I find it disjointed and somewhat repetitive...I think Mr. Wilson is trying to create an effect using these methods. The idea is he's looking at the "worlds" through the eyes of diverse quantum realities...I get that he's making political points and writing amist the "drug culture" so pervasive in the 60's and 70's...I'm just finding it hard to relate to. Also, the obvious character names start to get on my nerves...lets move on to book three and see if it recaptures my imagination...
July 17, 2015
This is just as disjointed and gleefully bizarre as the first book in the trilogy. Though given all the discussion of quantum reality, it shouldn't surprise anyone that the structure is so non-linear. I enjoyed the depiction of the first black female American president, abolishing poverty, and the concept of memories of the future. The hash-eating, acid-dropping, coke-sniffing new age celebrities and universe-in-a-thumbnail dialogues made this taste like 1983. Not that I was there, mind you. Wilson writes like some freak baby of Aleister Crowley, Timothy Leary, H.P. Lovecraft and Carl Sagan, with a Discordian form of philosophy coming through strongly. Our greatest trait is creativity, he'd argue, and should be expanded by any means available.
January 31, 2020
4 stars because i really liked it. Again like SC1, requires reading of Illuminatus and Prometheus Rising to make any sense at all.
This book is more coherent than SC1, but still. I raather liked the the suggested economic reforms, the the gradual quantum crossroads being established, and the overall challenge to figure out what's going on.
A lot of sidesteps, alot of one-off chapters add to the complexity of the experience, but the experience itself is singular. Still too much sex stuff.
I had to look back to Illuminatus! to figure out who some of the characters were and why it mattered.
This book is more coherent than SC1, but still. I raather liked the the suggested economic reforms, the the gradual quantum crossroads being established, and the overall challenge to figure out what's going on.
A lot of sidesteps, alot of one-off chapters add to the complexity of the experience, but the experience itself is singular. Still too much sex stuff.
I had to look back to Illuminatus! to figure out who some of the characters were and why it mattered.
December 30, 2018
Weird in all the right ways. If Douglas Adams and Hunter S. Thomson has a lovechild it would be Robert Anton Wilson. There is pure genius here, obscure and wacked-out at times like a psychedelic Milton, but impressive nonetheless.
May 15, 2021
Great book. Very impressed by the ending, it's given me a lot to think about.
Very happy I bought all three books in the trilogy separately because I've read that the single-book format is heavily abridged and edited.
Very happy I bought all three books in the trilogy separately because I've read that the single-book format is heavily abridged and edited.
February 25, 2022
Well. Quite strange. Too much of Rehnquist, Brownmiller and Potter Stewart. The Quantumphysics is fully okay. Read all 3 books at once...the more you read, the better it gets...
Especially the view on Unistate...just like that reality.
Especially the view on Unistate...just like that reality.
January 4, 2019
More different universes, with slightly different versions of the characters and history
March 6, 2026
A more cohesive narrative than the first book of the trilogy, and an awful lot of dirty jokes and sex scenes, which manage not to be terribly erotic, all interspersed with Wilson's usual astute observations about politics and anthropology.
July 4, 2022
Acquired Jun 17, 2003
Powell's City of Books, Portland, OR
Powell's City of Books, Portland, OR
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews