The AnarchAngel reports that Robert Anton Wilson has passed away.  I read not long ago that he was in failing health due to post-polio syndrome, the same affliction that claimed an aunt of mine a few years ago.

Wilson's Illuminatus! trilogy had a big influence on me.  I don't know if I can describe exactly why, but I guess I'll have to try.

This book was not like anything else I ever read.  I felt like my mind was changed by reading it, and that I was not the same person coming out of it as I was going in.  During my 20s, there was a space of a few years when it seemed that a switch was slowly being thrown in my mind, and I learned to see things differently and think about things differently than I had before.  This book was largely (although not solely) responsible.  Even though it is written as a spoof of conspiracy theories, it was very good at teaching me to see the hidden things behind the obvious things, if that makes any sense.

I have a cousin who is also an avid reader, and we often loaned books to each other.  I loaned him Illuminatus!  When he gave it back to me, he said, "Put this book in a safe place.  It's dangerous."  I knew exactly what he meant.

UPDATE:  Afterthought:  Robert Anton Wilson wrote my tag line.  I have used several different epigraphs, or tag lines, at the top of the blog.  But the one I have used the most by far is the one there now:  "A chronicle of vile and pernicious truths."  I had forgotten when I first wrote this post, but that is a direct line from Illuminatus!  There is a point in the book when one of its characters describes the book he is in as a "book of vile and pernicious truths."