Prometheus Rising

Rating:
Summary: If You are Reading This, You are Probably Already Fried
Review: Bismillahir Rahman ir Rahim

I loved this book so much -- it may be one of the most influential books I ever read, along with Dune, and a few others. Don't listen to anything anyone said in any of these reviews, including me -- that's the whole point!!! You must experience it directly, and everyone comes out the other side with a different understanding. There's really nothing else I can say about it, except good luck, and please try to minimize your drug use.

Rating:
Summary: Insightful, interesting and valid model of the world
Review: This book explains human experience in terms of biological circuits and imprints. It is one "model" of the experience and as such it is interesting and it is valid. Together with the outline and explanation of different imprints and how they are formed, Wilson provides exercises so that the reader can come to his own conclusions through his own experience. After all, the only way to truly understand something is through experience - the rest will remain mere theory and speculation.

I have conducted number of the experiments from this book, even before I picked up this book and can attest to their validity. Some were spontaneous discoveries due to my life-long interest of experimenting with influence of one's mind, beliefs and expectations upon the experiences in one's life; other experiments were inspired by reading numerous other books and wanting to find out what happens if I do this or that.

The exercises provided in this book are only a starting point, but a very good one.

It is entirely true that a person who has been meditating for years, will have certain realizations and will be able to intentionally do things which are still considered impossible to those who have not activated certain neuro-biological circuits.

And as far as the coin experiment goes - I have friends who have found few hundred dollars lying on the street, or rather, in the subway, not ony one coin.

As the popular motto in quantum physics goes: "the expectations of the Observer determine the outcome of the experiment."







Rating:
Summary: we are star dust
Review: Who cares what who thinks. If the thinker thinks it the prover proves it! By the way we are on a ball of mud flying in a circle around the sun. And our life is around 80 years or so! Never let anyone inform you of your own tastes! Live like your seat belts are broke! Buy the book and learn the reason for the season! Ho Ho HO!

Rating:
Summary: A Giant Irony
Review: It's hard to describe "Prometheus Rising," but the first words that come to mind are: creative, unsubstantiated, and undisciplined.

The book, at its heart, is a quest to define human evolution and emergence through "biological circuits." These circuits, even though clever, are quite shortsighted. After the 2nd circuit they cease to make any thorough progressive sense and lack any holistic cohesion that even the most elementary systems theory possesses. If one is interested in human consciousness development one is MUCH better off with the likes of Ken Wilber, Jean Gebser, Abraham Maslow, and others.

I have two sore disappointments with this book, as it IS quite apprarent Wilson is a very intelligent fellow (I'll then get to the grand irony of this work that hardly makes one able to take it seriously at all). The first disappointment is the complete lack of evidence in the book. I'd say out of the plethora points and stances the author takes, he might choose to back it up 1 out of 10 times, with research, evidence or previous theorizations. Not only scarce though, his backup is shoddy at best. He takes MANY things out of context and is incredibly presumptuous about implications of most theories he refers to. Creatively, this book is brilliant, but it SORELY lacks credibility which basically reduces a serious reader to accepting it like one would accept an airport novel. The second disappointment is the obvious drug and psychedelic ties. It's apparent the author has been involved in some sort of psychedelic exploratory phase. I have nothing against this (I went through one hell of one myself at one point). The problem is, the author has not put those experiences into context. There are constant references to "cocaine monologues," and LSD physiology. I am not saying drug experiences and references aren't important, but drug experiences tend to make people come to substantial conclusions simply by intuition and not any sound reference or evidence. This is the attitude that pervades this book unfortunately.

That brings me to Anton Wilson's giant irony. In the first chapter he speaks that every person has two minds: the "Thinker," and the "Prover." He believes that everyone's Thinker will proceed to think whatever it likes, and through arrogance and egocentricism the Prover will find some way to substantiate the Thinker's claims. Thus, reducing all empirical or even theoretical study of ANYTHING to mere whims of personal motivation (the author usually links this motivation to power). Typical washed-up, neo-hippy contempt. Yawn...

The ironic part is this is a projection of Wilson's ideologue. This is what he does CONSTANTLY throughout the book: broad assumptions, arbitrary definition after arbitrary definition, points that circumvent issues, and meandering thought processes. It's HIS Prover trying to validate absurd claims made by HIS Thinker. In the end, it's a great big dump of postmodernist non-meaning.

There are two conclusions we can make about the author from this. Either he recognizes the the irony and paradox of his thinking: which results in a garbled nihilistic book that negates its own importance along with everything else (hardly something I care to be involved with). Or Wilson is unaware of the irony of his writing, thus making him not only discredited, but in denial...

Either way, if you've done a lot of drugs and enjoy seeking patterns in reality whether they make sense in some schematic or not, you may enjoy this book. If you're seriously concerned with epistemology, ontology, philosophy, evolution, and consciousness studies at all: this book isn't to be taken very seriously.