In Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas (page 240 of the hardcover), Tom Robbins has Larry Diamond show Gwen a slide of non-African faculty members (sort of) of Timbuktu University. Robert Anton Wilson, Terence McKenna, Diane di Prima, John Lilly, Timothy Leary, Carlos Castaneda, Andrei Codrescu, Ted Joans, Rupert Sheldrake, Fritjof Capra and R. D. Laing.

     This page looks at the luminaries that he mentions with some background information (consider it a dossier if you wish) on each.Please let me know if you would like to contribute information to this page. Thanks, Dale Kirby

Robert Anton Wilson is the co-author of The Illuminatus Trilogy, one of the earliest psychedlic science-fiction works. He has also written the Cosmic Trigger series and The Schrodinger's Cats Trilogy. His works deal with social conspiracies and scientific mysteries.

 A quote:
"I regard it as late in the day to still cling to Christian and/or post-Christian masochism. Let us have the courage to think in less neurotic categories. The stars, now, look like they await us. "
from The Walls Came Tumbling Down

 Official site: http://www.rawilson.com/

 What Tom has said about him: "A dazzling barker hawking tickets to the most thrilling tilt-a-whirls and daring loop-o-planes on the midway to higher consciousness." Tom Robbins

Terence McKenna is an Ethnobiologist and writer who has studied "the ethno-pharmacology of spiritual transformation." He has written, Food of the Gods; The Archaic Revival and True Hallucinations.

http://www.levity.com/eschaton/tm.html

 "Let us declare nature to be legitimate. All plants should be declared legal, and all animals for that matter. The notion of illegal plants and animals is obnoxious and ridiculous." Terence McKenna

 "Terence McKenna is the most important--and most entertaining--visionary scholar in America. To be uninformed of his ethnobotanical discoveries is to be oblivious to the central thrust of human consciousness, which is not to survive with the dung beetles but to soar with the gods." --Tom Robbins

"Scholar, theoretician, explorer, dreamer, pioneer, fanatic, and spellbinder, as well as ontological tailor, McKenna combines an erudite, if somewhat original, overview of history with a genuinely visionary approach to the millennium. The result is a cyclone of unorthodox ideas capable of lifting almost any brain out of its cognitive Kansas."
--Tom Robbins, from the Foreword of High Adventure, Hallucinogens, and the Secrets of the "Planet Soul" by McKenna

Diane di Prima is one of the few women involved in the Beat movement to escape the big shadows of its male stars and create a body of work of her own poetry. Her most famous book is Memoirs of a Beatnik and her most famous poem is Brass Furnace Going Out about an abortion she had.

 I have cut the shroud to measure
bought the stone
a plot in the cemetery set aside
to bury your shadow

John Lilly is an M.D. who has researched communication with dolphins and the effects of voluntary sensory deprivation on human consciousness.

 http://www.deoxy.org/lilly.htm

 "In the province of connected minds, what the network believes to be true, either is true or becomes true within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In the network's mind there are no limits." - Dr. John Lilly

Timothy Leary is still dead, but I suspect that matters little at Timbuktu U. He is the most famous guru of the psychedelic revolution.

Carlos Castaneda Has a written a famous series of books about his training at the hands of the perhaps-fictional perhaps not Yaqui sorcerer Don Juan while he was an Anthropology student at UCLA.

Andrei Codrescu Is an author and social commentator. He has a series on National Public Radio in which he states his often outrageous opinions about common social phenomena.

 "Codrescu's Dec. 19 All Things Considered commentary derided the belief, held by some Christians, that at world's end all those who are "saved" will ascend immediately to Heaven and the rest of the population will suffer Armageddon and wind up in Hell. Reading from a pamphlet he was handed on the street, Codrescu said that believers in the "rapture" predict that more than 4 million people will depart in less than a fifth of a second. He went on to say that "The evaporation of 4 million who believe this crap would leave the world an instantly better place."

Ted Joans was an African-American poet of the Beat Generation.. Although, a serious writer, he also worked to make a living at poetry. One of his "stunts" was to become a Rent-a-Beatnik. He hired himself out to recite beat poetry at middle class parties. One of his most famous poems was Afrique Accidentale.

 as I lay here in a tent & write as I think
Greenwich village is a long way off, with its coldwater flat & sink
I have traveled a long long way on the Beat bread I made
now I'm deep in the heart of Africa, the Afroamerican spade
TOMBOUCTOU.......tomorrow, visions in my head
TIMBUKTU....tomorrow, unless I wake up dead
TIMBUCTOO........tomorrow, where no beatniks ever been
TIMBUOQTEW......tomorrow, gonna make my own scene
TIMBOEKTOE...tomorrow, thank Allah & all the rest
TIMBUCKTO...tomorrow, overjoyed I must confess

Notes: Ted Joans also appeared at the 1997 Bumbershoot Festival  when Tom received the Golden Umbrella Award.

Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist who developed the concept of Morphogenetic Fields.

Fritjof Capra is a particle physicist who takes a systems approach to looking at social and psychological processes. His first book, The Tao of Physics explored the relationship between quantum physics and ancient theories of existence.

R.D. Laing was a controversial psychiatrist. In the early sixties he experimented with LSD with both himself and with his mentally ill patients. He introduced Timothy Leary's pal, Ram Dass to LSD. One other strange connection is once while drunk, R.D. Laing was arrested for throwing a wine bottle through a Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh ashram window. Rajneesh, later known as Osho had an introduction to one of his books written by Tom Robbins, although there is no evidence that TR was a member of Osho's group. Just a strange little tickle of synchronicity there. R.D. Laing rebelled against the isolation of the mentally ill into "snake pit" type conditions.

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