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The New Inquisition: Irrational Rationalism and the Citadel of Science
The New Inquisition dares to confront the disease of our time; Fundamentalist Materialism. Wilson explains, I am opposing the Fundamentalism, not the Materialism. This book...is deliberately shocking because I do not want its ideas to seem any less stark or startling than they are.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1986
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477 people want to read
About the author
Robert Anton Wilson
118 books1,695 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 - 18 of 18 reviews
April 10, 2015
The New Inquisition: Irrational Rationalism and Citadel of Science, by Robert Anton Wilson, is according to Wikipedia, “a book about ontology, science, paranormal events, and epistemology.” It is supposed to tear down the dogmatism of traditional (the Citadel) science. Maybe it does, but the entire book undermines its own objective through a who’s who (what’s what?) of fallacious arguments. Wilson purports to challenge the scientific establishment, accusing it of dogmatically dismissing, and even suppressing out-of-the-norm theories. Unfortunately, Wilson attempts this with unsubstantiated anecdote after anecdote, as if the “they can’t all be wrong” argument is sufficient.
Unlike Quantum Psychology, which had moments of rational reasoning, The New Inquisition is more of a rant against CSICOP (Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal…now Committee for Skeptical Inquiry) and a select few of its fellows. Right in the Introduction, Wilson draws the line in the sand: "This book speaks of a New Inquisition, a New Idol and a New Agnosticism. By the New Inquisition I mean to designate certain habits of repression and intimidation that are becoming increasingly commonplace in the scientific community today. By New Idol I mean to designate the rigid beliefs that form the ideological superstructure of the New Inquisition. By the New Agnosticism I mean to designate an attitude of mind which has been elsewhere called “model agnosticism” and which applies the agnostic principle not just to the “God” concept, but to ideas of all sorts in all areas of thoughts and ideology."[and]"This book is deliberately polemical because I believe models, as tools, should be tested in that kind of combat which Nietzsche metaphorically called “war” and Marx called dialectical struggle."
Well. You’re right. Argument over. Let’s all go out and have a beer. Okay. I’m being unfair. Unfairly dismissive. The thing is, he has a point…to an extent. Blind faith dismissal of every new and out of the norm idea (I’m guilty of referring to them as “fringe”) doesn’t serve intellectual and scientific advancement well. But Martin Gardner, Wilson’s apparent arch nemesis, has more and better points (darn that subjectivity of mine slipping in there). Acceptance of every new and out of the norm idea without rigorous evidence or critical analysis not only doesn’t serve intellectual and scientific development, but it reverses progress made (that’s my assessment…I am pretty sure Gardner never said something close to those words, but that’s the sentiment). As Gardner notes in Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science, scientists cannot be expected to stop what they are working on and write detailed refutations of every theory and pseudo-theory that comes along. The nature of science is self-policing. First the scientist is expected “to mass considerable evidence before his theory can be seriously entertained.” Then he (pardon the sexist “he” – those who know me know that I strive for generic applicability and political correctness, but he/she gets to be clumsy) must endure the skeptical analysis of his peers. And if the process reveals flaws or errors, the burden of proof is on that of the claimant. Not that of the detractors. Why is that so conveniently ignored by Wilson? If the theories he supports stood the test, then he wouldn’t have had anything to write about.
There are so many flaws in Wilson's arguments, flaws in his research, obvious cherry-picking of data (obvious if one researches the references), baldfaced hypocritical criticism of anyone who would criticize him or his pet pseudo-sciences that I finally gave up when my full review passed several pages. And for whatever reason, Wilson hates Catholics, Marxists and CSICOP...taking every opportunity to drip vitriol on anyone related to CSICOP (Gardner, Carl Sagan). I guess it is okay for him to be blindly dismissive, but not okay for skeptics who do honest analysis to dismiss his favorites.
Unlike Quantum Psychology, which had points of lucidity, The New Inquisition is an angry man's petulant diatribe chock full of nonsense.
Unlike Quantum Psychology, which had moments of rational reasoning, The New Inquisition is more of a rant against CSICOP (Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal…now Committee for Skeptical Inquiry) and a select few of its fellows. Right in the Introduction, Wilson draws the line in the sand: "This book speaks of a New Inquisition, a New Idol and a New Agnosticism. By the New Inquisition I mean to designate certain habits of repression and intimidation that are becoming increasingly commonplace in the scientific community today. By New Idol I mean to designate the rigid beliefs that form the ideological superstructure of the New Inquisition. By the New Agnosticism I mean to designate an attitude of mind which has been elsewhere called “model agnosticism” and which applies the agnostic principle not just to the “God” concept, but to ideas of all sorts in all areas of thoughts and ideology."[and]"This book is deliberately polemical because I believe models, as tools, should be tested in that kind of combat which Nietzsche metaphorically called “war” and Marx called dialectical struggle."
Well. You’re right. Argument over. Let’s all go out and have a beer. Okay. I’m being unfair. Unfairly dismissive. The thing is, he has a point…to an extent. Blind faith dismissal of every new and out of the norm idea (I’m guilty of referring to them as “fringe”) doesn’t serve intellectual and scientific advancement well. But Martin Gardner, Wilson’s apparent arch nemesis, has more and better points (darn that subjectivity of mine slipping in there). Acceptance of every new and out of the norm idea without rigorous evidence or critical analysis not only doesn’t serve intellectual and scientific development, but it reverses progress made (that’s my assessment…I am pretty sure Gardner never said something close to those words, but that’s the sentiment). As Gardner notes in Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science, scientists cannot be expected to stop what they are working on and write detailed refutations of every theory and pseudo-theory that comes along. The nature of science is self-policing. First the scientist is expected “to mass considerable evidence before his theory can be seriously entertained.” Then he (pardon the sexist “he” – those who know me know that I strive for generic applicability and political correctness, but he/she gets to be clumsy) must endure the skeptical analysis of his peers. And if the process reveals flaws or errors, the burden of proof is on that of the claimant. Not that of the detractors. Why is that so conveniently ignored by Wilson? If the theories he supports stood the test, then he wouldn’t have had anything to write about.
There are so many flaws in Wilson's arguments, flaws in his research, obvious cherry-picking of data (obvious if one researches the references), baldfaced hypocritical criticism of anyone who would criticize him or his pet pseudo-sciences that I finally gave up when my full review passed several pages. And for whatever reason, Wilson hates Catholics, Marxists and CSICOP...taking every opportunity to drip vitriol on anyone related to CSICOP (Gardner, Carl Sagan). I guess it is okay for him to be blindly dismissive, but not okay for skeptics who do honest analysis to dismiss his favorites.
Unlike Quantum Psychology, which had points of lucidity, The New Inquisition is an angry man's petulant diatribe chock full of nonsense.
September 25, 2011
While definitely not Wilson's sharpest work, this book was fun. Rather than assembling a truly rational argument, he is playing psychological tricks as much as he is presenting information for your consideration. My annoyance at being bombarded with seemingly endless and unverifiable stories of frogs, stones, and other bizarre crap falling out of the sky gave way to delight as I realized the point was to make me examine my own reactions to the stories rather than the content of the stories per se. As in other books of his I have read, Wilson is questioning the ultimate "reality" of human perception. Sometimes I am a nihilist and think we have no hope of perceiving anything "real" because of our limited sense organs, which are very poor instruments. Then books like this make me semi-hopeful that by shifting the frame of our perception, we could see things of which we cannot now conceive. Wilson was optimistic that there would be massive shifts in paradigm by the end of his life, but I believe there are, as there always have been in human history, strong forces opposing creative thinking, except when it benefits the financially powerful. I see this all the time as a doctor, as our research is very much enmeshed with big pharma. They provide the funds, the meds, and pretty much set the framework for how we ask questions, and we are dependent on them to have money to construct large enough studies to be statistically meaningful. But, I digress. If you can get in the mindset to play along with Wilson in this book, there is fun to be had, and it's an enjoyable navel-gazing session to consider what parts of experience we are neglecting at any given time due to our neurological processing limitations, as well as our culturally conditioned biases regarding the raw sense data we are presented with.
November 28, 2018
a sardonic polemic against the premature censure of heterodox theories and anomalous events (think UFOs, ESP, shapeshifting werewolves, ghosts, orgones, teleological versions of physics and biology, etc.) by "Fundamental Materialists" (think anyone who clings vociferously to a hard-nosed scientism without considering science to be a socially and historically situated and dynamic practice of a particular group of humans called "scientists" that has included, at times, magicians, occultists, prophets, romantics, etc), and a plea for taking fortean phenomena seriously.
wilson hopes that by bombarding readers with a litany of spooky events and proposing alternative explanations (which tend to be considered quasi-scientific, fringe, or "outdated" by orthodox standards, e.g. david bohm's implicate order, various forms of vitalism, etc) he can at least shift us away from a reactionary stance of fundamentalist materialism to a generally agnostic stance about the possibility the universe is strange and unpredictable and exceeds all of our present scientific formulations. it's a pretty small ask to move from a position of absolute certainty to a position that allows for degrees of relative certainty and relative uncertainty, so it's pretty easily accomplished. we don't have to accept that any of the entities that appear throughout the book "really" "exist"-- wilson's aim is to shift our epistemological frame from scientific realism to sociohistorical linguistic-constructivism, in which the concepts and entities of unanimously accepted scientific theories are "metaphors" for an ontology which scientists construct through a certain kind of experimentation, observation and theorizing. and from there it's another small step towards considering other kinds of ontological structures one could build using other metaphors, and we end up in a philosophy 101 i-just-read-nietzsche-and-am-so-stoked-on-it-let-me-tell-you perspectival relativism.
throw in some godwin's law (those fundamental materialists are just like hitler--or worse! scientific realism is literally fascistic!), reductio ad absurdum, pars pro todo generalization, and paranoid intimations that the powers-that-be intentionally conspiring to suppress anomalous evidence because it threatens their existential certitude in their (ultimately unjustifiable) ideological convictions (the US government imprisoned wilhelm reich and timothy leary because they feared that orgone theory/LSD threatened established power structures), and you have a robert anton wilson book.
i found this book in my house. i read it because i occasionally hear wiggly-finger white guys talk about how robert anton wilson totally blew their mind, maaaan, but uh... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
wilson hopes that by bombarding readers with a litany of spooky events and proposing alternative explanations (which tend to be considered quasi-scientific, fringe, or "outdated" by orthodox standards, e.g. david bohm's implicate order, various forms of vitalism, etc) he can at least shift us away from a reactionary stance of fundamentalist materialism to a generally agnostic stance about the possibility the universe is strange and unpredictable and exceeds all of our present scientific formulations. it's a pretty small ask to move from a position of absolute certainty to a position that allows for degrees of relative certainty and relative uncertainty, so it's pretty easily accomplished. we don't have to accept that any of the entities that appear throughout the book "really" "exist"-- wilson's aim is to shift our epistemological frame from scientific realism to sociohistorical linguistic-constructivism, in which the concepts and entities of unanimously accepted scientific theories are "metaphors" for an ontology which scientists construct through a certain kind of experimentation, observation and theorizing. and from there it's another small step towards considering other kinds of ontological structures one could build using other metaphors, and we end up in a philosophy 101 i-just-read-nietzsche-and-am-so-stoked-on-it-let-me-tell-you perspectival relativism.
throw in some godwin's law (those fundamental materialists are just like hitler--or worse! scientific realism is literally fascistic!), reductio ad absurdum, pars pro todo generalization, and paranoid intimations that the powers-that-be intentionally conspiring to suppress anomalous evidence because it threatens their existential certitude in their (ultimately unjustifiable) ideological convictions (the US government imprisoned wilhelm reich and timothy leary because they feared that orgone theory/LSD threatened established power structures), and you have a robert anton wilson book.
i found this book in my house. i read it because i occasionally hear wiggly-finger white guys talk about how robert anton wilson totally blew their mind, maaaan, but uh... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
April 23, 2016
Falls of fish and frogs, UFO sightings, ESP, two-headed pigs . . . but no . . . this kind of talk is madness, of course, of course.
To some people this stuff just DOES NOT HAPPEN. As Robert Anton Wilson states so succinctly - "Certitude is seized by some minds, not because there is any philosophical justification for it, but because such minds have an emotional need for certitude."
And some of these people, who are SO SURE OF THEIR FACTS, have actively destroyed men like Wilhelm Reich and Timothy Leary, because these men threatened their certitude.
But if quantum physics proves anything, it proves ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE. But when studies are done on, say, ESP or telekinesis with positive rates way above probability, the Fundamentalist Materialists (think Richard Dawkins) will always say "they cooked the data" or "they faked the results"
This surety - this irrational rightness - is the cause of most of the pain and suffering on this planet, and Robert Anton Wilson makes this very clear, while at the same time pulling chuckles out of you.
I highly suggest Robert Anton Wilson to anyone who truly wishes to change their life and their thinking.
To some people this stuff just DOES NOT HAPPEN. As Robert Anton Wilson states so succinctly - "Certitude is seized by some minds, not because there is any philosophical justification for it, but because such minds have an emotional need for certitude."
And some of these people, who are SO SURE OF THEIR FACTS, have actively destroyed men like Wilhelm Reich and Timothy Leary, because these men threatened their certitude.
But if quantum physics proves anything, it proves ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE. But when studies are done on, say, ESP or telekinesis with positive rates way above probability, the Fundamentalist Materialists (think Richard Dawkins) will always say "they cooked the data" or "they faked the results"
This surety - this irrational rightness - is the cause of most of the pain and suffering on this planet, and Robert Anton Wilson makes this very clear, while at the same time pulling chuckles out of you.
I highly suggest Robert Anton Wilson to anyone who truly wishes to change their life and their thinking.
May 7, 2008
RAW's "New Inquisition" deals with his epistemology, which, in his own words is "model agnosticism", meaning that every frame of reference is not the all encompassing and absolute truth, and what we know of the world is only what we can glean from our experiences of it, through sense data. Beyond our perceptions there exists what we do not perceive, or "tune-in". Model agnosticism admits that every model, even the modern scientific one, is only a model. I was surprised that Alfred Korzybski was only referenced a few times, as his dictum 'the map is not the territory' was quoted and referenced by RAW in a multiplicity of contexts for the discordian purposes of undermining the faith that people put in their own world views. An absolutely necessary book for RAW fans and fellow Discordian Popes (an infallible lot, we are).
Ps. My edition (the New Falcon printing from 1999 with the candle & skyline cover) spells Korzybski's name wrong in the first chapter, an egregious error which RAW would have spotted.
Ps. My edition (the New Falcon printing from 1999 with the candle & skyline cover) spells Korzybski's name wrong in the first chapter, an egregious error which RAW would have spotted.
September 24, 2010
I've heard RAW claim that he has written 2 books in E Prime, and I believe this to be one of them. In my opinion [2010] this book stands as a superlative example of written philosophical-semantic style. I would recommend that anyone read this book, but especially nudge those who I feel to be running a deeply embedded cultural software system to explore it carefully.
May 17, 2025
"As usual, I wonder a bit."
He would be fun to talk to now. His message is essentially, don't be so sure of yourself - your beliefs and denials. I am still mostly a fundamentalist materialist as he calls it - he did not persuade me with a blizzard of odd happenings reported through the centuries. And I don't agree that belief in the "Real World" is what leads to terrorism, in that a more spiritual component or idealist component leads to that.
He would be fun to talk to now. His message is essentially, don't be so sure of yourself - your beliefs and denials. I am still mostly a fundamentalist materialist as he calls it - he did not persuade me with a blizzard of odd happenings reported through the centuries. And I don't agree that belief in the "Real World" is what leads to terrorism, in that a more spiritual component or idealist component leads to that.
November 2, 2021
Strives to defeat the underlying theses that his own argument is built upon.
December 18, 2021
Burn the inquisitors
April 21, 2022
A fascinating book that might make you question...well...everything!
February 20, 2024
A text based psychedelic
This book will alter your perceptions without the use of chemicals. There's plenty to think about in these pages, RAW's humour candy coats the medicine
This book will alter your perceptions without the use of chemicals. There's plenty to think about in these pages, RAW's humour candy coats the medicine
March 24, 2013
An ode to and argument for agnosticism in typical RAW style. It seems he plumbed a lot of the material that formed the mental environment for his previous works. Or maybe I've just read this before and forgot. Either way, his rapid-fire examples of unexplained phenomenon are clearly pre-mobile-device-enabled-Internet, but somehow that doesn't take away from his underlying point that there's still plenty of stuff out there we don't yet understand.
October 31, 2013
It has been too long since I've read something by Robert Anton Wilson. Far too long. It felt great to get back into the crazy vortex of his head again. Like a dose of psychedelic mushrooms that strips away all the pretenses of your assumed Reality.
March 9, 2008
there is a unified front combating eastern medicine, (w)holism, and group hallucinations. their names are: the American Medical Association, CSICOP and Carl Sagan, to name a few.
July 8, 2022
Some of Wilson’s ideas about the number “23” are here, as is an explanation of the concept of “non-locality.”
Acquired Sept 21, 2002
City Lights Book Shop, London, Ontario
Acquired Sept 21, 2002
City Lights Book Shop, London, Ontario
November 28, 2008
This book is a life-changer. It will change your view of reality and open your eyes to a wider universe - one of the most important books in modern times
Want to read
January 8, 2009I started reading this one, but stuck somewhere along the way. What was the cause I can't really remeber. I think it was another book.
March 10, 2009
This is one of my favorite books of all time. I HIGHLY recommend this book to anyone who may want to re-evaluate their assumptions about how the world (i.e. the mind) goes about creating itself.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews