"Re-reading my comments about Wilson, I would stand by them today, but I do not mean that unkindly. I thought Illuminatus! was a marvelous work - just the sort of enema the "occult subculture" [and those without it who crab about it] needed so badly at the time. I continue to recommend it today to those who show signs of needing its dash of cold water.

"Similarly I greatly enjoyed Wilson's Schroedinger's Cat trilogy. All of these are books that I admire without any qualification whatever. As noted in the comments of mine which you quoted, I was a little disappointed in Cosmic Trigger and its aftermath. It seemed to me that Wilson was a bit dazzled by Timothy Leary, to the point of losing his own "arms-length grip on reality" where occultism & fringe-science are concerned. I think that works like Illuminatus! and Schroedinger's Cat were possible because Wilson (& Shea) actually had their heads well-grounded in common sense, hence could lampoon their topics very accurately without being at all condescending about it. In the Cosmic Trigger series, I get the feeling that Wilson has lost his intellectual tether and is floating on up there into the stratosphere with Dr. Tim - not that this is an unpleasant pastime, as Leary is certainly a charming vision-spinner."