Chapel Perilous Quotes

“Wilson’s early trip reports with peyote and belladonna are valuable artifacts from a first-generation psychedelic explorer's point of view. Five years before the “summer of love,” when LSD hit America's consciousness, Wilson was engaged in the bohemian tradition, in the manner of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Fitz Hugh Ludlow, author of The Hasheesh Eater (1857), of exploring one’s mind with psychotropic drugs. Wilson’s article took an unexpected turn, however, when he reported that several weeks after his first peyote trip he started having sexual feelings for “a young boy.” He continued that the attraction was so intense that he’d get an erection just driving past his house. Wilson knew that the boy was heterosexual and wouldn’t be into being hit on by an older guy, so he went no further than observing the gay fantasies as they arose and then drifted away. He didn’t panic at the thought that he may have suddenly turned gay, nor did he let the fantasies of being with a “young boy” overwhelm him. He wrote that he observed his thoughts and feelings with self-compassion as they moved through his consciousness. The article concluded with his report that a few weeks later, just as suddenly as it arrived, his attraction to this young person abruptly ended.141”
― Gabriel Kennedy, Chapel Perilous: The Life & Thought Crimes of Robert Anton Wilson

“The following day, Wilson was still feeling the disorienting effects of the drug. He hallucinated twice, seeing a polar bear wearing a black-turtleneck sweater walk past his house, and then seeing a green, flute-playing Pan, the goat god of nature, in his vegetable garden.139 He did not let such wild sights stop him from going to the movies with Arlen that night, but while watching the film he was hit with an intense wave of anxiety strong enough to immobilize an elephant. He barely made it out of the theater to get some air. Was he still tripping? Belladonna has had terrible effects on people for hundreds of years, giving credence to the old legend that witches and sorcerers used belladonna as a poison and a weapon. The deadly nightshade, to use another of its names, would cause terrible hallucinations and drive people to insanity. Luckily, on the following day, Wilson was fine but again at night the panic hit. This time it lasted for half an hour. To help calm himself down, he concentrated on reciting the plots of old movies to Arlen. By the time he’d finished describing the plot of the film The Third Man, the anxiety attack had passed. Wilson saw the positive in this terrifying dance with Lady Nightshade, as he wrote that the whole experience brought with it an insight into his anxiety which he realized “was sexual excitement.”140”
― Gabriel Kennedy, Chapel Perilous: The Life & Thought Crimes of Robert Anton Wilson

“Friday and then proceeded to completely lose his shit over the next five hours. Two realities were created that night. There was what Wilson experienced under the influence of the psychedelic that was used in witches' spells and rituals hundreds of years ago and there was the reality that exists when you don’t do belladonna. What Wilson experienced was going outside after swallowing the drug, seeing a monster in the distance, then going back into his house to see Arlen in the kitchen, who’d become a ghoulish satanic vampire lady, scaring the bejesus outta him. It dawned on him quite suddenly that this drug was no good and he ran to the sink to retch up as much of it as he could, but it was too late. The belladonna had already blasted him out of his rational mind. He was in her grips and there was no way out. His awareness flashed only a few lucid moments where his only description of such a state was “too weird.” He observed his body doing things that his mind had little control over. He saw himself banging into the wall repeatedly. Then he heard the sink laughing, and then he was even accompanied by a dwarf on a long journey through the woods. Nothing was solid, as the dwarf became a knight in armor who decided their walk through the Yellow Springs woods would be a good place to attack him. Another flash and the knight was suddenly gone. Wilson then saw himself crawling on the ground on all fours across white-hot coals. How long had he been enduring this torture? Years? Eternity? But just beyond the red-hot burning coals, he felt searing into his skin an enticing golden glow beckoned him. Another flash and he was now on a bed in a “supernaturally golden room.” He turned his head and saw Arlen. “Her face was the pretty, intellectual face I love above all others, but her hair was a new shade of red, lustrous and lively beyond the vocabulary of a poet or even an ad man.” He touched her hair and said, “It was worth all the terror to see you so beautiful…” However, the fun was not over. At another point in the night, he was helped to the outhouse by his friend and neighbor, David Hatch. But once outside, Bob saw two Davids. Wilson kept trying to explain to Arlen and Hatch, “We must all drink more milk!” Why must we do that? We must do it, said Wilson, “for the Kennedy Administration in outer space of the Nuremberg pickle that exploded.” He stopped, embarrassed, realizing he’d been making a fool of himself. That wasn’t what he’d meant to say, so he tried again. “Where’s the dwarf?” he shouted.”
― Gabriel Kennedy, Chapel Perilous: The Life & Thought Crimes of Robert Anton Wilson

“In Cosmic Trigger Vol. 1, Wilson wrote about the strangest “X” he’d ever encountered. It appeared one day while he was working in his garden after a powerful peyote trip. With his hands on the earth, he saw movements from the corner of his eye. Wilson turned his head, he saw what looked like a little man with green warty”
― Gabriel Kennedy, Chapel Perilous: The Life & Thought Crimes of Robert Anton Wilson

“Wilson has influenced generations of counterculture names and faces, sparked vision quests and self-deprogramming workouts, motivating a secret psychedelic insurrection of punks, Discordians, pagans, Chaotes, acidheads, all dancing to the beat of Wilson’s rousing, intelligent, undogmatic prose.”
― Gabriel Kennedy, Chapel Perilous: The Life & Thought Crimes of Robert Anton Wilson