The Big Pay Back! RAW and His Creditors

As I detail in my book, Chapel Perilous: The Life & Thought Crimes of Robert Anton Wilson, there was no easy street for Wilson when it came to financial winnings from his work. Minus the few years at Playboy magazine, RAW dealt with various degrees of poverty while creating some of his most epic literature. Some have concluded from reading my biography that “Wilson was shit with money.” It’s not really my job to say whether he and his wife Arlen practiced poor money habits, however I encountered evidence that complicates such a broad statement. The money game, in itself, is not simple, especially when you recognize the arbitrariness of Capitalism, in general, like Bob did. Also, Wilson was an indie Writer, in a world that has becoming increasingly money-orientated and atomized. There is only so much time one can dedicate to one’s fiduciary interests while delving into the depths of the human psyche and creating art. In 2003, Bob told me a truth that I’d later totally agree with. “WRITING IS LABOR.” It’s labor and most writers are terribly underpaid for such labor. I affirm with a quote from the great, and tragically flawed, BoJack Horseman when I say, “True Dat!”

So, what metric can we apply to Wilson to judge whether he was “good with money” then? Perhaps one benchmark would be, “Did Bob pay back the people who lent him money?” Is there an appropriate time frame for paying back friendly, non-institutional, creditors?

This was just one aspect of the life of Robert Anton Wilson that I examined in my text. Granted, it…