People (Births)

• 1932 – Robert Anton Wilson, American psychologist, author, poet, and playwright (d. 2007).

Robert Anton Wilson

Robert Anton Wilson (born Robert Edward Wilson; 18 January 1932 to 11 January 2007) was an American author, futurist and self-described agnostic mystic. Recognised by Discordianism as a Pope and saint, Wilson helped publicise the group through his writings and interviews.

Wilson described his work as an “attempt to break down conditioned associations, to look at the world in a new way, with many models recognised as models or maps, and no one model elevated to the truth”. His goal being “to try to get people into a state of generalised agnosticism, not agnosticism about God alone but agnosticism about everything.”

Following a journalistic career, Wilson emerged as a major countercultural figure in the mid-1970s, comparable to one of his coauthors, Timothy Leary, as well as Terence McKenna.