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123-470: Robert Anton Wilson (born Robert Edward Wilson ; January 18, 1932 – January 11, 2007) 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

246-595: A secular education . The university moved in 1833 and has maintained its main campus in Greenwich Village surrounding Washington Square Park . Since then, the university has added an engineering school in Brooklyn's MetroTech Center and graduate schools throughout Manhattan . NYU is one of the largest private universities in the United States by enrollment, with a total of 51,848 enrolled students in 2021. It

369-540: A " libertarian socialist ", saying that "I ask only one thing of skeptics: don't bring up Soviet Russia, please. That horrible example of State Capitalism has nothing to do with what I, and other libertarian socialists, would offer as an alternative to the present system." By the 1980s he was less enthusiastic about the socialist label, writing in Prometheus Rising that he "does not like" the spread of socialism. In his book Right Where You Are Sitting Now , he praises

492-474: A $ 2.5 billion campaign for funds to be spent especially on faculty and financial aid resources. Under Sexton's leadership, NYU also began its transformation into a global university, including the opening of a campus in Abu Dhabi in 2010. Mortgage loans issued to some administrators and faculty by the university were criticized following published reports of August 2013, detailing terms of the loans, including that

615-566: A $ 50 million gift from the Tisch family (after which one building and the art school are named) and a $ 60 million gift from six trustees called "The Partners Fund", aimed at hiring new faculty. On October 15, 2007, the university announced that the Silver family donated $ 50 million to the School of Social Work , which will be renamed as a result. This is the largest donation ever to a school of social work in

738-609: A 125,000 square feet (11,600 m ) healthcare facility in Brooklyn. Quickly following this announcement, NYU announced in 2017 that it would invest over $ 500 million in the coming years to renovate and expand its Brooklyn campus, including 370 Jay Street , which opened in December 2017. The NYU Langone Health medical center is situated near the East River waterfront at 550 First Avenue between East 30th and 34th Streets. The campus hosts

861-474: A 25-year strategic development plan, scheduled to coincide with its bicentennial in 2031. Included in the "NYU 200" plans are increasing resident and academic space, hiring additional faculty, and involving the New York City community in a transparent planning process. Additionally, NYU hopes to make their buildings more environmentally friendly, which will be facilitated by an evaluation of all campus spaces. As

984-503: A BA, MA (1978) and PhD (1981) in psychology from Paideia University, which was an accredited university in California at the time he graduated in 1981 but later on became unaccredited and then closed. Wilson reworked his dissertation, and it found publication in 1983 as Prometheus Rising . Wilson married freelance writer and poet Arlen Riley in 1958. They had four children, including Christina Wilson Pearson and Patricia Luna Wilson. Luna

1107-422: A W", i.e. "possible, probable, and preferable" futures, plus "wildcards", which are low-probability, high-impact events, should they occur. Even with high-profile, probable events, such as the fall of telecommunications costs, the growth of the internet, or the aging demographics of particular countries, there is often significant uncertainty in the rate or continuation of a trend. Thus, a key part of futures analysis

1230-602: A cane, until 2000, when he experienced a major bout with post-polio syndrome that would continue until his death. He attended Catholic grammar schools before securing admission to the selective Brooklyn Technical High School . Removed from the Catholic influence at "Brooklyn Tech", Wilson became enamored of literary modernism (particularly Ezra Pound and James Joyce ), the Western philosophical tradition, then-innovative historians such as Charles A. Beard , science fiction (including

1353-532: 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 . Born Robert Edward Wilson in Methodist Hospital , in Brooklyn , New York, he spent his first years in Flatbush , and moved with his family to Gerritsen Beach , in a lower middle class area, around

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1476-522: A heavy body of taboos. They're so fearful, and so hostile, and so narrow, and frightened, and uptight and dogmatic ... I wrote this book because I got tired satirizing fundamentalist Christianity ... I decided to satirize fundamentalist materialism for a change, because the two are equally comical ... The materialist fundamentalists are funnier than the Christian fundamentalists, because they think they're rational! ... They're never skeptical about anything except

1599-497: A higher salary than any other magazine at which I had worked and never expected me to become a conformist or sell my soul in return. I enjoyed my years in the Bunny Empire. I only resigned when I reached 40 and felt I could not live with myself if I didn't make an effort to write full-time at last." Along with frequent collaborator Robert Shea , Wilson edited the magazine's Playboy Forum, a letters section consisting of responses to

1722-445: A kind man as well as a funny one, Benny was beloved. I find it hard to believe that I am equally beloved and especially that I deserve such love. Whoever you are, wherever you are, know that my love is with you. You have all reminded me that despite George W. Bush and all his cohorts, there is still a lot of beautiful kindness in the world. Futurist The term "futurist" most commonly refers to people who attempt to understand

1845-530: A noted artist who also pioneered the telegraph and created the Morse Code, served as the first chair of Painting and Sculpture. He and Daniel Huntington were early tenants of the Old University Building in the mid-19th century. (The university rented out studio space and residential apartments within the "academic" building.) As a result, they had notable interaction with the cultural and academic life of

1968-602: A number of organizations that specialize in this field including the World Future Society, the Association of Professional Futurists (APF) and the World Futures Studies Federation (WFSF). Visionary writers such as H. G. Wells , Jules Verne and Aldous Huxley were not in their day characterized as futurists. The term futurology in its contemporary sense was first coined in the mid‑1940s by

2091-536: A part of this plan, NYU purchased 118 million kilowatt-hours of wind power during the 2006–2007 academic year – the largest purchase of wind power by any university in the country and any institution in New York City. For 2007, the university expanded its purchase of wind power to 132 million kilowatt-hours. As a result, the EPA ranked NYU as one of the greenest colleges in the country in its annual College & University Green Power Challenge. NYU consistently ranks as one of

2214-653: A pinwheel shape reminiscent of NYU Shanghai's logo, that are connected as one building above the fifth floor. The university hopes to move up to 4,000 undergraduate and graduate students into the new campus by 2022. Tisch School of the Arts, Asia was NYU's first branch campus abroad. The result of a partnership between Tisch School of the Arts and the Singapore Government, it offered Master of Fine Arts degrees in animation and digital arts, dramatic writing, film and international media producing. The campus opened in fall 2007 with

2337-525: A put-on, but I can't think of a good and original put-on that I haven't done several times before. So I'll tell you the truth, for once. After investigating the Illuminati and their critics for the last 30 years, I think the Illuminati was a short lived society of free thinkers and democratic reformers that formed a secret society within Freemasonry, using Freemasonry as a cover so they could plot to overthrow all

2460-455: A separate liberal arts college within a university, offering complete degree programs to students admitted directly to NYUAD. NYUAD recruits students from all over the world and describes itself as the "World's Honor College". The main campus for NYUAD is on Saadiyat Island and opened in 2014. Until then, the school operated from a campus located in downtown Abu Dhabi. In 2011, NYU announced plans to open another portal campus, NYU Shanghai, for

2583-661: A set of libertarian and anarchist axioms known as Celine's laws (named after Hagbard Celine, a character in Illuminatus! ), concepts Wilson revisited several times in other writings. Among the many subplots of Illuminatus! one addresses biological warfare and the overriding of the United States Bill of Rights , another gives a detailed account of the John F. Kennedy assassination (in which no fewer than five snipers, all working for different causes, prepare to shoot Kennedy), and

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2706-488: A strong materialist bias, and that in fact modern physics may have already disproved materialist metaphysics . Wilson also supported the work and utopian theories of Buckminster Fuller and examined the theories of Charles Fort . He and Loren Coleman became friends, as he did with media theorist Marshall McLuhan and Neuro Linguistic Programming co-founder Richard Bandler , with whom he taught workshops. He also admired James Joyce, and wrote extensive commentaries on

2829-565: A strong opponent of what he called "the war on some drugs", Wilson participated as a Special Guest in the week-long 1999 Annual Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam, and used and often promoted the use of medical marijuana . He participated in a protest organized by the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana in Santa Cruz in 2002. On June 22, 2006, Paul Krassner reported on The Huffington Post that Wilson

2952-740: Is also on Washington Square South, and is the primary hub for student life at the university, providing event and meeting space for student organizations and other gatherings. Located closer to the eastern edge of the campus along Broadway are the main buildings for the Tisch School of the Arts and the Gallatin School of Individualized Study , as well as the main office for Liberal Studies and NYU's Bookstore and Student Health Center. Other nearby university buildings and complexes of note include 5 Washington Place, which houses NYU's distinguished Department of Philosophy , 7 East 12th Street, which serves as

3075-609: Is contained in a single building, the Academic Center, a new 15-story building with two underground floors. On May 30, 2019, the groundbreaking ceremony was held for the new campus building in the Qiantan International Business Zone . The Qiantan campus building will also be located in Pudong, and is being designed and built by architectural firm Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) . The design features four buildings arranged in

3198-600: Is home to NYU's second medical school, the NYU Long Island School of Medicine. NYU's Silver School of Social Work (formerly Ehrenkranz School of Social Work) manages branch campus programs in Westchester County at Sarah Lawrence College and in Rockland County at St. Thomas Aquinas College . In Sterling Forest , near Tuxedo , NYU has a research facility that contains various institutes, in particular

3321-789: Is located at MetroTech Center , an urban academic-industrial research park . It sits on top of the Jay Street–MetroTech station , is only a few blocks from the Brooklyn Bridge, and is connected to NYU's Manhattan campus via the NYU Shuttle Bus System. It houses the Tandon School of Engineering, the Center for Urban Science and Progress and also several of Tisch School of the Arts and Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development's degree programs. MetroTech Commons,

3444-856: Is one of the most applied-to schools in the country and admissions are considered selective. NYU's main campus in New York City is organized into ten undergraduate schools, including the College of Arts & Science , Gallatin School , Steinhardt School , Stern School of Business , Tandon School of Engineering , and Tisch School of the Arts . NYU's 15 graduate schools include the Grossman School of Medicine , School of Law , Wagner Graduate School of Public Service , School of Professional Studies , Silver School of Social Work , and Rory Meyers School of Nursing . The university's internal academic centers include

3567-455: Is one of the world's largest academic media centers, where students and researchers use more than 95,000 audio and video recordings per year. Bobst Library is also home to many special collections. The Fales Collection houses collections of English and American fiction in the United States, the unique Downtown Collection, documenting the New York literary avant-garde arts scene from the 1970s to

3690-497: Is the death of intelligence". He described this approach as "Maybe Logic". Wilson wrote about this and other topics in articles for the cyberpunk magazine Mondo 2000 . Wilson favored a form of basic income guarantee ; synthesizing several ideas under the acronym RICH. His ideas are set forth in the essay "The RICH Economy", found in The Illuminati Papers . In an article critical of capitalism, Wilson self-identified as

3813-737: Is the managing of uncertainty and risk. Not all futurists engage in the practice of futurology as generally defined. Pre-conventional futurists (see below) would generally not. And while religious futurists, astrologers, occultists, New Age diviners, etc. use methodologies that include study, none of their personal revelation or belief-based work would fall within a consensus definition of futurology as used in academics or by futures studies professionals. Several authors have become recognized as futurists. They research trends, particularly in technology, and write their observations, conclusions, and predictions. In earlier eras, many futurists were at academic institutions. John McHale , author of The Future of

Robert Anton Wilson - Misplaced Pages Continue

3936-645: The Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute from 1952 to 1957 and English education at New York University from 1957 to 1958 but did not complete his degree at either institution. After having smoked cannabis for nearly a decade, Wilson first experimented with mescaline in Yellow Springs, Ohio , on December 28, 1961. Wilson began to work as a freelance journalist and advertising copywriter in the late 1950s. He adopted his maternal grandfather's name, Anton, for his writings and told himself that he would save

4059-688: The Church of the SubGenius , who referred to him as "Pope Bob". He contributed to their literature, including the book Three-Fisted Tales of "Bob" , and shared a stage with their founder, Rev. Ivan Stang , on several occasions. Wilson also founded the Guns and Dope Party. As a member of the Board of Advisors of the Fully Informed Jury Association , Wilson worked to inform the public about jury nullification ,

4182-1204: The Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences , Center for Data Science , Center for Neural Science , Clive Davis Institute , Institute for the Study of the Ancient World , Institute of Fine Arts , and the NYU Langone Health System . NYU is a global university system with degree-granting portal campuses at NYU Abu Dhabi in United Arab Emirates and NYU Shanghai in China , and academic learning centers in Accra , Berlin , Buenos Aires , Florence , London , Los Angeles , Madrid , Paris , Prague , Sydney , Tel Aviv , and Washington, D.C. Past and present faculty and alumni include 39 Nobel Laureates, 8 Turing Award winners, 5 Fields Medalists, 31 MacArthur Fellows , 26 Pulitzer Prize winners, 3 heads of state , 5 U.S. governors , 12 U.S. senators , and 58 members of

4305-656: The Graduate School of Arts & Science , is one of the main academic buildings on the Washington Square campus. It is located on Washington Square East, between Washington Place and Waverly Place , and many individual departments of the two schools it houses are located in its vicinity. Meanwhile, Vanderbilt Hall, the main building for the School of Law , is located near the southwest corner of Washington Square between Macdougal Street and Sullivan Street on Washington Square South . The Kimmel Center for University Life

4428-634: The Holland Tunnel , and 4 miles (6.4 km) from the Brooklyn Bridge . The Jeffrey S. Gould Plaza, located between Washington Square East and Mercer Street on West 4th Street, is surrounded by the buildings for some departments of the College of Arts and Science as well as the main buildings for the Stern School of Business and the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences . Other NYU buildings near

4551-718: The NYU Grossman School of Medicine , Tisch Hospital, Kimmel Pavilion, Hassenfeld Children's Hospital, and the Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine . Other NYU and NYU-affiliated medical centers across the city include the NYU Langone Orthopedic Hospital, the NYU Langone Hospital – Brooklyn , and the Bellevue Hospital . In Mineola, Long Island, the NYU Langone Hospital – Long Island campus

4674-535: The New York University Grossman School of Medicine announced it would be offering full-tuition scholarships to all current and future students in its MD program regardless of need or merit, making it the only top-10 medical school in the United States to do so. In Spring 2022, President Andrew D. Hamilton announced that the 2023 academic year would be his last, and that he would be returning to research. He will be succeeded by Linda G. Mills ,

4797-579: The Playboy Philosophy editorial column. During this period, he covered Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert 's Millbrook, New York -based Castalia Foundation at the instigation of Alan Watts in The Realist , cultivated important friendships with William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg , and lectured at the Free University of New York on 'Anarchist and Synergetic Politics' in 1965. He received

4920-534: The Quartier Latin , where NYU Law also set up an EU Regulatory Policy Clinic in partnership with HEC Paris taught by Alberto Alemanno and Vincent Chauvet . In addition to the Global Academic Centers, NYU also maintains 10 Global Research Initiative Institutes, 9 of them are located in the academic centers at Berlin, Florence, London, Madrid, Paris, Prague, Shanghai, Tel Aviv, and Washington DC, with

5043-483: The School of Law , NYU's first professional school, was established. Although the impetus to found a new school was partly a reaction by evangelical Presbyterians to what they perceived as the Episcopalianism of Columbia College , NYU was created non-denominational , unlike many American colleges at the time. The American Chemical Society was founded in 1876 at NYU. Soon after its founding, it became one of

Robert Anton Wilson - Misplaced Pages Continue

5166-522: The U.S. House of Representatives . Albert Gallatin , Secretary of the Treasury under Thomas Jefferson and James Madison , declared his intention to establish "in this immense and fast-growing city ... a system of rational and practical education fitting and graciously opened to all." A three-day-long "literary and scientific convention" held in City Hall in 1830 and attended by over 100 delegates debated

5289-750: The georgist economist Silvio Gesell . In the essay Left and Right: A Non-Euclidean Perspective , Wilson speaks favorably of several "excluded middles" that "transcend the hackneyed debate between monopoly Capitalism and totalitarian Socialism"; he says his favorite is the mutualist anarchism of Benjamin Tucker and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon , but he also offers kind words for the ideas of Gesell, Henry George , C. H. Douglas , and Buckminster Fuller . Wilson also identified as an anarchist and described his belief system as "a blend of Tucker, Spooner , Fuller, Pound , Henry George, Rothbard , Douglas, Korzybski , Proudhon and Marx ." Wilson spoke several times at conventions of

5412-557: The "Edward" for when he wrote the Great American Novel . He later found that "Robert Anton Wilson" had become an established identity. He assumed co-editorship of the School for Living 's Brookville, Ohio -based Balanced Living magazine in 1962 and briefly returned to New York as associate editor of Ralph Ginzburg 's quarterly magazine, called fact: , before leaving for Playboy , where he served as an associate editor from 1965 to 1971. According to Wilson, Playboy "paid me

5535-466: The "Nassau College-Hofstra Memorial of New York University at Hempstead, Long Island." This extension would later become a fully independent Hofstra University . In 1950, NYU was elected to the Association of American Universities , a nonprofit organization of leading public and private research universities. Financial crisis gripped the New York City government in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and

5658-442: The 1930s, the abstract expressionists Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning , and the realists Edward Hopper and Thomas Hart Benton had studios around Washington Square. In the 1960s the area became one of the centers of the beat and folk generation, when Allen Ginsberg and Bob Dylan settled there. This led to tension with the university, which at the time was in the midst of an aggressive facilities expansion phase. In 1975,

5781-449: The 1950s, for private institutions and corporations. The period from the late 1940s to the mid‑1960s laid the conceptual and methodological foundations of the modern futurology field. Bertrand de Jouvenel 's The Art of Conjecture in 1963 and Dennis Gabor 's Inventing the Future in 1964 are considered key early works, and the first U.S. university course devoted entirely to the future

5904-490: The 1990s, NYU became a "two square" university by building a second community around Union Square , in close proximity to Washington Square. NYU's Union Square community primarily consists of the priority residence halls of Carlyle Court, Palladium Residence Hall, Alumni Hall, Coral Tower, Thirteenth Street Hall, University Hall, Third North Residence Hall, and Founders Hall. On its Washington Square campus, NYU operates theaters and performance facilities that are often used by

6027-539: The 3.5-acre (14,000 m ) privately owned public space at the heart of the MetroTech complex, functions as a quad for students at the Brooklyn campus in much the same way that Washington Square Park does for students at the main campus, hosting events including concerts, health fairs, chess tournaments and holiday celebrations. Bounded by Lawrence and Duffield Streets, the square is frequently adorned by modern art exhibits. Two pieces called Alligator and Visionary are part of

6150-470: The American Libertarian Party . He included Benjamin Tucker's Instead of a Book , Henry George's Progress and Poverty , and Gesell's The Natural Economic Order in a list of 20 book recommendations, "the bare minimum of what everybody really needs to chew and digest before they can converse intelligently about the 21st Century." Robert Anton Wilson and his wife Arlen Riley Wilson founded

6273-591: The Commons' permanent public art collection by the well-known sculptor Tom Otterness . The Brooklyn campus is home to NYU's Game Center Open Library, which is the largest collection of games held by any university in the world, as well as the NYU MakerSpace and Design Lab, which allows all NYU students who undergo training sessions to access advanced 3D printing , prototyping , CNC machining , and stress testing devices. In 2014, NYU Langone Medical Center acquired

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6396-658: The Deutsches Haus, La Maison Française , Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimò , the Glucksman Ireland House to foster Irish studies , the King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center, the Hagop Kevorkian Center, an Africa House, and a China House. Most of these international houses are located on Washington Mews , a private street north of Washington Square Park. The closest New York City Subway stations servicing

6519-399: The Eisner-Lubin Auditorium (560 seats) in the Kimmel Center. Notably, the Skirball Center has hosted important speeches on foreign policy by John Kerry and Al Gore . The Skirball Center is the largest performing arts facility south of 42nd Street . NYU also has international houses meant to foster the study of particular cultures and languages on its Washington Square campus, including

6642-541: The Future , published a "Futures Directory", and directed a think tank called The Centre For Integrative Studies at State University of New York in 1968. Futurists have started consulting groups or earn money as speakers, with examples including Alvin Toffler , John Naisbitt and Patrick Dixon . Frank Feather is a business speaker that presents himself as a pragmatic futurist. Some futurists have commonalities with science fiction , and some science-fiction writers, such as Arthur C. Clarke , are known as futurists. In

6765-588: The German Professor Ossip K. Flechtheim , who proposed a new science of probability. Flechtheim argued that even if systematic forecasting did no more than unveil the subset of statistically highly probable processes of change and charted their advance, it would still be of crucial social value. In the mid‑1940s the first professional "futurist" consulting institutions like RAND and SRI began to engage in long-range planning, systematic trend watching, scenario development, and visioning, at first under World War II military and government contract and, beginning in

6888-410: The Illuminati has been adapted as a theatrical stage play by Daisy Eris Campbell, daughter of Ken Campbell the British theatre maverick who staged Illuminatus! at the Royal National Theatre in 1977. The play opened on November 23, 2014, in Liverpool before transferring to London and Brighton. Some of the costs were met through crowdfunding . Wilson's book is itself dedicated to "Ken Campbell and

7011-517: The Illuminati , also included some elements of H. P. Lovecraft 's work in his novels, and at times claimed to have perceived encounters with magical "entities" (when asked whether these entities seemed "real", he answered they seemed "real enough", although "not as real as the IRS" but "easier to get rid of", and later decided that his experiences may have emerged from "just my right brain hemisphere talking to my left"). He warned against beginners using occult practice, since to rush into such practices and

7134-471: The Illuminati features historical characters in a fictionalized setting, and contains a blend of occult history. Intermixing Albert Einstein , James Joyce , Aleister Crowley , Sigmund Freud , Carl Jung , Vladimir Ilyich Lenin , and others, the book focuses on Pan as well as other occult icons, ideas, and practices. It also includes homages, parodies and pastiches from both the lives and works of Crowley and Joyce. Wilson's play, Wilhelm Reich in Hell ,

7257-421: The Institute for the Study of the Human Future in 1975. From 1982 until his death, Wilson had a business relationship with the Association for Consciousness Exploration , which hosted his first on-stage dialogue with his long-time friend Timothy Leary entitled The Inner Frontier . Wilson dedicated his book The New Inquisition to A.C.E.'s co-directors, Jeff Rosenbaum and Joseph Rothenberg. Wilson also joined

7380-449: The Nelson Institute of Environmental Medicine. The Midtown Center at 11 West 42nd Street is home to the NYU Schack Institute of Real Estate. The Woolworth Building in the financial district is home to some of NYU's professional studies and education programs. NYU has two units located on the Upper East Side . The Institute for the Study of the Ancient World , a discrete entity within NYU, independent of any other school or department of

7503-818: The Science-Fiction Theatre Of Liverpool, England." In his nonfiction and partly autobiographical Cosmic Trigger I: The Final Secret of the Illuminati (1977) and its two sequels, as well as in many other works, Wilson examined Freemasons , Discordianism, Sufism , the Illuminati, Futurology , Zen Buddhism , Dennis and Terence McKenna , Jack Parsons , the occult practices of Aleister Crowley and G.I. Gurdjieff , Yoga , and many other esoteric or counterculture philosophies, personalities, and occurrences. Wilson advocated Timothy Leary 's 8-Circuit Model of Consciousness and neurosomatic/linguistic engineering, which he wrote about in many books including Prometheus Rising (1983, revised 1997) and Quantum Psychology (1990), which contain practical techniques intended to help

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7626-404: The Tisch School of the Arts as well as the university's music conservatory , which is within the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development . External productions are also occasionally held in NYU's facilities. The largest performance accommodations at NYU are the Skirball Center for Performing Arts (850 seats) at 566 LaGuardia Place, just south of Washington Square South, and

7749-531: The U.S., and the Frederic Ewen Academic Freedom Center. Bobst Library made headlines in the early 2000s when Steven Stanzak , who is also known as "Bobst Boy", gained a following for living in Bobst Library after he was unable to pay for board at the university and began to write about his life on a self published blog. The story was reported by Washington Square News before becoming an overnight national sensation, which helped Stanzak receive financial assistance from NYU until graduation. NYU's Brooklyn campus

7872-439: The United States. The 2007–2008 academic year was the most successful fundraising year to date for NYU, with the school raising $ 698 million in only the first 11 months of the year, representing a 70% increase in donations from the prior year. The university also recently announced plans for NYU's Call to Action, a new initiative to ask alumni and donors to support financial aid for students at NYU. The university has announced

7995-421: The Washington Square campus are Eighth Street–New York University and West Fourth Street–Washington Square . In addition, NYU runs its own shuttle service, University Transportation Services, linking the Washington Square campus to other university locations and major transit hubs. The nearest major highway is the West Side Highway ( NY 9A ) to the west. The campus is located less than 1 mile (1.6 km) from

8118-417: The academic year, Gould Plaza has become a popular meeting spot for NYU students and a performance area for street musicians and buskers . The Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, built between 1967 and 1972, is the largest library at NYU and one of the largest academic libraries in the United States. Designed by Philip Johnson and Richard Foster , the 12-story, 425,000-square-foot (39,500 m ) structure sits on

8241-466: The age of four or five, where they stayed until relocating to the steadfastly middle-class neighborhood of Bay Ridge when Wilson was thirteen. He had polio as a child, and found generally effective treatment with the Kenny Method (created by Elizabeth Kenny ) which the American Medical Association repudiated at that time. Polio's effects remained with Wilson throughout his life, usually manifesting as minor muscle spasms causing him to occasionally use

8364-400: The author and on two of Joyce's novels, Finnegans Wake and Ulysses , in his 1988 book Coincidance: A Head Test . Although Wilson often lampooned and criticized some New Age beliefs, bookstores specializing in New Age material often sell his books. Wilson, a well-known author in occult and Neo-Pagan circles, used Aleister Crowley as a main character in his 1981 novel Masks of

8487-433: The book's climax occurs at a rock concert where the audience collectively face the danger of becoming a mass human sacrifice. Illuminatus! popularized Discordianism and the use of the term " fnord ". It incorporates experimental prose styles influenced by writers such as William S. Burroughs , James Joyce , and Ezra Pound . Although Shea and Wilson never co-operated on such a scale again, Wilson continued to expand upon

8610-430: The branding and design firm Chermayeff & Geismar . There are at least two versions of the possible origin of the university color, violet . Some believe that it may have been chosen because violets are said to have grown abundantly in Washington Square and around the buttresses of the Old University Building. Others argue that the color may have been adopted because the violet was the flower associated with Athens ,

8733-400: The center of learning in ancient Greece . Washington Square and Greenwich Village have been hubs of cultural life in New York City since the early 19th century. Much of this culture has intersected with NYU at various points in its history. Artists of the Hudson River School , the United States' first prominent school of painters, settled around Washington Square. Samuel F.B. Morse ,

8856-620: The cult classic series The Illuminatus! Trilogy (1975), co-authored with Shea. Advertised as "a fairy tale for paranoids", the three books— The Eye in the Pyramid , The Golden Apple , and Leviathan , soon offered as a single volume—philosophically and humorously examined, among many other themes, occult and magical symbolism and history, the counterculture of the 1960s , secret societies , data concerning author H. P. Lovecraft and author and occultist Aleister Crowley , and American paranoia about conspiracies and conspiracy theories . The book

8979-568: The earliest use of the term futurism in English as 1842, to refer, in a theological context, to the Christian eschatological tendency of that time. The next recorded use is the label adopted by the Italian and Russian Futurists , the artistic, literary and political movements of the 1920s and 1930s which sought to reject the past and fervently embrace speed, technology, and often violent change. There are

9102-524: The early 2000s, becoming the largest private university in the United States with a combined undergraduate/graduate enrollment of over 59,000 students as of 2018 . The university logo, the upheld torch , is derived from the Statue of Liberty , signifying NYU's service to New York City. The torch is depicted on both the NYU seal and the more abstract NYU logo, designed in 1965 by renowned graphic designer Tom Geismar of

9225-857: The fall semester of 2013. It was set to have about 3,000 undergraduate students, the majority of whom would be Chinese . It was approved by the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China in January 2011. NYU's local partner would be East China Normal University (ECNU). ECNU's president Yu Lizhong would be the chancellor and play a major role in government relations while Jeffrey S. Lehman , former president of Cornell amongst other positions, would serve as vice chancellor and have "free rein in academic affairs". Since late summer of 2014, NYU Shanghai has been based in Pudong, Shanghai , at 1555 Century Ave. The main campus

9348-447: The future (sometimes called trend analysis) such as authors, consultants, thinkers, organizational leaders and others who engage in interdisciplinary and systems thinking to advise private and public organizations on such matters as diverse global trends , possible scenarios , emerging market opportunities and risk management . Futurist is not in the sense of the art movement futurism . The Oxford English Dictionary identifies

9471-492: The heart of Greenwich Village. The Washington Square Arch is an unofficial symbol of NYU. Until 2007, NYU had held its commencement ceremonies in Washington Square Park, but because of renovations to Washington Square moved the 2008 ceremonies to the original Yankee Stadium and all subsequent ones to the current Yankee Stadium . The Silver Center for Arts and Science , home to the College of Arts & Science and

9594-567: The intention to enroll approximately 250 students. Anticipated enrollment figures were not achieved, financial irregularities were alleged, and President Pari Sara Shirazi was dismissed from her post by NYU in November 2011. She subsequently announced her intention to commence legal proceedings against NYU alleging wrongful termination and defamation. In a letter to the Tisch Asia community dated November 8, 2012, Dean Mary Schmidt Campbell announced that

9717-400: The introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness , Ursula K. Le Guin distinguished futurists from novelists, writing of the study as the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and futurists. In her words, "a novelist's business is lying". A 2001 survey of 108 futurists found the following shared assumptions: The term has also been used to refer to popular electronic music acts who emerged in

9840-705: The kings in Europe and the Pope. I'm very happy that they succeeded in overthrowing all the kings, I just wish that they had completed the job and gotten rid of the Royal family in England too, but they did pretty well on the continent. I'm sorry they haven't finished off the Pope yet, either, but I think they're still working on the project and I wish them luck. Disinformation: The Interviews , by Richard Metzger Among Wilson's 35 books and many other works, perhaps his best-known volumes remain

9963-537: The late 1970s, such as Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and The Human League . New York University New York University ( NYU ) is a private research university in New York City , United States . Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature , NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a non-denominational all-male institution near City Hall based on a curriculum focused on

10086-655: The main building for the School of Professional Studies , the Brown Building , which was the location of the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire before its acquisition by NYU, as well as Washington Square Village and University Village , two housing complexes for faculty members and graduate students. Undergraduate residence halls in the immediate surroundings of Washington Square include Goddard Hall, Lipton Hall, and Weinstein Hall, while those that are slightly farther but still nearby include Brittany Hall and Rubin Hall. In

10209-462: The most noteworthy sites is the 57-acre (230,000 m ) campus of NYU Florence, located at Villa LaPietra in Italy. The estate was bequeathed by the late Sir Harold Acton to NYU in 1994, and at the time it was the largest donation to a university in history. In spring 2014, NYU Paris moved to a new campus, formerly occupied by the École Spéciale des Travaux Publics (ESTP Paris), in the student area of

10332-455: The nation's largest universities, with an enrollment of 9,300 in 1917. The university purchased a campus at University Heights in the Bronx because of overcrowding on the old campus. NYU also had a desire to follow New York City's development further uptown. NYU's move to the Bronx occurred in 1894, spearheaded by the efforts of Chancellor Henry Mitchell MacCracken . The University Heights campus

10455-474: The original separate books. The Historical Illuminatus Chronicles , composed of The Earth Will Shake (1982), The Widow's Son (1985), and Nature's God (1991), follows the timelines of several characters through different generations, time periods, and countries. The books cover a range of topics, including (but not limited to) the history, legacy, and rituals of the Illuminati and related groups. Masks of

10578-543: The other being located in Athens. Meant to provide faculty and graduate students with NYU infrastructural support while conducting international research projects, those who are interested can apply for fellowships at all sites during the academic-year and a limited number of sites during the summer. Spearheaded by John Sexton , president of the university during 2002—2015; in Fall 2010, New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) opened as

10701-765: The plaza include the Bonomi Family Admissions Center, the Jeffrey S. Gould Welcome Center, the Alumni Relations building, Goddard Hall, Frederick Loewe Theatre, and the main building for the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, as well as unrelated religious institutions such as Judson Memorial Church , the Islamic Center at NYU, and Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion . Because of its high student traffic during

10824-481: The police station. Many workers who were not local were then deported to their home countries. The university quickly responded to the reports with an apology to the workers. Though the campus construction costs were entirely funded by the Abu Dhabi government, as will be the operational costs and any future expansions, in 2015, NYU additionally compensated thousands of migrant workers on its Abu Dhabi complex. Unlike NYU's other study abroad centers, NYUAD functions as

10947-440: The present Tandon School of Engineering . After the sale of the Bronx campus, University College merged with Washington Square College. In the 1980s, under the leadership of President John Brademas , NYU launched a billion-dollar campaign that was led by Naomi B. Levine and was spent almost entirely on updating facilities. The campaign was set to complete in 15 years, but ended up being completed in 10. In 1991, L. Jay Oliva

11070-713: The present, and the Food and Cookery Collection, which documents American food history with a focus on New York City. Bobst Library also houses the Tamiment Library, which holds collections in labor history, socialism, anarchism, communism, and American radicalism for scholarly research. Tamiment includes the Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, the Archives of Irish America, the Center for the Cold War and

11193-557: The reader break free of one's reality tunnels . With Leary, he helped promote the futurist ideas of space migration , intelligence increase , and life extension , which they combined to form the word symbol SMI²LE . Wilson's 1986 book, The New Inquisition , argues that whatever reality consists of it actually would seem much weirder than we commonly imagine. It cites, among other sources, Bell's theorem and Alain Aspect 's experimental proof of Bell's to suggest that mainstream science has

11316-549: The resulting "energies" they unleash could lead people to "go totally nuts". Wilson also criticized scientific types with overly rigid belief systems, equating them with religious fundamentalists in their fanaticism . In a 1988 interview, when asked about his newly published book The New Inquisition: Irrational Rationalism and the Citadel of Science , Wilson commented: I coined the term irrational rationalism because those people claim to be rationalists, but they're governed by such

11439-445: The right of jurors to nullify a law they deem unjust. Wilson advocated for and wrote about E-Prime , a form of English lacking all forms of the verb "to be" (such as "is", "are", "was", "were" etc.). "Is", "is." "is" —the idiocy of the word haunts me. If it were abolished, human thought might begin to make sense. I don't know what anything "is" ; I only know how it seems to me at this moment. A decades-long researcher into drugs and

11562-495: The school had issued some which approached zero percent interest rates, and some that were partially forgiven. Uniquely, among universities, the school had also issued multi-million-dollar loans for luxury vacation homes. President Sexton would step down at the end of his term in 2016, in the wake of a vote of no confidence in March 2013, closely followed by controversy over having received a vacation home loan from NYU. In August 2018,

11685-488: The south, Broadway to the east, 14th Street to the north, and Sixth Avenue (Avenue of the Americas) to the west. The core of NYU consists of buildings that surround Washington Square Park. In addition to its New York campus, NYU has 49 additional buildings overseas located throughout two 'portal' campuses and 12 Global Academic Centers. Since the late 1970s, the central part of NYU has been its Washington Square campus in

11808-482: The southern edge of Washington Square Park (at 70 Washington Square South) and is the flagship of an eight-library, 4.5 million-volume system. Bobst Library offers one Multidisciplinary Reference Center, a Research Commons, 28 miles (45 km) of open-stacks shelving, and approximately 2,000 seats for student study. The library is visited by more than 6,800 users each day, and circulates more than one million books annually. Bobst's Avery Fisher Center for Music and Media

11931-512: The stage when Ken Campbell produced it as a ten-hour drama. It also appeared as two card based games from Steve Jackson Games , one a trading-card game ( Illuminati: New World Order ). Eye N Apple Productions and Rip Off Press produced a comic book version of the trilogy. Wilson wrote two more popular fiction series. The first, a trilogy later published as a single volume, was Schrödinger's Cat . The second, The Historical Illuminatus Chronicles , appeared as three books. In between publishing

12054-402: The support by posting the following comment on his personal website, expressing his gratitude: Dear Friends, my God, what can I say. I am dumbfounded, flabbergasted, and totally stunned by the charity and compassion that has poured in here the last three days. To steal from Jack Benny, "I do not deserve this, but I also have severe leg problems and I don't deserve them either." Because he was

12177-412: The terms of a plan for a new university. These New Yorkers believed the city needed a university designed for young men who would be admitted based upon merit rather than birthright or social class. On April 18, 1831, the institution that would become NYU was established with the support of a group of prominent New York City residents from the city's merchants , bankers , and traders . Albert Gallatin

12300-636: The themes of the Illuminatus! books throughout his writing career. Most of his later fiction contains cross-over characters from The Sex Magicians (Wilson's first novel, written before the release of Illuminatus! , which includes many of his same characters) and The Illuminatus! Trilogy . Illuminatus! won the Prometheus Hall of Fame award for Best Classic Fiction, voted by the Libertarian Futurist Society for science fiction in 1986, has many international editions, and found adaptation for

12423-523: The things they have a prejudice against. None of them ever says anything skeptical about the AMA, or about anything in establishment science or any entrenched dogma. They're only skeptical about new ideas that frighten them. They're actually dogmatically committed to what they were taught when they were in college. In a 2003 interview with High Times magazine, Wilson described himself as "model-agnostic" which he said consists of never regarding any model or map of

12546-486: The three books in differing alternative universes , in which the cast of characters remains almost the same aside from variations in names, careers and background stories. The books cover the fields of quantum mechanics and the varied philosophies and explanations that exist within the science. The single volume describes itself as a magical textbook and a type of initiation . The single-volume edition omits many entire pages and has many other omissions when compared with

12669-566: The top fundraising institutions in the country, raising $ 506.4 million in 2015 and $ 648 million in 2016. NYU is also the 19th wealthiest university in America with $ 5.3 billion in cash and investments in fiscal year 2014. NYU's New York City campus includes more than 171 buildings spread between Manhattan and Brooklyn . Most of the school's buildings in Manhattan are located across a roughly 230-acre (93 ha) area bounded by Houston Street to

12792-624: The troubles spread to the city's institutions, including NYU. Feeling the pressures of imminent bankruptcy, NYU President James McNaughton Hester negotiated the sale of the University Heights campus to the City University of New York , which occurred in 1973. In 1973, the New York University School of Engineering and Science merged into Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn , which eventually merged back into NYU in 2014, forming

12915-413: The two trilogies Wilson released a stand-alone novel, Masks of the Illuminati (1981), which, due to the main character's ancestry, fits into the timeline of The Historical Illuminatus Chronicles and, while published earlier, may qualify as the fourth volume in that series. Schrödinger's Cat consists of three volumes: The Universe Next Door , The Trick Top Hat , and The Homing Pigeons . Wilson set

13038-508: The universe with total 100% belief or total 100% denial. Following Korzybski, I put things in probabilities, not absolutes ... My only originality lies in applying this zetetic attitude outside the hardest of the hard sciences, physics, to softer sciences and then to non-sciences like politics, ideology, jury verdicts and, of course, conspiracy theory. Wilson claimed in Cosmic Trigger: Volume 1 "not to believe anything", since "belief

13161-577: The university opened The Grey Art Gallery at 100 Washington Square East, housing the NYU art collection and featuring museum quality exhibitions. NYU has successfully completed a seven-year, $ 2.5 billion campaign, surpassing expectations by raising more than $ 3 billion over the seven-year period. Started in 2001, this campaign was the university's largest in its history, in which they planned to "raise $ 1 million per day for scholarships and financial aid, faculty building, new academic initiatives, and enhancing NYU's physical facilities." The campaign included

13284-470: The university were still frequently subjecting their workers to third-world labor conditions. The article documented that these conditions included confiscation of worker passports, forced overtime, recruitment fees and cockroach-filled dorms where workers had to sleep under beds. According to the article, workers who attempted to protest the NYU contractors' conditions were promptly arrested. Reports also claimed that those arrested by police were later abused at

13407-430: The university's first female president. From 2007 to 2018, NYU experienced a 114% increase in applications to its university system, increasing from around 35,000 applicants to more than 100,000 in 2020. This has also caused the acceptance rate to drop significantly, with a record-low acceptance rate of 8% in 2023 and 2024. In parallel to NYU's expansion in the early 1900s, the university similarly expanded vigorously in

13530-563: The university's first overseas "Portal Campus" with an inaugural class of 150 students. The campus faced controversy even before it opened. In 2009, the university responded to a series of interviews in The New York Times that showed a pattern of labor abuses at its fledgling Abu Dhabi location (which would open for classes the next year), creating a statement of labor values for Abu Dhabi campus workers. A 2014 follow-up article found that while some conditions had improved, contractors for

13653-612: The university, is located on East 84th Street, while the Institute of Fine Arts , a graduate school of art history and fine arts, is located at the James B. Duke House at 1 East 78th Street. Additionally, the nearby Stephen Chan House at 14 East 78th Street houses the Conservation Center of the Institute of Fine Arts, which boasts the oldest graduate degree-granting conservation program in

13776-521: The university. In the 1870s, sculptors Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Daniel Chester French lived and worked near the Square. By the 1920s, Washington Square Park was nationally recognized as a focal point for artistic and moral rebellion. As such, the Washington Square campus became more diverse and bustled with urban energy, contributing to academic change at NYU. Famed residents of this time include Eugene O'Neill , John Sloan , and Maurice Prendergast . In

13899-923: The works of Olaf Stapledon , Robert A. Heinlein and Theodore Sturgeon ) and Alfred Korzybski 's interdisciplinary theory of general semantics . He would later recall that the family was "living so well ... compared to the Depression " during this period "that I imagined we were lace-curtain Irish at last." Following his graduation in 1950, Wilson was employed in a succession of jobs (including ambulance driver, engineering aide, salesman and medical orderly) and absorbed various philosophers and cultural practices (including bebop , psychoanalysis , Friedrich Nietzsche , Alfred Korzybski , James Joyce , Bertrand Russell , Carl Jung , Wilhelm Reich , Leon Trotsky , and Ayn Rand , whom he later repudiated) while writing in his spare time. He studied electrical engineering and mathematics at

14022-535: 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

14145-585: The world. NYU has a host of foreign facilities used for study away programs, referred to as Global Academic Centers. As of 2012 , NYU operates 12 academic sites in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America, including undergraduate academic-year and summer study away programs in Accra , Berlin , Buenos Aires , Florence , London , Los Angeles , Madrid , Paris , Prague , Sydney , Tel Aviv , and Washington, D.C. One of

14268-662: Was beaten to death in an apparent robbery in the store where she worked in 1976 at the age of 15, and became the first person to have her brain preserved by the American Cryonics Society (which was called the Bay Area Cryonics Society at the time). Arlen Riley Wilson died on May 22, 1999, following a series of strokes. Richard Metzger : You have studied the Illuminati for years. Have you come to any conclusion about their aims? Robert Anton Wilson: Usually when people ask me that question, I give them some kind of

14391-601: Was elected as its first president. On April 21, 1831, the new institution received its charter and was incorporated as the University of the City of New York by the New York State Legislature ; older documents often refer to it by that name. The university has been popularly known as New York University since its inception and was officially renamed New York University in 1896. In 1832, NYU held its first classes in rented rooms of four-story Clinton Hall, situated near City Hall. In 1835,

14514-453: Was far more spacious than its predecessor was. As a result, most of the university's operations, along with the undergraduate College of Arts and Science and School of Engineering, were housed there. NYU's administrative operations were moved to the new campus, but the graduate schools of the university remained at Washington Square. In 1914, Washington Square College was founded as the downtown undergraduate college of NYU. In 1935, NYU opened

14637-452: Was inaugurated the 14th president of the university. Following his inauguration, he moved to form the League of World Universities , an international organization consisting of rectors and presidents from urban universities across six continents. The league and its 47 representatives gather every two years to discuss global issues in education . In 2003, President John Sexton launched

14760-430: Was intended to poke fun at the conspiratorial frame of mind. Wilson and Shea derived much of the odder material from letters sent to Playboy magazine while they worked as the editors of its Forum. The books mixed true information with imaginative fiction to engage the reader in what Wilson called " guerrilla ontology ", which he apparently referred to as " Operation Mindfuck " in Illuminatus! The trilogy also outlined

14883-726: Was published as a book in 1987 and first performed at the Edmund Burke Theatre in Dublin , in San Francisco, and in Los Angeles. It features many factual and fictional characters, including Marilyn Monroe , Uncle Sam , and Wilhelm Reich himself. Wilson also wrote and published as books two screenplays , not yet produced: Reality Is What You Can Get Away With: an Illustrated Screenplay (1992) and The Walls Came Tumbling Down (1997). Wilson's book Cosmic Trigger I: The Final Secret of

15006-1030: Was taught by the late Alvin Toffler at the New School in 1966. More generally, the label includes such disparate lay, professional, and academic groups as visionaries, foresight consultants, corporate strategists, policy analysts, cultural critics, planners, marketers, forecasters, prediction market developers, roadmappers, operations researchers, investment managers, actuaries , and other risk analyzers, and future-oriented individuals educated in every academic discipline, including anthropology, complexity studies , computer science , economics, engineering, urban design , evolutionary biology , history, management, mathematics, philosophy, physical sciences, political science, psychology, sociology, systems theory , technology studies, trend analysis, and other disciplines. "Futurology"—or "futures studies", futures research, and foresight—can be summarized as being concerned with "three P's and

15129-503: Was under hospice care at home with friends and family. On October 2, Douglas Rushkoff reported that Wilson was in severe financial trouble. Slashdot , Boing Boing , and the Church of the SubGenius also picked up on the story, linking to Rushkoff's appeal. As his webpage reported on October 10, these efforts succeeded beyond expectation and raised a sum that would have supported him for at least six months. On October 5, 2006, Wilson responded to

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