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The late Robert Anton Wilson was an author of 58 mindbending books, including The Illuminatus Trilogy (with Robert Shea), The Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy, Cosmic Trigger, the stage play Wilhelm Reich in Hell, and many more.
His books contain examples of:
- Ancient Conspiracy
- Arc Words: The words: "No wife, no horse, no mustache" echoes in several of his novels.
- Author Avatar: A character named Hans Zoesser appears in the Historical Illuminatus series; in the Cosmic Trigger series, Wilson mentions at one point being told that he is a reincarnation of one Hans Zoesser (Cosmic Trigger was written first).
- Author Tract
- Beethoven Was an Alien Spy
- Belief Makes You Stupid: Bob's personal philosophy was "I don't believe in anything, but I have many suspicions." His novels often repeat the mantra: "Only madman is absolutely certain."
- Bury Your Gays
- Many gay and transsexual characters do end up receiving happy endings as well, however.
- Brown Note
- Character Filibuster
- Cool Boat
- Footnote Fever
- Gender Bender: In Schroedinger's Cat-trilogy some recurring characters' genders vary depending on the universe. One major character is also a male-to-female transsexual who causes outrage by having her former, impressive sexual organs stuffed and displayed prominently over the mantle.
- The Hecate Sisters
- Historical In-Joke
- Lampshade Hanging: Almost constantly in his novels.
- Magic Music
- Masquerade
- Mind Screw
- No Fourth Wall
- Painting the Fourth Wall (when there is one)
- Prison Rape
- Properly Paranoid
- Punny Name
- Reference Overdosed
- Satire, Parody, Pastiche (all three)
- Unusual Chapter Numbers
- Unusual Euphemism - In his sexually explicit Schrodinger's Cat Trilogy, Wilson used the names of prominent real-world Moral Guardians for sex acts and organs. The rationale for this was that some of these people claimed that the words were inherently offensive. Wilson reasoned that if it was the words, and not the acts, which were offensive, these same people could hardly find their own names offensive. Interestingly, his replacements include roughly equal numbers of conservative Supreme Court Justices and prominent Feminists.