Prometheus Rising

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Prometheus Rising
Author	Robert Anton Wilson
Cover artist	Stan Slaughter
Country	USA
Language	English
Subject(s)	Self-improvement/philosophy & morality; publisher description: "Psychology/Social Commentary"
Genre(s)	Nonfiction
Publisher	New Falcon Publications
Publication date	1983; 1984; 1986; 1987; 1989; 1990; 1992; 1994; 1997 (Second Revised Edition); 1999; 2000; 2001; 2002; 2003; 2004; 2005; 2006; 2007
Media type	Softcover
Pages	262
ISBN	ISBN 1-56184-056-4; LCCN 83-81665

Prometheus Rising by Robert Anton Wilson is a guide book of "how to get from here to there", an amalgam of Timothy Leary's 8-circuit model of consciousness, Gurdjieff's self-observation exercises, Alfred Korzybski's general semantics, Aleister Crowley's magical theorems, Sociobiology, Yoga, Christian Science, relativity, and quantum mechanics amongst other approaches to understanding the world around us. It claims to be a short book (nearly 300 pages) about how the human mind works and how to get the most use from one. Wilson describes it as an "owner's manual for the human brain".

Copyrighted and published in 1983, Prometheus Rising began as Wilson's Ph.D. dissertation called "The Evolution of Neuro-Sociological Circuits: A Contribution to the Sociobiology of Consciousness" in 1978-79 for Paideia University. In 1982, while in Ireland, Wilson rewrote the manuscript for commercial publication, removing footnotes, bolding up the style, adding chapters and exercises, and sketching out diagrams for the illustrations. Eventually Wilson submitted the work to Falcon Publications, which accepted it within 48 hours with Wilson receiving his advance 48 hours after that, according to Wilson's preface to the tenth printing of Prometheus Rising.

The book examines many aspects of social mind control and mental imprinting; it provides mind exercises at the end of every chapter, with the goal of giving the reader more control over how one's mind works. The book has found many readers among followers of alternative culture as it also discusses the effect of certain psychoactive substances and how these affect the brain, moving on to tantric breathing techniques, holistic approaches and other methods.