R. Michael Johnson
@r-michael-johnson.bsky.social
bookish hedonist, guitar player, anti-fascist. I ain't one of them AIs; I'm all natural, carbon-based, with entropy closing in fast. Please Advise? "All human evil comes from a single cause: man's inability to sit still in a room." - Blaise Pascal
Here's yet another plea to read dense, deeply immersive literature and actual books. I try to argue why. You've been reading a lot of articles like this online over the past 12 years, haven't ya? I am not original here, at all. Tell me about your own difficult reads!
On the Decadent Pleasure of Reading Difficult Books
It's a way to understand our modern world, this reading in the dense and difficult
overweeninggeneralist.substack.com
My lifelong evolution trying to find out what's going on with UFOs/aliens. Model Agnosticism, social science and cognitive dissonance theory, UFO cults, government disinformation agents as cottage industry since 1947: why? How trying to understand took me to Psy Ops, endogenous DMT, etc
Swamp Gas, Ball Lightning, Anal Probes and the Stench of Disinformation
My ongoing, evolving relationship with UFOs and aliens, and "all that" OR: Sorry that "Disclosure Day" was such a drag, but I couldda told ya so!
overweeninggeneralist.substack.com
On Robert Anton Wilson's mind-blowing 1962 trips: one on peyote, the other on belladonna. This latter trip is about as horrific a Bad Trip as you'll ever read about, but RAW used this bad trip throughout his writing career, so it was fruitful. ZERO AI. Not used in any way.
Robert Anton Wilson: Two Formative Drug Trips
RAW had two notable experiences before 1963, one that echoed down through his work for decades
overweeninggeneralist.substack.com
Olde timey essay on my life listening to the radio and observing the prosidic aspects of human speech and its effects on us. No AI used, much less even considered.
Radio Days
A life listening to radio and the erotics of disembodied voices
overweeninggeneralist.substack.com
A review of Jos. Flatley's 2026 book The Occult Timothy Leary, which focuses on Leary's life, his influences & especially the influence of Crowley's tarot deck and corresponding symbols and knowledge between systems, whether they be psychological, sociological, philosophical, scientific, or occult.
Book Review: The Occult Timothy Leary
The imaginative fire of correspondences
overweeninggeneralist.substack.com
What does "Osiris is a black god!" actually mean? I do a lot of reading, get sidetracked, get back on track, come up with a few things. You tell me. (ZERO AI used!)
"Osiris is a black god!"
Notes on feeling like an (increasingly?) weirdo reader
overweeninggeneralist.substack.com
Another olde-timey essay with AI not used, in any way. Sex and neologisms: demisexuals, sapiosexuals, young people and their dreams of Dark Academia. Etc. Do new words open up more thinking in "reality"?
Sexy Neologisms
(And some not-so)
overweeninggeneralist.substack.com
A review of Ian McEwan's 2025 novel: what we can know about history, why it matters, the values of AI, how we're in what might be called the Great Derangement due to relative inaction on global warming, the role of the Humanities, nostalgia, and falling in love with people from history.
Thesis On History #7
A review of Ian McEwan's What We Can Know (2025)
overweeninggeneralist.substack.com
Another non-AI essay on Sex (sacred sperm), Food (the hidden influence of the military), and Death (taphophobia: the fear of being buried alive).
Sex, Food, Death (episode Gimel)
Sex: mystical semen; Food: influence of military; Death: taphophobia
overweeninggeneralist.substack.com
What do we do when one of our favorite artists, writers, thinkers...does something egregious? An essay NOT using AI.
"The Ezra Pound Problem"
And how Robert Anton Wilson and some other poets dealt with it
overweeninggeneralist.substack.com
An open-firehose rant on what I see as a supremely lamentable cultural situation: the "Manosphere."
Rant: On the "Masculinity Crisis"
And it is a rant, and overweening at that. CAUTION; This might not be "your thang"!
overweeninggeneralist.substack.com
Robert Anton Wilson and the trippy romance of mathematical ideas. He's but one of a number of eccentric intellectuals who sought to fire the popular imaginary with ideas emanating from mathematical thought, mostly starting in England in the 1870s. An olde-timey essay, with no goddamned AI used.
Robert Anton Wilson and The Laws of Form
Reflections on RAW and his background in Math and Engineering
overweeninggeneralist.substack.com
On having been from a broken lower middle class home and having read a ton of "elite" social theory/theory about elites and class warfare and about the very rich: what do you do with all that? Keep your sense of humor, for one thing!
Elite Theory: Call It What You Will
Sociology? Conspiracy Theory? Deep Politics? Realpolitick? Modern Machiavellian Practices? Parapolitics? Institutional Analysis? Becoming "Tough-Minded"?
overweeninggeneralist.substack.com
A brief history of radical skepticism, from Lao-Tzu and Pyrrho to Montaigne to McLuhan and Robert Anton Wilson, whose "Model Agnosticism" can make you smarter, sexier, funnier, and less of a Cosmic Schmuck know-it-all. Maybe?
Model Agnosticism: Precursors, Examples
Associated terms, etc.
overweeninggeneralist.substack.com
Robert Anton Wilson's Model Agnosticism: epistemology as a life-practice which can make you smarter, happier and more of your own type of mystic-critter. Also: it's sorta exhilarating, even when you're wrong. overweeninggeneralist.substack.com/p/model-agno...
Model Agnosticism: Get Smarter and Happier
On the joys of epistemology and being wrong
overweeninggeneralist.substack.com
overweeninggeneralist.substack.com/p/dreamed-an... An olde-timey essay on dreams, dream research, the widespread denigration of dreams, how some Modernist writers used dreams, and humor around the activity and experience of dreams.
Dreamed Anything Good Lately?
Musing on dreams
overweeninggeneralist.substack.com
overweeninggeneralist.substack.com/p/intelligen... Will Levin's bio-electric model open up the materialist RNA-DNA paradigm, or shatter it altogether? Time will tell.
Intelligence: Michael Levin's General View
My intuition tells me this is the place. Or one of them, at least
overweeninggeneralist.substack.com
The idea of "intelligence" being about the mammalian brain and it neural connections is really on its way out. Here's just one reason: overweeninggeneralist.substack.com/p/meditation...
Meditation on Intelligence
Near-Brainless Cognition, etc. Something WEIRD is goin' on...
overweeninggeneralist.substack.com
An old-"timey" essay on our desire to escape the strictures of space-time within the ambits of our daily lives. overweeninggeneralist.substack.com/p/escape-hat...
Escape Hatch: Time
On wanting to get lost and separate ourselves from mundane, stupid "reality"
overweeninggeneralist.substack.com
overweeninggeneralist.substack.com/p/sexfooddea... On Jeffrey Epstein's "misreading" of Lolita; physiology of taste; death and the value of memento mori.
Sex/Food/Death (episode: Beth)
Sex: Jeffrey Epstein’s “Misreading” of Lolita
overweeninggeneralist.substack.com
overweeninggeneralist.substack.com/p/raws-publi... 4000 words, with lots of digressions, on sombunall of Robert Anton Wilson's editors and publishers.
RAW's Publishers, Part 2
Notes on And/Or, Krassner, Ginzburg, Roseman, and Fass. Part 3 will address Hyatt/New Falcon and a few loose ends
overweeninggeneralist.substack.com
Yet another Thesis on History: why are we so damned miserable? Why hasn't this panned out? Why do so many wealthy people seem not to actually have creative...I dunno "lives"? Where are we going? I'm spitballin' and baffled. Someone enlighten me, por favor?
