Why 'Shugarius'?

I think the prime directive here should be to have fun, especially since the study of history, as well as some of the other themes of Dan Brown, can get you into so many serious and moody topics. So I try not to take myself seriously, and I trust that you will help me with this. Esoterica buffs tend to become way too self-important, I think.

As a journalist, I do try to be absolutely accurate and to reveal my sources (with very rare exceptions), and I hope this comes through, even in the midst of some frivolity at times.

Anyway, one of the great fun-loving people who is linked to our work is Robert Anton Wilson, author of the Illuminatus Chronicles and particularly, a book of that series titled "The Widow's Son." This was published originally back in 1985 and has just been re-published due to the interest that has arisen in the Illuminati (surely due to Dan Brown) and the allusions to the Widow's Son, which I weave into the title of my book.

Robert A. Wilson is a guy who knows how to have fun. He has one heck of an imagination, and he has been thumbing his nose at the establishment for many decades. In our earlier book related to Dan Brown's Angels & Demons (Secrets of Angels & Demons), we were fortunate to have an interview with Wilson titled, "I didn't go looking for the Illuminati; they came looking for me." I found this interview simply hilarious.

In the interview, Wilson tells how, back in the 1960s, there was a witch-hunt of a kind conducted by Jim Garrison, district attorney of New Orleans, who had formed an ever-broadening theory of conspiracy in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Garrison began to investigate lots of people, including some Berkeley radicals who had invented themselves as the "Bavarian Illuminati" and gave themselves fictitious titles. The idea was to "send Garrison on a snark hunt." Wilson was in the thick of it.

Wilson and his "Illuminati" friends did a great job spreading word of themselves through the "counter-culture," and soon Garrison's investigators found too many leads to pursue. The Illuminati were popping up everywhere, and seemed to be involved in a worldwide conspiracy touching everything and everyone! Wilson continued to do his research and writing in all areas of magic, occult, conspiracies, physics and a mix of almost everything else you can think of. But he specifically does not take himself too seriously and in that, he is a hero of mine.

In researching my book, I had been reading about all of the great magicians, monks, scryers, alchemists and philosophers (in other words, all the early physicians) and it occurred to me I did not yet have a dignified title--like, for instance, Johann von Trittenheim, who became known as Trithemius. I will explain why Trithemius is a hero of mine some other time. But, in honor of Trithemius and Robert A. Wilson both, please call me Shugarius. (Not yet "Doctor" Shugarius, but I have hopes--I am still working on a PhD in KnowItAllogy.)

This will be the last "No Comment Allowed" post for a while. It was just to get a few preliminaries out of the way.