Robert Anton Wilson - Ishtar Rising

Why the Goddess Went to Hell
and What to Expect
Now That She's Returning

Foreword by
Grant Morrison

Copyright 1989 Robert Anton Wilson

All rights reserved. No part of this book, in part or in whole, may be reproduced, transmitted, or utilized, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher, except for brief quotations in critical articles, books and reviews.

International Standard Book Number (eBook): 978-1-7344735-1-3

First Edition 1989
Second Printing 1994
Third Printing 1997
Second Print Edition 2020, Hilaritas Press

eBook Edition 2020, Hilaritas Press

Cover Design by amoeba

eBook design by Pelorian Digital

Hilaritas Press, LLC.

P.O. Box 1153

Grand Junction, Colorado 81502
www.hilaritaspress.com

A Note From Hilaritas Press:

Decisions about how to put together the new Hilaritas Press edition of Ishtar Rising presented us with an array of issues that arise from the Books historical iterations. The 1974 Playboy Press edition, The Book of the Breast, a commissioned work from the magazine, had photographs interspersed throughout the text with captions written by Bob that followed the written narrative.

When Bob regained the rights to the book from Playboy Press in the mid 1980s, he decided to republish it with the text largely as originally written, but with a new title and a new foreword. This new edition was published through a small publishing house, New Falcon Publications. The book that emerged in 1989 (sadly filled with typos), was quite different from the original. The New Falcon edition had inserted new photos and only SOME of the original photos, and all the photographs were clumped together in the center of the book, with no photo captions. We can only surmise that the effort of obtaining legal rights to all of the original photographs was deemed either too expensive or too daunting, as the New Falcon photo choices were quite different from the original. We also are guessing that if you couldnt get all the original photos, then entering Bobs original photo captions on just some of the images probably did not make sense.

In the new Hilaritas Press edition of Ishtar Rising , we have attempted to honor Bobs original guidelines, and recreate the Playboy layout as much as possible. We took the time, effort and considerable expense of tracking down and gaining rights to as many of the original photos as possible. For those photos for which we could not locate permissions, we found suitable substitutions that worked with Bobs photo captions. In many cases, when finding images that Playboy used, we were able to obtain the same image but at a much higher quality. Because of improvements in digital processing and printing, we can not only offer superior graphics, but also an Ishtar Rising in full color. We hope you enjoy the result!

Amor et Pasta Volans

Hilaritas Press Partners, Rasa and Christina

Contents

Dedication

To the women of planet Earth
this study of unity in duality

"To the little boy in me, I am a God, you are a Goddess
To the little girl in you, you are a Goddess, I am a God
To the God in me, I am a little boy, to the Goddess in you.
To the Goddess in you, you are a little girl, to the God in me."

John Lilly, M.D.
The Center of the Cyclone

It was the sad time after the death of the fair young god of spring, Tammuz. The beautiful goddess, Ishtar, who loved Tammuz dearly, followed him to the halls of Eternity, defying the demons who guard the Gates of Time.

But at the first Gate, the guardian demon forced Ishtar to surrender her sandals, which the wise men say symbolizes giving up Will. And at the second Gate, Ishtar had to surrender her jeweled anklets, which the wise say means giving up Ego. And at the third Gate, she surrendered her robe, which is hardest of all because it is giving up Mind itself. And at the forth Gate, she surrendered her golden breast-cups, which is giving up Sex Role. And at the fifth Gate, she surrendered her necklace, which is giving up the rapture of illumination. And at the sixth Gate, she surrendered her earrings, which is giving up magick. And finally, at the seventh Gate, Ishtar surrendered her thousand-petaled crown, which is giving up Godhood.

It was only thus, naked, that Ishtar could enter Eternity.

R.A.W.
Cosmic Trigger

Introduction to the 2020 Edition

by Grant Morrison

Back in 1973, when our enlightened boy wonder Robert Anton Wilson wrote the first version of Ishtar Rising , then entitled The Book of the Breast , the world was a very different place, and this book is, in many ways, a product of its times, as modern readers will swiftly realize to varying levels of dismay or delight; products as they are of their own particular times.

The Book of the Breast is a title clearly deployed to entice the attentions of Playboy magazines erudite readership of pipe-smoking, pyjama-wearing, jet-setting bachelor millionaires. The original book is enlivened for this purpose with photographs of Sophia Loren in a wet and clingy dress," juxtaposed with stark images of the Venus of Willendorf. The New Falcon edition later added Tina Turner shaking it all out with a Mick Jagger who contrived to look somehow vigorously elderly even then.

The low quality of the crepuscular black-and-white pix is such that Welch and Turner may as well have been photographed within a week of the famous Neolithic representation of fertile womanhood, by the same snapper, using the same Flintstones-style box Brownie camera made of bamboo and seashells.

The publicity mugshot busts of Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor only add to the tawdry, carnivalesque impression of an ancient What-The-Butler-Saw crank-operated peepshow that promises more than it can deliver.

The Book of the Breast as Wilson admits, was a work-for-hire freelance writer gig. Strapped for cash and offered the task of filling a hundred-or-so pages with ruminations on the subject of tits (for a publication, lets remind ourselves, whose raison detre was the objectification advocates might offer glorification of women, and specifically the breasts of women), the great pop philosopher seized the opportunity to transcend the brief and deliver something of long-lasting value and still-subversive impact.

But buyer beware: the opening chapters offer Bob the stand-up, disciple of Lenny Bruce, stuck with an unpromising gig entertaining the rubes and rowdies at some downtown Bunny Club in early 1970-somewhere. He starts out by adopting a locker-room vernacular aimed squarely at what he assumes must be an all-male audience, out there under the stacked-tray layers of nicotine smoke past the footlights.

The blue patter seems calculated to put the voyeuristic clientele at ease, lowering their emotional and intellectual defences just long enough to slip the needle home and administer a little medicine to these presumed men, some of whom may never have imagined human concerns and fears behind the cottontail, floppy ears, well-rehearsed smile, and generously-stuffed dcolletage of the average Playboy Club waitress.