Play Nice Random Chat Thread: Episode III

[ferball]

Q. Here’s a confession. In my article on the conspiracy convention in High Times, I did a reverse of satirical prophecy. I had once asked Mae Brussell, the queen of conspiracy researchers, why the conspirators didn’t kill her, and she explained that agents always work on a need-to-know basis, but they would read her work and show up wherever she spoke, in order to get a peek at the big picture, because it was “a safety valve for them,” she said, “on how far things are going.” I asked, “Are you saying that the intelligence community has allowed you to function precisely because you know more than any of them?” And she replied, “Exactly.” Well, in my HIGH TIMES satire, I put those words into the mouth of somewhat fraudulent conspiracy researcher David Icke. Anyway, my question is, do you think the conspirators allow you to live because you know too much?


A. I doubt it. I don’t think they’ve ever heard of me. They don’t read books.


Q. The original meaning of conspiracy was “to breathe together.” What’s your personal definition of conspiracy?


A. When me and me friends gits together to advance our common interests, that’s an affinity group. When any crowd I don’t like does it, that’s a goddam conspiracy.


Q. After my HIGH TIMES column on the Prophets Conference, in which I referred to you as “the irreverent bad boy at this oh-so-polite conference,” why were you disinvited from speaking at future Prophets Conferences?


A. A lot of my fans think I got booted for lack of respect for His Royal Fraudulency George II. I take that as an assertion beyond proof or disproof. The managers said it was for finding a Joycean epiphany in a Spike Lee movie. I take that as an assertion beyond even comprehension.


Q. I’d like to hear about your—perhaps psychotic?—experience with higher consciousness and the resulting epiphany.


A. I have had not one but many seeming encounters with seemingly nonhuman intelligences. The first was a Christmas tree that loved me—loved me more than my parents or my wife or my kids, or even my dog. I was on peyote at the time. With and without other drugs—for instance by Cabala—I have seemingly contacted a medieval Irish bard, an ancient Chinese alchemist, an extraterrestrial from the Sirius system, and a giant white rabbit called the pook or pookah from County Kerry. I finally accepted that if you already have a multi-model ontology going into the shamanic world, you’re going to come out with multi-model results. As Wilson’s Fourth Law sez, “With sufficient research you will find evidence to support your theory.” So I settled on the magick rabbit as the model nobody could take literally, not even myself. The real shocker came when I discovered that my grandmother’s people, the O’Lachlanns, came from Kerry and allegedly have a clan pookah who protects us from becoming English by adding periodic doses of weirdness to our lives.

 

[ferball]

BTW A pookah is a giant white rabbit.

 

[ferball]

Q. The dedication in my book, Murder At the Conspiracy Convention and Other American Absurdities, reads: “This one is for Robert Anton Wilson—guerrilla ontologist, part-time post-modernist, Damned Old Crank, my weirdest friend and favorite philosopher.” Since these are all terms you’ve used to label yourself, would you explain what each one means?


A. Well, I picked up “guerrilla ontology” from the Physics/Consciousness Research Group when I was a member back in the 1970s. Physicists more usually call it “model agnosticism,” and it consists of never regarding any model or map of Universe with total 100% belief or total 100% denial. Following Korzybski, I put things in probabilities, not absolutes. I give most of modern physics over 90% probability, the Loch Ness Monster around 50% probability and anything the State Department says under 5% probability. As Bucky Fuller used to say, “Universe is nonsimultaneously apprehended”—nobody can apprehend it all at once—so we have no guarantee that today’s best model will fit what we may discover tomorrow. My only originality lies in applying this zetetic attitude outside the hardest of the hard sciences, physics, to softer sciences and then to non-sciences like politics, ideology, jury verdicts and, of course, conspiracy theory. Also, I have a strong aversion, almost an allergy, to Belief Systems, or B.S.—a convenient abbreviation I owe to David Jay Brown. A neurolinguistic diet high in B.S. and low in instrumental data eventually produces Permanent Brain Damage, a lurching gait, blindness and hairy palms like a werewolf.


Then I started calling myself a post-modernist after that label got pinned on me in two different books, one on my sociological works and one on my science-fiction. Then I read some of the post-modernists and decided they were only agnostic about other people’s dogmas, not their own. So then I switched to Damned Old Crank, which seems to suit my case better than either of the previous labels. Besides, once my hair turned snowy white, some people wanted to promote me to a Sage, and I had to block that. It’s more dangerous to a writer than booze. By the way, Congress should impeach Dubya and impound Asa Hutchinson.


Q. Since you believe that the universe is indifferent, why are you an optimist?


A. It may have genetic origins—some of us bounce up again no matter what we get hit with—but as far as I can rationalize it, nobody knows the future, so choosing between pessimism and optimism depends on temperament as much as probabilities. Psychologist John Barefoot has studied this extensively and concludes that optimists live about 20% longer than pessimists. When the outcome remains unknown, why should I make the bet that keeps me miserable and shortens my life? I prefer the gamble that keeps me high, happy, and creative, and also increases lifespan. It’s like the advantage of pot over aspirin. Pot not only kills pain better, but the High boosts the immune system. High and happy moods prolong life, miserable and masochistic moods shorten it.


Q. Recently, when I spoke at a college campus, a student asked what I wanted my epitaph to be. I replied, “Wait, I’m not finished.” What do you want your epitaph to be?


A. I have ordained in my will that my body will get cremated and the ashes thrown in Jerry Falwell’s face. The executor of my will should then shout one word only: “Gotcha!”


Robert Anton Wilson is the coauthor (with the late Robert Shea), of the underground classic The Illuminatus! Trilogy which won the 1986 Prometheus Hall of Fame Award. His other writings include Schrodinger’s Cat Trilogy, called “the most scientific of all science fiction novels” by New Scientist, and many nonfiction works of Futurist psychology and guerilla ontology. Wilson, who sees himself as a Futurist, author, and stand-up comic, regularly gives seminars at Esalan and other New Age centers. Wilson has made both a comedy record (Secrets of Power), and a punk rock record (The Chocolate Biscuit Conspiracy), and his play, Wilhelm Reich in Hell, has been performed throughout the world. His novel Illuminatus! was adapted as a 10-hour science fiction rock epic and performed under the patronage of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II at Great Britain’s National Theatre, where Wilson appeared in a special cameo role. He is also a former editor at Playboy magazine.

 

[ferball]

I know that was a bit of a spam session but trust me its worth reading.

Especially with so much Alex Jones stuff in here. If you want to be a conspiracy theorist take a leaf out of RAWilson's Book - specifically the Illuminatus Trilogy - and do it with wit, that is real, actual humour and a large dose of intelligence.

 

[ferball]

BTW The guy who demanded the investigation into Reagan's shooting didn't die in a plane crash. His plane was shot down by the Russians in the early 80s. Well that is the story anyway tho i do remember it happening. Newt Gaingridge eventually won his spot.

 

[Val Keating]

I could show you how if you like....

Let’s do it

 

[Sopwiths North]

I reckon he's a long way from Paul Krassner.

(BTW I've had some weird "past life" type experiences, spontaneously or whatever and I dunno what to make of them. They were remarkable hence remarking about them. DNA is a very strange thing. Its incredibly complex and we only know so much about it but the code it carries stretches from you back to some of the earliest life on earth thru both of our mutual ancestors (even tho we've never met) and then our entire species' ancestors, the ancestors of all primates, then all mammals, then all vertebrates. Then further for lives beyond count. That code has been carried since life (as we define it) started. That's trippy **** man.)

That's interesting ferbs, about the DNA. I hadn't thought about that. I've had similar..well.. "stuff" happen to me. No peyote or drugs of any kind involved though, I do energy work, and I don't know what to make of half the stuff that comes up for me, but it's so detailed sometimes. Yet random. I've always just put it down to time being non-linear, but the DNA thing is cool to think about.

 

[Groin guru]

Here's an interview - with the founder of this political party - The Guns and Dope Party, a Libertarian Party in the US that (if they still exist) i would definitely be a member of if I lived there - Robert Anton Wilson by Paul Krassner for High Times magazine around the time of the second US - Iraq war.

Wilson is (was) someone who genuinely lives, well lived, up to the title "Libertarian" and one the greatest US thinkers of last century.

I had to get it from the wayback machine so there is no link.

Paul Krassner Interviews
Robert Anton Wilson
from High Times #331, March 2003

I [Paul Krassner] first met Bob Wilson in 1959. The ’60s counterculture was in its embryonic stage, exploding out of the blandness, repression and piety of the Eisenhower-Nixon administration, Reverend Norman Vincent Peale’s positive thinking and Snooky Lanson singing “It’s a Marshmallow World” on TV’s Lucky Strike Hit Parade.


Wilson had written his first article, “The Semantics of God,” which I eagerly published in The Realist. “The Believer,” he wrote, “had better face himself and ask squarely: Do I literally believe ‘God’ has a penis? If the answer is no, then it seems only logical to drop the ridiculous practice of referring to ‘God’ as ‘He.'” Wilson then started writing a regular column, “Negative Thinking.”


His books include The Illuminatus! Trilogy (with Robert Shea); the Cosmic Trigger trilogy, The New Inquisition, the Schrodinger’s Cat trilogy, Prometheus Rising, The Walls Came Tumbling Down, Wilhelm Reich in Hell, Natural Law, Sex and Drugs, and Everything is Under Control: An Encyclopedia of Conspiracy Theories.


He is also the subject of a feature-length documentary movie by Lance Bauscher, Maybe Logic: The Lives and Ideas of Robert Anton Wilson, featuring 23 different Bobs, Tom Robbins, R.U. Sirius, George Carlin and myself. For more information, go to maybelogic.com.


In 1964, I published Wilson’s front-cover story, “Timothy Leary and His Psychological H-Bomb.” “The future may decide,” he began, “that the two greatest thinkers of the 20th Century were Albert Einstein, who showed how to create atomic fission in the physical world, and Timothy Leary, who showed how to create atomic fission in the psychological world. The latter discovery may be more important than the former; there are some reasons for thinking that it was made necessary by the former….”


I hereby nominate Bob Wilson as the third greatest thinker of the 20th Century, who continues to explore his consciousness and communicate his ideas and causes—with passion, wit, imagination and insight—into the 21st Century. This interview was conducted by the electronic magic of e-mail.



Q. You’ve written 34 books with the aid of pot. Could you describe that process?


A. It’s rather obsessive-compulsive, I think. I write the first draft straight, then rewrite stoned, then rewrite straight again, then rewrite stoned again, and so on, until I’m absolutely delighted with every sentence, or irate editors start reminding me about deadlines—whichever comes first. Hemingway and Raymond Chandler had similar compulsions but used the wrong drug, booze, and they both attempted suicide. Papa succeeded but poor Ray didn’t and just looked like a sloppy alcoholic. (He tried to shoot himself in the head and missed.) Faulkner also had obsessive components and died by falling off a horse, drunk. I don’t think booze is a very safe drug for us obsessive-compulsives. Almost as bad as becoming known as a Sage. By the way, Congress should impeach Dubya and impound Asa Hutchinson.


Q. The piss police read High Times. What would you like to tell them?


A. “You are all equally blessed, equally empty, equally coming Buddhas.” But some of them are such assholes it will take a long time to get from there to here.


Q. Columnist Clarence Page recently wrote about the DEA raiding “a legitimate health co-operative [WAMM, the Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana] that was treating more than 200 patients, some of them terminally ill, in Santa Cruz. Snatching medicine out of the hands of seriously ill patients sounds like terrorism to me. In this case it was federally sponsored and taxpayer-financed.” Tell me about your own relationship with WAMM.


A. I thought you’d never ask. Long before I needed WAMM, Valerie Coral, the founder, came regularly to my Finnegans Wake reading/rapping group and I considered her incredibly bright. As I learned about her WAMM activities, distributing pot to terminal cancer and AIDS patients, sitting with them, giving love and support during the death process, I decided she was also a saint. I never thought I would become another WAMM patient. My post-polio syndrome had been a minor nuisance until then; suddenly two years ago it flared up into blazing pain. My doctor recommended marijuana and named WAMM as the safest and most legal source. By then, I think I was on the edge of suicide; the pain had become like a permanent abscessed tooth in the leg. Nobody can or should endure that. Thanks to Valerie and WAMM, I never have that kind of torture for more than an hour these days. I pop one of their pain pills and I’m up and back at the iMac in, well, if not an hour, then at most two hours. By the way, Congress should impeach Dubya and impound Asa Hutchinson. Or did I say that already?


Q. I think you did.


A. Well, it bears repeating.


Q. When the City Council staged a public giveaway of medical marijuana, a DEA agent asked, “What kind of message are city officials sending to the youth of Santa Cruz?” How would you answer him?


A. “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” I didn’t invent that; I found it in the back of my dictionary, in a dusty old historical document called “U.S. Constitution,” which Dubya seemingly has never heard of, but it’s supposed to be the rules of our government. I wish more people would look at that document, because it has a lot of other radical ideas that seem worth thinking about. Look it up before the Bush Crime Family forces dictionary publishers to remove it. Congress should impeach Dubya and impound Asa Hutchinson. Or does this begin to sound like an echo chamber?


Q. How does all that tie in with your new book, TSOG: The Thing That Ate the Constitution? First, what does TSOG mean, and how do you pronounce it?


A. TSOG means Tsarist Occupation Government and I pronounce it TSOG, so it sounds like a monster in a Lovecraft story. The book presents the evidence that ever since the CIA-Nazi-Tsarist alliance of the 1940s, the Tsarists have taken over as the “brains” of the Control System and America has become a Tsarist nation, with the Constitution only known to those who peek in the back of their dictionaries, like I did. Hell, we even have an official Tsar and he has the alleged “right”—or at least the power—to come between my doctor and me, and decide how much excruciating pain I should suffer before dying. What next? Is he going to rule on controversial questions in physics and astronomy? In mathematical set theory? In biology? Believe me, there’s no Tsar mentioned in the Constitution. Personal doctor/patient matters are left to the individuals. You see, this was supposed to be a free country, not a Tsarist despotism.

STFU you conspiracy theorist nut job!

 

[ferball]

oops forgot the quote...

 

[ferball]

STFU you conspiracy theorist nut job!

Get into Robert Anton Wilson GG. He will make you smarter.

If nothing else read The Illuminatus Trilogy. Its funny as and probably true. If a bit dated.

 

[ferball]

That's interesting ferbs, about the DNA. I hadn't thought about that. I've had similar..well.. "stuff" happen to me. No peyote or drugs of any kind involved though, I do energy work, and I don't know what to make of half the stuff that comes up for me, but it's so detailed sometimes. Yet random. I've always just put it down to time being non-linear, but the DNA thing is cool to think about.

Yeah its weird. Who knows really. Could be our imaginations. Or not ... I dunno.

I really don't. No one does, despite a world full of people selling stuff (material goods, belief systems and everything in between,) off the back of pretending they do. That weird stuff stays with me despite decades in between in some cases.

Consciousness is a strange thing. Best not to make too many assumptions. I think one of the most important ideas in Buddhism is that its a mistake to associate what you think is your consciousness with what you think is your identity. I'm not a Buddhist so I don't really know but that is my impression.

 

[Sopwiths North]

Yeah its weird. Who knows really. Could be our imaginations. Or not ... I dunno.

I really don't. No one does, despite a world full of people selling stuff (material goods, belief systems and everything in between,) off the back of pretending they do. That weird stuff stays with me despite decades in between in some cases.

Consciousness is a strange thing. Best not to make too many assumptions. I think one of the most important ideas in Buddhism is that its a mistake to associate what you think is your consciousness with what you think is your identity. I'm not a Buddhist so I don't really know but that is my impression.

The idea of “identity” is a very 3D thing, and consciousness too, in a way. In the sense that they can be manipulated by our life experience. It’s all ego. When you ask ego to step aside, then the rest can come in, and that seems to be where it all opens up, and then you realise just how little you know or can understand about any of it. I’m not Buddhist either – I don’t subscribe to any religion or set belief of any sort. But Buddhism has some ideas that go alright for me in this particular life. Hinduism too. But they’re just that – ideas, and ways to help us navigate through our experiences. As for a belief system, I have no idea really. I don’t have one. The only thing I’ve come to believe is that anything is possible.

People have told me that what I experience must be just my imagination, but I know it’s not. I know the difference between the two. And plus, it’s often stuff I have no clue about in real life. But then I go and look it up later, and it exists, exactly like how I saw it.

I’ve got no idea how it all fits together, but it really is like having a bunch of little puzzle pieces and no box with the picture on the lid to go from. The stuff we don’t know, it’s endless. How it all works. But I love the little pieces that get randomly downloaded to me.

 

[ferball]

The idea of “identity” is a very 3D thing, and consciousness too, in a way. In the sense that they can be manipulated by our life experience. It’s all ego. When you ask ego to step aside, then the rest can come in, and that seems to be where it all opens up, and then you realise just how little you know or can understand about any of it. I’m not Buddhist either – I don’t subscribe to any religion or set belief of any sort. But Buddhism has some ideas that go alright for me in this particular life. Hinduism too. But they’re just that – ideas, and ways to help us navigate through our experiences. As for a belief system, I have no idea really. I don’t have one. The only thing I’ve come to believe is that anything is possible.

People have told me that what I experience must be just my imagination, but I know it’s not. I know the difference between the two. And plus, it’s often stuff I have no clue about in real life. But then I go and look it up later, and it exists, exactly like how I saw it.

I’ve got no idea how it all fits together, but it really is like having a bunch of little puzzle pieces and no box with the picture on the lid to go from. The stuff we don’t know, it’s endless. How it all works. But I love the little pieces that get randomly downloaded to me.

My old man was a Hindu priest as a kid/young man. Its pretty arcane. Hinduism and Buddhism are old schools of thought. Buddhism isn't even a religion really if you have a good look at it. Although religions build up around it full of stuff that completely contradicts it. Some might say that about Hinduism too but its a bit weird. There are schools of Hinduism that hold reality is sacred and magical but there are no Gods/Goddesses or gods/goddesses and flat out materialist/rationalist belief systems that Richard Dawkins would approve of have come and gone for millenia. Who knows?

When dad died alot of weird stuff came up. We did alot of rituals I'd never had anything to do with. Lots of my family on his side are priests of some sort. One does funerals alot. So he was very generous with his time and care. They were very familiar rituals. Some were pretty simple "magical" practices that turn up in various places around the world but I don't really want to go into details.

Its complicated but suffice to say lots of things I was sceptical about turned out to be 100% accurate. Especially within the context of his life and that belief system. The way the last 15 years of his life played out are almost word perfect to some information we (my brother specifically, he told me pretty soon after) got about what would happen to him. 15 years ago. Allegedly it was his last incarnation on earth and he had a lot of karma, maybe some other word - karma on its own is simple cause and effect there's nothing mystical about it in hinduism - to pay out from this life and all of his past ones. (Its actually way more complex than that as well but for westerners its the best definition.) That's pretty much what happened and unless you knew him and saw everything that happened then it wouldn't make sense. Some incidents were so specific ... but again details are not really anyone else's business.

I'm not a Hindu, I don't "believe" in reincarnation. I don't disbelieve either. Seen enough to think it is a possibility. I don't believe in anything. In that sense - religiously or whatever. I try (not necessarily successfully) to practice what the guy being interviewed above - Robert Anton Wilson - called "model agnosticism" I dunno if its his term or idea or not but its a good one. We don't know anything about reality but we have plenty of models that explain how parts of it work. So use them when they work, use something else when they don't and always be aware you are working with only a small amount of information about whatever situation you are in and you are never really gonna "know" all about it.

Its an ideal worth aspiring to I guess, I don't always do it.

 

[Kangaroos4eva]

Just finishing Dan Carlin's Supernova in the East, superb individual podcast episode.

 

[Val Keating]

Just finishing Dan Carlin's Supernova in the East, superb individual podcast episode.

It’s not an individual episode though mate...it’s a whole series. Only 2 episodes released so far. He’s just been held up because of his project ‘War Remains’
Fantastic series so far though.


Do yourself a favour and try the Martyr Made podcast. If you have the time and patience, Cooper is the best there is at capturing the emotion & atmosphere before heading into his topic. His Fear & Loathing in Jerusalem is as good as Blueprint for Armageddon.

MartyrMade is currently doing a series on Jim Jones & Jonestown. Instead of just giving the low down on Jones’ history and the atrocities that took place at Jonestown, Cooper sets the scene with the great migration, segregation, the struggles of the black community in the Northern states, speeches from Martin Luther King Jnr, Melcom X, the gap between classes. He has a talent for for setting the scene like few others.

All that is before he even gets to the Jim Jones cult because he wants you to understand how they got to that point. He’s brilliant.

 

[ferball]

It’s not an individual episode though mate...it’s a whole series. Only 2 episodes released so far. He’s just been held up because of his project ‘War Remains’
Fantastic series so far though.


Do yourself a favour and try the Martyr Made podcast. If you have the time and patience, Cooper is the best there is at capturing the emotion & atmosphere before heading into his topic. His Fear & Loathing in Jerusalem is as good as Blueprint for Armageddon.

MartyrMade is currently doing a series on Jim Jones & Jonestown. Instead of just giving the low down on Jones’ history and the atrocities that took place at Jonestown, Cooper sets the scene with the great migration, segregation, the struggles of the black community in the Northern states, speeches from Martin Luther King Jnr, Melcom X, the gap between classes. He has a talent for for setting the scene like few others.

All that is before he even gets to the Jim Jones cult because he wants you to understand how they got to that point. He’s brilliant.

So was Jonestown a CIA set up and experiment or not?

 

[Val Keating]

So was Jonestown a CIA set up and experiment or not?

Christ Ferbs. I can see where you’re coming from but that’s a long bow. Cooper hasn’t got to that part yet but I suspect he will.

From the surface it seems like relatives were worried about what was going on, which lead to the government being worried. Jonestown were under a lot of pressure to show what they were up to. Didn’t help that Jim was likely insane by this point.

When Jim allowed outsiders to come in to try to prove everything was ok, the residents put on a good show but it was apparent things were pretty off.


That lead to them opening fire on the people trying to leave.

Jim knew the jig was up so started the coolaid party.

The CIA is responsible for some pretty awful stuff but I don’t think they can take the heat for this

 

[Val Keating]

Martyr Made Podcast

www.martyrmade.com

 

[Hojuman]

'83 edition Ferball

 

[ferball]

Awesome Hoj.

That's the one I first read.

No Shrodinger's Cat tho.... have you read that? Its a work of genius.

 

[Hojuman]

Awesome Hoj.

That's the one I first read.

No Shrodinger's Cat tho.... have you read that? Its a work of genius.

Had a copy but loaned out years ago and never returned. Same with my " Electric Kool-aid acid test "

 

[ferball]

Christ Ferbs. I can see where you’re coming from but that’s a long bow. Cooper hasn’t got to that part yet but I suspect he will.

From the surface it seems like relatives were worried about what was going on, which lead to the government being worried. Jonestown were under a lot of pressure to show what they were up to. Didn’t help that Jim was likely insane by this point.

When Jim allowed outsiders to come in to try to prove everything was ok, the residents put on a good show but it was apparent things were pretty off.


That lead to them opening fire on the people trying to leave.

Jim knew the jig was up so started the coolaid party.

The CIA is responsible for some pretty awful stuff but I don’t think they can take the heat for this

That's the basic story but there is some wild stuff around it. I personally dunno. A well known anti CIA congressman (Leo Ryan) was shot there in what do seem bizarre circumstances. That's always been put on the heads of Jones and his people, acting either independently or as a CIA front for whatever they were doing. I've heard, well read everything from the last of the MKUltra experiments to tests on the effectiveness of AIDS as a bioweapon. Not alot of evidence for it.

Once I came across something from Russia. It claimed US special forces were onsite within hours and that they were actually responsible. I think around 20 members of the special forces unit that arrived supposedly committed suicide afterward. Allegedly the Russian stuff - published by a soviet propaganda publishing house - had details (time of departure and arrival onsite and actual points of origin for the SF flights) that matched US official information. I never checked it out tho.

I remember when it happened but was a kid and didn't really understand what was going on. I more remember my parents shock at what happened I think. Then for most of my teenage years thought it was associated with the coolaid acid tests.

 

[ferball]

Had a copy but loaned out years ago and never returned. Same with my " Electric Kool-aid acid test "

Do you remember it? Shrodingers Cat was bent. Each book was written to illustrate a different quantum mechanical idea. Heaps of kinky sex, drugs and general weirdness.

Electric cool Aid acid test - awesome. What a mad bunch of people.

Like I said it wasn't till i was at least 15 that I realised the acid tests and the cool aid at Jonestown were two different things.

 

[Groucho]

BTW A pookah is a giant white rabbit.

As made famous in the amusing Jimmy Stewart movie “Harvey”.

 

[ferball]

As made famous in the amusing Jimmy Stewart movie “Harvey”.

I've never seen movie that but now you mention it I've read about it somewhere. Probably in one of that bloke above's books.