Literally, it means to take a course opposite the apparent motion of the sun viewed from the Northern Hemisphere. Widdershins is cognate with the German widersinnig, i.e., “against” + “sense”. The opposite of widdershins is deosil, or sunwise, meaning “clockwise”.
Bill Phillips seems like a pretty cool guy, certainly fits the mad scientist archetype!
I actually haven’t read Making Money but I will now :)
It’s one of my favorites, but I’m a big fan of Moist so I’m a little biased