Eric Wagner on Michael Johnson's 'Skeleton Key'

 “Illuminatus! Skeleton Key #1: Extra Kether

    

By Eric Wagner

Special guest blogger

R. Michael Johnson has written a brilliant explication of Bob Campbell’s Tales of Illuminatus! based on Shea and Wilson’s Illuminatus! Bob Campbell has presented the text beautifully in scholarly comic book fashion with appropriate illustrations. The “Skeleton Key” suggests Campbell and Robinson’s Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake, and “Extra Kether” suggests George Harrison’s Extra Texture, although I don’t know if they intended the latter allusion. They may have merely wanted to suggest a Madison Avenue advertising sense of “Now with extra Kether!” knowing Johnson’s deep reading of McLuhan.

One can tell that Johnson has spent decades reading Robert Anton Wilson’s works, as well as works that inspired Wilson. In addition, Johnson has read a lot material about the time period in question (the sixties and beyond) and the wide world of sex and drugs and conspiracy theories.

Aside: I first read The Lord of the Rings in 1978. Visiting bookstores and comic book stores over the next twenty-three years I saw lots of art inspired by Tolkien, presenting Gandalf and Middle Earth in a wide variety of ways. When the film The Fellowship of the Ring came out in 2001, it (and Jackson’s subsequent films) did a good enough job of recreating Tolkien’s world that I now think of Gandalf as looking like Sir Ian McKellen. Bob Campbell has done a terrific job of creating a visual universe parallel to Bob Wilson’s universe, in his comics as well as in Bob’s other Wilsonian artworks such as his terrific book Raw Art: The Illustrated Worlds and Ideas of Robert Anton Wilson.

Dr. Johnson has outdone himself in the text. He has written about Bob Wilson’s work for over thirty years, and I always find Johnson’s writing brilliant and thought provoking. Johnson approaches Wilson’s work both with deep seriousness and with a profound sense of play. I sometimes fall into the trap of thinking of my ideas about Wilson’s work as the only correct ones, but Johnson shows me again and again that one can approach Wilson’s work in a multitudinous variety of ways. In Masks of the Illuminati Bob quotes the Upanishads: Remove infinity from it and infinity remains. That seems true of works of literature. Umberto Eco defined a novel as a machine for generating interpretations.

One could spend fruitful years following up all the leads Johnson provides in this work. I found myself thinking about young people encountering Campbell’s comic books. I think Johnson’s work will give them the tools for a richer understanding of the world of Illuminatus! as well as a guide-map for future studies. In 1970 before my family ever went to Disneyland, I had a large map of Disneyland on my wall. Interestingly, the map included Space Mountain even though the ride wouldn’t open until 1977. Johnson and Campbell have provided an information rich map to Illuminatus! and Tales of Illuminatus!, one of use to first time visitors as well as to those of us who have lived there for years.

[See this earlier post for information on the Skeleton Key -- the Mgt.]