Week 27, Illuminatus! online reading group

Image from a 2012 Cthulhu Mythos calendar. (Source). 

(This week: Page 262, "It was the night of February 2, 1776" to page 272, "Except for Drake's power drive.")

This passage is one of the most energetic and interesting in Illuminatus!,  tying together many different threads and concepts in prose that shifts rapidly in space and time. The energy and density is exciting, and this passage exemplifies the virtues of Illuminatus! Let's see if we can follow some of those threads, or rather, some of those time tracks.

" ... it reminded him, uncomfortably, of the shoggoths in that damnable Necronomicon that Kolmer was always trying to get him to read ... " (page 253).

The reference to H.P. Lovecraft's work ties Illuminatus! to one of the biggest "conspiracies" in fantasy, the Cthulhu Mythos, in which many other authors have used elements of H.P. Lovecraft's universe. Here is a long list of Cthulhu Mythos writers, which unfortunately does not include Wilson and Shea. A cheap, large ebook of Cthulhu Mythos stories is available from Amazon. 

'He held up his hands, looking at the five fingers on each ... " (page 263.) The peace sign has two fingers up and three down, 2 + 3 + 5. Adam Gorightly's Historia Discordia asserts that the Discordians revived  the World War II "V for Victory" hand sign because it fit so well with the Law of Fives and that it was then widely adopted by the counterculture.

"Even so, the Aztecs grew more frantic toward the end," (page 264). The Aztecs allow Wilson and Shea to tie together the Holocaust (page 264), the monsters of the Cthulhu mythos (e.g., with Aztec deities such as Tlaloc who demand blood sacrifices) and even Atlantis (Atlantis is cited as an influence on both Mesoamerican and Egyptian art).

"Tobias Knight," the pentuple agent for FBI, CIA, A A, the Illuminati and the Legion of Dynamic Discord. 

"Why me?" Hagbard repeated with a smile. "The question asked by the soldier as the enemy bullets whistle around him, by the harmless homeowner as the homicidal maniac steps through the kitchen door hunting knife in hand, by the woman who has given birth to a dead baby, by the prophet who has just had a revelation of the word of God, by the artist who knows his latest painting is a work of genius." (page 265) Aren't these great lines? Compare with Abraham Lincoln, "Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history."

Sir Francis Drake

"He was holding a bowling ball in his hand ... " page 267. Robert Putney Drake's ancestor, Sir Francis Drake, who helped preserve English liberty (and thus the classical liberal tradition) from the would-be invaders of England from the Spanish Armada; he allegedly was playing bowls when informed of the approach of the Spanish fleet, and supposedly remarked cooly that there was plenty of time to finish the game. He also sailed around the world, tying together with the exploration theme in Illuminatus!.

"Saul's angry, triumphant eyes start into mine, and I look away guiltily," (page 268). This is what comes right after (page 192) "I don't know what your game is but I sure as hell know who you are. You're Joseph Malik!"

" ... in another time track ... " page 270. Illuminatus! can be described as a sequence of seemingly random time tracks that gradually can be seen to coalesce into one very elaborate, but generally coherent plot.

"shoggoth," page 270, monster from H.P. Lovecraft, which Wilson and Shea tie together with the "Bugs Bunny Mythos." I loved Bugs Bunny when I was a kid.

"That same mixture of revelation and put-on is always the language of the supra-conscious," page 271. It's certainly the language of Illuminatus! Being serious about the put-on is also the habit of science fiction fandom; the model for Simon Moon, who is speaking here, is prominent science fiction fan  Neal Rest.  Shea also was a fan. Fans helped give birth to many aspects of popular culture, such as the zine movement.

"Crazy bastard thinks he's Captain Nemo." (page 271). Hagbard's submarine alludes of course not just to the Beatles song but to Jules Verne.

"Except for Drake's power drive," page 272. Which, in the end, undoes Robert Putney Drake. In Richard Blake's novel The Blood of Alexandria, a mysterious character named the Mistress tells the protagonist Aelric, an important official in the Roman Empire, "Yours is the empire of the sword and the tax gatherer. My empire is of the imagination." The Cthulhu Mythods and the "Illuminatus! mythos" are both empires of the imagination.

(Next week: Page 272, "I. THE FAUST PARSON, SINGULAR" to "not huddled around my shower stall, Page 282).

Sunday links

Oz Fritz on Aleister Crowley — Magick, Rock and Roll, and the Wickedest Man in the World.

Me, on Ferguson.

Deaths from police shootings, a comparison. (Scroll down for graphic.)

Jesse Walker on conspiracy theory research.

Ron Paul wants to declassify hidden information on 9/11.

Fourteen Henry Kuttner works released as inexpensive ebooks. 

Forty maps that explain the Roman Empire. 

Adam Gorightly's 'Historia Discordia'

Adam Gorightly's Historia Discordia is a very useful book for anyone who wants to understand Illuminatus! and/or Robert Anton Wilson's literary career.

As Adam has shown with his blog commentaries to the Illuminatus! online reading group, Illuminatus! is filled with Discordian symbols, teachings and terminology.

The book is based on a large trove of documents, the Discordian Archives, that Robert Newport gave to Adam. Adam has organized these documents into sections, with commentaries that offer perspective and explanations.

Included are a very rare first edition of Principia Discordia and  a copy of the previously lost Honest Book of Truth, written by Kerry Thornley, which is quoted on the first page of Illuminatus! 

About the latter, Adam writes: "For years, many suspected that The Honest Book of Truth never actually existed, other than a few quotes that Kerry Thornley cooked up… but now, at last, the truth can be told! Lord Omar (Kerry) did indeed compose a work called The Honest Book of Truth, a 15 page irreligious tract that will be reproduced in its entirety in my forthcoming book, Historia Discordia: The Origins of the Discordian Society.

"As a sidebar, when I was talking to RAW once regarding his thoughts on Thornley as a writer, he told me that Kerry’s most significant work was The Honest Book of Truth—a comment I didn’t know what to make of at the time, because I, like most everyone else, believed that the book never actually existed."

Obviously, this blog post was written shortly before the book was issued; citation here.

While RAW and Robert Shea took a lot from Discordianism, Adam's book makes it clear that they also gave a lot back. I thought the first part of the book, in which Kerry and Hill create Discordianism and make themselves the leaders of the movement, was a little flat. It only really takes off when RAW, the best and funniest writers among the Discordians, started contributing prank letters and other documents. I would also argue Illuminatus! did a great deal to promote Discordianism, perhaps even making it seem a little more interesting than it actually is.

Discordianism also became more interesting when Greg Hill opened it up to allow everyone to become a Pope, a development that Adam documents in his book (page 117).  As Adam writes,  this change transformed Principia Discordia "into more of an art project than a religious tract" (page 116).

John Higgs also has written a review.

(Disclosure: Although I would have eventually bought a copy of the book, Mr. Gorightly's publisher, perhaps sensing that the weirdoes who read this blog might be interested, sent me a review copy.)

UPDATE: Adam has another Eris of the month. 

Update on Robert Anton Wilson fans website

Joseph Matheny, who hosts the very valuable Robert Anton Wilson Fans website of RAW material (videos, audio, articles, letters, interviews, etc.) now reports that he plans to migrate the currently-down site, and all of his other sites,  to a new location:

We’ll be back! No, not like the Terminator, but something new and exciting for the future. We’re moving servers, uploading a lot of the old Greylodge material, crafting a new interface, new database search tools, all kinds of tech-craft to make finding what you want on our site archives so much easier. So, don’t despair, we’ll be back this fall and we’ll be better. Until then, have a great remainder of your summer!

Follow the  above link for more information.

In the meantime, I have put up a link under "Resources" for "Robert Anton Wilson at the Internet Archive." Scroll down to download your free copy of Robert Anton Wilson: The Lost Studio Session. I bought it when it first came out, but now Matheny has made it available for free.

New comic book from Bobby Campbell

Bobby Campbell has issued the new digital comic book AGNOSIS #1 — #FINDTHEOTHERS. It is 64 pages long and available for $1.95 as a digital download here.  I bought my copy right after it came out and read it the next night.

It's written by Bobby with rather good art from Marcelino Balao III. RAW fans will enjoy the work, as it is dense with allusions to Bob, Timothy Leary, James Joyce, Robert Shea, Aleister Crowley, etc., and will enjoy seeing some of their concepts brought to life in Balao's art. I particularly liked the No Bunny and the entire panel illustration the eight circuit model of consciousness. I hope Bobby sends this to Alan Moore and gets a response.

There's no DRM, so I was able to download my copy, back it up online, and then transfer it to a tablet for convenient lie-on-the-couch viewing.

Also available: Weird Comix #1, an anthology from Bobby (for just 99 cents).

I interviewed Bobby earlier this year.

New John Higgs book

While we wait for John Higgs' big alternative history of the 20th century, he is meanwhile coming out with a short ebook on the British monarchy.

                          John Higgs, loyal subject of British pet Elizabeth II

Our Pet Queen: A New Perspective on Monarchy will be issued Tuesday by Random House. The blurb says, "In the modern, democratic twenty-first century, the notion of an unelected, dynastic monarchy is not easy to defend.This new book argues that the current monarchy is by far the best system for choosing a Head of State - providing that it is understood that we are not subjects and that the monarchy are not our superiors. They are, in actual fact, our pets.
 
"In this original eBook, John Higgs, author of the The 20th Century: An Alternative History, makes an argument in favour of the monarchy that will annoy royalists even more than it will annoy republicans. This is a tongue-in-cheek, witty examination of the persistence of monarchy in the modern world."

On his blog, Higgs comments, "It's a continuation of what seems to be a major theme in my books, namely that looking at the world rationally leaves you far more bewildered and angry than when you recognise and enjoy the magical thinking that really shapes the world.

"It's 15,000 words, contains revolutions and beheadings, and you can pre-order now from Amazon UK for £1.94 or from Amazon.com for $3.25."

Higgs isn't the only British author I follow who has written on the monarchy. Sean Gabb aka Richard Blake, in this essay, wrote a defense of the institution.

Sean is not a fan of the current queen, but adds, "This does not, in itself, make a republic desirable. Americans may be very pleased with an electoral system that has given them so many interesting and even entertaining heads of state. But, from an English point of view, American history is something more enjoyably observed than suffered."

A couple of graphs later, he adds,

"Symbolic functions aside, the practical advantage of having a monarchy is that the head of state is chosen by the accident of birth and not by some corrupted system of election; and that the head of state is likely to show a longer term, more proprietorial interest in the country than someone who has lied his way to one or two terms of office.  (This is the essential argument of the German libertarian Hans-Herman Hoppe`s book Democracy: The God that Failed.)"

I'll bet a dialogue between these two gentlemen, both subjects of Her Majesty the Queen, would be interesting.

I still feel a patriotic loyalty to the American system, where every four to eight years, we get rid of our president and replace him with one who is equally bad. I only wish our president was about as powerless as the British hereditary monarch.

'The Internet's Own Boy'

Aaron Swartz

Robert Anton Wilson never got around to writing his Tale of the Tribe book, but for him and for many other libertarian-minded folk, the role of the Internet in modern life has been important.

The late Aaron Swartz, in an interview in The Internet's Own Boy, a new documentary about his life and death, talks about two opposing views of the Internet: The idea that it provides a new method for achieving freedom that will liberate us all, and the notion that it provides a way for the government and others to spy on us all of the time. Both conceptions have a measure of truth, and which prevails will depend on us, Swartz observes.

I watched The Internet's Own Boy on the free, Creative Commons version posted at the Internet Archive. I strongly recommend taking the time to watch it if you are interested in Internet issues. (Kudos to Steve Pratt for also trying to draw attention to it.)  It's a fine documentary, focusing on Swartz's intellectual gifts, his contributions in politics and programming, his efforts to make information available on the Internet, and his death after he downloaded a large number of documents from the MIT computer system and was hit with a federal prosecution and threatened with up to 35 years in prison.

There's an interesting irony in the movie. It's clear that the Obama Administration's Justice Department, obsessed with secrecy and with crushing anyone who represented a challenge to the system, wanted to make an example of Swartz. Instead, although they are likely no worse than many other tyrannical government officials, the movie "makes an example" of Carmen Ortiz and Stephen Heymann, who hounded Swartz to his death over a minor crime. Incidentally, President Obama has gone out of his way to make it clear that while Ortiz and Heymann may be unprincipled thugs, they're his thugs: His attorney general, Eric Holder, told a Congressional committee that the hounding of Swartz was "a good use of prosecutorial discretion."

Week 26, Illuminatus online reading group

Atlantis

(This week: Page 252, " 'What color where they?' he said suddenly to Hagbard," to page 262, "until long after this meeting is over, Mr. Muldoon.")

In this section, we get a good dose of Illuminati paranoia and more about Atlantis.

One of my sisters told me a few days ago about an old friend of hers believed she was being spied on by the government all of the time. In a sense, of course, my sister's friend is correct: The U.S. government apparently has telephone records for pretty much everyone. But it's probably not likely that the Tulsa police were personally targeting the woman, although my sister could not convince her otherwise.

On page 256, Hagbard Celine offers five explanations for why the Illuminati either do or do not rule the world; you can take your pick for your favorite. But if you do believe there is an Illuminati, you are allowed to be paranoid about them, whether or not you think they are in charge.

It's been said that Illuminatus! ties together many conspiracies.

There's also a lot of myth, and a lot of romantic history. We get the Assassins, the Vikings (Celine's ship is named the Leif Ericson), Greek myth (in the form of Eris) and Atlantis, a myth which has its roots in ancient Greece. As we noted last week, RAW said that the Atlantis parts were all Shea. And judging from his solo novels, all historical novels, Shea was a a big ancient and medieval history buff.

The Atlantis myth comes from an account in Plato; when I was young, developing my own interest in history, I read about one theory, that the Atlantis account was a distorted account of what happened to a Minoan community in the island of Santorini, destroyed by a volcanic eruption. 

Of course, there are many accounts of Atlantis; it would appear that the Illuminatus! account owes something to Ignatius Donnelly's Atlantis: The Antideluvian World.  I don't have time to try to read it now, but Wikipedia says, "Many of its theories are the source of many modern-day concepts we have about Atlantis, like the civilization and technology beyond its time, the origins of all present races and civilizations, a civil war between good and evil, etc."

Wikipedia says that Donnelly's book inspired my favorite Donovan song, "Atlantis," which I once saw the singer perform live, as the opening act for Yes. The song was a big hit in the U.S., although less so in Great Britain, where the single "the single managed only a modest No. 23 placing," Wikipedia says.  Did Wilson or Shea dig the song?

Here is a map from the Donnelly book, showing the empire of Atlantis. Apparently the ancient Atlanteans even occupied what is now the state of Ohio, where I live. The statues George Dorn gazes on "bore resemblance to Egyptian and Mayan," page 257. 

A couple of notes:

Peos, page 255. The name of the Atlantean city of Peos may come from Edgar Cayce, the alleged seer.

Gruad, page 258, first Illuminatus in Atlantis, 30,000 B.C. 

Zwack, page 261, Franz Xavier von Zwack A member of the Bavarian Illuminati, associated with Adam Weishaupt.

(Next week: Page 262, "It was the night of February 2, 1776" to page 272, "Except for Drake's power drive.")

Discordian (mostly) news roundiup

I was away on a family gathering in Oregon for a few days, so I need to get caught up:

(1) Neil Rest and Daisy Eris Campbell at the world science fiction convention currently being held in London. Daisy posted this on Twitter, writing, "Just met the guy that Simon Moon was part-based on! #Illuminatus"

(2) Jesse Walker on Discordianism, at Io9. 

(3) Michael Johnson on Swift, Marx and Robert Anton Wilson.

(4) The Lost Treasure of Eris has been found. 

(5) Things to Stop Being Distracted By When a Black Person Gets Murdered by Police. (Via Supergee)

New Neal Stephenson novel announced

Neal Stephenson

Neal Stephenson, maybe my favorite living writer, will be coming out with a new book, Seveneves, on April 14. It's apparently a science fiction novel; a few meagre details have been released. There's no information yet at the crummy official page or the other crummy official page.  

There is also a mysterious announcement for yet another new book to come out next year, BombLight.

Is Bloomsday tied to the Illuminati?

The excellent Groupname for Grapejuice blog has a new post up, "A Blooming, Buzzing Infusion," which investigates the possible occult links to June 16, the date that is the setting for James Joyce's Ulysses.

The Dublin Hermetic Society, which included W.B. Yeats, held its first meeting on June 16, 1885, blogger Znore explains.

[Joyce biographer] Ellmann does not suggest, to my knowledge, that this opening meeting of the Dublin Hermetic Society had anything to do with Joyce setting Ulysses on June 16th. It is quite a coincidance, though, that this magical order first met on the same day in Dublin that Nora first performed her own version of sex magick with Jim during a walk through the same city streets. Yeats's profound influence on Joyce is clearly evident and the question is begged: was Joyce in on the conspiracy?

Znore then demonstrates how June 16 is tied to the Zoroastrian religious calendar and provides citations to show how the Bavarian Illuminati were inspired by the Persian fire cult. His long post also discusses the neopagan calendar created by Ezra Pound and how Robert Anton Wilson was very familiar with it. If his post is correct, Illuminatus! is even more inspired by the work of James Joyce than we already thought.

I can't really do justice to Znore's post with this short blog entry. I had missed, for example, the fact that Aleister Crowley gave Ulysses a rave review, although Steve "Fly" Pratt knew. 

I've belatedly added Groupname for Grapejuice to the "Sangha" blog list on the right side of the page. This was an oversight on my part and I'm pleased to finally correct it.

Thursday links

New York Times columnist (and prominent economist) Paul Krugman on "Libertarian Fantasies." Another Times columnist, Tyler Cowen, comments on the piece. Krugman appears to me to miss the point -- a basic income guarantee, like guaranteed health coverage, makes sure everyone gets help.

The government wants to take away an older woman's money because, well, it's the government.

Celebrities explain what they are reading this summer.  "I was a little kid when KLF were releasing music. I always wondered why the term Mu Mu kept cropping up in their chart hits. For a child from Nigeria, it sounded a lot like a word we used to call people stupid. Then a few years later, I heard they burned a million pounds on an island somewhere and was even more confused. I hope John Higgs helps me get to the bottom of this whole thing."

New science fiction anthology inspired by Neal Stephenson. 

When James Joyce went to Africa on a word hunting safari. I think it was Brian Eno who said that the problem with computers is that they don't have enough Africa in them.

Shopping for peace

Angela Keaton, left, engaging in a pillow warfare at a Libertarian Party of California gathering in 2008, in spite of her antiwar principles.

These days, when I shop at Amazon, I do so via "Amazon Smile." It's Amazon's charity initiative. Your prices don't go up, but Amazon donates 0.5 percent of your purchases to the charity that you choose.

I chose Antiwar.com.

Angela Keaton (director of operations at Antiwar.com) explains,

Antiwar.com's parent organization, the Randolph Bourne Institute, has enrolled Amazon.com's "Smile" program. Through Smile, we will receive 0.5% of the money you spend at Amazon so long as you get there using the link https://smile.amazon.com/ch/71-0929026.

We'll be working to convert our "regular" Amazon affiliate links to Smile links for some extra juice -- 0.5% PLUS "affiliate commissions." You probably shop at Amazon anyway. When you do it this way, you support Antiwar.com at no extra cost to yourself.