Masks of the Illuminati

by Robert A. Wilson

  wotthehell archy wotthehell

  there’s a dance in the old dame yet

  toujours gai is my motto

  And where, pray, have you been lately, Joyce asked curiously.

  It is most interesting, Einstein replied. Most of our ancestors were not perfect ladies and gentlemen. The majority of them weren’t even mammals.

  Bad Cock Babcock he finds the Door at the end of the tunnel. He open. A million blue garters with white satins on them fall out.

  Causes curvature of the spine, said Dr. Bostick Bentley Babcock from a platform in space. Paleness … lack of concentration … hair on the palms like a werewolf … eventual total idiocy. Self-control is the answer. I never did it. No proper Englishman would.

  Babcock screams, weeping hysterically.

  Depart from me ye cursed, said God the Goat, into the everlasting bonfire that was prepared for Satan and his angels. I saw what you did in that closet. Your own mother’s garters.

  They were the only garters I could find, Babcock implored weeping.

  Einstein looked at Babcock anxiously. Is he going to be all right, he asked Crowley.

  Oh a little homeopathic hysteria never did any harm, Crowley yawned.

  You heartless bastard, Babcock repeats.

  Mer de, said General Canbronne. Just find your own territory.

  The ants came marching one by one. The ants came marching two by two. The ants came marching three by three.

  It’s a Greek phalanx, Einstein said. Look, there’s Alexander …

  The fieldmouse screamed again.

  It’s all right, Babcock, Joyce said. Merely an overdose of empathy, I imagine.

  Am I still human, the fieldmouse asked.

  You are still Sir John Babcock, Einstein said reassuringly.

  And part of you is still a fieldmouse, Crowley added. Just as part is a shark …

  Evolution is not a theory here, Einstein said quietly. It is an experienced fact.

  Babcock screamed again.

  This has gone too far, Einstein objected.

  Crow Crowley became Ravenrend Verey, hunchbacked whitefaced mad. The clock slowly somberly sonorously chimed thirteen.

  Frogs and mice, Falcon Verey cried. Bestiality? Perversion? I would that all men were as myself, but it is better to marry than pope to the butcher. For now we see through a glass darkly but then fizz to fizz. Fuzz to fuzz. Sacks of dung. Abomination. Monthly filth. Moon madness. Illegal entry.

  Redorange fucksweet menstrual blood dripped from the moon, falling on Babcock’s cheek.

  Ugh agh he said shuddering.

  The blood turned to gold on his handkerchief as he rubbed it. Reproducing it became goldbars stacked in a pyramid. The snake is reborn and I’m blushing.

  The alchemical mystery of the Red Gold, Crowley said casually.

  It’s only a Natural Phenomenon, Joyce added. The first fusion.

  How did I know you were going to say that, Babcock asked.

  Jesus Christ, Joyce said emptily.

  The room began to contract.

  It runs on internal combustion, Einstein explained.

  Are the dimensions shifting, Joyce asked.

  My God, Babcock gasped. We’ll all be crushed to death.

  We must be approaching the speed of light, Einstein suggested. The mathematics is only in your timid sins of puberty.

  The womb continued to contract.

  We’ll suffocate, Babcock protested.

  No, Joyce said. We’re just being expelled … to a new world.

  I nearly reached India, said the Imaginary Mongoose. It was made of olive skin drifting down a windy hall past troglodytes, dwarfs, cavemen, night-gaunts, crabs, giant sunflowers, ticktockticktock trembling.

  The stars in the belt of Orion lit up, pointing toward Sirius.

  But still, Joyce said pensively. At that time of month?

  5 days after the flow begins, Crowley said. The male cycle is 23 days and the female 28. They figured it all out in Bengal two thousand years ago. 23 plus 5 is 28.

  Three … five … eight, Einstein mused. Simple addition … 358.

  Earth reshaped itself from Chaos.

  V.I.T.R.I.O.L.

  Visita Interiora Terrae Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem, said Babcock crucified upside down in ecstasy. Visit the interior parts of the Earth; by rectification find the Stone of the Wise. And it says it is found in the most contemptible and despised of all things. Codes, hints, ambiguities … and yet it’s right in front of us all the time. The nine months: the nine moon goddesses …

  Merde, said General Canbronne with Napoleon’s face and Uncle Sam’s hat with the three stars in the belt of Orion.

  Eat it with catsup, added Edward III.

  The excremental Hell of the alchemists, said Joyce Ankh Khonsu. The glowing orange scarlet interior parts. The dark uterine call, Jesus God. The whole Western world has gone mad because Saint Paul had a phobia about the vagina dentata.

  Joyce split in two, becoming Masoch and Sade.

  The love that dare not speak its name, said Masoch in Nora’s petticoats. Frighten me to death!

  A little discipline is needed, said Sade in Gestapo unifrom. Crawl on your belly, you cur. People’s minds are nothing but a huge self.

  But the horror of It, lago, said Masoch. The horror of it.

  The ants came marching five by five.

  They became William Shakespeare.

  They say I am not a gentleman, said Moorish Sheikespaere. Just because in front of my house, in front of my house, my far far father had, O God! The injustice of it! In front of the house. It was made of skin loss that is death.

  Merde, said General Canbronne with infinite pity. Who bulkily shaped the rouge on germinals.

  Rectificando, said the Zürich express. Rectificando, rectificando, rectificando …

  Physics is psychology, Einstein lectured to the bookcase which he evidently mistook for a freshman class. Forward and back is just the sadistmasochist dimension: aggression or timidity, right? And up and down is the pack hierarchy—who eats first and that sort of thing. And right and left … Aristotelian logic, you know … goes back to the game of guess-which-hand-it’s-in. And the fourth dimension …

  Yes, yes, Joyce prompted. The fourth dimension?

  Sex, Einstein said.

  What? Joyce exclaimed.

  Even Crowley looked astonished for once.

  I don’t understand that part myself, Einstein confessed. It has something to do with the seed as a vector in time … genetics as the negation of entropy.

  But why is so much of it so pleasant, Joyce asked. If our brains are merely operating differently, that explains why we sense more … but why the pleasure all over the skin?

  It’s the next step in evolution, Crowley answered simply.

  Past present future all are windy street, naked flesh with the stars.

  Oh God, Babcock moaned.

  The next stage of evolution, Joyce said. I must think about that.

  Did you think evolution was over and done with, Crowley asked rhetorically. Did you really believe that the conditions of pain and discomfort were our lot forever?

  You mean, Einstein said, the brain can learn to convert any sensation into eroticism? That’s hard to believe.

  The brain does process all sensation, Crowley said. If the brain is fully awake and conscious of what it is doing, why on earth should it treat any sensation as a less than orgasmic experience?

  And that, Babcock sighed sensually, is the Alchemical gold? Why did it take me so long to understand?

  The shamrock nitrogen under the carpet that is death.

  Maybe we’re just drunk, Joyce said, feeling his penis turning into a cactus a peyote bud a shamrock a giant sunflower a fir a spruce of titanic redwood a perfect rose a moving van inscribed INTERNATIONAL COCAINE INC a comet in orbit endless caves of seacoral in purple and indigo and violet 358 the Serpent the Messiah LORD OF LORDS and BARD OF BARDS For He Shall Reign Forever and EVER a
piston a pistol a limp floating flower

  The ants came marching nine by nine.

  Since I created strife, cried Bertrán de Born leaping headless from the fireplace, you see me torn asunder from myself: two in one and one in two. Anne Boleyn was ’enry’s wife, King ’enry’s wife was she …

  Hold your fucking end up Bert, shouted Ezekiel Pound.

  A wonderful idea the knowledge of death.

  Whakty whakty whakty whakty boom boom, said the Hidden Variable. Hagios Hagios Hagios IAO. Thermogo thermogo thermogo.

  Filia et Pater unus Deus, Crowley chanted. ARARITA.

  ARARITA ARARITA ARARITA replied the King in Yellow from the fire.

  Overnight overnight overnight said the red Cobra of desire.

  Rectificando rectificando rectificando said Babcock.

  Illegal and impossible entry, Joyce mused amused. Every child wants to know what happens behind that locked door. The forbidden room puzzle.

  Adam Weishaupt wearing Uncle Sam’s red white blue hat with the three stars in the Belt of Orion appeared behind the altar masturbating.

  I invoke thee said Weishaupt the terrible and invisible god who dwellest in the void places of the spirit AROGOGOUABRAO SOTOU MUDORIO PHALARTHA OOO AEPE thou spiritual sun thou eye thou lust cry aloud whirl the wheel o my father o sun thou selfcaused most hight the bornless one

  He ejaculated gasping like a hanged man.

  I am the seed of stars said the first spermatozoon with the face of the Father.

  I am the flame that burns but consumes not said the second spermatozoon with the face of the Sun.

  Now you see me now you don’t said the third spermatozoon with the face of Schrôdinger’s Cat. Punishment shall be inflicted on three crows and a wren.

  They’re going to shoot the Archduke said a voice to Einstein only.

  Land bread and peace, said Lenin above the bookcase.

  Crowds cheered: Babcock Manor was looted: the Royal Family assassinated: Mongolian clusterfucking in the streets.

  What Archduke, Einstein mumbled.

  A chorus of workers entered singing

  Oh the banks are made of marble

  With a guard at every door

  And the vaults are full of silver

  That the farmer sweated for

  I proclaim the dictatorship of the proleteriat, Lenin said heaving a brick at Schrödinger’s Cat. Beethoven is verboten. Everyone must learn to play chess at once. Capitalist schweinerei not permitted. Post no bills. No petit bourgeois subjectivism decadent imperialistic idealism or predialectical empiriocriticism. Overnight overnight overnight. All power to the Soviets.

  The ants came marching twelve by twelve.

  L’il dollink, said Queen Victoria swallowing his brick. Always fetful.

  Eat it with catsup, said Lenin. I proclaim the Five Year Plan. The tractor is the march of God through the world. Do not pass Go. Report to the Central Committee. The first day of the rest of the nitrogen cycle. Less power to the Soviets.

  Red orange yellow green blue indigo violet goblins dancing.

  Eat it with catsup, said the Devil in a watery voice.

  The uneatable pursued by the unspeakable, said Edward III crowned with thorns a goldyellow buttercup in his hand with dark blue garter on left thigh. The love that dares not speak its name. Paris is an expensive place to die.

  He turned into Melmoth the Wanderer and stumbled off, drunk, complaining.

  The ants came marching hundred by hundred. The door to Chapel Perilous swung open again and the buzzing increased. All power to the Soviets: a vagina dentata myth. It was the Aklo chants being howled and gibbered and shrieked and grunted by thousands of dholes and shoggoths. There are sacraments of evil as well as of good: only the madman is absolutely sure. Azathoth, the Demon-Sultan who is the primal Chaos at the center of Infinity, howled: I know all about those garters, you two perverts! The ants came marching thousand by thousand.

  The accordionist started a new tune: Die Lorelei. Joyce watched dim shadows ambiguously move, starting at the bookcase. “Flowers,” he muttered. “Blume.”

  Tiger lily.

  My God, Babcock sighed.

  My God, he repeated.

  MY GOD, he gasped, both laughing and crying.

  What is it with him now, Einstein muttered.

  The White Light of the Void from which everything comes, Babcock said. It is not just a metaphor. I have seen it.

  Oh, that, Einstein said. It’s just the atomic accelerations that control the electrochemical processes that make up your separate brain functions. The Hidden Variable.

  Do you mean, Joyce cried, that we have become so slowed down or speeded up or whatever that we are actually experiencing the physical process by which our brains create form?

  Certainly, Einstein said. All this jumpiness, for instance, is just quantum discontinuity.

  Well, Joyce said, at least that’s a theory. I suppose it’s better than no theory at all. Do you really believe it?

  I do right now, Einstein said. I doubt that I will still believe it in the morning. It may take me thirty more years of mathematical dickering before I can convince myself again that such bridges exist….

  You mean, Crowley asked excitedly, that this part of the transformation actually takes us to atomic levels?

  To sub-atomic levels, Einstein said. To the bridges across super-space through which the Hidden Variable controls the quantum symphony. Don’t assume I know what I’m talking about. As I said, it will take thirty years or more to get it into the right math. In the meanwhile, Beethoven probably explains it better than physics.

  Omnia in Duos, said the King in Yellow. Duo in Unum. Unus in Nihil.

  How long have we been in this cave, asked worried Einstein. The fire is getting low.

  We were fish a few million years ago, Joyce said.

  Return all three forms in triplicate, said Lenin with Stalin’s face. The Secret Police is the march of God through the world. See your dentist twice a year. No unauthorized orgasms. Overnight overnight overnight. No power to the Soviets.

  As they watched down a windy street buildings arose: the Parthenon, Saint Peter’s, the Eiffel Tower, Oriental pagodas, the towers of Babylon, American skyscrapers, a Quatt Wunkery, geodesic Martian hives, all this frantic activity accompanied by insectoid buzzing. Roaches constructed geometric aisles and ambulatories for Gothic cathedrals, the ants came marching million by million to erect flowery arcades and architraves, centipedes and lobsters scurried through rapid design of basilicas, bays and flying buttresses under the grave supervision of wise old hermit crabs, cantilevers and capitals leaped to the skies as termites and tarantulas toiled day and night to place brick upon brick, dozens of caryatids, chancels and colonnades appeared between the stark grandeur of pyramids, mosquitoes and beetles cooperated in the implementation of columns Doric and Byzantine and Ionic and Corinthian, grass huts and teepees and igloos multiplied in myriads, Stonehenge arose, the bustling buzzing blasting building without end, rose windows and naves and posts-and-lintels arising and rising and re-arising. They saw palaces of gold, temples the color of stars, warrens of indescribable inhuman subhuman slums and ghettoes, as one generation passeth away and another generation cometh but landlords never die.

  And the ants came marching billion by billion.

  I invoke thee, chanted Ludwig, MA BARRAIO IOEL KOTHA ARTHOBELA ABRAOT O mother O truth Thou mass Thou that art Thou hollow one Thou goddess of beauty and love

  I’m a goddam female Hippopotamus, Babcock discovered.

  Joyce looked at the lovely figure sitting on the rock in the middle of the Rhine combing Her golden hair and realized that she was in fact a female Hippopotamus.

  I thought we had explained all the mysteries, he complained.

  I am Isis ineffable Queen of Nature, Babcockotamus announced more excitedly. I am the womb of all things. Sweet Jesus on a bike, I think I’m going to have a child.

  The cosmic birth process repeated again and again and
again my poppyred cunt on fire the pleasure the pain but I don’t have a cunt what happened to my prick who castrated me where am I but oh God the joy of motherhood again and again and again

  Womb contracting. Room contracting. An elevator in outer space between verbal concepts representing Winter.

  In the beginning was the Light, said Einstein in an elevator between the stars. Matter is knots in Energy.

  Madam I’m Adam, said Tetragrammaton a Judeo-Creek fig merchant. A man, a plan, a canal: Panama. He goddam mad dog eh?

  The bawdy hand of the clock, said Gladstone, is on the very prick of noon uh nick of prune

  We have heard the chimes at midnight, Joystaff said.

  A parted just between twelve and one, Hostess Quickly said wearing a Victorian dress with slit skirt showing blue garter on black mesh stocking. Even at the turning of the tide. His nose was as sharp as a pen and a table of green fields.

  She snapped her garter and sang:

  Only a Magus and a Knight trueborn

  And a Virgin unafraid

  Can walk unharmed amid the dance

  Of the Devil’s Masquerade

  Brings the deepdown color back, said Hostess Twinky. Purity of essence. Ours in the original and genuine. Put out the light and then put out the Light. Demands an emphatic protest from lovers of literature.

  Sir John crossed the heavily fogged street, pushed open the door of M.M.M.: Occult and Mystical Books of All Ages with the mindless jerkiness and currencies of the world.