The Illuminatus! Trilogy

by Robert Anton Wilson

  Bierce disappears in 1913.

  Lovecraft introduces Halt, dols, Aklo, Cthulhu after 1923.

  Lovecraft dies unexpectedly, 1937.

  Seabrook discusses Crowley, Machen, etc. in his "Witchcraft," 1940.

  Seabrook's "suicide," 1942.

  Emphasize: Bierce describes Oedipus Complex in "Death of Halpin Frazer," BEFORE Freud, and relativity in "Inhabitant of Carcosa," BEFORE Einstein. Lovecraft's ambiguous descriptions of Azathoth as "blind idiot-god," "Demon-Sultan" and "nuclear chaos" circa 1930: fifteen years before Hiroshima.

  Direct drug references in Chambers' "King in Yellow," Machen's 'White Powder," Lovecraffs "Beyond the Wall of Sleep" and "Mountains of Madness."

  The appetites of the Lloigor or Old Ones in Bierce's "Damned Thing." Machen's "Black Stone," Love-craft (constantly.)

  Atlantis known as Thule both in German and Panama Indian lore, and of course, "coincidence" again the accepted explanation. Opening sentence for article: "The more frequently one uses the word 'coincidence' to explain bizarre happenings, the more obvious it becomes that one is not seeking, but evading, the real explanation." Or, shorter: "The belief in coincidence is the prevalent superstition of the Age of Science."

  The detective then spent an afternoon at Miskatonic library, browsing through the writings of Ambrose Bierce, J-K Huysmans, Arthur Machen, Robert W. Chambers, and H. P. Lovecraft. He found that all repeated certain key words; dealt with lost continents or lost cities; described superhuman beings trying to misuse or victimize mankind in some unspecified manner; suggested that there was a cult, or group of cults, among mankind who served these beings; and described certain books (usually not giving their titles: Lovecraft was an exception) that reveal the secrets of these beings. With a little further research, he found that the occult and Satanist circles in Paris in the 1880s had influenced the fiction of both Huysmans and Machen, as well as the career of the egregious Aleistair Crowley, and that Seabrook (who knew Crowley) hinted at more than he stated outright in his book on Witchcraft, published two years before his suicide. He then wrote a little table:

  Huysmans-hysteria, complaints about occult attacks, final seclusion in a monastery.

  Chambers-abandons such subjects, turns to light romantic fiction.

  Bierce-disappears mysteriously. Lovecraft-dead at an early age. Crowley-hounded into silence and obscurity. Machen-becomes a devout Catholic. (Huysmans' escape?) Seabrook-alleged suicide.

  The detective then went back and reread, not skimming this time, the stories by these writers in which drugs were specifically mentioned, according to Marsh's notes. He now had a hypothesis: the old man had been lured into a drug cult, as had these writers, and had been terrified by his own hallucinations, finally ending his own life to escape the phantoms his own narcotic-fogged brain had created. It was a good enough theory to start with, and the detective conscientiously set about interviewing every friend on campus of old Marsh, leading into the subject of grass and LSD very slowly and indirectly. He made no headway and was beginning to lose his conviction when good fortune struck, in the form of a remark by another anthropology professor about Marsh's preoccupation in recent years with amanita muscaria, the hallucinogenic mushroom used in ancient Near Eastern religions.

  "A very interesting fungus, amanita," this professor told the detective. "Some sensationalists without scholarly caution have claimed it was every magic potion in ancient lore: the soma of the Hindus, the sacrament used in the Dionysian and Eleusinian mysteries in Greece, even the Holy Communion of the earliest Christians and Gnostics. One chap in England even claims amanita, and not hashish, was the drug used by the Assassins in the Middle Ages, and there's a psychiatrist in New York, Puharich, who claims it actually does induce telepathy. Most of that is rubbish, of course, but amanita certainly is the strongest mind-altering drug in the world. If the kids ever latch onto it, LSD will seem like a tempest in a teapot by comparison."

  The detective now concentrated on finding somebody- anybody- who had actually seen old Marsh when he was stoned out of his gourd. The testimony finally came from a young black student named Pearson, who was majoring in anthropology and minoring in music. "Excited and euphoric? Yeah," he said thoughtfully. "I saw old Joshua that way once. It was in the library of all places- that's where my girl works- and the old man jumped up from a table grinning about a yard wide and said out loud, but talking to himself, you know, 'I saw them- I saw the fnords!' Then he ran out like Jesse Owens going to get his ashes hauled. I was curious and went over to peek at what he'd been reading. It was the New York Times editorial page, and not a picture on it, so he certainly didn't see the fnords, whatever the hell they are, there. You think he was maybe bombed a little?"

  "Maybe, maybe not," the detective said noncommittally, obeying the police rule of never accusing anyone of anything in hearing of a witness unless ready to make an arrest. But he was already quite sure that Professor Marsh would never reappear to be subject to arrest or any other harassment by those who had not entered his special world of lost civilizations, vanished cities, lloigors, dols, and fnords. To this day, the file on the Joshua N. Marsh case in the Arkham police department bears the closing line: "Probable cause of death: suicide during drug psychosis." Nobody ever traced the change in Professor Marsh back to a KCUF meeting in Chicago and a strangely spiked punch; but the young detective, Daniel Pricefixer, always retained a nagging doubt and a shapeless disquiet about this particular investigation, and even after he moved to New York and went to work for Barney Muldoon, he was still addicted to reading books on pre-history and thinking strange thoughts.

  SIMON MAGUS. You will come to know gods.

  After the disappearance of Saul Goodman and Barney Muldoon, the FBI went over the Malik apartment with a fine-tooth comb. Everything was photographed, fingerprinted, analyzed, catalogued, and where possible shipped back to the crime laboratory in Washington. Among the items was a short note on the back of a Playboy Club lunch receipt, not in Malik's handwriting, which meant nothing to anybody and was included only for the sake of the completeness so loved by the Bureau.

  The note said:

  "Machen's dols = Lovecraft's dholes?"

  VECTORS. You will come to no gods.

  On April 25, most of New York was talking about the incredible event that had occurred shortly before dawn at the Long Island mansion of the nation's best-known philanthropist, Robert Putney Drake. Danny Pricefixer of the Bomb Squad, however, was almost oblivious of this bizarre occurrence, as he drove through heavy traffic from one part of Manhattan to another interviewing every witness who might have spoken to Joseph Malik in the week before the Confrontation explosion. The results were uniformly disappointing: aside from the fact that Malik had grown increasingly secretive in recent years, none of the interviews seemed to provide any useful information. A killer smog had again settled on the city, for the seventh straight day, and Danny, a nonsmoker, was very aware of the wheeze in his chest, which did nothing to improve his mood.

  Finally, at three in the afternoon, he left the office of ORGASM at 110 West Fortieth Street (an associate editor there was an old friend of Malik's and frequently lunched with him, but had nothing substantial to offer in leads) and remembered that the main branch of the New York Public Library was only half a block away. The hunch had been in the back of his mind, he realized, ever since he glanced at Malik's weird Illuminati memos. What the hell, he thought, it'll only be a few more wasted minutes in a wasted day.

  For once, the congestion at the window in the main reference room was not quite as bad as a Canal Street traffic jam. Atlantis and Its Gods by Professor J. N. Marsh was delivered to him in seventeen minutes, and he began leafing through it looking for the passage he vaguely remembered. At last, on page 123, he found it:

  Hans Stefan Santesson points out the basic similarity of Mayan and Egyptian investiture rituals, as previously indicated in Colonel Churchward's insightful but wrongheaded books on the lost continent of Mu. As we have demonstrat
ed, Churchward's obsession with the Pacific, based on his having received his first clues about our lost ancestors in an Asiatic temple, led him to attribute to the fictitious Mu much of the real history of the actual Atlantis. But this passage from Santesson's Understanding Mu (Paperback Library, New York, 1970, page 117) needs little correction:

  Next he was taken to the Throne of Regeneration of the Soul, and the Ceremony of Investiture or Illumination took place. Then he experienced further ordeals before attaining to the Chamber of the Orient, to the Throne of Ra, to become truly a Master. He could see for himself in the distance the uncreated light from which was pointed out the whole happiness of the future… In other words, as Churchward puts it, both in Egypt and in Maya the initiate had to "sustain" (i.e., survive) "the fiery ordeal" to be approved as an adept. The adept had to become justified. The justified must then become illuminate… The destruction of Mu was commemorated by the possibly symbolic House of Fire of the Quiche Mayas and by the relatively later Chamber of Central Fire of the Mysteries which we are told were celebrated in the Great Pyramid.

  Substituting Atlantis for Mu, Churchward and Santesson are basically correct. The god, of course, could choose the shape in which He would appear in the final ordeal, and, since these gods, or lloigor in the Atlantean language, possessed telepathy, they would read the initiate's mind and manifest in the form most terrifying to the specific individual, although the shoggoth form and the classic Angry Giant form such as appears in Aztec statues of Tlaloc were most common. To employ an amusing conceit, if these beings had survived to our time, as some occultists claim, they would appear to the average American as, say, King Kong or, perhaps, Dracula or the Wolf-Man.

  The sacrifices demanded by these creatures evidently contributed significantly to the fall of Atlantis, and we can conjecture that the mass burnings practiced by the Celts at Beltain and even the Aztec religion, which turned their altars into abattoirs, were minor in comparison, being merely the result of persistent tradition after the real menace of the lloigor had vanished. We, of course, cannot fully understand the purpose of these bloody rituals, since we cannot fathom the nature, or even the sort of matter or energy, that comprised the lloigor. That the chief of these beings, is known in the Pnakotic Manuscripts and the Eltdown Shards as lok-Sotot, "Eater of Souls," suggests that it was some energy or psychic vibration of the dying victim that the lloigor needed; the physical body was, as in the case of the corpse-eating cult of Leng, consumed by the priests themselves, or merely thrown away, as among the Thuggee of India.

  Thoughtfully and quietly, Danny Pricefixer returned the book to the clerk at the checkout window. Thoughtfully and quietly, he walked out on Fifth Avenue and stood between the two guardian lions. Who was it, he wondered, who had asked, "Since nobody wants war, why do wars keep happening?" He looked at the killer smog around him and asked himself another riddle, "Since nobody wants air pollution, why does air pollution keep increasing?"

  Professor Marsh's words came back to him: "ifthese beings had survived to our time, as some occultists claim…"

  Walking toward his car, he passed a newsstand and saw that the disaster at the Drake Mansion was still the biggest headline even in the afternoon editions. It was irrelevant to his problem, however, so he ignored it.

  Sherri Brandi continued the chant in her mind, maintaining the rhythm of her mouth movements… fifty-three-big rhinoceroses, fifty-four big rhinoceroses, fifty-five-Camel's nails dug into her shoulders suddenly and the salty gush splashed hot on her tongue. Thank the Lord, she thought, the bastard finally made it. Her jaw was tired and she had a crick in her neck and her knees hurt, but at least the son-of-a-bitch would be in a good mood now and wouldn't beat her up for having so little to report about Charley and his bugs.

  She stood up, stretching her leg and neck muscles to remove the cramps, and looked down to see if any of Car-mel's come had dribbled on her dress. Most men wanted her naked during a blow job, but not creepy Carmel; he insisted she wear her best gown, always. He liked soiling her, she realized; but, hell, he wasn't as bad as some pimps and we've all got to get our kicks some way.

  Carmel sprawled back in the easy chair, his eyes still closed. Sherri fetched the towel she had been warming over the radiator and completed the transaction, drying him and gently kissing his ugly wand before tucking it back inside his fly and zippering him up. He does look like a gaddam frog, she thought bitterly, or a nasty-tempered chipmunk.

  "Terrif," he said finally. The johns really get their money's worth from you, kid. Now tell me about Charley and his bugs."

  Sherri, still feeling cramped, pulled over a footstool and perched on its edge. "Well," she said, "you know I gotta be careful. If he knows I'm pumping him, he might drop me and take up with some other girl…"

  "So you were too damn cautious and you didn't get anything out of him?" Carmel interrupted accusingly.

  "Oh, he's over the loop," she answered, still vague. "I mean, really crazy now. That must be… uh, important… if you have to deal with him…" She came back into focus. "How I know is, he thinks he's going to other planets in his dreams. Some planet called Atlantis. Do you know which one that is?"

  Carmel frowned. This was getting stickier: first, find a commie: then, find out how to get the info out of Charley despite the FBI and CIA and all the other government people; and now, how to deal with a maniac… He looked up and saw that she was out of focus again, staring into space. Dopey broad, he thought, and then watched as she slid slowly off the stool onto a neat sleeping position on the floor.

  "What the hell?" he said out loud.

  When he knelt next to her and listened for her heart, his own face paled. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, he thought standing up, now I got to get rid of a fucking corpus delectus. The damned bitch went and died.

  "I can see the fnords!" Barney Muldoon cried, looking up from the Miami Herald with a happy grin.

  Joe Malik smiled contentedly. It had been a hectic day- especially since Hagbard had been tied up with the battle of Atlantis and the initiation of George Dorn- but now, at last, he had the feeling their side was winning. Two minds set on a death trip by the Illuminati had been successfully saved. Now if everything worked out right between George and Robert Putney Drake…

  The intercom buzzed and Joe answered, calling across the room without rising, "Malik."

  "How's Muldoon?" Hagbard's voice asked.

  "Coming all the way. He sees the fnords in a Miami paper."

  "Excellent," Hagbard said dustractedly. "Mavis reports that Saul is all the way through, too, and just saw the fnords in the New York Times. Bring Muldoon up to my room. We've located that other problem- the sickness vibrations that FUCKUP has been scanning since March. It's somewhere around Las Vegas and it's at a critical stage. We think there's been one death already."

  "But we've got to get to Ingolstadt before Walpurgia night…" Joe said thoughtfully.

  "Revise and rewrite," Hagbard said. "Some of us will go to Ingolstadt. Some of us will have to go to Las Vegas. It's the old Illuminati one-two punch- two attacks from different directions. Get your asses in gear, boys. They're immanentizing the Eschaton."

  WEISHAUPT. Fnords? Prffft!

  Another interruption. This time it was the Mothers March Against Muzak. Since that seems to be the most worthwhile cause I've been approached for all day, I gave the lady $1. I think that if Muzak can be stamped out, alot of our other ailments will disappear too, since they're probably stress symptoms, caused by noise pollution.

  Anyway, it's getting late and I might as well conclude this. One month before our KCUF experiment- that is, on September 23, 1970- Timothy Leary passed five federal agents at O'Hare Airport here in Chicago. He had vowed to shoot rather than go back to jail, and there was a gun in his pocket. None of them recognized him… And, oh, yes, there was a policeman named Timothy O'Leary in the hospital room where Dutch Schultz dies on October 23, 1935.

  I've been saving the best for last. Aldous Huxley, the first major l
iterary figure illuminated by Leary, died the same day as John F. Kennedy. The last essay he wrote revolved around Shakespeare's phrase, "Time must have a stop"- which he had previously used for the title of a novel about life after death. "Life is an illusion," he wrote, "but an illusion which we must take seriously." Two years later, Laura, Huxley's widow, met the medium, Keith Milton Rhinehart. As she tells the story in her book, This Timeless Moment, when she asked if Rinehart could contact Aldous, he replied that Aldous wanted to transmit "classical evidence of survival," a message, that is, which could not be explained "merely" as telepathy, as something Rinehart picked out of her mind. It had to be something that could only come from Aldous's mind.

  Later that evening, Rinehart produced it: instructions to go to a room in her house, a room he hadn't seen and find a particular book, which neither he nor she was familiar with. She was to look on a certain page and a certain line. The book was one Aldous had read but she had never even glanced at; it was an anthology of literary criticism. The line indicated-I have memorized it- was: "Aldous Huxley does not surprise us in this admirable communication in which paradox and erudition in the poetic sense and the sense of humor are interlaced in such an efficacious form." Need I add that the page was 17 and the line was, of course, line 23?

  (I suppose you've read Seutonius and know that the late J. Caesar was rendered exactly 23 stab wounds by Brutus and Co.)

  Brace yourself, Joe. Worse attacks on your Reason are coming along. Soon, you'll see the fnords.

  Hail Eris,

  p.s. Your question about the vibes and telepathy is easily answered. The energy is always moving in us, through us, and out of us. That's why the vibes have to be right before you can read someone without static. Every emotion is a motion.

  The Golden Apple

  There is no god but man.

  Man has the right to live by his own law- to live in the way that he wills to do; to work as he will; to play as he will; to rest as he will; to die when and how he will.