Illuminatus!

[ecosophia]

Maybe it's just an idiosyncrasy of mine, but the older I get, the more my interests focus on making the most of the ideas and interests and commitments I've already got, rather than zooming off into new territory. It's as though when I was young, I spent my time collecting raw materials, and now that I've got a good collection it's time to do something with them. 

That gradual shift of focus has sent me back to the books that influenced me most powerfully in my teens and twenties. A few evenings ago, as part of that, I pulled my battered old first edition copies of Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson's Illuminatus! trilogy down from my bookshelves for the first time in something like thirty years. 

I suspect most of my readers have at least heard of the trilogy in question. For those who haven't, it's a giddy satirical romp of a tale in which two New York cops start on the trail of the uber-conspiracy to end all conspiracies, the Bavarian Illuminati, and quickly get entangled in a preposterous set of events in which a giant golden submarine crewed by anarchists, a Las Vegas pimp, the number 23, H.P. Lovecraft, the head of all organized crime in North America, a plague that could end all life on earth, talking dolphins, Nazi zombies, Yog-Sothoth, fnord, and the ruins of ancient Atlantis all play parts -- and that's just for starters.

It's very much a product of its time, full of sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll back when those hadn't become quite so hackneyed in literature and the downsides of the counterculture's habits were still easy to ignore. It's also got the very odd attitude you so often saw in fiction written by men during that era, in which women who were "liberated" inevitably demonstrated that by making themselves sexually available to every man in sight. (Rereading the series has given me a little more insight into the forces that made 1970s feminism inevitable.) The writing is uneven, and the nonlinear narrative -- very fashionable in avant-garde fiction in those days -- doesn't always work. Nonetheless, it was (and is) a lively read, and it had a huge influence on a very broad swath of late 20th century alternative culture. 

It also had a huge influence on me. I'm not an original thinker; my imagination needs an existing stock of ideas to work with, which is why my most successful fiction was riffing off either Ernest Callenbach's Ecotopia (Retrotopia) or Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos (The Weird of Hali and its associated novels), and why my best occult writing always involves starting from an existing body of tradition and then doing new things with it. One of the reasons I've been reading the books that shaped my imagination in my younger days is precisely to trace some of my ideas to their roots. I found quite a number of those ideas in the three volumes of Illuminatus! -- including a good many whose source I'd forgotten. My readers will doubtless have seen me noting that belief in coincidence is the most common superstition of the age of science; that was nearly a word-for-word quote from one of the trilogy's characters. 

The thing that struck me most forcefully, though, was the extent to which my whole venture into tentacle fiction was subconsciously shaped by the Illuminatus! trilogy.  The central theme of the Haliverse, the confrontation between the arrogance of human reason and the reality of a universe too vast and intricate for us to understand, is also central to the trilogy; the Radiance, my world-dominating secret society of mad rationalists, is a recognizable descendant of Shea's and Wilson's Bavarian Illuminati; and there are dozens of other subtler references and reflections. I hadn't remembered, for that matter, just how much of the Cthulhu mythos Shea and Wilson put into their work -- of course I didn't know the mythos anything like as well back then as I do now. Still, the fact remains that in a certain sense, my tentacle novels can be seen as a commentary on the Illuminatus! trilogy -- and in another sense, somewhere out there in the morgenheutegesternwelt, the Illuminatus! trilogy can be seen as a commentary on The Weird of Hali. 

And of course it was also a trip back a good many decades, to the days when I finally had the chance to close the door on a mostly unhappy childhood and stretch my horizons a bit -- but I suppose plenty of aging people have similar feelings when looking back on the enthusiasms of their own younger selves. 

Comments

The New Inquisition by RAW

[sothismedias]

Hi JMG,

An interesting synchronicity (of course...)

I was revisiting my love of all things RAW this morning, looking up his book The New Inquisition. While his book focuses on Scientific Materialism and it's relation to Religious Fundamentalism, I thought it could also offer a lens through which to view the Inquisitive aspects of cancel culture and the like.

Speaking of which the following podcast on Art of Manliness has a new podcast on the Rise of Secular Religion -which is what triggered me to go looking for copies of the New Inquistion. ( https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/podcast-628-the-rise-of-secular-religion-and-the-new-puritanism/ )

In it they "delve into Kierkegaard’s prophecies on the leveling of society, and how the modern tendency to make man the measure of all things can leave us feeling spiritually and intellectually empty, and looking to politics to fill an existential void it can’t ultimately satisfy. We end our conversation describing the sustenance which can."

I find RAW's concept of reality tunnels and reality labyrinths to be very helpful when interacting with people. If I know that a person has only one reality tunnel at their disposal, and they get bent and ate up when that tunnel is called into question, or see it crumbling to due to world change events, I can be more compassionate. It also reminds me that my own reality tunnel and tunnels offer only limited views of an ever shifting labyrinth.

Anyway, RAW has been more on my mind lately and I was happy to discover the Hilaritas Press is a trust for his books keeping them in print. Great to know, especially since the price on some of the New Falcon titles has gone up since that house closed after the passing of its publisher. (I know there is something called Original Falcon but I haven't checked them out really.)

Re: The New Inquisition by RAW

[ecosophia]

Now there's another book I should reread, though I'll have to find a copy -- the only thing I kept from my once considerable RAW collection was the original trilogy. Was it The New Inquisition that included that amazing essay "The Persecution and Assassination of the Parapsychologists as Performed by the Inmates of the American Association for the Advancement of Science under the Direction of the Amazing Randi"? That essay finished the job of shaking me out of any lingering faith in rationalism I kept from childhood.

More broadly, I'm delighted that the Art of Manliness podcast thinks of serious intellectual reflection as something manly! Not to mention challenging the same crazed anthropocentrism I tried to call into question all through my tentacle novels, and even citing the same absurd claim of "man the measure of all things" in doing so. Clearly Nyarlathotep has been getting around a lot recently. ;-)

[temporaryreality]

Wait a minute, Morgenheutegesternwelt is actually a word? I can't believe three years in Germany didn't acquaint me with that valuable vocabulary addition! Sigh.

Also, up until "and the ruins of ancient Atlantis" I actually thought all of THIS [a giant golden submarine crewed by anarchists, a Las Vegas pimp, the number 23, H.P. Lovecraft, the head of all organized crime in North America, a plague that could end all life on earth, talking dolphins, Nazi zombies, Yog-Sothoth, fnord] was the crew list. I was agog.

[ecosophia]

I have no idea if it's an actual German word or not, but to the extent (a limited one) that I understand the rules of German word formation, it's a possible one, and Shea and Wilson use it in the book. As for the crew list, why not welcome the ruins of ancient Atlantis aboard the crew as well? It's a big submarine...

[degringolade]

I am genuinely getting concerned, I am NOT cyberstalking you....but I started to re-read this masterpiece about a week ago. Currently I am on the Fifth Trip or Geburah (Swift Kick, Inc) where Clem Cotex is Chatting with Joe Malik.

For what it is worth, your Haliverse (read them all and I am still giddy over PIRATES), brought on this blast of nostalgia from my deep dark past.

I forgot how fun this book was.

[ecosophia]

Good heavens. Were the resemblances strong enough for the Haliverse to make you think of Illuminatus! -- or was it just one of them, ahem, coincidences? ;-)

[robertmathiesen]

Oh my! Now there's a blast from a long forgotten past. I read it when it first came out, but I was already 33 years old, well married with two children (the older in 2nd grade already), and a card-carrying member of the Silent Generation. So a lot of what Shea and Wilson had to offer didn't--couldn't--speak to me in the way that it spoke to people even five years younger than I was.

Even so, I recognized a masterpiece when I read it. It's time to read it again. Thank you for the reminder.

PS It's not just you. I stopped wanting to zoom off into new territory in my later 50s, and began to weed and cultivate the seeds that I'd already gathered and planted in my own intellectual garden. Now, in my later 70s, I find I'm harvesting what I grew, and building barns to store it for the use of those who will come after me. "To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the sun."

[ecosophia]

You're most welcome. What a long strange trip, and so on.

[(Anonymous)]

Are those the books where the word “fnord” is written everywhere to keep you hypnotized? If so, I read one about 100 years ago

[ecosophia]

That's the one. Fnord!

[(Anonymous)]

The Evil Empire of Seattle has it for $9.99 as an ebook and $17.99 as a paperback. Thriftbooks has it for $11.69, used. It's also available as an aoudiobook for $24.99

The Grey Badger

[ecosophia]

As far as I know it's been in print continuously since it first came out, though these days it's usually a one-volume omnibus edition, rather than the original three volumes with seriously goofy prologues to volumes 2 and 3.

[(Anonymous)]

Illuminatus and Gravity's Rainbow, both of which I read in my late teens, I think shaped me more than any other works of fiction. Glad to know there are others out there who were at least partly similarly influenced.

[ecosophia]

I may just give Pynchon a read one of these days.

[davidnevarez]

JMG,

I am reading one of the books you recommended in one of your other books, THE SECRET TRADITION IN ARTHURIAN LEGEND by Gareth Knight. I am intimidated by reading this material probably because of my religious background. I have purchased many of your other occult books, and I plan to study them. I am happy that you are here as a teacher. I listened to your interview with Niles Heckman, and I enjoyed it.

[ecosophia]

Thank you! I'm glad to hear this.

[(Anonymous)]

I heard a quote recently - from a course with Gordon White over on Rune Soup - I can't remember who he was quoting, but it was something like: "the obsessions of your youth will be visited upon you in your old age."

[ecosophia]

No doubt! Me, I welcome the visit, and hand my former obsessions a beer and sit around with them talking about old times.

[mchangeling]

JMG,

I don't know for sure, but the coincidences are maybe really getting out of hand: is it something in air or are you, Archdruid, too much of an vortex (metaphorically and literally) on time-less and space-less mental plane? For the last months and the changes in and around pandemic I had the same feeling as I reflect on my (just finished) three decades: I've spend far too much reading and not enough of doing - and there is so much that I want and need to do.

-changeling

Ps. I've send you link via this side (dreamwidth) to google document with SoP variant as we discussed under last Ecosopia post. Could you confirm that it landed or should I send it second time?

[ecosophia]

I did in fact get it -- thank you! I'd meant to reply to your message but accidentally deleted it with a bunch of others -- after saving the ritual, fortunately.

As for the coincidences, I don't think it's me. I think things are picking up on a much larger scale.

Original Thinking

[(Anonymous)]

"I'm not an original thinker; my imagination needs an existing stock of ideas to work with..."
As far as I've been able to discern throughout my entire life exploring notions of creativity and originality, I concluded years ago that *every* "original thinker" has been riffing from some ideas someone else though of before them. I assure you, if you can expand or revise someone else's idea, that is original thinking.

BTW, I, too, have a fragile 1st edition of said trilogy, which I read again a few years back, and my favorite character was, and is, the mgt.

Bruce
Renaissance Man

Re: Original Thinking

[ecosophia]

Of course nobody creates in a complete vacuum, but there's a difference between the kind of author who breaks a lot of new ground in a hurry -- Tolkien's a good example here; though you can find his sources easily enough, he did something astonishingly new with them -- and the kind who simply rearranges an existing stock of ideas in entertaining ways. I'm the latter kind of author. That doesn't bother me at all -- it's what I like to do, and there are people who like the result.

[weirdtales]

Morgenheutegesternwelt? Tomorrow-today-yesterday-world? Do I have that right? What a mouthful!

Your...circumambular literary review reminds me of your advice on retracing your thoughts in meditation when they wander. Is this simply a larger fractal of that same pattern?

BTW, tearing through Dion Fortune's fiction lately I've noticed several terms and turns of phrase that lodged themselves in your vernacular. Still, I think you're plenty original in the thinking department!

Grover

[ecosophia]

You do indeed. One of the things about German I appreciate is its capacity to construct gargantuan compound nouns like that. Yes, it's a larger fractal -- and yes, Dion Fortune has had a huge influence on my thinking. As for originality, nah -- I'm just good at scooping up ideas most other people have never heard of.

Not zooming off any more

[scotlyn]

"the older I get, the more my interests focus on making the most of the ideas and interests and commitments I've already got"

This is me, too. I've realised that the very large "bite" I intended to chew when I joined AODA, then purchased and did some of DH, then purchased and did some of DMH, then purchased and did some of DA, all the while feeling profoundly "connected" to the idea of Druidry, but too unsettled to sit down and pursue a thing right to the end without getting stuck somewhere, was somehow too big and rambling of a bite.

I also realised that I was/am still "chewing" on the concepts that inform my professional practice of TCM style acupuncture.

So, the decision I made earlier this year narrow my focus considerably, and to reduce my ambitions considerably, has allowed me to keep at the practices in a much more steady way than I had been able to achieve.

I am dedicating all discursive meditations, for at least a year, to a review of TCM concepts and practices - Yin/Yang, Five Elements, the Zang Fu, the Meridians, the various patterns of disharmony, and so on.

I am doing my daily SOP in my clinic using the Brigid version https://scotlyn.dreamwidth.org/986.html

I am praying to Brigid daily using a Haliverse-adjacent practice, and also dedicating myself and my clinic daily to her healing work.

For the first time, in many years since I discovered ADR and AODA, I am able to do each of these things every single day, without slacking, feeling overwhelmed, or getting stuck.

I have never successfully established any divination practice, as yet. But I will continue to consolidate the TCM and clinic work, using these extra tools which I have learned here, until it feels like it is now time to get back to the DMH/DA trajectory. And then see...

The dilettante in me thanks you, though, for many, many years of amazing novelty and new things to "zoom off too" for a moment here and there. Even though, one always has to (eventually) come home, chop wood, draw water, and make home, er, homely. :)

Re: Not zooming off any more

[ecosophia]

That's something that happens to most people in occult practice: there comes a point when you feel you've done enough dabbling and it's time to buckle down and get to work. It shouldn't be rushed -- there's a point to that period of trying a little of this and a little of that! -- but when the time comes, it comes.

By the way, I love the euphemism "Haliverse-adjacent practice"! Especially when we're talking about one style of old-fashioned contemplative prayer...

[(Anonymous)]

I remember way back when being very briefly furious at a quote - Jung? Someone else? - who said that intellectual women had no original thoughts, but wee just riffing off the works of men. Then, reflecting on intellectual men, realized they were doing exactly the same thing. And of course, some delving into history proved that original ideas were very rare in either sex, and that many of them never saw the light of day until someone dug them up and said "Hey! A paleontologist, back in the 19th century?* Cool!"

*True story. Fossil hunter, forget her name but considered at the time to be pursuing a genteel but eccentric hobby, IIRC.

Yes, indeed, we all stand on the shoulders of giants.

[ecosophia]

Jung, like every other psychologist, did a certain amount of channeling the prejudices of his culture and era, and yes, he said that. For what it's worth, I've met the type he was talking about -- privileged women for whom "being intellectual" was a fashion statement, and who decked themselves out in the latest trendy ideas while putting on makeup and jewelry. To judge by fiction, that type was exceedingly common in upper- and upper-middle-class circles in the first half of the 20th century. But it was still a dumb thing to say -- not least because his circle included some extremely intelligent and creative women.

[(Anonymous)]

I have no head for farce and keep trying to make sense of what's going on. I do like the statement, late in the first book, that office politics pile up exponentially with the number of people involved, or why the conspirators limit their cells to 5 people. And its corollary, that quite possibly, the five at the top have no clue what's going on in the lower echelons. (Which I'd call a dead certainty.)

[ecosophia]

It's a tough read if you're used to linear plots and a stable point of view! Still, the two points you picked up are among the central themes of the story.

Thirteen choruses for the divine Marquis..

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG

Another synchronicity here!

RAW was my guiding light as a teenager and in my early twenties, and I've been thinking a lot this week about how he enlarged my horizons. I seriously doubt I'd have found my way eventually to your writing without his.

I have Illuminatus! on my shelf but, and this is utterly typical of me for some reason, I actually have not yet read it all the way through. I've often done this: ended up obsessed with a writer or band without getting into the main work most people associate with them. I'll do it ASAP.

It was RAW's non-fiction books and articles that did it for me - particularly some of the short articles like the Randi "inmates of the asylum" one (I think that was in Right Where You are Sitting Now, BTW), "13 Choruses for the Divine Marquis" and many others. Wilhelm Reich in Hell is also really cool.

The guy communicated something wonderful that I'll always be grateful for, and that has I believe kept me out of the depressive states of mind that have affected many people close to me: Pronoia, courage, intellectual joy, humour, humility...

Many more things I'd like to say about the man but I've got to run...

Thanks!

Morfran

Fnord

Re: Thirteen choruses for the divine Marquis..

[ecosophia]

Wilson seems to have done that for a lot of people. He certainly helped me stretch my ideas about the possible!

[(Anonymous)]

Speaking of belief in coincidence, I believe you were channeling Ernst Friedrich Schumacher when you meant Ernst Callenbach

[ecosophia]

Thanks for this -- of course you're quite correct. This is why it helps to edit...

[grandswamperman]

I've wanted to read the Illuminatus! trilogy for a while now, but seeing these comments about the omnibus edition removing some content means I'll have to go hunting for the original paperbacks (probably via online sellers, since the pandemic has shut down the local used bookstore for now). Apparently the omnibus edition of the sort-of-sequel-trilogy Schrödinger's Cat suffers from removed content as well. One wonders if the Illuminati are secretly the ones keeping those books in print...

[ecosophia]

Always a possibility! Fnord...

More tracks in space

[logicalmagic83]

So I regularly listen to The Survival Podcast which has a nicely broad range of content. It's been especially useful lately as I've gone down the road to entrepreneurship. I also listen to a variety of occult/psychedelic based podcasts. For months, the above mentioned book title kept being brought up. I didn't find it odd that Robert Anton Wilson's work would be mentioned on shows like The Infinite Path but when the self described redneck duck farmer, Jack, who hosts The Survival Podcast, mentioned the book as relevant to the times, I figured I'd better listen to the universe and get a copy. Then you, Mr. Greer, shared this post today. The book arrived in the mail today (actually the complete trilogy) and I'll start it this evening. I'll pay close attention.

Re: More tracks in space

[ecosophia]

Okay, the synchronicities are really piling up. Trippy, as Simon Moon would say.

The Widow's Son

[deborah_bender]

My favorite RAW novel by far is The Widow's Son.

[(Anonymous)]

I have never heard of these books, but they just earned a place on my to-read list. I’ve been following your advice about mostly reading books older than I am, and it’s been enlightening so far.

[causticus]

Nice! I remember reading the trilogy back in my college days; this girl I was hanging/flinging out with at the time lent the book to me and I eagerly devoured its pages. Now that I think of it, the Illuminatus! trilogy was my gateway drug into supermundane topics; prior to that I was strictly materialist, and afterwards I slowly started reading up on various conspiracy theories and pop-occult tidbits and then eventually these interests would take a more serious turn. I blame this all on the minefield of fnords RAW embedded into the book.

Synchronicity multiplied by a large number

[steveinnc]

Funny you should bring this up. I just reread the trilogy a few months ago, I think prompted by a mention of it in one of the comment threads by either you or another commenter. This was an influential (and subversive (in a positive way)) book for me when I read it the first time in my high school years back in the 80s. I even put a fnord in an English paper (got an A too!).

It does make sense though that we are drawn to, or back to as the case may be, this book at this time. While we may disagree on exactly what is going on, it seems very likely that there are powers and organizations moving and influencing events just out of view offstage, and a book featuring just this sort of grand conspiracy fits right in to the current zeitgeist.

If enough people are thinking and about and discussing conspiracies, would this be considered an egregore, with our interest in this book being an example of its influence?

Anyway, to whoever mentioned Illuminatus! first, thanks for the blast from the past!

Just posting a link

[degringolade]

Since I was up and thinking this AM and will be heading out for a walk soon to beat the heat (100 in Portland), I spent time this morning just pondering the synchronicity of Illuminatus and the Haliverse.

I still can't answer for certain if the Haliverse prompted my 30-year plus reread (currently on "Unordnung"), but damnme if it ain't a distinct possibility.

JMG: I understand if that, after reading such, you can not bother to publish the link, but I will put it up anyway.

https://degringolade.dreamwidth.org/154277.html

Re: Just posting a link

[ecosophia]

Thanks for this. I thought it was a thoughtful bit of reflection, and you've touched on one of the core differences between Illuminatus! and the Haliverse. Both series challenge the notion that the universe is rationally ordered (as in, ordered in a way that conforms to the habits of human reason), but they have very different ideas of what's actually going on. In Illuminatus!, what's really going on is chaos: thus the giddy structure of the prose and the way that the apparent solidity of the Illuminati dissolves into mist.

In the Haliverse, by contrast, what's really going on is natural order -- an order that humans don't make and can't comprehend, but can cooperate with, for the simple reason that we're part of it too. That's why Cthulhu's awakening didn't transform the world into something wholly other, and why the Radiance turned out not to be the independent force it purported to be. It's also why the prose in my novels follows a linear timeline and the plots have familiar structures. (Well, that and the fact that I write the kind of books I like to read!)