Everything about The Illuminatus Trilogy totally explained
The Illuminatus! Trilogy is a
series of three novels written by
Robert Shea and
Robert Anton Wilson purportedly between 1969 and 1971, and first published in 1975. The trilogy is a
satirical,
postmodern,
science fiction-influenced adventure story; a
drug-,
sex- and
magic-laden trek through a number of
conspiracy theories, both historical and imaginary, which hinge around the authors' version of the
Illuminati. The narrative often switches between
third and
first person perspectives and jumps around in time. It is thematically dense, covering topics like
counterculture,
numerology and
Discordianism.
The trilogy comprises the books
The Eye in the Pyramid,
The Golden Apple and
Leviathan. They were first published starting in September 1975, as three separate volumes, and in 1984 as an omnibus; they're now more commonly reprinted in the latter form. The trilogy won the
Prometheus Hall of Fame Award, designed to honor classic
libertarian fiction, in 1986. The authors went on to create several works, both fiction and nonfiction, that further discussed the themes of the trilogy, but no direct sequels were produced.
Illuminatus! has been adapted for the stage, and has influenced several modern writers, musicians and games-makers. The popularity of the word "
fnord" and the
23 enigma can both be attributed to the trilogy. It remains a of
conspiracy fiction, predating
Foucault's Pendulum and
The Da Vinci Code by decades.
Narrative
The plot meanders between the thoughts,
hallucinations and inner voices (both real and imagined) of its many characters, as well as through time (past, present and future)—sometimes in mid-sentence. Much of the back story is explained via dialogue between characters, who recount unreliable, often mutually contradictory, versions of their supposed histories. There are even parts in the book where it actually reviews and jokingly
deconstructs itself.
Plot summary
The trilogy's rambling story begins with an investigation by two
New York City detectives (Saul Goodman and Barney Muldoon) into the bombing of
Confrontation, a
leftist magazine, and the disappearance of its editor, Joe Malik. Discovering the magazine's investigation into the
John F. Kennedy,
Robert F. Kennedy, and
Martin Luther King, Jr. assassinations, the two follow a trail of memos that suggest the involvement of powerful secret societies. They slowly become drawn into a web of conspiracy theories. Meanwhile, the magazine's reporter, George Dorn – having been turned loose without support deep in
right-wing Mad Dog,
Texas – is arrested for possession of drugs. He is jailed and physically threatened, at one point hallucinating about his own execution. The prison is bombed and he's bodily dragged into the hands of the
Discordians, led by the enigmatic
Hagbard Celine, captain of a golden submarine. Hagbard represents the Discordians in their eternal battle against the Illuminati, the conspiratorial organization that secretly controls the world. He finances his operations by smuggling illicit substances.
The plot meanders around the globe to such far-flung locations as
Las Vegas, Nevada (where a potentially deadly, secret
U.S. government-developed mutated
anthrax epidemic has been accidentally unleashed);
Atlantis (where Howard, the talking
porpoise, and his porpoise aides help Hagbard battle the Illuminati);
Chicago (where someone resembling
John Dillinger was killed many years ago); and to the island of
Fernando Poo (the location of the next great
Cold War standoff between
Russia,
China and the USA).
The evil scheme uncovered late in the tale is an attempt to
immanentize the eschaton (a catchphrase meaning "bringing about the end of the world" or "creating heaven on earth", and derived from a quotation in the works of
Eric Voegelin). Here it refers to the secret scheme of the
American Medical Association, an evil rock-and-roll band, to bring about a mass
human sacrifice, the purpose of which is the release of enough "life-energy" to give eternal life to a select group of initiates, including
Adolf Hitler. The AMA are four siblings who comprise four of the five mysterious Illuminati Primi. The identity of the fifth remains unknown for much of the trilogy. The first European "
Woodstock" festival, held at
Ingolstadt,
Bavaria,
Germany, is the chosen location for the sacrifice of the unwary victims, via the reawakening of hibernating
Nazi battalions from the bottom of nearby Lake Totenkopf. The plot is foiled when, with the help of a 50-foot-tall incarnation of the goddess
Eris, the four members of the AMA are killed: Wilhelm is killed by the monstrous alien being
Yog-Sothoth, Wolfgang is shot by John Dillinger, Winifred is drowned by porpoises, and Werner is trapped in a sinking car.
The major protagonists, now gathered together onboard the submarine, are menaced by the
Leviathan, a giant, pyramid-shaped single-cell
sea monster that has been growing in size for hundreds of millions of years. The over-the-top nature of this encounter leads some of the characters to question whether they're merely characters in a book. This
metafictional note is swiftly rejected (or ignored) as they turn their attention to the monster again. The threat is neutralized by offering up their onboard computer as something for the creature to communicate with to ease its loneliness. Finally, Hagbard Celine reveals himself as the fifth Illuminatus Primus — he's been toying with both sides and playing them off against each other in order to keep balance. He is a representative of the "true" Illuminati, whose aim is to spread the idea that everybody is free to do whatever they want at all times.
Titles
The titles of the three volumes or parts (the front covers were titled
Illuminatus! Part I The Eye in the Pyramid,
Illuminatus! Part II The Golden Apple and
Illuminatus! Part III Leviathan) refer to recurring symbols that relate to elements of the plot.
The Eye in the Pyramid refers to the
Eye of Providence, which in the novel represents in particular the
Bavarian Illuminati, and makes a number of appearances (for example, as an altar and a tattoo).
The Golden Apple refers to the
Golden apple of discord, from the
Greek myth of the
Judgement of Paris. In the trilogy it's used as the symbol of the Legion of Dynamic Discord, a
Discordian group; the golden apple makes a number of appearances, for example, on a
black flag, and as an emblem on a uniform.
Leviathan refers to the
Biblical sea monster
Leviathan, which is a potential danger to Hagbard's submarine
Leif Erickson (from the name of the
icelandic discoverer of America).
The three parts of the trilogy are subdivided into five "books" named after the five seasons of the
Discordian calendar. These books are also subdivided into ten "trips" named after the ten
Sephirot. The last trip's conclusion is followed by fourteen appendices named after letters of the
Hebrew Alphabet, which share their names with paths on the
Tree of Life. The first page of the Appendix includes this mysterious note: "There were originally 22 appendices explaining the secrets of the Illuminati. Eight of the appendices were removed due to the paper shortage. They will be printed in heaven", while "Appendix
Mem" states: "Where are the missing eight appendices? Answer: Censored." This appears to be another of the authors' jokes, although it's true that eight letters of the Hebrew Alphabet are missing, and the publisher required the authors to cut 500 pages from the book.
Publishing history
The trilogy was originally written between 1969 and 1971 while Wilson and Shea were both associate editors for
Playboy magazine. As part of the role, they dealt with correspondence from the general public on the subject of
civil liberties, much of which involved paranoid rants about imagined conspiracies. The pair began to write a novel with the premise that "all these nuts are right, and every single conspiracy they complain about really exists". In a 1980 interview given to the science fiction magazine
Starship, Wilson suggested the novel was also an attempt to build a myth around
Discordianism:
melodrama, while Wilson's parts tended towards
satire. Wilson states in a 1976 interview conducted by Neal Wilgus:
Ken Campbell, who created a stage adaptation of
Illuminatus! with
Chris Langham, the writing process was treated as a game of one-upmanship between the two co-authors, and was an enjoyable experience for both:
Illuminatus! into three parts was a commercial decision of the publisher, not the authors, who had conceived it as a single continuous volume. Publishers Dell also required Shea and Wilson to cut 500 pages to reduce printing costs on what was seen as a risky venture,
Themes
The Illuminatus! Trilogy covers a wide range of subjects within its 805 pages. These include discussions about mythology, current events, conspiracy theories and the
Cthulhu Mythos.
Conspiracies
Although the many conspiracy theories in the book are (presumably) imaginary, these are mixed in with enough truth to make them seem plausible. For example, the title of the first book,
The Eye in the Pyramid, refers to the
Eye of Providence, a mystical symbol which derives from the ancient Egyptian
Eye of Horus and is rumored to be the symbol of the
Bavarian Illuminati. Some of
America's founding fathers are alleged by conspiracy theorists to have been members of this sect.
The books are loaded with references to the Illuminati, the
Argenteum Astrum, many and various
world domination plans, conspiracy theories and pieces of
gnostic knowledge. Many of the odder conspiracies in the book are taken from unpublished letters to
Playboy magazine, where the authors were working as
associate editors while they wrote the novels. Among the oddest, the suggestion that
Adam Weishaupt, founder of the Bavarian Illuminati, killed
George Washington and took on his identity as
President of the United States is often noted in Illuminati-conspiracy discussion. Proponents of this theory point to Washington's portrait on the
United States one-dollar bill, which they suggest closely resembles the face of Weishaupt.
Fnord
One of the most well-known concepts in the book is the
fnord, a word coined by the writers of
Principia Discordia and given meaning by Shea and Wilson for
Illuminatus! which has since been adopted in numerous other contexts. In the Shea/Wilson fictional construct, it's a type of
subliminal message technique brought about by seeing the word in print: a word that the majority of the population since early childhood has been trained to ignore (and, of course, trained to forget both the training and the fact that they're ignoring it), but which they associate with a vague sense of unease. Upon seeing the word, readers experience a panic reaction. They then subconsciously suppress all memories of having seen the word, but the sense of panic remains. They therefore associate the unease with the news story they're reading. Fnords are scattered liberally in the text of newspapers and magazines, causing
fear and
anxiety in those following current events. However, there are no fnords in the
advertisements, thus encouraging a
consumerist society.
Fnord magazine equated the fnords with a generalized effort to control and brainwash the populace. To "see the fnords" would imply an attempt to wrestle back individual autonomy.
The word makes its first appearance in
The Illuminatus! Trilogy without any explanation during an
acid trip by Dr. Ignotum Per Ignotius and Joe Malik: "The only good fnord is a dead fnord". Several other unexplained appearances follow. Only much later in the story is the secret revealed, when Malik is hypnotized by Hagbard Celine to recall suppressed memories of his first-grade teacher conditioning his class to ignore the fnords: "If you don't see the fnord it can't eat you, don't see the fnord, don't see the fnord..." It is implied in the text that "fnord" isn't the actual word used for this purpose, but rather a substitute, since anyone reading the book wouldn't be able to see the actual word. Others have pointed out that fnord may instead/also be a symbol representing the "is" of identity condemned by
Alfred Korzybski.
Numerology
Numerology is given great credence by many of the characters, with the
Law of Fives in particular being frequently mentioned. Hagbard Celine states the Law of Fives in Appendix Gimmel: "All phenomena are directly or indirectly related to the number five." Another character, Simon Moon, identifies what he calls the "
23 synchronicity principle", which he credits
William S. Burroughs as having discovered. Both laws involve finding significance in the appearance of the number, and in its "presen[ce]
esoterically because of its conspicuous
exoteric absence." One of the reasons Moon finds 23 significant is because "All the great anarchists died on the 23rd day of some month or other." He also identifies a "23/17 phenomenon." They are both tied to the Law of Fives, he explains, because 2 + 3 = 5, and 1 + 7 = 8 = 2³. Robert Anton Wilson claimed in a 1988 interview that "23 is a part of the cosmic code. It's connected with so many
synchronicities and weird coincidences that it must mean something, I just haven't figured out yet what it means!".
Counterculture
The books were written at the height of the late 1960s, and are infused with the popular
counterculture ideas of that time. For instance, the
New Age slogan "
flower power" is referenced via its German form,
Ewige Blumenkraft (literally "eternal flower power"), described by Shea and Wilson as a slogan of the Illuminati, the enemies of the
hippy ideal. The book's attitude to New Age philosophies and beliefs are ambiguous. Wilson explained in a later interview: "I'm some kind of antibody in the New Age movement. My function is to raise the possibility, hey, you know, some of this stuff might be bullshit."
The prevalence of
kinky sex in the story reflects the hippy ideal of "
free love"; characters are both liberal-minded and promiscuous. The authors are well aware that it also provides an excuse for mere titillation: in a typically
self-referential joke, a character in the story suggests the scenes exist: "only to sell a bad book filled with shallow characters pushing a nonsense conspiracy". Similarly, the books espouse the use of
mind-altering substances to achieve higher states of consciousness, in line with the beliefs of key counterculture figures like
Timothy Leary. Leary himself called the trilogy "more important than
Ulysses or
Finnegans Wake". This quote is
blurbed on the covers or front page of its various printings.
Cognitive dissonance
Every view of
reality that's introduced in the story is later derided in some way, whether that view is traditional or iconoclastic. The trilogy is an exercise in
cognitive dissonance, with an absurdist plot built of seemingly plausible, if unprovable, components. Ultimately, readers are left to form their own interpretations as to which, if any, of the numerous contradictory viewpoints presented by the characters are valid or plausible, and which are simply
satirical gags and
shaggy dog jokes. This style of building up a viable belief system, then tearing it down to replace it with another one, was described by Wilson as "
guerrilla ontology".
This
postmodern lack of belief in
consensus reality is a cornerstone of the semi-humorous
Chaos-based religion of
Discordianism. Extracts from its sacred text, the
Principia Discordia by
Malaclypse the Younger, are extensively quoted throughout the trilogy. It incorporates and shares many themes and contexts from
Illuminatus. Shea and Wilson
dedicated the first part "To
Gregory Hill and
Kerry Thornley", the founders of the religion. The key Discordian practice known as "
Operation Mindfuck" is exemplified in the character of Markoff Chaney (a play on the mathematical random process called
Markov chain). He is an anti-social dwarf who engages in subtle practical joking in a deliberate attempt to cause social confusion. One such joke involves the forging and placing of signs that are signed by "The Mgt." (leading people to believe they're from "The Management" instead of "The Midget") that contain absurdities like "Slippery when wet. Maintain 50mph."
Self-reference
There are several parts in the book where it reviews and jokingly deconstructs itself. The fictional journalist Epicene Wildeblood at one point is required to critique a book uncannily similar to
The Illuminatus! Trilogy:
FUCKUP has been working all morning, correlating all the data on this caper and its historical roots, and I programmed him to put it in the form of a novel for easy reading. Considering what a lousy job he does at poetry, I suppose it'll be a
high-camp novel, intentionally or unintentionally."
Allusions to other works
For a work of fiction,
Illuminatus! contains a lot of references to songs, films, articles, novels and other media. This is partly because the characters themselves are involved in doing research, but it's also a trademark of Wilson's writing.
The novel
Telemachus Sneezed by the character Atlanta Hope with its catchphrase "What is John Guilt?" is a spoof of
Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged. Ayn Rand is mentioned by name a few times in
Illuminatus! herself, and her novel is alluded to by Hagbard who says, "If Atlas can Shrug and Telemachus can Sneeze, why can't Satan Repent?" Rand is also disparaged in one of the appendices concerning property, ostensibly written by Hagbard, which serves as an explanation of anarchist
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's views on the subject. There are also references to
Thomas Pynchon's
The Crying of Lot 49 and his
Gravity's Rainbow, an equally enormous experimental novel concerning liberty and paranoia that was published two years prior to
Illuminatus! Wilson claims his book was already complete by the time he and Shea read Pynchon's novel (which went on to win several awards), but they then went back and made some modifications to the text before its final publication to allude to Pynchon's work.}}
The Fortean Times was also enthusiastic, whilst acknowledging the difficulties many readers would have attempting to follow the convoluted plot threads:
Illuminatus! even garnered some attention outside of literary criticism, having several pages devoted to it in a chapter on the American
New Right in
Architects of Fear: Conspiracy Theories and Paranoia in American Politics by George Johnson (1983).
In more recent years, it was complimented in the bibliography to the
New Hackers Dictionary as a book that can help readers "understand the
hacker mindset." The Dictionary described it as:
It was also included in the "Slack Syllabus" in
The Official Slacker Handbook by Sarah Dunn (1994), a satirical guide aimed at
Generation X.
Follow-ups
Wilson and Robert Shea went on to become prolific authors. While Shea concentrated mainly on historical novels, Wilson produced over 30 works, mixing fictional novels with nonfiction. Although both authors' later work often elaborated on concepts first discussed in
Illuminatus!, the pair never collaborated again. The trilogy inspired a number of direct adaptations, including a stage play and a comic book series, and numerous indirect adaptations that borrowed from its themes.
Shea and Wilson
Wilson subsequently wrote a number of
prequels,
sequels and
spin-offs based upon the
Illuminatus! concept, including an incomplete
pentalogy called
The Historical Illuminatus Chronicles, However,
Robert Shea died in 1994 before this project came to fruition. An excerpt was published in
Robert Anton Wilson's
Trajectories Newsletter: The Journal of Futurism and Heresy in spring 1995. In a 1994 interview for
FringeWare Review, Wilson suggested he may even "do a Son of Illuminatus later". Curiously, in
Intelligence Agents by Timothy Leary (1996) he was credited with having already authored
Son of Illuminatus in the 1980s.
Shea, meanwhile, never wrote another
Illuminatus!-related book, although many of his later novels include references to the themes of that work.
Locus magazine describes Shea's
Saracen novels as "Deep background for the
Illuminatus trilogy".
Adaptations
An audacious proposal by English actor, theatre philanthropist and comedian
Ken Campbell to stage
The Illuminatus! Trilogy in its entirety at
The Royal National Theatre in London was met with surprisingly open arms given its length: a cycle of five plays (The Eye of the Pyramid; Swift Kick Inc.; The Man Who Murdered God; Walpurgisnacht Rock; and Leviathan) each consisting of five 23-minute-long acts. It was in fact the first-ever show to open the theatre's third space, the Cottesloe Theatre, running from
4 March to
27 March 1977. It had initially opened in
Liverpool on
23 November 1976, and even featured
Illuminatus! author Robert Anton Wilson as a naked extra in the
witches' sabbat scene. Wilson himself was delighted with the adaptation, saying:
Further Information
Get more info on 'The Illuminatus Trilogy'.
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