The Illuminatus! Trilogy
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The Illuminatus! Trilogy is a series of novels written by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson.
The books are unashamed hippie paranoia, or perhaps a satire of such paranoia, including many references to Discordianism, the Illuminati, the ∴.∴, 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 Many of the odder conspiracies in the book are taken from unpublished letters to Playboy magazine, where the authors were working as associate editors while they wrote the novels.
The three books that make up the trilogy are:
- The Eye in the Pyramid
- The Golden Apple
- Leviathan
The trilogy won the 1986 Prometheus Hall of Fame Award.
Warning: Plot details follow.
The trilogy's rambling plot begins with the investigation by two New York City detectives (Saul Goodman and Barney Muldoon) of the bombing of a leftist magazine and the disappearance of its editor. Discovering the magazine's investigation into the Kennedy and King assassinations, the two become drawn into a web of conspiracy theories. At the same time, the magazine's reporter George Dorn, turned loose without support in deep right-wing Texas after the bombing, finds himself dragged bodily into the hands of the same conspiratorial organizations. (...)
One of the most well-known conceits in the book is the fnord, a word that the majority of the population had been trained since early childhood to ignore (and of course trained to forget the training, and the fact that they are ignoring it) but also to associate with a vague sense of unease. Fnords are scattered liberally in the text of newpapers and magazines, causing fear and anxiety in those following current events. However, there are no fnords in the advertisements, encouraging a consumerist society.
Another included concept is that of immanentizing the eschaton, a catch-phrase meaning "bring about the end of the world" or "create heaven on earth" derived from a quotation in the works of Eric Voegelin. In the book it is taken to symbolize a plot for mass human sacrifice to release "life-energy" enough to bring eternal life to, among others, Adolf Hitler.
All views of reality ever mentioned in the book are self-derided in some way, and then the opposite view is derided too, and the fact that the two derided ideas oppose so much as to hide other things from the view of reality. This forces the reader to think about ever-opposing points of view (such as two ever-opposed political parties) to be a meaningless comedy destined to narrow the mind into thinking that there is nothing one can do but vote for the lesser evil(this is to some extent true, and to some extent false). But the alternatives in the book to the two dominant views on any subject are delirant, extremely self-mocking, and entirely unrealistic to a non-hippie. This allows the reader to think about non-dominant views that are realistic and better than current society but certainly not the ones in the book which are clearly a joke!
Separating the new alternative view(left to the reader to choose) from the rejecting the two dominant views reduce the reader's cognitive dissonance in the form of unconfortable "hippie" ideas like his daily consumerism and quiet law-abiding as support for a mind-shrinking corporate-manufactured political world. This is too much to absorb all at once for some, and fans of the book clearly prefer progressive buildup of ideas that sound totally absurd if said all at once(and the explicit mocking of their absurdity by various characters in the book).
This book may cause an accidental-looking refreshing of your opinions on many topics, but this isn't the goal. The goal seems to be to make the reader think that his new opinion shouldn't be taken too seriously or it would narrow his mind as much as the old one. Fans think this is a masterpiece crafted for this goal or total nonsense as explicitely advertized. Scrap that, fans think this is a goal-oriented, goal-reaching masterpiece AND nonsense as advertized. (-;
This and other types of HaHaOnlySerious humor as described in the hacker dictionary fill the Illuminatus series to a level rarely known before(i.e. the only one I can find is Ivanovitch Gurdjieff's later books who wanted his disciples to disagree about his teachings as his main goal to teach avoidance of belief systems where the possible opinions are a very narrow number. Unlike Illuminatus, Gurdjieff teaches nothing else really important or funny but as Illuminatus always teaches indirectly). Taking this kind of humor either completely seriously or completely as a joke (or labeling as a joke the same part of the book as other fans) is generally impossible to the cult following of either Gurdjieff or the Illuminatus! books.
Back to conventional plot spoilers, I'll have to mention the historical devil itself repented as newly powerful ignorant fools of ignorance form the new "evil". Discordians are the original source of evil and the illuminati are the original source of good (according to one Discordian movement anyway). The American Medical Association is pure evil and massive ignorance(no, not THAT pure-evil, tobacco ads-running AMA up to the 50's. In the book it's a rock band). Kinky sex is overused and mocked as "only to sell a bad book filled with shallow characters pushing a nonsense conspiracy" according to the book reviewer characters. Hagbard Celine as a world-class liar with delusions of grandeur and authority is something Hagbard realises himself as he abdicates spiritual authority to a mere teenage girl who traps him into a rant!
In the end it's up to you to decide how to be confortable in reading it by choosing which part of the book you think is a joke! This will change as you read again and no leftover view when you trim the jokes can be confortable forever as the book is deeper than meet the eye.