The Illuminatus! Trilogy

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Masons, to psychotic pirates, according to a script written in advance by two acid-heads and a Martian humorist". Hagbard Celine claims towards the climax that the entire story is a computer-generated synthesis of random conspiracies: "I can fool the rest of you, but I can't fool the reader. 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 will be a

686:(I don't think it was really) they got into the Illuminati. Wilson would bung these memos to Shea as material came in from the researchers—like the memos in the book. When they got to memo 23, Shea said, "If we imagine a New York cop came across these memos, I think we've got the basis for a fine thriller!" So the next one Wilson wrote was episode one of the thriller. Shea replied with episode two. They were playing a game really. Like, I bet you can't continue this! The answer is, "No I can't, so we'll continue with this!" 1603: 3382: 645:

called the Bavarian Illuminati There were several Discordian newsletters written in the 1960s, and several Discordian members wrote for the underground press in various parts of the country. So, we built up this myth about the warfare between the Discordian Society and the Illuminati for quite a while, until one day Bob Shea said to me, "You know, we could write a novel about this!"

1781:, he also named his computer "FUCKUP", after a computer designed and built by that character. He was addicted to cocaine and became extremely paranoid, convinced he was fighting the Illuminati like his literary namesake. In 1987 he wrote a rambling seven-page "hacking manifesto of sorts, complete with his theories on Hagbard Celine and the Illuminati". The 1126:). 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 are from "The Management" instead of "The Midget") that contain absurdities like "Slippery when wet. Maintain 50mph." 773: 2805:"Set 50 years after the original trilogy (2026; RAW has finally confirmed that the original trilogy takes place in 1976), it was to feature a resuscitated Winifred (female member of the evil Illuminati-primus villains The American Medical Association, in the original trilogy) being reintroduced to the world, mostly through Virtual Reality" 1884:"/"The JAMMs", cf. "The Justified Ancients of Mummu"/"The JAMs" from the trilogy, and much of their work was Discordian in nature. They mirrored the fictional JAMs' gleeful political tactics of causing chaos and confusion by bringing a direct, humorous but nevertheless revolutionary approach to making records. The American band 1151:. Worst yet, it has the most raunchy sex scenes, thrown in just to make it sell, I'm sure, and the authors—whom I've never heard of—have the supreme bad taste to introduce real political figures into this mishmash and pretend to be exposing a real conspiracy. You can be sure I won't waste time reading such rubbish. 1664:

scene. Wilson was delighted with the adaptation, saying: "I was thunderstruck at what a magnificent job they did in capturing the exact tone and mixture of fantasy and reality in the book. I've come to the conclusion that this isn't literature. It's too late in the day for literature. This is magic!"

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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. on the rewrite we deliberately threw in a couple of references to it, but we had worked out the structure on our own, mostly on the

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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." He gives away the secret when he adds, "given enough ingenuity on the part of the demonstrator. That's the very model of what a

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and inner voices, real and imagined, of its many characters—ranging from a squirrel to a New York City detective to an artificial intelligence—as well as through time (past, present, and future), and sometimes in mid-sentence. Much of the back story is explained via dialogue between characters, who

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For example, "Robert Anton Wilson is the undisputed king of conspiracy fiction there's a wealth of conspiracy-oriented science fiction and horror In fact, there's probably too much. Robert Anton Wilson pretty much has the field cornered, and has deliberately blurred the lines of fact and fiction.

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technique, a word that the majority of the population since early childhood has been trained to ignore (and trained to forget both the training and that they are ignoring it), but which they associate with a vague sense of unease. Upon seeing the word, readers experience a panic reaction. They then

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In general, the melodrama is Shea and the satire is me; but some of the satire is definitely him and some of the melodrama is certainly me. "When Atlantis Ruled the Earth" is 99% Shea. The sections about Simon Moon, Robert Putney Drake and Markoff Chaney are 99% me. Everything else is impossible to

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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

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Several protagonists come to the realization that they are merely fictional characters, or at least begin to question the reality of their situation. George Dorn wonders early on if he "was in some crazy surrealist movie, wandering from telepathic sheriffs to homosexual assassins, to nympho lady

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Be prepared for streams of consciousness in which not only identity but time and space no longer confine the narrative, which zips up and down time-lines and flashes into other minds with consummate ease A damned good read. Has to be read to be believed (and even then I'm not sure—it really is

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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 phrase "So it goes" is repeatedly used in

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It started with the Discordian Society, which is based on worship of Eris, the Greek goddess of confusion and chaos We felt the Society needed some opposition, because the whole idea of it is based on conflict and dialectics. So, we created an opposition within the Discordian Society, which we

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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

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into three parts was a commercial decision of the publisher, not the authors, who had conceived it as a single continuous volume. Shea and Wilson were required to cut 500 pages to reduce printing costs on what was seen as a risky venture, although Wilson states that most of the ideas contained

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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 managed to defeat the Illuminati Primi and went to

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It's a dreadfully long monster of a book, and I certainly won't have time to read it, but I'm giving it a thorough skimming. The authors are utterly incompetent—no sense of style or structure at all. It starts out as a detective story, switches to science-fiction, then goes off into the

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birds (taught to say "Here, kitty-kitty-kitty!"), appears nowhere else in the trilogy, likely a result of the 500 pages of cuts demanded by Dell. The omnibus edition gave a new lease on life to flagging sales, and became the most commonly available form of the trilogy from then on.

3237:"It's taken right out of the illuminatus trilogy, basically it was a sex act that was performed at a black mass at one point. The idea behind Rite of Shiva was to get this obscene sex act on the radio without them knowing what they were playing. It seemed to work out pretty well." 1065:, 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 254:(part of fourth and all of fifth book, and the appendices). The parts were first published as three separate volumes starting in September 1975. In 1984 they were published as an omnibus edition and are now more commonly reprinted in the latter form. In 1986 the trilogy won the 632:, 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 1201:, 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 1459:

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

2722:"Shea and I were finished with Illuminatus! when we read Gravity's Rainbow and then on the rewrite we deliberately threw in a couple of references to it, but we had worked out the structure on our own, mostly on the basis of the nut mail that Playboy gets" 886:

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 are reading. Fnords are scattered liberally in the text of newspapers and magazines, causing

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scientific law must always be: a statement about how the human mind relates to the cosmos." (Late in the work, Celine demonstrates the meaninglessness of the Law of Fives by showing another character a picture of a young girl with

2647:"A term that I picked up in the Physics Consciousness Research Group. I forget who coined the term and nobody in the group seems to remember who coined it either. It was just going around the group. It could have been Fred Wolfe, 1373:

An epic fantasy...a devilishly funny work ... shimmers with illusion and paradox that provides delight after magical delight ... a farcical black tragicomedy that turns out to have been written by you and me ... it strips away

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battalions from the bottom of nearby (fictitious) Lake Totenkopf (a literal translation of contemporary American English "dead head"). The plot is foiled when, with the help of a 50-foot-tall incarnation of the goddess

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An incredible berserko-surrealist rollercoaster of world-girdling conspiracies, intelligent dolphins, the fall of Atlantis, who really killed JFK, sex, drugs, rock'n'roll, and the Cosmic Giggle Factor. The perfect

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in part "required reading for any conspiracy buff". Robert Shea provided a four-paragraph introduction to the rulebook for the Illuminati Expansion Set 1 (1983), in which he wrote, "Maybe the Illuminati are behind

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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 is also a trademark of Wilson's writing.

405:. The AMA are revealed to be four siblings (last name Saure) who comprise four of the five mysterious Illuminati Primi. The identity of the fifth remains unknown for much of the trilogy. The first European " 1464:, 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. 695:

therein made it into his later works. The idea that the top secrets of the Illuminati were cut from the books because the printer decided to trim the number of pages is a joke typical of the trilogy.

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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 are merely characters in a book. This

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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

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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, similar to the idea of

3370: 1122:", 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 3183:"RAW recently criticised several games companies who have marketed products exploiting Illuminatus! and the Discordians, and are able to escape paying royalties through legal loop-holes." 1733:

form beginning in the 1980s, by "Eye-n-Apple Productions" headed by Icarus! Icarus! met with Wilson in 1984 and subsequently obtained permission from Wilson's agent to adapt the trilogy.

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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

1547:, taking place in 2026. It was rumored that it would feature a resurrected Winifred Saure (the only female member of the American Medical Association) exerting her influence through 2974: 3586: 2638:

as an "abrupt contradiction of a person's reality model." Those who experience cognitive dissonance become either "very flexible and agnostic" or "very rigid and schizophrenic."

3371: 1506:, in which several chapters are attributed to the trilogy's characters. Many of Wilson's other works, fictional and nonfictional, also make reference to the Illuminati or the 1143:

supernatural, and is full of the most detailed information of dozens of ghastly boring subjects. And the time sequence is all out of order in a very pretentious imitation of

337:—is arrested for drug possession. He is jailed and physically threatened, at one point hallucinating about his own execution. The prison is bombed and he is rescued by the 3128: 2445: 54: 264:

has been adapted for the stage and as an audio book, and has influenced several modern writers, artists, musicians, and game-makers. The popularity of the word "

3576: 329:. 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 3288: 3682: 2259: 1722: 1705: 690:

The unusual end product did not appeal to publishers, and it took several years before anybody agreed to take it on. According to Wilson, the division of

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The adaptation became the very first production at the National's Cottesloe Theatre space, running from 4 March to 27 March 1977. It had first opened in

721:, when the trilogy was republished in a single omnibus volume for the first time. This collected edition lost the "what has gone before" introduction to 764:

covers a wide range of subjects throughout the book. These include discussions about mythology, current events, conspiracy theories and counterculture.

1008:"; characters are both liberal-minded and promiscuous. The authors are well aware that it also provides an excuse for mere titillation: in a typically 2658: 2414: 3284:"The main groundswell of interest in the Illuminati and the assertions that it exists today began after the publication of The Illuminatus trilogy", 289:, often mutually contradictory, versions of their supposed histories. There are even parts in the book in which the narrative reviews and jokingly 4753: 1872:

rock festival is reeled off (including a handful of actual bands of the '60s), and there are numerous references to the famous rock and roll song "

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that is introduced in the story is later derided in some way, whether that view is traditional or iconoclastic. The trilogy is an exercise in

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No film or video exists of the performances at The National Theatre. A full audio recording is available as a limited edition perk in the

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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 "

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on 23 November 1976. The first night of the London version featured Robert Anton Wilson, accompanied by Shea, as a naked extra in the

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was also enthusiastic, whilst acknowledging the difficulties many readers would have attempting to follow the convoluted plot threads:

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in the book are imaginary, these are mixed in with enough truth to make them seem plausible. For example, the title of the first book,

4276: 3913: 3656: 705:, to favorable reviews and some commercial success. It became a cult favorite but did not cross over into large mainstream sales. In 3214: 2947: 4869: 3240: 2235: 1938: 678:, the writing process was treated as a game of one-upmanship between the two co-authors, and was an enjoyable experience for both: 4804: 4096: 3702: 2845: 2302: 1680:, who went on to successful film, stage and television careers. Broadbent alone played more than a dozen characters in the play. 322: 945:

and saying, "If we were all like her, there'd be a Law of Sixes.") Another character, Simon Moon, identifies what he calls the "

349:, the conspiratorial organization that secretly controls the world. He finances his operations by smuggling illicit substances. 4854: 4849: 4435: 2321: 313:

magazine, and the disappearance of its editor, Joe Malik. Discovering the magazine's investigation into the assassinations of

3981: 3739: 3523: 3331: 3326: 3310: 3042: 1490: 808: 401:, the purpose of which is the release of enough "life-energy" to give eternal life to a select group of initiates, including 3253:

But conspiracy lends itself to thriller fiction, because writers can pick up on a plot that's already familiar to readers. "

3136: 2755: 2442: 2338: 4884: 3923: 3546: 848:. This is often noted in Illuminati-conspiracy discussion. Proponents of this theory point to Washington's portrait on the 1868:

is steeped with references to the 1960s popular music scene (at one point a list of 200 fictional bands performing at the

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even garnered some attention outside literary criticism, having several pages devoted to it in a chapter on the American

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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..."

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The trilogy was translated and published in German, again both as separate volumes (the three covers of which formed a

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first released these individual editions (with covers illustrated by Carlos Victor Ochagavia) in the United States in

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There was no specific division of labor in the collaborative writing process, although Shea's writing tended towards

149: 141: 2367: 1252: 4829: 3692: 1422: 992:(literally "eternal flower power"), described by Shea and Wilson as a slogan of the Illuminati, the enemies of the 314: 2811: 2626: 953:

as having discovered. Both laws involve finding significance in the appearance of the number, and in its "presen

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They had a lot of access to research staff. And so under the guise that it would be helpful writing articles for

4621: 3503: 1516: 614:, as a metaphor for an all-encompassing, authoritarian state – a common metaphor used in libertarian discourse. 438:, Wolfgang is shot by John Dillinger, Winifred is drowned by porpoises, and Werner is trapped in a sinking car. 4889: 4879: 4859: 4819: 4405: 4370: 1625:

in London was met with surprisingly open arms, particularly given its inordinate length: a cycle of five plays—

1408: 1221:, an equally enormous experimental novel concerning liberty and paranoia that was published two years prior to 845: 622:

The trilogy was originally written between 1969 and 1971 while Wilson and Shea were both associate editors for

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was named after a secret society from the trilogy. They released much of their early material under the name "

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A second issue followed in 1990, and a third in March 1991, after which the venture stalled (although several

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books as "spiritual guides but not as actual source material", it incorporated competing conspiracies of the

1709:(1977) to "Ken Campbell and the Science-Fiction Theatre Of Liverpool, England." The play was later staged in 849: 781: 4814: 4679: 3445: 2654: 2282: 1653:, "He is a total anarchist and impossible to pin down. He more or less said it was a crime to be serious." 1320: 4222: 1841: 1106:, are extensively quoted throughout the trilogy. It incorporates and shares many themes and contexts from 4089: 3646: 2000: 1829: 907: 628:

magazine. As part of the role, they dealt with correspondence from the general public on the subject of

345:, captain of a golden submarine. Hagbard represents the Discordians in their eternal battle against the 4864: 4809: 4375: 4309: 1858:." Despite this initial involvement, Wilson later criticized some of these products for exploiting the 1845:) followed. The instruction booklets' bibliographies praise the novel and Wilson particularly, calling 1767: 1287:. He even appears himself as a character, as does his aunt Annie Gamwell and one of his acquaintances, 1016:

to achieve higher states of consciousness, in line with the beliefs of key counterculture figures like

1020:, who is mentioned throughout the three novels. Leary himself called the trilogy "more important than 425:), is the chosen location for the sacrifice of the unwary victims, via the reawakening of hibernating 4874: 4824: 4642: 4465: 3974: 3406: 3037:(First Edition, Twenty-fourth Printing ed.). New Falcon Publications. 2013. p. dedication. 3337: 3190: 966:

and weird coincidences that it must mean something, I just haven't figured out yet what it means!".

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as shadowy central puppet masters in this type of fiction can be traced back to their exposure via

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was written between 1969 and 1971, but not published until 1975 according to Robert Anton Wilson,

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not being featured in the novel (although Wilson had become a member). The Church was founded by

746: 609: 1580:-related book, although many of his later novels include references to the themes of that work. 4721: 4587: 4557: 4124: 4119: 4082: 3670: 3566: 1622: 1202: 1103: 962:

claimed in a 1988 interview that "23 is a part of the cosmic code. It's connected with so many

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called it "The ultimate conspiracy book ... the biggest sci-fi-cult novel to come along since

4635: 4380: 3770: 3729: 3556: 2015: 1876:"), and has influenced many bands and musicians. One of the aliases of anarchic British band 1873: 1646: 1502: 1280: 1244: 1115: 910:, especially since the word fnord was actually said to appear between regular lines of text. 826:

knowledge. Many of the odder conspiracies in the book are taken from unpublished letters to

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fans, and the image of "Bob" is widely considered to be a representation of Wilson himself.

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in "Appendix Mem". In 1998, Wilson published an encyclopedia of conspiracy theories called

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The books were written at the height of the late 1960s, and are infused with the popular

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The major protagonists, now gathered together on board the submarine, are menaced by the

434:, the four members of the AMA are killed: Wilhelm is killed by the monstrous alien being 330: 286: 218: 186: 44: 3189:

originally published in REVelation magazine (#13, Autumn, 1995) pp. 36–40. Available at

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name without paying royalties (taking advantage of what he viewed as a legal loophole).

1514:, for example, Markoff Chaney ("The Midget") and Epicene Wildeblood, return in Wilson's 4778: 4385: 4344: 3844: 3830: 3636: 3218: 2634:(URL accessed 11 March 2006) . Wilson offers a definition of "cognitive dissonance" in 2458: 2344: 1947: 1920: 1770: 1551:. Shea died in 1994 before this project came to fruition. An excerpt was published in 1426: 1183:

by the character Atlanta Hope with its catchphrase "What is John Guilt?" is a spoof of

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group; the golden apple makes a number of appearances, for example, on the cover, on a

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David A. Banton interview of RAW 1988 for KFJC, 89.7 FM in Los Altos Hills, California

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after one that appears at the festival in the last part of the trilogy. Together with

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designed sets for the show, and it was eventually seen (when it moved to London, with

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were members. Such theories are alluded to in the Illuminati Project Memo #7 in

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released the individual editions (with different cover art by Tony Roberts) in

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Illuminati Spreads to America: Final Warning: A History of the New World Order

574:. In the trilogy it is used as the symbol of the Legion of Dynamic Discord, a 258:. The authors further dealt with its themes in fiction and non-fiction works. 4793: 4547: 4481: 4105: 4013: 3918: 3825: 3626: 3210: 2648: 1934: 1821: 1738: 1681: 1677: 1669: 1343: 1337: 1227: 1093: 1081: 1017: 963: 895: 867: 675: 637: 605: 575: 556:, and makes a number of appearances (for example, as an altar and a tattoo). 338: 302: 281: 230: 194: 2892: 1888:

took the name of a sex act performed by one of the main characters during a

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The trilogy comprises three parts which contain five books and appendices:

2318:"Robert Anton Wilson: Searching For Cosmic Intelligence" by Jeffrey Elliot 1291:. Interest in Lovecraft reached new heights in 1975, with two full-length 4685: 4577: 4572: 4537: 4460: 4420: 4334: 4021: 3990: 3886: 3790: 2768:

Architects of Fear: Conspiracy Theories and Paranoia in American Politics

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Architects of Fear: Conspiracy Theories and Paranoia in American Politics

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was created from a revision of this article dated 3 April 2007

636:, Wilson suggested the novel was also an attempt to build a myth around 305:

police detectives (Saul Goodman and Barney Muldoon) into the bombing of

205:, both historical and imaginary, related to the authors' version of the 4768: 4763: 4592: 4582: 4450: 4329: 3896: 2952: 2808: 2623: 2621:

is listed as "further reading" on excommunicate.net's article entitled

2415:"Is the dollar bill's eye-on-a-pyramid the symbol of a secret society?" 1964: 1889: 1730: 1685: 1288: 1256: 1178: 933: 823: 811:

are alleged by conspiracy theorists to have been members of this sect.

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The titles of the three volumes or parts (the front covers were titled

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while they wrote the novels. Among the oddest was the suggestion that

356:(where a potentially deadly, secret U.S. government-developed mutated 4562: 4517: 4415: 4360: 4319: 4177: 3876: 3121: 3105: 2927:""Famous Yellowbelly – Jim Broadbent" BBC.co.UK January 9, 2005" 2843:

RAW Circuits: Surviving With Robert Anton Wilson by Tiffany Lee Brown

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and others, though no characters or groups specific to the novels. A

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by Timothy Leary (1996) he was credited with having already authored

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In more recent years, it was complimented in the bibliography to the

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Markoff Chaney – a midget on a cross country mission to spread chaos

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An audacious proposal by the English experimental theater director

1565:, Wilson suggested he may even "do a Son of Illuminatus later". In 1520:, which also carries on some of its themes. The third book of the 1325: 1184: 958: 954: 881:, is given a specific and sinister meaning in the trilogy. It is a 819: 738: 381: 365: 361: 116: 26: 4254: 2975:"The Ice Kream Van Kometh: The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu Return" 2754:

The Fortean Times, issue 17 (August 1976) pp. 26–27, available at

2343:

The Atlantis section referred to appears in "The Seventh Trip, or

1536:, which explains the origins of many of the theories mentioned in 4649: 4455: 3930: 2584:

Wilson discusses the 23 enigma, and states his intention for the

1905: 1877: 1697: 1649:, director of the National at the time, wrote of Campbell in his 1473: 1309: 1264: 1058: 979: 828: 624: 414: 384:

standoff between the Soviet Union, China and the United States).

369: 178: 3434:– features historical information about the book and its writing 3159:

CYBERPUNK: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier, Revised

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magazine, #1, Neurolinguistic Hacking for Dummies, available at

2335:

An Interview with Robert Anton Wilson – Conducted by Neal Wilgus

2279: 4522: 4425: 2486:, Center for Studies on New Religions . Retrieved 3 March 2006. 1893: 1477: 1066: 993: 654: 426: 190: 73: 3959: 1777:. Besides adopting the pseudonym "Hagbard" from the character 894:

in those following current events. There are no fnords in the

852:, which they suggest closely resembles the face of Weishaupt. 657:. Wilson states in a 1976 interview conducted by Neal Wilgus: 368:, and his porpoise aides help Hagbard battle the Illuminati); 4172: 3849: 1908:

he organised a huge Robert Anton Wilson Memorial Show at the

1838: 1243:

is alluded to often, with many mentions of characters (e.g.,

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Bill Forman, Metro Santa Cruz August 12, 2005, available at

1726:, adapted by Daisy Eris Campbell (Ken Campbell's daughter). 1307:

The books have received laudatory reviews and comments from

936:

is given great credence by many of the characters, with the

814:

The books are loaded with references to the Illuminati, the

799:, a mystical symbol which derives from the ancient Egyptian 387:

The evil scheme uncovered late in the tale is an attempt to

3058:

Empty Space Uncommon Theatre: About the Space: Past Seasons

2828:

Trajectories Newsletter: The Journal of Futurism and Heresy

1557:

Trajectories Newsletter: The Journal of Futurism and Heresy

1543:

Wilson and Shea planned to recollaborate on a true sequel,

887: 730: 3239:

Scott Benzel talking to Jon Bains in a 1993 interview for

2299:

The Illuminatus saga stumbles along by Robert Anton Wilson

1754:

of the as yet unpublished Fourth Trip were distributed at

1758:

in the Detroit and Chicago areas between 1991 and 2006).

918: 521:

Robert Putney Drake – a mob boss obsessed with the occult

473:– leader of the Discordians and a central protagonist in 2320:

Interview discussing novel. Retrieved 21 February 2006.

509:

Tarantella Serpentine – an Illuminati-trained prostitute

352:

The plot meanders around the globe to such locations as

301:

The trilogy's story begins with an investigation by two

16:

Series of novels by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson

3431: 2958:

Archived (via the Library of Mu) on 16 September 2016.

2588:

to be a "pentology" therein. Retrieved 10 March 2006.

1205:'s views on the subject. There are also references to 1049:

on the covers or front page of its various printings.

772: 542:) refer to recurring symbols of elements of the plot. 3669: 3170:

Jackson, Steve (1982). "The Truth Behind ILLUMINATI"

2484:

Do The Illuminati Really Exist? by Massimo Introvigne

1892:

for the title of their song "Rite of Shiva" on their

596:, which is a potential danger to Hagbard's submarine 3683: