The Illuminatus! Trilogy

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Eh. Kinda vanilla, really. I think they only put it in the book because they thought it would sell, and sell it DIDN'T. On p. 650 of 800 but the last 70 are just appendices and I feel like writing a review now, so . . .

The Illuminatus! Trilogy Quotes by Robert Shea - Goodreads The Illuminatus! Trilogy Quotes by Robert Shea - Goodreads

A is not A," Hagbard explained with that tiresome patience of his, "Once you accept A is A, you're hooked. Literally hooked, addicted to the System." Correctly formulated, the Law [of Fives] is: All phenomena are directly or indirectly related to the number five, and this relationship can always be demonstrated, given enough ingenuity on the part of the demonstrator.

Not the “best” or even my favorites exactly: just the bare minimum of what everybody really needs to chew and digest before they can converse intelligently about the 21st Century – RAW I could not think of any oriental actresses so I said Yoko Ono. In my head, she was the most famous oriental woman in the world.

The Illuminatus! Trilogy - Wikipedia

But what delighted me was the realization that at its heart, this is a story of Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos. Outside of Lovecraft and Howard, very few of the stories set in that universe are even passable, but this one comports itself ably, taking to heart the notion that an overabundance of data can break the human mind, which dovetails nicely with the cautionary lesson of conspiracy theory: it seems vast, inexplicable beings of unimaginable power can also be human, and have cults just as Unaussprechlichen.The most thoroughly and relentlessly Damned, banned, excluded, condemned, forbidden, ostracized, ignored, suppressed, repressed, robbed, brutalized and defamed of all Damned Things is the individual human being. The social engineers, statistician, psychologist, sociologists, market researchers, landlords, bureaucrats, captains of industry, bankers, governors, commissars, kings and presidents are perpetually forcing this Damned Thing into carefully prepared blueprints and perpetually irritated that the Damned Thing will not fit into the slot assigned it. The theologians call it a sinner and try to reform it. The governor calls it a criminal and tries to punish it. the psychologist calls it a neurotic and tries to cure it. Still, the Damned Thing will not fit into their slots. The tale of Hagbard Celine and all the contradictory theories of just what the hell is really going on, and what a ride it is. She looks at me and says "No. Looks outdated and lame." She's 100% correct on that on, and all she hadn't even opened the dang book. This book tried selling itself as being funny and having raunchy sex and foul language. Does it deliver on both levels? Stella giggled and kissed his mouth briefly. 'It takes a lot to get those words out of you, doesn't it?' she said bemusedly. This series is expansive in scope. As we grow, we will focus on extracting and explaining the contents of the novels, cataloging the characters and places, to help both new and old readers.

Bill Drummond: the five lessons I learned from Ken Campbell

Eye of Providence: The eye-in-the-pyramid is an omnipresent symbol of the world-spanning conspiracy (of which The Illuminati are just a small branch) that the heroes are fighting. Eventually, the latter even discover the (in-story) origin/inspiration of said symbol: a giant sea monster named Leviathan, slumbering in the sunken ruins of Atlantis, shaped like a pyramid with a giant glowing sphere inside it that looks like an eye note Leviathan is actually an offspring of the very first eukaryotic cell that evolved on Earth: after its very first division, one of its halves went on to evolve into multicellular life, including humans, while the other just kept growing without dividing for billions of years, adopting the pyramid shape for structural support; the "eye" is actually its giant nucleus shining through the cell walls. It is so deliberately occult in places as to become occasionally (and ironically) a bit pompous, much like its 'hero' Hagbard Celine, the Captain Nemo of the story. The satire is somewhat jaded and the three novels taken together are too long and sometimes over-written. Shout-Out: To Principia Discordia in particular (to the point where it could almost be considered a companion work), as well as H. P. Lovecraft, Ayn Rand, Conan the Barbarian, The Lord of the Rings, and numerous others. When the Illuminati come for him, Drake quotes Bride of Frankenstein: "We belong dead." They wanted to use all of my stage sets, sets I had originally made for nothing and got paid next-to-nothing for. The company was willing to pay me a week’s wages to set it all up. Ken said there was nothing he could do about it and that this was the reality of commercial theatre, and I should see this as an opportunity to prove my worth. But as far as I was concerned, this was shit. The actors were all going to get paid for the complete run. Postmodernism: While the book is frequently categorized as Postmodern literature, Postmodernism is deconstructed and parodied throughout. Whether that qualifies as Take That! or Self-Deprecation depends on how much of the authors' Mind Screw you feel applies; however, Robert Anton Wilson has published more direct deconstructions of Postmodernism (e.g. Maybe Logic), so it's more likely to be the former than the latter. (Then again, the authors were apparently pretty big fans of Thomas Pynchon and James Joyce, so take that how you will).The Atoner: Gruad the Greyface, a.k.a. the Dealy Lama, is either this or a Hero with Bad Publicity, depending on who you ask. Of course, if you ask him, he'll probably tell you that he's actually a Villain with Good Publicity— we ultimately learn that he engineered his own bad publicity as part of being The Atoner. The revolutionary thing about Mad was not that it undermined authority, but that it simultaneously undermined itself. Its humor lay in the insight that only a fool would believe any one thing to be the source of wisdom, but that you were perfectly justified in mistrusting everything.

Illuminatus - Wikipedia Illuminatus - Wikipedia

O’Halligan said I could use the basement of the cellar as my workshop. He then gave me Ken’s phone number. I went and found a phone box and called the number. It was in London, thus long-distance, thus cost me all the money I had on me, almost all the dole money I had for the week. The phone was answered by a strange, strangulated voice. “Ken Campbell here. What do you want?” We invite you to join us in our mission to preserve, archive, expand, and enjoy the great works of Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. No Fourth Wall: The main characters eventually learn that they are characters in the book itself, being narrated by an all-powerful, overseeing AI. Of course, the book is so perspective-jumping and Mind Screw-filled that what the "truth" is is intentionally left up to the reader. In an earlier example, twice in the book the associate editor of "Confrontation" (the magazine that several of the characters are associated with) calls up his book reviewer to ask about the progress of his latest review. The books described by the book reviewer are obviously the Illuminatus! trilogy itself (for added humor, the book reviewer has nothing but contempt for the trilogy's length, shifting perspective, complicated plot, or frequent use of sex, drugs, and obscene language). So you can't say 'I love you' unless you mean it?' Stella laughed. 'You're probably the only man in America with that problem. If you could only be a woman for a while, baby! You can't imagine what liars most men are.'Also, to a certain degree, Hagbard Celine. Somewhat justified in that Hagbard seems at least to a certain degree to be a parody of Ayn Rand's character Ragnar Danneskjold. And like the Narcotic Acts," he added. "A hundred thousands harmless junkies became criminals overnight, by Act of Congress, in 1927. Ten years later, in '37, all the pot-heads in the country became criminals overnight, by Act of Congress. And they were criminals, when the papers were signed. The guns prove it. Walk away from those guns, waving a joint, and refuse to halt when they tell you. Their Imagination will become your Reality in a second."