Books - The Illuminatus! Trilogy

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	Books - The Illuminatus! Trilogy

The Illuminatus! Trilogy is a series of three novels written by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson primarily between 1969 and 1971. The trilogy is a satirical, postmodern, science fiction-influenced adventure story; a drug- and sex-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 three books that comprise the trilogy are 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 are 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 seminal work 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 containing cryptic clues that suggest the involvement of powerful secret societies. They slowly become drawn into a web of conspiracy theories. At the same time, 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 is finally rescued by a group of strangers. He finds himself being bodily dragged into the hands of the Discordians, led by the enigmatic Hagbard Celine, captain of a golden submarine designed and built by himself. Hagbard represents the Discordians in their eternal battle against the Illuminati, the conspiratorial organization that secretly controls the world. He finances his operations with gold from the undersea remains of Atlantis.

The plot meanders circuitously and non-linearly around the globe to such far-flung locations as Las Vegas, Nevada (where a potentially deadly, secret USA 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, Illinois (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 among others Adolf Hitler. The AMA are four siblings who comprise four of the five mysterious Illuminati Primi. The identity of the fifth remains unknown. 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 heads of the Illuminati 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.

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