Letter by RAW to friends about Against The Wall flamewar, June 1978, Page 00001. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.In June of ’79, RAW sent out the following letter regarding a little feud he got into with someone named Angela Douglas in the letters section of the libertarian mag Against The Wall, a copy of which he included with the letter.
As for the Communities Land Trust, no telling who they were—but don’t let that confuse you. Wilson and his fellow Discordians were fond of absconding letterheads, and it was cheaper that way, as well, as much of the stationary RAW used throughout the 70s he no doubt picked up for free, which saved a few bucks here and there, this during a period when he and his family were living from one royalty check to the next.
Anyway, enjoy this war of words provided courtesy of your friendly Discordian documenters.
Letter by RAW to friends about Against The Wall flamewar, June 1978, Page 00002. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.Letter by RAW to friends about Against The Wall flamewar, June 1978, Page 00003. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
Greg Hill’s 'Bavarian Illuminati' business card, front. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.Greg Hill’s 'Bavarian Illuminati' business card, back. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives. As we embark upon Week 2 of the RAWIllumination.netIlluminatus! reading, I will continue my obsessive quest to note any Discordian references I encounter along the way. So away we go…
What immediately jumps out is the character of Joseph Malik, who is at least a hat tip to Discordian Society founder, Greg Hill, as among Hill’s various Discordian personas was Mad Malik, an apparent member of the Bavarian Illuminati, as depicted in this Illuminati business card from the late-60s/early-70s.
In Illuminatus!, Joseph Malik is an underground magazine editor who has uncovered an apparent Illuminati plot, as documented in a number of written exchanges between Malik and someone named Pat.
The evolution of much of the Illuminati mythos depicted in Illuminatus! was initially inspired by Jim Garrison’s JFK assassination investigation of all things, which makes all of this even more convoluted, so bear with me. For those unfamiliar with Big Jim, he was the New Orleans District Attorney during the 1960s and the lead character played by Kevin Costner in Oliver Stone’s JFK. As fickle fate would have it, Discordian co-founder Kerry Thornley was identified by Garrison as being involved in the JFK assassination plot, which of course led to a lot of chaos in Thornley’s life (Hail Eris!) in the years to come, a topic I first broached in The Prankster and the Conspiracy and which will be the main theme in my forthcoming book Caught In The Crossfire: Kerry Thornley, Oswald and Garrison’s JFK Investigation coming soon from Feral House.
During the course of Garrison’s investigation, one of his unofficial investigators (otherwise known as the “Irregulars”) was a fellow named Allan Chapman who subscribed to the theory that JFK’s assassination had been orchestrated by (you guessed it!) the Bavarian Illuminati. After catching wind of Chapman’s Illuminati-JFK assassination theory, Thornley initiated—along with the support of some of his fellow Discordian Society pranksters—what became known as Operation Mindfuck (OM), a campaign designed to screw with Garrison’s head by sending out spurious announcements suggesting that he (Kerry) was an agent of the Illuminati. Among the culprits who helped perpetrate Operation Mindfuck was none other than RAW. As Kerry later noted:
Wilson and I founded the Anarchist Bavarian Illuminati to give Jim Garrison a hard time, one of whose supporters believed that the Illuminati owned all the major TV networks, the Conspiring Bavarian Seers (CBS), the Ancient Bavarian Conspiracy (ABC) and the Nefarious Bavarian Conspirators (NBC). —Kerry Thornley, Dreadlock Recollections
I suspect that the “Illuminati Project Memos” on pages 14, 15, 16 and 20 were actually exchanges between Wilson and Thornley during the period the two were conducting Illuminati research, and that Wilson inserted these exchanges into the Illuminatus! narrative. This research led both Thornley and Wilson to compose the infamous letter and answer that appeared in the April ’69 issue of Playboy.
On page 21, Peter Jackson tells Saul Goodman that the missing Malik—through his magazine, Confrontation—was attempting to re-open an investigation into the MLK and Kennedy brother assassinations, which is exactly what Kerry Thornley was attempting to do around the time of the publication of Illuminatus!
Thornley, as well, had been an underground magazine editor during the 1960s, so it can be further conjectured that Malik was a composite character based on Thornley and Greg Hill.
NOTE: After taking another gander at Illuminatus!, I noticed that the first “Project Illuminati Memo” was dated 7/23, the date of RAW’s otherworldly experience with certain denizens from Sirius as well as being the beginning of the Dog Days of Sirius.
I recently re-discovered a rarely seen video interview with Kerry Thornley from 1992, conducted by our friend Rev. Wyrdsli in the back room of A Cappella Books (in Little Five Points, Atlanta) where Kerry was living at the time.
Below is the first clip in the video series, focusing on the birth of Discordianism as well as RAW’s involvement in the early scene.
Special thanks to my partner in crime Floyd Anderson for editing this and the other clips of the interview that will be released in the days and weeks to come!
Here’s another The Honest Book of Truth teaser—direct from the Discordian Archives—an excerpt that Lord Omar (Kerry Thornley) jotted down on notepad paper as a means to illuminate and/or totally confound the masses.
Kerry Thornley note, The Honest Book of Truth. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.Kerry Thornley note: The Honest Book of Truth. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
Gorightly's copies of the 1975 edition of The Illuminatus! Trilogy. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.In advance of the Illuminatus! reading that kicked off on Feb 24th over at RAWIllumination.net (why it wasn’t launched on Feb 23rd is beyond me!), I had to do a little rummaging around to track down my Illuminatus! copies, which I’m glad to say I was able to locate amidst all the other quaint and curious volumes of forgotten lore lining my shelves.
Although yellowing and frayed, this almost now forty year old classic—published in the Year of Our Goddess 1975—continues to evoke a sense of wonderment ever since that immortal day back in the summer of ‘84 when I happened upon this “fairy tale for paranoids” during the wee, weird hours while passing by Bart’s Books in Ojai, California—as the spirit of Krishnamurti hovered nearby. (As a sidebar, an early and part-time Discordian named Alan Kishbaugh is now a high ranking muckety-muck with the Krishnamurti Foundation in Ojai. Kishbaugh’s Discordian handle back in the day was “The Earl of Nines,” a title concocted as an effort to combat the chaos unleashed by The Law of Fives.)
Bart's Books, Ojai, California.As has been the honor system policy at Bart’s all these years, when the store is closed you can still buy books lining the outside shelves and toss money for them through a slot in the door, which explains my reference to “wee, weird hours.” Envision me then, a long haired reprobate, toking on the herb superb as I stumbled upon—in my intoxicated haze—this weirdo cover of the One-Eyed Pyramid with a dolphin swimming over it and such. Which takes us to the present…
So—as I reintroduce myself to Illuminatus! by way of the RAWillumination.net group reading—I plan to point out the many Discordian references I’ll encounter along the way, the first of which happens immediately in the dedication page to none other than Greg Hill and Kerry Thornley. (And if you don’t know who these dudes are by now, just start poking around here at Historia Discordia and all will be revealed!)
The next Discordian reference occurs on the first page of the opening chapter, an introductory quotation that is lifted directly from some obscure religious (or irreligious) tract called The Honest Book of Truth by an equally obscure character named “Lord Omar Khayaam Ravenhurst, K.S.C.”:
The Purple Sage opened his mouth and moved his tongue and so spake to them and he said:
The Earth quakes and the Heavens rattle; the beasts of nature flock together and the nations of men flock apart; volcanoes usher up heat while elsewhere water becomes ice and melts; and then on other days it just rains.
Indeed do many things come to pass. —Lord Omar Khayaam Ravenhurst, K.S.C.,
“The Book of Predictions.” The Honest Book of Truth
First page of The Honest Book of Truth, March 1969. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst, despite the misspelling in Illuminatus! of Khayyam as “Khayaam,” and more commonly seen as just “Lord Omar,” was, of course, Kerry Thornley’s Discordian name—or at least one of them, with the K.S.C. standing for Keeper of the Sacred Chao. As for The Honest Book of Truth, it has been commonly held over the years that no such book actually existed, because all that anyone had ever seen of it were short quotations from either Illuminatus! or the Principia Discordia.
During a conversation with RAW once, I asked him what he thought of Thornley’s writings, and he stated unequivocally that the best thing Kerry had written was The Honest Book of Truth. Of course, sometimes I’d wonder if RAW was pulling my leg about certain things, so I filed this anecdote away in my memory banks for future pondering. Later, after having acquired the Discordian Archives, I one day happened upon a most amazing discovery: none other than The Honest Book of Truth, which is 15 pages in length and includes “The Book of Uterus,” “The Book of Explanations,” “The Book of Predictions,” “The Book of Advice,” “The Book of Gooks,” and “The Gospel According to Fred.”
The Honest Book of Truth will appear in its entirety in the forthcoming book compilation, Historia Discordia: The Origins of the Discordian Society.
Pope Card by St. Mae for the RAW Meme-Orial, front, 2007. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.Pope Card by St. Mae for the RAW Meme-Orial, back, 2007. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.Sticker: Lysergide by St. Mae. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives. While on the topic of Pope Cards, a fine addition to the theme was created a few years back by my friend St. Mae over at Discordian.com, a card made specifically for The Robert Anton Wilson Cosmic Meme-Orial back in 2007.
Mae passed on a bundle of these beauties to me during a visit last year to Emperor Norton’s groovy grave site which she orchestrated.
In addition, Mae gave me a few Lysergide stickers that she and her crew created a while ago, which in short order I stuck on the back of my keyboard synthesizer, just because it looked cool there.
Lysergide, for those not in the know, was the trademarked name for LSD back when a group of someones were trying to market the drug before it became illegal.
Pope Card: POEE Side Temple in Omaha, Nebraska, front. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.Pope Card: POEE Side Temple in Omaha, Nebraska, back. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.Your humble Discordian documenter has just discovered a “new” pope card in the Archives that apparently originated from the POEE Side Temple in Omaha, Nebraska, produced by The Green Ink Cabal, date unknown.
The unique feature of the card is the backside that includes 5 privileges which, of course, correspond to the fabled Law of Fives.
Framed Discordian Artifacts. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.A couple years ago or so, I was given Emperor Norton’s gravestone rubbing from an East Coaster named Fred McCann, a young twenty-something fellow who had read my book The Prankster and The Conspiracy and, due partly to it, traveled out to California to interview Early DiscordiansLouise Lacey and Bob Newport.
Along the way, Fred made a pilgrimage to Emperor Norton’s grave and the rest, as they say, is history.
Afterwards, I got the notion to take said rubbing and combine it with some other Discordian Archives artifacts, which I only finally got around to doing the other day. Anyway, here ‘tis, including the third edition of Principia Discordia, flax notes from both Omar and Mal, not to mention a Hail Eris bumper sticker designed by RAW himself, as well as several fnords!
For some reason, this story has always resonated with me and, in many ways, I find it one of the more memorable things that Kerry wrote. While it has no date on it, my guess is that Kerry composed it in the early to mid-70s.
Enjoy this bike ride down memory lane.
THE KERRY DANCE: A BICYCLE RIDER
Kerry Thornley - 1970s(?) - The Kerry Dance: A Bicycle Rider - Pg 00001. Courtesy the Discordian Archives.To begin my story with anything but The Man on the Bicycle is by now nearly unthinkable to me.
The Man on the Bicycle probably had what by 1942 standards was long hair. He was certainly bearded fully—I remember that much clearly.
My mother says he always wore swimming trunks and carried somehow along with him a butterfly net.
Every morning and every evening of the Los Angeles summer. Up one way and down the other along the boulevard (Hoover Street).
The Man on the Bicycle had a deep sun tan and his hair was like burnished gold. Undoubtedly. Or maybe not. But he certainly seemed a superbly impressive phenomena to my four-year-old mind.
Even passing on a daily basis he managed to surpass in my eyes the occasional canvas-covered trucks of soldiers. And they waved. The Man on the Bicycle probably never gave us more than a passing, casual glance. But there were many soldiers in those days.
That Man on the Bicycle—he was one of a kind.
“If you depend on radios and record players for your music, you owe your soul to the power company.” —The Secret Teachings of Paul Beihl
Marquee for the RAW Meme-Orial, February 18, 2007. Courtesy of Tim Cridland.On February 18, 2007, I had the privilege of attending what was dubbed The Robert Anton Wilson Cosmic Meme-Orial held at the Coconut Grove Ballroom in Santa Cruz, CA, the town where RAW lived the last couple decades of his life.
At the time, Louise Lacey was visiting Santa Cruz, so on the way I picked her up and gave her a lift to the event, which was located right off the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk where I’d spent so many days of my youth and teenage years. So it was nostalgic in that sense, conjuring up memories of days gone by, and also a sense of fond nostalgia about RAW’s influence on all of us Discordians attending the event. In many ways this day signaled the end of an era, although those in the crowd did not dwell on the maudlin, but to the contrary came and celebrated and laughed and lifted a glass (or two) to RAW’s passing into the land of We Know Not What.
RAW’s box of ashes, topped by the Golden Apple, February 18, 2007. Courtesy of Tim Cridland.As we entered the ballroom, RAW’s ashes were on display in a wooden box that was appropriately topped off with a Golden Apple. Louise stopped in her tracks and did a double take, recognizing it as the very same Golden Apple she’d given RAW a few years earlier at the premiere of the Maybe Logic documentary at the Rio Theatre in Santa Cruz back on July 23 of 2003. (July 23rd being a holy Discordian date that celebrates the rising of the star Sirius and RAW’s encounter with otherworldly entities. Maybe.) Outside during intermission, RAW had stepped out to have a cig when Louise presented him with said Golden Apple and recalled that he was completely enchanted with the gift, and couldn’t take his eyes off it as he cradled it in his hands. This was the last time that Louise saw him.
During the Meme-Orial, many took to the stage with their RAW remembrances, including his daughter, Christina, who shared his last message:
“I no longer claim to know anything, but I still have some persistent suspicions. My greatest suspicion holds that all my suspicions may prove wrong. Intelligence recognizes that nothing now seems impossible. Have a good, hearty laugh and do not dare to mourn me.”
The zine movement, in all its nostalgic glory. Left to right: Adam Gorightly, Tim Cridland, Kenn Thomas and Greg Bishop at the RAW Meme-Orial, February 18, 2007. Courtesy of Tim Cridland.The event was attended by my good friends Kenn Thomas of Steamshovel Press fame, The Excluded Middle’s Greg Bishop and Tim Cridland (aka Zamora The Torture King), who all, in one way or another, were touched by RAW’s work. Coming of age during the late-80s zine movement, it seemed RAW was a unifying force binding us all together, not only because he had penned such mind bending classics as Illuminatus! and Cosmic Trigger, but due as well to his optimistic and open minded outlook which seemed an inspiring path to follow.
To this end, Greg recalled how his life was literally saved when—during a period of deep depression—he fortunately discovered RAW’s writings about the loser and winner scripts, and immediately took them to head and heart, turning his world around.
Synchronicities were often abundant during personal interactions with RAW, as Kenn Thomas recalled:
“The twenty-three coincidences came up twice when RAW visited me in St. Louis way back in 1978. We were talking about it at lunch one day when the number we were given at the pizza place to wait for our order was 2323. Later, I took him to a radio interview in the nearby burb of Clayton, MO—near where George Noory does his show these days—and I pointed out that the name of the building where the radio station was located must have some mystical significance. It was called the Sevens Building. “Maybe,” he said, “and maybe so does that” and he pointed the top of the tall building across the street which had a large “23” marking its street address. RAW tells some version of this story on one of his videos, saying that the incident reflected a koan ‘Who is the Master who makes the grass green?’”
Poster for the RAW Meme-Orial.Any decent memorial—as all good Irishmen and Discordians know—has a well stocked bar to which I soon made passage. After securing an ice cold Anchor Steam—and taking a long cool drawl thereof—I worked my way back through the crowd, in the process bumping into R.U. Sirius of Mondo 2000 fame. Though no meaningful words were exchanged between us during the course of our passage, we shared that knowing nod that only RAW initiates know, clinking our bottle necks together, a toast in cosmic unison, as each of us then continued moving through the crowd.
The next RAW initiate I encountered was his long time friend, Scott Apel, who spent a lot of time with Bob during his final days. Scott mentioned that, at one point, RAW had handed him a copy of The Prankster and The Conspiracy and said, “If you want to know what really happened with the early Discordian scene, read this book!”—which was a wonderful anecdote to hear.
There are some very cool clips from the RAW Meme-Orial at this YouTube playlist:
RAW’s ashes being tossed to the sea, and to Eris, February 18, 2007. Courtesy of Tim Cridland.Included is a stirring rendition of Auld Lasagna, as well as the procession where we were all given kazoos and such to blow upon and make mad music as we marched out to the beach to watch RAW’s ashes scattered to the sea, and to Eris.
