Letter: Greg Hill to Pat, May 13, 1970, front. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.I really didn’t have much planned for this week’s Illuminatus! group reading until I happened upon a note by Greg Hill in the Archives which caught my attention because it’s addressed to someone named Pat. Having gone through a lot of Hill’s correspondence, I’m usually able to figure out (in most cases) to whom he was corresponding—but in this instance I haven’t a clue.
Letter: Greg Hill to Pat, May 13, 1970, back. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.When I saw the name Pat, I immediately flashed on an enigmatic character by the same name who appears in Illuminatus! in relation to a series of Illuminati memos exchanged between she (or at least I think Pat is a she) and Joseph Malik, editor of Confrontation magazine, a character that is based—to some degree—on both Greg Hill and Kerry Thornley. In fact, you can see an upside down Mad Malik stamp on the note, which was Hill’s Bavarian Illuminati persona, further linking this curious little note to Illuminatus!
In Greg’s note to Pat, he encourages him/her to pass it on to BofA, and one can only assume he is referring to Bank of America, who—as synchronicity would have it—later employed Greg for 23 years (Hail Eris!), which we’ll no doubt discuss in more depth at some later date here at Historia Discordia.
Oddly enough, a web search for Joseph Malik, editor of Confrontation magazine, led me to this publication at bookfinder.com which appears to be something RAW and Shea probably cooked up prior to the publication of Illuminatus! as a promotional stunt. Here is the magazine’s description:
Published by Confrontation Magazine, New York, 1975. , 15 pages, includes interviews with ‘illuminatus’ authors Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, plus poems by Joe Malik, black & white illustrations, appears to have been the only issue of the magazine ever published First Edition , light spots to covers, pages slightly yellowed at edges otherwise clean, in good+ condition , printed wraps 30 x 22 cm Paperback ISBN: Bookseller Inventory # 53469
An additional Joseph Malik web search left me even more perplexed.
Chronicling Discordianism’s halcyon days, Historia Discordia presents a fun and freewheeling romp through rare photos, holy tracts, art collages, and fnords, many of which appear for the first time in print.
Included among the contents are such chaotic wonders as the 1st edition of Principia Discordia: How The West Was Lost, which no one has really seen for a long, long time—besides a handful of Early Discordians back in the day. Also featured is Kerry Thornley’s The Honest Book of Truth, another rare and hardly seen holy tract that many thought never actually existed.
Here’s what Alan Moore has to say about Historia Discordia:
“Like communication-god Thoth with his yammering ape, like the all-important noise that Count Korzybski assures us must accompany our every signal, no harmony is possible without an acknowledgement and understanding of discord. Born from the bowling-alley epiphanies of Greg Hill and Kerry Thornley, its disruptive teachings disseminated through the incendiary writings of Robert Anton Wilson and other Eristic luminaries, the Discordian Society has unexpectedly become a landmark of gleefully aggressive sanity in a chaotic and incoherent world. Through this book, we can all involve ourselves in their gloriously constructive quarrel.”
Eternal Flower Power!: Anti-Illuminati Discordian business card created by Arthur Hlavarty. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.No time to lose, so diving right into The Illuminatus! Trilogy (Amazon) book’s Group Reading.
Let’s fnord! On page 108 (more or less depending on how my ipad kindle reader syncs up with the paperized version), the ’68 Chicago riots were first introduced into the kaleidoscopic Illuminatus! narrative:
…Liberalism, clubbed to death by Chicago’s heroic peace officers.
Surreal street scenes such as these reappear periodically throughout Illuminatus!, as Simon Moon and Hagbard Celine stumble through the teargas madness and good-ol’ fashioned ass whuppins doled out by the Chicago cops during the ’68 Democratic Convention.
There was a sound from the crowd, like a subway opening all its doors with a suck of air, and I saw the police coming, crossing the street to clear the park.
“Here we go again,” I said. “All hail Discordia.”
Scenes such as the above snippet from page 150—where we currently reside in the Illuminatus! reading group timeline—illustrate the autobiographical nature of the series.
Chicago Mayor Daley in a fez.RAW participated in the ’68 Democratic Convention demonstration, marching (and sometimes running!) shoulder-to-shoulder with counterculture figures such as Ginsberg, Hefner, Mailer and Burroughs. This event no doubt had a profound impact on him, as it did to so many other millions of Americans (either witnessing the confrontation firsthand on the front lines in the streets of Chi-town or viewing the mayhem from their TV screens); a nation outraged by the heavy-handed tactics of Democrat Mayor Daley, who was meanwhile supposedly shouting “Ewige Blumenkraft!” from the convention floor, all part of an apparent Illuminati plot to Immanentize the Eschaton, which can never be a good thing—especially if it’s happening during your lifetime!
Illuminatus! often seems a collection of composite characters sewn together from those Robert Shea and RAW met, and corresponded with, during those heady days of the 60s-and-70s, and in many ways Simon Moon resembles RAW (or at least certain aspects of RAW) as well as others, such as Neil Rust, another of the purported Simon Moon composites who was featured in a recent RAWIllumination.net blog post.
Page 151 introduces ILLUMINATI PROJECT: MEMO #16, (for a second time!) as another ILLUMINATI PROJECT: MEMO #16 previously appeared on page 146 which could perhaps be chalked up to some sort of mix-up on the part of RAW or Shea or both… or perhaps our heroes did this intentionally for Goddess knows what reasons… or maybe it was a mistake on the part of the Patricia Walsh character… or maybe Pat was intentionally messing with Joe Malik’s mind, although JM didn’t seem to notice the MEMO #16 duplication and I’m starting to think that perhaps I’m the only one who has noticed this anomaly—if this second memo does indeed actually exist—as meanwhile fnords march across the page and my ruminations about all this are making me suspect that I’m the person (what’s my name… Barney Muldoon?) who actually created this second ILLUMINATI PROJECT: MEMO #16—although I have no actual memory of creating it which can only mean that I was brainwashed to forget it!
(Now back to our regular “programming…”)
Los Angeles Free Press, July 26, 1968: RFK: Sirhan Blavatsky Capote. Clipping courtesy the Discordian Archives.ILLUMINATI PROJECT: MEMO #16 (on page 150) concerns a rumor Truman Capote spread claiming that Sirhan Sirhan had been negatively influenced by the writings of Madame Blavatsky—to the point that it blew Sirhan’s mind, which is what he literally (or allegedly) did to RFK—all part of an insidious Illuminati/Communist plot that somehow got mixed up with Madame Blavatsky and Theosophy.
Apparently Capote got hipped to this Blavatsky trip from a couple of John Birch Society members—Anthony Hilder and John Steinbacher—who shortly after RFK’s assassination held a press conference exposing this aforementioned Illuminati-Commie-Madame Blavatsky plot. In subsequent talk show interviews, Hilder created further confusion (Hail Eris!) by alleging that Sirhan was a Eugene McCarthy supporter, which ostensibly connected elements of the political Left to RFK’s assassination.
Previously, Hilder self-published It Comes Up Murder which outlined a vast conspiracy starring Adam Weishaupt in the leading role, who in Bavaria in 1776 organized “the secret and evil cult of the Illuminati in order to wage Satan’s war against Christian civilization.” In due time—according to Hilder—the Illuminati coalesced into the modern International Communist Conspiracy which, in turn, evolved into such evil New World Order fronts as the United Nations and the Council of Foreign Relations. Such worldviews as these became an easy target of Operation Mindfuck as documented in Bavarian Illuminati hoax letters that the Discordian Society sent to leaders of The John Birch Society during this period.
Hilder’s Hens from Conspiracy Con 7. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.As for Hilder, he remains active on the current-day conspiracy research scene appearing at such events as Conspiracy Con held each year in San Jose, CA where you can find him holding court while peddling DVDs along with an occasional Rotisserie chicken or two!
Here’s a current vid of our man Hilder still bustin’ the Illuminati’s chops! Hail Eris! (Editors Note: He makes some good points.)
In The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy (1978),
authors William Turner and Jonn Christian suggest that Steinbacher and Hilder’s Illuminati-Commie assassination plot theory was actually a well-orchestrated disinformation campaign designed to create a general theme that stuck in the public mind, whether people accepted the theory or not. According to Turner and Christian, one effect of this Commie-Illuminati disinformation campaign was that it permitted the LAPD to suppress evidence leading in the opposite direction of the true assassin, toward the Far Right of the political spectrum from whence the authors suspected that the assassination plot had been hatched.
All of this, of course, is almost as convoluted as some of the conspiratorial scenarios that Shea and RAW played around with—a case of life imitating art or vice versa, perhaps—as, throughout Illuminatus!, the authors seemed to have been channeling the rampant paranoia that became so prevalent following the almost endless parade of political assassinations that assaulted America in the late-60s.
Hilder and Steinbacher, as it turns out, had been protégés of another famous Bircher named Myron Fagan. Fagan was a prominent player in the McCarthy Era Hollywood blacklisting brigade. Curiously enough, Hilder and a band of brother Birchers had visited the Ambassador Hotel the night before RFK’s assassination, passing out anti-RFK handbills.
This story gets even more curious with the involvement of a fellow named Ed Butler, a former Army intelligence officer who was the person that arranged the Hilder-Steinbacher press conference. Earlier in the 1960s—it so happens—Butler had been based out of New Orleans, LA during the period that future alleged JFK assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was going around handing out pro-Castro leaflets and coming across like some sort of commie symp.
On August 16th, 1963—as Oswald was handing out his leaflets in front of the New Orleans Trade Mart, he was physically confronted by a surly anti-Castro Cuban named Carlos Bringuier—who supposedly just happened on scene—thus inciting a shoving match which a local news camera crew from WSDU-TV also just happened to capture on film. Not long after, WSDU’s sister radio station, WSDU-AM, conducted a live radio debate between Oswald and Bringuier, which was “moderated” by the aforementioned Ed Butler. It’s a small world after all…
In the aftermath of JFK’s assassination, the Oswald/Bringuier radio debate was pressed to vinyl on the recording Self-Portrait In Red, which presented posthumous evidence that Oswald was inspired to blow the proverbial crown from Camelot’s head due to his Marxist affiliations. The organization that produced Self-Portrait In Red was the Information Council of the Americas (INCA), with whom Ed Butler was associated. In retrospect, many now suspect that the Oswald/Bringuier confrontation was staged, the ultimate design of which was to build a false history around Oswald that could later be used against him.
The theory that a red herring Commie-Illuminati-Blavatsky plot was orchestrated to muddy the RFK assassination waters (and divert attention from the Right side of the political spectrum) seems not so far-fetched a notion when one delves deeper into the involvement of the LAPD, who set up a unit named “Special Unit Senator” (SUS) to investigate RFK’s assassination. SUS included in its ranks a couple of former CIA agents named Manny Pena and Hank Hernandez, who are alleged to have destroyed crucial RFK Assassination evidence, including door jambs and ceiling panels containing multiple bullet holes, suggesting that more than one shooter was involved. (Enter Thane Eugene Cesar…) It was SUS who put together the evidence that later formed the basis for the prosecution’s case against Sirhan.
SUS discovered, among Sirhan’s possessions, Healing, the Divine Art (Amazon) by Manly Palmer Hall, founder of the Philosophical Research Society which was tangentially connected to Blavatsky’s Theosophy, Freemasonry and other mystical schools, and it was alleged that Sirhan attended Hall’s Institute of Reflection in Los Angeles. Among Hall’s clients was Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty, which provides another strange twist to this caper, as it was Yorty—following Sirhan’s arrest—who branded Sirhan a commie-influenced occultist who had been brainwashed by Leftist and New Age propaganda.
During the RFK Assassination investigation, Mayor Yorty visited LAPD’s field command post set up near the Ambassador Hotel where the dirty deed had gone down. While rooting around through evidence there, Yorty discovered some Rosicrucian literature and a pair of spiral notebooks belonging to Sirhan which provided alleged evidence that he’d been involved in the occult.
Afterwards, Yorty informed the press that Sirhan was “…a member of numerous Communist organizations, including the Rosicrucians.” When it was pointed out to Yorty that the Rosicrucians were not Communists, he amended his miscue by stating: “It appears that Sirhan Sirhan was a sort of loner who harbored Communist inclinations, favored Communists of all types. He said the U.S. must fall. Indicated that RFK must be assassinated before June 5, 1968.”
As it turns out for us, this was today in RFK Assassination history.
A hand-made postcard from Pope Christopher Wilhoite to Kerry Thornley (Grand Ballyhoo of Egypt), stamped 25 APR 1994. Courtesy of Christopher Wilhoite.In The Prankster and the Conspiracy (Amazon), Chris Wilhoite—a wandering minstrel who made his way to Little Five Points (L5P), Atlanta in the early-90s—remembered how he first became acquainted with Kerry Thornley:
“I had just read the Illuminatus! Trilogy and was pondering what was what when I noticed the pages of a xeroxed novel about Oswald and JFK on the telephone poles in L5P. The last page had the name Kerry Thornley on it. Synchronicity #1. Around the same time, I noticed an unusual/ enigmatic/ groovy looking fellow in tie-died cotton who occasionally strolled through the park with the smile of a Buddha, and somehow I knew there was something special about him. One night, I was playing one of my songs on acoustic guitar in the park and this Buddhaesque being stopped and listened and paid me a compliment. I still didn’t catch his name. A friend had told me more about the mysterious author of the JFK sheets and said he’d written a book called Zenarchy, a name that appealed deeply to me, but I still didn’t match the person with the name.
“Then, one day a friend told me that Kerry Thornley had, in the course of one day, been called by Oliver Stone to be a consultant for the JFK film, (shortly afterward) had dual kidney failure and his landlady flipped a mental cog and kicked everybody out of the boarding house where he lived. So, Kerry needed a place to stay. I immediately volunteered space in my duplex. My friend told me to talk to Kerry, he was in front of A Capella Books, signing and selling his work. Who did I see in front of the store, but the groovy Buddha I had noticed before! I invited him to crash at my pad, and this became the beginning of a long and fruitful friendship.”
Chris bore witness to any number of Kerry’s surrealist pranks, such as one that occurred on Halloween morning of 1993:
I was living in a VW campervan behind a restaurant in L5P. I had just had breakfast and was standing at the corner across from the park, when Kerry comes walking from the far end of the square, wearing a white cloak with a hood and carrying a sign reading “World Will End SOON. Get your tickets NOW!” As he passed down the street, snowflakes (unseasonal for Oct 31 in Atlanta) began to fall right behind Kerry, and as he passed across my field of vision, the snow came in like a curtain drawn by Kerry. My friend Wolf, standing directly behind me said: “Yep, hell just froze over!”
One day, Kerry and Chris were hanging out in front of the Tête-à-Tête Café in L5P with a wooden box full of copies of The Principia Discordia and Zenarchy, which Kerry was selling/giving away. (Buyer: “How much?” Kerry: “How much do you have?” Buyer: “A quarter.” Kerry: “That’s plenty!”) On Kerry’s wooden box was a sign that said: Principia Discordia—much funnier than the bible!
At one point, a Christian zealot happened by, noticed Kerry’s sign and started shouting, “Much funnier than the Bible!? The Bible’s not funny!” In response, a local zealous Marxist—seated behind Kerry and Chris—jumped up and started shouting down the Christian. Kerry, smiling, closed his box and walked away, with Chris following after, exclaiming: ”Hail Eris! All Hail Discordia!”
Through my remarkable remote viewing powers I’ve had the opportunity to sneak a peek at Daisy’s play, and I must say she’s done a marvelous job of weaving all of RAW’s Chapel Perilous craziness together in a freewheeling romp that includes appearances by Greg Hill and Kerry Thornley, to boot.
In other important business, 5/23 was also the day the presses starting churning out my latest book Historia Discordia: The Origins of the Discordian Society (RVP Press), although it will be about a week before you start seeing it pop up for purchase, so hang in there and as soon as we have a purchase link, you’ll be the first to fnord know!
According to my publisher for Historia Discordia, part of the delay stemmed from the fact that when he reviewed a test copy of the book, he discovered page 123 had been printed twice.
A card dated April 1970 with some Erisian information about the LBJ Cabal. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.I’ve been on the road of late and so finally getting around to commenting on the most recent Illuminatus! group reading (after a couple weeks MIA) reporting from an undisclosed location somewhere in Spook Central, VA where I’m using my ipad mini to read from a kindle version of the book—and it seems that the page numbers don’t always correspond with the paperized version, hail eris!, so bear with!
Laughing Buddha Jesus (short for LBJ) was a Discordian cabal Kerry Thornley cooked up back in the day, although I don’t know if Kerry ever referred to it with a “Phallus” added to the end—as the John Dillinger character does on page 127. For those versed in the alternate Dillinger legends, perhaps the addition of “Phallus” (to the end of LBJ) is associated with rumors that Dillinger was well equipped with a massive 23-inch you-know-what that was pickled for posterity and is now hidden away in the vaults of the Smithsonian.
To this end, Dillinger identifies himself as President of Laughing Buddha Jesus Phallus, Inc. (LBJP), a distributer of rock music LPs that Johnny D.—in cahoots with the Justified Ancients of Mummu (JAMS)—started as a front organization to counterattack the Illuminati’s strangle-hold on the rock music industry. In conjunction with this anti-Illuminati operation, Dillinger mentions that the LBJP had disseminated Illuminati revelations through certain unexpected channels such as The Christian Crusade, which—in “real life”—is exactly what the Discordian Society perpetrated via Operation Mindfuck (OM), a topic previously discussed here at Historia Discordia—so if you are still confused by the term “OM” (Don’t Leave OM Without It!) do a search of this site—or if all else fails, a pineal gland consultation has been known to work wonders.
Late-60s Bavarian Illuminati Hoax Letter to Rev. David Noebel. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
The Beatles: A Study in Drugs, Sex, and Revolution by David Noebel. (Amazon)Above is one of the famous Bavarian Illuminati hoax letters that RAW, Greg Hill, Thornley, et al, cooked up in the late, great Sixties. This one in particular is addressed to Rev. David Noebel who wrote a handful of somewhat provocative books (many of which inhabit my arcane library at Gorightly Hindquarters) including such startling titles as Rhythm, Riot and Revolution (Amazon) (mentioned in the Bavarian letter hoax letter)—as well as The Beatles: A Study in Drugs, Sex and Revolution (Amazon) and Communism, Hypnotism, and The Beatles (Amazon)—each of which includes, on their respective covers, some caricatures that bear uncanny resemblances to the Fab Four… sort of. The hoax letter, in this instance, was most likely composed by RAW (in the guise of Rev. Charles Arthur Floyd II) given the Evanston, Illinois mailing address, this during the period when RAW was under the employ of Hugh Hefner’s Playboy mag in Chicago.
Communism, Hypnotism, and The Beatles by David Noebel. (Amazon)Although Rev. Dr. Noebel wrote the above-mentioned titles way back in the 60s, he’s apparently still hard at it, penning additional classics along these lines and preaching from his pulpit situated somewhere deep in the heart of Texas. Noebel also has a presence on facebook but when I tried to friend him a couple years back he shined me on. 🙁
Below is a snippet from a lecture by Rev. Noebel on Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, which pretty much lays out his commies-infiltrating-rock-music thesis:
Emperor Norton Promissory Note, 50 Cents.On page 133, the “Norton Lodge in Frisco” is mentioned, which in the “real world” was Greg Hill’s pad in San Fran. A couple paragraphs later we see the first mention of flaxscript, an alternate form of currency that Dillinger and the JAMS are using to get over on the Illuminati’s Federal Reserve note scam, which is exactly what the real Discordians were up to when Greg Hill and his Discordian confederates—inspired by Emperor Joshua Norton (who had previously issued his own currency)—likewise followed the good Emperor’s lead with what became known as Flax Notes (or alternately, flaxscript.)
Flaxscript: Security Last Intergalactic, 30 tons of flax. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.Included among those listed as taking part in this exchange of Discordian currency were Malaclypse The Younger (Greg Hill), Lord Omar (Kerry Thornley), Mungojerry (Bob McElroy), Mordecai Malignatus (RAW), Hypocrates Magoun (Robert Newport), Iona K. Fioderovna (Jeanetta Hill) and Harold Randomfactor (Tim Wheeler).
Flaxscript: Bank of Omar, 1 ton of flax. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.Before Bitcoin: Security Last Intergalactic Bank Flaxscript. 2 Tons of Flax = 1 Principia Discordia. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
Drawing Down The Moon by Margot Adler. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.Probably the first semi-academic study of Discordianism in popular form appeared in Margot Adler’s Drawing Down The Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans In America Today (Amazon), published in 1979 by Beacon Press.
This book—along with RAW’s Cosmic Trigger Volume I, Final Secret of the Illuminati (Amazon)—helped me greatly in understanding the early days of Discordianism from the perspective of RAW and Greg Hill, both interviewed by Adler.
On page 309, RAW drops some vital Discordian knowledge, which stands as probably the most succinct and to the point summary of Eris worship ever writ (maybe):
“Much of the Pagan Movement started out as jokes, and gradually, as people found out they were getting something out of it, they became serious. Discordianism has a built-in check against getting too serious. The sacred scriptures are so absurd—as soon as you consult the scriptures again, you start laughing. Discordian theology is similar to Crowleyanity. You take any of these ideas far enough and they reveal the absurdity of all ideas. They show that ideas are only tools and that no idea should be sacrosanct. Thus, Discordianism is a necessary balance. It’s a fail-safe system. It remains a joke and provides perspective. It’s a satire on human intelligence and is based on the idea that whatever your map of reality, it’s ninety percent your own creation. People should accept this and be proud of their own artistry. Discordianism can’t get dogmatic. The whole language would have to change for people to lose track that it was all a joke to begin with. It would take a thousand years.”
Later in the book, when Adler asked Malaclypse (Greg Hill): “What’s Omar Ravenhurst (Kerry Thornley) doing these days?” He replied, “Ravenhurst has recently been in a state of extreme discord. We were talking about Eris and confusion and he said, ‘You know, if I had realized that all of this was going to come true, I would have chosen Venus’” (Page 312). This, of course, during a period when Kerry went off the deep end believing that he was at the center of a grand conspiracy that made Illuminatus! look like a Sunday stroll in the park with grandma.
From the final report of the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, known unofficially as the “Warren Commission”
The Idle Warriors by Kerry W. Thornley, published by IllumiNet Press, 1991The testimony of Kerry Wendell Thornley was taken at 9:40 a.m., on May 18, 1964, at 200 Maryland Avenue NE., Washington, D.C., by Messrs. John Ely and Albert E. Jenner, Jr., assistant counsel of the President’s Commission.
Mr. JENNER. Mr. Thornley, in the deposition you are about to give, do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Mr. THORNLEY. I do.
Mr. JENNER. You are Kerry Wendell Thornley, spelled K-e-r-r-y W-e-n-d-e-l-l T-h-o-r-n-l-e-y?
Mr. THORNLEY. That is correct, sir.
Mr. JENNER. Mr. Thornley, where do you reside now?
Mr. THORNLEY. At 4201 South 31st Street in Arlington, Va.
Mr. JENNER. Did you at one time reside at 1824 Dauphine Street in New Orleans?
Mr. THORNLEY. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. What is your present occupation?
Mr. THORNLEY. I am a doorman at the building where I reside, Shirlington House.
New York Press cover feature box on Kerry Thornley, June 19-25, 1991 edition. Clipping courtesy of the Discordian Archives.Jonathan Vankin’s chapter on Kerry Thornley in Conspiracies, Cover-ups and Crimes was one of the main motivating factors that launched me on this strange voyage of chronicling Kerry’s life.
At the time, Vankin noted that he was considering writing Thornley’s biography, a notion that excited me immensely, as Vankin’s portrayal of Kerry in Conspiracies, Cover-ups and Crimes only whet my appetite for further revelations of one of the most curious characters to inhabit the counterculture and JFK assassination research scene of the 60s and 70s.
Of course, Vankin never got around to writing Thornley’s biography, so by the early 2000s I took it upon myself to dive down that particular rabbit hole, a journey which amazingly enough is still ongoing. I eventually pulled my research together in my biography of Thornley, The Prankster and the Conspiracy: The Story of Kerry Thornley and How He Met Oswald and Inspired the Counterculture, currently still available in all those various formats we read now. Hail Eris!
Here’s a fascinating article discussing Vankin’s coverage of Thornley from 1991 by John Strausbaugh, then-contributor and editor of The New York Press, then later host of the The New York Times’s “Weekend Explorer” podcast. This was a turning-point in Kerry’s life as IllumiNet Press was starting to publish Kerry’s works in a serious format, and subsequent coverage of Thornley, his works, and his story was being picked-up by earnest media types.
New York Press feature on Kerry Thornley, June 19-25, 1991 edition, Page 00001. Clipping courtesy of the Discordian Archives.New York Press feature on Kerry Thornley, June 19-25, 1991 edition, Page 00002. Clipping courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
The Filibuster Demon from the Goetia Discordia, Page 00022. Book PDF File Here. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.In the mid-1980s, Kerry Thornley began collaborating with a Canadian graphic artist and musician, Roldo Odlor, an association that culminated in an illustrated version of Thornley’s Book of the Demons of the Region of Thud aka Goetia Discordia, which we share with you now in its chaotic entirety as a PDF file.
Our forthcoming book, Historia Discordia, will feature more Roldo-created Discordian treasures, not to mention one of the most mind-blowing book covers you’ll ever see!
Roldo has a presence on Facebook and his music is available on Bandcamp.
