IAO!
For further cosmic illumination refer to pages 159-166, Cosmic Trigger, Vol. 1, by RAW.
In issue #1 of Paranoid Flash, Kerry notes how he decided to hire legal counsel (as opposed to court-appointed representation) and that he was trying to get assistance from the ACLU.
As Kerry later recalled:
Garrison came after me one last time in 1970 just for harassment purposes because I had put an advertisement in a Libertarian magazine that said, ‘Good looking, young District Attorney will do anything for, or to, anyone for a chance to jack off to the John Kennedy autopsy photos.’ (Laughs) This was just to prove I wasn’t afraid of him…It was just my way of saying, ‘Look, you fucker, you’re not going to push me around…’
“Anyhow, the lawyer I wound up with (Ed Baldwin)… who happened also to be Garrison’s brother-in-law, told me in no uncertain terms to stop writing things about Jim. So I stopped, and never heard from the lawyer again, much less from Garrison…
Assuming that this helicopter incident was the key factor that drove Kerry off the deep end, it was not simply a matter of him immediately snapping and going crackers. What I believe happened was a gradual disintegration, which reached its nadir in the mid-70s when Kerry believed that nearly everyone he ever knew was part of “The Conspiracy.”
The helicopter incident notwithstanding, some suspect that an ill-fated love affair greatly contributed to his subsequent psychological problems. Kerry described it as an “eight-year-long, off-again-on-again, affair/friendship/rivalry/ego-game/karmic unraveling.” The “affair” in question was with Grace Caplinger, who inspired a novel Kerry was writing in the early60s entitled Can Grace Come Out and Play? In a confessional letter from late 1969, Kerry addressed the matter:
For an opinionated sonofabitch like me, learning things and finding out you are wrong are inseparable—so it has been, since education, painful. I learned, for example, that the sort of polygamy I always advocated is precarious at best—since, I at least, cannot ordinarily, to my own surprise, really love (in the full sense of a life-time devotion) two different women to the degree each needs and deserves, not at the same time. And any conflict between them just tears me apart.
Put on top of this that most if not all else there is to it—or was—is that we happen also to be each others’ ego trips, and the whole thing becomes as difficult to integrate as a queer spade in Mississippi…
When I shared the above letter with Grace Caplinger (now known as Grace Zabriskie, most recognized for her famous role in David Lynch’s amazingly Discordian TV series Twin Peaks as Laura Palmer’s mother), she replied:
I have no idea where this long affair thing comes from. Kerry and I and my then husband, Rob, had an intense friendship, which graduated, or from another point of view disintegrated into more of a friendship between me and Kerry. The friendship was centered around an intense shared love for and fascination with the philosophy of Ayn Rand. We were all in our early twenties. This friendship was briefly interrupted by an incident one evening while Rob was away. I was not happy with Rob, and Kerry was on the outs with his then girlfriend, Jessica (Luck). The incident consisted of several hours of Kerry ranting about how excluding sexuality from our friendship was “irrational…”
Worst thing one student of Objectivism could possibly say to another, I guess, and then perhaps four and a half minutes in bed before I asked him to leave. More haranguing about irrationality on the way out, as I remember, and that was it. That was the affair. There was no further sexual aspect to the friendship that eventually resumed, and continued until…
I’m not sure. I think Kerry left New Orleans. Within a year or so I moved to Atlanta, and Kerry and I corresponded for years. He asked me at one point to send him all his letters as he was trying to construct a timeline, for Garrison, of what he’d been doing during those years. I sent him all the letters. He wrote sporadically after that, and I stopped ever writing back after he informed me that he believed that
1), I was involved somehow in some conspiracy… to do what I wasn’t ever quite clear on, and
2), that I was involved somehow in “snuff films.” Maybe because I was an actor in films by then. I don’t know…
I lost hope that I could make him see reason in these matters, and I stopped imagining that we could ever be friends again.
From Kerry’s perspective, his affair with Grace extended over a decade, although according to Grace the sexual aspect of their relationship lasted only four minutes. It’s my suspicion that the first seeds of Kerry’s psychological issues began to manifest in the late-60s, and one way it exhibited itself was this fixation with Grace that, at some point, became magnified in his mind.
I remember my last phone conversation with Kerry, during which he announced that just a week earlier I had come to Atlanta, argued with him about my alleged CIA connections, spiked his drink with LSD, and brainwashed him again. I told him that I had not left San Francisco in months, and that if he had a bad trip the previous week then somebody else gave him the acid, not me. I insisted on this as persuasively as I could.
Finally, Kerry relented—a bit. “Well, maybe you believe that,” he said. “But that means your bosses have been fucking with your head and implanting false memories in you too!”
How do you argue that you haven’t had your head altered? “Look,” I said, “I’ll put my wife Arlen on. She’ll tell you I haven’t left here in months.”
“That won’t prove anything,” he said with the calm certitude of a Grand Master announcing checkmate. “They probably fixed her head too.”
The robbed-at-gunpoint incident is documented in a 1975 memo to which Kerry applied his thumbprint as a means of identification and supported by Greg Hill who was there for the robbery in Atlanta.
Antero Alli is one such adventurous spirit who has advanced RAW’s work another step (or two) in his books and films, many of these focusing on the Eight Circuit Model, which if you need a primer on you can check out this series of youtube vids.
Somewhere along the way Antero embraced Discordianism, and after becoming a card carrying Discordian Pope he started two new religions of his own: Confusionism and The Church of Fred Mertz.
In the late-70s and early-80s, RAW hosted Discordian salons at his Berkeley hills home that Antero attended along with the likes of Discordian Society founder Greg Hill. At one such salon, Antero recalled Hill whispering to him: “If dogma means absolute belief in anything, then katma probably means relative disbelief in something.”
During this period, the budding young writer Antero mentioned to RAW that he was working on a book concept (Angel Tech, published in 1988) that would take Leary’s theories and put them into practice by creating rituals revolving around the 8 Circuits. Concurrently RAW was working on a similar book that would employ a series of exercises to activate the Circuits (Prometheus Rising, 1984.) Alli has continued to navigate these neural networks with The Eight-Circuit Brain, 2009. Part of Antero’s method of exploring these realms includes a Tarot Deck he began developing in the early 1980s.
When I first got my hands on the Discordian Archives, I came across one such deck—hand drawn by Antero—which he’d apparently given to Greg Hill during one of their Discordian salon encounters, and of course it seemed only right that I should return the deck to Antero, who had all but forgotten about this long ago relic—or that he had even given it to Hill.
Antero and his wife Sylvie have further refined this Tarot Deck concept with The Vertical Oracle comprised of an instructional manual and Tarot Deck “designed to incite creative responses to everyday real life quandaries. The ageless archetypes—Magic, Death, Rebirth, Ritual, Chaos, Hope, Synchronicity—are given a 21st century context for inspiring more meaningful connections between our vertical spiritual sources and the horizontal realms of the out-there material world.”
You can find out more about the always evolving and perpetually prolific Mr. Alli at http://www.verticalpool.com.
First up, a post meant for last week’s Illuminatus! Group Reading. Usually, we post an Eris of the Month entry every 23rd, but we’ll post that tomorrow on the 24th, just to give a little slap back to Our Lady of Confusion for her testiness.
I’m a little late to the fnord party, as this weird word was apparently first introduced into the Illuminatus! (Amazon) lexicon way back on page 280 and shows up here again in Week 30—just the same I thought I’d play a little catch up, although I really have no great fnord insights to share other than to point out the first known appearance of this weirdo word was in the 4th ed. of Principia Discordia.
To further illustrate Hill’s involvement—with RAW, Robert Shea and Illuminatus!—I post a letter here for your probable reading enjoyment from Hill to RAW in the year of our Goddess, 3141. This was during the period that Hill was living in NYC. Hill mentions a poster-collage he was contemplating / working on at this time that had “fizzled out,” although he later shared a rough version of it with RAW.
Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
On page 2 of Hill’s letter, he recounts a synchronistic moment between he, Thornley and the spirit of RAW, which probably cemented even more in poor Kerry’s mind that RAW was an evil agent of the Illuminati who possessed paranormal powers and could deliver thunder bolts on request!
On page 3, Hill mentions another can of worms in Thornley’s head concerning a party in a Atlanta that is discussed in more depth in my latest book about all of this craziness, Caught in the Crossfire: Kerry Thornley, Lee Oswald and the Garrison Investigation (Amazon).
Towards the end, Hill inquires if there’s any news about Sirius, which of course was referring to RAW’s famous July 23rd encounter. The Secret Chiefs, I assume, also refers to the July 23rd Dog Days experience. Who “Nichols at Voice” was, I have no idea, unless it’s a reference to The Village Voice. As for Leary, he was still in prison at this point, but it was not long after—in April of ‘76—that California Governor Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown granted Leary’s release.
Hill finishes with a philosophical point—which is a bit over my head—although I think it’s referring to that quote by Alfred Korzybski of which RAW was so fond: “The map is not the territory.”
“Zap ‘em at Gnostica” refers—I believe—to a series of esoteric workshops that RAW was part of in San Francisco at this time sponsored by Gnostica magazine called Gnosticon. Here are some scans from the Gnosticon newsletter that includes RAW’s bio and a description of the workshops he presented, which consisted of his early explorations into Leary’s Eight Circuit Model of Consciousness.
An illuminating snippet Christian has just posted is one of the infamous Bavarian Illuminati Letterheads sent from RAW to Leary’s wife Joanna in 1973 while Tim was serving time in the slammer.
Also included is some notebook stationary (created by Harold Lord Randomfactor) initiating RAW into the Discordian Society, courtesy of Discordian Society founder Mal-2 (aka Gregory Hill).
In the spirit of such long ago Illuminati inspired correspondences, we bring to you now—back by popular demand!—your very own pristine Discordian Bavarian Illuminati Letterhead (PDF)!
Download, share, write your Congresscritter, or hold it in your hand while you agitate loudly on street corners!
Brought to you by the Ancient Illuminated Seers of Bavaria (AISB).
After reading this passage, Lady L., F.A.B. (aka Louise Lacey) remarked: “The problem in the world today is that the hunch-brains are united.”
Get in on the curse at RAWIllumination.net Illuminatus! Online Reading Group.
Since launching historiadiscordia.com (on JFK Assassination Day last year) we’ve had—upon occasion—some rather eyebrow-raising visitors to the site, among them the Dept. of Justice, not to mention the Church of Scientology, and most recently the Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) and the U.S. Department of Defense.
We welcome you!
One can only speculate why THEY would be interested in little ol’ us, though I no doubt suspect that certain agencies in our gubmint have long been trying to get a handle on just exactly what Discordianism “is” and to determine if it’s a threat to National Security. (Why anyone would fear a religion based on the worship of the Greek Goddess of Chaos and Discord is beyond me!)
As seen in the assembled screen shots—which were captured during a couple of the DHS and DOD visits—at one point THEY hit the Illuminati tag, a Discordian connection that dates back to the glory days of Operation Mindfuck (OM) when Kerry Thornley—in cahoots with his other Discordian miscreants—cooked up the modern day Bavarian Illuminati (The World’s Oldest And Most Successful Conspiracy).
Discordianism—as Erisian history instructs—has enjoyed a long association with the Illuminati (which may secretly run the U.S. Government!) as well as certain other Governmental branches (because we all know where “true” chaos comes from!) among them the military, and in particular the Pentagon which is incorporated into the Sacred Chao, that most holiest of all Discordianism symbols.
The Sacred Chao is a twist of sorts on Taoism’s Yin and Yang, depicting as it does the opposing forces of The Pentagon and The Golden Apple, also known in Discordianism as the Hodge and Podge. The Pentagon—according to Discordian mythos—represents the Aneristic Principle (Apparent Order) in counterbalance to The Golden Apple, which represents The Eristic Principle (Apparent Disorder.) To find out more about all this you will have to consult your pineal gland and call me when the brain swelling goes down.
The 1st edition Principia Discordia lists several Orders of Eris, one of which is the Knights of the Five Sided Temple, “a movement that is specifically Anti-Discordian. Such people are almost invariably found to be either bureaucrats or militarists (frequently both). The Five Sided Temple referred to is The Pentagon Bldg. itself where there is an incredible concentration of Knights. In your own experiences with military service and bureaucracies, you will notice many people with a heavy tendency towards the Eristesque Principle, but every so once in awhile you will find a person who is absolutely wound up in all sorts of fantastic and technical formal order which due to its own weight ends up only in a comical-absurd cross-reference maze of nothing; and such a person who lives, thinks and breathes in such terms—he is a Knight.”
As you can see, Discordianism has long been connected to the Pentagon, which some may also find confusing, because many people considered those old school Discordians just a bunch of long haired pot smoking no-good hippie types—which of course many of them were!—so the Discordian Society’s apparent veneration the Five Sided Temple might appear a bit perplexing to some. However, all of these five-sided Discordian endeavors were simply a means to demonstrate the dichotomy found in Discordianism—the Aneristic vs. Eristic principles—which is not unlike the ol’ good vs. evil dualism of Christianity, because without one you couldn’t have the other. (Maybe.)
If you’d like to find out more about the hidden history of Discordianism, Illuminism and its sinister connections to not only the U.S. Government, but all governments of the world, I would encourage you (and THEM) to pick up a copy of Historia Discordia: The Origins of the Discordian Society while copies last!
No government office should be without one!
On page 274, a “grinning young man with a Frisco-style Jesus Christ hair-and-beard” welcomes Joe Malik and Simon Moon to the Joshua Norton Cabal located at “a normal but untypically clean hippie hangout” which perfectly describes Greg Hill and his San Fran abode during that late-60s period chronicled in Illuminatus! (Amazon).
On page 275 the character of Doc Iggy (short for Dr. Ignotum P. Ignotius) is formerly introduced. Doc Iggy—according to Discordian lore—was the successor of Malaclypse the Younger (aka Mal-2), Omnibenevolent Polyfather of Virginity in Gold (OPVIG)—both of course being alter egos of Greg Hill, as documented in the following pronouncement dated Syaday 3136 (May 23, 1970).
As for the Joshua Norton Cabal, Greg Hill once described it this thusly:
“The 1969 Discordian Society was an exchange between independent artists of various kinds. Norton Cabal was just me and my characters and I used the other cabals as sort of a laboratory. In return, other Discordians would bounce their stuff off of me. We would toss in ideas and anybody could take anything out. It was a concept stew. Principia was my product from my perspective. Thornley, and Wilson and Shea, had other perspectives, which had substantial influence on me. It was mutual, but without the exchange each would have done something similar anyway. The exchanging of ideas and techniques broadened and encouraged all of us.”
As noted on Page 276, Emperor Joshua Norton—although a pauper—issued his own currency which some considered a joke but was just the same accepted by many businesses in old San Fran. To this end, Wilson and Shea mention a couple of anarchists—William Green and Lysander Spooner—who also tried to establish their own respective currencies but were put down by The Man.
It was in this spirit that the early Discordians came up with their own alternate currency (flaxscript) as outlined in this “statement of policy” that Greg Hill—still in his incarnation of Malaclypse the Younger—drew up in 3135 (1969).
distribute this information. 
issued by
Malaclypse the Younger.
On page 282, the Yin Revolution is mentioned in passing, which happened to be a phrase and conceptual framework that Kerry Thornley was tinkering around with in the late-60s/early-70s as found in this article from 1970 by Chairman Lao (aka Kerry Thornley) on “Yin Revolution.”
‘Tis an ill wind that blows no minds!
And, in case you missed it, check out these other letters to Hill in Part 00001 of this series.
