Ewige Blumenkraft: Kerry Thornley. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.November 22nd commemorates a lot of things here at Historia Discordia, including the date we first launched this site—on JFK Assassination Day, no less!—an event forever after ingrained in Discordian mythology. And although we would never be so bold as to suggest that Eris had a five fingered hand in orchestrating the Killing of the King, it nonetheless appears that in some way or another our Goddess of Perpetual Chaos was responsible for the torrent of high weirdness that engulfed Kerry Thornley’s life after meeting Lee Harvey Oswald in the Marines, then afterwards encountering a couple of shadowy JFK assassination conspirators in New Orleans. If that wasn’t enough, Jim Garrison claimed that Thornley was a CIA agent who masqueraded as Lee Oswald and also pronged Oswald’s wife, Marina. For more on this mind-blowing caper check out Caught in the Crossfire: Kerry Thornley, Oswald and the Garrison Investigation.
Discordianism—for good or ill—will be forever linked to this dark day in American history. Like a chaos magician reaching down into his top hat-rabbit hole, the Discordian-JFK Assassination landscape is inhabited by Playboy magazine bunny ears, Ozzie Rabbit (Oswald’s nickname), Echo and the Bunnymen (see JMR Higgs’ KLF: Chaos Magic Music Money), a certain pooka named Harvey (“How are you, Mr. Wilson?”) as well as Bugs Bunny’s role as a Discordian Society patron saint. I could explain all of these Discordian-Bunny-JFK assassination associations, but that would be like trying to explain a complicated joke disguised as a religion.
Oliver Senton as Robert Anton Wilson in the Cosmic Trigger Play.11/22 is one of those magic, yet chaotic dates on the Discordian Calendar when the Eristic (as well as Aneristic forces!) come together to perform a triple whammy of sorts, and this year is no exception as Daisy Eris Campbell premieres her much anticipated Cosmic Trigger Play on this very day (11/22) in Liverpool, England at the Camp and Furnace, which looks like a very cool venue where I plan to hoist a pint or two and then slip into a Liverpudian accent.
To complete this Erisian Triple Whammy (the first anniversary of the Historia Discordia website coinciding with the premiere of the Cosmic Trigger Play), I’ll be a guest on Coast To Coast AM with weekend host Richard Syrett to discuss Caught in the Crossfire. And to confuse matters even more (Hail Eris!), my C2C interview—although slated for November 22rd—won’t actually air until the 3rd hour of the program, the witching hour, midnight 11/23. Appearing in the 3rd hour of C2C seems apropos in that it relates to the theories of that late great conspiracy sleuth James Shelby Downard who proposed that JFK’s assassination was orchestrated by high level Freemasons to occur along the 33rd degree latitude as a part of a death ritual ceremony known as The Killing of the King with the numbers 3 and 33 repeated throughout.
James Shelby Downard in the early-90s. Photo by Adam Parfrey. In Masonry there are the three mystical steps or degrees: The Apprentice, Fellow Craft, and Master Mason. The third degree of Master Mason pertains to symbolic Death and Resurrection and the ceremonial Killing of the King. To this end, 11/22 (11 + 22=33) signifies (maybe) a Masonic triple whammy, as 33 is the highest degree in Freemasonry. Dealey Plaza—situated near the Trinity River—was the site for the first Masonic temple in Dallas. Kennedy’s ill-fated motorcade was just about to pass through the Triple Underpass when three shots rang out, wounding Kennedy twice and Texas Governor John Connally once.
Photographic comparison of the Old Man Tramp (on left) and E. Howard Hunt. The 3rd Degree of Freemasonry tells the legend of three “unworthy craftsman”—Jubela, Jubelo and Jubelum—who murdered Hiram Abiff, the architect of Solomon’s Temple. Similarly, three tramps were arrested in Dealey Plaza, then afterwards released. One of the tramps was later identified as E. Howard Hunt, who Kerry Thornley later came to suspect as being one of his MK-ULTRA handlers.
On the afternoon 11/23, I’ll be speaking at the Find The Others Conferestival, along with other such illuminaries as Robert Temple (author of The Sirius Mystery), Daisy Eris Campbell, John Higgs and Robin Ince.
The number 23—as sumbutnotall of you may be aware—is yet another holy Discordian number (2+3=5) which in turns relates to the Discordian Law of Fives, so I think we should have all our bases covered. And although I might have taken the steam out of my so-called Discordian Triple Whammy by not actually appearing on C2C on 11/22, I will be on Clyde Lewis’ Ground Zero Radio on 11/21, although for me it will actually be 11/22 (at the illustrious hour of 4am!) calling in from my hotel room in Liverpool, which further illustrates the quantum mechanical nature of the universe where I can travel back in time from the future to appear on a radio show in the past!
And, of course, 11/21 also has its place inDiscordianism as 1+1+2+1=5!
Copies of SNAFU. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.Prepare yourself(s) for an amazing interview with a largely unknown (until now!) Discordian named Hope Springs (real name Mary Wheeler) conducted by Steven Adkins of the Law of Silence blog.
Mary—as you’ll soon discover—found herself smack dab in the middle of the Early Discordian scene along with her husband, Tim Wheeler (aka Harold Lord Randomfactor of Illuminatus! fame.)
Tim Wheeler was most likely the one who entered the phrase “Don’t Let Them Immanentize the Eschaton!” into the Discordian lexicon, but (partly thanks to Tim) the phrase already had a life in conservative circles. Eric Vogelin coined it, but someone turned William F. Buckley on to it and he then helped popularize it. This probably accounts for the legend that Buckley was one of the anonymous authors of the Principia Discordia.
An abundance of the Wheeler’s materials have been incubating in the Discordian Archives awaiting the appropriate time to be pulled out, dusted off and re-injected into modern day Discordianism. Consider this but the first installment of a plethora of Tim and Mary Wheeler goodies which we will share with you in the days and weeks to come! —Adam Gorightly
Steven Adkins (SA): I don’t recall exactly when I first heard of Discordianism. I might have first been exposed to it in The Illuminatus! Trilogy. A friend of mine gave me a bedraggled copy I repaired with duct tape; he handed it to me with the caveat that it was mine, but I had to read it one sitting. It just so happens I was heading to Mexico for a spell so I took it with me and one day, sat down to read it. As ordered, I read it straight through over the course of 14 hours, stopping to eat, maybe not even then, reading throughout the night by candlelight in my rented one-room shack tucked away in the village of General Zaragosa, south of Monterrey in the desert state of Nuevo Léon. It has since had a big influence on me. I later collaborated on a Wiki called PlasticTub which, in retrospect, owes a great deal to the trilogy: a fictitious milieu of people with ridiculous names, divided into factions and factions within factions, quasi-political, spiritually apposed, engaged in clandestine warfare over obscure ideological differences. The “heroes” are vaguely Discordian.
In any event, I eventually moved to New Mexico and ended up in Jemez Springs, another small mountain village in a desert state, and one of my neighbors was a cool woman by the name of Mary Wheeler. She and her two adult children were my friends and co-workers and for two years we hung out and talked, drank a lot, explored the mesas with their abandoned settlements and petroglyphs, chopped wood, shot guns, worked a little….
I knew Mary had been a Discordian because I ran across an old copy of the Principia Discordia at her house one day. I don’t know which edition it was, but it was yellow and about the size of a Jack Chick tract, maybe 2.5 by 5 inches, I’m not sure. I was excited to hold it in my hand and remember going on about how rare it was. Thing is, I never queried Mary about it too much, although at some point she did tell me her “Discordian name” was “Hope Springs.” When I saw Adam Gorightly’s Historia Discordia had come out, I wrote and asked if he was familiar with a Discordian named Hope Springs. He wasn’t, so I thought it’d be a good idea to contact Mary and interview her. She graciously agreed and I was able to ask her about a wide variety of topics. I think it will be of interest to Discordian and fans of the Principia and Illuminatus! I hope you agree.
Mary has been very generous with her memories and even sent me a 3rd edition of the Principia complete with rubber stamps and a rolling paper glued onto the title page. It’s one of the most precious things I own. Thanks Mary!
FNORD THE WHEELERS: Mary and Tim Wheeler, with son Christopher. Courtesy of Mary Wheeler.
Let’s start at the beginning…
Mary Wheeler (MA): The real hero behind that silly period was Greg Hill, Malaclypse the Younger. A sweet, smart and funny guy who lived in San Francisco. The Bobs were both working for Playboy, for the Playboy Advisor column. I was Hope Springs, and Tim, my husband, was Harold Lord Randomfactor.
SA: How did you know Greg? How did the nicknames come about? Who dubbed you Hope Springs and Harold Lord Randomfactor? BTW, when you told me Tim was Randomfactor, I nearly popped apart, because he’s a character in The Illuminatus! Trilogy.
MW: We met Greg through Bob Wilson/Shea. We chose our own nicknames. Tim was always citing names like Ida Clair, which were a play on words. And yes, we certainly knew Randomfactor was a character in the Trilogy. And Bob Shea took a humorous interest in Emperor Norton of San Francisco, a crazie who anointed himself.
It was all nonsense and silly and clever fun, none of us were serious at all. In the few times we got together, all we did was laugh. We also sent around “groovy kits,” large Manila envelopes filled with clippings, drawings, objects, that we treated with great reverence. We smoked, opened the envelope, kept what we wanted and added to it, and mailed it on to the next guy.
SA: When you got together, was this in theory at least for the Discordian Society? Where did you all get together? Were these “groovy kits” a Discordian thing? What sort of topics were in the clippings? Were these sent around to friends only or were they ever sent to people you didn’t know personally, with instructions on what to do? Were they actually called “groovy” kits?
Groovy kit instructions from Kerry Thornley. Courtesy of The Discordian Archives.
MW: Kerry was in Atlanta, as I recall, and an OK guy. There was a fellow in New Orleans whose last name was Cruikshank, I think, that was quite bizarre, and took Kennedy conspiracies too seriously. He was always in a recruiting mode. We never met either of them.
I can remember getting together with Greg only once, at Bob Wilson’s in Chicago. We were living in Indiana by then, so when we heard Greg would be visiting, we came up.
We had many social get-togethers with the Sheas throughout the years, which were less Discordian than simply friendship.
The Groovy Kits were definitely Discordian. The contents were very varied. Newspaper or magazine clippings, funny or serious; actual objects, like something unusual with a “5” or a “23” on it. Maybe a racy photo. A secret message, in code. Maybe a Mexican peso. It could be anything, but it had to be interesting, one way or the other. As far as I knew, it traveled between Wilson, Shea, Greg, Kerry and us. And yes, we called it a groovy kit. And yes, we always smoked before opening it.
There were two versions of the Principia floating around, and I think I have them both still. One groovy kit item we kept was an original Crumb comic book, which I regrettably gave to [a mutual friend] some years ago. I remember those days with great fondness, but never imagined it would still be alive 40 years later. I mean, we were just kidding!
I can’t honestly remember how we came to be a part of this… surely it was either through Bob Wilson or Bob Shea. We stayed close to the Shea’s, not so much Wilson. Tim wrote an article for National Review which Bill Buckley loved. He published the article and made it the cover story. It was all about conspiracy theories and all sorts of stuff he had picked up from these guys, so that makes me think that article came after our association with them. But that article certainly would have cemented the friendships. Remember we were on totally opposite sides of the political fence…. Well, maybe not too opposite. Everyone seemed to be a libertarian/anarchist at the time.
SA: Was Tim a freelancer or a staffer? How did you know the Bobs? Did you already share an interest in conspiracies before meeting those guys, or did they turn you on to it? Was Discordianism already well-established when you met them or did you both have a role in shaping the ideas?
Our People's Underground issue of the National Review. Courtesy of Mary Wheeler.
MW: We were living in Larchmont, NY at the time, and when we moved to Indiana, we began to lose interest in it. We stayed in touch with the Sheas, who were fun and interesting, and way more normal than any of the others. I’m still in touch with Bob’s widow.
Tim was on the staff for about 4 years, and then when we moved to Indiana, he continued to write those short paragraphs up front for the magazine. He was a contributing editor thereafter, for about 30 years.
In those early years when Tim worked in the office, as an editorial assistant, there was a lot of joking about the Illuminati. I can remember conversations with fellow conservatives where the conspiracy of the Illuminati ballooned into a conspiracy of left-handed people, or those with first cousins named Jeffrey. It spawned fantastic letterheads! Nobody at NR took it seriously, and we made fun of those that did. I think that is why it was so much fun to discover the Discordians, who also didn’t take any of that seriously. We had discovered like-minded people who tended to be liberals, or at least anarchists. And we were right-wing crazies, although Tim was very much a libertarian. It was clearly already established by the time we were introduced, because the Principia had already been written. I think there were later editions that included some of Our People’s Underworld paraphernalia.
SA: An old roommate of mine worked for the NRA (years ago) and got this cassette in the mail from a member put out by the John Birch Society, a long thing about the Illuminati, one world government, etc. What was the feeling about this line of thinking among young conservatives at the time? Tim wrote a satirical article, so that’s one indication…. I ask because the belief that the Illuminati is out to install one world government is a strong as ever. I know that this has deep roots with the work of Taxil, Nesta Webster etc. I don’t know as much as I should about the conservative movement of the period, so this may be a dumb question, but what was the view of the Birchers among the NR-type conservatives, the Buckley line of thinking?
MW: Nobody could stand the whackos or the Birchers when we were at National Review. Buckley had dismissed them, losing critical subscribers, but picking up credence in the meantime. It was an important move on NR’s part, and Buckley’s part. There is no one today with that kind of power: he made the Birchers irrelevant to the Conservative Movement.
SA: I’ve always admired Buckley. Was he as charming personally as he appears on film? Did he know anything about Discordianism?
MW: Buckley was wonderful, extremely generous and gracious and loyal. And the real war horse behind National Review those days was his sister Priscilla, who was equally generous, gracious and loyal. Bill did know about Discordians, through Tim, but it wasn’t anything beyond simple amusement… I doubt he gave it much thought. But National Review was pretty hip. The older editors could be a bit stodgy, but they had kids our age, and the staff was pretty young, and very clever. Humor was a big part of National Review, lots of joking, pranking. Bill Rickenbacker was especially mischievous.
SA: BTW, I just read this:
“Conservative spokesman William F. Buckley popularized [Eric] Voegelin’s phrase as ‘Don’t immanentize the eschaton!’, Buckley’s version became a political slogan of Young Americans for Freedom during the 1950s and 1960s.” (citing an NR article by Jonah Goldberg entitled “Immanent Corrections”)
One of the Wheeler's bumper stickers. Note the Larchmont address. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
MW: YAF was never respected by those of us out of college and already at work in Conservative circles. Those were clean-cut college kids, who we made fun of by forming YARF, Young Americans for REAL Freedom, also acknowledged in Illuminatus!
YARF material, dated October 23, 1971. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives
WFB did originally write about Voegelin’s quote, and we also wrote about it in Rally, a magazine we founded in ’64 or ’65, which was meant to be an avenue for young writers. It lasted only a couple of years, not surprisingly. Rally was a serious venture. We were back in Milwaukee, having been fired from the day-to-day National Review job. We went to many Milwaukee businessmen and raised enough money to get it off the ground, and then continued to raise money to keep it afloat. Rally was meant to be a forum for young conservatives, that would theoretically then move on to NR. It was a fine magazine.
And then we really promoted the phrase through merchandizing.
Your quote was done by evil Revisionists! (And YAF wasn’t even in existence in the 50s.)
SA: Was it Tim who turned Bill on to the expression for the first time? Did the Bobs and Greg know about it from Tim as well?
MA: It wasn’t Tim who told Bill about the phrase, and it may have even been Milton Friedman… can’t really remember. But it definitely was Tim who popularized it. And I’m sure the Bobs and Greg were not reading somewhat obscure Conservative magazines… they learned it from Tim.
SA: [The phrase basically means trying to create “heaven on earth,” kind of forcing the hand of God into bringing about the final, heavenly stage of history (the eschaton). Conservative critics have used the phrase to criticize usually but not limited to left-wing or utopian ideologies such as communism.]
I’ll definitely be discrete with anything you say about this, but didn’t you once tell me at some point you guys had a farm and grew a little weed? I know RAW was into pot and LSD and I’m assuming this was fairly current. Was this important at the time? Was it seen as something like an exploration of innerspace, cosmic awakening etc… or just a good time? Were young conservatives as apt to smoke a spliff or two as the hippies?
MW: When we moved to Indiana, we had 25 acres of land, and three acres surrounding the house; that is, not under cultivation. Yes, we grew a lot of pot—it kept us afloat through those years. It was an income for us, though it simply horrifies me now to think how reckless we were. I don’t know about the others, but we smoked just for the feel good. No thoughtful insights, no magical apparitions. We smoked with a couple of our conservative friends, but I don’t know about others. My guess is that everybody smoked, but most people didn’t gab about it.
SA: What exactly was Our People’s Underground? I thought it was a group in the satire article, but I see there were little mimeo magazines published by the OPU-SNAFU. What was the group supposed to represent, even satirically and how did it come about? Was it part of the joking about with conspiracies at the NR you talked about?
Also, did you have a hand in creating SNAFU? Anything you could tell us about it?
Front cover of an issue of SNAFU addressed to Greg Hill. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
MW: We were living in Larchmont, had three kids, one on the way. Tim was working for the Conservative Book Club, headed by Neil McCaffery. Danny Rosenthal was the head of the sales department, and he and Neil got into some sort of disagreement, and we wound up siding with Danny, and Tim (and Dan) were fired from the CBC. All of this happened when we were just getting involved with the Discordians.
Tim wrote this hilarious piece about secret societies and goings-on, and when Bill Buckley saw it, he immediately wrote Tim a note that asked if he could have the article for $1000? Tim wrote back “Yes, if I can keep this note.”
So the commercial possibilities were enormous—buttons, notepads, cards, and bumper stickers. We produced them and sold them, and formed Our People’s Underworld. It kept us alive financially until Tim finally got a speech writing job in Indianapolis.
Along the way we wrote and produced Snafu. Only four issues… it was very laborious. We had an electric typewriter, but everything else was cut and pasted onto sheets, and then taken to the printer.
It was, of course, meant to be funny, but it was a source of income as well. Not much, mind you, but we were a struggling family-of-six by the time we moved to Indiana.
The Illuminati-referenced stuff was always a huge seller.
My oldest son Christopher has thousands of photos posted on PBase (csw62) and one gallery is for Tim.
There are lots of shots of old notepads from OPU.
SA: So you sold the notepads as well? Was the OPU at first a satire and then you realized it could be a source of revenue, or was there a financial interest from the get-go? Was there any sense that the Discordian thing could generate revenue as well, or was that more a labor of love? I mean, the Principia was for sale, no?
Wheeler designed letterheads used in Operation Jake. Courtesy of Christopher Wheeler.
MW: The original article was serious satire of conspiracies, but all the merchandising flowed naturally from OPU. We didn’t have anything to do with any commercial aspect of Discordianism. I wasn’t aware that Greg was selling Principia [he was]… indeed, it seemed to us that copies were scarce and sacred. I think any real commercialism of their stuff was after it faded from our lives.
SA: Did you write any of the SNAFU material? If so, what? Were you personally as interested in the subject of conspiracies as the others? How did the whole interest in conspiracies get started at NR?
How did you guys react to Tim appearing as a character in The Illuminatus! Trilogy? Did you feel slighted that Hope Springs didn’t make an appearance? Besides you and Yvonne (Bob Shea’s wife), were there other women Discordians?
Also, was wondering if you had any anecdotes about Thornley. I didn’t get if you’d ever met in person, but maybe the others told you about him.
MW: I didn’t write any of the material, but I helped choose the cartoons, the photos, drawings… all the illustrative stuff. And helped paste it all together. I did all the administrative work. There were supposed to be 8 issues, but only four were published.
I’m sure Tim was pleased about Randomfactor—I don’t really remember. All these years later, I was surprised to see that there were quite a few years between OPU and Discordianism, and the publishing of Illuminatus! I would have guessed it was much closer together.
Our best-selling button was “Don’t Let Them Immanentize the Eschaton.” That appeared in the Trilogy. It referenced the original OPU issue of NR. And lots of OPU stuff was mentioned in the appendix of Part III, and Operation Jake, wherein some selected politicians received weird letters on weirder letterhead.
Bob Wilson’s wife Arlen, I’m sure, was active. But it was mostly a male thing. BTW, I got a beautiful condolence note from Bob Wilson when my step father died in 1970. I kept it for a long time, but don’t have it anymore. It was serious, and sweet, and wise. It was not a side of him I had seen.
We never met Kerry, but certainly had lots of cheerful correspondence with him.
I don’t know if you could see Breaking Bad [she asks because I live in France; I saw it!] but the goofy lawyer was named Saul Goodman, and he now has a spin off show, being filmed in Albuquerque. Coincidence? I think not….
SA: I’d forgotten Saul Goodman was a detective in Illuminatus! Before I print this, you can go over it to make sure you’re ok with the content. I won’t go on forever, but I want to let it unfold slowly so I don’t neglect anything.
MW: I have no problem with anything you print, except if it characterized one of these guys in a mean way. There was nothing mean or nasty or disparaging about any of our relationships.
SA: Can you tell me more about Project Jake, how it came about and was carried out, who was targeted?
You mentioned you were surprised that people are still into this because you were all joking around; why do you think people are still into it? Several editions of the Principia have been brought out, does that surprise you?
MW: We were first involved with Operation Mindfuck, wherein we took all those subscription inserts in magazines, filled in the “enemy’s” name, and subscribed for them!
So just furthering the game, and taking advantage of insane letterheads that we kept creating, we would write bogus letters to politicians that we particularly didn’t like. With us, it would have been people like John Lindsey, or Jacob Javits. With the others it would have been right-wing congressmen or senators. Some carbon copies made their way into groovy kits.
We were drawn in for the humor, the cleverness, the unusual-ness, and maybe even the novelty of conservatives making friends with liberals (although we all were pretty much libertarians). We all thought we were funny and clever. Perhaps that is why people are still being drawn in. The Trilogy was very funny and clever… I think certain types of people are drawn to it. And the guys were writers, who had a respect for their fellow crazies.
And in our own way, we took it seriously to the extent of making some money out of it, though I can’t really speak to Greg’s motives. But the content—it just wasn’t real. It was made up. It was whimsy.
We had tons of correspondence from Kerry, the Bobs, and Greg, but when Tim died, our youngest wound up tossing almost all his papers. If he hadn’t already gotten rid of them, she [Tim Wheeler’s second wife] certainly did.
SA: What were The Freebish Papers?
The Freebish Paper from HOPE & HAROLD. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
MW:The Freebish Papers were nothing really, just a joint letter to a bunch of friends, there weren’t more than a couple of them. Just personal correspondence.
SA: What do you think of seeing all these scanned document you guys made? [I’m referring here to the Discordian Archives that Adam Gorightly inherited containing a multitude of Greg Hill’s papers.]
MW: No wonder Tim never met a deadline! What an insane amount of time he spent on this. I’m sure this is only the tip of the iceberg.
Links to more non-Discordian info about Tim Wheeler:
Fortean Times issue 319 found some time to give Historia Discordia a great frogfall review:
A serious joke The countercultural Discordian religion is still culturally relevant — and amusing
Historia Discordia: The Origins of the Discordian Society. Get Your Copy Now!In the pre-Interweb era one’s entry to Discordianism was either through Illuminatus! by Robert Anton Wilson and Bob Shea, or Principia Discordia, the tract intended to reveal “not a complicated put-on disguised as a new religion but a new religion disguised as a complicated joke.”
Nowadays, when everything bad that happens is labelled a conspiracy, it’s only right that the Discordian conspiracy be reintroduced to the world to rebalance the dogma with the katma, even if the author’s investigation dispels some of the mystery fun by unmasking the true identities and methods of Malacalypse (The Younger), Lord Omar Khyyam Ravenhurst, Mordecai The Foul et al. But since the upside is a trove of rare primary sources: rubber stamps, membership cards, letters, tracts, edicts, cartoons, collages, photostatically reproduced in a generous A4 format, then so be it.
A most delightful web of connections and coincidences weaves around this group of iconoclasts and hierophants
whose antics to disrupt reality and automatic thinking with slyly surreal communiqués (Operation Mindfuck) have been more culturally influential than most people realise. The Discordian brainwashing conspiracy of presenting countercutural ‘serious’ jokes and ideas in letters and pamphlets purportedly from secret societies seems so quintessentially late-60s psychedelic, but we learn how the roots of the plot stem from the late 50s when West Coast humorists Kerry Thornley and Greg Hill teamed-up. Thornley knew Lee Harvey Oswald in the Marines, started writing a novel about him years before the Dallas event, and later testified to the Warren Commission.
As legend has it, the first edition of Principia Discordia (fully reproduced here) was clandestinely produced in the office of District Attorney Jim Garrison, who later indicted Thornley as part of a conspiratorial cabal that allegedly orchestrated JFK’s murder. Conspirator, yes, but wrong conspiracy. In some ways, Thornley and his fellow Discordians were even more dangerous than the JFK assassins.
A mysterious German-Discordian cabal known as Erisianisch Geistes Akrobatische Legion (EGAL)—who were at one time in direct communication with Lord Omar—went underground in 1996 after performing a “Discordian pope parade in a bowling alley in Eriskirch by the Lake of Constance.”
But now—all sudden and mysterious-like—EGAL has emerged once again (for how long only time will tell) with an outburst of curious correspondence and cool collages sent to yours truly for submission into The Discordian Archives, a sampling of which we display for you now.
Submitted for your approval, a postcard from Kerry Thornley (a.k.a. The Bull Goose of Limbo) to Greg Hill (a.k.a. Malaclypse the Younger) dated April 10, 1964.
Postcard from Kerry Thornley to Greg Hill, Front, dated April 10, 1964. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.Postcard from Kerry Thornley to Greg Hill, Back, dated April 10, 1964. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
Caught In the Crossfire: Kerry Thornley, Lee Oswald and the Garrison Investigation is now available through both Amazon (Paperback, Kindle) and our publisher Feral House, who has set up a page for the book
which will include occasional excerpts, such as the chapter “A Homosexual Thrill Kill?” (Not that there’s anything fnord with that!)
Kerry Thornley never imagined that after starting a spoof religion in the 1950s dedicated to the worship Eris—the Greek Goddess of Chaos and Discord—that such an irreverent yet light-hearted endeavor would unleash, in the years to come, a torrent of actual chaos into his life and turn his world upside down.
In 1959, Thornley served in the Marines with Lee Harvey Oswald and was actually writing a novel based on Oswald three years before JFK’s assassination. These connections would later cause New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison to suspect that Thornley was one of the notorious Oswald doubles and part of a JFK assassination plot. Initially, Thornley denied these allegations, but later came to believe that he’d been used as an unwitting pawn in a conspiracy that ran far deeper than the JFK assassination and may also have included the RFK and MLK assassinations, as well as the disturbing specter of government sponsored mind control.
Kerry Thornley's newsletter Paranoid Flash about the Garrison Investigation, dated February 18, 1970. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.Near the tail end of the Garrison Investigation into the JFK Assassination, Discordian co-founder Kerry Thornley began a one-sheet newsletter, Paranoid Flash (later called Paranoid Flash Illuminator and Paranoid Flash Illuminations) that he sent out to keep his friends abreast about developments with the case and his involvement.
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…
Kerry Thornley's newsletter, Paranoid Flash about the Garrison Investigation, dated March 21, 1970. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.The title Paranoid Flash, I assume, came from Kerry’s belief that Garrison was consumed with paranoia and because of this ran roughshod over the civil rights of those he targeted. Kerry, as well, grew paranoid during this period and later described the defining moment which triggered his paranoia (and eventual psychological problems) as having occurred in Tampa when several helicopters buzzed his house for over ten minutes. Kerry believed that Garrison was behind this helicopter-house-buzzing, and that he’d used his Florida law enforcement connections to orchestrate this harassment.
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.
Kerry Thornley Newsletter Paranoid Flash Illuminations from the late-80s. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.In a Paranoid Flash from the late-80s, Kerry’s paranoias seem to be on full display. In a list of unusual events/occurrences, Kerry includes being dosed with LSD, which he suspected Robert Anton Wilson of being involved with as part of some MK-ULTRA mindfuck—or at least that’s what I’ve been able to piece together. As RAW recalled:
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 famous thumbprint ID gambit by Thornley: September 1975. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.Kerry’s “unusual occurrences” included having been poisoned with sodium morphate, a curious claim that anyone familiar with A Skeleton Key to the Gemstone Files may recall as a means of poisoning politicians—and others who had run afoul of The Conspiracy—by slipping them some sodium morphate (a supposed heart attack inducing drug, which may or may not actually exist) in a slice of apple pie.
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.
Caught in the Crossfire: Kerry Thornley, Lee Oswald and the Garrison Investigation Order The Chaos Now!Feral House just recently released my latest effort involving the Discordian Archives, Caught in the Crossfire: Kerry Thornley, Lee Oswald and the Garrison Investigation (Feral House, Amazon), which features the fine cover art of Robert Preston.
Sometime back, I became facebook friends with Robert and played a role—as I recall—in inspiring his Lone Nut Series, this after seeing some of Robert’s conspiratorially influenced paintings on facebook.
At that time, I floated the idea that he ought to do some “Lone Nut Trading Cards” and from there Robert put his own spin on the theme in a series of paintings recently on display at the Conspiracy Store in San Diego.
Preston's Lone Nut paintings on display at Ron Patton's Conspiracy Store in San Diego, CA.
Earlier this year—as Caught in the Crossfire was in development—I suggested to Feral House publisher Adam Parfrey a front cover concept featuring a photo of Kerry Thornley (from The Tampa Tribune, February 22nd, 1968) where he’s holding his hand by the side of his face like he was either being swore in before the grand jury or, conversely, trying to brush back bothersome journalists buzzing around him like flies after a trying day of testimony.
The Tampa Tribune, February 22, 1968, Garrison Cites Thornley for perjury. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
I suggested to Parfrey that we take this newspaper image and superimpose smaller images of Lee Harvey Oswald and Jim Garrison into the cover concept, as meanwhile thinking in the back of my mind, it’d be cool to have Robert Preston do the artwork—although I didn’t mention this to Parfrey at the time.
Parfrey shortly after emailed me back and asked if I knew Robert Preston and how would I feel about him illustrating the cover(!), which is just the type of synchronicities I always seem to encounter during the course of book projects, and in particular the Discordian related projects I’ve worked on over the years.
Page 00010 of the Sacred PUD with fnords. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.And Historia Discordia is back! Dearest Eris decided to give us an unexpected end-of-summer week off due to some Markoff Chaney-style technical website hijinxery, Hail Eris!, but nothing lasts forever, so it’s time to get back on the horse…
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.
Fnord sticker by Greg Hill. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.The only other fnords I’ve seen—other than those that allegedly appear in Illuminatus!—are a bunch of fnord stickers that Greg Hill produced to help promote the book. In this regard, Hill was an exuberant cheerleader for this truly Discordian effort, and as previously posted here at Historia Discordia helped RAW concoct an Illuminatus! review by a certain Mordecai Zwack.
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.
Letter from Greg Hill to RAW, dated September 9, 1975, Page 00001. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.Letter from Greg Hill to RAW, dated September 9, 1975, Page 00002. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
Letter from Greg Hill to RAW, dated September 9, 1975, Page 00003. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.Poster by Greg Hill for Illuminatus!, circa 1975. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
Jerry Milton BrooksHill talks about being unproductive, as this was a depressive period for him; he’d recently separated from his wife Jeanetta and had taken a dismal bank clerk job in NYC. Hill also mentions a recent visit with Kerry Thornley in Atlanta, and shares Kerry’s theory about the JFK assassination and how one of the supposed conspirators, Slim Brooks (who Kerry believed was actually Jerry Milton Brooks) was one of the chosen five to receive a 1st ed. copy of Principia Discordia, which is available at long last in Historia Discordia: The Origins of the Discordian Society (Amazon).
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.
Gnostica newsletter on RAW's talk, Page 00001. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.Gnostica newsletter on RAW's talk, Page 00002. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.Gnostica newsletter on RAW's talk, Page 00003. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
