On Page 566 of Illuminatus! we are introduced to a passage from Principia Discordia called “Sink” that is attributed to Ala Hera, E.L., N.S.
Sink as it appears in the Principia Discordia, page 000066.Original SINK document authored by Bob McElroy sent to Greg Hill aka Mal-2. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
The actual Discordian author of “Sink” was better known as Dr. Mungojerry Grindlebone or just plain “Mungo” (real name Bob McElroy) an active player in the early New Orleans Discordian scene of the late-60s.
Supposed self-portrait of Bob McElroy. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
McElroy was apparently a Discordian recruiter of sorts as seen from this blurry advertisement (sorry about the poor reproduction!) that appeared in a New Orleans counterculture newspaper called The Ungarbled Word published by fellow Discordian Roger Lovin (aka Fang the Unwashed.) At the bottom of this recruitment notice we see McElroy’s P.O. Box address in Rayville, LA.
Discordian recruitment notice authored by Mungo from August of 1968 as it appeared in The Ungarbled Word.
Although I know less about Bob McElroy than most of the other Early Discordians of the period, his contributions to Principia Discordia are noteworthy, which include an Erisian Hymn on page 00019, a poem on page 00026 as well as Sink on page 00066.
An Erisian Hymn as it appeared in Principia Discordia, page 00019.An Erisian Hymn submitted to Mal-2 for later inclusion in Principia Discordia. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.A poem by Rev. Dr. Grindlebone from Principia Discordia, page 00026.
For more Discordian knowledge as fiction that is fact but fiction contained within Illuminatus!, point your browser to the book’s group reading page at RAWIllumination.net.
Kerry Thornley in the late-60s. Photo courtesy of John F. Carr.Lady L, F.A.B. in the early-70s. Photo courtesy of Louise Lacey.On page 557 of Illuminatus! we are introduced to Hassan i Sabbah X, a character who—it appears—was first conceptualized by Kerry Thornley in this August 1968 letter to fellow Discordian Louise Lacey (aka Lady L., F.A.B.), all of this part of Operation Mindfuck, the Discordian Society’s clandestine conspiracy to illuminate the opposition.
August 7, 1968 letter from Kerry Thornley to Louise Lacey, page 00001. Courtesy of Louise Lacey.August 7, 1968 letter from Kerry Thornley to Louise Lacey, page 00002. Courtesy of Louise Lacey.
Thornley’s vision for the character was that of a “black writer” who chose the name “as a somewhat whimsical put-on, as Hassan i Sabbah was the Moslem heretic who founded the assassins, after which was patterned the Roshaniya (or Illuminated Ones), after which were patterned the Alumbrados of Spain and the Illuminati of Bavaria…”
Hassan i Sabbah X seems a composite of other black radicals based out of the Berkeley/Oakland area of the era, perhaps inspired to a certain degree by Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver, who became good friends with Louise Lacey when the two worked together at Ramparts Magazine.
Also identified in Thornley’s letter as part of this Discordian-Illuminati conspiracy was Paul Encimer (aka Dr. Confusion) who—among other endeavors—published St. John’s Bread, a late-60s counterculture magazine that featured Thornley’s classic poem, “Illuminati Lady,” as well as other Discordian writings. (Encimer currently resides in Northern California where he is involved in activist causes.)
Thornley—like fellow Discordian Robert Anton Wilson (RAW)—was well versed in Illuminati mythology and the two were picking each other’s brains on the topic during the period.
Note on Playboy stationary from Robert Anton Wilston to Kerry Thornley. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
These Illuminati discourses ultimately manifested in a letter & answer in the April ‘69 Playboy Advisor, which RAW was then editing, and it was actually RAW—with input from Thornley—who composed both the question and answer.
Playboy Advisor Q&A on the Illuminati.
In addition, this Playboy Advisor letter & answer mentioned a Cal Berkeley campus group which identified itself as “The Bavarian Illuminati” and issued press releases on all sorts of weird subjects. Louise Lacey—as it turns out—was part of this Berkeley campus group, although she doesn’t really remember a lot about that scene other than it was a collective of campus anarchists who did indeed disseminate made-up Illuminati stories in the same manner as Thornley, RAW and other Discordian conspirators who engaged in Operation Mindfuck.
Sharon Presley was another member of this Berkeley group. As Presley revealed to Jesse Walker in The United States of Paranoia: “We actually had a recognized student group at Cal called the Bavarian Illuminati… the by-laws were a hoot; obviously no bureaucrat actually read them.”
Perhaps the key event that sent Thornley, RAW and their fellow Discordian colleagues down this Operation Mindfuck-Illuminati rabbit hole was a fellow named Allan Chapman (mentioned in the Playboy Advisor Q & A), one of the many unofficial investigators (also known as The Dealey Plaza Irregulars) who assisted in the Garrison Investigation.
Chapman subscribed to the theory that the Illuminati was behind the JFK assassination conspiracy, and that these very same illumined ones also controlled all the major television networks. As Thornley later noted:
“Wilson and I founded the Anarchist Bavarian Illuminati to give Jim Garrison a hard time, one of whose supporters believed that the Illuminati owned all the major TV networks, the Conspiring Bavarian Seers (CBS), the Ancient Bavarian Conspiracy (ABC) and the Nefarious Bavarian Conspirators (NBC).” (The Dreadlock Recollections, Kindle Edition, ovo127.com)
Chapman also authored the theory that one of the JFK shooters had hidden inside a Dealey Plaza storm drain. To this end, Garrison later informed the Illuminati-controlled media that the fatal shot was “fired by a man standing in a sewer manhole.”
Photo of the Dealey Plaza sewer hole from the Garrison Investigation files.
According to RAW, these Discordian Society hijinx set a new mythology in motion:
“The Discordian revelations seem to have pressed a magick button. New exposés of the Illuminati began to appear everywhere, in journals ranging from the extreme Right to the ultra-Left. Some of this was definitely not coming from us Discordians. In fact, one article in the Los Angeles Free Press (FREEP) in 1969 consisted of a taped interview with a black phone-caller who claimed to represent the “Black Mass,” an Afro-Discordian conspiracy we had never heard of. He took credit, on behalf of the Black Mass and the Discordians, for all the bombings elsewhere attributed to the Weather Underground.” (Cosmic Trigger, p. 64)
During a 2003 interview with this author, RAW noted that the black Discordian phone caller in the FREEP article identified himself as “Hassan-i-Sabbah X.” Over time, Hassan-i-Sabbah X’s name would appear in a number of Discordian related writings—including Illuminatus!—so, it would appear, the FREEP “Black Mass” article was a Discordian Society prank that may have been perpetrated by Kerry Thornley, although Thornley never admitted a role in this hoax. Whatever the case, the article in question deeply disturbed Greg Hill with its association of Discordianism to terrorist activities.
In a January 24th, 1971 letter to Greg Hill, Thornley wrote: “I’m fairly sure the FREEP interview was the work of Mord (Robert Anton Wilson)—as I see signs of his style and sense of humor in it…” However, it should be noted that Discordian Society member Roger Lovin (aka Fang The Unwashed) worked for the FREEP from 1969-1972, so his name can also be added to the list of suspects who may have perpetrated this ruse—if it was indeed a put-on. A more disturbing explanation is that neither RAW, Thornley or Lovin had anything to do with the “Black Mass” article and like so many other strange occurrences surrounding Kerry Thornley’s life, the answer will forever remain a mystery.
For more insights into Illuminatus!, you can find the group reading page at RAWIllumination.net.
Caught in the Crossfire: Kerry Thornley, Lee Oswald and the Garrison Investigation Order The Chaos Now!In the chapter from my book Caught in the Crossfire: Kerry Thornley, Lee Oswald and the Garrison Investigation (Amazon) called “Photographic Tomfoolery,” I recount some rather sketchy activities undertaken by Harold Weisberg (on behalf of Jim Garrison’s investigation) which involved the recruitment of California artist and JFK assassination investigator Fred T. Newcomb to retouch a photo of Kerry Thornley, the intent of which was to use these altered photos to build a case against Thornley suggesting he was one of the notorious Oswald doubles.
Recently, ace investigator of the odd and arcane, Tim Cridland, shared with me the following letter he uncovered in The Harold Weisberg Archive at http://jfk.hood.edu that an embittered Fred Newcomb sent to Weisberg in the aftermath of this debacle, the second paragraph of which is the most telling:
“Ever since you asked me (on New Orleans stationary) in an unsigned letter, to retouch a photo of Kerry Thornley, I have had a bad taste in my mouth. Not only did you send me on this foolish assignment, but when the flack started, you ducked for cover…”
Letter from Fred Newcomb to Harold Weisberg, dated January 15, 1969.
Fred Newcomb’s January 15th, 1969 letter also includes snipes at “investigators” Steve Jaffe and Jim Rose, who were both on the Garrison dole, and who both spent a considerable amount of time attempting to dig up dirt on Kerry Thornley. (More about the enigmatic “Jim Rose” in future installments!)
As for the abovementioned touch-up caper, this was first exposed by Kerry Thornley’s lawyer, Arnold Levine, in an article that appeared in the November 27, 1968 edition of the Tampa Times:
Photo touch-up charged
By TOM RAUM Times Staff Writer
Did New Orleans Dist. Atty. Jim Garrison commission a set of deliberately “touched-up” photographs of Tampan Kerry Thornley to show an allowed likeness to accused presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald?
The possibility was confirmed to The Times today by Thornley’s attorney, Arnold Levine. An aide to Garrison has disclaimed any such order.
The Times learned of the existence of a letter which was reportedly mailed to a freelance artist in California bearing the letterhead of Garrison’s office. The letter contained a purported request to “touch-up” photographs “to make Thornley look as much as possible like Oswald.”
THORNLEY, onetime buddy of Oswald, is being prosecuted by Garrison about his connection with the alleged assassin in New Orleans during the months prior to the John F. Kennedy assassination in 1963.
Attorney Levine said he has reason to believe Garrison wanted to use the touched-up photographs to support a theory that Thornley posed as Oswald on several occasions when Oswald was away from New Orleans—apparently on clandestine missions.
The Times has also come into the possession of copies of photos which Levine said were re-touched by the California artist, as well as another letter apparently from one of Garrison’s assistants denying that the district attorney had any intention of using a “‘touched-up’ photograph of Kerry Thornley in his trial.”
The 29-year old Tampa free lance writer, who served in the same Marine Corps outfit with Lee Harvey Oswald, is presently awaiting trial on the perjury charge. Specifically, he is charged with lying before a New Orleans grand jury last winter.
LEVINE TERMED the request to touch-up Thornley’s photograph “just another example of the sham” of Garrison’s investigation, and the charges which have been lodged against the Tampan.
The letter asking for the “re-touch” job bears the date of March 12, and the name of Harold Weisberg, a New Orleans writer whom Levine said has a “well-known” connection with Garrison.
Written on what appears to be official stationery, the letter, addressed to Fred Newcomb of Sherman Oaks, Calif., says:
“Enclosed are four sets of pictures of Kerry Thornley printed backwards but otherwise entirely untouched. My purpose was to emphasize the resemblance to Oswald and his receding hairline, which when his hair is combed the opposite of his normal fashion is quite emphatic.
“WHAT I WOULD like you to do with one of each pair is pretend you were a make-up man doing the minimum necessary to make Thornley look as much as possible like Oswald as for example by pruning off or brushing back the forelock, trimming the eye¬brows, shadowing the chin, etc.
“I would like you to keep one pair for your use out there, send one pair to me and the other two to Jim Garrison …”
The letter indicates that it was typed by a secretary with the initials “bb.”
A second letter, dated May 21, and also bearing the “bb” initials purports to be from executive assistant Dist. Atty. James Alcock to artist Newcomb, and reads:
“I HAVE just received the documents you sent concerning Harold Weisberg’s request for you to do some photograph touching-up on pictures of Kerry Thornley. So that the record may be set straight, Mr. Weisberg, who is not a member of our staff, made the request without our authority or consent.
“Further, this office has absolutely no intention of using any ‘touch-up’ of Kerry Thornley in his trial…”
Neither Garrison nor Alcock could he reached by The Times today for comment, but a receptionist in the district attorney’s office confirmed that there is a typist in the office typing pool with the initials “bb.” She declined to give her name.
THE RECEPTIONIST said that while Weisberg “isn’t a member of the staff he was well known in the office.”
Weisberg, author of “Whitewash,” is presently in Frederick, Md., the DA’s office said.
Garrison alleges that Oswald, David Ferrie, Clay Shaw and Jack Ruby, working on the fringe of the CIA hatched the assassination plot while they were in New Orleans in 1963.
Thornley, who has published a book on his acquaintance with Oswald, denies he met with Oswald in New Orleans.
No trial date has been set for Thornley’s case.
November 27, 1968 Tampa Times article on Kerry Thornley touched-up photos, page one.November 27, 1968 Tampa Times article on Kerry Thornley touched-up photos, page two.
According to Kerry Thornley, this wasn’t the last of such photographic chicanery:
“Visitors to (Garrison’s) office from the Los Angeles Free Press were shown half a photograph with me in it.
“In the other half of this picture is Marina Oswald,” they would be told, and it was obvious that I had my arm around someone. Soon enough a Free Press staffer identified this photo as the same one which had appeared in a January 1968 Tampa newspaper. It showed me standing outside the courtroom just after my extradition hearing with my arm around my wife, Cara. The negative was flopped in Garrison’s print, but even Garrison’s most fanatical partisans had to admit it was the same picture….” —Kerry Thornley, Star Witness Story (Unpublished essay, 1975)
Kerry Thornley and his wife Cara from the Tampa Tribune, January 23, 1968.
Fred Newcomb—working from a flopped negative of the above photo of Thornley and his wife—modified it per instructions from Harold Weisberg.
The evolution of Newcomb’s touch-up job.
In the November 28th edition of the Tampa Times, Harold Weisberg responded to the touch-up allegations.
November 28, 1968 Tampa Times article on 'Weisburg.'
At the height of RAW’s involvement with the themes of space migration and life extension, he sent out the following 1975 Christmas card.
1975 Christmas Card from Robert Anton Wilson, front. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.1975 Christmas Card from Robert Anton Wilson, back. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.1975 Christmas Card from Robert Anton Wilson, inside. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
Intent on recreating a Bavarian Illuminati letter in the same manner as such forerunners as Mord, Mal-2 and Lord Omar, Floyd took it even further back old school by purchasing a yellowish orange vintage typewriter on which to perform his mindfuck.
Creepy orange typewriter on lower right, just before Floyd bought it.
The target of Floyd’s OM missive in this instance was one R.C. Christian of Georgia Guidestones fame. For those unfamiliar with the Guidestones, refer to staff member Groucho Gandhi’s primer on the subject here.
The inspiration for Floyd’s letter was the recent appearance of a six-sided cube at the Guidestones with 2014 engraved on it, a mystery discussed on a recent edition of Greg Carlwood’s The Higherside Chats with Jay Weidner.
Guidestones CapstoneIn his letter, Floyd (aka Creepy) makes reference to an “Untarnished Conspiracy,” a phrase that’s an apparent nod and wink to a monument located at the Guidestones that indicates the author is the aforementioned “R.C. Christian (A Pseudonyn)”, which is certainly peculiar because “Pseudonym” appears to be intentionally misspelled and “R.C. Christian (A Pseudonyn)” is an anagram for Untarnished Conspiracy.
One would think that if R.C. Christian paid for precise words to be carved in granite on a major monument like this, would he really have been OK with a misspelled word?
And is JAM (also engraved on one side of the six-sided cube) a reference to the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu?
One of Greg Hill’s more colorful correspondents was a self-styled hippie psychedelic superhero named Silver Blade (aka Tom Nolan) whose adventures were first chronicled in this Los Angeles Free Press article from 1969.
1969, Los Angeles Free Press on Silver Blade. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
In Silver Blade’s postcard to Greg Hill he says that “The Blade is not Nolan, he is Mason”—which can only mean that a Freemasonic conspiracy was behind all this mischief! Silver Blade also says this information is confidential, so all of you reading this now are sworn to secrecy.
1969 Postcard from Silver Blade to Greg Hill, Front. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.1969 Postcard from Silver Blade to Greg Hill, Back. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
The Blade—or Nolan or Mason or whoever he actually was—asks if the “address on the other side” is correct which is kind of a weird statement because if it was incorrect then it would have never made it to Greg Hill in the first place and Hill wouldn’t have been able to confirm it yay or nay.
Curiously, Silver Blade requests that Hill not send him anymore stuff. However, he still wants to receive the Greater Poop newsletter.
That Silver Blade—whoever he or she was—was one weird dude or dudette.
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:
Crowleymas, from Gitch25.In commemoration of the Anniversary of CROWLEYMAS, we bring you now announcements of a party—which could also be considered a ritual—that RAW organized with some fellow Pagan-Discordian friends during his Berzerkley daze 40 years ago.
IAO!
For further cosmic illumination refer to pages 159-166, Cosmic Trigger, Vol. 1, by RAW.
Robert Anton Wilson letter about Crowleymas, October 12, 1974, Page 00001. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.Robert Anton Wilson letter about Crowleymas, October 12, 1974, Page 00002. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.Greg Hill Crowleymas Party Invitation Announcement, October 12, 1974. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
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.
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.
