The Illuminatus! Trilogy, 'candy apple red' edition from Dell Trade Paperback, January 1984. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.In The Illuminatus! Trilogy the concept of Operation Mindfuck (OM) was introduced and in many ways Illuminatus! itself was an act of OM, which included the Discordians high-jacking the Bavarian Illuminati mythos and making it their own.
The method to this madness included mixing fact with fiction so that you were never quite sure how many of the Illuminati references in Illuminatus! were based on “real” sources, such as a quote from a radical Chicago newspaper, The Roger Spark (July 1969), which stated that Adam Weishaupt had murdered George Washington and served in his place for his two terms as President. This article also promoted the theory that Mayor Richard Daley was “…one of the top agents of the infamous and long legendary Bavarian Illuminati.”
Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea , it so happens, helped publish The Roger Spark during the period the two worked at Playboy in the late 1960s. The article in question, “DALEY LINKED WITH ILLUMINATI,” contains a mix of fact vs. fiction (do we sense a theme here?) with no actual byline; it’s simply credited to The Spark, but in reality it was RAW/Shea who were responsible for the piece, so in essence they were quoting themselves in Illuminatus! (ala The Spark), another example of OM-styled Guerrilla Ontology. Grab the full issue in PDF here.
Elsewhere in Illuminatus! an article titled “THE MOST SINISTER, EVIL, SUBVERSIVE CONSPIRACY IN THE WORLD” by Sandra Glass (TeenSet Magazine, March 1969) is referenced concerning an investigation into the mysterious Ancient Illuminated Seers of Bavaria (A.I.S.B.). This article was ominously prefaced with an editor’s note: “Before her recent death, Miss Glass was an expert on subversive affairs.” The source—for many of the revelations in the article—came allegedly from an anarchist named Simon Moon, who would later turn up as a character in Illuminatus! This article, like the one from The Roger Spark, was surreptitiously written by RAW and Shea, and much of its content would later appear in Illuminatus!
March 1969 TeenSet Magazine's 'The Most Sinister, Evil, Subversive Conspiracy in the World' article.
According to the TeenSet article, Adam Weishaupt founded the A.I.S.B. in Ingolstadt on May 1st, 1776, and their slogan—or secret password—was “Ewige Blumenkraft” which translated to “Flower Power Forever.” At first glance, this motto seemingly refers to May Day, the date the A.I.S.B. officially came into existence. However—as revealed in Illuminatus!—the complete version of the motto was “Ewige Blumenkraft und ewige Schlangenkraft,” which translates to “eternal flower power and eternal serpent power” and apparently suggests that the fertility rites of spring are connected to the kundalini force—or serpent power—which itself relates to the practice of Tantrism, or sex magic. And that, in essence, is the True Secret of the Illuminati: Sex Magic.
The TeenSet article intimated that during the 1968 Democratic Convention, when Senator Abraham Ribicoff criticized police violence against anti-war demonstrators, Mayor Daley responded with an animated retort, and “…his lips were forming the words that by this time have become frighteningly familiar: ‘Ewige Blumenkraft!’”
The article further asserted that, “…the Ancient Illuminated Seers of Bavaria has infiltrated, allied itself with or taken over all TV networks and wire services, the Federal Reserve System, the John Dillinger Died For You Society, the Chicago Tribune, the Discordian Society, the Communist Party (USA), the Paratheo-Anametamystikhood of Eris Esoteric (P.O.E.E.), Hell’s Angels, the Sophisticated Sisters of Blessed Saints Claustrophilia and Theophobia, the Mafia, the Black Lotus Society, the Lawrence Talbot Memorial Society and enough additional organizations to fill a book the size of the Manhattan telephone directory (yellow pages).”
Front page of Illuminati Recruitment Package courtesy of Greg Hill and the Discordian Archives. This diabolical 12 page document includes the entire TeenSet article on pages 3–9, in addition to other A.I.S.B. propaganda. Download the PDF here.Illuminati Recruitment Package: The Ceremonial Turning of the Card. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
Our Peoples Underground issue of the National Review. Courtesy of Mary Wheeler.We share with you a long forgotten Discordian classic that appeared in, of all places, William F. Buckley’s National Review, titled “Our People’s Underworld Movement” and written by famed Early Discordian Harold Randomfactor (aka Tim Wheeler).
Download a PDF copy of the National Review article found in the Discordian Archives and labeled “POEE ARCHIVE LOAN COPY.” Please remember to return your PDF copy to the Discordian Archives after you are finished.
Let’s have Tim’s wife, Mary Wheeler (aka Hope Springs), tell us more:
Early Discordians Tim and Mary Wheeler. Photo Courtesy of Mary Wheeler.“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 [the Discordian Society]. 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…
“In those early years when Tim worked in the office [of the National Review], 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…”
Check out this Discordian 360° YouTube on your phone or in your browser to be encircled by Eris in all her chaotic (and naked) glory as She arrives at Festival 23.
Emperor Norton poster that appeared in February 15, 1971 issue of The Rag.I recently received an email from John Lumea, President of the San Francisco-based nonprofit, The Emperor’s Bridge Campaign, inquiring about an Emperor Norton poster that’s part of their digital archive.
John discovered this poster at an online archive for The Rag, an underground mag published in Austin, Texas during the early 1970s.
Among other things, John was wondering who designed the poster, and if the illustration of Emperor Norton was original to it.
I immediately recognized the poster as the work of none other than Discordian Malaclypse the Younger (aka Greg Hill) and, in fact, an original print of this same poster resides in The Discordian Archives, along with a couple other iterations.
Different iterations of Greg Hill's Emperor Norton poster. Courtesy of The Discordian Archives.
While I couldn’t specifically pin down the date of the Norton poster, I would say sometime around 1970 is my best guess. Hill’s interest in Norton began around 1969 when he formed the Joshua Norton Cabal, and it appears Hill sent out this poster to a variety of underground newspapers, among them The Rag.
As to the artist of the image, it appears Hill lifted it from one of the San Francisco newspapers (the Chronicle or Examiner) as revealed in this newspaper clipping I came across which Greg Hill evidently used as clip art (old school style) for the poster.
Newspaper clipping of Emperor Norton incorporated into Greg Hill's poster design. Courtesy of The Discordian Archives.
Greg Hill's pasteup of the Norton image. Courtesy of The Discordian Archives.The clipping in question appears to have been some sort of ad or campaign dedicated to the good Emperor. In the Archives there is also a pin that says “Emperor Norton lives” which evidently was part of this same campaign. This leads me to believe that the phrase “Emperor Norton Lives” inspired Greg Hill’s “Live Like Norton” motto.
Pin: Emperor Norton lives. Courtesy of The Discordian Archives.
In the Norton files, I also noticed an Examiner newspaper article from October 13, 1982, which indicated at one time or another there was an annual Joshua Norton Awards that had been established by a group called the Friends of Emperor Norton.
October 13, 1982 Examiner article on the Joshua Norton Awards.
I’m guessing this news article must have spurred renewed interest with Greg Hill, as that same year he concocted this new iteration of the Norton poster that incorporated an assortment of images taken from the pages of Principia Discordia.
1982 Norton poster. Courtesy of The Discordian Archives.
Over at our Early Discordians facebook group, a friend of Kerry Thornley’s named Lori Dyann shared this photo literally ripped from the pages of Creative Loafing sometime in the mid-90s that features Mr. Thornley decked out all apocalyptic-like in Little Five Points, Atlanta.
Kerry Thornley (L) appears in a mid 1990s Creative Loafing. Courtesy of Lori Dyann.
“I was living in a VW campervan behind a restaurant in L5P. I had just had breakfast and was standing at the corner across from the park, when Kerry comes walking from the far end of the square, wearing a white cloak with a hood and carrying a sign reading ‘World Will End SOON. Get your tickets NOW!’
As he passed down the street, snowflakes (unseasonal for Oct 31 in Atlanta) began to fall right behind Kerry, and as he passed across my field of vision, the snow came in like a curtain drawn by Kerry. My friend Wolf, standing directly behind me said: ‘Yep, hell just froze over!’”
First and last issue of Apocalypse: A Trade Journal for Doom Prophets published 1960, Whittier, CA. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
The reason co-author Greg Hill and Kerry Thornley published only one issue of Apocalypse was because no one else, besides them, found it the least bit humorous. As Kerry later noted: “Things we thought were funny, nobody else did.”
