Cover, Illuminatus! LeviathanOn page 657 of Illuminatus!, a quote from Lord Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst (aka Kerry Thornley) starts out The Tenth Trip chapter with:
“Ye have locked yerselves up in cages of fear; and, behold, do ye now complain that ye lack freedom.”
“Kerry Thornley wrote those words in the mid 1960s and within 10 years he had become a clinical paranoid himself, in the judgment of almost all of his friends, including Dr Robert Newport, a psychiatrist who had known Kerry since high school. The moral of this seems to me: take great care which nut cases you dare to mock, for you may become one of them.”
In Illuminatus!, RAW and Shea indicate that this quote originates from “The Epistle to the Paranoids,” which was taken from Thornley’s The Honest Book of Truth… which is not the truth! In Historia Discordia: The Origins of the Discordian Society, The Honest Book of Truth is reproduced in its entirety, as is “The Epistle to the Paranoids,” which were two separate and distinct works.
The first chapter of “Epistle to the Paranoids” originally appeared in Principia Discordia, and the remaining two chapters were discovered in the Discordian Archives, which are reproduced here for your reading pleasure!
Chapter 1 of 'Epistle to the Paranoids' from page 00069 of the 4th edition of Principia Discordia.Chapter 2 of 'Epistle to the Paranoids,' page 00001. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.Chapter 2 of 'Epistle to the Paranoids,' page 00002. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.Chapter 3 of 'Epistle to the Paranoids.' Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
For further insights into Illuminatus!, you can find the group reading page at RAWIllumination.net.
On page 622 of Illuminatus!, Hagbard Celine’s Never Whistle While You’re Pissing reminded me of an early-80s letter in the Discordian Archives addressed to Greg Hill and Kerry Thornley courtesy of a Discordian named Semaj the Elder.
Letter to Greg Hill from Semaj the Elder, circa early-80s. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
I really don’t know much about Semaj the Elder (or whatever his real name was) other than he resided in Davenport, Indiana and published a Discordian zine during the early-80s called A.M.O.C.K. of which there were about a half dozen copies discovered in the Discordian Archives.
Scattered copies of Semaj the Elder’s A.M.O.C.K. (The Ancient & Mystical Order of the Cabal of Kallisti) also titled Master Monograph for All Discordians. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
For the hell of it I googled Semaj the Elder, which led me to a Google Books page for (of all things!) The Prankster and the Conspiracy and a passage from a letter I’d totally forgotten about that pertains to Semaj the Elder written by Kerry Thornley to Greg Hill in 1982, during a period when Kerry was leading a vagabond existence:
“I will be ambling out to Tampa in the latter half of June, visiting [Elayne Wechsler] in New Jersey, a delightful psych student in Boston named Sean Hugh—maybe Arthur Hlavarty in Durham on the way—Bob McDonald in Virginia—some Oklahoma Libertarian, possibly the SubGenii, certainly Semaj the Elder in Davenport, et al. No telling how long it will take me to reach California, but I’ll try to send you a postcard of advance warning…I’ll probably come back to Tampa at least another year. Paula says that’s okay if I work full time until Christmas, to which I’ve no objection. Next winter after that I’ll probably go to Miami and find work long enough to get my own home until spring. Unless, somewhere along the line, I should find a publisher for one of my books—in which case all plans will be up for rethinking….” The Prankster and the Conspiracy, pages 236 – 237.
Letter from Kerry Thornley to Greg Hill circa 1982. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
In Semaj’s letter to Hill and Thornley, he mentions recent conversations with Bob Shea about a pamphlet project called Never Whistle While Your Pissing Part II, and was writing Greg for permission to quote from Principia Discordia. The letter indicates that Shea and RAW were contemplating at one point actually writing part 1 of Never Whistle While Your Pissing (NWWYP) but never got around to it.
Later, Semaj encourages Thornley to write HBT (The Honest Book of Truth)—assuming that HBT was the same as NWWYP1—a book that was never actually completed except for excerpts that appear in Illuminatus! However, this wasn’t the case—Kerry authored a complete version of The Honest Book of Truth, which yours truly unearthed in the Discordian Archives and that appears in its entirety in Historia Discordia: The Origins of the Discordian Society available while supplies last from your finer internet book retailers.
Semaj also invites Thornley to CHICON, informing Kerry that Elayne (Wechsler) will be attending, as well. Elayne Wechsler—it should be noted—published a memorable zine back in the early days of the zine movement called Inside Joke, which featured stories and articles written by none other than Kerry Thornley and Greg Hill, and artwork by such notables as Ace Backwards and Roldo, the fellow who created the original artwork that appears on the cover of Historia Discordia: The Origins of the Discordian Society available while supplies last from your finer internet book retailers.
What I find most intriguing about this letter is that Semaj mentions he’s working in cahoots on the NWWYP2 project with Mike Gunderloy, a legendary name in the annals of the Zine Revolution and publisher/editor of the famed Factsheet Five.
If it hadn’t been for Factsheet Five, I probably wouldn’t even be writing these words right now—nor would I have explored many of the arcane avenues that entered my frame of reference during those heady days of the late-80s and early-90s when I was writing for the many zines I discovered in the pages of Factsheet Five. In fact, it was in Factsheet Five that I was first introduced to Kerry Thornley who had a recurring column there called “Conspiracy Corner”.
Copy of Factsheet Five addressed to Kerry Thornley. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
In one way or another, Factsheet Five introduced me to many zines I wrote for and friends I made during this period with ‘zinesters like Greg Bishop, Robert Larson and Peter Stenshoel of The Excluded Middle; Kenn Thomas of Steamshovel Press; Tim Cridland’s Off The Deep End; Wes Nations of Crash Collusion; SMiles Lewis of ELF Infested Spaces; Al Hidell and Joan D’Arc of Paranoia; Johnny Walsh of INFOCULT; Tracy Twyman of Dagobert’s Revenge; Erik Bluhm and Mark Sundeen of The Great God Pan—and I’m probably forgetting a half dozen more so my apologies to any former zinesters out there I’ve failed to mention.
The Illuminatus! Trilogy, 'candy apple red' edition by Dell Trade Paperback, January 1984. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
On page 621 of Illuminatus!, Wilhelm—of the diabolical rock super-group, The American Medical Association—states that the “Eater of Souls” is still “imprisoned inside the Pentagon,” an apparent allusion to the March on the Pentagon, the October 21st, 1967 anti-war protest that included an exorcism intended to levitate The Five-Sided Temple in a ritual of cleansing and purification.
Some suggest that the Pentagon actually was levitated on this date, such as the ever reliable Abbie Hoffman in his auto-biography Soon To Be A Major Motion Picture—but who knows what Abbie was smoking that day!
In the early stages of the March on the Pentagon, event organizer David Dillinger—of the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (The Mobe)—appointed Yippie rabble rouser Jerry Rubin to lead the march. Rubin, in turn, invited his buddy Abbie Hoffman to join in the fun, as well as such luminaries as Allen Ginsberg and Ed Sanders of The Fugs—and before you knew it this mad cap plan to levitate the Pentagon was set in motion.
Handbill written by Ed Sanders with instructions for the Pentagon levitation, October 21, 1967.
According to Rubin, Abbie Hoffman was the key figure who first came up with the Pentagon levitation bit, and in advance of the protest Abbie paid a site visit to the Pentagon with a two-fold purpose: 1) Drum up media interest in the march, and, 2) calculate how many bodies would be needed to completely encircle, hand-in-hand, the Five-Sided Temple during the course of the exorcism-levitation.
Apparently, Hoffman was fumbling around on the Pentagon grounds with a measuring tape (back in the days when one could actually show up unannounced on the Pentagon grounds) when he was informed by the National Guard to cease and desist and then escorted from the premises. On his way out, Abbie made a formal request for a permit for the proposed Pentagon levitation, which—according to Abbie—would lift the building 300 feet. In response, the military actually granted this surreal permit request with the following stipulations: Abbie and his hairy freaks would only be authorized to elevate the Pentagon a mere three feet off the ground (so as not to damage the foundation!) and that the protesters could not surround the Pentagon, but only gather in front of the building.
In total, 50,000 peaceniks descended on the Pentagon that long ago and very strange day brandishing all the accoutrements of the era: long hair, flowers and peace signs—including Eye-In-The-Pyramid banners which it appears the Yippies adopted as their own esoteric coat of arms during this period.
In response to this massive influx of anti-war demonstrators, 10,000 military troops were called in to “keep the peace.” One of the most iconic images from this confluence of Eristic vs. Aneristic forces was the photo of the hippie chick sticking a flower into the bayoneted barrel of a rifle poised to blow the smile from her face.
Where have all the flowers gone, anyway? October 21, 1967: March on the Pentagon Flower Child.
The Pentagon—as we’ve noted countless times here at Historia Discordia—is an integral part of the Discordian mythos, not to mention the V-for-victory peace sign which the Discordians had adopted years prior to it becoming synonymous with the counterculture. So all of these symbols loom large in the Discordian and Illuminatus! (Amazon) iconography and it seemed that a certain amount of cross pollination was going on during this period between the Discordians and Yippies—although the Discordians were largely (Greg Hill in particular) working in a somewhat subliminal and introverted manner as opposed to the Yippies who were right there in your face, taking their theatre to the streets and TV screens of America.
Peace in the Principia Discordia.The original Sacred Chao image created by Greg Hill circa 1964 incorporating the Pentagon (Aneristic) and Golden Apple (Eristic) in a yin-yang/hodge-podge counter push pull of opposing chaotic forces. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
RAW—as we well know—was out in the streets during the Chicago Democratic Convention demonstrations and witnessed up close and personal the heavy handed tactics of Mayor Daley’s goon squad, a narrative that wove itself in and out of Illuminatus! There’s also a good chance that RAW caught a glimpse of the Yippie “Now” freak flag flown during these demonstrations, which most likely had some influence on his fondness and subsequent use of Eye-In-The-Pyramid imagery and mythology.
Yippie NOW flag flown at the Chicago demonstrations, October 21, 1967.
The counterculture’s use of the Eye-In-The-Pyramid conjured evil spectres in the minds of John Birch Society members like John Steinbacher who authored an anti-Illuminati pamphlet entitled Senator Robert Francis Kennedy: The Man, The Mysticism, The Murder which contended that the founder of the Illuminati, Adam Weishaupt, had a profound influence on one Madame Helena Blavatsky of Theosophy fame. Due to this insidious influence, Blavatsky cooked up in her occult cauldron an ideological mix of Communism, Illuminism, and Satanism that insinuated itself into the 60s counterculture and ostensibly motivated Sirhan Sirhan to assassinate RFK. In the assassination’s aftermath—according to conspiratorial legend—Sirhan requested a copy of Blavatsky’s The Secret Doctrine which sent the heads of conspiracy buffs spinning with the sinister implications this implied.
The late, great John Steinbacher reveling in his trophies and awards. In Senator Robert Francis Kennedy: The Man, The Mysticism, The Murder, Steinbacher asserts that Blavatsky had penned a murderous tome entitled “Manual for Revolution” as a blueprint for the Communist Revolution which indoctrinated the gullible drug addled dupes of the 60s anti-war movement as part of a plot to bring about a One World Government controlled by Jewish Bankers. The only problem with this theory was that Blavatsky didn’t author “Manual for Revolution”—nor, for that matter, did the book even exist. In addition, Steinbacher claimed that Sirhan had infiltrated a branch of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), all part of a grand design to undermine the 60s counterculture and bring the United States to its knees.
Such speculations were prime fodder for Wilson and Shea who incorporated into Illuminatus! these elements of a vast conspiracy that was playing both ends of the political spectrum against the middle. RAW’s infamous letter and answer in the Playboy Forum was an initial outgrowth of these Illuminati conspiracy influences, later to be expanded upon in Illuminatus!
The Illuminatus! Trilogy. On page 591 of Illuminatus!, the “chart of the Illuminati conspiracy” (previously displayed on page 97) is referenced in relation to Robert Anton Wilson’s Discordian persona of “Mordecai the Foul” who is included among a group of Primus Illuminatus overseeing a vast conspiracy that includes Playboy (where Wilson and Bob Shea worked as editors during the 60s and 70s) and Bank of America where Discordian co-founder Greg Hil (Malaclypse the Younger) was employed from 1977 until his death in July of 2000. (A total of 23 years.)
Version of the 'Chart of the Illuminati Conspiracy' found in the Discordian Archives, possibly adapted for Illuminatus! on Page 00097.
In Illuminatus!, Joseph Malik describes this chart as “half-accurate and half deceptive” which, of course, was always the Discordian Society’s M.O.—or as the old Discordian saying goes:
“All statements are true in some sense, false in some sense, meaningless in some sense, true and false in some sense, true and meaningless in some sense, false and meaningless in some sense, and true and false and meaningless in some sense.”
It’s unknown exactly who cooked up the “Current Structure of Bavarian Illuminati Conspiracy and the Law of Fives” chart. I suspect Robert Anton Wilson (RAW) had a hand in it, although it may have been a collaboration between RAW, Shea and other Discordian conspirators—including Hill and Thornley—all part of Operation Mindfuck, the Discordian Society’s clandestine campaign to illuminate the opposition.
'Chart of the World Revolution' discovered in the Discordian Archives.
Illuminati buster, Mrs. Nesta Webster.It appears that the “Current Structure of Bavarian Illuminati Conspiracy and the Law of Fives” chart was modeled after a “Chart of the World Revolution” which I discovered in the Discordian Archives; a chart that associated Communism with Illuminism, occultism, anarchy, and other diabolical turn of the century movements—the type of stuff Nesta Webster got her panties all in a twist about.
The “Current Structure of Bavarian Illuminati Conspiracy and the Law of Fives” chart first appeared in the June 4th, 1969 edition of the East Village Other (EVO) with no editorial explanation whatsoever. But as EVO catered to dope-smoking drug-dropping degenerate hippie types who entertained conspiratorial ideas from a sometimes satirical and psychedelic viewpoint, it wasn’t out of the ordinary to see such strangeness in its pages.
East Village Other, Conspiracy in America.Walter Bowart toward the end of his life.Many of the key players at EVO became steeped in the conspiracy culture of the period, such as EVO co-founder and publisher Walter Bowart.
After leaving EVO, Bowart went knee-deep into research about the CIA’s MK-ULTRA mind control program which led to his landmark tome Operation Mind Control (PDF), published by Dell Books in 1978 and—as legend goes—all copies were shortly after bought up by the CIA (or some other unspecified alphabet soup agency) then taken out of circulation and destroyed to suppress the story.
Ishmael Reed.Another key player at EVO was Ishmael Reed who went on to author Mumbo Jumbo which in many ways resembled Illuminatus! in its unorthodox stylistic approach and depiction of conspiracies run amuck. As Reed wrote in Mumbo Jumbo, “The real history of the world is a history of competing conspiracies.”
In the mid-70s, Reed relocated to Berkeley (where RAW was then residing) and taught at UC Berkeley until his retirement in 2005. UC Berkeley—as we’ve noted previously here at Historia Discordia—was home to a campus version of the Bavarian Illuminati that included Discordian Louise Lacey (Lady L., F.A.B.) in its ranks.
In a 1977 interview in Conspiracy Digest, RAW was asked if Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo was an inspiration for Illuminatus!, to which he replied:
“I didn’t read Mumbo Jumbo until about three years after Illuminatus! was finished. The same is true of Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. The astonishing resemblances between those three books are coincidence, or synchronicity, or Higher Intelligence (take your pick). I love everything Ishmael Reed writes, and I once sent him an official Discordian certificate making him a Pope in the Legion of Dynamic Discord.”
In an interview from James Draper’s Black Literature Criticism, Reed confirmed this by stating that he “was made an honorary pope by the Savarian Illuminati, for the writing of Mumbo Jumbo…”
As Jesse Walker recently pointed out over at RAWIllumination.net, Reed’s reference to the Savarian Illuminati (as opposed to Bavarian) was probably a case of misremembering the name, or perhaps a typo. Hail Eris!
ADDENDUM: Just as we were going to press—as synchronicity would have it!—I came across the chart below which was posted at a facebook JFK Assassination forum. According to the poster of said post:
“This is something JFK wanted to show everyone (I believe so that we could find our way out of the current deflationary economical situation). I found it online whilst data mining. It explains quite a lot about the leadership we have had since. Please seed!”
Chart: The Conspiracy to Rule the World.
It just goes to show that—after all these years—people are still cranking out these silly charts.
Over at the facebook, Geoff Blogg recently posted the images below of the British editions of Illuminatus! (Amazon) paperbacks published by Sphere Books in 1976-77.
Although we haven’t been able to completely confirm it, the covers appear to be the work of artist Chris Foss who illustrated a slew of Sci-Fi titles during this period by such authors as Philip K. Dick, Michael Moorcock, Ursula K. Le Guin and prog rock album covers by the likes of Hawkwind.
Cover, Illuminatus! The Eye in the PyramidCover, Illuminatus! The Golden AppleCover, Illuminatus! Leviathan
Operation Mindfuck flyer advertisement: What Secret Power Did This Man Possess? Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.On page 368 of Illuminatus! (Amazon), a fellow named Harold Canvera—who in his spare time recorded telephone messages lambasting the Illuminati, John Birch-style—goes through a transformation after unwittingly ingesting a blast of AUM which illuminates him to the point that he actually ends up joining the ranks of his former Bavarian foes after receiving (on page 372) an Illuminati letter with instructions to bury $3125 in his backyard to pay for membership fees into the world’s oldest and most successful conspiracy!
All of this burying $3125 business was a manifestation of the Discordian Society’s Operation Mindfuck (OM) that included faux advertisements such as the one we post here with Hitler doing his infamous sieg heil duck-walk. 3125, as the Law of Fives will allow, is 5 to the 5th power.
Many such OM missives were of anonymous authorship although the best guess in this instance is that either Shea or RAW (or both) were responsible for this mindfucking OM advertisement.
For more Illuminatus! goodies, hit the group reading page at RAWIllumination.net.
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.
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.
