We’re Fno-o-o-o-ord: Week 30 Illuminatus! Group Reading

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.

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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.

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.

Hill 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.