Im nearly done Illuminatus

[ekimdrachir]

One of my big questions is, and I know this is a tough question, but does any of this actually help me to have a better understanding of anything? Or is it just mean to to confuse the fuck out of me? Im sure the answer is a little of both, and I know what reaching new planes of awareness is like, but how many of those layers do you pass through? I must confess, all my learnings have been crunched, thanks to Illuminatus. I feel like it helped put alot of things in order, and yet it tears other things apart. Like the Cult of the Yellow whatever, and all the other counter-illuminati movements. Like someone said, good and evil is a two way street, and the illuminati built the road. If the illuminati is really out for good, but is all evil, and the discordians are actually the destructive ones, but the illuminati engineer and benefit from such chaos, they are all working together even when they try not too. Does anyone here feel like the pieces actually fit, or all you all as crazy as Hagbard now?

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Well, those are a lot of hard questions to answer. Much of it depends on what you mean by all those labels and words your tossing about

What people get out of Illuminatus differs greatly. For me, it exposed different ways of perceiving things, different ways of putting 1 and 1 together... in short it pushed towards Model Agnosticism, and later books by RAW dropped me, more deeply, into that mindset. For other people, it was great fiction and inspires them to pull O:MF as much as possible. Still others think its a crappy book and don't get anything out of it. One guy I know actually ended up going into a mental institution for a month after reading the book. Maybe it was just coincidence though, I don't know. RAW himself was always very squishy on the topic. He loved to hear other peoples views and experiences with the book, but he didn't say a lot about what it really meant or what he was really doing under the covers (maybe just jerking the reader off, I dunno).

In short, I think it is a very complex story, with lots of complex bits of information. Unlike normal books it doesn't lay the information out in the pattern the author sees, rather it just shoots it at you like grapeshot from some nasty 18th century blunderbuss. I think the goal, one of the goals, what I perceived as a goal..?? whatever... Anyway I think a key bit is that you have to put the information together yourself. You have to make the patterns out of the information, just like in real life.

[hooplala]

I believe the point is to get you to the place where you never believe what you read, even in a book of fiction.

[ekimdrachir]

Well life is crazy enough, I don't know if I believe anything anymore. I know illuminatus is filled with all sorts of crazy ideas, but ive seen even more just as crazy ideas on the internet. There was so much that this book talks about that I wonder how much of it is actually fiction at all. Considering alot of it IS "true".

[Triple Zero]

well, that's what got me into tarot, actually I wondered about that, picked a random topic and tried to find out whether it was made up or not. (turns out it partly is and isnt btw)

[hooplala]

well, that's what got me into tarot, actually

Me too!

[ekimdrachir]

This book almost makes me want to finish reading Crowley.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

well, that's what got me into tarot, actually I wondered about that, picked a random topic and tried to find out whether it was made up or not. (turns out it is in some sense

Fixt for you TZ

[LMNO]

One of my big questions is, and I know this is a tough question, but does any of this actually help me to have a better understanding of anything? Or is it just mean to to confuse the fuck out of me? Im sure the answer is a little of both, and I know what reaching new planes of awareness is like, but how many of those layers do you pass through? I must confess, all my learnings have been crunched, thanks to Illuminatus. I feel like it helped put alot of things in order, and yet it tears other things apart. Like the Cult of the Yellow whatever, and all the other counter-illuminati movements. Like someone said, good and evil is a two way street, and the illuminati built the road. If the illuminati is really out for good, but is all evil, and the discordians are actually the destructive ones, but the illuminati engineer and benefit from such chaos, they are all working together even when they try not too. Does anyone here feel like the pieces actually fit, or all you all as crazy as Hagbard now?

If nothing else, I3! is a working example of seeing things from multiple points of view with as few filters as possible.  The reason that some things fit in new ways, and other things don't, and then they switch, back and forth, is because the entirety of information cannot be contained in a single viewpoint.



However, in a more pedestrian mode, it's a pseudo-sci-fi story about a secret society that wants to take over the world using underwater nazis, and a man who stumbles across their opposition.

The authors then use late-20th-century literary techniques such as non-linearity, stream of consciousness, and cut-ups to introduce intentional contradictions and paradoxes in order to intentionally confuse the reader.  Some of it is clumsy and ham-fisted, and some a bit more subtle.  It can be very annoying when you realize that some sections are there for the sole purpose of frustrating and confusing the reader.

[hooplala]

It can be very annoying when you realize that some sections are there for the sole purpose of frustrating and confusing the reader.

Just curious as to which part(s) you think were there for that purpose?  I'm not disagreeing, just curious.

[LMNO]

Off the top of my head, the list of band names, for one.

[hooplala]

Ah, yeah... the first time I read the book I glossed over the names because they seemed to be just a way of copping Joyce.  I read them all the second time, most are pretty amusing.  I still think it's just Joyce parody, but you may be right.

You meant that it looks to the reader as if the names of the bands mean something to the story and might be hints about something, when really its just a collection of names they thought up?

On a different, but related note:  Am I crazy or do I remember reading The Dead Kennedys as one of the names?

[LMNO]

Perhaps I'm being too harsh - I'm sure that the intent was to jolt the reader into a new awareness, or to gain new perspective.  However, the more obvious of these (ex. the substituting supreme court justices and feminists as sexual terms and acts) got annoying really quickly.

The more subtle or funny ones (Harry Coin, or bugs bunny as shoggoth, for examples) seemed to work a bit better.

[hooplala]

Perhaps I'm being too harsh - I'm sure that the intent was to jolt the reader into a new awareness, or to gain new perspective.  However, the more obvious of these (ex. the substituting supreme court justices and feminists as sexual terms and acts) got annoying really quickly.

The more subtle or funny ones (Harry Coin, or bugs bunny as shoggoth, for examples) seemed to work a bit better.

That was Schrodinger's Cat, and only the last book.  Although, I agree.

What was the joke with Harry Coin?  That one must have escaped me.

[LMNO]

Are you sure it was SC?  It replayed the jail escape scene from the first book, etc.


And the Harry Coin wasn't so much as joke as it was simultaneous character perspective (did he rape George or not?).