I read Principia Discordia last year. I actually felt whole new levels of awareness snapping in my brain this last week as I am learning new things, and its all cascading, or compounding, or compressing, or something. Its pretty tough stuff to handle, and this world is more complicated than anyone dares to face. Im a bit confused on some levels. So you have the Scientists, the Freedom group ( which is the discordians, fighting against the scientists ) and theres also a nothingness group in there somewhere. Is everything else pretty much just offshoots of those three, or is there an alternative to the apple/pentagon options? Also, are humans 'cursed' to know "good and evil" because of our physiology? aka no way to escape it? maybe this question is dumb because I havent finished illuminatus already, but the last two weeks have been fucked, and this whole year has been fucked, and what the fuck!!
I would highly suggest you re-read Illuminatus! after you finish it. Give it a few days to sink in and try again. If you're not used to the writing style, certain details will escape you.
Almost everything is answered within the text, you just have to pay attention. A notebook may also be useful.
I agree with Cain. Bob and Bob wrote the book in a style that in theory should force your brain to find patterns in the text in ways different than normal books. It can take some time to get used to. But in short the answer to all of your questions are "Yes", "No", "Maybe" in whatever order you would like. :wink:
I was afraid of that.
I second the second reading. I understood a lot more the second time around.
Must be a good book then, if it deserves a second reading.
Maybe I should actually read it sometime.
Quote from: Cain on June 12, 2009, 09:32:20 PM
I would highly suggest you re-read Illuminatus! after you finish it. Give it a few days to sink in and try again. If you're not used to the writing style, certain details will escape you.
Almost everything is answered within the text, you just have to pay attention. A notebook may also be useful.
Also, make sure to read the appendices.
Oh yeah, for sure. That's where most of the explanatory information is, IMO.
I find that Illuminatus is best understood by not reading it at all. Instead, one should tear out each page of the book and order them alphabetically by the first word(s) on each odd page, excluding titles and such. Then flip it all over as a bundle and write down the first letter of the first word on each even page one by one. Next, develop a simple letter-for-letter exchange decryption to translate the chaotic jumble of letters from even pages into actual words. This is the part that tests you for at least some modicum of intelligence. Follow the directions to the designated location and make the indicated inquiry at the service counter. This works with the fifth printed edition of the paperback version, although I can't say I have tried any others.
Once you hear it all from someone who really understands it, it's all just so clear, so obvious, so frightening.
Elezar the Apostate
I read 2/3 of it and then stalled out.
Quote from: Elezar th Apostate on June 14, 2009, 09:51:25 AM
I find that Illuminatus is best understood by not reading it at all. Instead, one should tear out each page of the book and order them alphabetically by the first word(s) on each odd page, excluding titles and such. Then flip it all over as a bundle and write down the first letter of the first word on each even page one by one. Next, develop a simple letter-for-letter exchange decryption to translate the chaotic jumble of letters from even pages into actual words. This is the part that tests you for at least some modicum of intelligence. Follow the directions to the designated location and make the indicated inquiry at the service counter. This works with the fifth printed edition of the paperback version, although I can't say I have tried any others.
Once you hear it all from someone who really understands it, it's all just so clear, so obvious, so frightening.
Elezar the Apostate
I thought everyone knew this?
Quote from: Hoopla on June 15, 2009, 05:06:51 PM
Quote from: Elezar th Apostate on June 14, 2009, 09:51:25 AM
I find that Illuminatus is best understood by not reading it at all. Instead, one should tear out each page of the book and order them alphabetically by the first word(s) on each odd page, excluding titles and such. Then flip it all over as a bundle and write down the first letter of the first word on each even page one by one. Next, develop a simple letter-for-letter exchange decryption to translate the chaotic jumble of letters from even pages into actual words. This is the part that tests you for at least some modicum of intelligence. Follow the directions to the designated location and make the indicated inquiry at the service counter. This works with the fifth printed edition of the paperback version, although I can't say I have tried any others.
Once you hear it all from someone who really understands it, it's all just so clear, so obvious, so frightening.
Elezar the Apostate
I thought everyone knew this?
I think I saw a nearly identical statement about Joyce once before....
I can tell I am going to have to start at the beginning again as soon as I finish first reading. Im nearly finished the fourth trip, Hagbard and Malik are talking about whether or not they are saving the world.
Quote from: ekimdrachir on June 16, 2009, 04:59:45 PM
I can tell I am going to have to start at the beginning again as soon as I finish first reading. Im nearly finished the fourth trip, Hagbard and Malik are talking about whether or not they are saving the world.
See, that book is so froody that even the characters aren't sure what they're doing. Once you get enough of TIT, you can aim for Schroedinger's Cat. It will warp your brain in entirely new and different ways, leaving you looking for Flying Rehnquist and overall, a smell of fried onions.
And, of course, No Wife No Horse No Mustache.
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?
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.
:fnord:
I believe the point is to get you to the place where you never believe what you read, even in a book of fiction.
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".
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)
Quote from: Triple Zero on June 16, 2009, 11:55:23 PM
well, that's what got me into tarot, actually :)
Me too!
This book almost makes me want to finish reading Crowley.
Quote from: Triple Zero on June 16, 2009, 11:55:23 PM
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 ;-)
Quote from: ekimdrachir on June 16, 2009, 09:32:24 PM
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.
Quote from: LMNO on June 18, 2009, 06:19:22 PMIt 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.
Off the top of my head, the list of band names, for one.
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?
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.
Quote from: LMNO on June 18, 2009, 08:40:40 PM
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.
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?).
I think a lot of the band list were jokes that worked at the point in time, as opposed to now.
Joan Baez for example, in the time period of the book was in the news for having her comments on Vietnam censored on a TV show (laugh in?).
Riot in Cell Block 10 was a double joke. "Riot in Cell Block 9" is the alternate title for the Perry Mason theme song and Riot in Cell Block 11 is an old 1950's movie (the movie itself covering some parallels to libertarian themes)
The Signifying Monkey is a African trickster god and one of the roots of Papa Legba. Many trickster deities show up in the book besides Eris in one fashion or another. (This is the same god that Neil Gaiman used as Ananasi or Mr. Nancy, in American Gods) Bugs Bunny is another Trickster that he sticks in with his 1(+)4 carrots.
Poor Richard and his Rosicrucian Secrets is an obvious reference to Franklin and the Rosy Cross which was one of the early roots of the modern Illuminatus conspiracy etc.
The Dog Star followed by Nuthin' Sirius are both referencing Bob's experiences that he documented in Cosmic Trigger. Which at the time, Bob was still trying to figure out the significance of.
Overall, I think that the Band list as well as some other bits are areas where Bob and Bob wanted to mention stuff that they didn't have space to really work into the story as it was. "Acceptable Radiation", more Lovecraft references like "The Thing on The Doorstep" where one of the characters is definitely not who they appear to be... well, at least the soul is not what it appears to be LOL.
According to RAW, you could find a reason for 'almost' every band name to be there... of course, with him, 'find' might require LOLo5's I dunno.
Quote from: LMNO on June 18, 2009, 08:50:58 PM
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?).
Oh, that, yeah that was good.
Yeah, the names of sex acts replaced by 'Potter Stewart' and 'Rhinequist', et al, was in the last book of Schrodinger's Cat, "The Homing Pigeons". The reason the jail escape part was in there was because Dashwood was supposed to be George Dorn, but couldn't remember.
Hairy Coin Spots were very popular in the 60's as patterns on wool. You know, the big round spots of colored fur on a base of different colored fur... :lulz:
Apparently it now (maybe then?) references a butt crack as well... considering Harry's part of the story, that may not be far off.
Hairy Coin Slot = buttcrack
Hairy Coin Purse = Obvious Reference is Obvious
Oh and "The Goose in the Bottle" is a reference to a Zen Koan.
I used to have more notes on this stuff but I dunno where they went. I am digging therough memory and Google trying to piece that stuff back together ;-)
Oh and it was Smother's Brothers not Laugh In that Joan got censored on.
both in Illuminatus and the SC trilogy they reference the letters "HC", that's Hagbard Celine, Harry Coin, some other I forgot and the Hot/Cold knobs on a shower.
I have been puzzling the significance of that too, or is it just a Lo5 thing?
Quote from: Triple Zero on June 18, 2009, 10:43:51 PM
both in Illuminatus and the SC trilogy they reference the letters "HC", that's Hagbard Celine, Harry Coin, some other I forgot and the Hot/Cold knobs on a shower.
I have been puzzling the significance of that too, or is it just a Lo5 thing?
Well if one were to posit that Hagbard was playing the same game Crowley was in Masks of the Illuminati... it would have made perfect sense for him to double as Harry Coin to push George into a mindset where he would accept Hagbard's universe.
Hrmmmm....
Never Trust H.C., eh?
On the other hand, isn't there a scene in the Submarine with Harry Coin and Celine?
Quote from: Telarus on June 18, 2009, 11:37:04 PM
Never Trust H.C., eh?
On the other hand, isn't there a scene in the Submarine with Harry Coin and Celine?
I don't remember and I can't find my copy :?
Yes, there is. Celine is trying to provoke Coin, to get him to overcome his societal programming.
Yeah, the scene where Celine takes the gun out and puts it on the table so that Harry can catch himself going through all of the robotic imprints and reactions that a gun causes him. Thanks Cain.
And here's a good resource:
http://www.rawilsonfans.com/articles/characterguide.htm (http://www.rawilsonfans.com/articles/characterguide.htm)
QuoteH.C. Never trust anyone with the initials H.C. Harold Canvera, Hagbard Celine, Heathcliffe Clark, Harry Coin, Howard Cork, Hart Crane, H.C. Winifred I128, E; I324, G34.
I still see H.C. as initials and think "Can't trust that guy"
i actually read Schroedinger's Cat first...
Me too.
I wonder if that would make it more or less confusing.... :? :lulz: :?
i actually meet the chessire cat up in some park, while reading it,
sitting at a cafe with a bunch of spades. she took my hat...
H. C. Earwicker.
"Here comes everybody"