The Earth quakes and the Heavens rattle the beasts of nature flock together and the nations of men flock apart volcanoes usher up heat while elsewhere water becomes ice and melts and then on other days it just rains. The Purple Sage opened his mouth and moved his tongue and so spake to them and he said: Ishmael Reed, Mumbo-Jumbo THE FIRST TRIP, OR KETHER From Dealey Plaza To Watergate … The history of the world is the history of the warfare between secret societies. To Gregory Hill and Kerry Thornley BOOK ONE: VERWIRRUNG THE TENTH TRIP (OR MALKUTH FAREWELL TO PLANET EARTH)ĪPPENDIX ALEPH GEORGE WASHINGTON’S HEMP CROPĪPPENDIX BETH THE ILLUMINATI CIPHERS, CODES, AND CALENDARSĪPPENDIX GIMMEL THE ILLUMINATI THEORY OF HISTORYĪPPENDIX DALETH HASSAN i SABBAH AND ALAMOUT BLACKĪPPENDIX MEM CERTAIN QUESTIONS THAT MAY STILL TROUBLE SOME READERSĪPPENDIX NUN ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ABOUT SOME OF THE CHARACTERS THE NINTH TRIP, OR YESOD (WALPURGISNACHT ROCK) THE EIGHTH TRIP, OR HOD (TELEMACHUS SNEEZED)

THE SEVENTH TRIP, OR NETZACH (THE SNAFU PRINCIPLE) THE SIXTH TRIP, OR TIPARETH (THE MAN WHO MURDERED GOD) THE FIFTH TRIP, OR GEBURAH Swift-Kick, Inc THE FOURTH TRIP, OR CHESED Jesus Christ On A Bicycle

THE SECOND TRIP, OR CHOKMAH Hopalong Horus Rides Again Not least of them a plot.THE FIRST TRIP, OR KETHER From Dealey Plaza To Watergate … I can tell you want happened in my 100 pages (not much), but if you like the idea of interconnected conspiracy, I recommend Foucault's Pendulum, which has many qualities to recommend. If anyone is reading this, feel free to read someone else's blurb to find out what this story is about, because I don't know. Well, I read one-eighth (yes, it's 800 pages) and there was no reward in sight, and in fact I found myself staying up later at night simply to avoid having to read this book. You also risk alienating them before the payoff arrives. Look, you can make all kinds of statements about the rigidity of the novel's form, but random switching between speakers/POV without even the slightest convention to clue your reader in is risky, so there needs to be some payoff. Perhaps there will be at some point, and perhaps I'll return to this in the future, but for now, I'm done. One hundred pages into this and I've realized, there isn't. I'm always in the mood for conspiracy theory, and odd-ball sensibilities are fine as long as there's a point. Robert Anton Wilson's (and that other guy's) trilogy is one of those books that hovered around the edges of my awareness as a cult novel(s), and that alone was enough to prompt me to read it. This just isn't going to happen, not now.

The illuminatus trilogy books