Illuminatus online reading group, Week 15

 Ayn Rand. Despite Simon Moon's amusing theory, she was probably not "the lost Anastasia" from the Romanov dynasty.

(This week: From page 144 "ILLUMINATI PROJECT MEMO #15" to page 154, "and you're going to tell the judge that, in exactly those words.")

Back on Page 62, i.e. Week Six, Simon Moon is discussing politics with his parents and he tells them, "You're both wrong. Freedom won't come  through Love, and it won't come through  Force. It will come through the Imagination."

His father tells him that he should concentrate on organization  instead. "If you want big words to talk to intellectuals  with, that's a fine big word, son, just as many  syllables as imagination, and it has a lot more realism to it." (Page 63)

And so now, in Week 15, Hagbard Celine explains to Simon that reality is something that is often imposed by force from the top (pages 149-150).

"Don't be  so bloody patronizing," Moon answers. "That's just Marx: the ideology of the ruling class becomes the ideology of the whole society."

"Not the ideology. The Reality," Hagbard replies, noting that in 1937, everyone in the U.S. who smoked pot became a criminal overnight, by an act of Congress. 

"And they really were criminals when the papers were signed. The guns prove it. Walk away from those guns, waving a joint, and refuse to halt when they tell you. Their Imagination will become your Reality in a second."

Moon reflects, "And I had my answer to Dad, finally ..." just as a cop attacks him with mace.

Hagbard's insight that reality is something that is created in people's minds can be illustrated by recent events. In the 1970s, gay rights were supported only by a minority of people. Today, gay marriage is becoming widely accepted. Marijuana legalization in the 1970s was something that only a few crazy people (such as libertarians) talked about; today, pot is legal in two states, and the legalization movement obviously is spreading to other states. A relatively small group of people imagined an end to the war on drugs, and now, although slowly, that's coming about.

Notes on the text:

SNAFU, page 145, later on, Hagbard Celine enunciates the SNAFU principle.

"I'm seven years older than he his," page 145, Simon Moon is talking.

"Source," page 147. The Libertarian American is a real publication, so I assume the cited article is real, but I don't know how to get a copy or who J.F.C. Moore is. Wilson mentions Moore's piece in this article.

"I was on Joyce's juices again,"  page 147. This article discusses Joyce's influence on Robert Anton Wilson.

"and Lennon's 'Why Don't We Do It in the Road?' was recorded a year in the future." Page 148. This is the Beatles song I mentioned in the discussion on Diogenes in Week 13. It's a brief song on The Beatles, aka "The White Album." And it's not a John Lennon song; it's a Paul McCartney tune.

"There thou might'st behold the very image of Authority," page 149. Hagbard is quoting from King Lear, Act Four, Scene 6: "There thou mightst behold the great image of authority: a dog's obeyed in office." This may also be a reference to an important Surrealist poem by David Gascoyne, "The Very Image."


" 'A is not A,' Hagbard explained with that tiresome patience of his," page 149. The phrase "A = A" is  used in Ayn Rand's work. I am not a Randian, but I believe that it refers to the idea in Objectivism that facts are facts, however much commie altruists might want to deny it. Steve Ditko, apparently a Rand fan, did a comic book called "Mr. A."

"I caught the reference to Aristotle," page 149. Ayn Rand was a big admirer of Aristotle. 

"that feisty little lady I always imagine is the lost Anastasia," e.g., Ayn Rand, who was born in Russia. Anasasia refers to the last czar's youngest daughter, murdered with the rest of her family by the Bolsheviks in 1918. After her death, various people claimed to be Anastasia and said that she had survived.

Grand Duchess Anastasia, who never got to grow up and read Ayn Rand.

"Property is liberty," Hagbard said. "I am quoting the same man who said property is theft." Page 152. Proudhon. See Appendix Zain, page 767.

(Next week: Page 154, "ILLUMINATI PROJECT: MEMO #17" to page 164, "That would probably be a Fascist plot, anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish and anti-Negro.")