Illuminatus online reading group, Week Twenty

This is an actual logo for a U.S. spy satellite. (Article here.)

(This week: Page 194: "The sub's engine was vibrating pleasantly" to "when you're lost out here," Page 204.)

This week, we get a good dose of the paranoia about government in Illuminatus! in the form of a lecture that Hagbard Celine gives to George.


"But they can rule by fraud and eventually acquire access to the tools they need to finish off the job of killing off the Constitution."

"What sort of tools?"

"More stringent security measures. Universal electronic surveillance. No-knock laws. Stop and frisk laws. Government inspection of first-class mail. Automatic fingerprinting, photographing, blood tests, and urinalysis of any person arrested before he is charged with a crime. A law making it unlawful to resist even unlawful arrest. Laws establishing detention camps for potential subsersives. Gun control laws. Restrictions on travel. The assassinations, you see, establish a need for such laws in the public mind. Instead of realizing that there is a conspiracy, conducted by a handful of men, the people reason -- or are manipulated into reasoning -- that the entire populace must have its freedom restricted in order to protect the leaders. The people agree that they themselves can be trusted." (pages 197-198).

Illuminatus! was written in 1969-1971 (allowing for late changes during the editing process), but this passage still has bite:

"More stringent security measures" -- Obama's efforts to control leaks 'most aggressive since Nixon', report finds. (Nixon of course was the president when Illuminatus! was written.)

"Universal electronic surveillance." The NSA collects telephone call records for almost everyone inside the United States.

"Government inspection of first class mail." Email is what most people use today for first class mail. If you encrypt your email, to try to preserve the same sense of privacy a first class envelope is supposed to provide, the NSA will store a copy of your message. 

"Restrictions on travel." The U.S. government maintains a no-fly list and does not allow people to challenge it or find out why they are on the list. 

Honestly, wouldn't it be great to read a passage from Illuminatus! and say, "Man, things were bad under Nixon, but it's lots better now."

Tethys, page 196, ancient Greek goddess of the sea.

"Here they suckered the middle class, whose true interest law in laissez faire free enterprise, to follow the Weishaupt slogan of 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.' The catch, of course, is that where equality and fraternity rule, there is no liberty." Pages 199-200. Hagbard sure sounds like a hardcore libertarian here.

"They bumpted him off after it was published, you know." Page 200. George Orwell was only 46 when he died from tuberculosis.

"Legion of Dynamic Discord," page 203, a real Discordian group created by Kerry Thornley (citation).

(Next week: Page 204, "Behind the golden door stood the lovely black receptionist," to page 214, "And speaking of war, the enemy lies ahead.")