Week 60, Illuminatus! online reading group

The Pentagon in Washington, D.C. Five-sided for a reason? 

(This week: "This is Danny Pricefixer," Dorus Horus said, page 627, to page 637, "Into the silence, Hagbard said ... ")

Some notes as we head toward the climax of what's happening in Ingolstadt:

Mr. H.C. Winifred of the Department of Justice, page 629. We've run into him before, doing the bidding of the Illuminati. See Toff's character breakdown. 

" .... and was trying to draw a chalk line," page 630, presumably to keep the creature trapped inside the Pentagon. Here again is metaphor for U.S. foreign policy — endless war to feed Pentagon bloodlust. See Michael Johnson's comment to this post on how the Pentagon levitation was supposed to be an "exorcism." (A pentagram in Goethe's Faust prevents Mephistopheles from leaving a room. )

"This is the dawning of the age of Bavaria," page 631. Apparently sung to the tune of "Age of Aquarius" from "Hair."

DRANG NACH OESTEN, page 631-632. The authors mean "Drang nach Osten," yearning for the east, slogan for Nazi expansion into the East. HEUTE DIE WELT, MORGENS DAS SONNENSYSTEM, page 632. "Today the world, tomorrow the solar system." Alleged slogan of the Bavarian Illuminati.

"Then I started to flip," page 632, beginning of Simon Moon's stream of consciousness.

"And then I understood why Hagbard had given us the acid," page 635, beginning of Mary Lou Servix's stream of consciousness.

"because I started to die," page 632. Mary Lou's reaction to acid is reminiscent of John Lennon's, who wrote "She Said" after taking LSD at a party ("She said, I know what it's like to be dead.")

(Next week: Page 637: In Mad Dog, Texas, John Dillinger and Jim Cartwright looked up from the chess board to Page 654, "Ra Ra Ra." More than 10 pages, but I could not find a convenient stopping place.)