The Widow's Son reading group -- Finale

 James Gillray’s political cartoon which rather gleefully anticipates the trial of Thomas Paine

Week Twenty Nine (pg. 489-517 Hilaritas edition, Chapter 5,6,&7 Part IV all editions)

By Gregory Arnott

Special guest blogger

It was and is widely believed that Clement XIV was poisoned, although Wilson seems to think that the poisoning was not quite as literal as other historians. The doctors who performed his autopsy ascribed his death to scurvy and hemorrhoidal disorders and pointed out he was over 70 years old. Policy failures and the climate around the Holy See as recounted by RAW exacerbated the situation. While searching around I found a wonderfully insane conspiracy book titled AntiChrist that directly links the graffiti and (assumed) poisoning of Ganganelli to the later (re)founding of the Illuminati by (ex?)-Jesuit Weishaupt. The author goes on to state that the Illuminati founded by Weishaupt was merely the refounding of the Alahambros (which should be familiar) which were at one time led by St. Ignatius of Loyola.

An amusing tale about the nature of the papacy comes from a slim volume of stories titled The Twilight of the Gods by Richard Garnett; it concerns the reign of Pope Sylvester II, who was historically accused of being a sorcerer, and his relationship to Lucifer. It is titled “The Demon Pope.”

As we reach the crescendo of the final complete part of the Historical Illuminatus! sequence, (Nature’s God always seemed curtailed by the lack of the implied fourth novel), familiar roles carry us further along the chain of history. De Sade comments in his wry-insane manner about Rome, Wilkes and Burke try to avert war and Empire’s dissolution, Beaumarchais and Diderot don’t need a weatherman, stately plump Benjamin Franklin returns over the Atlantic towards a Continental Congress, while a less familiar character in this Romance, John Adams, proposes that we are in a state of nature.

Hobbes’ state of nature is also summed up in the Latin phrase Bellum omnium contra omnes- the war of all against all where every man has as much right to any other thing as any other. Hobbes predicted much of what would happen during the Enlightenment. The text makes sure to note that the battles at Concord and Lexington were the first time since the religion wars of the 1600s that “peasants” had defeated a sovereign power. Hobbes had learned from the atrocities that drove Grimmelshausen mad and led to Charles I losing his head and Cromwell’s dictatorship; his works accurately describe the breakdowns of society that Duccio recounts in his private history where the will to battle becomes War. John Adams seems to be maneuvering towards the direction of creating another Leviathan that will match the English Crown. The architects and prophets of America are drawing together.

In France the Leviathans of commerce and royalty have grown fat and ready for beheading- in Ireland the situation still hasn’t been resolved over two hundred years later. The world waits with bated breath, especially because of  COVID-19, to see how these motions set in place centuries ago will develop.

And Hanfkopf is woven into his final narrative and goes out like Joseph of Arimathea, another keeper of secrets. 

Sigismundo’s perspective is a little insufferable but understandable considering all that he has been exposed to- instead of becoming an unwilling pawn he decides to embrace the spirit of Rousseau’s noble savage and Crowley’s counter-dedication to Konx Om Pax:

St. Paul spoke up on the Hill of Mars
To the empty-headed Athenians;
But I would rather talk to the stars   
Than to empty-headed Athenians;

It’s only too easy to form a cult,
To cry a crusade with “Deus Vult”—
But you won’t get much of a good result 
From empty-headed Athenians.

The people of London much resemble   
Those empty-headed Athenians.
I could very easily make them tremble,   
Those empty-headed Athenians.

A pinch of Bible, a gallon of gas,
And I, or any other guess ass,
Could bring to our mystical moonlight mass   
Those empty-headed Athenians.

In fine, I have precious little use   
For empty-headed Athenians.
The birds I have snared shall all go loose;   
They are empty-headed Athenians.

I thought perhaps I might do some good;
But it’s ten to one if I ever should—
And I doubt if I would save, if I could,   
Such empty-headed Athenians.

So (with any luck) I shall bid farewell   
To the empty-headed Athenians.
For me, they may all of them go to hell, 
For empty-headed Athenians.
I hate your idiot jolts and jars,
You monkeys grinning behind your bars—
I’m more at home with the winds and stars 
Than with empty-headed Athenians.

It seems to me that Sigismundo is correct that the fourth soul or satori or enlightenment is virtually worthless if not successfully integrated into the whole personality. One of my instructors insisted, like Regardie, that any success in magic is predicated upon rigorous therapy and self-examination. I was frustrated at the time because I wanted hot chicks and to blow old men’s hats off with sylphs but I’m grateful now.

Sigismundo’s hypothesis about the origins of gods is fascinating. I have contended for years that The Fool is none other than the first chimp who took just the right amount of hallucinogenic substance to not poison itself or go beyond comprehension. Or am I just inventing my own grand opera?

Reread Chapter 24 of Part III.

Finally were brought together with the only main character I’d feel comfortable buying a drink for and a figure whose belated appearance buries the dog of his implicit involvement with almost every larger historical theme in the novel. The Narrator neglects to mention that Thomas Paine’s trip across the Atlantic was sponsored by none other than the enterprising Dr. Franklin and its peril. The ship that Moon and Paine are aboard has a case of typhoid being passed around and some will die, Paine himself will have to stay in the care of Franklin’s physician on his arrival in the colonies. Paine will immediately become a citizen of Pennsylvania and take over editing duties of a paper for Franklin where he will write an anonymous missive against slavery in the Colonies. Paine will of course incite the colonists’ ire against the British Crown further along the path towards battle. No less than the radical/conservative John Adams would state that “without Paine’s pen, Washington’s sword would have been raised in vain.”

After his first American sojourn Paine would come back to England and then Paris where he would defend and praise the Revolution, be sued in absentia for libel against none other than radical/conservative Edmund Burke, and fall prisoner thanks to Robespeirre’s paranoia. Paine would be released to travel back to America thanks to the machinations of James Monroe and died a hugely controversial figure who advocated for deism, universal rights, and the overthrow of all the old Kings and Popes. While there is no real evidence for Paine ever becoming a Mason, his philosophy could be said to have further Masonic goals more so than any other contemporary.

Moon has tried to redeem his blackmail and heads, along with Sigismundo and the world’s attention, towards the New World.

Thus we close The Widow’s Son, Robert Anton Wilson’s personal favorite of his novels, and will open again under the auspices of Nature and Nature’s God. Nature’s God begins with a foreword by none other than our own Eric Wagner, “Bewitching Rhetoric,” and was penned on Walpurgis Night 2010. I propose that we come together for the first reading group to discuss Eric’s forward on on Walpurgisnacht 2020 and continue with the first Chapter “Murder in Clontarf” on Monday May 3rd.

As a note: I should have included the factoid in my post for Week Nineteen that Mary d’Este makes a cameo in RAW’s Masks of the Illuminati as a co-conspirator of Crowley’s who helps pull the wool over Sir John Babcock’s (the descendent) eyes during the final London chase scene as Miss Sturgis, Isadora Duncan’s secretary.

Thank you to Tom. Thank you to Alias and Oz and Eric and everyone else who contributed, and to Rasa and Christina for their support. I’ve loved reading your thoughts. Thanks to anyone who read!

From Eric: ““To two scoundrels in an unpredictable universe”, and to all the other scoundrels out there, a concerto by Vivaldi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKthRw4KjEg .”