In a recent post I mentioned that I had recently read Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 and that it seemed to be an obvious influence on Illuminatus!, and I also mentioned a connection between Robert Shea and Pynchon.
In a comment, Jesse Walker notes that Illuminatus! actually has a passage that cites Lot 49:
"We accept Bugs Bunny as an exemplar of Mummu here, too, but otherwise we have little in common with the SSS. That's the Satanist, Surrealists and Sadists— the crew who began your illuminization in Chicago. All we share with them actually is use of the Tristero anarchist postal system, to evade the government's postal inspectors, and a financial agreement whereby we accept their DMM script—Divine Marquis Memorial script— and they accept our hempscript and the flaxscript of the Legion of Dynamic Discord."
The "Tristero anarchist postal system" is from The Crying of Lot 49. Dr. Ignotum P. Ignotius is apparently talking (one of the Discordian names of Greg Hill), and the passage is found on page 275 of the original 1975 Dell mass market paperback -- I don't know the page number of the omnibus edition most people have.
UPDATE: Please see the interesting comments! Thanks, Jesse, thanks Dr. Johnson!
3 comments:
You'll note that ILLUMINATUS! spelled "Trystero" incorrectly. Well, it wouldn't be a proper ancient conspiracy if it didn't have many masks.
Earlier in that Accursed Thing: a stewardess finds a note left on the seat of "John Mason", who took a flight from Madison, Wisconsin to Mexico City one week after the "last SDS convention of all time": a ton of disparate notes about Weishaupt, Dillinger, Law of Fives, "Kick Out the Jams", allusions to Lovecraft, mention of
"Simon" and (probably) Hagbard, etc: this item was scribbled:
"D.E.A.T.H. - Don't Ever Antagonize The Horn. Does Pynchon know?"
-p.123 of the omnibus ed.
@Michael, thank you, appreciate that comment!
@Jesse, I didn't even notice that until you called my attention to it.
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