Conference noted::sf

    
    	I read it and liked it but long ago. It was quite different.
    Definatly worth a buck.
    
    Charlie

    
    
    	If you search for the 'different' in your reading. This series
    will definitely be a treat. Kind of a hippies view of what is 'really'
    running the world. (ie Secret organizations, religious groups etc)
    
    Charlie
    

    Thanks everyone, I'll do it  (what the heck)

    Just for the heck of it, I'll throw in a dissenting vote.  I bought
    it, started it, hated it, abandoned it and gave it away.  (The friend
    I gave it to loved it, so maybe that cancels out my vote!)
    
    I thought it was too arch and worked to hard to be amusing.  I also
    found it hard to follow and MUCH too thick to put up with the
    annoyances for that many pages!!
    
    However, each to his own.  (If you want history of Freemasonry,
    there are books on that which are factual -- several show up in
    various publisher's remainder catalogs regularly.)
    
    Sherry

       A second no vote. I read about 100 pages and just couldn't
       maintain any interest in it. So it sits on my shelf taking up
       space. Maybe I'll try it again someday. liesl

I've got the first one. I enjoyed it, without being too impressed. I expect I'll
get to the second one some wet day when there's nothing else in the bookshop
that takes my fancy.

	Andrew.

    
    I read the trilogy, and the sequels, and the _Shroedinger's Cat
    trilogy (which shares most of the characters but less about the
    Illuminati). I thought it was great the first time, but when I tried
    to read it again, just couldn't remain interested.
                                                   
                  /
                 (  ___
                  ) ///
                 /
    

    I read the trilogy after seeing the play!! 
    An 8 hour epic (2.00-10.00 p.m. with several breaks) put on by the
    Science Fiction Theatre Company of Liverpool(now defunct I think?)
    
    It was a superb experience and had more to say about man's need 
    to blindly follow leaders/beliefs than any particular organisation.
    
    The message was clear "think for yourself" don't abdicate responsibility
    to others on any grounds.
    
    Regards
    
    Richard
    
    ps. The same company produced a stage version of "The Hitchhikers
        Guide to the Galaxy" where the audience was moved around on
        an air cushioned frame to view different sets in a circular
        auditorium.                     

I went back and re-read "Illuminatus!" for the second (or third? -- must
keep our laws straight...) time a few months ago, and it DOES hold up.

It took me a while to get back into the mindset of early-to-mid-70s, 
looking-back-fondly-on-60s which I had the first(?) time, but once I did --
"it all came rushing back like the hot kiss at the end of a wet kiss", to
steal from yet another Discordian source...

The best part of it is, you don't KNOW what is "truth" and what is pure
"fabrication" (and even the authors have been surprised by what they
'predicted' in some cases...) -- and this makes you THINK, which is rare
in today's fiction...   ;*]

Wilson and Shea struck a lot of nerves with this stuff, most esp. the one
that jerks the kneecap...

read it again...

re: .11

er, that's "...the hot kiss at the end of a wet FIST"

;-)

RE: -.2

That's what it started as, before I edited half and forgot to fix the rest...

RE: -.1

Thanks for 'getting' the ref.

- Steve

	I recently bought "The Earth Will Shake" which claims to be book 1 of
the "Historical Iluminatus Triloy", which I thought was THE Iluminatus Trilogy.

	My question is, now that I understand they are not the same thing, 
Which one comes first?

								Thanks

								Mauricio

    Well, it doesn't really make a difference, to be honest.
    
    ILLUMINATUS! was published in 1975. THE HISTORICAL ILLUMINATUS was
    published throughout the 80's.
    
    --- jerry

    
    I'm not quite sure how this series falls into the SF catagory.  It's
    ore like fiction to me (with some reality sprinkled in).  Anyway, I
    hope this gets better.  I'm about 120 pages into the first one and it's
    BORING.  Does it continue to have 1 paragraph about this, another about
    that all the way through?  And to think I spent $13 on the whole
    trilogy.  Also bought Eye of the World at the same time, and I can hear
    it calling to me more and more...  Please tell me this gets better...
    
    

    
    
    Well, I'm onto the third book now, and though they do get better (do
    the authors intentionally shift around the narrarator, time line and
    perspective every other line with no indication?  That just strikes me
    as lousy writing and I see to reason for it), I find them rather
    tiresome and boring.  Also, I would DEFINATELY not call this series SF. 
    One more book....  (but now the new Amber book is out, that will have
    to come first :')).
    
    

Rob - 

what do expect from a book(s) that the author admits to writing in a bowling
alley while tripping on acid?

grins,

clark.

Add me as another that never made it through the first book. I would have
thought acid could have inspired a more exciting story. liesl

    
    
    re: 1.9
    
    really?  well there were two authors, or maybe he just thought he was
    two people :').  it was just that i was given the impression that these
    were really classic books.  Right up there with Dhalgren so far :'). 
    I've never been sorry for reading any book though, there are always
    SOME reedeming qualities...  I'll figure out something to like :').
    
    

Rob

They are classic books, just not in the sense you are thinking.

They are wonderful examples of conspiracy theory taken to its logical
conclusions, and at the same time they ridicule every institution there
is (higher ed, government, organized religion, and a few others)

If you can make it thru them, it will change how you look at alot of
different things.

Hail Eris.

clark.

    Rob, in a lot of ways these are not fiction to be read as fiction but
    books geared to offer a paradigm shift to the brain, or as in a classic
    Comedy sketch, a "Boot to the head". 
    
    Also once of the reasons you may have trouble reading them is that
    about 1/3 of the original books was edited out by the original
    publishers. This material later became the Universe Next Door trilogy.
    RAW is, like Timothy Leary, mostly not out to entertain but to offer
    another reality tunnel, to expand the mind, to create reality shifts. I
    enjoy his stuff imensely, but know its not comfortable to everyone.
    
    As for the style, stream of consciousness-like, don't ever try to read
    Joyces' Ulysses (from which RAW occassionaly lifts things.) or anything
    by William S. Burroughs. :-)
    
    I reread these ever few years or so, for the clarity and insight that I
    get from them, but I can understand they might not have the same effect
    on everyone.
    Tamzen

    
    No, I had noticed that these are thinking books.  They do make me do
    that (which was why I made the Dhalgren comparrison, that was another
    one like that), but I don't find them entertaining.  But as thinking
    books, I find when I am done, that I am glad I read them because, as
    you said, they change the way I look at things.  I guess I just wasn't
    expecting this :').  I think I will pass on that other trilogy though
    :').  I'll make that decision when I get to the end of the third book.
    Thanks everybody for all the insight behind the books and the authors
    though, that makes reading these things easier and more interesting
    when you know something of the background.  Had this conversation
    happened with someone else, and I stumbled across it, I would have
    stayed away from this series, but in a way, I'm kind of glad I didn't.
    
    

    I thought they were goofy romps, myself. Perfect teenage reading (with
    the cheesy jokes and effortless sex and all), but pretty dull the
    second time around.
    
    If you don't find 'em amusing, I wouldn't read 'em.  There are more
    concise ways to check out the attractions in the Conspiracy Theory
    Amusement Park, some written by Mr. Wilson himself.
    
    Ray (heap big "Dhalgren" fan)

    If you are a fan of this series you might like Foucault's Pendulum by
    Umberto Eco, the author of The Name of The Rose.
    
    FP is a study of conspiracy theories.

    But be forewarned, FP is considerably, uh, drier.  I got maybe a
    hundred pages into FP and then gave up in something approximating
    boredom; "something approximating" because while being intellectually
    interesting the book just wasn't "engaging".  Maybe I should save it
    for a (loooong) airplane flight...
    
    I started Illuminatus based on the discussion in this note, and it
    strikes me as considerably more "off the wall" than FP.
    
    len.
     

    
    Well, I FINALLY finished these things.  Accept the 70 pages of
    appendicies.  At that point I had really had enough.  I'm just glad
    they are over with :').  I was paranoid for about the next two days
    though (and am now reading Eye of the World which has lots of 5 laws
    and the serpent eating its own tail... rather strange coincidence...
    anyway) :').  I found myself having to go over and reread a few pages
    in EotW because my mind was in a skimming frame after 800 pages of Ill.
    and wasn't absorbing anything.  Right now though, Sesame street's
    Monster at the End of this Book would be a Pulitzer prise winner in my
    mind :').
    
    Maybe I'm being a bit harsh ... :')
    
    

    Hi,
    	I know its a bit late but I'd just like to add my comments...
    
    I got about half way through the first book and gave up. I then gave
    all three books to my friend. He got to about the same point in the
    first book and threw all three away. Apparently he got more satisfaction 
    from throwing them away than reading them.
    
    							Andy
    
    P.S. I'm just dissapointed I didn't get to throw them away

    I read them.  I liked them... liked them enough to buy some other stuff
    by Robert Anton Wilson, like his play "Wilhelm Reich in Hell" (great
    play!  Someday, I wanna do that play).
    
    I must admit that at times, Illuminatus! can seem shallow, boring, or
    just not "engaging".  Trust me, there is juicy meat in there underneath
    the trivialized sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll.
    
    (maybe you just had to be there.  :-) )
    
    One of the review blurbs on the back of a non-fiction book by RAW says
    something like
    
    	"This man is either a genius or Jesus"
    			-The New York Times.
    
    Well, I don't *think* he's jesus.  He very likely _is_ a genius.
    
    	-Bill