085 SMITH JOURNALpublished in 1975. It was epic, exuberant
nonsense, and revealed a multiplicity of
obviously absurd plots, not least the idea that
that Adam Weishaupt had at some point
murdered George Washington and assumed
his identity – and that, therefore, the U.S. was
(and is) an Illuminati construct. Other fatuous
claims include the idea – now pervasive among
the tinfoil hat-wearing set – that the one-eyed
pyramid inscribed on the Great Seal of the
U.S. is an old Bavarian Illuminati symbol.
(It’s actually the Eye of Providence, a Christian
sign representing an all-seeing God.)Most people who actually read the
Illuminatus! books interpreted them, as
Wilson and Shea surely intended, as a rock
tossed whimsically into the millpond of
the culture, a creator of waves to be surfed.
Indeed, the book was wildly influential in
certain high-minded circles. A 12-hour
theatrical adaptation was staged across
England in the mid-’70s, starring the then-
unknown Bill Nighy and Jim Broadbent.
The sets were designed by a 23-year-old
Scottish carpenter named Bill Drummond,
who became quite taken with one of the
secret societies mythologised in the book: the
Justified Ancients Of Mummu. Under that
name and others (The KLF, The Timelords,
K Foundation, et al.), the electronic bands
Drummond went on to front in the 1980s
further amplified the ideals of Discordianism.
In 2017, after a self-imposed 23-year
moratorium, Drummond and his KLF
partner Jimmy Cauty released a new book
under the Justified Ancients Of Mu Muname they had borrowed from Illuminatus!
Entitled 2023: A Trilogy, the book covers,
among much else, the discovery of the diary
of an author named Roberta Antonia Wilson.
Ten years after the real Wilson’s death, the
Playboy editor’s joke lives on.Indeed, the joke lives on in ways its authors
could not have foreseen. Just as millions of
rock fans have appreciated the influence of,
say, The Velvet Underground & Nico without
necessarily being aware that such an album
was ever recorded, legions of adherents of the
modern conspirazoid style have embraced the
tenets of the Illuminatus! books, oblivious
to the fact that they were invented by bored
hacks trying to spice up the letters page of a
pornographic magazine.The joke has had, it is fair to say,
consequences. One key component of
Discordianism was something called
Operation Mindfuck – a campaign of
spontaneous disinformation, screwing with
people’s heads for the heck of it, until they can
no longer tell (or simply no longer care) what
is real and what isn’t. Sufficiently bewildered,
these people would theoretically believe
more or less anything, including – to pick an
example at random – that a self-regarding
game show host might be equal to the
presidency of the United States.One does not need to spend too long
contemplating our times to conclude that
Operation Mindfuck has been a resounding
success, if not quite what you’d call a victory. •THORNLEY AND HILL WERE
WORRIED THE WORLD WAS
BECOMING TOO CLOSED-MINDED,
AND THEY WANTED TO BRING
A LITTLE CHAOS BACK IN TO
SHAKE THINGS UP. SPREADING
MISINFORMATION, THEY THOUGHT,
MIGHT HELP THE CAUSE.