The Illuminatus! Trilogy

"It doesn't matter what happens after that," said FUCKUP. "If the situation develops as I project, the Eschaton will have been immanentized. For the Illuminati, that will mean the fulfillment of the project that has been their goal since the days of Gruad. A total victory. They will all simultaneously achieve transcendental illumination. For the human race, on the other hand, that will be extinction. The end."

BOOK FOUR: BEAMTENHERRSCHAFT

Well, Hoover performed. He would have fought. That was the point. He would have defied a few people. He would have scared them to death. He has a file on everybody.

- Richard Milhous Nixon

THE EIGHTH TRIP, OR HOD

(TELEMACHUS SNEEZED)

There came unto the High Chapperal one who had studied in the schools of the Purple Sage and of the Hung Mung Tong and of the Illuminati and of the many other schools; and this one had found no peace yet.

Yea: of the Discordians and the teachers of Mummu and of the Nazarene and of the Buddha he had studied; and he had found no peace yet.

And he spake to the High Chapperal and said: Give me a sign, that I may believe.

And the High Chapperal said unto him: Leave my presence, and seek ye the horizon and the sign shall come unto you, and ye shall seek no more.

And the man turned and sought of the horizon; but the High Chapperal crept up behind him and raised his foot and did deliver a most puissant kick in the man's arse, which smarted much and humiliated the seeker grievously.

He who has eyes, let him read and understand.

–"The Book of Grandmotherly Kindness," The Dishonest Book of Lies, by Mordecai Malignatus, K.N.S.

The Starry Wisdom Church was not 00005's idea of a proper ecclesiastical shop by any means. The architecture was a shade too Gothic, the designs on the stained-glass windows a bit unpleasantly suggestive for a holy atmosphere ("My God, they must be bloody wogs," he thought), and when he opened the door, the altar was lacking a proper crucifix. In fact, where the crucifix should have been he found instead a design that was more than suggestive. It was, in his opinion, downright tasteless.

Not High Church at all, Chips decided.

He advanced cautiously, although the building appeared deserted. The pews seemed designed for bloody reptiles, he observed- a church, of course, should be uncomfortable, that was good for the soul, but this was, well, gross. They probably advertise in the kink newspapers, he reflected with distaste. The first stained-glass window was worse from inside than outside; he didn't know who Saint Toad was, but if that mosaic with his name on it gave any idea of Saint Toad's appearance and predilections, then, by God, no self-respecting Christian congregation would ever think of sanctifying him. The next feller, a shoggoth, was even less appetizing; at least they had the common decency not to canonize him.

A rat scurried out from between two pews and ran across the center aisle, right before Chip's feet.

Fair got on one's nerves, this place did.

Chips approached the pulpit and glanced up at the Bible. That was, at least, one civilized touch. Curious as to what text might have been preached last in this den of wogs, he scrambled up into the pulpit and sca

He approached the altar, refusing to look at the abominable design above it. Rust- now what could one say of brutes who let their altar get rusty? He scraped with his thumbnail. The altar was marble, and marble doesn't rust. A decidedly unpleasant suspicion crossed his mind, and he tasted what his nail had lifted. Blood. Fairly fresh blood.

Not High Church at all.

Chips approached the vestry, and walked into a web.

"Damn," he muttered, hacking at it with his flashlight- and something fell on his shoulder. He brushed it off quickly and turned the light to the floor. It started to run up his trouser leg and he brushed it off again, begi

A damned huge ugly brute of a spider. Black gods, Saint Toads, rats, mysterious and heathenish capitalized Gates, that nasty-looking shoggoth character, and now spiders. A buggering tarantula it looked like, in fact. Next, Count Dracula, he thought grimly, testing the vestry door. It slid open smoothly and he stepped back out of visible range, waiting a moment.

They were either not home or cool enough to allow him the next move.

He stepped through the door and flashed his light around.

"Oh, God, no," he said. "No. God, no."

"Good-bye, Mr. Chips," said Saint Toad.

Did you ever take the underground from Charing Cross to one of the suburbs? You know, that long ride without stops when you're totally in the dark and everything seems to be rushing by outside in the opposite direction? Relativity, the laboratory-smock people call it. In fact, it was even more like going up a chimney than going forward in a tu