The Illuminatus! Trilogy

Not only were Marsh's theories now beyond all scientific credibility, but his methods- such as quoting Allegro's The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross or Graves' The White Goddess as if they were as reputable as Boas, Mead, or Frazer- seemed to indicate senility. This impression was increased by the eccentric dedication "To Ezra Pound, Jacques De Molay and Emperor Norton I." The real scientific scandal was not the theory of Atlantis (that was a bee that had haunted many a scholarly bo

Professor Marsh's rapid decline, in the few months between the book's unanimous rejection by the learned world and his sudden disappearance, caused great pain to colleagues at Miskatonic. Many recognized that he had acquired some of his notions from Dr. Henry Armitage, generally regarded as having gone somewhat bananas after too many years devoted to puzzling out the obscene metaphysics of the Necronomicon. When the librarian Miss Horus mentioned at a faculty tea shortly after the disappearance that Marsh had spent much of the past month with that volume, one Catholic professor urged, only half-jokingly, that Miskatonic should rid itself of scandals once and for all by presenting "that damned book" (he emphasized the word very deliberately) to Harvard.

Missing Persons Department of the Arkham police assigned the Marsh case to a young detective who had previously distinguished himself by tracing several missing infants to one of the particularly vile Satanist cults that have festered in that town since the witch-hunting days of 1692. His first act was to examine the manuscript on which the old man had been working since the completion of "Atlantis and Its Gods." It seemed to be a shortish essay, intended for an anthropological magazine, and was quite conservative in tone and concept, as if the professor regretted the boldness of his previous speculations. Only one footnote, expressing guarded and qualified endorsement of Urqhuart's theory about Wales being settled by survivors from Mu, showed the bizarre preoccupations of the Atlantis book. However, the final sheet was not related to this article at all and seemed to be notes for a piece which the Professor evidently intended to submit, brazenly and in total contempt of academic opinion, to a pulp publication devoted to flying saucers and occultism. The detective puzzled over these notes for a long time:

The usual hoax: fiction presented as fact. This hoax described here opposite to this: fact presented as fiction.

Huysmans' La-Bas started it, turns the Satanist into hero.

Machen in Paris 1880s, met with Huysman's circle.

"Dols" and "Aklo letters" in Machen's subsequent "fiction."

Same years: Bierce and Chambers both mention Lake of Hali and Carcosa. Allegedly, coincidence.

Crowley recruiting his occult circle after 1900.

Bierce disappears in 1913.

Lovecraft introduces Halt, dols, Aklo, Cthulhu after 1923.

Lovecraft dies unexpectedly, 1937.

Seabrook discusses Crowley, Machen, etc. in his "Witchcraft," 1940.

Seabrook's "suicide," 1942.

Emphasize: Bierce describes Oedipus Complex in "Death of Halpin Frazer," BEFORE Freud, and relativity in "Inhabitant of Carcosa," BEFORE Einstein. Lovecraft's ambiguous descriptions of Azathoth as "blind idiot-god," "Demon-Sultan" and "nuclear chaos" circa 1930: fifteen years before Hiroshima.

Direct drug references in Chambers' "King in Yellow," Machen's 'White Powder," Lovecraffs "Beyond the Wall of Sleep" and "Mountains of Madness."

The appetites of the Lloigor or Old Ones in Bierce's "Damned Thing." Machen's "Black Stone," Love-craft (constantly.)

Atlantis known as Thule both in German and Panama Indian lore, and of course, "coincidence" again the accepted explanation. Opening sentence for article: "The more frequently one uses the word 'coincidence' to explain bizarre happenings, the more obvious it becomes that one is not seeking, but evading, the real explanation." Or, shorter: "The belief in coincidence is the prevalent superstition of the Age of Science."

The detective then spent an afternoon at Miskatonic library, browsing through the writings of Ambrose Bierce, J-K Huysmans, Arthur Machen, Robert W. Chambers, and H. P. Lovecraft. He found that all repeated certain key words; dealt with lost continents or lost cities; described superhuman beings trying to misuse or victimize mankind in some unspecified ma

Huysmans-hysteria, complaints about occult attacks, final seclusion in a monastery.

Chambers-abandons such subjects, turns to light romantic fiction.

Bierce-disappears mysteriously. Lovecraft-dead at an early age. Crowley-hounded into silence and obscurity. Machen-becomes a devout Catholic. (Huysmans' escape?) Seabrook-alleged suicide.

The detective then went back and reread, not skimming this time, the stories by these writers in which drugs were specifically mentioned, according to Marsh's notes. He now had a hypothesis: the old man had been lured into a drug cult, as had these writers, and had been terrified by his own hallucinations, finally ending his own life to escape the phantoms his own narcotic-fogged brain had created. It was a good enough theory to start with, and the detective conscientiously set about interviewing every friend on campus of old Marsh, leading into the subject of grass and LSD very slowly and indirectly. He made no headway and was begi

"A very interesting fungus, amanita," this professor told the detective. "Some sensationalists without scholarly caution have claimed it was every magic potion in ancient lore: the soma of the Hindus, the sacrament used in the Dionysian and Eleusinian mysteries in Greece, even the Holy Communion of the earliest Christians and Gnostics. One chap in England even claims amanita, and not hashish, was the drug used by the Assassins in the Middle Ages, and there's a psychiatrist in New York, Puharich, who claims it actually does induce telepathy. Most of that is rubbish, of course, but amanita certainly is the strongest mind-altering drug in the world. If the kids ever latch onto it, LSD will seem like a tempest in a teapot by comparison."

The detective now concentrated on finding somebody- anybody- who had actually seen old Marsh when he was stoned out of his gourd. The testimony finally came from a young black student named Pearson, who was majoring in anthropology and minoring in music. "Excited and euphoric? Yeah," he said thoughtfully. "I saw old Joshua that way once. It was in the library of all places- that's where my girl works- and the old man jumped up from a table gri