Filled with sex and violence--in and out of time and space--the three books of The Illuminatus are only partly works of the imagination. They tackle all the coverups of our time--from who really shot the Kennedys to why there's a pyramid on a one-dollar bill.
The Illuminatus! Trilogy
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle.
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Book Description
Frequently Bought Together
Editorial Reviews
From the Publisher
Filled with sex and violence--in and out of time and space--the three books of The Illuminatus are only partly works of the imagination. They tackle all the coverups of our time--from who really shot the Kennedys to why there's a pyramid on a one-dollar bill.
From the Inside Flap
Filled with sex and violence--in and out of time and space--the three books of The Illuminatus are only partly works of the imagination. They tackle all the coverups of our time--from who really shot the Kennedys to why there's a pyramid on a one-dollar bill.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Authors
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
413 of 442 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
People love to point out, and attack, this book's muddled ideology, its ever-shifting style, its countless digressions, its violent swings between adolescent fantasies and serious philosophy, etc, etc, ad infinitum. To these people, I can only say, "Duh." This book, like most things RAW has worked on, is A TEST. It runs the gamut from Occultism to Solipsism to Libertarianism to Objectivism, and most of the things in between. Through it all, the narrative refuses to attach itself to one specific outlook. Why, you ask?
Well, the book has a surprise ending, that comes a couple months after you read the last page. I didn't want to ruin it for you, but here goes: ... Every twenty pages or so, Shea and Wilson try to win you over to a new belief system, only to tear it down a few pages later. If any of it makes you a true believer, then you weren't paying attention. Thinking for yourself has nothing to do with seeing fnords, finding erotic undertones in Catholic imagery, or getting yourself a Libertarian woman. It certainly has nothing to do with accepting the existence of a massive global conspiracy. Thinking for yourself is just that- maintaining a healthy skepticism, but keeping an open mind at the same time. You can decide what you want believe, but you must also remember that you will never have the complete picture.
Sure, this novel (trilogy) provides a taste of hallucinogenic mind-expansion on its most superficial level. But dig a little deeper and you'll find much more, not in the words of Shea and Wilson, but within (and possibly without) your own mind. The biggest mistake you can make is to assume that 'Illuminatus' is the end of your journey, when it is probably just the first step. This book is a tool for just that, the starter pistol that sets you on your own search (which, sadly, will probably not involve dolphins).
'Illuminatus' lays out a seemingly infinite number of red herrings for your perusal. It is your job, as a good little reader, to find them all (hint: there's nothing that isn't one).
This is the obligatory 5th paragraph. Superstition may not be useful, but it's fun.
Well, the book has a surprise ending, that comes a couple months after you read the last page. I didn't want to ruin it for you, but here goes: ... Every twenty pages or so, Shea and Wilson try to win you over to a new belief system, only to tear it down a few pages later. If any of it makes you a true believer, then you weren't paying attention. Thinking for yourself has nothing to do with seeing fnords, finding erotic undertones in Catholic imagery, or getting yourself a Libertarian woman. It certainly has nothing to do with accepting the existence of a massive global conspiracy. Thinking for yourself is just that- maintaining a healthy skepticism, but keeping an open mind at the same time. You can decide what you want believe, but you must also remember that you will never have the complete picture.
Sure, this novel (trilogy) provides a taste of hallucinogenic mind-expansion on its most superficial level. But dig a little deeper and you'll find much more, not in the words of Shea and Wilson, but within (and possibly without) your own mind. The biggest mistake you can make is to assume that 'Illuminatus' is the end of your journey, when it is probably just the first step. This book is a tool for just that, the starter pistol that sets you on your own search (which, sadly, will probably not involve dolphins).
'Illuminatus' lays out a seemingly infinite number of red herrings for your perusal. It is your job, as a good little reader, to find them all (hint: there's nothing that isn't one).
This is the obligatory 5th paragraph. Superstition may not be useful, but it's fun.
94 of 103 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
First, let it be said that the Illuminatus! Trilogy is not an easy book for anyone to read unless they are familiar with the philosophy of Robert Anton Wilson. Anyone who wants to read this book should first read at the very least Prometheus Rising and Cosmic Trigger I beforehand. A familiarity with the concepts of Aleister Crowley, Georges Gurdjieff, Tim Leary, etc., would also be advisable. That said, here's the review.
The Illuminatus! Trilogy is a combination of philosophy, science, occultism, and obscure ideas that is unlike anything I have read before. It's also a wonderful combination of fact and fiction, so the wise reader will enter with a skeptical but open mind. I say skeptical because they should not BELIEVE any of the novel, but they should be open to ideas because the novel will appall them otherwise. I guess you could actually say that being skeptical but open is the whole point of RAW's philosophy.
The review from Rolling Stone on the page of reviews on the first page describes the novel as a "shaggy dog joke," and you won't really understand how true that is until you read the book. The basic storyline is the storyline that has been repeated throughout mythology and history: "good versus evil." Of course, being a RAW novel, sides get flipped and everybody seems to be a secret agent working for twenty four different conspiracies. It can basically be described as very funny and blasphemous in the best possible sense. Your basic view of "reality" will probably not survive this book.
And, as a word to the wise (or the foolish), don't buy the paperback version of Illuminatus! that is available these days. Get a hardback copy; an 800 page paperback gets destroyed fairly easily, as I've come to find out.
The Illuminatus! Trilogy is a combination of philosophy, science, occultism, and obscure ideas that is unlike anything I have read before. It's also a wonderful combination of fact and fiction, so the wise reader will enter with a skeptical but open mind. I say skeptical because they should not BELIEVE any of the novel, but they should be open to ideas because the novel will appall them otherwise. I guess you could actually say that being skeptical but open is the whole point of RAW's philosophy.
The review from Rolling Stone on the page of reviews on the first page describes the novel as a "shaggy dog joke," and you won't really understand how true that is until you read the book. The basic storyline is the storyline that has been repeated throughout mythology and history: "good versus evil." Of course, being a RAW novel, sides get flipped and everybody seems to be a secret agent working for twenty four different conspiracies. It can basically be described as very funny and blasphemous in the best possible sense. Your basic view of "reality" will probably not survive this book.
And, as a word to the wise (or the foolish), don't buy the paperback version of Illuminatus! that is available these days. Get a hardback copy; an 800 page paperback gets destroyed fairly easily, as I've come to find out.
27 of 28 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Other reviews address the content, significance, imagination etc.
No one else has mentioned this yet, but I am most impressed with just the in-depth quality of the writing craft itself, once you get past some strange quirks, like the sudden jumps among different first- and third-person perspectives.
Parts of it might read as if they are just "stream of consciousness", but they were certainly not all just streamed out that way onto the page, without significant work ... when you step back, and look at the assembling/disassembling/re-assembling of so many intricate parts, into a twisted non-Euclidean curved pyramidal whole, the craft and work involved is quite impressive.
Also having "been there" a few times, many years ago, I can say that their vivid verbal portrayals, of some extremely emotional psychedelic hallucinogenic schizoid states, are right on.
(ignoring the actual content of the specific trip, I mean, just focusing on the verbal portrayal of the emotional state, it reads like something out of my own long-ago experiences, except that they are much better writers than I could hope to be, they actually managed to get it written down in words, in a reasonably effective way!)
Plus, so many of the characters etc. are familiar from my youth, it is a huge nostalgia trip for me too, a nice ride through familiar old stomping grounds of my youth. That is, back around then, circa 1972, I was a 12-year old pre-pubescent H.P.Lovecraft freak, Abbie Hoffman freak, science fiction freak, etc., had a crazy mother totally into Atlantis and all that fernando POO, and at the same time also had friends in the neighborhood, who were into Aleister Crowley, Anton LaVey Satanism, etc. Consequently I knew a lot more about the Satanic Bible, for instance, than I ever did about any of the Christian/Jewish mis-translations.
So, it's like, the story of my tribe, it's like I could have been a very minor character, in the book. And there are a lot of us wandering around, still dazed & confused out here somewhere at least in the back of our minds .... so I see, this book is for US.
This is a book I SHOULD have read, back then when it was new. But that's OK, I lived it instead... and the book is still a great read, even today, over 30 years later.
No one else has mentioned this yet, but I am most impressed with just the in-depth quality of the writing craft itself, once you get past some strange quirks, like the sudden jumps among different first- and third-person perspectives.
Parts of it might read as if they are just "stream of consciousness", but they were certainly not all just streamed out that way onto the page, without significant work ... when you step back, and look at the assembling/disassembling/re-assembling of so many intricate parts, into a twisted non-Euclidean curved pyramidal whole, the craft and work involved is quite impressive.
Also having "been there" a few times, many years ago, I can say that their vivid verbal portrayals, of some extremely emotional psychedelic hallucinogenic schizoid states, are right on.
(ignoring the actual content of the specific trip, I mean, just focusing on the verbal portrayal of the emotional state, it reads like something out of my own long-ago experiences, except that they are much better writers than I could hope to be, they actually managed to get it written down in words, in a reasonably effective way!)
Plus, so many of the characters etc. are familiar from my youth, it is a huge nostalgia trip for me too, a nice ride through familiar old stomping grounds of my youth. That is, back around then, circa 1972, I was a 12-year old pre-pubescent H.P.Lovecraft freak, Abbie Hoffman freak, science fiction freak, etc., had a crazy mother totally into Atlantis and all that fernando POO, and at the same time also had friends in the neighborhood, who were into Aleister Crowley, Anton LaVey Satanism, etc. Consequently I knew a lot more about the Satanic Bible, for instance, than I ever did about any of the Christian/Jewish mis-translations.
So, it's like, the story of my tribe, it's like I could have been a very minor character, in the book. And there are a lot of us wandering around, still dazed & confused out here somewhere at least in the back of our minds .... so I see, this book is for US.
This is a book I SHOULD have read, back then when it was new. But that's OK, I lived it instead... and the book is still a great read, even today, over 30 years later.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Illuminonsense
Don't even try to make sense of this lunacy, you'll only hurt yourself. Just buckle up and enjoy this whiplash-inducing ride through the shadowy corners of history, occult lore and... Read more
Published 1 month ago by jonathan briggs
Travel Through Time, Space, and Thought--and Never Get Back
It's a truism that a ground-breaking work is often not as well known as its successors. Edgar Allen Poe's prototypical C. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Johnny Shellburn
convoluted is only the beginning
This trilogy is the granddaddy of conspiracy theory fiction. It also jumps all over the place. It jumps in time. It jumps in perspective, from first-person to third-person. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Nadyne Richmond
A review of reviews and also a review
This is a collection of what I believe are the best reviews on this book:
One reviewer said "This is a book I SHOULD have read, back then when it was new. Read more
One reviewer said "This is a book I SHOULD have read, back then when it was new. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Prof. Byron Brainard
lost a sale
Charging more for the kindle edition than the paper back cost you a sale. You have to pay $200+ for a kindle yet an extra premium for the books. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Nathan M. Schwermann
A manual for sanity
If Wilfried Saetty made books instead of paintings, this would be the result.
This is the manifesto I didn't quite know I had; it makes lovely, hallucinatory sense. Read more
This is the manifesto I didn't quite know I had; it makes lovely, hallucinatory sense. Read more
Published 3 months ago by the27th
An utter waste(r) of "TIME" & "ENERGY" & one's "BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT"...
Certain things, once gotten into one's head, can't be easily "gotten out" again -- this would account for no little amount of hysteria from what you might call "conservative" types... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Christopher Joseph Snyder
The only book I never finished
Why cant O pick zero stars? This was less entertaining than the cereal box - and I havent eaten cereal since I was 12... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Brad
I had no idea what I was reading
Was this book written by one person? It didn't make any sense, the writing styles kept on changing, and there was no plot or consistency. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Irene Lee
Aren't mind altering substances illegal?
Ok first I have to clarify what I mean, This book is such a trip through so many thoughts and ideas that to any one that say's they can't follow it or understand don't give it one... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Zach
Inside This Book
(learn more)
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
![[Start the discussion]](http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/x-locale/communities/discussion_boards/start-new-discussion-sec._V192250339_.gif){kind=small}
Listmania!
|
|
