The Illuminatus! Trilogy

The fourth stage, Beamtenherrschaft or bureaucracy, represents the Parentheses that occur when the Hegelian Synthesis does not succeed in reconciling the opposites. This correlates with Void (absence of any divinity); with IChing hexagram 47, K'un, oppression or exhaustion, superior men held in restraint by inferior men; with the number 8, indicating balance and the Last Judgment; with the 16th Tarot trump, Falling Tower, representing deteriorations and the Tower of Babel; and with the planetoid or sign of the moon,. On the Zodiac: Libra,

The fifth stage, Grummet or aftermath, represents the transition back to chaos. Bureaucracy chokes in its own paperwork; mind is at the end of its tether; in desperation, many begin to deny the logogram and follow the biogram, with varying degrees of success. This correlates with Hermaphrodite; with IChing hexagram 59, Huan, dispersion, dissolution, foam on the water; with the number 5, union of male and female; with the 6th trump of the Tarot, the Lovers, indicating union; and with the sun or its symbol,. On the Zodiac: Virgo,

Since the association of these references, and their bearings on history, may be a bit unclear to some readers, we will give further details on each stage.

VERWIRRUNG

In this chaotic period, the Hodge and the Podge are in dynamic balance. There is no stasis: The balance is always shifting and homeostatic, in the manner of the ideal "self-organizing system" of General Systems Theory or Cybernetics. The Illuminati, and all authoritarian types in general, dislike such ages so much that they try to prevent any records of their existence from reaching the general public. Pre-Chou China was one such period, and its history (except for some fragments in Taoist lore) is largely lost; we do know, however, that the I Ching was reorganized when the Chou Dynasty introduced patriarchal authoritarianism to China. It was then that the hexagram K'un,, associated with this period was moved from the first place to its present, second place in the Ching. Every line in K'un is broken (yin), because this is a feminist and prepatriarchal form of society, and because yin correlates with the agricultural rather than the urban. Always linked to darkness by mystics, this K'un style of sensibility is also linked, by the Illuminati, with dreck (dung) and everything they find messy and intolerable about ordinary human beings. (The Erisians, of course, take the opposite position, connect this with Eris, the primordial goddess, and regard it as ideal.)

Verwirrung is numerologically linked with 2, not only because of K'un's shift from first to second place in the Ching, but because it is the balance of Hodge and Podge. Thus, even though it is the first stage chronologically, it is never linked with 1 in magic sense, because 1 signifies the erect penis, the male principle in isolation, and such authoritarian games as monotheism, monopoly, monogamy, and general monotony. This dynamic 2-ness of Verwirrung is also implicit in its Tarot card, the 2nd trump or High Priestess, who sits between a black pillar and a white one (cf. The Hodge and Podge) and who represents mystery, magic, mischief, and Erisian values generally. She wears the balanced (solar) cross, rather than the unbalanced (Christian) cross, to emphasize the unity of opposites in such a historical period.

Typical Aquarians who have manifested Verwirrung values are Aaron Burr, Christopher Marlowe, Hung Mung, Charles Darwin, Willard Gibbs (who incorporated chaos into mathematics), Mrs. Patrick Campbell, Elizabeth Blackwell (pioneer woman physician), Anna Pavlova, Mozart, Lewis Carrol, Robert Burns, James Joyce, Lord Byron, David Wark Griffith, and Gelett Burgess, author of the classic Erisian poem:

I never saw a purple cow I never hope to see one But I'll tell you this anyhow: I'd rather see than be one.

The Verwirrung phase of European history is identified with the Danubian Culture, so called because most of its relics have been found along the shores of the Danube. According to archeologists, the Danubian culture was agricultural, pre-urban, worshipped a female rather than a male god, and never invented anything remotely like a state. The pre-Inca society of Peru, the Minoan civilization, the pre-Chou period of China already mentioned, and many American Indian tribes still surviving also represent a Verwirrung social framework. The synthesis of Hodge and Podge, and especially of biogram and logogram, in such cultures is indicated by the amazement of explorers from authoritarian societies when first encountering them. The usual words about the "grace" and "spontaniety" of the natives merely represent the lack of authoritarian conflict between biogram and logogram: These people sit, like the Tarot High Priestess, between opposite poles, without tilting one way or the other.