The Illuminatus! Trilogy

Another word about Alamout black: It is not for the inexperienced psychedelic voyager. For instance, the first time Simon Moon tried it, in early 1968, he had occasion to use the men's room in the Biograph Theatre (where he had gone to see Yellow Submarine while under the influence). After his bowel movement he reached for the toilet paper and saw with consternation that the first sheet hanging down off the roll was neatly stamped

OFFICIAL BAVARIAN ILLUMINATI EWIGE BLUMENKRAFT!

On ordinary marijuana or hashish, such illusions occur, of course- but they are not true hallucinations. They go away if you look 'at them hard enough. No matter how hard Simon looked at the toilet paper, it still said

OFFICIAL BAVARIAN ILLUMINATI EWIGE BLUMENKRAFT!

Simon went back to his seat in the theater badly shaken. For weeks afterward he wondered if the Illuminati had some sinister reason for infiltrating the toilet paper industry, or if the whole experience were a genuine hallucination and the first sign, as he put it, "that this fucking dope is ruining my fucking head." He never solved this mystery, but eventually he stopped worrying about it.

As for Hassan i Sabbah X and the Cult of the Black Mother, the authors have been able to learn precious little about them. Since they are clearly related somehow to the Assassins and the cult of Kali, Mother of Destruction, one can consider them part of the Illuminati, or Podge, side of the Sacred Chao; since they seem to be businessmen rather than fanatics, and since Kali might be a version of Eris, one can consider them part of the Discordian or Hodge side. Amid such speculation and much mystery, they go their dark way, peddling horse and preaching some pretty funky doctrines about Whitey. Perhaps they intend to betray everybody and run off with the loot at an opportune moment-and, then again, maybe they are the only really dedicated revolutionaries around. "Nothing is too heavy to be knocked on its ass, and everything is cool, baby" is the only summary of his personal philosophy that Hassan i Sabbah X himself would give us. He's a studly dude, and we didn't press him.

APPENDIX TZADDI: 23 SKIDOO

Linguists and etymologists have had much exercise for their not-inconsiderable imaginations in attempting to account for this expression. Skidoo has been traced back to the older skedaddle, and thence to the Greek skedannumi, "to disperse hurriedly." The 23, naturally, has caused even more creative efforts by these gentry, since they are unaware of the secret teachings of Magick. One theorist, noting that Sidney Carton in Dickens' Tale of Two Cities is the twenty-third man guillotined in the final scene,* guessed that those playgoers who were eager to get out of the theater before the crowd counted off the executions and skidoo'd toward the exits numbered 23. Another eminent scholar assumes that the expression has something to do with men hanging around the old Flatiron Building on Twenty-third Street in New York City- a notoriously windy corner- to watch ladies' skirts raised by the breeze; when a cop came, they would skidoo. Others have mused inconclusively about the early telegraph operator's signal of 23, which means (roughly) "stop transmitting," "clear the line," or, to be crude, "shut up," but nobody claims to know how telegraphers picked 23 to have this meaning.

* A literary reference which Simon Moon, with his modernistic bias, overlooked.

The mystery's real origin is a closely guarded secret of the Justified Ancients of Mummu, which Simon had not attained the rank to learn. Dillinger, however, had attained this rank, and uses the formula quite correctly in the bank robbery scene in the Third Trip. It was printed by "Prater Perdurabo" (Aleister Crowley) in The Book of Lies (privately published, 1915; republished by Samuel Weiser Inc., New York, 1970). The text of the spell makes up the totality of Chapter 23 in that curious little book; and it reads:

(23) SKIDOO

What man is at ease in his Inn?

Get out.

Wide is the world and cold.

Get out.

Thou hast become an in-itiate.

Get out.

But thou canst not get out by the way thou camest in. The Way out is THE WAY.

Get out.

For OUT is Love and Wisdom and Power.

Get OUT.

If thou hast T already, first get UT.

Then get O.

And so at last get OUT.

It is not permissible to explain this fully, but it may be stated guardedly that T is the union of sex and death, Tau, the Rosy Crucifixion; UT is Ugita in the Upanishads; and O is the Positive Void.*