Science Fiction Review

Interview 1

Science Fiction Review: The theme of “immanentizing the Eschaton” runs throughout Illuminatus!, but the phrase is never defined or explained. In the framework of the book, this seems to imply that various secret societies are working to bring about the end of the world. Is that a valid interpretation?

Wilson: The phrase was coined by a Christian historian, Eric Vogelin, and refers to the Gnostic doctrine that people aren’t really as hopelessly mired in Original Sin as Christians think. Eschaton, from the Greek, means the last thing, and, in Christian theology, this would be Heaven. “Immanentizing the Eschaton” means seeking Heaven within the “immanent” universe, i.e., the only universe we know.

To a thoroughgoing Christian pessimist like Vogelin, anybody who tries to be happy or make others happy is dangerously close to Gnostic heresy. I am all for immanentizing the Eschaton in this sense, next Tuesday if possible. Vogelin detects immanentizing tendencies in humanists, liberals, technologists, optimistic philosophies of evolution like Nietzsche’s, communists, anarchists, and most of the post-medieval thought of the Western World, all of which are overtly or covertly aiming at the verboten “heaven on the material plane.”

In the novel, we make the point that conservatives are also in danger of immanentizing the Eschaton by continuing a cold war that can only result in Hell on the material plane: nuclear incineration.

In one sense, Illuminatus! is a reductio ad absurdum of all mammalian politics, right or left, by carrying each ideology one logical step further than its exponents care to go. Voltaire used that satirical judo against the Churchmen, and I decided it’s time to turn it on the Statesmen. The only intelligent way to discuss politics, as Tim Leary says, is on all fours. It all comes down to territorial brawling.

SFR: I understand the Eschaton theme stems from an anti-Gnostic campaign in the National Review some time ago. Could you fill us in on the origins of the term?

Wilson: As I say, it was coined by Vogelin. The anti-Gnostic theme was chronic in conservative circles during the early ‘60s and even got into a Time editorial once. As an ordained priest of the Gnostic Catholic Church, I find this amusing, since it makes most of the educated classes into unknowing disciples of us Gnostics. As Marx said under similar circumstances, “I once shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas I’ll never know.”

SFR: How serious are you about the rule of fives and the importance of 23?

Wilson: If Illuminatus! doesn’t answer that, nothing else will. The documented fact that I have published serious, or at least pedantic, articles on Cabala should add to the mystery. The philosophical point of the book is the reader’s own answer to the question, “Is the 5-23 relationship a put-on or an important Cabalistic revelation?” Of course, Cabala itself is a complicated joke, but all profound philosophies turn out to be jokes.

SFR : How serious are you about the Illuminati and conspiracies in general?

Wilson: Being serious is not one of my vices. I will venture, however, that the idea that there are no conspiracies has been popularized by historians working for universities and institutes funded by the principal conspirators of our time: the Rockefeller-Morgan banking interests, the Council on Foreign Relations crowd, the Trilateral Commission. This is not astonishing or depressing. Conspiracy is standard mammalian politics for reasons to be found in ethology and Von Neumann’s and Morgenstern’s Theory of Games and Economic Behavior. Vertebrate competition depends on knowing more than the opposition, monopolizing information along with territory, hoarding signals. Entropy, in a word. Science is based on transmitting the signal accurately, accelerating the process of information transfer. Negentropy. The final war may be between Pavlov’s Dog and Schrödinger’s Cat.

However, I am profoundly suspicious about all conspiracy theories, including my own, because conspiracy buffs tend to forget the difference between a plausible argument and a real proof. Or between a legal proof, a proof in the behavioral sciences, a proof in physics, a mathematical or logical proof, or a parody of any of the above. My advice to all is Buddha’s last words, “Doubt, and find your own light.” Or, as Crowley wrote, “I slept with Faith and found her a corpse in the morning. I drank and danced all night with Doubt, and found her a virgin in the morning.” Doubt suffereth long, but is kind; doubt covereth a multitude of sins; doubt puffeth not itself up into dogma. For now abideth doubt, hope, and charity, these three: and the greatest of these is doubt. With doubt all things are possible. Every other entity in the universe, including Goddess Herself, may be trying to con you. It’s all Show Biz. Did you know that Billy Graham is a Bull Dyke in drag?

Interview with Robert Anton Wilson copyright © 1976 Richard E. Geis, for Science Fiction Review No. 17, May, 1976.