At one end of Jude's living room a great bleeding sacred heart of Jesus rug covered most of the wall. An oblong coffee table stood perpendicular to it. "The end of the table nearest the rug is for objects symbolizing things in positions of political strength. Items symbolic of persons or organizations in conditions of powerlessness, position at the furthest end of the table from the bleeding heart of Jesus." This corresponded to my feeling that power is inseparable from torment. "Anything about which you feel distrust, place in this pot," I added, "this is the doobie pot, for dubious things."
Have you ever wondered why, after all these years, the truth abut the JFK murder is still being suppressed? One of the main reasons is because neither the right nor the left nor the political center wants you to discover the war in Indochina was a deliberately planned racist act of genocide. If I had understood the above van der Lubbe rap I could have known to mention this material when I testified before the Warren Commission in 1964. Since probably only a minority of the assassins wanted to expose the Nazi faction and avoid an Asian war, a compromise was probably reached where I would be given the information and then whether or not I passed it on would determine policy for all. The anti-Nazis bet that I would. I failed them. I didn't want to seem paranoid, so I discounted the conversations with Brother-in-law.
IV
The Secret Order of Thule is a German conspiracy. The Shamballah is a German-Japanese Tibetian conspiracy. The Argarthe is a German-Dutch-Finnish conspiracy. The Gerrmatch is a German conspiracy. The Vril Society is a German-Chinese conspiracy currently dedicated to exterminating Cambodians and Vietnamese. The Discordian Arballah is a Pennsylvania Dutch conspiracy. The Lucius Trust Fund is an anti-Catholic, Theosophical conspiracy. The Tri-Lateral Commission is always trying to make up its mind whether to be a Rockefeller-communist conspiracy or a Rockefeller-capitalist conspiracy. The World Power Foundation is probably a New Orleans-based conspiracy, about which Loompanics can tell you more. And of course only paranoids think the Spare Change Investment Corporation is a conspiracy.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics, which used to prove the Eristic worldview conclusively, has since been refuted (i.e. in an open or infinite system, where new energy keeps feeding in, like, perhaps, the universe, it doesn't work). That's only because Eris got pissed, though. She made it stop working. They should've called it the Fifth Law of Thermodynamics, the infidel bastards!
Many people wonder how I attained an IQ of under genius. It first became my ambition in the Marines, where I perceived immediately that the stupider you are the better off you are. People who've pursued my correspondence coursed in this discipline have in some cased qualified as actually mentally deficient; in which case they are, in many states such as California, entitled to periodic payments. Two of my graduates, Tom McNamara and Barbara Blackman, were very successful in getting SSI compensation. These courses are reasonably priced and pertain mostly to how to make people who were use to living in the intelligence community under the Shah of Iran become paranoid enough about you to blame you for all the narrowness of the Ayatollah, whereupon they will be only to glad to inflict you with chemically-induced brain damage.
I can also tell you how to get laser-beam induced cancer, sodium morphate heart attacks, or how to become the star in a snuff film, if you are feeling adventurous or masochistic. All this information is of course mailed out in plain brown envelopes.
The most dangerous activity in America, however, remains driving a car, so think about that whenever these heavy rumors frighten you. Between 50,000 and 55,000 individuals are killed every year in traffic accidents, for which opportunity they pay one day's salary out of every nine in car payments, insurance, highway taxes, repairs, etc. Not to mention the number that are maimed, crippled, etc. This is the result of a fanatical middle-of-the-road conspiracy founded by Dwight David Eisenhower called the Highway Trust Fund. I don't charge anywhere near one day's salary out of nine for my correspondence courses.
Me and Dobbs were corporals together in the Marines, incidentally, where he accidentally shot his own toe once, idly aiming a.45 pistol at a fly on his shoe on guard duty. Stang says Dobbs and Nixon were also corporals together in the Marines; maybe at a different time, because I don't remember anyone in our outfit by that name. Of course there were more than a hundred guys in MACS-1, so maybe I just didn't notice him.
Incidentally, the Treasury Department is controlled by the SS, including the President's bodyguards, all of whom think I am a reincarnation of Edgar Cayce. As a result, Reagan thinks I'm very powerful. Actually I am only the ritual scapegoat of the Tryall Club of Jamaica, for which Oswald was the ritual sacrificial goat (see Leviticus 16 for details).
I suppose that sooner or later, before I finish this, I should give you the answer to all mysteries. But for the moment it has slipped my mind. As I seem to recall it was astonishingly simple, so maybe it's just as well I passed over it because as they say, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
Robert Anton Wilson once sent me a list of rumors to spread. One of them was the George Washington grew hemp on Mount Vernon, to which he added "This one is true, but spread it anyway." Wilson and I founded the Anarchist Bavarian Illuminati to give Jim Garrision a hard time, one of whose supporters believe that the Illuminati owned all the major TV networks, the Conspiring Bavarian Seers (CBS), the Ancient Bavarian Conspiracy (ABC) and the Nefarious Bavarian Conspirators (NBC). Of course that poor nut was right and we were wrong. Or there is truth to the rumor that Wilson is an Illuminatus, although not a sinister one. A dexter one. That of course is probably a rumor he decided to spread, although it may have been true anyway. Of this I am certain. Wilson is not a Discordian. Fang excommunicated him the week after I ordained him. Anyway, maybe I (not we) was wrong. Wilson's first Illuminati letterhead contained the slogans "Victory Over Horseshit!" and "Goats Forever!" He explained this last one as due to his Capricorn sun sign; a likely story.
Slim Brooks called himself Aaron Immanuel Viking I (note the role of Aaron in Leviticus), the Keeper of the Submarine Keys. He said "I like that one because it brings to mind two questions. What submarine? And why is it locked?"
Robert Shea was most noted for taking over the job of publishing the Saturday Evening Post on Hugh Hefner's Xerox machine when it temporarily went under. Carrying the notice "Founded by Benjamin Franklin," of course. So the Saturday Evening Post was the first mass-media publication to discuss the Discordian Society and to expose the Illuminati. Later, when the Post resumed publication, he went modestly back to Benjamin Franklin's original name: The Universal Instructor in All Arts and Sciences.