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Masks of the Illuminati

robert anton wilson

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One fateful evening in a suitably dark, beer-soaked Swiss rathskeller, a wild and obscure Irishman named James Joyce would become the drinking partner of an unknown physics professor called Albert Einstein. And on that momentous night, Sir John Babcock, a terror-stricken young Englishman, would rush through the tavern door bringing a mystery that the two most brilliant minds of the century could solve...or perhaps bringing only a figment of his imagination born of the paranoia of our times.

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,1981

This edition

Format
368 pages, Paperback
Published
June 1, 1990 by Random House Publishing Group
ISBN
9780440503064
ASIN
044050306X
Language
English
Characters More characters
  • Ezra Pound

    Ezra Pound

    Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (1885 - 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works include Ripostes (1912), Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (19...

  • Aleister Crowley

    Aleister Crowley

    Aleister Crowley (1875 – 1947) was an English occultist, ceremonial magician, poet, painter, novelist, and mountaineer. He founded the religion of Thelema, identifying himself as the prophet entrusted with guiding humanity into the Æon of Horus in the ear...

  • James Joyce

    James Joyce

    James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (1882 – 1941) was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century. Joyce is best known for Ulysses (1922), a landmark work in which the ...

  • John Babcock

    John Babcock

    ...

  • George Cecil Jones

    George Cecil Jones

    ...

  • Albert Einstein

    Albert Einstein

    A German-born theoretical physicist who developed the general theory of relativity, one of the two pillars of modern physics (alongside quantum mechanics). While best known for his mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc2 (dubbed "the worlds most fam...

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About the author

Profile Image for robert anton wilson

robert anton wilson

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Robert Anton Wilson was an American author, futurist, psychologist, and self-described agnostic mystic. Recognized within Discordianism as an Episkopos, pope and saint, Wilson helped publicize Discordianism through his writings and interviews. In 1999 he described his work as an "attempt to break down conditioned associations, to look at the world in a new way, with many models recognized as models or maps, and no one model elevated to the truth". Wilson's goal was "to try to get people into a state of generalized agnosticism, not agnosticism about God alone but agnosticism about everything."
In addition to writing several science-fiction novels, Wilson also wrote non-fiction books on extrasensory perception, mental telepathy, metaphysics, paranormal experiences, conspiracy theory, sex, drugs, and what Wilson called "quantum psychology".
Following a career in journalism and as an editor, notably for Playboy, Wilson emerged as a major countercultural figure in the mid-1970s, comparable to one of his coauthors, Timothy Leary, as well as Terence McKenna.

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Rating(3.9 / 5.0, 69 votes)
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69 reviews All reviews
Profile Image for Kimberly .
Mcgillacuddy
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Как бы не лучший детектив, что мне приходилось читать, гениальный развлекательный роман - превосходный, очень ловко сделанный, разнообразный и дразнящий. Он параллелен Пинчону и Умберто Эко, провозвестник Нила Стивенсона и Алана Мура.
Заканчивается все чудесной кроулианской мистерией, якобы под галлюциногенами в шампанском, но в ней дивно мешаются наука и мистика, квантовая теория и магия, относительность и эзотерика, подчеркивая еще раз, что они мало чем друг от дружки отличаются. Результатом ее в поэтическом мире РЭУ станут всеобщая теория поля, "Улисс" и "Финнеганы", и это нечеловечески прекрасная поэзия, конечно. РЭУ гуманист и романтик, каких немного в литературе.

Оказалось, лет 20 назад он выходил по-русски, но я не верю в ру-перевод, чесгря, потому что он предваряется таким вот замечанием "От издателя": "Роман «Маски иллюминатов», открывающий знаменитую уилсоновскую фантастическую эпопею, публикуется с незначительными сокращениями". Здесь содержится как минимум одна глупость: никакую "эпопею" он не "открывает", это отдельностоящий роман, - и замечание про сокращения очень сильно настораживает, потому что необязательных длиннот я в нем не обнаружил. Надо думать, неведомые мне "издательский дом Янус" и переводчик Максим Чеботарев считали себя умнее автора.
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Profile Image for Kimberly .
BudokaZ
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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ME: * casually reading Masks of the Illuminati by Robert Anton Wilson *

RANDOM PERSON: "Reading a book, eh? What's it about?"

ME: * confused, thousand-yard-stare *

RANDOM PERSON: "I don't mean to bother, just curious..."

ME: "It's... it's essentially a counter-culture supernatural mystery buddy-movie disguised as a novel: Albert Einstein and James Joyce team up to solve a series of mysteries in 1914, involving the likes of Aleister Crowley, the Monster of Loch Ness, a whole host of esoteric/satanic authors and thinkers, a mindmelting initiation into a cult, an undergoing (or is it overgoing?) into the collective unconscious, and of course more conspiracy groups than you can shake a stick at. If you take the lengthy expositions on Tarot cards, Kabbala, and numerology, the overabundance of Latin and German quotes, the imitation (or is it a homage?) of Joyce's stream-of-consciousness writing style, and the half-assed application of physics to psychology with a grain of salt, it's actually one hell of a ride that is worth reading several times over."

RANDOM PERSON: "..."

ME: "Don't forget to look for the hunchback behind every soldier!"

RANDOM PERSON: *Slowly steps backwards - leaves the scene*
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Profile Image for Kimberly .
XxohhyesxX
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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if it hadn't been for those meddling genii, big al might have gotten away with it. but he wilt anyway! for Holmes and Watson read Einstein and Joyce as they seek to solve the mystery of the beast who stalks and terrifies the secret society initiate, Sir John Babcock, who's initiation has been mentally over arduous over a number of years. from the shores of loch ness to a rathskeller in switzerland via greystoke manor, the mystery deepens as it tramples a path through the expected, and ultimately drops everything at the doorstep of our illuminated detectives. deliberately? whom knows!
as a Wilson initiate of about a year myself, i am randomly going through his canon, but coincidentally (there are no coincidences! fnord!) they have been running seamlessly into each other. ('illuminatus', 'schrodinger's cat', this, then 'cosmic trigger'). my route here was through the brilliant John Higgs, and i would say i wish i'd got here sooner, but hey, i'm here now!
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Profile Image for Kimberly .
Ashkody
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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The only book that pits Albert Einstein and James Joyce against the forces of darkness and conspiracy…or does it?
A puzzle of a book.
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