The Illuminatus! Trilogy

It was too damned true. A nerve twinged deep down inside at the unfairness of it, of his ability to see into me more than I usually dared see into myself; and at last I grabbed the gun from the table, screaming, "You sadistic Stalinist son-of-a-bitch!"

"And look at the eagle," Simon says. "Look real close. That ain't really no olive branch in his left claw, baby.

That's our old friend Maria Juana. You never really looked at a dollar bill before, did you?

"And the real symbolism of the pyramid is alchemical, of course. The traditional code represents the three kinds of sex by a cube, a pyramid, and a sphere. The cube is that travesty we call 'normal sex, in which the two nervous systems never actually merge at the orgasm, like the two parallel sides of the cube. The pyramid is the two coming together and joining, the magical-telepathic orgasm. The sphere is the Tantric ritual, endlessly prolonged, with no orgasm at all. The alchemists used that code for over two thousand years. The Rosicrucians among the founding fathers used the pyramid as a symbol of their kind of sex magic. Aleister Crowley used that symbol the same way, more recently. The eye on the pyramid is the two minds meeting. Neurological interlock. The opening of the Eye of Shiva. Ewige Schlangekraft-the eternal serpent power. The joining of the Rose and Cross, vagina and penis, into Rose-Cross. The astral leap. Mind escaping from physiology."

The AUM was supposed to work almost instantly, according to what the scientists at ELF had told Hagbard, so Joe approached the first man who had sampled the punch and started a conversation. "Nice talk Smiling Jim gave," he said earnestly. (I rammed the gun into Carlo's gut and saw him go white about the lips. "No, don't worry," I said, smiling. "I'm not using it on you. But when I come back there'll be a dead pig on the streets somewhere in Morningside Heights." He started to speak, and I jabbed downward with the gun, grinning as he gasped for air. "Comrade," I added.) "Yeah, Smiling Jim was born with a silver tongue," the other man said.

"A silver tongue," Joe agreed solemnly, then added, holding out his hand, "by the way, I'm Jim Mallison from the New York delegation."

"Knew by your accent," the other said shrewdly. "I'm Clem Cotex from down Little Rock." They shook. "Pleasure to meet you."

"Too bad about that kid that got thrown out," Joe said, lowering his voice. "It looked to me like that usher really was- you know- touching him."

Cotex looked surprised for a moment, but then shook his head in doubt. "Can't tell nowadays, especially in big cities. Do you really think an Andy Frain

usher could be a- fairy?"

"Like you said, nowadays in big cities…" Joe shrugged. "I'm just saying that it looked like it to me. Of course, maybe the usher isn't one. Maybe he's just a cheap thief who was trying to pick the kid's pocket. A lot of that goes on these days, too." Cotex involuntarily reached back to check his own wallet, and Joe went on blandly. "But I wouldn't rule out the other, not by a long shot. What sort of man would want to be an usher at a KCUF meeting, if you stop and think about it? You must have observed how many homosexuals there are in our organization."

"What?" Cotex's eyes bulged.