The Illuminatus! Trilogy

"Good. Then your religion is just a matter of believing what you have been told and not of a personal emotional experience. All such experiences come from the lloigor, to enslave us. Revelations, visions, trances, miracles, all of it is a trap. Ordinary, normal people instinctively avoid such aberrations. Unfortunately, due to their gullibility and a concerted effort to brainwash them, they are willing to follow the witches and wizards and shamans who traffic in these matters. You see, and I urge you to take another drink right now, every religious leader in human history has been a member of the Cult of the Yellow Sign and all their efforts are devoted to hoaxing, deluding and enslaving the rest of us."

Danny finished his glass and asked meekly, "May I have more?"

Mama Sutra buzzed for Miss Mao and said, "You're taking this part very well. People who have

had religious visions take it very poorly; they don't want to know what foul source those experiences actually came from. The lloigor, of course, can be considered gods- or demons- but it is more profitable, at this point in history, to just consider them another life form cast up by the universe, unfortunately superior to us and even more unfortunately inimical to us. You see, religion is always a matter of sacrifice, and whenever there is a sacrifice there is a victim- and also a person or entity profiting from the sacrifice. There is no religion in the world- not one- that is not a front for the Cult of the Yellow Sign. The Cult itself, like the lloigor, is of prehuman origin. It began among the snake people of Valusia, the peninsula that is now Europe, and then spread eastward to be adopted by the first humans in Carcosa. Always the purpose of the Cult has been to serve the lloigor, at the expense of other human beings. Since the rise of the Illuminati, the Cult has also acted to combat their work and discredit them."

Danny was glad that Miss Mao arrived then with his third stiff bourbon. "And who are the Illuminati and what is their goal?" he asked, belting away a strong swallow.

"Their founder," Mama Sutra said, "was the first man to think rationally about the lloigor. He realized that they were not supernatural, but just another aspect of nature; not all-powerful, but just more powerful than us; and that when they came 'out of the heavens' they came from other worlds like this one. His name has come down to us in certain secret teachings and documents. It was Ma-lik."

"Jesus," Danny said, "that's the name of the guy whose disappearance started all this."

"The name meant 'one who knows' in the Carcosan tongue. Among the Persians and some Arabs today it still exists but means 'one who leads.' His followers, the Illuminati, are those who have seen the light of reason- which is quite distinct from the stupefying and mind- destroying light in which the lloigor sometimes appear to overwhelm and mystify their servants in the Cult of the Yellow Sign. What Ma-lik sought, what the Illuminati still seek, is scientific knowledge that will surpass the powers of the lloigor, end mankind's enslavement and allow us to become self-owners instead of property."

"How large is the Illuminati?"

"Very small. I don't know the exact number." Mama Sutra sighed. "I have never been accepted for membership. Their standards are quite high. One must virtually be a walking encyclopedia to qualify for an initial interview. You must remember that this is the most dedicated, most persecuted, most secret group in the world. Everything they do, if not wiped off the records by the Cult of the Yellow Sign, is always misrepresented and pictured as malign, devious and totally evil. Indeed, any effort to be rational, to think scientifically, to discover or publish a new truth, even by those outside the Illuminati, is always pictured in those colors by the Cult and all the religions which serve as its fronts. All churches, Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Moslem, Hindu, Buddhist or whatever, have always opposed and persecuted science. The Cult of the Yellow Sign even fills the mass media with this propaganda. Their favorite stories are the one about the scientist who isn't fully human until he has a religious insight and recognizes 'the higher powers'- the lloigor, that is- and the other one about the scientist who seeks truth without fear and causes a disaster. 'He meddled with things man should leave alone' is always the punch line on that one. The same hatred of knowledge and glorification of superstition and ignorance permeates all human societies. How much more of this can you stand?" Mama Sutra asked abruptly.