Masks of the Illuminati (39 page)

Sir John smiled and held up a hand. “Enough,” he said. “Your point is well taken. Of course, I still have prejudices
and—I suppose—I do tend to rationalize them, like most people. But
do
you propose to convince me that there is really nothing Satanic about the depraved sexuality of Crowley and his cohorts?”

“The worship of sex,” Joyce said calmly, “is, to an objective observer, no more absurd than any other form of worship. It is, if one can trust Thomas Wright’s
History of the Worship of the Generative Organs
, Sir James Frazer’s
Golden Bough
and other standard references on ethnology, the earliest of all human religions. It was once the most widespread form of worship; it still exists within Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam; it has left traces even within Christianity—”

The doorbell rang again.

“On cue,” Joyce commented. “Has the rascal been hiding in your garden listening to us all evening, Professor?”

All three men fixed their eyes on the doorway, which was soon filled by Mileva and a middle-aged, well-dressed man with a cheery smile, holding a bottle of champagne.

“Sir Aleister Crowley, the Laird of Boleskine,” said Mileva.

PART FIVE

All material things are but masks.

—Herman Melville,
Moby Dick

CAMILLA:
You, sir, should unmask.

STRANGER:
Indeed?

CASSILDA:
Indeed, it’s time. We have all laid aside disguise but you.

STRANGER:
I wear no mask.

CAMILLA:
[
terrified, aside to Cassilda
]
:
No mask? No mask?

—Robert W. Chambers,
The King in Yellow

Were it not for the garter, I might never have seen the star.

—Aleister Crowley,
Collected Works
,
“The Star and the Garter”

Crowley crossed the cinnamonred room and handed the champagne to Einstein. Now that our merry little carnival draws to its close, he said blandly, I bring a gift of Dionysus and suggest that we celebrate. You must all be dreadfully thirsty by now.

An excellent idea, Joyce rejoyced. It looks like an archduchess’s, by God.

Babcock arose, trembling slightly. Russet sunset shadows turned his face gold and dark.

You absolute swine, he said coldly to Crowley. How dare you treat this whole cruel affair as a practical joke?

Crowley was opening the bottle. The universe itself, he replied offhandedly, is an enormous practical joke by the general at the expense of the particular.

Babcock controlled himself with effort. You tormented and deceived me for months, he said. You drove me to extremes of terror that threatened my sanity. You rotten bastard.

You
came to
us
seeking Illumination, Crowley answered. You are still receiving it. Did you imagine that Truth was a dog that will come when you whistle? Did not I.N.R.I, warn you what the alchemical transformation costs? Were you not aware from the beginning that you would be required to face everything you fear?

But Einstein said quietly: Don’t deny that you’ve been cruel.

Cruel Crowley cruelly laughed.

Deny it? he said.
Lieber Al
, I insist upon it. For I am like a refiner’s fire.

Blasphemy to justify sadism, Babcock protested. You unspeakable bastard.

Ah, Babcock, Crowley said distributing the champagne again, you still have spirit. I like that. You may be remembered someday as the disciple Crowley loved. After all, Whom the Lord loveth, He chastizeth.

More blasphemy, you swine, Baba Babcock bleated.

More champagne, rather, Joyce said. I seem to have finished mine already.

I imagine, Einstein said staring fixedly at his pipe ash glittering, that your original plan for Sir John’s rite of passage had some dramatic climax. I hope we haven’t ruined it by explaining the tricks to him prematurely.

Have some more wine, Babcock, Crowley said pouring. As a matter of fact, the climax of the drama will be much as I planned except of course that there will be three candidates instead of one.

Beat. Beat. Beat.

Three candidates, Joyce repeated finally. I smell a rat.

Einstein asked languidly:

Is there a buzzing noise in this room suddenly?

All looked at Crow Crowley, then at each other. Nothing.

That was queer, Fox Joyce said. For a moment it was as if I understood Plato. As if the moving image in time stopped and I saw the worldline in four dimensions, eternally there. Damned odd. As if the great muddy river of consciousness froze.

That buzzing, Einstein said, like a million bees …

I hear no buzzing, Joyce stated calmly. But I say, Babcock, are you well? You appear to be turning green.

Babcock turned vaginal purple. This is strange, he said carefully. I actually never felt better in my life.

The bookshelf in the corner began to shrink. Joyce stared at it bemusedly as the faint buzzing purrceptibly increased.

The strangest thing of all, Crowley crowed, is that no matter how many soldiers you march out in phalanx, the number of hunchbacks is always one greater.

Yes yes said Einstein an angry ruby-red Lion pacing. For every insight the universe gives me a new riddle. Usually by next Tuesday after lunch. But that’s the whole fun of the game.

Crowley watched detached as the oak-brown bookcase shrank. For you and me and a few others, yes, he said. But most people want the soldiers to exactly equal the hunchbacks. An answer for every question.

I say, Joyce say. Is that bookcase really shrinking?

The bookcase turned into the Zürich express roaring: Overnight overnight overnight.

The bookcase became an altar. Crowley suddenly robed in scarlet raised the flaming Wand and the moving image stopped again quite clearly this time.

Stop. Go. Stop. Go. Stop.

Many civic monsters danced around Joyce. You are telling me the truth drifting down a shrinking street, they chanted. Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Largest fraternal order in Europe. Cuckoo!

Hear me Crowley said IEOU PUR IOU PUR IOATH IAEO IOOU ABRASAX SABRIAM OO OO ADONAI EDE EDU ANGELOS TON THEON LAI GAIA AEPE DIATHARNA THORON! Indwelling sun of myself Thou fire Thou sixfold star initiator compassed about with force and fire Indwelling soul of myself Sunlionserpent Hail all Hail thou great wild beast Thou IAO Lust of my soul Lust of mine angel Ho for the grail Ho for the cup of Babalon Ho for mine angel pouring himself forth within my soul
Thou goat exalted upon earth in lust Thou snake extended upon earth in life Spirit most holy Seed most wise Innocent babe Inviolate maid Begetter of being Soul of all souls Come forth most hidden light

Overnight overnight overnight understood understood understood

Would you repeat that last bit Crowley? Joyce asked. I’m not sure I got it all what’s happening in this room, anyway

Sir John pushed open the door of M.M.M. and passed through the Parthenon, Saint Peter’s, the Eiffel Tower, Oriental pagodas, grim Gothic-faced banks, the order of chondrichthyes, the order of cyclostomata, sea lampreys, the order of Knights Templar, the order of Memphis and Mizraim, academies, laboratories, nunneries, bakeries, cathedrals, the mighty headwaters of the Amazon, the Centipede Gang. The larger can be inside the smaller: it’s a fried egg and it loves me. Drooling farmboys waving signs saying B
ESTIALITY
L
IBERATION
charge into a line of Police Constables down a windy crimson indigo Easteregg street.

The Secret Chiefs began to file solemnly silently spectrally into the room. Elias Ashmole, Secret Master, Perfect Master, Elect of Fifteen, Knight of the Triangle; Thomas Vaughan, Sovereign Grand Inspector of the 33rd Degree of and the Ancient and Accepted Polish Rite; Sir Edward Kelly, Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret; Dr. Johannes Dee, Prince of Mercy, Knight of Pnath, Secret Perfect Master; Roderic Borgia, Pope Alessandro VI, Grand Knight of Lot and the Phoenix; Michael Maier, Sage of Elia, Sage of Delphi, Master of the Triple Tau; Paracelsus, Grand Sublime Knight of St. Andrew; Adam Weishaupt, Knight of Palestine, Grand Elected Knight Kadosch Hurhausdirektorpresident; Christian Rosenkreuz, Ancient Master of the Royal Arch; Wolfgang von Goethe, True Master Adept of the Symbolic Lodges; Jacobus Burgundus Molensis the Martyr, Knight of Jerusalem, Knight of Palestine,
Knight of Wands, Sublime Scottish Architect of Heredom, Grand Knight of Sodom; Rex Frederic of Hohenstaufen, Sublime Knight of Knepth; Ludovicus Rex Bavariae, Supreme Commander of the Stars, Discreet of Chaos, Sublime Philosopher Noachite; King Kong, Primate of Skull Island; Carl Kellner, Sovereign Prince Rose Croix of Kilwinning and Heredom; Carolus Magnus, Doctor of the Izeds; Valentinus, Patriarch of Memphis and St. Joe; Sir Richard Burton, Sovereign Commander of the Temple and Prince of Jerusalem; Basilides, Grand Pontiff of the College of the Gnosis; Pythagoras, Knight of the Lybic Chain; Sir Richard Payne Knight, Commander of the Red Eagle; Manes, Patriarch of the Planispheres, Very Perfect Architect, Knight of Israel; Atilla the Hun, Valiant Master, Most Worshipful Master, Elect of the Unknown; Ludwig van Beethoven, Perfect Illustrious Elect of Nine, Order of the Peacock Angel, Master of the Triangle; Simon Magus, Knight of the Golden Branch of Eleusis; P.D.Q. Bach, Knight of the Horn and Hardart; Apollonius Tyanaeis, Grand Consecrator Architect of the Hidden City; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart of the Magic Flute, Prussian Knight, Knight of the Temple, Supreme Master Knight of the Eagle; Benjamin Franklin, Grand Axe of the Royal Arch, Sublime Knight of Choice; F. X. Preserved Coppinger, Beneficent Knight, Knight of the Rainbow, Knight of the Pelican; Vlad the Impaler, Secret Master, Knight of the Pelican and Eagle, Sovereign Prince of the Rose Croix of Heredom; Hugh Boylan, Knight of Banuka, Prince of the Pantagruelian Pike; Thomas Jefferson, Architect in Light and Perfection, Sublime of Heredom; Catullus, Sage of the Labyrinth, Knight of the High Odiamor; McIntosh Anonymoses, Sovereign Prince of the 78th, 79th and 80th Degrees of the Esoteric Order of Cranston and Bourbaki; Malechizedeck, Knight Kadosh, Knight Grand Inspector, Knight of the Royal Mystery of the Sky Chariots; Osiris, Sublime Aletophilote and Knight of Libanus; Tahuti, Knight
of the Sacred Arch, Knight of the Secret Vault; Buddha, Master Pastrophoris, Elect Neocoris, Grand Melanophoris, Perfect Master Balahate; Lao-Tse, 90th and Last Degree Supreme Grand Conservator and Absolute Grand Sovereign and Patriarch of the Order of Mizriam; Malaclypse the Younger, Omnibenevolent Polyfather of Virginity in Gold; Don Quixote de la Mancha, Knight of Jerusalem, Knight of Malta, Knight of the Mournful Countenance; Miguel Cossack, Supremest Pontificator de Kiernansis, Grand Master Constituent of the Order of the Second Geometrical Series; Walter Mitty, Secret Master, Perfect Master, Provost Judge, Intendant of Buildings, Elect of Nine, Elect of Fifteen, Sublime Elect, Companion of the Royal Arch of Enoch, Scottish Knight of Perfection, Sublime Master, Knight of the Secret Vault, Knight of the Iris, Sovereign Grand Inspector, Supreme Illustrious Honorificabilitudinatatibus of the Rose Croix, Grand Elected Knight Kadosch Praetertranssubstantiationalist, True Master Elect of the Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Arcanum, College of the Holy Ghost, Knight of Israel, Knight of Jerusalem, Knight of Memphis and Mizriam, Honorable Illustrious Grand Master Pontiff Mega-Ipssisimus Maximus Antipericatametaanparcircumvolutiorectumgustipoops of the Copoofied, 33rd degree Scottish Rite, 10th degree Ordo Templi Orientis, 97th degree Rite of Memphis and Mizriam, ROYAL SUPREME GRAND ILLUSTRIOUS MASTER of the Gnostic Catholic Church, EPOPT OF THE ILLU-MINATI; and diverse highly distinguished apes, swine, rhinoceri, fish and Advanced Vertebrates, together with notable representatives of the orders of bees, roaches, silverfish, ants, termites, sea lampreys, arachnids, locusts u.s.w and the most intelligent amoebas known to science. In a way it is pleasant to be back in the cradle again, Joyce said bashfully. When you wet the bed first it is warm then it gets cold. But now I’m drowning in it. No, I can swim. Where did all these jellyfish come from?

My God! Babcock shouted. The whole room is turning into tits!

I know, I know! Joyce cried. We’re experiencing the dawn of consciousness. But is it personal consciousness or … oh, no …

Some of the breasts are big and some are small some are conic some discoid some hemispheric some elongated there are full Earthmother breasts and moderate Gibsongirl breasts and exuberantly high Frenchwhore breasts and small flat Oriental breasts some are firm some are soft and some are flabby milk begins to drip from all of them an endless white stream like the gentle rain from heaven and all have the same parabolic loop as a suspension bridge the influence of gravity the same on both engineering and biology the upside down rainbow curve repeated endlessly almost like a cosine wave on an oscilloscope but now by God it has peppermint stripes and they are all mermaids

I am Einstein I am Babcock I am Crowley my God I am the pipeash Soul of all souls yes I am the chair Jesus Howling Christ am I still James Joyce yes I think I am yes am I?