Robert Wilson - The Illuminatus! Trilogy

"Come not in that form!" the priest screamed. "By Jesu Elohim and the Powers that You fear, I command thee: come not in that form! Yod He Vah He- come not in that form."

One of the women began weeping in fear.

"Quiet, you fool," Simon shouted at her. "Don't give it more Power."

"Your tongue is bound, until I release it," the priest said to her- but the distraction of his attention had its cost; Joe felt It growing in potency again, and so did the others, judging from their sudden involuntary gasps.

"Come not in that form!" the priest shouted. "By the Cross of Gold, and by the Rose of Ruby, and by Mary's Son, I command and demand it of thee: come not in that form! By thy Master, Chronzon! By Pangenitor and Panphage, come not in that form!"

There was a hiss, like air pouring into a vacuum, and the atmosphere began to clear- but it also dropped abruptly in temperature.

MASTER, CALL NO MORE UPON THOSE NAMES. I MEANT NOT TO ALARM THEE.

The Voice was the most shocking experience of the night for Joe. It was oily, flattering, obscenely humble, but there was still within it a secret strength that revealed all too well that the priest's power over it, however obtained, was temporary, that both of them knew it, and that the price of that power was something it longed to collect

"Come not in that form either," said the priest, more stern and more confident. "Ye know full well that such tones and manners are also intended to frighten, and I like not such jokes. Come in this form which thou habitually wearest in thy current earthly activities, or I shall banish thee back to that realm of which you like not to imagine. I command. I command. I command." There was nothing campy about the Padre now.

It was just a room again- an odd, medieval, mideastern room, but just a room. The figure that stood among them could not have looked less like a demon.

"OK," it said in a pleasant American voice, "we don't have to get touchy and hostile with each other over a little theatrics, do we? Just tell me what sort of business 'transaction you went and dragged me here for, and I'm sure we can work out all the details in a down-home, businesslike, cards-on-the-table fashion, with no hard feelings and mutual satisfaction all around."

It looked like Billy Graham.

("The Kennedys? Martin Luther King? You are fantastically naive still, George. It goes back much, much farther." Hagbard was relaxing with some Alamout Black hash, after the Battle of Atlantis. "Look at the pictures of Woodrow Wilson in his last months: The haggard look, the vague eyes, and, in fact, symptoms of a certain slow-acting and undetectable poison. They slipped it to him at Versailles. Or look into the Lincoln caper. Who opposed the greenback plan- the closest thing to flaxscript America ever had? Stanton the banker. Who ordered all roads out of Washington closed, except one? Stanton the banker. And Booth went straight for that road. Who got ahold of Booth's diary afterward? Stanton the banker. And turned it over to the Archives with seventeen pages missing? Stanton the banker. George, you have so much to learn about real history…")

The Reverend William Helmer, religious columnist for Confrontation, stared at the telegram. Joe Malik was supposed to be in Chicago covering the SDS convention; what was he doing in Providence, Rhode Island, and what was he involved in that could provoke such an extraordinary communication? Helmer reread the telegram carefully:

Drop next month's column. Will pay large bonus for prompt answers to these questions. First, trace all movements of Reverend Billy Graham during last week and find out if he could possibly have gotten to Chicago surreptitiously. Second, send me a list of reliable books on Satanism and witchcraft in the modern world. Tell nobody else on the magazine about this. Wire me c/o Jerry Mallory, Hotel Benefit, Providence, Rhode Island. P.S. find out where The John Dillinger Died for You Society has its headquarters. Joe Malik.

Those SDS kids must have turned him on with acid, Helmer decided. Well, he was still the boss, and he paid nice bonuses when he was pleased. Helmer reached for the phone.

(Howard, the dolphin, was singing a very satirical song about sharks, as he swam to meet the Lief Erikson at Peos.)

James Walking Bear had no great love for palefaces most of the time, but he had just dropped six peyote buttons before this Professor Mallory arrived and he was feeling benevolent and forgiving. After all, the Road Chief once said at a very sacred midsummer peyote festival that the line about forgiving those who trespass against us had a special meaning for Indians. Only when we all forgave the whites, he had said, would our hearts be totally pure, and when our hearts were pure the Curse would be lifted- the white men would cease to trespass, go home to Europe, and vex one another instead of persecuting us. James tried to forgive the professor for being white and found, as usual, that peyote made forgiveness easier.

"Billie Freschette?" he said. "Hell, she died back in sixty-eight."

"I know that," the professor said. "What I'm looking for is any photographs she may have left."

Sure. James knew what kind of photographs.

"You mean ones that had Dillinger in them?"

"Yes, she was his mistress, virtually his common-law wife, for a long time, and-"

"No soap. You're years too late. Reporters bought up everything she had that showed even the back of Dillinger's head, way back, long before she came here to the reservation to die."

"Well, did you know her?"

"Sure." James was careful not be spiteful and didn't add: all Menominee Indians know one another, in a way you whites can't understand "knowing."

"Did she ever converse about Dillinger?"

"Of course. Old women always talk about their dead men. Always say the same thing, too: never was another man as good as him. Except when they say there never was another man as bad as him. They only say that when they're drunk, though."

The paleface kept turning colors, the way people do when you're on peyote. Now he looked almost like an Indian. That made it easier to talk to him.

"Did she ever say anything about John's attitude toward the Masons?"

Why shouldn't people turn colors? All the trouble in world came from the fact that they usually stayed the same color. James nodded profoundly. As usual, peyote had brought him a big Truth. If whites and blacks and Indians were turning colors all the time, there wouldn't be any hate in the world, because nobody would know which people to hate.

"I said, did she ever mention John's attitude toward the Masons?"

"Oh. Oh, yes. Funny you should ask that." The man had a halo around his head now, and James wondered what that meant. Every time he took peyote alone things like that would happen, and he'd end up wishing there were a Road Chief or some other priest around to explain these signs properly. But what about the Masons? Oh, yes. "Billie said the Masons were the only people John Dillinger really hated. He said they railroaded him to prison the first time, and they owned all the banks, so he was getting even by robbing them."

The professor's mouth dropped open in surprise and delight- and James thought it was kind of funny to see that, especially with the halo turning from pink to blue to pink to blue to pink again at the same time.

("A big mouth, a tiny brain/He only thinks of blood and pain," Howard sang.)

Notes found by a TWA stewardess in a seat vacated by a Mr. "John Mason" after a Madison, Wisconsin, to Mexico City flight June 29, 1969: one week after the last SDS convention of all time:

"We only robbed from the banks what the banks robbed from the people"-Dillinger, Crown Point Jail, 1934. Could have come from any anarchist text.