Talk:The Illuminatus! Trilogy/Summary proposal by xyzzy n

Plot summary

{{spoiler}} The trilogy begins with an investigation by New York City detectives Saul Goodman and Barney Muldoon into the bombing of the leftist magazine Confrontation and the disappearance of its editor, Joe Malik. The detectives follow a trail of memos containing cryptic clues that suggest the involvement of powerful secret conspiracies. At the same time, the magazine's reporter George Dorn, having been turned loose without support in right-wing Mad Dog, Texas, is arrested for possession of drugs. He is jailed and physically threatened, at one point hallucinating about his own execution. The prison is bombed and he is rescued by the Discordians, led by the enigmatic Hagbard Celine, captain of a huge golden submarine. Hagbard leads the Discordians in their battle against the Illuminati, an organization that secretly controls the world.

The plot meanders circuitously and non-linearly around the globe to such far-flung locations as Las Vegas, Nevada, where an epidemic of mutated anthrax has been unleashed, Atlantis, where Howard, the talking porpoise, and his porpoise comrades help Hagbard battle the Illuminati, Chicago, Illinois at several different times and the island of Fernando Poo, which is the location of a Cold War standoff between Russia, China and the USA.

The Illuminati attempt to immanentize the eschaton, which is a catchphrase meaning "to bring about the end of the world" or "to create heaven on earth". They intend to perform a mass human sacrifice, the purpose of which is the release of enough "life-energy" to give eternal life to a select group of initiates, including Adolf Hitler, during the first European "Woodstock" festival, held at Ingolstadt, Bavaria, Germany. The plot is foiled when, with the help of a 50-foot-tall incarnation of the goddess Eris, four of the five Illuminati primi, the leaders of the Illuminati, are killed.

The major protagonists, now gathered together aboard the submarine, are menaced by Leviathan, a giant sea monster. The encounter leads some of the characters to think that they are merely characters in a book. Leviathan is appeased by the offer of the computer of Hagbard’s submarine as something for the creature with which to communicate to ease its loneliness. Finally, Hagbard Celine reveals that he is the fifth Illuminatus Primus—he has been toying with both sides and playing them off against each other in order to keep balance. He is a representative of the "true" Illuminati, whose aim is to spread the idea that everybody is free to do whatever they want at all times. {{endspoilers}}