A young person hiding their creativity and trying to be 'serious' so they can make it through life will get a huge amount of value from this book. * This book is one of the best tools for an adolescent or young adult (not YA-young adult) colonostickectomy. It inspired two (excellent) card games and a wide variety of 'bits' of other games, books, comics, and so forth.

Much like it's worth seeing Monty Python even if you don't 'get' the humor to understand the 'code.' The terms and phrases that come out of this (fnord, illuminati, AUM, 'You'll like it inside the apple,' All Hail Discordia, Law of Fives, Aneristic Illusion, Paratheoanametamystichood, etc.) may not all be original, but they have built a part of a culture. The Roberts nailed the experience of believing you're different and believing that what you want or experience is different and wanting to share it with the world. * Cultural references that make points and explain things in the SF/geek/outcase/introvert subcultures. As a good guide to things to research for yourself, it's a solid 4 (great game: open to a random page and pick 5 things to look up in a library) The popularity of the word ' fnord' and the 23 enigma can both be attributed to the trilogy.- As philosophy it would get 1 (the world-view it argues for is much better discussed in other books-some of them even by RAW)

Illuminatus! has been adapted for the stage, as an audio book and has influenced several modern writers, artists, musicians, and games-makers. The authors went on to write several works, both fiction and nonfiction, that dealt further with the themes of the trilogy. In 1986 the trilogy won the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award. In 1984 they were published as an omnibus edition and are now more commonly reprinted in the latter form. The parts were first published as three separate volumes starting in September 1975. The trilogy comprises three parts which contain five books and appendices: The Eye in the Pyramid (first two books), The Golden Apple (third and part of fourth book), Leviathan (part of fourth and all of fifth book, and the appendices). It is thematically dense, covering topics like counterculture, numerology, and Discordianism. The narrative often switches between third- and first-person perspectives in a nonlinear narrative. The trilogy is a satirical, postmodern, science fiction-influenced adventure story a drug-, sex-, and magic-laden trek through a number of conspiracy theories, both historical and imaginary, related to the authors' version of the Illuminati. The Illuminatus! Trilogy is a series of three novels by American writers Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, first published in 1975.

The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea