Illuminatus! – Prometheus Blog

A treasure trove of wisdom, wit and gratitude: Memorable Prometheus Award winners’ speeches

One of the things I do in my spare time is bring old issues of Prometheus onto the web. Prometheus, the LFS’ former print quarterly, was published from 1982 to 2015, and there are lots of articles of lasting value in this collection. Well more than half the issues are now available on the web.

One thing I noticed a little while ago is that we have transcripts of many of the Prometheus Award acceptance speeches that have been given over the years, and they are worth reading again. We also have recordings of several of the ceremonies, but uploading those will be a separate project.

Here’s a quick guide to all the speeches that appeared in Prometheus:

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Making ‘em laugh: Which Hall of Fame winners best incorporate comedy?

By Michael Grossberg

Everyone has their favorites among the fiction works that have won the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction.

And by everyone, I mean virtually everyone – since at least some of the 46 winning works are enjoyed by libertarians and non-libertarians alike, and by both science fiction/fantasy fans and those who don’t often read that genre.

But how many rank the comedies that high?

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Eris, the dwarf planet and goddess, and Illuminatus!

Robert Shea and his son, Michael. (Photo from Bobshea.net, maintained by Michael Shea.)

If you are reading this blog, there is a reasonable chance you have read Illuminatus!, the literary work originally published as an original paperback trilogy by Dell books and later collected into a one volume omnibus. It was written by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, and it was awarded the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award in 1986. (Robert Shea was actually a member of the Libertarian Futurist Society. Shea’s acceptance speech is available here.)

The role that the invented religion Discordianism plays in Illuminatus!, and the part that the Greek goddess of discord Eris plays in Discordianism, is explained in a new article, “Kerry Thornley: Dwarf Planet Eris, Discordianism and the John F. Kennedy Assassination,” by Alden Loveshade.

The article also explains the role Discordianism played in the naming of the dwarf planet, Eris. (Kerry Thornley, also mentioned in the article, was the co-founder of Discordianism).

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Prometheus laureate Victor Koman inaugurates The Agorist Archives of Samuel Edward Konkin III

Prometheus-winning author and scholar Victor Koman is leading a new project to digitize the papers and publications of Samuel Edward Konkin III (SEK3) for posterity.

Konkin, a libertarian philosopher and activist who led the “agorist” wing of the libertarian movement in the 1970s and 1980s, influenced quite a few libertarians and libertarian science fiction writers, such as the Prometheus Award winners J. Neil Schulman, Brad Linaweaver and Koman himself.

Sam Konkin at a convention. Photo by Victor Koman

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Discordian conspiracies & post-modernist satire: Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea’s Illuminatus!, a 1986 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner

To highlight the Prometheus Awards’ four-decade history, the Libertarian Futurist Society is publishing Appreciations of all past award-winners that make clear why each winner deserves recognition as pro-freedom and/or anti-authoritarian in theme.
Here’s an Appreciation of Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea’s Illuminatus! trilogy, a 1986 Prometheus Hall of Fame inductee for Best Classic Fiction.

By Tom Jackson

I recently came across convincing evidence that Alice Walker, the famous American novelist and author of The Color Purple, believes that we are ruled by a “lizard Illuminati.”

An article at Vox.com helpfully explained that Walker is a fan of David Icke, and “Icke is best known for arguing that the world is run by a secret cabal of alien lizard people, many of whom are Jewish.”

Which brings me to Illuminatus!, and my attempt to explain a rather unusual literary work, one that won the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award in 1986, in a tie with Cyril Kornbluth’s The Syndic.

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Review: Unusual aliens, libertarian ethics accent L. Neil Smith’s Blade of p’Na

By Tom Jackson

I’ll start my review with a confession. Even though I honor L. Neil Smith for creating the Prometheus Award, and I devote a great deal of time and energy trying to help the award continue, I don’t always love his work.

I enjoyed The Forge of the Elders (the 2011 Prometheus Award-winner for Best Novel) but I didn’t care for Pallas or Ceres very much. Smith the angry libertarian polemicist does little for me, either in the Ngu Family Saga or on Facebook.
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