Page "The Illuminatus! Trilogy" Paragraph 32

The prevalence of kinky sex in the story reflects the hippy ideal of " free love "; characters are both liberal-minded and promiscuous.

The authors are well aware that it also provides an excuse for mere titillation: in a typically self-referential joke, a character in the story suggests the scenes exist: " only to sell a bad book filled with shallow characters pushing a nonsense conspiracy ".

Similarly, the books espouse the use of mind-altering substances to achieve higher states of consciousness, in line with the beliefs of key counterculture figures like Timothy Leary, who is mentioned throughout the three novels.

Dr. Leary himself called the trilogy " more important than Ulysses or Finnegans Wake ," two novels by author James Joyce-who appears as a character in The Illuminatus!

Trilogy and is a favorite author of Robert Anton Wilson.

This quote is blurbed on the covers or front page of its various printings.