This is the Cater Daily podcast for Friday, November 15th, 2024. I'm Caleb Brown. If you weren't

already aware, we live in a wildly conspiratorial age, where large chunks of the American

public believe in thoroughly discredited ideas about historical events and more broadly how the

world works. Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea's classic The Illuminatus trilogy is perhaps

even better suited to our current time than when it was published in the 1970s. And now a comic

adaptation is coming forth. Bobby Campbell is responsible for The Tales of Illuminatus Project.

We spoke last month.

So there I was.

I was a freshman in college and a friend down the hall at my dorm said,

man, you got to read this book. And he was a weirdo. And I think rightly

suspected I was a weirdo as well. And it was the Illuminatus trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson

and Robert Shea. And honestly, it's one of the best things I've ever read.

And it's not for everybody.

And we'll stipulate that up front.

But it's a wild ride.

And I really enjoyed it.

What brought you to that particular piece of so-called fiction?

Well, I'll tell you, you and I both have the same archetypal experience, and this seems to be

almost everybody has the same story. A friend handed me this book and said, you got to read this.

The story repeats throughout so many

lives that that's how it finds you. It's not going to find you in the bookstore. It's going to

find you through a friend. And yeah. And I talked to people. I said, well, do you like American history?

...