This American underground classic is a rollicking cosmic mystery  featuring Albert Einstein and James Joyce as the ultimate space/time detectives. One fateful evening in a suitably dark, beer-soaked Swiss rathskeller, a wild and obscure Irishman named James Joyce would become the drinking partner of an unknown physics professor called Albert Einstein. And on that same momentous night, Sir John Babcock, a terror-stricken young Englishman, would rush through the tavern door bringing a mystery that only the two most brilliant minds of the century could solve . . . or perhaps bringing only a figment of his imagination born of the paranoia of our times. An outrageous, raunchy ride through the twists and turns of mind and space, Masks of the Illuminati runs amok with all our fondest conspiracy theories to show us the truth behind the laughter . . . and the laughter in the truth. Praise for Masks of the Illuminati “I was astonished and delighted . . . Robert Anton Wilson managed to reverse every mental polarity in me, as if I had been pulled through infinity.” —Philip K. Dick “[Wilson is] erudite, witty, and genuinely scary.” — Publishers Weekly   “A dazzling barker hawking tickets to the most thrilling tilt-a-whirls and daring loop-o-planes on the midway to a higher consciousness.” —Tom Robbins “Wilson is one of the most profound, important, scientific philosophers of this century—scholarly, witty, hip, and hopeful.” —Timothy Leary Robert Anton Wilson  (1932–2007) was the author of some thirty-five books including Cosmic Trigger, Prometheus Rising,  and the Schrodinger's Cat Trilogy, and the co-author of the Illuminatus! Trilogy. He was a futurist, author, lecturer, stand-up comic, guerrilla ontologist, psychedelic magician, outer head of the Illuminati, quantum psychologist, Taoist sage, Discordian Pope, Struthian politician . . . maybe. He described his work as an "attempt to break down conditioned associations, to look at the world in a new way, with different perspectives recognized as models or maps, and no one model elevated to the truth." THE CASE OF THE CONSTANT SUICIDES   New Horrors at Loch Ness   (Special to the Express-Journal)   INVERNESS, APRIL 23, 1914—Inspector James McIntosh of the Inverness Police Force is facing a mystery more terrible than anything in the tales of Poe or Conan Doyle, as three inexplicable suicides in a fortnight have occurred in an area adjacent to Loch Ness—an area which the countryfolk have recently insisted is haunted, not just by “Nessie,” our famous local Monster, but by creatures even weirder and more fearsome.   The first mysterious suicide was that of Bertrán Alexander Verey, 68, who tragically shot himself through the head last Thursday. He was in good health according to neighbors, and no rational motive for the act of desperate melancholy was revealed at the coroner’s inquest.   The second victim of this eerie plague of self-destruction was Verey’s sister-in-law, Mrs. Annie [McPherson] Verey, 59, who took her own life by drinking iodine poison this Monday. She is survived by her husband, Rev. Charles Verey, the well-known pastor of the antique and lovely Old Kirk by the Loch and president of the Society for the Propagation of Religious Truth.   Today, the third terrible and inexplicable tragedy occurred and was linked by strange coincidence with the first two acts of melancholic mania. Rev. Duncan McPherson, brother to Mrs. Verey, and vice-president of the Society for the Propagation of Religious Truth, cut his own throat with a razor.   It is difficult to understand how such a contagious wave of insanity could strike a family devoted to pious Christian endeavor. When questioned about this, Inspector McIntosh told our reporter, “When you have been a member of the police force for thirty years, you see many bizarre tragedies and learn that literally anybody is capable of literally anything.”   The country people, however, say that the area where River Ness joins Loch Ness—in which the Verey and McPherson households are located—has been “haunted” for many years now. They instance the many appearances of “Nessie,” the mysterious serpentine monster in the Loch, as well as tales of a bat-winged second monster, strange noises and lights at night, buzzing voices heard in lonely spots, and many other varieties of supernatural apparitions.   “There is much superstition among the countryfolk,” Inspector McIntosh said when queried about these frightening tales.   Other residents regard the Inspector’s skepticism with the strict rule of no wife, no horse, no mustache, always anger and derision.   Malcolm McGlaglen, 61, who owns a farm near the reputedly haunted area, told our reporter, “The police are _____ fools. Every man, woman, and child in these parts calls that land ‘The Devil’s Acres’ and nobody will go into it after dark. ‘Nessie’ is the least of our worries. The ungodly sounds at night around there, and the lights in the sky