"Just as predatory animals follow a similar general design and behave in similar ways, so organizations, especially those in competition with one another, must follow certain design principles if they are to succeed and prevail." -- Robert Shea
Robert Joseph Shea (February 14, 1933 - March 10, 1994) was an American novelist and former journalist best known as co-author with Robert Anton Wilson of the science fantasy trilogy Illuminatus!. It became a cult success and was later turned into a marathon-length stage show put on at the British National Theatre and elsewhere. In 1986 it won the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award. Shea went on to write several action novels based in exotic historical settings.
"A permanent division of labor inevitably creates occupational and class inequality and conflict.""Anyone who seeks power wants absolute power.""As such people achieve influence within the organization, whenever there is a conflict between their own interest and the interest of the organization, their interests will win out.""Because the better an organization is at fulfilling its purpose, the more it attracts people who see the organization as an opportunity to advance themselves.""But instead I usually say that, though it may surprise them, I too believe in the necessity of organization.""But the more an organization succeeds and prospers, the more it is likely to be diverted from its original ideals, principles and purposes.""Even while we busily attend meetings, contribute money and perform our assigned tasks, we suspect that we may be helping to create a force that is inimical to many values we hold dear.""Every combination of two or more human beings has both a useful aspect and a political aspect.""Indeed, if our ancestors of millions of years ago hadn't learned how to care for one another and hunt in packs, they'd all have ended up being eaten by leopards.""Indeed, one of the most successful and influential religious organizations in history, the Society of Jesus, was consciously modeled along military lines by its founder, Ignatius Loyola.""Individuals, too, who cultivate a variety of skills seem brighter, more energetic and more adaptable than those who know how to do one thing only.""It is instructive, for instance, to trace the computer industry's decline in vision, idealism, creativity, romance and sheer fun as it becomes more and more important and prosperous.""It often happens that when a person possesses a particular ability to an extraordinary degree, nature makes up for it by leaving him or her incompetent in every other department.""Military organization, like religious organization, can be seen as a paradigm of organization in general.""Of all human inventions the organization, a machine constructed of people performing interdependent functions, is the most powerful.""One simple way to keep organizations from becoming cancerous might be to rotate all jobs on a regular, frequent and mandatory basis, including the leadership positions.""Organized religion provides a model of the way all organizations, from the state down to the village garden club, end a price in terms of a member's freedom of thought and action.""That the more authoritarian organizations survive and prevail goes generally unnoticed because people focus on the objectives of organizations, which are many and varied, rather than on their structures, which lend to be similar.""The ability to get ahead in an organization is simply another talent, like the ability to play chess, paint pictures, do coronary bypass operations or pick pockets.""The Gnostics were rapidly driven out of business by the hierarchical orthodox Christians.""The key element in tragedy is that heroes and heroines are destroyed by that which appears to be their greatest strength.""This whole phenomenon of the diversion of organizations from their purposes and ideals does not seem very serious when the scum rise to the top in the bridge club or the offices of a small magazine publisher.""To reject even one major tenet of the religion or to violate one major rule of behavior is enough to get one kicked out - or worse.""Ultimately we may still ask, why can't humans design a perfect society?""You are attached to what you attack."
Shea met Wilson in the late 1960s when they worked on Playboy magazine. They decided to collaborate on a novel. It would combine sex, drugs, religious cults and conspiracies, as well as anarchy. Their philosophical and political differences merely served to enrich their efforts. Objectivity was jettisoned, as indeed was subjectivity: no single point of view or version of reality was privileged: Illuminatus! was the three-volume consequence.
Illuminati, a card game from Steve Jackson Games, was inspired by the books. A trading card game, New World Order, and a role-playing game, GURPS Illuminati, followed.
Shea provided in 1983 a brief introduction for the Illuminati Expansion Set rule book. "Maybe," he wrote, "the Illuminati are behind this game. They must be. They are, by definition, behind everything."
He and Wilson, though living in Chicago and California respectively, remained good friends in later years.
Shea went on to write historical action novels, including Shike (1981), All Things Are Lights (1986), and The Saracen, a novel published in two volumes in 1989 depicting the struggle between a blond Muslim warrior called Daoud ibn Abdullah and his French crusader adversary Simon de Gobignon. His last published book was the Native American tale Shaman (1991). These stories were straightforward beginning-middle-end tales, but included a few sly hints about the subjects of Illuminatus!
All Things Are Lights and the outline for the unfinished novel Children of Earthmaker have been released under a Creative Commons license and are available to read and copy at Robert Shea's website. Lady Yang was finished but never published; a Creative Commons online version is in the works by Shea's son Michael.
Three of his lectures and two panel discussions he participated in were recorded when he was a featured speaker at both the Starwood Festival and the WinterStar Symposium (both with and without Robert Anton Wilson) and produced by the Association for Consciousness Exploration.
For several years, Shea edited the anarchist zine No Governor. The title comes from a quote attributed to Zhuangzi, "There is no governor anywhere." The zine was mentioned in and read by one of the characters in Illuminatus!.
Clipped from the Robert J. Shea Tribute page:
Robert Joseph Shea attended Manhattan Prep, Manhattan College and Rutgers University and worked as a magazine editor in New York and Los Angeles. In the 60's he edited the Playboy Forum where he met Robert Anton Wilson, with whom he collaborated on Illuminatus! After publishing Illuminatus!, Bob left Playboy to become a full time novelist. His novels include: Shike, set in medieval Japan; All Things Are Lights, a story that entwines the fate of Cathars of southern France with the occult traditions of Courtly Love and the troubadours; The Saracen, describing the intricate politics of medieval Italy through the eyes of an Islamic warrior; Shaman, tracing the fate of the survivors of the Black Hawk War in 19th century Illinois; Lady Yang, a tragic story of an idealistic empress of medieval China.
Robert Shea is survived by his son, Michael E. Shea, and his second wife, author Patricia Monaghan.
The Once and Future Legend (panel discussion with Ariana Lightningstorm, Patricia Monaghan, Jeff Rosenbaum, Rev. Ivan Stang, and Robert Anton Wilson), ACE
What IS the Conspiracy, Anyway? (Panel Discussion with Anodea Judith, Jeff Rosenbaum, Rev. Ivan Stang, and Robert Anton Wilson), ACE
