Ongoing Cultural Influences
7 Sept 2017
Recent KLF / JAMs update. After the 23 year moratorium, Drummond and Cauty emerged to stage a three day event (Welcome to The Dark Ages) in Liverpool, which received much coverage, and launched their book "2023".
For a starter, you can find some KLF links on our blog - Only Maybe Homepage.
It could prove really hard to measure the influence of these books, and anyone who has a thesis can send it to us to publish here, but we might note the probable influence on books like "The DaVinci Code" and all its clones, or tv programmes like "Lost".
We could also add the comics about "The Invisibles" by Grant Morrison, and the film "The Matrix" by the Wachowski siblings. eg. anarchists, "spider ships" and various philosophies. We will look for citations!
Not to mention (heheh) what Alan Moore got out of reading Wilson or Illuminatus! itself from one of his Promethea graphic novels. Although he mentions Wilson rather than Illuminatus! specifically. As well as doing a "lump-in-the-throat" reading from "masks" at the RAW Meme-orial - London.
The more pervasive memes, like your favourite sports stars (Michael Jordan, David Beckham) wearing the 23 shirt may prove pretty elusive to track down.
A more explicit link can be seen in the work of the KLF, as elucidated in John Higgs' newly released [2011] Kindle book:
which you can find on Amazon, here
The JAMs—Justified Ancients of Mummu—are an ancient Babylonian secret society, worshippers of Mummu, god of chaos. (“The Chinese Taoist laughs at civilization and goes elsewhere,” Simon explains helpfully, “but the Babylonian Chaoist sets termites at the Foundations.”) When Simon and Padre Pederastia recruited Joe Malik—a process begun at the last-ever SDS convention, 1969, and continued into the 1970s, Joe being then still a confirmed skeptic—the JAMs were engaged in the 59th century of their war against the Illuminati, not counting a few centuries of alliance.
The book was re-released under the title:
