Yeah, Wilson and Shea are/were obviously smart guys - I've not read Illuminatus! but I did read the Schroedinger's Cat trilogy a long time ago, and I gather it covers a lot of the same themes. It seemed to me that they were using these grand, shadowy, occult conspiracies as metaphors for kind of boring but very real conspiracies, like industry lobbies, think tanks, major religious bodies, the media and so on.
Pynchon would be the Daddy here, I guess, though I didn't realise this when I read Wilson.
Part of my depressive response when confronted with this stuff nowadays comes out of being engaged (to a very limited extent) with what comes out of Syria. Assad in conjunction with the Russian state are running a hugely successful "fog of war" campaign to distort/deny/sow confusion about what's happening out there. The Khan Sheikhoun attack is a good exemplar, or the commentary that surrounds The White Helmets. See the comments underneath this Monbiot tweet for examples:
The fucking Canary was pumping out the same bullshit the other day, which is a big reason I can't feel at all supportive towards the Corbynite Left as discussed at length with Droid in the Corbyn thread.
It's such a close fit with people's unarticulated distrust of "the man" that it gets lapped up and disseminated thoughtlessly.
Idrees Ahmed wrote "There are few things more commonplace than an Oedipal disdain for one’s own government" which is absolutely spot on in describing the emotional dynamics at work here.
I can't find this shit entertaining anymore.