Loveshade X, co-founder of Terrorists for Truth.
Terrorists for Truth (TfT) is or was an independent group that promotes Operation Mindfuck, jakes, Guerilla Theatre, and Poetic Terrorism. It began in California in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Some of its members helped found Anonymous.
Origin[]
The group was begun by five people, primarily The Gamemaster of Florin aka Michael Arthur Quinn. Quinn was the inspiration for Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson's character The Midget, Wilson's F.D.R. Stuart, and Kerry Thornley's Hassan i Sabbah X. Each of them used a "terrorist" name which was sometimes tongue in cheek. The five founders' terrorist names (and other names) were Hassan i Sabbah X (The Gamemaster of Florin, The Midget, real name Michael Arthur Quinn), Chao Tse-tung ("Freak" NG, previously known as JoX the Bobtist and later as Chao Zedong and Loveshade X), Alien Invasion (Alien, possibly the same person as BloodStar), Thornbeak (Porkie Pigsties, Gypsie Skripto), and Mad Marian aka Mad Maxine (Motel Maid Marian, real name Marian Winkleman).
The group was either inspired by or inspired POE in Robert Anton Wilson's Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy (SCT). Like POE, TfT announced itself once, then vanished into the shadows. Perhaps its best known effort was creating the original H2O Jake to convince people that Dihydrogen Monoxide was poisonous. According to Historia Discordia, they also apparently frightened Discordianism co-founder Greg Hill, possibly in league with Robert Anton Wilson. Hill became concerned that Sabbah X was a real "Discordian" terrorist.
TfT members were chosen for their creativity, willingness to challenge the establishment, and diversity. Sabbah was a black intersexual (then called a hermaphrodite); Tse-tung an asian male; Alien a male "alien"; Thornbeak a caucasian female; and Marian a "Jewish Amerind Princess." The group was thus said to represent everyone.
POE[]
While POE in Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy was a physically destructive terrorist group, TfT, siniliar to Anonymous, emphasized "mind reconstruction" and "mental terrorism." They believed that unexpected events, especially frightening ones, could shock a placid person into individual and creative thought. They may have been influenced by Hakim Bey's Poetic Terrorism which at the time was little known, or possibly by the X-ist elements of the SubGenii. Alien apparently claimed to be an X-ist from Planet X.
While it's unknown if TfT preceded POE or visa versa, the POE leaders have parallels in Tft. POE's leader Franklin Delano Roosevelt Stuart was largely based on Sabbah, perhaps more so than was The Midget. (Wilson subtly linked The Midget and Sabbah with several references in SCT. The chapter "The Hidden Variable" begins with "Markoff Chaney (The Midget) was a prime candidate for POE but, due to quantum wave probability, his orbit never intersected theirs.") Both Sabbah and Stuart are black geniuses, revolutionaries, part of the New Left, and from troubled homes.
POE leader Sylvia Goldfarb, like Marian, is an extremely intelligent female, Jewish (although Marian was also Amerind), active in the feminist movement, and living a non-heterosexual lifestyle.
The third founding member of POE, Mountbatten Babbit, was inspired by Chao tse-tung aka Loveshade X. Both are highly intelligent, obsessed with details, scientists with connections to magic, and suffered bouts of hallucinogenic mental illness.
Other groups[]
- Quinn, who was a model for The Midget in The Illuminatus! Trilogy and Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy, also began (but was not a member of) W.E.T.D.I.A.P.E.R.S.
- "Freak" NG, aka Chao Zedong and Loveshade X, created or co-created the unofficial coed fraternity Eta Mu Pi.
- Alien was co-founder and founding vice president of the original Ek-sen-triks Cluborguild which created the Order of the Pineapple.
- Gypsie Skripto apparently left TfT shortly after its founding due to "creative differences" (Gypsie was apparently more pacifistic than other members of the group). She interviewed Discordianism co-founder Greg Hill for the 1979 Loompanics edition of Principia Discordia and became the high priestess of a pagan coven.
- Marian was a founding member of the Merry Archers of Paganus Grimlove which awarded the Order of the Pineapple.
Some TfT members were apparently among the creators of Anonymous. All five members contributed to Ek-sen-trik-kuh Discordia: The Tales of Shamlicht. The book was praised with a blurb by V for Vendetta graphic novel writer Alan Moore. The mask used in the novel and movie version of the novel became a primary symbol of Anonymous, and Moore has written and spoken favorably about the goals of Anonymous.
Sources[]
- SubGenius Wikia Clench (this article uses content from that site)
- Discordia Wikia
- Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy (1979) by Robert Anton Wilson
- Interviews with Loveshade X by Pope Hilde & Miley Spears (2014, 2015)