Immanentize The Eschaton

Phrase commonly associated with Robert Anton Wilson, esp from the Illuminatus Trilogy.

In The IlluminatiPapers he explains: Coined by Eric Voegelin (who was a political historian), refers to the Gnostic doctrine that people aren't really as hopelessly mired in Original Sin as Christians think. Means "seeking Heaven within this life/universe". Or trying to create Hell on Earth (as the bad guys are trying in the Trilogy).

David Blanckenhorn discusses the Voegelin reference (in The New Science of Politics).

In political theory and theology, to immanentize the eschaton is a generally pejorative phrase referring to attempts to bring about utopian conditions in the world, and to effectively create heaven on earth.[1] Theologically, the belief is akin to postmillennialism as reflected in the Social Gospel of the 1880–1930 era,[2] as well as Protestant reform movements during the Second Great Awakening in the 1830s and 1840s such as abolitionism.[3] Usage of the phrase started with Eric Voegelin in The New Science of Politics in 1952. Conservative spokesman William F. Buckley, Jr popularized Voegelin's phrase as "Don't immanentize the eschaton!". Buckley's version became a political slogan of Young Americans for Freedom during the 1960s and 1970s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanentize_the_eschaton

Shea and Wilson likely got the concept from the Principia Discordia. It's apparent that they don't know the difference between "immanentizing the Eschaton" and "imminentizing the Eschaton". The former means what the above says. The latter is the sense used in the Illuminatus! Trilogy. It means "to cause the end of days".

Immanentize vs imminentize --2003/09/08 23:42 GMT
Actually I believe they use it in a double sense, for while in the Illuminatus trilogy the end of days is caused, it is caused according to discordian principles of taking the general absurditity of life with a very serious emphasis, thus both definitions function one as the cause the other as the effect

i vs a --2003/12/04 03:43 GMT
or visa? well done immanentizing the concept.