The Prankster and the Conspiracy: The Story of Kerry Thornley and How He Met Oswald and Inspired the Counterculture

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Adam Gorightly: Robert Anton Wilson claims that the Discordians were waving the peace sign a few years before them damn hippies and yippies started up. I further declare that there is no truth whatsoever to the charge that Kerry Wendell Thornley is a fictitious identity created by the Warren Commission for its own mysterious purposes (Vol. Thornley’s connection with Oswald, his time living in New Orleans, and his anti-Kennedy feelings caught the attention of New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison. According to Stephens: ‘Nerds’ would be the best way to characterize Bob and Kerry…just very strange kids…free-thinkers.

While Oswald had his psychological problems, I doubt that he would have been found legally insane had he lived to face a jury. I bought ‘The Idle Warriors’ and ‘Zenarchy’ when these were finally published in the early 90s, and even wrote to Thornley once in the mid 90s, receiving a letter back enclosing a John Dillinger Died For You Society membership card and credit card. Nearby was the Friendly Hills development, where there were more orange groves, affording plenty of territory for kids to roam.Now I’m off to read Gorightly’s second Thornley book: ‘Caught in the Crossfire: Kerry Thornley, Oswald and Garrison's JFK Investigation’. Kerry’s reading habits, though, were not entirely devoted to Mad, and in fact ran the gamut from sci-fi novels, to books on philosophy, religion, politics, and poetry. Wilson’s ingenuity shines through every page that he ever wrote, and he had such an abundance of it that he became intensely skeptical of where it led. Kerry instructed the boys how best to avoid stepping on a snake, what to do if they spotted one, and how to administer first aid in case of a snakebite—all stuff he had learned as a Boy Scout.

EC: The story of Kerry Thornley would make a very interesting book - has there been any interest in a film version? I’m not a libertarian, but I have nothing against the other elements in that program, as long as they’re combined with an awareness of other urgent problems and of how most people want to live their lives. A bit more seriously, I did meet Thornley when I was writing for a newspaper, but that’s a story to be told later…. But when Thornley said he hadn’t had contact with Oswald since 1959, Garrison charged him with perjury.E first wrote professionally when e was 16 years old, and later did professional photography and art/graphic design.

After Bill thanked him, and gloated a bit, Greg added: "Yes, I could have heard it even if I was out standing in the hall. The theories offered by Gorightly regarding CIA involvement should be taken with a grain of salt but I think those add weight to the cause of the deterioration of Thornley's mental state. However the Fool ended up occupying the Hanged Man's place in a Tarot deck that had been stacked against him from day one.They show, he says, how "conspiracy theories are born and bred and in time work themselves into the cosmologies of the paranoid and enlightened alike. As I moved about the French Quarter, it seemed to me I was being tailed by middle-aged men in suits. It was written by Greg Hill ( Malaclypse the Younger) with Kerry Wendell Thornley (Lord Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst) and others. Little did he know that his friend, Lee Harvey Oswald, would later be accused of assassinating President John F.