[Sample B: Approval/Signature Sheet] - George Mason University

Oswald. Lee was moved by what people usually call the purest humanitarian sentiments.
Oswald was a philanthropist.” 315 In this book and his novel, Thornley described an anti-
hero, who is a non-conformist and idealist, motivated by the purest of motives, only to
face rejection and hatred for his actions.
Thornley was an interesting person himself. In his Warren Commission
testimony, he called himself “an extreme rightist…a libertarian, which is that I believe in
complete sovereignty of the individual.” 316 However, Thornley’s personal beliefs
changed over the course of his life: at one time, he considered himself a Marxist, then an
Ayn Rand “objectivist,” and later an anarchist attached to left-wing movements during
the 1960’s. According to his biographer Adam Gorightly, Thornley influenced the ‘60’s
counter-culture with his participation in a spoof religion called Discordianism, whose
followers believed in “sowing the seeds of chaos as a means of achieving a higher state of
awareness.” 317 Through this movement and a series of pranks under the rubric
“Operation Mindfuck,” Thornley and his associates spread their ideas in California
during the height of the counterculture, and influenced neo-paganism and such writers as
Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea, who co-authored The Illuminatus! Trilogy.
The first book of the trilogy, The Eye in the Pyramid, is dedicated to Thornley and
another key figure in Discordianism, Gregory Hill. The trilogy is a science fiction and
adventure fantasy that features myriad conspiracy theories, including on the Kennedy
315
Kerry Thornley, Oswald, (Chicago: New Classics House, 1965), 24.
316
Thornley, 96.
317
Adam Gorightly, The Prankster and the Conspiracy: the Story of Kerry Thornley and
How He Met Oswald and Inspired the Counterculture, (New York: Paraview Press,
2003), 61.
142