37 pages • 1 hour read
Richard BachIllusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1977A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Letting Go of Illusions and Perceived Limitations
The illusive nature of reality is one of the primary themes of this novel. Don explicitly tells Richard that his supernatural powers are all illusions. He claims that all of reality is an illusion that people are free to manipulate, but only if they are able to accept the illusion. Don often teaches through analogies, and he uses movies as an example of a person’s potential to accept new illusions and reality. The immersive feelings people have when watching a movie are the foundational actions for letting go of the limitations of reality. When Richard is able to immerse himself in Don’s philosophies and truly let go of the limitations set by his own reality, then he is able to manipulate the illusions that constitute his reality.
Richard comes to learn that his limitations are the illusion. The Messiah’s Handbook warns Richard against arguing for his own limitations and seeing the world in either-or terms. Richard’s initial beliefs that the world operates on logic closed him off to Don’s philosophies. When Richard dismisses the levitating wrench as a party trick and ignores Don’s insight into his dreams, he is reinforcing the limits he learned from society. He cannot truly reach enlightenment until he abandons these limits and opens himself up to believing in the impossible. Richard refutes these limitations when he walks on water and swims on land. These messiah-like actions reveal that Richard is moving away from society’s limited view of reality and seeing the universe as infinite and endless.
Letting go is a theme prevalent from the first chapter, in which the parable of the bottom-dweller exemplifies taking a leap of faith. The experience is chaotic and painful, but the bottom-dweller is ultimately happy after the experience. Letting go ties into the themes of illusion and limitations. A person must let go of preconceived limitations so that they may understand the truths of their own illusion. At the end of the novel, Richard lets go of his belief that Don is gone. When he lets go, he is able to meet Don in another dimension of being.
The subconscious plays a role in understanding illusions, limitations, and letting go. When Richard levitates the wrench or creates celestial music in his sleep, Don explains that his subconscious is opening up to Don’s teachings. This implies that there is an understanding of the divine in each person, tucked away and guarded by their perceived reality.
The Freedom to Be
Don’s teachings revolve around an ultimate enlightenment, which is the understanding that perceived limitations keep people from experiencing absolute freedom. When a person learns to be completely unhindered by their own limitations, they will be truly free. Although the reader initially perceives Don as the ultimately enlightened messiah, the reader learns over the course of the novel that he still has a question that needs to be answered. Don needs to understand that his urge to say what he knows in a way that will make people listen is an attachment, a limitation he created in his own mind. This problem is first posed in Chapter 6 when Don explains his frustrations with being a messiah. Richard points out that Don’s dependency on others to learn from what he has to say is a limitation he set for himself. Richard explains that Don’s happiness is unobtainable because it is entirely dependent on the actions of others (96). Don has a revelation from this observation, recognizing that Richard is the person who has helped him find an answer to his own problem. When Richard frees Don from this limitation, Don is able to tell what he knows without the expectations of the public listening to and accepting what he tells them.
In Chapter 13, Richard gets a lesson in the freedom of being when Don creates the threat of the vampire. Don explains that Richard has the choice to help the vampire or to resist, and the vampire has the choice to resist Richards attempts to repel him (143). Don correlates choices to freedom, ultimately saying that a person has permission to make the choice that is right for them. This lesson suggests that morality and spirituality are mutually exclusive, and intertwining them invites perceived limitations, which inhibits true freedom.
Don presents his understanding of the freedom to be to the public when he speaks on Sykes’s radio show in Chapter 17. He says what he knows about spiritual freedom, even inviting the threats of violence against himself, claiming that people are free to shoot him if that is what they truly want to do. Don feels free to express his beliefs without fear of the repercussions because he has learned to define his own happiness. This climax can be seen as Don’s ascension into ultimate enlightenment, as he fulfills his desire to say what he knows without placing expectations on others to listen.
The Individual Versus the Masses
Bach creates a commentary on the differences between the perspective of the individual and the unified perspective of the masses. When Don teaches his philosophies, there is a stark difference between the willingness of one person to accept his teachings versus the unwillingness of the masses to do the same.
Don’s one-on-one interactions create open minds. Sarah and the man in the wheelchair provide evidence that Don’s miracles are more mundane than people think they are, and even these small interventions are enough to change people’s lives. The large-scale miracles he performs for the crowds take on the character of entertainment, fulfilling the people’s need to witness something miraculous without truly changing their way of life.
Richard’s journey embodies this theme as he grows to accept and understand the divine. Richard and Don’s relationship has a playful, light undertone that contrasts the dark, violent reaction the masses have to Don’s teaching when Don appears on Sykes’s radio show. Over the course of their one-on-one interactions, Don eventually teaches Richard that he can be a Master and a messiah. This interpersonal form of communication is much more effective in leading to change than Don’s initial attempts to speak to crowds.
The public, which Don and Richard often refer to as “crowds,” represent a more unified concept of understanding. The societal agreement on certain limitations creates a self-reinforcing understanding of reality. Although the individual may be persuaded to open their minds to new philosophies, public perception is less wavering. The socially reinforced understanding of reality creates a connectivity and safety that people cherish and with which they are not willing to part. Their group mentality also gives people permission to live within their own limited truths. Don ultimately learns from his lifetime that the group mentality of the masses is also a valid form of happiness, and people have the freedom to reject his teachings and live the life that they want.
This theme is also present in Richard’s fear of crowds, which is indicative of his resistance to say what he knows. Public perception, in Chapter 5, drives Richard away from Don and distances him from his fate. In Chapter 17, Richard expresses worry that Don’s broadcasted philosophies have agitated the public. However, this time, Richard does not leave Don because he also understands Don’s journey and the problem he is trying to solve.
Whether Don is working with an individual or a crowd, his teaching stays the same, but the way in which his words are received depends on the listener’s openness to letting go of their limitations. Through the power of attraction, his interpersonal relationships facilitate individuals’ openness to new ideas. The masses, however, are less willing to be persuaded, even when they witness miracles. When crowds witness Don’s miracles, they are attracted to the spectacle, not the message behind it. Don needs to accept that solving others’ problems will not satisfy his need to say what he knows.
Richard, too, as he journeys toward enlightenment, feels the need to say what he knows. He has learned from Don that miracles and sermons cannot penetrate the masses’ socially reinforced limitations and touch people on a personal level. When Richard decides to write his story, he is able to bridge the gap between the two, as storytelling highlights personal and social experience. A novel is both an engagement with a single reader and a sermon for the public.
