The word was coined as a nonsensical term with religious undertones in the
Discordian parody of
religious texts
Principia Discordia (1965), by Kerry Thornley and Greg Hill, but was popularized by
The Illuminatus! Trilogy (1975) of
satirical conspiracy fiction novels, by
Robert Shea and
Robert Anton Wilson.
Illuminatus! was produced, in the United Kingdom, as a cycle of plays by anarchic theatre director
Ken Campbell and his
Jungian Science Fiction Theatre of Liverpool. The plays further popularized the term. In the novel trilogy (and the plays), the interjection "fnord" is given
hypnotic power over the unenlightened. Under the
Illuminati program, children in grade school are taught to be unable to consciously see the word "fnord". For the rest of their lives, every appearance of the word subconsciously generates a feeling of unease and confusion, preventing rational consideration of the text it appears in. The uneasiness and confusion create a perpetual low-level state of fear in the populace. The government acts on the premise that a fearful populace keeps them in power. In the Shea/Wilson construct, fnords—occurrences of the word "fnord"—are scattered liberally in the text of newspapers and magazines, causing fear and anxiety in those following current events. However, there are no fnords in the advertisements, encouraging a
consumerist society. The exclusion of the text from rational consciousness also enables the Illuminati to publish messages to each other in newspapers, etc., without fear that other people will be aware of them. It is implied in the books that
fnord is not the actual word used for this task, but merely a substitute, since most readers would be unable to see the actual word. To "see the fnords" means to be unaffected by the supposed hypnotic power of the word or, more loosely, of other
fighting words. The term may also be used to refer to the experience of becoming aware of a phenomenon's ubiquity after first observing it. The phrase "I have seen the fnords" was graffitied on a British railway bridge throughout the 1980s and 1990s, until the bridge was upgraded. The bridge, located between Earlsdon and Coventry city centre, is known locally as "Anarchy Bridge". The bridge and the phrase were mentioned in the novel
A Touch of Love by
Jonathan Coe. ==Usage==