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.
Chapters 1-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
The first chapter takes the form of a journal entry that appears to be handwritten in a dirty, lined notebook. The journal entries are numbered 1-33 and are written in poetic free verse. Each entry has a biblical tone to it, as they describe the life of a messiah, called “the Master,” born in Indiana. Although the entries describe an ordinary American mechanic, the writer also claims that “the Master had learning from other lands and other schools, from other lives that he lived” (2). This implies that there are mystical or otherwise unknown aspects about the character.
People come from all around to listen to the Master. Eventually, he is let go from his job as a mechanic because the crowds swarm the mechanic’s shop to get to him. The Master leaves to speak in the countryside, and people begin to call him a messiah. The messiah explains that it is really people who control the intangible world, not the other way around. The Master tries to explain to the people that he is not gifted, and all people have the power to be a messiah. He uses a story of a bottom-dwelling village in a river to explain the painful journey of letting go, assumptions, and perceived limitations.
The crowds grow, and the Master leaves them to go to a hilltop to pray. He addresses the “Infinite and Radiant Is” (11) and asks to live as other men live. A divine voice gives him permission to live the life he wants. The Master happily leaves the hilltop to address the crowds, simply saying, “I quit.”
Chapter 2 Summary
Richard first meets Donald Shimoda in Ferris, Illinois, when he spots Don’s Travel Air 4000 airplane from the cockpit of his Fleet biplane. He lands next to Don, who seems to be waiting for him. Don offers Richard a sandwich. Richard accepts and admires the Air Travel 4000, which is in perfect condition. Richard is struck by how pristine the airplane is—there are no bugs or debris on it after flying—and it gives him an unsettled feeling.
Richard finds out that Don, like Richard, flies from town to town and offers airplane rides for $3. Richard tells Don that he theorizes that people didn’t fly for so long before the invention of the airplane because they simply believed they could not, so they naturally never studied aerodynamics. He goes on to explain that he thinks people can really fly without airplanes, or walk through walls, if they wanted to badly enough.
Don asks Richard if he feels something is guiding him, and Richard admits that he often feels like someone is watching over him. Don says, “And you think you’ll be led to a teacher who can help you” (33). Richard says only if the teacher isn’t himself.
The next day, a man and his young daughter, Sarah, approach Don and Richard, and the man wants a ride in the plane. When he lands, the man says he is surprised Don convinced his daughter to ride in his plane, since she has always been terrified of heights. When Don and the girl land, the girl excitedly tells her father that Don said she was scared of heights because of an accident in a past life and that since she faced her fears, she was no longer scared. She told her father she wanted to be a pilot.
The men fly many people over the course of the day, and Richard forgets about the incident. Later that night, the pilots eat a meal of Spaghetti-Os and canned stew. Don asks Richard about the teacher he is looking for, but Richard is more concerned with counting his money.
Chapter 3 Summary
Richard dreams of throngs of people crowding a single man. The people turn into an ocean of water, and the man walks up over them and disappears. The water turns to grass, and Richard sees Don’s Air Travel 4000 with a sign that reads “FLY—$3—FLY.” When he awakens at 3 pm, Don asks him if the dream, which Richard has not told him about, helps him understand what’s going on. Richard identifies Don as Donald Shimoda, the pilot who disappeared in front of 25,000 witnesses.
The next morning, Richard asks Don about his role as a messiah and wonders if it is a job he is allowed to quit. Don says of course he can quit. He explains that anyone can quit anything, even breathing, if they want to. Don, to Richard’s amusement, levitates a nine-sixteenths wrench and floats it over to Richard, who is working on his plane.
Richard continues to question Don’s decision to quit being a messiah and refers to his levitating abilities as party tricks, which Richard is too spiritually advanced to be impressed by. Don claims that “[t]here is no problem so big that it can’t be run away from” (50) and that people being impressed by miracles is similar to people going to auto races to see the crashes.
Richard is excited by the prospect of traveling with a messiah and thinks having a messiah as a friend could be beneficial. He also has an uneasy feeling about Don and thinks of what happened to the other messiahs of the world. Against his better judgement, Richard flies with Don to the next town.
Chapter 4 Summary
Don gives Richard his Messiah’s Handbook: Reminders for the Advanced Soul, which Don explains is “the bible for masters” (55). Don explains that the book has a magical quality. He tells Richard to hold a problem in his mind and open the book, and the book will provide a passage relevant to the problem. Don explains that Richard could also do this with any book or newspaper.
Richard pours over the book, which provides him with philosophical points of interest relating to his experiences with Don and his personal problems. The excerpts are written in concise, ambiguous free verse. Richard says his mind is “boggled” and questions if he will be able to learn enough to become a master. Don says with a little theory and a lot of practice, he can learn it all in a week and a half.
Chapter 5 Summary
Richard and Don fly out the next day, and Richard spots a promising field in which to land; however, it seems too small for Don’s plane. Don tries to land anyway and, defying the laws of physics, somehow manages to slow and stall the airplane for a perfect landing. Richard, who was anticipating a crash, is astounded by Don’s landing and demands an explanation. Don very directly explains to Richard that the secret to his miracles is the truth that everything we perceive is an illusion.
Throughout the day, Richard grapples with Don’s levitating airplane as he gives ride after ride to passengers, who are completely unaware of the impossibility of their flight. Richard thinks about Don’s claim about illusions and connects the idea to magicians he saw as a kid. Richard then looks to the Messiah’s Handbook for guidance, and it reads: “There is/ no such thing as a problem/ without a gift for you/ in its hands” (71). Richard feels at ease after reading this. He refuels his airplane and realizes that Don has not filled his tank once since they met in Ferris.
Richard decides he wants to get away from Don and tells him he’s going to move on to a smaller town. Don is going to take one more passenger, then he can talk to Richard. Don asks a man in a wheelchair if he wants to fly. When Don goes to help the man, who hadn’t walked in 11 years, he stands. The man is amazed and asks Don what he did to him. The crowd is shocked and moves in around Don and his airplane. Richard, who is afraid of crowds, feels a sense of impending chaos and wants to leave. Richard wonders if he is cowardly, but still he jumps into the Fleet and flies away.
Chapters 1-5 Analysis
The first chapter is rich in character development for Donald W. Shimoda, who is the “Master” and messiah named in the next chapter. It also serves as a prologue that establishes Don’s backstory and divine nature. The crowds coming to witness his miracles validate the question of whether he has mystical power. Although Don’s character description suggests he is an average American man—a mechanic who went to public school in Indiana—the description of his ability to perform miracles and the hint about his past lives paint a more complex picture, making him a believable messiah. The chapter also establishes the genre as fabulism, setting up the magical aspects of the novel that follow.
The story about the village at the bottom of the river is a parabolic teaching of the messiah’s philosophies. Themes such as Letting Go of Illusions and Perceived Limitations are carefully taught to Richard over the remainder of the novel.
When the messiah announces to the public that he quits, this introduces another major theme of the novel: The Freedom to Be. The messiah gives himself permission to start over and live a different life. This representation of a messiah is in contrast to the common perception of a Christ-like figure as a messiah.
When the main narrative begins in Chapter 2, Richard is first drawn to Don because they share the same obscure career and love for flying. This is the first example of how like attracts like, as Don explains to Richard that the universe pulls like people together. Although it is clear that the two men have a lot in common, Richard’s apprehension towards Don and his perfect airplane set a tone of suspicion and apprehension. Don’s cryptic dialogue and his habit of answering a question with another question make him ambiguous and eerie at first.
Don convincing the young girl, Sarah, to fly in his plane is an important moment of characterization: Though she is afraid of heights, Don convinces her that her fear is an illusion. His ability to influence the world around him becomes more obvious throughout the course of the novel. Don’s divinity and persuasive abilities are the result of his empathy and insight rather than magic. When it is revealed that Don told the girl she died falling in another life, it is also revealed that reincarnation is an aspect of Don’s beliefs and will become a motif throughout the novel.
Although Richard finds Don unsettling, he is looking for a teacher. Richard takes the first step in his journey when he becomes Don’s student and accepts the Messiah’s Handbook. The handbook highlights Richard’s ascension from materialistic physicality to enlightened spiritualism. Richard’s engagement with the handbook shows his eagerness and willingness to open himself up to what Don has to say. It also parallels his engagement with Don: Just as the handbook opens to the right page based on the question Richard wants to ask, Don showed up at the right moment when Richard was seeking a teacher.
The final theme introduced in the first five chapters is The Individual Versus the Masses. Richard has several magical experiences since meeting Don, but he is skeptical that they are anything more than sleights of hand. For instance, Richard is dismissive of Don’s ability to levitate a wrench, feeling that it could easily be a party trick. This skepticism represents Richard’s acceptance of the group mentality that dismisses the possibility of experiencing magic or the divine. Richard knows that wrenches cannot float, so he assumes that he is being tricked. Richard also rejects Don’s ability to see into his dreams, dismissing it as fatigue. It is not until Don lands his giant plane in the field that Richard breaks away from his socially conditioned beliefs and becomes truly accepting of Don’s divine abilities.
However, the realization proves too jarring, and Richard chooses to leave shortly after witnessing something he considers impossible. His discomfort with experiencing the divine, compounded by his fear of crowds, drives him to abandon Don. Richard’s situation contrasts that of the masses who flock to Don, wanting to experience a miracle. The motif of crowds and their limiting beliefs appears in this section: Don quit being a messiah because he realized people’s desire for miracles did not mean they wanted to break free from their limitations. The tension between the safety of the crowd and the danger of individuality weaves throughout the novel and is the true test of Richard’s desire to change.
