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 16-19 and EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 16 Summary
Richard and Don visit a hardware store because Richard needs bolts for his plane. Don does not need anything because his plane is always in a magically pristine condition. Don plays a beautiful song on a toy guitar, and Richard and the hardware clerk are very impressed. Don tells Richard anyone can play an instrument if they give up their inhibitions and give themselves permission to play. Richard finds out that Don never took flying lessons, he just jumped into an airplane one day and flew. Richard accuses Don of not having a license, and Don makes a license appear out of thin air. The two men share a joke and a laugh.
Chapter 17 Summary
Don appears on a radio show hosted by Jeff Sykes. Jeff asks Don questions, and Don responds using his philosophies and ideas on perceived reality and the Is. People call in to the radio program and condemn Don for his unusual beliefs. One man calls Don the antichrist and threatens to shoot him. He is uncomfortable letting his children listen to what Don is saying. Don is unaffected by the criticism and continues to discuss what he knows. Richard is concerned because Jeff told everyone where their planes are, but Richard does not leave his friend.
Chapter 18 Summary
The chapter begins with a passage from the handbook about saying farewell and meeting again.
The next day, Don asks Richard if he remembers their conversation about Don being unhappy because no one cared what he had to say. Richard recalls the conversation and remarks that Don had looked lonely. Don has the revelation that he does not need to tell anyone how the universe works. He can just know and that is enough. Don claims that he lived this lifetime to find the answer to that one problem.
Chapter 19 Summary
Don and Richard prepare for a day of flying when Richard hears a shotgun discharge. Don has been shot. Richard begins to chase the gunman, who disappears in a crowd of panicked onlookers, but changes his mind when he realizes he wants to be with his friend. Richard holds Don, who is speaking but critically injured. Don jokes that it did not have to happen this way, but he likes to be dramatic. Don suggests that his death was of his own design and refers to the gunman as “a friend.” Richard asks Don to heal himself, but Don dies in his arms. Stunned, Richard reads the Messiah’s Handbook: “Everything/ in this book/ may be/ wrong” (181).
Epilogue Summary
Richard continues to fly and suggests that some of Don’s messiah-like qualities have rubbed off on him. He says his plane needs less gas, and bugs do not hit his windshield. Richard has a positive effect on the people with whom he interacts. He sometimes attracts too much attention and leaves a place early. He often thinks of Don and, one night, meets his friend in a dream. Don is trying to patch the tire of his plane that had been damaged by the gunshot. Richard waves his hand over the tire and fixes it. Don makes him some pan bread, which is terrible. He says he made it with plaster, poking fun at Richard’s terrible pan bread. Richard asks Don if he is ever coming back, and Don says he does not think so. He says if Richard ever has a problem, they can meet in this dream space to talk about it.
Don comments that very few people wanted to hear what he had to say, but a master is not judged by the size of his crowd. Don prepares to leave in the Travel Air 4000 but stops to suggest that Richard write down what he knows. Richard is baffled by the suggestion, claiming that it is a lot of work. Then, Don flies away. When Richard awakens, he rushes to write down what he knows: “1. There was a Master come unto earth, born in the holy land of Indiana” (192), which matches the first lines of Chapter 1.
Chapters 15-19 and Epilogue Analysis
The tone of the novel changes dramatically in these chapters. Richard and Don are content in their togetherness, and the tone reflects Richard’s feelings of enlightenment. When Don appears on the radio show, the tone changes dramatically again. Here, the novel hits its point of crisis, as the agitated Christians on Sykes’s show begin to threaten Don. The narrative’s enlightened, lighthearted tone is replaced with a tense foreboding as Richard realizes how Don’s philosophies disturb the public when they are not delivered in tandem with miracles. This relates to one of the novels major themes about The Individual Versus the Masses. Don often laments over the public’s inability to listen and learn. Unlike Richard, the crowds demand action, not philosophy. Don has the opportunity on the radio show to share what he knows uninhibited by the ritual of miracles, but paradoxically, this simpler format makes it more difficult for his audience to accept his words.
That night, Don has his epiphany about not needing to tell people what he knows, highlighting the theme of Letting Go of Illusions and Perceived Limitations. Even though Don quit being a messiah, he still holds on to the illusion that he has a specific job to do. Now, Don understands that his feelings to tell what he knows have been fulfilled and that people have the freedom to listen or not. The finality of his dialogue when he claims has learned all he needs to know in this lifetime adds to the sense of foreboding.
Don’s death is tragic, but its impact is lessened by the dialogue between Richard and Don before Don dies. The dialogue implies that the gunman was another one of Richard’s illusions and that Don’s death was intentional. It can be inferred that since Don learned what he needed to from this lifetime, he was ready to let go. Richard knows that Don could heal himself if he wanted to, and this is how Richard comes to understand that his friend is choosing to leave.
The final remarks in the Messiah’s Handbook blur the lines between fact and truth. This relates to the theme of The Freedom to Be. A person creates their own truth. The handbook is not a rigid guide to spiritualism; it is a book of suggestions that help its reader work through their own truths and the problems those truths present.
As Richard lives the philosophies Don imparted to him, he becomes more messiah-like. Unlike Don, however, Richard’s phobia of crowds keeps him from revealing the true nature of his understanding and power. Richard, like Don, grapples with the need to say what he knows, which is in contrast to his desire to avoid the public. Richard’s subconscious magnetizes Don, and they meet in a dream to work out this problem. Richard understands he is seeing Don in a different dimension, which comments on the endless nature of spirit. When Don suggests Richard write what he knows instead of speaking it, he helps his friend resolve his problem.
The first few lines of Richard’s journal are the first lines of Illusions. This creates a cyclical framework for the story, wherein the form and the substance of the story become intertwined. It identifies Richard as the notebook’s author and shows that the notes could only be written after Richard’s journey was complete. Thus, the end and the beginning are the same.
