Table of Contents

Chasing Eris

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Preface

Introduction

1. Who’s in Charge Here?

2. Cooking Mescaline in the Meat Locker

3. Serious About This Craziness

4. Ideas of What Has to Be

5. Butter Eris Kitty Ritual

6. We Can’t Bring Eris Into It; It’d Be Weird!

7. Some Sort of Gay Wrestling Thing

8. Suicide by Pumpkin

9. Destroying the Fucking Cars

10. Haunted with Unfinished Business

11. Plans Involve Building Some Flying Disks

12. Damn Skippy!

13. The Master That Makes the Grass Green

14. Trolled By Eris

15. That’s Not a Religion, That’s Bullshit!

16. The Sum of Sacred Chaos

17. Long Day’s Journey Into Insanity

18. Money to Burn

19. A Hundred Different Interpretations

20. The Lol Cabbage and the Rubber Gorilla

21. Everyone is a God

22. Anarchy in the EU

23. Cutting off the Finger

Afterfnord

Appendix One: Discordian Ritual at PantheaCon.

Appendix Two: Transcript of exchange between Sondra London and

Prosecutor George Waas.

Appendix Three. Reviews of the Principia Discordia sent to Greg Hill

by Michael Hoy.

Who’s Who?

Bibliography
Chasing Eris

Cover: Alex Screen. Frontispiece: Bobby Campbell

 Chasing Eris

Brenton Clutterbuck

Copyright © 2018 by Brenton Clutterbuck

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced
or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of
the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or
scholarly journal.

First Printing: 2018

www.chasingeris.com

Ordering Information:
Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations,
associations, educators, cults, and others. For details, contact the publisher
at Brenton.clutterbuck@gmail.com
 Acknowledgements

There’s a huge amount of support I’ve received that has helped me create
this book. Huge thanks to everyone I met and interviewed, whether or not I
was able to include your stories. Every story told to me made my journey
and my life madder, richer and more rewarding. This is not hyperbole.

Thanks to everyone who let me stay at their house, offered me a lift, food,
translated for me or helped me contact other Discordians.

Thanks to Adam Gorightly in particular for a huge amount of editing

support.

Thanks to Christina Pearson and Hilaritas Press for their support, time and
assistance.

Groucho Gandhi for helping me get early versions of chapters into the wild,
and for everything else.

John Higgs for his introduction and help editing.

Alex Screen for his fabulous cover.

Cramulus for helping me get deeper into the Discordian rabbit hole from
the very start, and for his afterward.

My family and friends and everyone who worked with me to edit this into
something other than the world’s driest, longest and most obscure
encyclopedia.

Jura Lives for their help and access to materials.

This project would have been completely impossible without the help of a
huge number of people, and I want to thank you all for helping me complete
this.

Thank you to anyone else who deserves thanks. There are so many that I’m
bound to leave someone unaccounted for, but I am keenly aware in so many
ways, of how much of this book is a product of other people’s generosity.
 Foreword

A common analogy which Discordians use to describe themselves is that

they are like mycelium.

Mycelium are fine white fungal strands which spread unseen underground,
through soil and sometimes even rock. Mycelium is a word that is both
singular and plural. A single mycelium colony may be too small to see with
the naked eye, or it may spread like a web underneath thousands of acres
and live for thousands of years. It can act as a communication network, and
it can exert an invisible influence on the visible ecosystem above ground.

By themselves, mycelium remain hidden. But when two compatible

mycelium colonies encounter each other, they can trigger a mushroom to
burst forth in the eco-culture above – a plant that is strange, alien, comical
and often psychedelic.

That was certainly my experience. In 2012, I wrote a book about the

money-burning British rave duo The KLF. Well, I say the book was about
The KLF - it was equally about Robert Anton Wilson, Alan Moore, Ken
Campbell, Doctor Who and Discordianism. Or to put it another way; all the
good stuff. But when I was writing it, I could find no evidence of anyone
other than me caring about these things. The golden rule of writing is write
something that people will give a shit about. As I was writing the book, it
appeared that I was failing at this most fundamental of objectives.
Then I met the theatre director Daisy Eris Campbell. Our lives ran in
strange parallels, we discovered, and we both held the conviction that if
only more people would read the works of the great American agnostic
Robert Anton Wilson then the world would be a much happier place. (Daisy
claims that we are cosmic twins. I’m not saying she is wrong, but I don’t
understand why she got the cheekbones and I didn’t.)

It was when our paths crossed that things changed – and our two mycelium
strands caused visible mushrooms to awkwardly bud in the above-ground
culture. She had been writing a stage adaptation of Wilson’s autobiography
Cosmic Trigger, but could see no evidence that there was an audience for it.
We took it upon ourselves to go and Find The Others, as Timothy Leary
advised. We went out in public and did a series of talks, up and down the
country, about Wilson and his legacy. The first was at the Horse Hospital in
London, and after that everything changed. To our delight, Discordians and
Wilson-heads began pouring out of the woodwork. This was the evening
when our story crossed paths with the intrepid subcultural anthropologist
whose adventures you are about to read.

In my talk, I worried about the seeming lack of interest in Wilson after his
death. I explained how I had set up a number of Google Alerts, primed to
inform me when anyone online was talking about The KLF or Robert
Anton Wilson or the like. They remained largely silent, except for the
occasional eBay auction, and this gave me the troubling impression that
Wilson was being forgotten. This wasn’t entirely true - Tom Jackson’s
invaluable blog RAWillumination.net had been reliably keeping the flame
alive, as did the Maybe Logic gang, and BoingBoing would also celebrate
Wilson. But beyond these fine torch bearers, there seemed nothing but
silence. I was of course once again entirely wrong. I was just pig-ignorant
of the global mycelium strands lurking underground, below my radar,
preparing their surprises.
I’m writing this four years later, and the world is very different. There has
been a wide-ranging and frankly glorious neo-Discordian revival, here in
Britain at least. It has produced mixtapes, festivals, fanzines, podcasts,
theatre, talks, websites, books, happenings, VR, rituals, memes, friendships,
hope and a great deal of tribal fun. It has been created by writers, actors,
designers, money burners, magicians, musicians, t shirt designers,
comedians, directors, artists, promoters, dancers, scholars, psychedelic
Dalek builders, DJs, tattooists, puppeteers, strippers, punters, hecklers and
many entirely uncategorizable but utterly necessary oddballs. In America,
the origins of Discordianism have been thoroughly documented in works
such as Adam Gorightly’s Historia Discordia, and Wilson’s books are being
lovingly polished and re-released as ebooks as well as physical copies. It
has been – and I can’t stress this enough – fucking great. I no longer worry
that Robert Anton Wilson will be forgotten.

All this is what makes this book so valuable. Here is a record of the global
Discordian mycelium network just before the neo-Discordian revival
distorted the picture and put the focus on what was visible. Here is the
influence of Eris in perhaps her purest form, a record of creativity and
inspiration evolving underground across many noisy decades. It is a story
that was close to being lost, had one far-sighted man not realised its
importance while the rest of us were still waking up.

To travel the world in search of a culture that may not exist is heroic. To
come back with such a rich and funny report is a remarkable achievement.
For the rest of us, to suddenly realise that you have been part of a tribe that
you could not see, which you did not even dare hope existed, is a warm
feeling indeed. This makes Brenton Clutterbuck’s Chasing Eris an
unexpected gift. His particular strand of mycelium has caused the countless
mycelium colonies encountered here to burst up into the light, binding
Discordians into a global tribe, regardless of how hard they attempt to
follow the adage that We Discordians must stick apart.
Gifts like this tell us that, being mycelium ourselves, we just need to cross
paths with the right mycelium colony to cause an unexpected mushroom to
manifest in the world above. That is a pleasing thing to remember. But it is
also a reminder that, for all we might focus on the mushrooms, the
mycelium is the heart of it all.

John Higgs, Brighton UK, summer solstice 2017.

 Preface

As it is difficult to validate the claims of Discordians,

very challenging to determine what parts of the narrative of the killing of

JFK are true,

and damn-near impossible to know which way is up with Kerry Thornley,

I have generally thrown the reader in the lions’ pit with all of the “facts”
presented to me - from the official explanation of the death of JFK, to the
alien Gods of Egypt, the use of mind-control technology and tales of giant
stripper-eating eagles, and let them struggle through it themselves.

The reader is thus advised to take care. Here there be fnords.¹

¹ We’ll get into that later.

 Introduction

It is past midnight when the first banknotes catch alight. The two musicians
are laughing nervously as they watch them burn. The air is cold and crisp,
and smells like the ocean. They begin with single notes, but soon progress
to large wads of cash, throwing them into the flames, watching in
amazement as though their actions belonged to some other people...

...and in prison, accused killer Danny Rolling is writing a letter...

...We drop back a hundred years, and somebody opens a letter that suggests
it is time for congress to disband, as the Emperor of the United States of
America is now ruling from San Francisco...

...and an author begins to think he is receiving messages from the star

Sirius...

...he tucks the live chicken into his bag...

...And the tattooist begins to apply green ink to her face...

...and draws the apple on his arm...

 ...and the shot is fired, and Kennedy dies...

..."Damn Skippy!"...

...projectile vomit, right in the middle of the ritual...

...and a police baton finds its way to the head of a musician...

...two nude women wrestle in the pudding...

...she taps her microphone in Germany...

...bites into the burrito, with no clue as to its deadly contents...

...feeling unsettled at the sight of the men in biohazard suits and gas
masks...

...she jams in the vibrator...

 ...another dead cat...

...drumming into the night, chanting and surrounded by drunks and

prostitutes, when who should walk through the door but...

...Jim Garrison stands...

...photocopies the documents from the archive...

...and goes bowling.

The thread that ties together these strange and disparate threads is a little
known but deeply influential constructed religion known as Discordianism.
I discovered Discordianism myself one night, while browsing the internet,
and became an instant convert. Alienated from the seemingly outlandish
claims of other religions, and put off by the smarmy know-it-all pedantry of
New Atheism, I found myself in the market, as it were, for a new mode of
spirituality.

And here I found it: a strange new religion that defied simple description. It
was ‘Zen for roundeyes.’ It was ‘a joke disguised as a religion.’ It was ‘a
religion disguised as a joke.’ It was a mash-up of the ancient and the
contemporary, a melding of the sacred and the profane, the profound and
the goofy, and it all began when two young men went bowling.
 ***

The first was named Greg Hill. His bowling partner once described him as
‘short in physical stature with curly black hair. Elfin blue eyes combine
with his squat physique to give him a Pan-like appearance’.¹ He was
generally described as softly spoken and deep-thinking.

His bowling partner was a handsome, thin man named Kerry Thornley.
Kerry was the anti-Greg; he had a smart-assed mouth that couldn’t be
stopped and an irreverent, outgoing personality.

Greg and Kerry used to hang out in the bowling alleys, chat and ‘drink
coffee.’² Discordianism’s founding takes place in this setting, as revealed in
Principia Discordia or How I Found Goddess and What I Done With Her
When I Found Her - the holy book of Discordianism. The two men has just
been bowling, maybe having a little ‘coffee’ when…

Suddenly the place became devoid of light. Then an utter silence enveloped
them, and a great stillness was felt. Then came a blinding flash of intense
light, as though their very psyches had gone nova. Then vision returned.

The two were dazed and neither moved nor spoke for several minutes.

They looked around and saw that the bowlers were frozen like statues in a
variety of comic positions, and that a bowling ball was steadfastly anchored
to the floor only inches from the pins that it had been sent to scatter. The
two looked at each other, totally unable to account for the phenomenon. The
condition was one of suspension, and one noticed that the clock had
stopped.
There walked into the room a chimpanzee, shaggy and grey about the
muzzle, yet upright to his full five feet, and poised with natural majesty. He
carried a scroll and walked to the young men.

"Gentlemen," he said, "why does Pickering's Moon go about in reverse

orbit? Gentlemen, there are nipples on your chests; do you give milk? And
what, pray tell, Gentlemen, is to be done about Heisenberg's Law?" He
paused. "SOMEBODY HAD TO PUT ALL OF THIS CONFUSION HERE!"

And with that he revealed his scroll. It was a diagram, like a yin-yang with
a pentagon on one side and an apple on the other. And then he exploded
and the two lost consciousness.³

This symbol was named the Sacred Chao – Chao being a unit of chaos (and
an easy pun on cow). The apple represented disorder, and the pentagon
order, and while the scroll revealed the way the twin illusions of Order and
Disorder together created the great Chaos from which all things spring, it
was specifically the Goddess of Disorder that was to visit Greg and Kerry.

A splendid woman [appeared] whose eyes were as soft as feather and as

deep as eternity itself, and whose body was the spectacular dance of atoms
and universes. Pyrotechnics of pure energy formed her flowing hair, and
rainbows manifested and dissolved as she spoke in a warm and gentle
voice:

I have come to tell you that you are free. Many ages ago, My consciousness
left man, that he might develop himself. I return to find this development
approaching completion, but hindered by fear and by misunderstanding.

You have built for yourselves psychic suits of armor, and clad in them, your
vision is restricted, your movements are clumsy and painful, your skin is
bruised, and your spirit is broiled in the sun. .

I am chaos. I am the substance from which your artists and scientists build
rhythms. I am the spirit with which your children and clowns laugh in
happy anarchy. I am chaos. I am alive, and I tell you that you are free.⁴

Discordianism, once revealed, spread through Greg and Kerry’s creative

communities, and might have stopped there if it wasn’t for the third key
figure of our narrative. The eldest of the three, Robert Anton Wilson (RAW,
as his fans often call him) was a writer of some considerable talent and
formidable intellect. A friend and contemporary of ‘the most dangerous
man in America,’ psychedelic drugs advocate Timothy Leary, Wilson
would ultimately be responsible for Discordia’s international reach.

***

A religion centred on disorder, rather than order? A deity taken from the
villain’s gallery of ancient Greece? A smart assed-chimpanzee as a
revelatory prophet? It was enough to make me read on, and I did,
obsessively. I devoured Principia Discordia and went on the hunt for more
material.

I mean, it wasn’t like I didn’t need something to fill the time. I was recently
out of university, (and even more recently out of a serious relationship) and
like many other beginning teachers, had been sent out into the wilderness to
begin my teaching career. This particular wilderness was a small coal-
mining town, a solid 10 hours drive from the closest capital city. More than
once I had a creeping doubt wrap itself around me. What the hell are you
doing here? it seemed to whisper, especially at 10 PM, in a ‘club’ that was
really a pub’s spare room.

I was coming up with a lot of questions about my life, and Discordia –

while not exactly providing any answers – was at least helping make a kind
of sense of things. So, your life is random, unpredictable and incoherent, it
yelled gleefully. Well, shit bruh! Guess it’s just like the rest of the universe!
In my little town, without a whole lot to do, I had lots of time to obsess over
this new, strange ideology – and obsess I did.

When I brought it up with people, conversations tended to follow a general

script.

Me: Have you heard of this thing called Discordianism?

Them: No, what is it?

Me: Well, err, um…

I needed to find a way to articulate that which avoided articulation.

The Principia Discordia, which I first found free on the Internet, wasn’t
organized into a series of books or chapters - it was like a work of art, a
collage or a scrapbook. Sure, it was about the importance of disorder, but it
was also about the importance of not-taking life too seriously. It was about
understanding that we don’t see objective reality, but instead see the world
through ‘grids,’ which we can change or adapt for different purposes. It was
about recognizing one’s own authority, proudly stating that every man,
woman, and child on Earth was a Discordian Pope. It was also sometimes
just about goofy puns and marijuana references. This coy refusal to specify
the point of Discordianism appealed to me.

The not-quite-literal Goddess of Discordianism was Eris, after whose

Roman name ‘Discordia’ the movement was named. Eris is best known in
Greek mythology for causing the Trojan War, an event somewhat less-than-
faithfully adapted in a Principia story, The Original Snub.

It seems that Zeus was preparing a wedding banquet for Peleus and Thetis
and did not want to invite Eris because of Her reputation as a trouble
maker.

This made Eris angry, and so She fashioned an apple of pure gold and
inscribed upon it KALLISTI ("To The Prettiest One") and on the day of the
fete She rolled it into the banquet hall and then left to be alone and joyously
partake of a hotdog.

Now, three of the invited goddesses, Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite, each
immediately claimed it to belong to herself because of the inscription. And
they started fighting, and they started throwing punch all over the place and
everything.
Finally Zeus calmed things down and declared that an arbitrator must be
selected, which was a reasonable suggestion, and all agreed. He sent them
to a shepherd of Troy, whose name was Paris because his mother had had a
lot of gaul and had married a Frenchman; but each of the sneaky goddesses
tried to outwit the others by going early and offering a bribe to Paris.

Athena offered him Heroic War Victories, Hera offered him Great Wealth,
and Aphrodite offered him the Most Beautiful Woman on Earth. Being a
healthy young Trojan lad, Paris promptly accepted Aphrodite's bribe and
she got the apple and he got screwed.

As she had promised, she maneuvered earthly happenings so that Paris

could have Helen (the Helen) then living with her husband Menelaus, King
of Sparta. Anyway, everyone knows that the Trojan War followed when
Sparta demanded their Queen back and that the Trojan War is said to be
The First War among men.

And so we suffer because of the Original Snub. And so a Discordian is to

partake of No Hotdog Buns.⁵

The golden apple, sometimes with a K on it, has therefore become the
symbol of Disorder. The pentagon, with its straight lines and military
connotations, of course represents Order. Order is not seen as bad, but
Discordian mythology states that a ‘malcontented hunchbrain’ called
Greyface is responsible for society’s unhealthy obsession with it.
Greyface and his followers took the game of playing at life more seriously
than they took life itself and were known even to destroy other living beings
whose ways of life differed from their own.

The unfortunate result of this is that mankind has since been suffering from
a psychological and spiritual imbalance. Imbalance causes frustration, and
frustration causes fear. And fear makes for a bad trip. Man has been on a
bad trip for a long time now.

It is called THE CURSE OF GREYFACE.⁶

I began to devour other Discordian media. Kerry Thornley’s other readily

accessible text, Zenarchy was an interesting meld of Zen and Anarchism,
the influence of both evident in the Principia. Robert Anton Wilson’s work,
including his interviews, essays, his biographical work Cosmic Trigger, his
brain-exploding conspiracy obsessed trilogy Illuminatus! (co-written with
Robert Shea) and the film Maybe Logic, dedicated to his philosophy of
‘generalized agnosticism’, all added to the mindstorm. I found a YouTube
clip of the owner of Discordian.com, St. Mae, speaking at an event called
CCC23, in which she discussed how Discordianism connected to the
modern phenomena of Culture Jamming, and copyright subversion (the
Principia itself is ‘copyleft’, which in practical terms meant it immediately
entered into the Public Domain).

Adam Gorightly’s book The Prankster and the Conspiracy, dealt with the
life story of Kerry Thornley. Adam came across Thornley through his own
interest in the Kennedy Assassination Conspiracy, in which Thornley had
become entangled.
Whew! Discordianism seemed to have a long, weird history that I was
starting to unravel in the long afternoons that followed long days. But I
wanted to know something more compelling. Was Discordianism over?
Was I looking at the bygone freewheeling craziness of the 60s? Or was
there a beating heart in the goofy chest of Discordianism?

The answer to that last question, was yes. I joined what was informally
known as the ‘Worst Forum in the World,’ a Discordian community
connected to the principiadiscordia.com domain. The denizens of this forum
were referred to as the PeeDee Cabal. Here I discovered a trove of
contemporary Discordian works, and through my engagement with the
PeeDee cabal, I even added to the literature, editing an edition of open
source Discordian magazine Intermittens, a project started by a Professor
Cramulus.

It seemed like there were two waves of Discordian works; the originals, and
the new wave. As far as I could tell, the first ripples of the new wave came
from a work known as Apocrypha Discordia, collated by an individual
called Dr Jon Swabey who came from Brisbane, Queensland.

Brisbane!

Brisbane was where my family was. It was where I’d visit my friends
periodically, an escape from my small-town cabin fever once every couple
of months. I already had my tickets.
Maybe this could be a chance to start to explore the weird and wild world of
Discordia in more detail.

I contact Jon to ask if we can meet.

We can.

¹ (Thornley, Greg Hill, n.d.)

² Apparently in Whittier, bowling alleys of the late ⁵⁰s were a good place to
get ‘coffee’ for those who don’t have ID and weren’t old enough to ‘drink
coffee.’

³ (Hill & Thornley, Principia Discordia, ¹⁹⁷⁰)

⁴ (Hill & Thornley, Principia Discordia, ¹⁹⁷⁰)

⁵ (Hill & Thornley, Principia Discordia, ¹⁹⁷⁸)

⁶ (Hill & Thornley, Principia Discordia, ¹⁹⁷⁸)

 1. Who’s in Charge Here?

Jon Swabey is, in his own words, a ‘Brisbane Discordian hiding from Eris.’
He is hard to miss as I walk to our meeting spot in King George Square;
he’s tall and well-dressed, his trademark hat wide brimmed and badge
adjourned, his face possessing a thick pointy moustache and goatee.

“It's nice to meet you,” I say.

“Lies!” he cries cheerfully.

I have a recording device on me, but feel awkward about asking to use it. I
don’t quite feel like a ‘real’ journalist yet. Instead, I scribble notes
frantically on my phone as Jon talks with me. An English accent he
inherited from his father still lingers, although the broad English accent of
his childhood was successfully 'beaten out of him' in school.

In the distance, sounds of Islamic music, drift in from Saudi National Day
celebrations. As we pass, we see small children run past with balloons.

“I wonder if balloons are halal,” he muses playfully. “Om nom nom.”

He takes me into the State library. Books have taken a central role in his
life. He's worked as a publisher, an archivist and a metadata cataloguer at
the University of Queensland. Right now, he's working on an eBook
adaptation on behalf of a ghost tours company.

The release of the Apocrypha Discordia came as an unofficial venture,

before his official publishing career.

“In the mid to late nineties, a lot of people were talking about creating a
new Discordian work, but no one was actually doing it," he tells me. “That's
partly why I published it.”

The Apocrypha featured 100 or so pages of assembled Erisian¹ miscellany.

It was one of many assorted PDFs I’d consumed in those first obsessive
days of discovering Discordia – and in truth, like many of those PDFs, I
was a little underwhelmed by some of the material. After all, the ‘zine
scene’ is really the punk rock of the publishing industry; sometimes the
emphasis on DIY culture ends up representing the written equivalent of
incoherent screaming and banging on drums.

Despite this, I loved zines, and I loved Apocrypha Discordia, not because
it’s a masterpiece (though it has its moments) but because it became an
alarm call to Discordians internationally. The work set Discordia alight; it
now looked easy to produce your own holy text. Today, over thirty
contemporary Discordian texts of variable quality can be found compiled in
various digital archives, and works have been made in multiple languages.
More than anything, the Apocrypha earned its place in the canon by being
the match that lit the fuse.
So did his publication of the Apocrypha attract much attention, I ask him, as
we ride the escalator down the library.

“Oh yes,” he says. “That was fun. Like an appendectomy. I won't make that
mistake again.”

Jon later explained to me through email, the ‘fun’ that he was involved in
included a long Wikipedia edit war involving himself and well known
Discordians Shii and Reverend Loveshade. Loveshade used the Apocrypha
Wikipedia page to justify using Wikipedia as a promotion tool for his as yet
unpublished book The Ek-sen-tri-kuh Discordia. While Shii has since fallen
off the Discordian radar, Loveshade is an entirely infamous member of the
Discordian scene who has personally aggrieved numerous Discordians.

It seemed to me that the folks advocating retention (indeed, seemed to be

the ones who either created or enlarged the article) were either acolytes or
sockpuppets of Rev Loveshade… The Apocrypha page was being used as
support to justify the inclusion of the Eksentrikuh Wikipedia page. Shii
disagreed vehemently with that inclusion, and the Apocrypha page was
collateral damage in the edit war.

Jon is a library paraprofessional, experienced with archival records. That

experience served him well in 2006, when he made a new and significant
contribution to the Erisian community by discovering the existence of what
appeared to be the long-lost first edition of the Principia Discordia.
Jon had received a number of Discordian documents from self-described
crackpot historian Adam Gorightly. One of the documents had the title
‘How the West was lost’.²

“I saw it and thought it looked familiar, and kept looking through. I saw it
again and thought, I know that title... I really know that title.” It was the
original by-line of the Principia Discordia, before Or How I Found Goddess
and What I Done With Her When I Found Her.

More importantly, there was also a serial number, which led Dr Jon to
contact the John F. Kennedy archives in Maryland.

“They confirmed that they had a box of 'stuff'. I put word out to see if
anyone was near.”

They were. Karl Musser, a Discordian Pope from Maryland, was able to use
the serial number to access the box and create a series of scans that he then
sent to Jon.

“All I did was look up that specific reference number,” Musser would later
tell me. “I didn’t really have anything else to go on there. That’s all they
had, a little pile of papers in an envelope.”

That little pile of thirty-six papers were believed for a time to comprise the
long lost original first edition Principia Discordia. We now know those
pages are not the actual pages of the first edition, but probably early drafts.
Included within was a certificate of recognition. Hark! Recognise that the
DISCORDIAN SOCIETY do hereby certify Barbara Clancey Reid as a
legionnaire. The certificate is signed ‘Bullgoose of Limbo’; one of Kerry
Thornley’s many pseudonyms.

The story of why Discordian shenanigans should end up in a collection as

solemn as the JFK archives starts with Thornley’s military service.
Stationed at Santa Ana, California with Thornley was the man who would
go on to be arrested for the murder of President John F, Kennedy - Lee
Harvey Oswald. According to Barbara Reid whose name graces that
certificate, that wasn’t the last time Thornley and Oswald met… but we’ll
get to that in good time.

***

By this point it’s too late for me. Something has been planted in me, a kind
of desperate curiosity that has developed a life of its own. The Discordian
story is asking to be told, and I have the strange sense of being the vessel
through which it can express itself.

I put word out via the Internet that I’m keen to meet more Discordians and
am not disappointed. A friend of Dr Jon’s by the name of Grandmaster
Armadillo Curmudgeon meets with me. He has short cropped hair and a
blue shirt with the Ford logo, altered to say FNORD; a word familiar to
most Discordians.

Like Jon, Curmudgeon is an ex-pat Brit. He is currently applying for

Australian citizenship, but hails from Manchester, where he worked 14 hour
days at the anarchistic Basement Social Centre.

The Basement Social Centre ran a radical bookshop, provided free internet
and networked with refugee groups to provide food to refugees. They
sometimes broke into abandoned buildings and squatted for a month or two,
creating temporary vegan cafes. Sometimes these activities attracted the
wrong kind of attention, and the cosy coalition of Anarchists would attract a
visit from Manchester’s finest.

“We'd have the police come to us and ask 'who's in charge here?' Nobody's
in charge; we're Anarchists.”

The Principia says that Discordians Must Stick Apart. Curmudgeon sees
this same attitude mirrored in Anarchism.

“You run with it and make it your own thing. Lack of Dogma is the only
Dogma. Same as Chaos Magic,” he says.³

Chaos Magic - now there's another spark to the discordant web. While not
explicitly mentioned in the Principia, Chaos Magic runs through the
writings and minds of contemporary Discordians. After all, Discordianism
celebrates chaos; its principal deity is chaos manifest - how could Chaos
Magic not appeal?

Chaos Magic, unlike many other traditional magical practices, does not
place a heavy importance on the rules of a spell or ritual, with practitioners
more likely to ‘wing it’ than get hung up on making sure they turn the
chalice exactly 5cm counter-clockwise. Chaos Magicians tend to have
complex belief patterns, believing something completely and absolutely
when ritual calls for it, but not necessarily the next day... or even five
minutes later.

"It's hard to explain Discordia,” Curmudgeon tells me. “It’s like trying to
hold onto the soap in the shower. Eris is like Schrodinger’s deity: maybe
she exists, maybe she doesn't.”

***

I meet others in the time I have left in Brisbane. Michael, a middle aged
man with a thin red beard, takes me to a meeting of the Theosophy Society.
One of the women he introduces me to tells me how cutting sugar from her
diet helped her stop accidentally falling into alternate dimensions.

“Everything happens at the interface,” Michael tells me. “You can be boring
and stale, or you can be exciting and incoherent. Eris is important because
we're in a society obsessed with order. It’s a counterbalance to that
obsessive compulsive primate culture. In the end we want to feel good, and
we need explanation. That's the case with religion throughout history. A
religion which focuses on Eris is a bit more-” he searches for a word, “-
robust. You can't ask the same question of Eris as you ask of Yahweh. Why
is there all this suffering, so on.”

“What would Eris say if you asked her,” I ask.

“You deserve it, you bastards!” he laughs.

I meet two others; Jason and Peter, in a tea shop off the Queen Street Mall.
Jason is the younger of the two, with a large hat and a thick well curled
moustache. Peter is older and taller than Jason, and lives with a partner and
a diabetic cat. He wears a Subgenius badge on his left shoulder; another
less-than-serious church with links to Discordia, in which he does business
as Reverend Doktor 'Pat' A. Phoria. Church of the Subgenius is, amongst
other things, a parody of Christian evangelicals, which revolves around the
saviour “Bob”, a salesman who offers ‘Salvation or Triple Your Money
Back’.

I ask Peter if he finds the Church of the Subgenius more valuable than
Discordianism.

“They're linked,” he says. “One’s no more outrageous than the other.”

“Subgenius is applied Discordianism,” muses Jason.

“That's a very good way of putting it,” says Peter. “It's like, Subgenius is
the psychiatry to the psychology of Discordianism. So Discordianism is the
science and Subgenius is the engineering. They do feed off one another but
Discordianism holds insane ludicrous randomness up as an important
guiding principle and frankly, enables it even as it tries to say, ‘no no, it's
just a joke.’ Whereas Church of the Subgenius is very forwardly aggressive
about it being a joke. It really helps depending what mood you're in... So
beautifully interchangeable in a way that no other two religions can be…
Subgenius, Discordianism, it's all just two sides of the same coin.”

When the time comes for Jason to describe his Discordia, he shows me a
photo on his phone. It’s a seat, writhing in bees.

People’s reaction to seeing the bees, he says, is fearful, wanting to kill them.
“They’re the biggest pollinators in the world,” he tells me. “Without bees
we’d all starve... People are afraid of the need to challenge their own
thoughts. Discordia embraces that fear. Discordia is a friend to the
unknown.”

¹ There’s some debate about this (Hail Eris!) but generally you’ll see
Discordian and Erisian used interchangeably.

² Without going too much into it, this part of the story is a little ambiguous.
So far as I can gather, these files may have been among documents Adam
sent Jon for the purpose of a short-lived Discordian website, but because the
Goddess loves to piss around, neither man could totally confirm this.

³ I’ve used this spelling consistently, for the sake of simplicity, but a popular
convention is to spell real ‘magick’ with a K to distinguish it from stage
magic.
 2. Cooking Mescaline in the Meat Locker

I return home, where I am finding myself frustrated in my day to day life.

I’m growing impatient with the smallness of the town, which seems to wrap
itself around me like a constrictor.

In the background, other things are rumbling. I have broadened my search

for knowledge, and have been hearing from folks from all over the world.
There’s Peterson Silva from Brazil, Lao Hunluan from Poland, and others
around the world.

Johnny Shellburn who runs KerryThornley.com tells me unbelievable

stories about some of the early Discordians, including Mike Quinn: a young
black man at the forefront of the hacker movement who was the inspiration
for the character of The MGT from Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea’s
Illuminatus! trilogy. He puts me in contact with Pagan ritualist Gypsie
Skripto who knew both Greg and Kerry (Kerry in the biblical sense also)
and helped inspire Greg Hill’s afterward to the fourth edition Principia.

For each name, I place dots on maps. And those dots sit beside other dots
and seem to suggest lines. On my map of the USA, lies a smile that
stretches from Portland, Oregon to New York, New York. I take it as a
positive sign. A series of small clusters gather on the face of Brazil.
Throughout Europe, a little track seems to take hold.
I’m still researching the early days of Discordia, wallowing hopelessly out
of my depth. It’s time to call in the experts.

***

Self-described Crackpot Historian Adam Gorightly answers the phone. Not

only has he literally written the book on Discordiansim co-founder Kerry
Thornley (The Prankster and the Conspiracy in 2003), but he is on the
precipice of a great many new things. As the now oft repeated anecdote
goes, Gorightly had recently decided to revisit the spectre of Discordianism
for a new project, and requested access to early Discordian, Dr Robert
Newport’s Discordian Archives. Newport told Gorightly he could then
collect the ‘rest’ of the archives as well.

‘Rest?’ our bemused moustachioed raconteur asked, at which point Dr

Newport clicked his fingers, and several boxes of documents manifested
themselves out of thin air.

Perhaps your humble Australian narrator has added some creative touches
here. All the same, Gorightly was now in possession of several previously
unknown boxes of material. In the time following our conversation, these
were to spawn two new books (Historia Discordia and Caught in the
Crossfire) and a website (historiadiscordia.com) and are set to spawn even
more.

Gorightly became a Discordian while covering the world of Kerry Thornley

– at first as a tangent connecting to his broader interest in the assassination
of American president John F. Kennedy. In the presence of another early
Discordian and friend of Kerry Thornley, Louise Lacey, he took on the
grand title of The Wrong Reverend Houdini Kundalini of the Church of
Unwavering Indifference.

“It’s a religion where you cast yourself to the wind and let nature take her
course. It sees the universe as a chaotic place,” he tells me.

While my own passion is more and more generated towards the

contemporary strains of Discordia that are growing and mutating like vines,
Adam finds his excitement in the vibrancy and creativity of early Discordia.
To him, nothing has captured the passion and energy of the early days,
when the Discordian Society was made up of a loose tribe of creatives,
especially now that he has in his possession boxes upon boxes of letters,
documents and unpublished works from the first wave.

“They’d send Groovy Kits,” Adam told me. “You have a bunch of whatever
you’d want to send to somebody - could be collage, things cut out of a
newspaper, some art objects - and they’d pass it on. It was basically an art
project, passed around, that kind of evolved into the Principia Discordia.”

The first edition of the Principia Discordia, released in 1965, was limited to
five copies. As time went on, other creatives became involved in the
process. Interest in Discordia peaked around the 70s and 80s, with the
release of Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea’s conspiracy obsessed,
Discordian inspired Illuminatus! Trilogy, and the publication of the
Loompanics edition of the Principia Discordia. This was the edition that
featured an afterward from Greg Hill. The afterward is presented as an
interview between Hill and Gypsie Skripto, the woman Johnny Shellburn
put me in touch with…
Except-

I ask Adam about the amazing stories Johnny Shellburn of

KerryThornley.com told me about master hacker Mike Quinn and Greg’s
friend Gypsie Skripto. The way Gypsie and Kerry ran through the woods
laughing and stripping off their clothes. The way Mike Quinn, an intersex
person-of-colour helped to establish the practice of ‘grey-hat’ hacking.

There’s a pause on the other end of the line. Despite many years of studying
Discordia in better depth than probably anyone in the world, it turns out he
hasn’t heard of either of them! (Cue the dramatic chords!)

He tells me something I’m getting used to hearing in my research; there’s a

number of claims of questionable accuracy made by a ‘certain individual.’

I ask if he’s talking about Reverend Loveshade, the Discordian antagonist

who caused headaches for Jon Swabey. He is.

I start to put some pieces together. One time I sent a message to ‘Johnny
Shellburn’ at KerryThornley.com and it bounced, offering the following
message.

Your message to the following address(es) could not be delivered. This is a

permanent error. Please verify the addresses and try again. If you are still
having difficulty sending mail to these addresses, please contact Customer
Support at 480-624-2500.

domains@loveshade.org.

While this message indicated a connection between the domains of

KerryThornley.com and Loveshade.org, I had until now perhaps naively
assumed that Shellburn and Loveshade were in some benign way
connected, maybe friends or colleagues. But here’s the thing; I asked
Gypsie for information on Mike Quinn because I saw his name in an edition
of Intermittens (the open-source Discordian periodical I contributed to) in
an interview with a man called Richard Marshall. OK so far- but the
interview is with Pope Hilde – who seems to be a Loveshade alt. The
interview was also provided to Intermittens by KerryThornley.com, run by
Johnny Shellburn, also seemingly a Loveshade alt. And the cherry on top is
that this edition of Intermittens was edited by – you guessed it – Reverend
Loveshade himself.

Unsurprisingly, it was Shellburn who gave me details for Gypsie Skripto.

All these 'historical' figures have two things in common; 1) they only seem
to have been heard of by people who are or may be Reverend Loveshade
(that is to say, nobody I can prove is NOT Loveshade has ever had any
direct interactions with any of them). 2) They don’t appear on Adam
Gorightly’s meticulously researched list of early Discordians.¹
Early days as a Discordian researcher, and already I seem to be the target of
a dark and sinister conspiracy, like the skulduggery of the Illuminatus!
trilogy.

The temptation of adventure is now too much to consider stepping back.

With an offer of assistance from the glorious Adam Gorightly himself, I
begin to pack my bags for the United States.

***

Within minutes of arriving at LAX, I am eating a hotdog and drinking

Mountain Dew in a sports themed bar. Maximum American-ness has
peaked very early in the trip. Displaying the jet-lagged fuzziness typical of
a post-10 hour flight, I use the airport Wi-Fi to check messages on my
Discordian forum. Or rather, the forum that I once considered myself a part
of…

My Loveshade headaches had not ended with the Fabricated Discordians

Conspiracy, but had grown to impact my social interactions with
Discordians.

The complications mostly started with Miley Spears who is ostensibly a

teenage-girl with no photos and an unusually strong connection to the
Loveshade Family. The alternate explanation is that she is one of
Loveshade’s alts.²
This was the preferred explanation of a member of the PeeDee cabal who
has requested to remain unidentified. We’ll call them Smith. Smith voiced
this opinion on the PeeDee forums, adding that if Loveshade wasn’t the
same person as Spears, he was having sex with her.

Harsh words, but not quite baseless. Didn’t Loveshade’s website have
multiple articles that generally argued on principle against age of consent
laws? (Yes.) Didn’t Loveshade’s book The Ek-Sen-Trik-Kuh Discordia
have various unnecessarily sexualized elements such as illustrations of
naked children and needlessly sexual songs? (Uh-huh.) Doesn’t Loveshade
claim his cabal runs a children’s club? (Yep.) Of course, how much of what
Loveshade says is sincere, how much is trolling and how much is utter
screaming bullshit is for the reader to judge.

The simplest explanation for what happened next is that Loveshade decided
to fuck with Smith. “Miley Spears” had her “Uncle” who was a “lawyer”
send a “cease and desist” letter, causing some considerable degree of stress
and trouble. As for me, when in light of this new development, the cabal
were reminded that I’d asked for help in hunting down contact details for
several Discordians including Loveshade (I had not yet realised that two of
my existing contacts were secretly Loveshade) I was told in no uncertain
terms from a large portion of the cabal; if he’s in, we’re out. When I
declined interviews that were contingent on not mentioning Loveshade,
feathers were ruffled and I was seen by some as elevating this particular
problematic provocateur above the PeeDee community.

I just wanted to be the one to make the choice to include or exclude voices.
It was, after all, my creative work. But the drama was peaking and many
had withdrawn from involvement. I landed in LA, and found myself an
outsider in my original Discordian community. Is that a laughing Eris I
hear?
 ***

After more hours and more flights, I arrive in Portland. Getting settled into
my youth hostel, I am instantly offered marijuana by a fellow guest. This
becomes a standard greeting; I’m offered time, money, sleeping space, food,
and of course, frequently, marijuana, from the generous folks I meet
throughout the USA.

I get myself settled over a few days. A meet-up I have arranged online
seems to be coming along nicely. I have a few days to myself first, so I go
to visit Tom, a PeeDee cabal member who can't make the meetup. Tom had
sent me a stack of Discordian stickers of his own design through the mail in
the gentler, simpler time when I was still a welcome member of the PeeDee
forums. It’s clear though, when I thank him that he’s completely forgotten
this. We drink warm tea in the miserable shivering Portland cold, before
walking back to his house.

“What got you into it all?” I ask.

“Of course a number of things, but especially the realization that I had very
little sense of humour,” he says. “I was very serious. And I just found
myself laughing at the oddball humour. And really appreciating a lot of the
Subgenius rants.”

I admit my minimal familiarity with Subgenius stuff; the obscurely related

parody religion Peter had spoken about in Brisbane.
“It’s a little more severe- to the wall,” Tom says. “Angry- but with a sense
of humour about it. Also a lot of the [Subgenius] comics deal with material
that is hard to talk about.”

“What about your personal ‘brand’ of Discordia? What elements matter to

you?” I ask.

“I guess I really believe that reality fundamentally is confusing. And

humour is really just an excellent way to cope with that. There’s a lot of
little bits that I really appreciate. ‘Nonsense as Salvation’, while not a great
social tool, I think is an excellent creative tool, which can lead to a lot of
insights about yourself. This sort of exercise to be random or nonsensical,
points to what you believe is true and sensible.”

***

The meetup that I’ve organised is at a Portland pub called the Red Fox.
Despite the dwindling numbers of PeeDee members willing to talk, I am
discovering a world of Discordians separated from the online forum. One
by one they come in. There’s artist Lane; Telarus, a member of the PeeDee
Cabal, and his partner Olivia; Timmy who was a resident at a Houston share
house called the House of Discord; Josh from New Orleans who
participated in the unofficial Mardi Gras Krewe of Eris; high profile
Discordian Johnny Brainwash; and Jeremy, also of the PeeDee Cabal.
Adam Gorightly is here too, having flown up from his home in California.
Adam comes bearing gifts, passing out classic ‘yellow-cover’ Loompanics
editions of Principia Discordia, previously owned by Discordian co-founder
Greg Hill. He passes them out, one by one, and sees them taken with
gratitude. Lane has brought two friends under the age of 21 who cannot be
served in a licensed venue; we agree to move elsewhere after finishing a
snack, but they lose patience and move on before the French fries are done.

With no plans to move somewhere else, we get comfortable in our seats,

against a colourful mural of bright triangles. I’m in between Johnny
Brainwash and Lane, facing the bar.

After general conversation pauses, I ask if everyone is happy to tell their

stories. As they do, I start to map out the different relationships people have
formed with Discordianism.

Olivia, Telarus’s partner, takes the recorder. She wears a white polka-dotted
headscarf. Olivia was introduced to Eris by Telarus. Both she and Lane tell
stories that revolve around similar themes, the way Discordia can be used to
navigate ideas of uncertainty, confusion and chaos.

“She’s been horribly horrible, and absolutely kind to me, and I wouldn’t
have it any other way,” Olivia says. “Honestly. I love the strife and I revel
in it and I thank her for the strife she puts forth and request, ‘not any more.’
At this point I’ve learned that she gives me the strife that I can handle, and
I’m thankful for that, because it could be awfully worse.” She laughs. “But
that’s how I was introduced to the Goddess and what I’ve done now that
I’ve found her, that’s my secret.”
“Well, you and her,” says Johnny Brainwash.

“Baptists think of their God in the same way as Discordians hail Eris,”
Timmy interjects. “Their God throws challenges in their way and they don’t
know why their God fucks them over so often but they know it’s just to test
them. That’s how Discordians think of Eris. The same way Baptists think of
Yahweh. Just some asshole that throws challenges in their way for no
reason.”

I offer my own thoughts. “I’ve sort of seen it as a variation, except it’s not
to challenge us, it’s just because it amuses her. There’s no more reason than
that.”

“There's not necessarily some grand plan here,” Olivia responds. “There's
no meaning. It’s just to make her laugh.”

Lane is an artist, a slight figure topped off with a black trilby. She describes
Discordia as ‘stewing in the background’ of her college days.

“Before I went to college I performed an invocation that accidentally made

me an atheist, for about five years. Eventually, I broke out of that and came
back into the magical thinking and the stepping outside of the materialist
paradigm. I moved across the country and discarded almost everything
trying to start again on the West Coast. I had a moment in which I was
reintroduced to the Goddess in a sort of vision state. I witnessed her
standing around this fire, and this fire was everything- it was my world
burning. She invited me to dance around this fire, to dance with the flames,
and said, ‘If you can dance around these flames and if you can laugh, there
is absolutely nothing you need to be afraid of. Because you have laughed
and danced while your world is burning.’ And what else is there? I’m not
sure I count myself as a Discordian, but Discordianism is one of the things
that floats around in my syncretic mindstorm and occasionally slaps me
across the face.”

“I’ve had a similar experience,” says Telarus, Olivia’s partner. He has keen,
interested features and wears a light coloured beret. He tells me that
Discordia encourages the practitioner to question all dogmas and use
models of thought and belief if they are useful - but not to cling to them.

Adam provides a sharp contrast. His story is generally well known to those
gathered already and spawns from what is largely a historical - rather than
personal or philosophical – interest, which began with the Kennedy
assassination.

“They found all these coincidences and synchronicities tying Kerry

Thornley to the Kennedy assassination, one after another,” he says, “and he
was either guilty of being involved or there were so many coincidences and
synchronicities, it was like Eris played a total prank on him for getting
involved in Discordian worship.”

“Can you give us your story Timmy?” I ask our out of town visitor from
Austin. Both his and Josh’s story reveal another Discordian function; a tool
for bringing community together.

“I don’t know how it fuckin’ happened,” he says, and the table laughs. “I
guess I was kind of thrown into the O.T.O, I was thrown into
Discordianism... shit happened.”

The O.T.O or Ordo Templi Orientis is a ritualistic religious organization,

heavily influenced by the ideas of 20th century ceremonial magician
Aleister Crowley (also known as The Great Beast, or more affectionately,
Uncle Al). Robert Anton Wilson wrote at length on Crowley’s ideas which
have influenced many Discordians.

“I was moving to Houston at one point with one of my wives,” Timmy

continues. “She and I move into the House of Discord. Nobody there knew
me. I showed up to a party there and then a room opened one day and I said
‘I’ll buy it,’ paid cash.”

“So you went to a party there?” I ask. The House of Discord was a coalition
of Thelemites – followers of Crowley’s religion of Thelema - and
Discordians under one roof. I wanted to know more.

“I showed up again and a room opened. I threw cash at them; they had no
idea who I was. I took the room, I started moving stuff in. Next thing we
knew all the liquor disappeared and we were cooking mescaline in the meat
locker. So everything went well.”

Josh, our visitor from New Orleans joins in.

“I was in New Orleans for probably about two years, and didn’t even realize
that half my friends were Discordian. It was kind of all over my head. Then
one Mardi Gras they bring me. It was like, ‘Oh yeah we gotta go to parade.’
I was like, ‘What?’ They were like, ‘You know, we’re doing Eris tonight.’ ”

‘Eris’ was the Krewe of Eris, an unofficial Mardi Gras parade best known
for its refusal to pay to parade, and its disastrous 2011 march.

“The surprising thing for me was how much it was already all around me,”
he says. “I know a bunch of magic people but Discordians are completely
different. Many Discordians don’t do magic at all but might use ‘magical
thinking’ or magical words.”

I turn to Jeremy who I know from PeeDee. He describes his entry into
Discordianism as ‘random hooliganism, to no particular end’. He was
inspired somewhat by the TV show Night Flight, which featured Subgenius
material.

“All I recall is being like, ‘Whaaa?’ and just needing to know more. And
basically having to wait for the Internet thing, to start to glean the
connection, and right around the same time, running into Robert Anton
Wilson.”

When Jeremy’s interest in Discordia wavered, it was PeeDee’s Discordian

influenced pamphlet Black Iron Prison³ that regained his attention. This
work lost the light-hearted humour of the Principia, using darker metaphors
to explore some of the same concepts.
“I said, ‘Oh, people are still doing this and in a way that makes sense for the
time,’ which appealed to me greatly. It was after a particularly bad dose of
Alex Jones, and I needed to clear that shit out, so I just typed in PD.com
and there we go, saw Black Iron Prison and went, ‘Yes, there’s still shit to
be done without-’ ”

“Rehashing the old stuff,” finishes Telarus.

“Right. Which is great but we’re not in that world anymore.”

“We’re not remotely in that world anymore,” says Johnny Brainwash.

“We’ve gotten past the point of flash mobs turning up and doing artistic
performances- now they just rob stores. You can go out and be weird, but
weird is everywhere, a non-conformist is just the next thing being marketed
to you.”

Johnny Brainwash is next to tell his story.

“I got my hands on the World Wide Web which was new and exciting. The
first thing I looked for was the Unabomber’s manifesto. The second thing
was, ‘Hey, I wonder if the Principia Discordia is a real thing’ ”

Johnny, along with his various co-conspirators such as St. Mae, seem to
utilise Discordia as an active tool of community, and have formed an
aversion to the phrase ‘Discordians must stick apart’.
“We started using the slogan, ‘Sticking apart is more fun when we do it
together,’ ” he says.

As the afternoon grows late, we talk about what we like about Discordia.

“An aspect I appreciate about Discordia,” says Telarus, “is there’s built in
short circuits to the guru trip.”

“A whole, ‘Think for yourself Schmuck,’ type deal,” says Olivia.

“You’re encouraged to take your gurus down a peg,” adds Lane.

Adam asks for a copy of his book The Prankster and the Conspiracy, and I
pass it to him.

“There’s no solid authority to which everyone’s bound,” Lane continues.

“Nothing sticks.”

Adam opens his book to the additional content at the back. He points to a
mock advertisement distributed by Robert Anton Wilson for a plastic guru
head, mocking the guru concept.
You can meditate the whole day though/when you have a plastic guru!/place
him in the corner of your pad,/plug him in and just hold your hat/He’ll tell
you just where it’s at/with the best advice you will have ever
had/FLASHING strobe third eye!

“My old apartment used to be a kind of a church, it was a dedicated

Discordian space with all kinds of crap and ritually trinkets,” says Johnny
Brainwash. “These two Michigan kids - a couple of hitchhikers who were
kind of drifting for a while - they’re like, ‘Wow, I had no idea that
Discordians were a real thing.’ It’s directly due to them that I accepted
being clergy, which Autumn [St. Mae] was like, ‘Oh of course you are.’
When they were leaving they asked me for a blessing for their trip back to
Michigan. I was like, ‘Fuck, I guess I’d better be a Reverend now.’ ”

“Was that the first St. Gulik blessing?” asks Telarus.

“That was the original blessing of St. Gulik, which was originally a blessing
for road trips. It was published online somewhere. That got used not only
by us, but other random people in other places started using it.”
“You posted it on the PeeDee forums, under one of your old names.”

“No, somebody else posted it there, or somewhere, and what they did is
they changed the part where you eat a snack to a part where you smoke a
joint, which wasn’t in the ritual as I wrote it, and it turned into this flame
war between Discordians. I’m totally OK with people ripping off my stuff,
not crediting me, whatever, fine, it’s All Rights Reversed, and I wouldn’t
even say that they fucked it up, except that they distracted from what it was
about, because by making a road trip ritual where everyone gets stoned, all
that happens is you get what happens in this thread; people came in and
said, ‘Well smoking weed is fine but don’t go driving afterwards,’ and some
people said, ‘Don’t know why you’re all so drug addled to begin with.’ I
don’t know where we found anti-drug Discordians but God help us they’re
out there. Then you had other people defending it, and it turned into this
monster flame war about whether you should get high to drive which
nobody gave a fuck about, and was entirely not the point of the ritual. But
you know, that’s what happened, all rights reversed.”

“That’s the thing about the Guru trip,” says Adam. “That why I’m passing
my book around. That’s what cracks me up about some of these arguments
between Discordians - it’s the logical progression that we should all be
arguing.”

“I’m well past the point where I think we need to be arguing all the time.
It’s fun for the first year or so, then maybe we could all chill out a little bit.”

The talk goes on for a while before I move on, leaving Josh to take us out
on a final thought.
“I was arrested for invoking Eris. I wrote Eris in chalk on the wall in
Manhattan. I was arrested for writing Hail Eris on the walls. But earlier in
the day which they didn’t know about, I went out with a bag of apples with
her name on it and was just randomly flinging them at people on the
subway on the way to work. I was just fucking winging them at these
assholes. I felt that was the best way to praise Eris. Then I get arrested later
that day.”

***

While Grandmaster Armadillo Curmudgeon had told me about Chaos

Magic back in Brisbane, Discordian ritual as such is still a new beast to me
– I’m only just coming to terms with how small a segment of Discordia I’ve
really been exposed to. The majority of my interactions have represented an
atheistic brand of Discordia that rolled its eyes at ‘Magikqe!’ or other
‘woo’. I’m beginning to find that many Discordians do in fact practice
ritual, or magic as part of their Discordia, and am not sure yet what I think
of this.

I’ve booked tickets to a Portland performance with some friends I’m

staying with, a show called Nude Girls Reading which contains exactly
what it says on the label. Before I go though, I have a chance to hang out at
Johnny Brainwash’s place with Telarus and Olivia who have all witnessed
the magical beauty of Discordian Ritual.

“I thought everything we did would just be forgotten,” said Johnny, as we

walked to the tram. “I didn’t expect anyone would ever write it down.” He
speaks with perhaps a mild bemusement.
Johnny tells me about a publically held ritual, which had followed a series
of rituals held at KallistiCon, a Discordian meetup that had been held semi-
regularly by St. Mae since 2000. Many patrons turned up, not knowing
what to expect.

“I gave ample evidence that when I said Discordian ritual, I meant ritual
you know; a ritual that has been going on for five years now. Still, I think
everyone turned up assuming that we were going to have a party and do
some weird party tricks or something. And we did do weird party tricks, I’ll
give you that. But we did a ritual, and everyone was freaked out.”

It all started with an earlier ritual performed four or five years ago at
KallistiCon, where Johnny and his fellow ritualists executed Discordianism
and declared that they were all going to live in the underworld.

“We were just going to do that for one year, but the world was so shitty so it
was like, ‘Fuck it, we’re going deeper into the underworld.’ So we did more
ritual to go deeper.”

Johnny shows me a picture of the first ritual. A hand holds a piece of a

chaos star, a series of four intersecting lines, all ends representing outwards
pointing arrows. The symbol was invented by author Michael Moorcock
well after Discordianism, but has since become popular in the same circles.
Behind the hand, one can see a gravestone belonging to ‘Emperor Norton’,
an eccentric resident of San Francisco in the 1800s whose decision to
announce himself Emperor of the United States of America was celebrated
in the Principia Discordia. It was here that part of the ritual execution of
Discordianism took place. The Chaos Star was cut into multiple pieces, in
an effort to consciously create an egregore, which Telarus describes as ‘a
collection of memes [ideas] that has somehow found a way to survive
outside of a single headspace.’

“Specifically this egregore was made to bind together the group that was
there,” says Johnny. “We all came away with piece of that - they’re all cut
from one piece of iron.

‘So, the first year we ritually slaughtered Discordianism, the second year
we went deeper into the underworld, and I think that was the last year that
KallistiCon happened… So a couple of years ago we did an April Fool’s
day ritual, at a place called The Parlor, here, that was attached to a place
now defunct that was called the Chaos Cafe.”

They promoted the ritual as a free event, with around 40 people coming
along.

“It was packed,” says Telarus.

“We did not know most of them,” says Johnny. “It was not like our friends
showed up, it was like we handed out fliers for a free event to go to, and
people came.”

There was music, including Duke of Uke, and New Eccentrics. Then, there
was a ritual, designed to bring everyone back to the world of the living.
“Everything that was going wrong was because of all of this ritual sacrifice
and all of this travel into the underworld and we never got around to leaving
again. So we said, ‘Oh fuck it, let’s come back to the world.’ We said, ‘Fuck
the apocalypse,’ had a return to the world party… Then we took everyone
out on a procession because it was the end of the world and we needed to
have a fucking parade, so we gave them masks and noise makers and
marched them up and down my neighbourhood a bunch until they were
tired and freaked out, and brought them into my house and drank liquor and
ate more food and so now we’re all back to the real world.

‘So, hi, pleased to meet you all.”

As I walk through the streets with Johnny, Olivia and Telarus I can’t help
but feel like so much of the Discordian world sounds like ridiculous epic
fun, and my own little life out the back of beyond feels small and dull by
comparison.

¹ Speaking of Adam, he wrote his own account of this quackery here;

http://www.rawillumination.net/²⁰¹⁵/¹²/adam-gorightly-on-imaginary-
sources.html?m=¹

² Alternate account – a separate account used by an individual, often

pretending to be someone else.

³ While the phrase ‘Black Iron Prison’ originates from Phillip K Dick, the
Discordian sense has a more obscure meaning along the lines of ‘the limits
we create for ourselves.’ You can see the original text here:
http://www.principiadiscordia.com/downloads/Black_Iron_Prison_July²⁰⁰⁷.
pdf
 3. Serious About This Craziness

From Portland I fly down to California where I have a chance to dive

deeper into the murky past of Discordia. This is the home state of one of the
original Discordians, Louise Lacey who knew Greg and Kerry well. Louise,
now in San Francisco, and Kerry were put into contact through their writing
and politics.

Louise smiles and greets me warmly, when I step off the bus. She leads me
to her car and drives me back to her place. She is a strong looking older
lady with a controlled manner and straight hair. We sit in Louise's lounge
area. It is a small but cosy apartment, with rows of books all throughout.

She knew all of our key figures, Kerry, Greg and Robert Anton Wilson.
“They were always good people,” she says. “That’s what’s so...” she trails
off into a pause. “I’m sorry more people don’t know about them.”

Louise was working at a place called Men’s Magazine, a libertarian

publication based in Chicago, when she first met Kerry.

“Those were people on this magazine who were into Ayn Rand. So they
were Libertarians but it wasn’t the word we used then.”
Kerry was heavily influenced by Rand’s work Atlas Shrugged, an extremely
influential work which functioned as a philosophical tome outlining Rand’s
philosophy of ‘Objectivism.’ In 1960, Kerry was philosophically a Marxist.
Recently discharged from the military, he stepped on a boat in Japan with a
copy of Atlas Shrugged under his arm, and stepped back onto US soil
beginning to embrace a philosophy of Laissez-Faire Capitalism.¹

“Kerry mailed me a letter wanting to send Men’s Magazine an article so I

suggested he do that. He was living then in Washington DC, living in a
hotel working nights having people, late people come in and grab their keys
at the desk. He wasn’t married then. After a few months, he got tired of all
that, and came back to California. He… came to see me [in Chicago]. He
was wearing several layers of clothes and no suitcases.”

This was a typical Kerry solution. Cold, and without owning a suitcase, he
wore literally every piece of clothing he owned.

“I had no idea how obese he was.” She laughs. I grin, imagining the
scrawny Kerry Thornley stumbling off the bus, plumped up like a sumo.

Louise and Kerry then had a long conversation, in the Men’s Magazine
office, in which one of the things raised was that he’d been in the marines
and known the late Lee Harvey Oswald who Kerry regarded as a close
acquaintance; a marine dissatisfied with military life, with a subversive
sense of humour. The pair had been stationed together in El Toro Marine
Base in California in 1959.
Kerry had written a work, The Idle Warriors which he had been unable to
sell, a fictional work depicting the stagnation of military life. The
protagonist, Johnny Shellburn, was based on Oswald, and in the end,
defected from the United States, as did Oswald. Unusually, Kerry had
written this before the assassination of JFK, and it remains distinctive as the
only known work about Lee Harvey Oswald written before his apparent
killing of the president.

Louise set Kerry up to meet with her editor, Paul Neimark, and the two
talked behind closed doors for over an hour. Ultimately the fruit of that
conversation was a new work entitled Oswald. Unlike Idle Warriors,
Oswald was a straightforward non-fiction work that attempted to
understand how someone like Oswald came to assassinate the President of
the United States, and generally accepted the findings of the Warren
Commission.

Kerry and Louise both ended up back in California. “We maintained our
kind of vague relationship that became more and more and more intense.”

Kerry was an exciting, unpredictable character to be around. He lived at the

edge of Watts, in a predominantly black neighbourhood, in what was largely
a time of racial tension. Louise recounted that Kerry got on well with his
neighbours, despite his eccentricities; something she witnessed at the peak
of the ‘mellow yellow’ craze. Inspired by the Donavon track of the same
name, the craze spread the belief that smoking banana skins got you high.
For a time, this caused banana shortages in Berkeley, California.

“He and I went down to Safeway and got lots of bananas and took them
back to his place. Peeled them and took all the strings out, and I said ‘what
are we going to do with all these bananas?’ He said, ‘Let’s just take them to
the neighbours.’ So we put them in a big jar and went around to the
neighbours and said, ‘Would you like some bananas?’ And they’re pretty
smart people, so they said, ‘No thank you.’ He was very disappointed; no
one would ever accept them.”

Eventually they returned home to smoke the peels, along with friend and
fellow Discordian Becky Glaser.

“Becky and I had our throats burned significantly, but Kerry was the only
person who got high off the banana peel. So, I was part of his escapades,
some of them anyway. If you went around to Watts and tried to give
bananas to people who think something is wrong with them you could have
easily been shot. Have you seen the picture of him fucking the chair?”

I certainly have. The image is reproduced sans penis in the back of Adam’s
book, and in its fully-erect glory in various other Discordian works. Dude
was hung like a horse. The picture is taken from a postcard Kerry sent to
Reverend Ivan Stang of the Subgenius Church, and is captioned ‘ST
KERRY THORNLEY SEZ FUCK A CHAIR FOR “BOB”, leading Stang
to comment that ‘Kerry had love in his heart for all things, even chairs.’²

I ask about another of Louise’s friends, Robert Anton Wilson. Wilson came
into contact with Kerry by mail, and Louise met him in Chicago while he
was writing for Playboy. She would also go on to meet his wife Arlen
Wilson who Louise remembers being ‘as smart as he was’ and who
‘supported him emotionally and intellectually.’
“She was pretty amazing. But he had talents; for example he had an
endemic memory. He could remember the page number of a bibliographical
notation and then say it out like it was in the bibliography.”

There is a warmth of sincerity in her voice as she speaks. I tell her of the
Discordians I know, of the way many of them have such a profound affinity
for the thoughts and ideas of the original Discordians. Louise is quiet for a
little while.

“That’s good to know,” she says finally.

I have the opportunity to check the legitimacy of my own impression of

Greg Hill; a quiet and serious man in his later life.

“Well he was, he worked for Bank of America… he didn’t like what he was
doing but he didn’t figure out another way to make a living.”

As time went by, Greg and Kerry began to fall into problematic behaviours.
Greg began to drink heavily, possibly from the strain of a broken marriage,
and Kerry’s reasonable fear of government harassment at the hands of
Warren Commission critic Jim Garrison seemed to eventually collapse into
the disjointed irrationality of paranoid schizophrenia. Their mutual friend,
contributor to the Principia Discordia, Dr Robert Newport (Holy name
Brother Hypoc Magoun) was one of the witnesses to this downward spiral.
“Newport was a psychiatrist, and he had known them since high school.
They were all friends. And he, as a psychiatrist, wanted to help them, but it
was very difficult because first of all, Kerry became more and more
paranoid and finally became labelled as a paranoid schizophrenic. Greg had
become an alcoholic with no questions asked. And he couldn’t do anything
for either of his two friends. So of course Bob’s still normal because he
didn’t have any of these problems and of course the other two are dead.”

This to me has always seemed the tragedy of Discordianism; that an

ideology that has been used in a variety of positive ways should have two
founders who lost their lives to self-neglect and substance abuse.

“Do you call yourself a Discordian?” I ask Louise.

“When it’s appropriate,” she says. “Some people really like the idea, others
aren’t interested. It tells me something about them.”

Louise and I look through her copy of the Principia Discordia, a purple
copy, produced by IllumiNet Press. She draws my attention to one
particular section, her favourite; The Turkey Curse.

Revealed by the Apostle Dr. Van Van Mojo as a specific counter to the evil
Curse of Greyface, THE TURKEY CURSE is here passed on to Erisians
everywhere for their just protection.
The Turkey Curse works. It is firmly grounded on the fact that Greyface and
his followers absolutely require an aneristic setting to function and that a
timely introduction of eristic vibrations will neutralize their foundation³.
The Turkey Curse is designed solely to counteract negative aneristic vibes
and if introduced into a neutral or positive aneristic setting (like a poet
working out word rhythms) it will prove harmless, or at worst, simply
annoying. It is not designed for use against negative eristic vibes, although
it can be used as an eristic vehicle to introduce positive vibes into a
misguided eristic setting. In this instance, it would be the responsibility of
the Erisian Magician to manufacture the positive vibrations if results are to
be achieved. CAUTION- all magic is powerful and requires courage and
integrity on the part of the magician. This ritual, if misused, can backfire.
Positive motivation is essential for self-protection.

TO PERFORM THE TURKEY CURSE:

Take a foot stance as if you were John L. Sullivan preparing for fisticuffs.
Face the particular greyface you wish to short-circuit, or towards the
direction of the negative aneristic vibration that you wish to neutralize.
Begin waving your arms in any elaborate manner and make motions with
your hands as though you were Mandrake feeling up a sexy giantess. Chant,
loudly and clearly:

GOBBLE, GOBBLE, GOBBLE, GOBBLE, GOBBLE!

The results will be instantly apparent.⁴

“This to me is the core of everything a Discordian is,” she says. “The
results always are instantly apparent. And if people don’t get this they just
don’t have a sense of humour as far as I’m concerned.”

Louise Lacey’s Discordian Holy Name, Lady L.FAB was in part inspired by
Kerry Thornley, and partly came from a conversation between infamous
Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver and a Chinese Communist official.

“When I was working for Ramparts magazine, as the research director, one
day I went out, had lunch and came back. Eldridge, and this guy who runs
the Chinese communist government here, was outside,” she tells me.
“Eldridge had a wonderful sense of humour, this [other] guy has no sense of
humour at all, and they were standing outside, one of them was smoking.
As I approached the door, it was the communist who said ‘there’s that
fucking anarchist bitch’ and Eldridge's reply was ‘well; she taught me how
to eat an artichoke,’ and laughed like hell. The communist didn’t appreciate
that. So that was one half of my name, FAB. And the other half was what
Kerry gave me which was Lady L, which is the name of a book by Romain
Gary.”

For Louise, Discordia’s beauty doesn’t seem to be in the philosophy itself,

but in the people who surrounded it, many of whom she loved dearly.

“Bob Newport is the only one that’s left. I see him once a year.”

Soon, Adam arrives, though Louise knows him better by his birth name (a
closely guarded Discordian secret). He brings with him five boxes of
papers. These are some of the boxes of Discordian documentation that
Robert Newport saved from Greg’s house, following his death in 2000.

These boxes have a strange story. When Greg Hill died in 2000, Robert
Newport visited his apartment and found Greg’s family uncertain of how to
deal with several boxes of files. He offered to take them. He also sent Adam
Gorightly an email to inform him of Hill’s death. Gorightly was, at the time,
researching the life of Kerry Thornley. Adam – who didn’t really know
about Greg and Kerry’s connection at the time – never worked out how
Newport knew to contact him. Neither did Newport. Another strange
coincidence – or as Gorightly might put it, “Coincidence? You decide!”

Meeting each other, Robert lent Adam a portion of the Discordian Archives,
and in 2009, passed on the entirety of the remaining material. Louise also
granted Adam access to her own archives.

Louise, Adam, and I eat dinner that Louise has cooked. We talk about the
contents of the boxes. One extremely special find in the boxes, Adam says,
was an unpublished manuscript by Robert Anton Wilson that is now to be
published. We talk about the early Discordians and my project so far.
Eventually we move back to rummage through the archives and Adam pulls
out the complete first edition of the Principia Discordia.⁵

The first edition is a large, A4 document of over 60 pages, much bigger

than the Swabey/Musser collection. The front cover is taken up by the
Sacred Chao, the symbol that was revealed to Greg and Kerry by the orang-
utan who enlightened them at the bowling alley. It has two cards in the
back, that of Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst (Kerry Thornley) of the Southern
California Cabal, and one of Malaclypse the Younger (Greg Hill) and Fang
the Unwashed (another early Discordian, Roger Lovin) of the French
Quarter Cabal.

This original Principia, ironically, was much more interested in the ‘rules’
of Discordia.

“This was Greg and Kerry coming up with this stuff, mainly. In 1964 and
‘65, they really got serious about this craziness,” says Adam.

“That’s when I was in Chicago,” says Louise, “When he was coming

through from Washington DC.”

Adam flips a few pages. “They put a lot of detail into it, into how it was all
going to work, the different structures, these calendars, how they certified
Popes; it was pretty detailed.”

That it certainly is. Much focus is paid to the structure of the Church, and
what essentially amounted to administrative rules: what official titles the
adherents of Discordia could claim, and under what circumstances they
could claim them and so on. The first edition names various groups of
Erisians, and even classifies the non-Erisians into groups such as ‘The
knights the five sided table’, ‘the communist infiltrated auxiliary of the
knights of the five sided table’, ‘The Apocalyptic Prophets Local Number
666’ and the ‘Bowel Movement’. An official archive existed that collected
Discordian materials, Popes were certified, and projects were ‘managed’ by
a bureau of projects.
In the fourth edition, this kind of control was dismantled. Every man,
woman and child was now automatically regarded as a Pope. Instead of
controlling Discordia, Greg and Kerry were content to lead one division
thereof, P.O.E.E; the Paratheo-Anametamystikhood of Eris Esoteric (we're
not really that esoteric, it’s just that nobody understands us!)⁶

Adam turns to a page titled The Myth of Ichabod. A handwritten note at the
bottom of the page says ‘Copyright 1963, Gregory H. Hill.’ I’m stunned.
The 4th edition was published as Kopyleft. This is the opposite of
copyright, often used with the tagline ‘All Rights Reversed.’⁷ It’s the
spiritual predecessor to the Creative Commons flexible copyright
movement, a movement now synonymous with Discordianism. I’m amazed
to see this idea still undeveloped in the first edition.

At first, the Principia didn’t really spread far beyond California, and
possibly wouldn’t have, if not for Robert Anton Wilson’s decision to use
Discordians as characters in the Illuminatus! trilogy in 1975. The series
popularized many existing Discordian tropes and added to the mythology
with a host of new concepts, taglines and characters. While the Principia
was not available as widely as the trilogy, the knowledge of it soon was,
due to the trilogy quoting it frequently. This encouraged Michael Hoy of
alternative publisher Loompanics to take up publication in 1978. The now
famous ‘yellow cover’ Principia Adam passed out in Portland is one of
these.

***

Adam and Louise take me out for a trip to the Russian River the next day.
Our first stop is the Monte Rio Cinema. For a time, Greg Hill, along with
his wife Jeanetta and childhood friend Robert Newport, helped run this
cinema. During the same period, Robert Anton Wilson spent time in the
area with his partner Arlen. A Christmas card from the cinema reveals the
wider scope of the operation, with a multitude of illustrated faces, including
Greg, Jeanetta, Bob and Eldritch, the cat who dealt with the cinema’s mouse
problem.

Today, I’m disappointed to see the Rio closed. They’ve reduced opening
hours due to financial strain. A banner reads, Save the Rio. Along the side
of the cinema are large murals, and around the back is a small store selling,
amongst other things, hotdogs. Adam is on a mission to buy one. The
hotdog is important in Discordianism. A reference is made to Eris eating a
hotdog in the ‘Original Snub.’ It is again referenced in the ‘Pentabarf’, the
Discordian rules, designed to generally contradict each other.

There is no Goddess but Goddess and She is Your Goddess. There is no

Movement but The Erisian Movement and it is The Erisian Movement. And
every Golden Apple Corps is the beloved home of a Golden Worm.

A Discordian Shall Always use the Official Discordian Document

Numbering System.

A Discordian is required to, the first Friday after his illumination, Go Off
Alone & Partake Joyously of a Hotdog; this Devotive Ceremony to
Remonstrate against the popular Paganisms of the Day: of Roman Catholic
Christendom (no meat on Friday), of Judaism (no meat of Pork), of Hindic
Peoples (no meat of Beef), of Buddhists (no meat of animal), and of
Discordians (no Hotdog Buns).
A Discordian shall Partake of No Hotdog Buns, for Such was the Solace of
Our Goddess when She was Confronted with The Original Snub.

A Discordian is Prohibited from Believing What he reads.⁸

We approach the shop, hoping to obtain some hotdogs, but it’s closed. A
lady comes outside, and speaks briefly with us, but can shed no light
directly on the period of time that we’re interested in.

Adam takes a photo of Louise and myself outside the front of the Monte
Rio, which she asks me not to share. “I don’t want any images with myself
anywhere on the Internet,” she tells me.

We return home, Adam and Louise dropping me off at the train station with
a quick goodbye, and I set off for LA to meet someone who can reveal more
about the cinema period of life: Robert Newport.

¹ (Gorightly, The Prankster and the Conspiracy, ²⁰⁰³)

² (Gorightly, The Prankster and the Conspiracy, ²⁰⁰³)

³ Aneristic being not-disordered, orderly, organized, etc. Eristic being
disordered, disorderly, disorganized.

⁴ (Thornley & Hill, Principia Discordia, ¹⁹⁹¹)

⁵ This document has since been made available to the public in Historia
Discordia, published by RVP Press.

⁶ (Hill & Thornley, Principia Discordia, ¹⁹⁷⁰).

⁷ In keeping with the religious and punny nature of Discordia ‘rites’ is often
used instead.

⁸ (Hill & Thornley, Principia Discordia, ¹⁹⁷⁰)

 4. Ideas of What Has to Be

Dr Robert Newport is the only living contributor to the Principia Discordia.

He was instrumental in running many of the institutions around the Russian
River, where Adam, Louise and myself had spent the day wandering. He
also knew both Hill and Thornley during their high school days.

Robert is a beaming, confident man, with a dense pointed white beard, and
a tendency towards big loud laughter. He greets me at the door of his
colourful, Spanish influenced house, and offers me a cup of ginger tea. I
accept, and sit with him in the lounge room.

His contribution to the Principia Discordia, under the name of Hypocrates

Magoun of the Okinawa Cabal, was a parable called The Parable of the
Bitter Tea, which is as follows;

When Hypoc was through meditating with St. Gulik,¹ he went there into the
kitchen where he busied himself with preparing the feast and in his
endeavor, he found that there was some old tea in a pan left standing from
the night before, when he had in his weakness forgot about its making and
had let it sit steeping for 24 hours. It was dark and murky and it was
Hypoc's intention to use this old tea by diluting it with water. And again in
his weakness, chose without further consideration and plunged into the
physical labor of the preparations. It was then when deeply immersed in the
pleasure of that trip, he had a sudden loud clear voice in his head saying "it
is bitter tea that involves you so." Hypoc heard the voice, but the struggle
inside intensified, and the pattern, previously established with the physical
laboring and the muscle messages coordinated and unified or perhaps
coded, continued to exert their influence and Hypoc succumbed to the
pressure and he denied the voice.

And again he plunged into the physical orgy and completed the task, and Lo
as the voice had predicted, the tea was bitter.²

I ask Bob about the meaning of The Parable of the Bitter Tea.

“Organically,” he begins, “we know what’s right for us. Organically we

know what works and doesn’t. Organically we have everything we need to
live in this world, and live in it successfully, if you give up all the negative
expectations that we have been conditioned to believe: that we are stupid, or
helpless, or shameful, or too little, big, fat, thin, slow, and on and on. Our
brains, in our bodies, have everything we need to function successfully in
this reality. That’s what I was trying to say. That was the whole thing. That
was the parable.”

“That was the only thing in there that you’d explicitly written, is that
correct?”

“Yes, ‘The Parable of the Bitter Tea’ was my sole written contribution to
the Principia.”

“Except for the note asking for your pornography to be returned.”

This is written by hand into the Principia; ‘Would the person who stole
Brother Magoun’s pornography please return it.’ The mention of it brings
great body shaking laughter to Bob. “Yep,” he says, grinning like a loon,
then quiets and speaks more softly.

“Those were very strained and difficult years for me. I was in a residency.
Married with a wife and two kids. In the military. And I had been struggling
to keep up with all of it. Then Greg showed up with LSD, and that was
good night. I had actually turned on in my last year of residency. I had been
exploring psychic phenomena for some time. I’d been very interested. Of
course I had been hearing stories coming up from Millbrook.³ Greg and I
had been exposed to the International Federation for Internal Freedom. So I
knew basically what we were going into and what we were looking for, but
I hadn’t personally experienced much in the way of psychedelics. And the
last year of my residency Greg came down the East coast... said, ‘Bob you
gotta try this.’ And I said, ‘OK.’ And I did. And it completely blew my
mind. Completely. Not so that I was psychotic, but my entire worldview
turned over.

‘I’d been raised by a father who was contrarian, however part of my family
was very right-wing conservative, bigoted people. Happily I had a few
brains, and I could go to medical school and became interested and
engaged. Oh, and I was very, very serious. Discordianism was a wonderful
breath of fresh air.

‘I was in this psychiatric residency in California in the late 1960s, and the
world was in turmoil. And LSD blew my mind right open. And the next 30
years of my life was spent trying to reshuffle the cards. That’s not easy. It’s
especially not easy when you’re raising a family and running a profession,
because I have to hold on to an established quanta of knowledge to acquire
my profession, and it coloured my insights, consciousness and politics, and
it was a very tumultuous period. So I didn’t participate much long-distance.
I was pretty much caught up in trying to keep my head above water.

‘By the time I had entered the military, I had taken LSD months before I
left for Okinawa... My head was just completely blown apart. And the
hostility and violence of the military- I was not obeying too much. I became
a revolutionary; I was doing all kinds of things that could have gotten me
court martialled. I didn’t because I tended to be smart enough to stay ahead
of whomever... But eventually I was totally stupid and got myself kicked
out. Which is OK. I didn’t belong there anyway.”

I didn’t ask for details of Bob’s dismissal at the time, but later found the
following in Greater Poop #30; a newsletter produced by Greg Hill in the
‘70s.

Brother Hypoc, narrowly escaping legal prosecution, for some LSD antics,
because of his professional status as an MD and his privileged status as an
Officer, is presently trying to discharge the Pentagon from his life. Human
beings in comparable situations but without Privilege Status, of course, are
routinely crucified, caged, or physchosmashed by the pig machine, but they
couldn't send Hypoc to the Base Psychiatrist because Hypoc was the Base
Psychiatrist, and he advocates that military psychology be in the service of
mental health. Due to the awkwardness of the Military's position, a
discharge seems realistic -- as soon as Big Uncle finally understands that
Rev. Dr. Magoun has sworn the Hippocratic oath as a healer and finds it his
moral obligation to RELEASE every person he can from the destructive and
corruptive state of being in which the government confines US Citizens for
the purpose of turning human beings into soldiers.⁴
‘So I was learning new things. I was beginning to understand. I wasn’t able
to anticipate at this level what that caused. I didn’t have that level of
objectivity; I was in the middle of it. My emotions were dipping and
diving… After I left the service, I went up to the Russian River, because I
knew that I didn’t want to go to the established mode of things. I wanted to
put my own life together and my own vision of family and community.”

This community included Robert Newport and his partner at the time Rita,
Robert Anton and Arlen Wilson (Wilson stayed with Newport for around
six months in the middle of a move from Chicago to San Francisco),
Principia Discordia contributor Camden Benares, and Greg and his partner
Jeanetta, along with the assorted children of the couples. Kerry Thornley
too lived with Benares for a time, at Camp Meeker, just a few miles from
Monte Rio.

Newport owned the theatre that Louise, Adam and myself had visited. After
the military, he had been able to purchase a number of properties up at the
River and had called Greg up from San Francisco to come and help run the
theatre.

“He was the creative genius behind all that. I wasn’t. I was just a flunky.
But Greg and I had been best friends since our high school days, and Kerry
too. Kerry was pretty much beyond the pale by then. So I asked Greg if he
would come and manage the theatre and he did, and came with his wife
Jeanetta.”

Robert’s time in the River was built around forming and serving
community. The Russian River was a very depressed area, a place ‘where
the Hells Angels hung out in the summer,’ which had predictably dismal
effects on local property values. It was the perfect place for Robert to begin.
He bought some property and set himself up as an organising point of the
community.

“We had a restaurant and a newspaper and a health clinic and a food co-op
and the theatre, and we used the theatre for movies and for community
meetings. We’d gotten to the point of refurbishing the dancehall which was
built when the place was popular with ordinary folks, but we got stalled -
that was about the end of my time there…

‘We used to do these monthly meetings up on my property. We had a

wonderful time. Anywhere between 20 to 40 people would gather in my
front room, and we’d have a very raucous time picking the movies for the
next month. Then Greg and I would go down to the city and spend a long
time seeing the movies and going to the distributors and ordering the films
for the month. That was a really wild lifestyle.

‘The other thing we did was a school. I put together a small school on my
property, because I didn’t want to send my kids to the public school, which
was horrendous; it was a redneck school and the teachers hated hippies and
tortured kids - I mean they were just terrible to the kids who were going
there - so I started a school for my kids and hired a Governess out of San
Francisco who was a licensed, credentialed teacher who was also dropping
out, and she came up, and that lasted about three days before word got out,
and suddenly I had 20 kids in school, and that then started a home schooling
movement, and we had eight different schools. In all the satellite
communities we had close to 300 kids from K to 12, all with teachers who
were dropping out, but credentialed. And so we started a school board, and
my wife and I administered all of the schools on a budget of 50 000 bucks,
which was like charging parents who could afford it 20 bucks a month to
put their kids in school and parents who couldn’t afford it put their kids in
school for nothing because we were not in anything to make money, that
was not the issue. And then we taught a class on alternate school
administration at Sonoma State College. We taught a class in alternate
movie exhibition. We had really good times, I have to tell you, there was a
lot of talent, it wasn’t all me at all, there was a lot of talent too, who had
dropped out of San Francisco. Usually the people who were dropping out
were dropping out because they were sick to death of the establishment, and
they were the brighter, smarter, more sensitive, the more interesting
people.... it was a very high and heady time.”

While Robert cuts a fairly conventional, if slightly eccentric figure today, in

the 60s he had ‘long hair and earrings and all that crap.’ While he and the
other ‘drop-outs’ were able to build community, they were still met with
profound challenges.

“It was rife with all the trials and tribulations of life in a rural community
who absolutely didn’t want us there and hassled us every time they could
possibly hassle us. That was part of what was interesting. And we had very
little money. I mean very little money. And so, most everybody was on
welfare and food stamps, and I had very little money - I’ve never been into
money anyhow.

‘A few people had some money. A few rock musicians would come
through. We would host these concerts all summer long. We had a weekly
concert on the beach, as the theatre and the community centre were right on
the beach at Monte Rio, and all summer long we had these concerts which
we organised, and as part of the concert we fed people. A lot of kids would
drop through with nothing and were on the road and hungry, and on
weekends they could sleep on the beach and count on getting fed. We called
the restaurant Stone Soup...
‘That was probably the best years of my entire life, living in a real
community where people looked after each other. We had doctors who had
dropped out; I was a doctor. I ran groups, we were doing wild things in
groups. I had a 15 foot hot tub on my property; we’d have group therapy in
the hot tub… And it was a real community because we all stood up for each
other and helped and fed each other. I had a lot of people undergoing
psychotic breaks in my living room and I would put them up for days at a
time until we could get them stabilized one way or another. That was in
those days when community, at least in the way we envisioned it, meant
something.”

I tell Robert that it sounds like they had something incredible going on. A
part of me yearns for the same.

“Well it was the 60s and 70s,” he says matter-of-factly. “And Discordia was
part of that - it was the foundation. I had really gotten it... You know what,
you don’t take any of this crap seriously if you really want to be
enlightened, if you really want to shed yourself and your ideas of what has
to be, and how it has to be and relate to how it is. And if you do it with
some good grace and compassion and good humour, hey! And that’s what
we did. And it didn’t mean we didn’t struggle with our lives, because we
certainly had big struggles with our lives and relationships. And we were
young. We had all the stupidities of immaturity going too.”

Shed yourself and your ideas of what has to be, echoes in my head. Maybe
this is the core of Discordia; if you strip away notions of what has to be,
you’re left with a world of possibilities. Why not hold playfulness and
nonsense in as high esteem as seriousness and truth? Why not celebrate the
disorder we’ve been conditioned to fear?
Bob continues to talk of the last days of the Russian River, brought about in
part by the death of his friend and neighbour Leeroy. “About that time, the
Marxists were moving in. And talk about people who suffer from the curse
of Greyface!” he says, laughing. “So Leeroy died, and I’d nearly run out of
patience with the Marxists and that kind of tight stuff going on. My wife
was real bored with the whole thing, and she wanted out.”

Robert and his wife took their kids and began on a series of adventures that
lasted several years. At the end of this, Bob returned to San Francisco.
From there, he spent a year in Boston, Massachusetts at an acting school,
before returning to Santa Cruz. He and Robert Anton Wilson overlapped in
Santa Cruz in 1974, and Newport had the chance to take a course that
Wilson was teaching, on Crowley and Magic.

“His class was a whole lot of fun. I had some really interesting experiences,
and it was after that that his book Sex and Drugs came out, which was
interesting... I was mentioned in it, that’s why I mentioned it. The old ego
holds on to everything.”

I ask Bob to tell me a little about the founders of Discordia. He speaks first
about Greg Hill.

“I spent a week with him four days before he died. Greg and I maintained
our relationship over all of the years. After I’d left the River, he went to
New York, and his marriage had broken up… Greg became extremely
depressed. And so by the time I left, Greg went to New York and lived a
pretty isolated life for a number of years, during which time he got a job
like a clerk in a bank and put his genius into developing a word processing
program for the Bank of America, the first ever.”
The bank requested Greg to move to San Francisco. This brought him
nearer to Newport. In San Francisco, Greg didn’t invite many people into
his life. He continued his friendship with Bob and focused on his collage art
and his work.

“He and I remained very close, and I spent lots of nights with him talking
about all kinds of weird stuff, which is what he talked about when he was
depressed and isolated and his head would go into all the anomalies that
happened around the world.”

These anomalies that interested Greg were often found within the pages of
the Fortean Times, though Greg was always a little too savvy to start to see
conspiracies everywhere.

“He was very wise,” says Bob, “he could smell bullshit, except for his own.
Like all of us.”

Greg’s drinking and smoking had predictably negative effects, and he died
from oesophageal cancer, the ‘signature cancer of alcoholics and smokers,’
in 2000. Bob had tried on a number of occasions to convince Greg of the
dangers of his lifestyle, to no avail.

“We talked about that a lot and he said, ‘Well, something’s gonna kill me
and I’m gonna live the way I want. That’s what I want to do’… He
remained absolutely stubborn to the very end of his life. And you know
what, I loved him for it.”
I ask him to tell me a little about Kerry. He tells me a story from his high
school days.

“Kerry was into journalism. I was into theatre arts. Both of us, high school
boys at the time, were completely sexually frustrated... So Kerry and I came
up with this idea that maybe we could meet up with our two girlfriends that
we were really taken on and we could construct a scenario that would
prompt them to want to have sex with us. So it was this; we did a radio on
tape, he and I made a radio broadcast that postulated a nuclear war coming,
right to the point where the radio went dead as the cities around us were
blowing up. And so we got this tape and tape recorder, and we hooked it up
to the radio and met with our girlfriends in the drama room at our high
school... It turned out to be like the War of the Worlds; it was very effective.
It didn’t get us laid, but it got the girls running out screaming. It damn near
got the Drama teacher fired for letting us do it.

‘And that was Kerry. That’s the Kerry that I loved and knew. He was an
out-there guy. He was one of the most intense guys I ever met...

‘Kerry’s parents were Mormons. They were as hypocritical Mormons as

you can imagine. They drank and smoked while they preached a very rigid
kind of Mormonism. And of course that set Kerry up for all kinds of stuff.
A total intolerance for both hypocrisy and authority were uppermost on his
agenda. And Kerry was very smart too, and he was articulate and handled
language. Handsome, all-around dashing, wild-ass fellow.”

Kerry and Bob had some contact during their university days, though Kerry
soon joined the military instead. The next time Robert and Kerry met was at
a Be-In in San Francisco organized by Kerry. Robert remembers being
shocked at Kerry’s newly sported beard. They had little interaction after
that though, as following Kerry’s troubles with Garrison, he began to spiral
into schizophrenia and paranoia.

“Kerry started telling stories to me that were so paranoid and far-fetched

and so boring that I simply wasn’t interested. I was getting paid to listen to
them in the wards, working as a psychiatrist. Kerry was gone way beyond
the pale, and he would come to my house every now and then looking
totally disheveled and stinking like a homeless person with long nails, and
rambling about all the conspiracies and who killed Kennedy and on and on.
They were really my final memories of Kerry. Except that in the last years
of his life he stabilized somewhat, because he began writing again. He put
out a little newsletter, and I would get a copy every now and then, and I
would write him back in the spirit of Discordianism, and his responses to
me were so caustic and angry and hostile that I wasn’t really moved to go
on, though the newsletter was kind of interesting.”

As Kerry’s friend Sondra London would later tell me, it’s anyone’s guess
how much of what Kerry had to say was truth and how much was madness.
Greg was more open to the theories Kerry posited than Newport.

“Whether there was any truth in the fact that it was the Office of Naval
Intelligence who introduced him to LSD and did experiments on him, I
have no way of knowing. Greg thought that was the case. Greg had had a
number of contacts with some of the people that Kerry had talked about as
being involved in that. Whether or not there was any truth to it? Don't ask
me, because my notion was that it was psychotic rambling. That’s where I
was comfortable with leaving it. Greg thought otherwise.”
Today, Robert lives in LA, and is still experimenting with religion and
spirituality. His second wife Nancy was raised Jewish, and an invitation she
received to take part in teaching Power Collage to members of the Jewish
community led to the couple’s involvement in the North American revival
of a slightly obscure Jewish movement, Musar.

“If you get under the crap about God, there’s something there,” Robert tells
me. “It’s a technology that leads you to enlightenment. Now they always
say it does, but for me and I think for most rational people getting your
head around the notion of a loving God who’s going to wipe your ass for
you is just too much. And Discordianism makes no pretence in that regard. I
mean, starting right off, offal coming down through the hole in the floor,⁵
you start right off knowing that it’s a load of crap. And if you get that it’s a
load of crap, maybe you can move on. Well Judaism, underneath the crap,
has that too, that there’s a spiritual technology. So Nancy began to relate to
it. She struggled through a bunch of stuff on her own, and pretty soon she
finds herself a temple member, and she is working this stuff and relating to
it, and in the course of that she became acquainted with a Jewish practice
called Musar.”

Without exactly embracing Judaism with open arms, Bob has developed an
affinity for the ‘spiritual technology’ of Musar.

“If you look at it through a lens of what we know now about quantum
mechanics and how the universe hangs together, you can give up the
notions and the bullshit of a God who’s going to wipe your ass and protect
you from harm and all this crap that is wishful thinking, or non-thinking,
and you can appreciate the mysteries of the universe and open yourself to
the kinds of experiences that in my day we called transcendent or cosmic
consciousness. Really that’s what Discordianism was about. Freeing
yourself from the kind of thinking and adherence to mainstream ideologies
and dogmas that are prisons to the mind. And of course our technology was
marijuana and LSD and mescaline and peyote and all of that - those were
our technologies for getting rid of that stuff, and I think they’re very
powerful technologies, but they are hard. Hard on the body. And you can't
live that way. In fact, if you embrace the God that’s based on Greek science,
you can’t live that way either.

‘However, if you don’t, there are ways, and Musar is one, and Judaism is
one through Kabbalah and the Torah - once you give up the notion of an
impossible God that rational Jews don’t believe in anyhow. So I have been
very interested in this because I see now how the technology under
centuries and centuries of crap, was really pointing to the same thing that
Greg and Kerry and Robert and I and others were articulating. So I say,
‘Yeah, it is a religion,’ though it’s certainly not your Grandmother’s
religion. And if it helps you guys live in a community where you can have
fun and live with each other and be intellectually stimulated rather than
intellectually deadened, I say go for it.” He pauses. “And if you can’t do
that, be a Jew,” he says, and as always, he laughs.

¹ This would appear to be a reference to smoking Marijuana. St. Gulik is

described as a roach, which is also slang for the cardboard portion of a
marijuana cigarette (joint).

² (Hill & Thornley, Principia Discordia, ¹⁹⁷⁰)

³ Where Timothy Leary’s experiments were taking place.

⁴ (Hill, Greater Poop #³⁰, ¹⁹⁷⁰)

⁵ This is from A Zen Story by Camden Benares, as published in the
Principia Discordia, in which a meditating man has a pile of sewage fall on
his head, leading observers to remark; “Some say he is a holy man. Others
say he is a shithead.”
 5. Butter Eris Kitty Ritual

Adam Gorightly gives me details for Tantra Bensko who lived for a time
with Kerry Thornley. I make contact and we agree to meet at her house in
Berkley, California.

In our meeting we talk about what it was like to live with Kerry in Little
Five Points, Atlanta. It seems important to mention that at the time they
met, Kerry was, according to some, veering off into paranoia. I myself
remain agnostic on some of his claims and skeptical of some others,
especially his theory that his “real father” was a Nazi Admiral.

Tantra greets me at the entrance of her house, near a garden filled with
gigantic cacti. She is smiley and excitable, and her passion for life is
contagious.

She grew up in Indiana, in an area where very few people were around; few
enough that one didn’t need to put clothes on to collect the mail on a hot
day. She would go to Alabama now and then to see relatives. It was the kind
of town where you couldn’t really admit to not being religious. She would
attend Straight Creek Holiness Church where people would yell and run
around the congregation when the spirit seized them. When the spirit seized
preachers, they would handle the snakes - a sign on the church quoted Mark
16:18: They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it
shall not hurt them. The spirit never seemed to seize them in her presence.
When she was in Alabama she missed the people she could engage with in
California, and when she was away she missed the nature.
Tantra has a special relationship with nature. She spent years traveling the
country in her van, sometimes driving out to a natural place and finding a
spot to sleep out in the open. It was during this period of travel that she
began to develop her skills in Tantric yoga, healing, and her own
construction of a form of effortless movement called ‘Lucid Play.’

Tantra was in Little Five Points when someone connected her with Kerry
Thornley who was to take a significant place in her life.

“I had been in Atlanta in Little Five Points, and I met this guy who was the
figurehead of Little Five Points. He would stand there and he would ring his
bell, and he would burn his sage, and he would figure out who should meet
whom. So he was telling me about Kerry Thornley and showing these
broadsheets that he had put up, and they were great political activism mixed
with absurd, wild craziness. And so I wanted to meet him and I thought, ‘I
want to come back to Atlanta to spend time with Kerry Thornley.’ And he
was, I guess, 60 or something like that.

‘And so then later I was going to Atlanta. I thought it was going to be just
for a weekend, but then my van broke down so I had to find a place to live.
I was reading the Illuminatus! trilogy. It was dedicated to Kerry. I stayed
with that guy that I mentioned. His friend Wilson Leary, Timothy Leary’s
cousin, came by and he and I started dating. So I’ve got all these things in
the world of Kerry Thornley like…” she waves her arms and makes sounds
to imitate the ineffable presence of Thornleyness that was entering her
sphere.
“So I was trying to figure out where I was going to live, and this guy just
came up to me in Little Five Points and said, ‘If you’re looking for a place
to live, you can live with me, I’ve got a porch.’ I checked out this house and
they’ve got a big porch and so I moved in. It was a really wild, artistic kind
of place. I found out that Kerry Thornley lived there in this little mother-in-
law right out the back. So I went there looking for Kerry Thornley and
moved in next to him without even knowing it.”

“Do you remember the first time you actually met him?” I ask.

“Uh-huh. Coming out of my room it was like, ‘There’s Kerry Thornley!’

Or, Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst.”

“What did you two talk about the first time you met?”

“Oh, I probably was just kind of squealing and telling him how glad I was,
and him just doing this great laugh. I love his laugh. It was unlike anyone
else’s. I wouldn’t even try to imitate it. He had thirteen cats or something
like that, some huge number of cats so you’d always hear him calling them.
He was just this really sweet little cat man and son of a Nazi, such an odd
combination, he claimed. In my life I always run into these MK-ULTRA
kind of people which was a little scary sometimes, that that happens, and
that’s what he was, he said.

“I was also was a little bit uneasy about how much, living with him, was
that going to involve me? How much was I being watched because of it? So
it became like the Illuminatus! trilogy. Black helicopters were going over
all the time, and things were just becoming more and more like those
books.”

“Kerry said there were flying helicopters over his house,” I say. I was
thinking of what Louise Lacey had told me of Kerry’s time in Florida when
I said this, though I’d forgotten the details of what I’d heard. She had told
me that Jim Garrison had sent helicopters over his house.

“They were, they were,” Bensko says. “They were doing it a lot. They
would even follow me around. He seemed to know what he’s talking about.
People always think that he was making up these stories in his head about
the mind controllers and stuff, but I don’t know. He might have been.”

It was once while they lived in this close proximity that Tantra decided to
perform a Discordian ritual, after a comment Kerry made.

“He said that the beauty of Discordianism was that he didn’t have to see any
other Discordian-ists. And so there were no rituals. So to fly in the face of
that then and give it a little chaotic shuffle I told him, ‘We’ve got to do a
ritual then.’ He thought that was a great idea.

“So I got a stick of butter, and I molded it into the shape of Eris the
Goddess and I put it on the floor. We said something over it, and his thirteen
cats came and positioned themselves around the butter so there was no
space in between them. They were all just jammed into where their tongues
were right in there in the butter and they all started spinning around in a
circle all at the same time, so you had this circling cat-thing around Eris,
licking it until it was gone, while Kerry and I were just laughing.”
“So that was the core moment that I remember about that ritual. His cats
walked off after that, but kind of continuing to circle and just, ‘Woah, hey’
and wobble off to the edges.”

“Did you spend much time with Kerry after that?” I ask.

“Oh yeah, I spent a lot of time with him when I lived in Atlanta because I
was there a couple of years, and so we were really good friends. I think I
spent as much time with him over those years as everyone else did
altogether. He didn’t really have a lot of people come by. And the other
people in the house didn’t go to see him that much. But we were buddies.
We hung out. I just deeply love Kerry.

‘I don’t agree with some of his politics like, ‘Kill Kennedy.’ But yeah, I
really liked Kerry a lot. I felt like his writing with Eris might have had
something to do with his feeling like he did inadvertently kill Kennedy by
suggesting someone like Oswald could be a patsy. But who knows; it’s one
layer after another.”

When I first talked to Bensko over the Internet she pointed out that she
wasn’t a Discordian and wasn’t any kind of expert, but when I spoke to her
in person, she said she was identifying sometimes with the title. I asked her
to tell me what about the ideology meant to her.

“It’s postmodernist,” she says. “There’s many angles and none of them are
true.” She likes that Discordia is essentially difficult to take too seriously
and finds the attitude of believing without believing useful to her work.
“There’s lots of Gods in Tantra Yoga too, and I see them as physics
principles,” she tells me.

We chat for a long time; Tantra is someone who it is immensely easy to be

around. She carries an effortless friendliness that invites you in and asks
you to engage without needing to say the words. She talks about many
things including her time in Little Five Points, her Yoga experience, and her
book, Collapsible Horizon.

I walk home. The air is warm and still. I arrive back to the marijuana-
scented hostel doors and make my way up the winding stairs to my room.
 6. We Can’t Bring Eris Into It; It’d Be Weird!

I arrive late at the Doubletree Hilton Hotel in San Jose, California. The mix
in the room is bizarre. Around half the inhabitants are clearly here for the
convention, with flowing robes, horns, crazy moustaches, pieces of religious
iconography draped over their necks. The other half seems to be staying in
the hotel for business purposes. Each looks at the other with equal
discomfort and suspicion. I feel somewhere between overwhelmed and
perfectly at home.

This is PantheaCon: the biggest Pagan convention in America. While there

has been infinite debate over who and what gets to be considered Pagan,
Discordia is generally accepted as fitting into the ‘neo-Pagan’ category and
is typically well represented at this convention.

Before I left for the US, I had made contact with a Californian who called
herself eris, and was going to be working at the sign-in desk. As I come in to
collect my badge, I ask if there is anyone there going by that name, and the
staff seem at first uncertain, until he approaches.

"Hello!" she cries, giving me a big hug. eris,¹ who I would later grow to
know as 'joi wolfwomyn' is extraordinary in his appearance. She has long
thick green dreadlocks dropping down past his waist, pronounced wiry
facial-hair on her chin, and a green moustache tattooed onto his face in the
design of bending leaves. Her eyes are covered in green glitter. joi tells me
later that he is trans/genderfluid. Her preferred pronoun is 'not the same one
twice in a row, please.' If anyone insists on one singular pronoun, joi tells
them to use “it”, so they'll feel very uncomfortable while trying to pin him to
a stationary point on the gender spectrum.

Shed yourself and your ideas of what has to be.

joi is part of the Avatar Jones Memorial Cabal. Her card describes him as
follows;

irRev. joi wolfwomyn

priest - deviant - writer - bon vivant

surreal estate agent lic. 2305

transformational ritual counselling medical advocate

FREE INSTANT CRACKPOT THEORIES

The Cabal is run by Elf of Elfwreck (Elf's husband, Rob, is Wreck of
Elfwreck) who is the high Episkopos. Elf can't be found for a moment, but
joi introduces me to Wreck/Rob who is running a stall in the vendors’ area.
His stock includes stone five fingered hands of Eris on necklaces.²

One of my very first introductions to Discordianism was through the 23CCC

talk on the subject given by St. Mae of the Church of No Dead Saints. In the
video she has a soft and congenial tone, with black glasses and a round
friendly face. I’m to meet St. Mae and her family at PantheaCon, but they
haven't arrived yet, so I wander along to a talk on Erotic Breathwork and
within minutes am grabbing my crotch and touching the chest of a woman
I've never met before.
I return to my hostel, getting ready to call it a night, when I receive a text on
my phone from St. Mae. She's arriving in about an hour’s time.

Once more into the fray! I return to the convention to meet with her and help
transport some of her gear up to her room including a large metal chaos star
similar to the one she and Johnny Brainwash cut up in a ritual. St. Mae
seems reserved at first, and it's difficult to know what she's thinking. She
takes me through to the suite floors of the hotel; hospitality suites that are
open to the attendees to drop in, grab some food and socialize with others.

That night we speak about our respective projects, Discordia and

PantheaCon. St. Mae shows me some of her Pope cards with a bright
psychedelic yellow and red swirl on the front, from the Church of No Dead
Saints. The Pope Card is a long running institution of Discordianism that
celebrates the proclamation that ‘every man woman and child is a Pope.’

The text of the Pope card is as follows:

The bearer of this card is a genuine and authorized

! POPE !

-----GOOD FOREVER-----
 Genuine and authorized by the Church of No Dead Saints

A Pope is someone who is not under the authority of the authorities

This, other than the specific cabal, is the standard text of the Pope Card, a
tongue in cheek subversion of the idea of religious authority that dates back
to the first Discordians.

A number of cards also have a backing that eulogizes Robert Anton Wilson,
a special edition of the Church of No Dead Saints Pope card that was given
out at Wilson’s memorial service in Santa Cruz, when his ashes were
scattered over the ocean. St. Mae gives me some of these to pass out as I
travel.

She also offers me a ribbon adjourned with the words GENETIC

DISCORDIAN. PantheaCon gives out black 'PantheaCon attendee' ribbons
with sticky ends to connect to badges. At some point, attendees realized that
they were able to print their own custom made ribbons from the same
company, and so a tradition of ribbon sharing was born, with multi-coloured
streams of ribbons dangling off every badge. St. Mae’s ribbon satirises a
PantheaCon controversy where one ritual was held for ‘genetic (not trans-)
women only’.
St. Mae became interested in Discordia, as did many others, through RAW’s
Illuminatus! trilogy.

“I just found a copy of Illuminatus! at a book store. My family was on

vacation - we’d all run out of books, and we went to a little book store, and
there weren’t a lot of choices there. I got a copy of [Robert Anton Wilson’s]
Schrodinger’s Cat which was fantastic and broke my brain and led to me
finding Illuminatus!”

She describes how her path to Discordia ‘felt destined.’ As a fifteen year old
she, like American author William Burroughs³ before her, noticed the
number 23 appearing again and again. When she opened Schrodinger's Cat,
it tied nicely into this pattern with Wilson’s intentional repetitions of the
number 23. It felt like Discordia was at the end of a long chain of events.

“It felt like home. It felt like this recognition of ‘that is me; that is where I
belong,’ because it was a nice synthesis of surrealism and pranksterism and
cultural commentary and politics and the occult and sex and gender and a
whole big mix.”

St. Mae entered into the then largely uncharted realms of the Internet aged
14, in 1992. Two years later, after freaking her parents out with an early
$200 phone bill from accidentally calling an international number, she was
given her own Internet account. She chose the address haileris@crl.com.
This was the start of a long (and ongoing) process of self-creation.

“I remember thinking very sincerely, ‘does anybody else really care about
this Discordian thing? When I make this my identity, what am I doing here?’
That’s going to mean something. And it felt daring and frightening and
important. This is before the Internet was really anything, in 1994. So that’s
when I got on to Alt.Discordia, and in the way that only 16 year olds can
obsess with things, I got really obsessed with Usenet. I met a lot of people
on Alt.Discordia. It was my first cabal⁴ and it was a place to talk about this
stuff that interested me, and it was a mix of the occult and the politics and
the conspiracies, and I didn’t know where to find anybody else like that. I
mean, I grew up in a place where there’s a decent amount of people who are
thinkers and intellectuals, but at the same time there’s not a lot of people into
this at all.

‘So that was a huge useful thing for me, and that’s where I first became St.
Mae. I got my name because it was for Mayhem and Mae West who I always
really appreciated, just being a kind of a free spirit.”

Her sainthood was bestowed upon her by a Discordian called St Tim the
Cannonizer who she met during a cross-country road trip.

“St Tim had come up with The Church of No Dead Saints which is what I
run officially now, and his idea was that we don’t appreciate the beauty or
magic in everyday lives, because the idea under Catholicism is that a saint is
somebody who has died who is an intermediary to God. But we don’t really
appreciate miracles when they’re being performed. We appreciate them
when the person is gone, and that seems really unfair. Seems like you should
say thank you to the universe and the magic that there is now and recognize
that everybody performs at least three miracles a day. I convert food into all
sort of bizarre nutrients by being an embodied creature, much less any of the
other things I can do. I can speak to people thousands of miles away, just
like you; that’s how you got here. Through the magic that we all perform. So
that’s the basis of the Church of No Dead Saints. St Tim gave me my Saint
certificate which I probably don’t have any more, and named me St. Mae.
‘I got my KSC part of the title, Keeper of the Sacred Chao, which of course
is one of the titles you can name yourself, but the folks on Alt.Discordia
gave it to me, so it’s special; I keep it. I’m an Episkopos because my take on
Discordianism is a little bit off-canon, it’s a mishmash as it is for most of us.
And then also The Red Sage is part of my title, which is a play on the Purple
Sage and also my actual name, Autumn Tyr-Salvia; there is a type of Salvia
plant that has red flowers called the Autumn Sage. So, that’s where I get
that. And the rest of it is St. Mae Victoria, Victoria is for victory, the concept
of triumph over external definitions.

‘So I named myself both names. Autumn Tyr-Salvia is a name I’ve

constructed. Other people gave me the first name, and I put together my last
name and legally changed it. I filed my name change papers on my 18th
birthday, because it was an intentional act of creating a person. I feel like I
create myself in a lot of different ways, why not create a name? People
always say make a name for yourself, and I’ve done that, many times.”

Discordianism has long had a prankster element. Operation Mindfuck

(O:MF) is a Discordian project that’s been going since the late 60s and
involves a wide range of pranks and activities including campaigns of letter
writing, Pope Card delivery, and anything else a Pope sees fit to include as
an O:MF practise. St. Mae’s long involvement in Pranksterism goes beyond
Discordianism. She has been involved in the operations of San Francisco
icon The Cacophony society - the prankster collective said to have inspired
Fight Club’s Operation Mayhem. While in Colorado, St. Mae formed her
own variation of the Cacophony society named Maehem and Cacophony
Inc.

“Mostly what I used to do was write bizarre tracts of things and post them up
in places which seems to be the tactic that Professor Cramulus does now.
One of the things I did was to write a bunch of fliers on the Students for
Satanic Salvation and put them up at the local Universities, because there
were like five Christian groups at the same school. Come on guys, why do
you need so many? Let’s get some diversity in here! I tried to get people to
show up for some kind of meetup, but it turned out all my fliers had been
taken down, and what was even funnier is they had been replaced by fliers
from the local Wiccan group. So what I think happened is the Wiccans had
seen my fliers and thought that I was pretending that they were Satanists and
got very offended and had taken my flyers down. So I have a few others, I
also had Chess: The Hidden Racist Threat. At the same time I started a
mailing list that I called the Squidlist just because I liked the word Squid
which is how I met Scott Beale who had started his own Squidlist.”

Beale’s Squidlist (now laughingsquid.com), as St. Mae notes, was much

more successful. A San Francisco icon with links to Ron English, the San
Francisco Suicide Club and the Billboard Liberation Front, Beale was an
early participant in the Cacophony Society. It was Beale who hosted
Discordian.com when St. Mae decided to purchase it in 1997.

“The first site was terrible; my design skills are not very good, let me tell
you. But that’s how I learned to write HTML.”

At time of writing she has rewritten Discordian.com three times and has
plans for a fourth version.

While in Denver, St. Mae founded the Denver Chapter of the Cacophony
society. It was a small scale version of the larger society but it did the trick.

“We did a lot of prankstery stuff, but again it was also more small scale. It’s
a lot bigger now, by my understanding. So I’ve always had a big interest in
pranksters, pranksterism and pranking.”
It’s easy to see how St. Mae quickly developed a high profile in the
Discordian community in a short time with her high energy and penchant for
building community and projects. Today, she is one of the best known
figures in Discordia, gaining prominence not only for Discordian.com, but
for her talk at 23CCC, and her founding of a Discordian gathering called
KallistiCon.

“I started doing KallistiCon because there really weren’t any Discordian

events that I knew about. So I said, ‘Hell why not, I’ll do it.’ ”

Johnny Brainwash, Olivia and Telarus who we met in Portland were some of
the attendees at KallistiCon.

“About half of them, Autumn picked up on the internet,” Johnny Brainwash

told me in Portland. “She met random internet weirdos who were Discordian
or leaning that way. And eventually she would be like, ‘you all should come
out to California.’ ”

“The first KallistiCon must have been 2000,” St. Mae told me. “I was living
in a small apartment in Daly city… We had a picnic at Golden Gate Park and
visited Emperor Norton; we took photographs and did a full on dedication to
Emperor Norton’s grave.

A notice on the KallistiCon webpage gives attendees an overview of the

event.
Some will no doubt repeat the tired cliché: "We Discordians tend to stick
apart."

Of course we do, but sticking apart is more fun when we do it together.

Throw out your old memes. Greg and Kerry are gone, Bob Wilson is gone,
Camden Benares and the other old-timers are gone. Let's honour and respect
them. Let's learn from their lives and their teachings. But let's stop trying to
be them.

The Principia is your grandma's Discordia. Being an inside joke on the net
is your daddy's. What's yours? And who are you doing it with?⁵

“We would go do ritual together on the first night on Friday, and then on
Saturday night we would have a party at my house with all of my local
friends. And then Sunday we would do some kind of public prank. In
between times, we would just bond, cook food together, and talk and play
games. One time we did a church style social meet and greet on the streets of
the local city. We handed out lemonade and cookies and were like, ‘Hi, I’m a
Discordian, we’d like to meet you, how are you,’ just to connect with
people. One year we held a generic protest. So we had signs that said YES
and signs that said NO and signs that said JUST HERE TO MEET GIRLS.
Johnny Brainwash being an old veteran protester had a few fantastic slogans,
‘A slogan! Repeated! Will never be defeated!’...
‘There was one prank where we picked a town in the middle of nowhere and
started trying to up the weirdness quotient by sending bizarre letters to
random people and businesses there, just to see if we could really make a
measurable impact.”

St. Mae sees herself as Discordian clergy and describes this to me as her
calling. She’s a kind of clergy for the weird who engages with the young and
different and tries to guide them towards a healthy expression of their
individuality.

“I have a practice where I talk to young kids on MSN and IRC and try to
help them figure themselves out, because I think that’s a really important
service to the world. There's a lot of freakiness where people can fall off a
cliff and bad things can happen to them. I think the important thing with
Discordianism is to use it help you with critical thinking. If you’ve got a
good understanding of what chaos looks like and what conspiracies really
look like, then you can have a better way of navigating the fucked up world
we live in.

‘The other thing that’s really important about Discordianism is irreverence -

where you don’t take yourself too seriously, much less any of the things you
believe. I believe it, but then I don’t believe it, because I don’t really believe
anything. And I’ve seen people get into occultism or other belief systems
where they just kind of lose their personalities. So I try to help people stay
on their path.”

We spend a little more time in the suite, the Temple of Hermes, before
moving on. An altar to Hermes is set up in the room next door. I would
spend a lot of time in these hospitality suites over the next few days. I bid St.
Mae goodnight, and we determine to meet with each other later tomorrow.
 ***

The next day, I meet other members of St. Mae's family, Fox and Aunty
Wombat. They have taken to referring to the three of them as a unit named
Das Hive. Fox, aka Fox Magrathe Circe, aka the Archbishop of Bologna,
tends to wear a hat, his face rough with dense hair. He is Transformers
obsesee, a one-time administrator for harm reduction website bluelight.nu,
and an unstoppable meme-maker. Aunty Wombat has her hair in pigtails.
She works in technology, and has a DJ gig at Radio KOS. Both are
adjourned in geeky t-shirts, a theme maintained across the convention.

We meet in a convention room where Lon Milo DuQuette sits in the

presenting space with his guitar, setting up as the dull beating of drums pass
through the wall. DuQuette is a major figure in the world of Thelema.

We should digress for a moment to give a brief overview of Thelema, a

religion founded by ceremonial magician and writer Aleister Crowley after
he was contacted by an entity named Aiwass in 1904, who dictated to him
‘The Book of the Law.’ The key concept is that each human has a true will
(Thelema being the Greek word for will) that one must strive to achieve.
From Thelema we get the moral precept, ‘Do as thou wilt shall be the whole
of the law.’

DuQuette plays guitar and sings and jokes around with the audience, before
explaining the ritual to journey into a memory of our past lives.
DuQuette’s methodology is informed by gematria; a complex system of
numerical and alphabetical values applied to summon an entity to help guide
us into our past lives. To open the ritual he calls on Ganesh as the opener of
doors by chanting, ‘Ganesh, Ganesh, Ganesh, Ganesh, Ganesh, Ganesh,
Ganesha!’ to the tune of ‘Pop goes the Weasel.’

I try to put on my Discordian hat and play along. If I believe it (even if I

don’t really believe it) will I get something out of it? In the end, I enjoy
DuQuette’s irreverent style, but signs of a past life are not forthcoming.

I have a chance to hang out with St. Mae’s family back in their room.
They’ve brought with them a huge array of stuff to deck out their space; a
copy of the Illuminati Board Game by Steve Jackson Games, costumes and
clothes, their huge metal Chaos Star, and a bar full of drinks. We make
drinks, including a surprisingly tasty mixture of orange juice, whipped cream
flavoured vodka and bacon syrup. They chat with me a great deal on a
multitude of topics. The three of them are well versed on a very broad range
of fields, and as a result I find myself using a term they introduced to me -
Peanut Butter - the point at which too much new information needs
processing to allow for anything more (almost like a cognitive safe-word).

Discordian.com was one of my first sources for information when I was

getting into Discordianism. Another of my early influences was a video
entitled 23CCC: Culture Jamming and Discordianism. That video has its
own story.

“We were at a Dresden dolls show, Fox and I,” says St. Mae, “and one of the
things with the Dresden Dolls as a band is that they were street performers,
so every time they would go play, friends of theirs who were street
performers would dress up in costume and entertain people waiting in line.
So we had come up with an act that involved me in a gorilla suit and him
dressed up as a carnival barker with this old stereo speaker that we had
connected to an MP3 player with a crank on it so it looked like a hurdy-
gurdy. So he had this thing strapped around him and was running it, and I
was the gorilla in a skirt dancing.”

“And then the gorilla would get the digital hurdy-gurdy,” says Fox. “And the
gorilla would do it and I would dance, because it’s an equal opportunity
relationship between that monkey and its uncle.”

“So then at one point we were sitting at a bar, hanging out and started talking
to an old friend of mine, Jake, that I met at 2600, a hacker gathering a few
years before… about dressing up in costume and culture jamming and the
idea of making the world weirder, and Jake said, ‘That’s a really good
explanation, you should come to this conference that I’m speaking at in
Berlin this Winter, Chaos Computer Club. So, you should submit a thing,
and by the way the deadline is tonight!’ After the show, we go to the local
all-night computer lab- we don’t even go home because that’s too long of a
drive- and type up some bullshit about the history of Discordianism as it
relates to the Internet and the counter-copyright movement.”

The event was the Chaos Communications Congress run by the Chaos
Computer Club, the oldest hacking organization in Europe.

“They’ve been around since 1981, and they are explicitly founded as a
Discordian group,” St. Mae tells me.⁶ “So the CCC has been doing annual
conventions and several year frequent hacker conferences since then.”
As we talk, they show me the Illuminati card game, produced by Steve
Jackson games. The game is loosely based on Robert Anton Wilson’s
Illuminatus!⁷ trilogy. St. Mae takes of her hat and shows it to me, pointing
out the small Illuminati pins.

“So this is my everyday hat,” says St. Mae. “I wear this all the time with all
the pins on it. This one particularly is one of the Illuminatus! pins.”

“We need to buy another round; we’ll send you an appropriate one,” offers
Fox.

“So the different colours mean different things,” says St. Mae. “His is
Political Liaison. I forget what hers is.”

“This one is Subversion,” says Aunty Wombat, holding her hat up. “My
other hat has Disinformation on it but I don’t know where that went.

“I don’t think it’s possible to really understand Illuminatus! without

understanding the United States of the 1970s and the 1960s,” St. Mae tells
me. “A little bit beyond that too, but particularly Illuminatus! trilogy is
written in a way that is very particular to the 1970s here and the ‘freak
current’ in the country at the time. You have to think about where we were
historically, the stuff that went on. The Vietnam War was a catalyst for a lot
of weird stuff - I mean, that’s how we got the hippies. We got some good
stuff and some really bad stuff.”
St. Mae goes on to tell me that Illuminatus! also reflected a sense of
vindication at certain ‘conspiracy theories’ such as MKULTRA finding their
way into the mainstream news.

“We knew the CIA was paying people to go to protests and to start shit and
make things even more fucked up, and we knew that the Kennedy
assassination was a conspiracy; nobody believes that shit.”

We talk about the ‘first edition’ Principia in the Kennedy archives. I mention
that in later years Kerry was actually starting to believe that the Discordian
Society may have been a CIA front.

“And you know,” says St. Mae, “the fact is, that while that sounds insane
now, at the time, it really didn’t sound insane.”

***

I have a number of meetings with people who are familiar or involved with
Discordia. In a writing workshop I talk to some of the participants and
mention what I’m up to.

“Discordians,” says one guy and laughs mirthlessly. “That’s interesting.” He

says ‘interesting’ like he’s describing a failed experimental dish.

“How, interesting?” I ask.

“They’re just a bit fast and loose for me.”

Outside of the room I meet a man whose name badge reads Fnord. Fnord is a
word featured in the Principia Discordia without larger context, but is given
new meaning in the Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea’s Illuminatus!
trilogy, from which our current ‘Fnord’ has taken his name. He is surprised
to find someone who understands the reference. As I speak with him, a lady
comes out and thrusts a ribbon at him.

Eris loves me, this I know. Because CHAOS told me so.

As he wanders into the room from which the ribbon had been delivered, I
chat with another Pagan lady about my project.

“Eris is an important part of our culture,” she tells me.

I soon meet the lady responsible for the ribbons. Also the organizer of a
local Pagan clothing swap, JoHanna is a short lady with long brown hair in
thick dreadlocks. She describes herself as an Erisian, not a Discordian.
However, as she tells me, she loves the Discordians, because, ‘the way you
guys worship Eris is fantastic.’

In the room where the Pagan Clothing Swap is taking place she has set up a
devotional alter to Eris with a golden apple. One woman approaches me with
a green stretchy dress and offers it, saying it would look good on me. There
is an attitude of relaxed indifference towards traditional gender roles.

In an elevator, I ask two others wearing Discordian themed ribbons whether

they’re Discordians. They aren’t, but they tell me they always look forward
to the Discordian rituals. Getting out of the elevator, one lady introduces me
to a friend of hers and tells her excitedly about how much fun the
Discordians are. Her friend makes crazy eyes and almost physically recoils.
The Discordians are, for her, just ‘too out there.’

I meet a person called Alfred who had played Emperor Norton in a living
tarot, and was interested in Discordia. “All my life I confused people without
even trying,” he tells me. He speaks about an aversion some had to involving
Eris in Pagan rituals. “People say, ‘we can’t bring Eris into it, it’ll be weird.’
” He shrugs. “We’re Pagan. It’s already weird.”

A person named Mike offers another endorsement. “I don’t know much

about you guys except you kick ass.”

***

Elf of the Avatar Jones Memorial Cabal organizes a meetup of Discordians

at one of the local hospitality suites. joi and Elf are already in the area when
I arrive. There’s a large devotional shrine to Eris on the side of the room.
The members of Das Hive soon arrive and sit to the side. Others who come
into the space are Ben, Sage, Littlewolf, Shereen, and a small group of
young men who turn out to be part of something called Z-Cluster.
The meetup opens with joi presenting me, as the ‘guest of honour’, with a
five-fingered hand of Eris necklace, a symbol described in the Principia as
two arrows meeting each other. It’s metal, handmade by Wreck, placed in a
long red ribbon that’s looped over my neck. I later transfer it to my silver
chain, in place of the silver polar bear I have taken to wearing.

We go around in a circle to introduce ourselves. St. Mae tells of how she had
found Discordia in her teenage years. Fox came across it at age 23 through
the Internet and a love of the band The KLF.

Elfwreck, (or Elf of Elfwreck) has been leading the Erisian High Mass of the
Avatar Jones Memorial Cabal for 15 years. She, along with others of the
Avatar Jones Memorial Cabal, is a big fan of the story within the Principia
called A Sermon on Ethics and Love, which shows Eris’s advice to
Malaclypse the Younger (Greg Hill) when he is confronted by the horrors of
the world; ‘Oh well. Then stop.’

As we speak, she offers words of wisdom: “Just because someone receives a

message from Eris doesn’t mean it makes sense to follow it.”

joi wolfwomyn is a Discordian, a radical faery and an elder Gardnerian. She

first came across Discordia at age 17. “Chaos is not without structure. It’s
without rigidity,” he tells me. What was the point of Discordia to her? I ask.
“There’s no point. It’s a punchline.”

joi, like many others, met Robert Anton Wilson on one of his visits to
PantheaCon. He gave Wilson some pot cookies. ‘Finally,’ he told joi, after
years of thoughtful, but ultimately impractical gifts from fans, ‘something
useful!’
One prank that joi and Elf together coordinated was designed to
commemorate the passing of Kerry Thornley. Upon Thornley’s death, they
produced a series of fliers advertising a vigil in his honour at 5:23 in a park,
featuring The Grateful Dead, Timothy Leary and many other bands and
counterculture figures who were, of course, never going to arrive. Instead of
joining the vigil of bewildered and confused individuals who showed up,
they hid and observed the chaos and the interactions of the strangers from a
distance.

Ben found Discordianism ten years ago, before his daughter was born, and
notes that worshipping a chaos entity is good preparation for having a child.

Sage is an older lady who smiles when asked, and states very simply, “I just
like chaos.”

Littlewolf is a ‘2nd generation weirdo’. They had been ‘haunted by Coyote

for years’ before meeting Eris. Littlewolf knew Robert Anton Wilson and his
partner Arlen.

Shereen also knew Bob and Arlen, meeting them through a lover.

The members of Z-Cluster were from a Chaos Magic mailing list which had
been active between ‘96 and 2000. Their members had been amongst those
attending KallistiCon.
 ***

I attend a ritual being run by members of the Avatar Jones Memorial Cabal,
called Trans Deities for All: Meeting the Tetrad. It features joi wolfwomyn
and a tall person with square glasses named Phillip.

The ritual is an invocation of ‘the Tetrad,’ four deities who are transgendered
or gender variant. Each represents a series of concepts. Panpsyche, all soul,
is shown as male to female. Panhyle, all body, is female to male. Paneros, all
love, is shown as metagendered,⁸ and Pancrates, represented by joi, is
genderfuck, or nongendered.⁹ Phillip (who I later found to be otherwise
known as P. Sufenas Virius Lupus) represents The Other, the narrator of the
ritual.

To begin, they list each of the 78 parents of the Tetrad, including, of course,
Eris. After each are mentioned, the audience reply with ‘hail, thanks, and
praise’. As you can imagine, this takes some time. In the second part, they
present a dramatic retelling of the tale of the Tetrad, each deity represented
by an individual. Once this portion is complete, they send participants into
groups of five to discuss ideas of identity with leading questions on sexuality
and gender identity.

The frankness of the conversation and the vulnerability of the participants, in

terms of having any sort of deviation from gender norms, is touching, and
profound. The extent to which any individual who deviates from social
gender expectations, regardless of specific gender identity, is punished and
treated as lesser by society, consciously or not, becomes clear to me.
In the next phase, the group are divided into four groups by gender identity.
This is to sing the Carol of the Tetrad, to the tune of We Three Kings. Each
gender identity group sings a stanza of the song specific to their
representative deity before joining together as a group for the chorus.
Finally, all are invited to accept a blessing from the deity of their choice. The
Other offers blessings on behalf of any of the parents of the Tetrad. I receive
a blessing and a warm hug from Paneros and a blessing from The Other on
behalf of Eris. The Other also offers me a pen to write stories of the Tetrad.

Finally I approach joi/Pancrates for a blessing. He wears an open robe, her

breasts only covered with black tape over his nipples. She looks me in the
eyes, and throws glitter in my hair.

“Eris is laughing her fucking ass off right now” he tells me, then pauses, for
long enough that I am left waiting in anticipation.

“You spend a lot of time in liminal spaces,” she says. “Dance with it more.”

¹ joi asks me by email to avoid capitalising her name or online name: i don't
use capital letters, as i feel they create a hierarchy of words. that, and i read
way too much e.e. cummings as a small child.

² Image credit (Hill & Thornley, Principia Discordia, ¹⁹⁷⁰)

³ The popularity of the number ²³ in popular culture can be traced back to an

article by American Author William Burroughs. Wilson was influenced by
Burroughs and himself became responsible for the further spread of the ’²³
enigma’.

⁴ Cabal being a term for a distinct sect within a religion.

⁵ (Tyr-Salvia, ²⁰⁰⁹)

⁶ I could never totally confirm this exact detail but it’s true that founding
member Tim Prichard is known as a Discordian.

⁷ Loosely as opposed to closely for Copyright reasons.

⁸ Metagendered covers third gendered/pan-gendered/ other-gendered

according to the blog of the person who acted as an intermediary for
Paneros. http://bearfairie.wordpress.com/tag/tetrad/

⁹ Combinatory or androgynously gendered

 7. Some Sort of Gay Wrestling Thing

I catch a plane to Austin, once described to me as an island surrounded by

Texas. There’s a strange Discordian history here; Austin is the base of
operations for Steve Jackson Games who produced not only the ‘black
cover’ Principia Discordia but also the card game influenced by Robert
Anton Wilson and Robert Shea’s Illuminatus! trilogy that Das Hive showed
me. On March 1, 1990, Steve Jackson Games was unexpectedly raided by
members of the United States Secret Service, accompanied by Austin
police. The Steve Jackson Games webpage says agents cut locks, tore open
boxes, forced open footlockers and confiscated four computers, two
printers, and other hardware and files.

Steve Jackson Games was told they would get their computers back
“tomorrow.” In later statements, a judge said that the Secret Service could
have duplicated the material they needed in between a couple of hours and
eight days. Rather than the next day as promised, or eight days, the majority
of confiscated material wasn’t returned for a whole four months.

The key all this chaos was recent hire Loyd Blankenship. Agent Timothy
Golden had raided Steve Jackson Games on the basis that Blankenship was
working there while running a bulletin board system popular with hackers
from his home and also running a completely separate BBS at Steve
Jackson Games.

In response to the Steve Jackson Games case and other similar cases, John
Gilmore, John Perry Barlow and Mitch Kapor founded the Electronic
Frontier Foundation in 1990. They would later, in 1993, support Steve
Jackson Games in a legal battle seeking damages from the Secret Service in
which they were ultimately successful. A city with such rich Erisian
heritage couldn’t help but hold some interesting Discordian characters – a
possibility that proved true when I put word out that I was hoping to meet
some.

***

I’d found Zarate Zaalo, generally referred to as Zaaki, hunting for

Discordians over the Internet, where he offered me accommodation. He
lives in an area of Austin called The Metropolis: a bizarre apartment block
with bright colour schemes and artworks such as elevated old cars, fake
plastic trees and giant metal letters.

I enter the house and meet with the folks there. Joey hitchhikes her way out
from Maine to various other locations once a year. She’s an artist and
organic gardener. Her artworks are displayed around the room. Bayleaf and
Chops are a couple who are travelling through the US living a transient
lifestyle. Bayleaf has long unrestrained hair. Chops usually wears a tie dye
shirt. He has glasses and sports thick, wiry facial hair. By coincidence, he is
also familiar with Discordia, more so than Zarate – synchronicity is with me
again. They are travelling with Bayleaf’s dog Basil who hangs out with
everyone else in the apartment.

Zarate spends most of his time away working as a children’s train driver.
He’s tall and slender, usually shirtless, with a thick mass of dreadlocks on
top his head.
I ask him how he was introduced to Discordianism.

“I was introduced to Principia Discordia by a friend who lent a copy to me

knowing that based on my personality and love for absurdity I'd eat it up. It
didn't influence me so much as encourage me in my lifestyle and belief
system. Discordianism along with Chaos Magic informed my belief that the
universe is chaos and that I can affect my own reality, and there's a
spirituality in being weird and true to oneself.”

My first day there, I’m invited to a bridge meditation session in the heart of
the city. A large group of participants step into a circle, making buzzing
vibratory noise, raising energy and voices into the air. I used to profess
belief in this kind of stuff, talking about ‘energy’ in that way young drama
kids understood it; ineffable, intangible, perhaps not quite comprehendible,
but present. I shook that off as youthful indulgence, but maybe now I’m
growing back into it. Sure the energy’s there – maybe it’s just a metaphor,
but it’s still a metaphor that’s very present. Even false things are true, as
Greg Hill once wrote.

It’s a fun couple of days, hanging out, watching obscure B-Grade Movies
on Netflix, hitting coffee shops and working with sculpting clay in between
my interviews.

Chops, raised in a Christian household, enjoys one of the satirical hymns in

the Principia, a parody of onward Christian Soldiers.

Onwards Christian Soldiers,

Onwards Buddhist Priests.

Onward, Fruits of Islam,

Fight till you're deceased.

Fight your little battles.

Join in thickest fray;

For the Greater Glory,

of Dis-cord-i-a.

Yah, yah, yah,

Yah, yah, yah, yah.

Blfffffffffffft!¹
Chops, Bayleaf and another resident I called Captain Keyboard perform this
song for me in the apartment, which I then release as a video.

Lying sprawled out on a beanbag with Bayleaf, Chops and Zarate, I chat
about Discordia.

“For me it’s one of the things I read and thought, ‘I groove with this,’ ” says
Zaaki. “But I wouldn’t necessarily call myself a strict Discordian; I don’t
keep up with other Discordians, or the Discordian community so much.”

“Day to day thing, there’s no rituals or prayers before meals or anything,

pageantry or ritualistic like that,” says Chops. “It’s just a way of viewing
the world and viewing your interactions with it. Have a looser hold on what
we pretend to know.”

***

I speak with Chops one-on-one to delve further into his interest in

Discordia.

“I got really obsessed with the concept of God and studied a lot of
mythologies and read a lot of Joseph Campbell,” he says. “And from there,
I got more into the occult, got involved with the Golden Dawn and found
that the pageantry and theatre was a little much. Then I met my friend
Jason, and we were doing a lot of psychedelics. He gave me a copy of
Prometheus Rising the first time that he and I tripped together, met Bob
Wilson and started becoming somewhat obsessed with him. We got a bunch
of the lectures and listened to them, learned about Discordia from that. I
think it’s brilliant; I think it’s the funniest, most accurate approach towards
the whole thing.”

I ask Chops about a Chaos Magic figure he mentioned who claimed that
laughter is the best banishing ritual.

“That was Peter Carroll. The way they talk about it in The Golden Dawn is
- to be a neophyte you have to learn a proper banishing ritual because they
don’t want you to get to the point where you’re going, ‘Oh I’ve created this
demon thing, it’s taking over my life,’ or whatever; it’s a creation of your
mind. That’s why I think laughter is the most appropriate reaction to it - just
take a moment to realize what you’re attempting to do, take a moment
outside yourself.”

I have one very strange night with members of this group, spending a night
cuddling with Bayleaf, Chops and Joey. I had never talked to them about
the dynamic between their relationships, though I’d seen Bayleaf kissing
and cuddling with Joey earlier. I was beside Chops, and while there was a
warmth in cuddling with them, I felt uncomfortable with the unstated and
ambiguous boundaries, of how close was too close, what was etiquette,
what Chops (whose sexuality was yet unstated) was comfortable with.

Shed yourself and your ideas of what has to be, said Dr Bob, but once your
concrete sense of self and the world you expect to find has been scraped
away, there’s still the confusion and terror of total possibility. When rules
start to unravel, social guidebooks are like ink splattered on sand, blowing
away into nowhere.

***

Over the Internet I find a Dominatrix called Domme Discordia who agrees
to an interview. I meet her in Cherrywood Coffeehouse. She is unassuming
with comfortable poise and answers questions with confidence and a degree
of amusement.

Originally, her name had little to do with Discordianism itself.

“It was actually based on Disco, because I have a Disco Pirate radio show.
But I get a lot of potential clients contacting me, looking at the Discordian
angle. I don’t seem to have any complaints either way.”

“Do you know if there’s people who found you through the 1950s kind of
hippy scene ideology or whether there’s more people who know you
through the Roman Goddess?”

“The most common reference that I hear is more Church of Subgenius type
thing, they’re very wink and nod about it. And I’m just like, ‘do you want
me to kick you in the balls or not?’ ”

I ask if she finds ways to integrate absurdism into her BDSM practices.
“Absolutely. Especially compared to most other Dommes that I see; they
keep up the dungeon medieval BDSM stereotype which doesn’t appeal to
me. I do like absurdity quite a bit and that would probably be the leaning of
most of the artists and musicians I know in town. Before I started domming
full time, I did a public scene with a friend of mine who’s a noise artist… I
had found a wrestling suit at a 25 cent sale the week before, so obviously
I’m wearing the wrestling suit and it’s not covering me up-top and it looked
ridiculous. I think it was from some sort of gay wrestling thing; it had My
Little Ponies on it and had a lot of really brief copy on it that alluded to
lubrication and hard loving. So he starts doing his harsh noises thing for the
show and I come in in my wrestling suit with a vibrator jammed down the
front of it, start swinging it around and hitting him and basically tried to
interfere with whatever he was doing, by whatever means possible, and it
ended with us rolling around and punching each-other quite a bit and
somehow I got cut and was bleeding and started throwing my blood at
people and at him. A bit random. Really violent, but good natured
violence.”

We talk a little longer, before I bid Domme Discordia goodbye. Maybe she
isn’t a Discordian with a capital D but she seems to get it more than some of
the card carrying Popes I’ve met. Maybe there is no one way things have to
be.

In the words of Robert Anton Wilson;

There is no governor anywhere; you are all absolutely free.

¹ (McElroy, ¹⁹⁷⁰)
 8. Suicide by Pumpkin

This is the story of The House of Discord – a space which evolved from a
communal house in 2003 to a house mostly inhabited by Discordians,
Thelemites and occultists dedicated to preserving and practicing the highest
possible level of freedom.

In Austin, I meet with Josh Jackson, or ‘Pope’, who ran the House of
Discord. He is a tall, balding man who speaks quickly and energetically. His
words sometimes trip over each other as they race out his mouth.

“The original was in 2003, 2004. We didn’t set about to have a House of
Discord in the beginning, we set out to have a place to stay near the
University of Houston and it became a House of Discord,” he tells me as we
settle in to a café.

In Houston I meet with Elzi and Jvstin who were also participants in many
of the HoD events. I also speak with members of various iterations of the
house over the internet, including Jay Hova, Tim Smith, Michael O’Dwyer
and Timmy who I met in Portland.

The original residence of the HoD was referred to by some as ‘the Fight
Club house,’ because of the way it rained inside when it rained outside.
There were golden apples and upside down crosses everywhere.
Elzi described the residents of the house to me: her boyfriend at the time
Eric; Jeff who, when she first met him, was shy to the point that he only
communicated through whispering to others; Carol ‘the compulsive
knitter’; other Carol ‘the boss lady’; Darwin; Josh; and Cullen.

Michael: HoD1 was an aging rent house near downtown Houston before the
real estate boom in that area.

The group who formed the household and the team of regulars at Tuesday
night events were largely a group of real world friends: Elzi’s household
together with the soon-to-be-HoD held weekly events and less frequent but
much larger parties.

Elzi: There was Tuesday night hang out night every week, and then they
started doing Thursday night sci-fi night, and they had Wednesday night
something and Friday night something, and it turned out like full scale
events every fucking day.

Josh: [Events] were mostly tame compared to the parties. We had a baseball
field across the street and drunken midnight kickball was a favourite
activity.

Elzi: We got fucked up beyond all recognition. Somebody’s like, “let’s play
kickball,” so we go out there, divide into two teams.

Jvstin: I was Team Whiskey.

Elzi: I was team Fuck-You.

Jvstin: We lost because we kept taking shots.

Elzi: Then the cops broke it up.

Jvstin: One week they actually brought out the police helicopter.

Elzi: I was out there, I think I was on base, and O’Dwyer was out there - he
was the first base catcher - and we see the cops come and we’re like,
“Everybody, drop,” because we’re all wearing black, nobody's gonna see
us, “Everybody drop!” So me and O’Dwyer lie face down in the dirt and
everybody else is like, “Wwhhaattss ggooiinngg oonn?” We’re like,
“Seriously, we’re gonna get caught.” And so we had the police helicopter
over us. We’re like, man, we can never play kickball again. Let’s play
kickball during the day? We don’t want to do anything during the day,
we’re goths, come on, our makeup will run. That was the last time we
played kickball.

Josh: We did a handful of other special things. So one of the biggest

Tuesday events - we had a hotdog roast at the original House of Discord.
We were sort of in a relatively poor part of town. And there was like some
industrial stuff nearby, sort of intermixed. Houston is very intermixed, like
there's no zoning so things get jumbled. On our drive to the grocery store
there's this empty parking lot with a barbed wire fence, slightly overgrown,
grass coming up through cracks everywhere. There’s a sign on the parking
lot on the gate that says Eye Protection Must be Worn at All Times, doesn’t
say anything else, ‘no trespassing’ or anything. So we got a little grill and I
think a couple of lab coats, but mainly we got safety goggles for everyone,
we had something like 15 people all with safety goggles, and we went to the
parking lot and set up the grill and started roasting hotdogs, all while
wearing safety goggles. Clearly we’re following the posted rules here. The
Discordian weenie roast. It turns out the parking lot was associated with
some building across the street, so the security guard came and he chased us
off. I commented on this; this was really appropriate. It was really a
Discordian Passion Play, and he was an unwitting participant in our re-
enactment of the Original Snub. We were unwelcome and had to be chased
off.

Elzi: We were told anyone who tried to put up a party against us got
devastated, because if you came up for one of our parties we had the booze
detail, we had the snack detail, we had the music detail, we had the fucking
host committee, the marketing committee and everyone went about it. I still
meet people who are like, “I was there at that party,” I’m like, “Who the
fuck are you, I’ve never met you before.” At a couple of parties we had
over a hundred people show up; we had this huge house so there’s people in
every room, we had the front yard, people in the park across the street, we
had the backyard, there were people everywhere.

Josh: We had people from a lot of diverse social groups, and I liked that.
Generally people seemed to be very comfortable to do whatever they
wanted.

Elzi: The first party we threw was my birthday party which was August
2003.
The account is apparently disputed by the persons concerned, but one of the
often told stories is of a girl who came to that party and apparently
proceeded to have sex with eight of the guests, including one in the stadium
lighting of the park, observed by the partiers and a carload of Mexican
gangsters.

Elzi: She slept with eight people that night. And the last guy was my friend,
right. And he saw her having a three-way with some people and he’s like,
“This is kind of hot.” Then she rolls over like, “Do you want some too?”
He’s like, “Yeah OK.” And then he’s like, “I don’t know where this girl has
been, I don’t want an STD.” So he runs into this kitchen - you know what
151 is? It’s a rum that’s 151 proof. So pretty much pure alcohol right; he
goes in the bathroom, pours it all over himself, tries not to scream because
we’re all asleep, and then like rinses off and goes back outside and falls
asleep on the couch.

The next party brought in one of the most famous moments of the House of
Discord.

Elzi: My ex actually built a pumpkin trebuchet.

Josh: It didn’t launch pumpkins very far, but it did launch them very high in
the air, so if you were launching the trebuchet, you were now in danger of
being hit by a pumpkin. It was the size of a car, made out of wood, and we
launched pumpkins out of it.

Elzi: We did some test launches, so we had some gallons of water, and they
went like straight up in the air. And my friend whose party is was, her name
was Ferret, she makes this punch, you don’t know what’s in it, but it gets
you fucked up like hell. And she makes like vats of it. So they’d already
gone through two vats. By the time we get to the third one we were barely
standing up. And that was the year I dressed up like Eris, in a white Greek
robe with gold trim. I had an apple and at that time my hair was like black,
brown, red, and blonde, and all crazy. So I rock up and immediately
everyone falls to their knees and like, “Holy shit Eris is here.” I’m like, “I
have arrived.” They gave me a bottle of vodka they wrote Eris on, they’re
like, “You’ve got to drink all of this,” and I’m like, “Shit.” And we’re
launching gallons of water in the air and everyone’s like running for their
lives because they don’t know where it’s gonna land and we’re all
stumbling around freaking out and then we're like, ‘You know what, good
enough; let’s do the pumpkin.’ So people start to get pumpkins from down
the street. Then this guy who my ex calls the Sex Dwarf... runs out onto the
baseball diamond and he’s like, “I want to die, hit me with a pumpkin,” and
we’re like, “Dude really?” He’s like, “Seriously I want to die, hit me with a
pumpkin; my life is not worth living.” And we’re like, “What?” He’s like,
“Yes, hit me with a pumpkin!” So I had to go and talk him away from
suicide by pumpkin.

Jvstin: They could have gone over the fence if they’d gone forward. It was a
high fence.

Elzi: We launched three or four pumpkins and we were adjusting stuff as we

were working and we could never get them to go anything but pretty much
straight up. And Eric’s hammered he’s like, “I didn’t calculate the numbers
right, I need this and that.” We just had to readjust the flinging part. It was
something about the flinging part that was wrong, that was causing it to go
straight up.

Josh: The music was really random.

Elzi: We had a spooky luau for Carol’s birthday, before the House of
Discord closed down, which was like March, so she booked this band called
Zombilly.

Josh: Zombilly was a zombie themed punk/rockabilly band that was friends
with Caddy. They came and opened the party that was held when it was her
birthday. I think we celebrated a couple other birthdays that same party.
Splinters of Death (Jvstin’s black metal band) also played, that was
February 2004, same party as in the crowded house video on the HoD
website. You can see Jvstin in the video in the kitchen with his arms cut up
from the show. He dipped them in the punch - lots of alcohol - which
probably wasn't a good idea.

Jvstin: We’d just come from a live show where - we’re in a black metal
band - we cut ourselves on stage, and I stirred the pot with my arm cut.

Elzi: We let anybody come so if we hated them we would fuck with them,
“Hey you gotta get some of this punch here!” They’re like, “Oh it’s so
good,” we’re like, “You’re drinking blood.” Oh we fucked with them so
hard.

The days of the HoD were numbered, and came to a close in late 2004.

Josh: It didn’t have anything to do with us. It was so bizarre. Everybody

thought that something we did would cause us to have to move out or
something, someone would do something illegal, or someone would burn
the house down, or we’d fail to pay the rent, but the bank foreclosed on the
land lady, she wasn’t paying the mortgage and we had to move out.

Elzi: It was being foreclosed on and Josh and our other friend Jeff knew.
Josh definitely knew because he was the interface between them and the
homeowner. And they told them, “It’s being foreclosed on blah blah blah,”
and cost ten grand to save it.

Michael: Around that time life at HoD1 was still insane with all kinds of
parties, rituals, etc happening. Josh had been unemployed for a while by
then as well and with Darwin moved in he was often sleeping on the couch.
At some point in mid-march Cullen arrived with a trailer and began loading
his things into it and asked others what their plans were. That's when
everyone found out that the house was going to be sold and that Josh
apparently forgot to tell anyone.

Josh: I was the first to know because I was in the habit of being the one to
actually take the rent over. As I recall I didn't tell everyone right away - I
must have been hoping to figure out a solution. We were always just barely
getting by so at first it seemed like just another bit of hassle to deal with,
like when we failed to pay the water bill for a while and it got cut off. There
really wasn't a solution to be had. The amount of money needed to repair
the situation was well beyond our means, even if we had thrown a
fundraiser, which was considered. I think everyone was surprised when the
end of the house had nothing to do with anything we did.

Elzi: We tried to scratch together money but eventually was like fuck it,
we’ll just all go our own way.
Michael: It was eventually decided to go out like they had lived and loved
and throw a number of parties culminating in the Final Destruction party
where people were allowed to smash and wreck the adjoining garage

Josh: We stopped paying our bills so we didn’t have any electricity. My

friend Cullen who lived in the first House of Discord and the second, he
powered everything off his truck, so we had a band play in the living room.
We powered the band and the lights off his truck; terrible music, wasn’t any
good at all, it was a black metal band. I can tell you - there’s no difference
between a black metal band and a black metal parody band.

Elzi: Jvstin played for one of his alternate bands called Icicles of Doom,¹
and his personality for that band was this Scandinavian Viking; Frostmorn.
And so this is when he had long-ass hair, he teased his hair all up, and he
came in. He had this synthesizer and it was just playing the background
loops. He played guitar, and he had this makeup package that looks like you
put icicles on your face to look like its frozen... halfway through he stops
and sprays fake snow everywhere, and then he had ice cubes and he's
chucking ice cubes everywhere, and he’s playing like metal and all this shit.

Jvstin: Throwing ice cubes at people.

Josh: I subbed in on drums, I don’t play the drums.

Elzi: And then part of his show was actually Milli Vanilli on loop... he
presses this button on the synthesizer and it's fucking Milli Vanilli on a loop
for like 30 seconds and everyone's like, “What just happened?” And then he
hits the button again and starts tearing it up we're like, “Yeah!”
Josh: People were going through with axes and there were fewer walls in
the house at the end of the party, versus the beginning. Some of the people
were throwing pieces of the roof off the house, no lights, people running
around inside.

Elzi: So Cullen had put up like a drywall wall, like an actual wall so we
could have two bedrooms. And we have this friend Johnathan; fucking
crazy. We were already starting to tear apart and he was like, fuck this, and
he picks up his computer and since they were all computer nerds there were
computer parts everywhere, just broken parts everywhere, he picks up the
computer screen and flings it through the fucking wall Cullen had built and
we just start going fucking crazy. Cullen runs upstairs he's like, “What the
fuck!” Jonathan is beating the shit out of this wall, throwing shit at it,
Cullen's like, “Goddamn I built this fucking wall man! Don't fucking do
that!” Jonathan's like, “I thought everything was fair game,” and Cullen’s
like, “I will kill you if you continue with this shit.” Like, fine, party's over,
we'll go downstairs kick down some more walls, God. That was when we
went through the laundry wall; that was some funny shit. We're standing
there and suddenly this piece of 2X4 just goes through the wall and all these
people are like, “Yeah!” And I think somebody had like those little
spelunker lights on, so like all these little lights are running around.

Josh: Jvstin brought a few gallons of goat’s blood and poured it all over the
walls of one of the upstairs bedrooms. So the next day, we’re packing our
stuff up casually, we’re going to move out, and one of my friends comes
over and he says, ‘Well, guys,’ he went upstairs and he saw it and said,
“they’re going to see the blood and at some point the cops are going to
show up, the bankers are going to show up to see the new house they have,
and they’re going to see the blood, and then there’s going to be trouble, and
eventually they’re going to realize it’s goat’s blood; between now and then
could be unpleasant so you guys should do something about that.” So
Cullen makes me an attachment that allows me to hook up the garden hose
to the upstairs bathroom faucet, so I splash soap all over the walls and take
the hose to it, it rains downstairs. And then it looked like some horrible
violent slaughter followed by a hasty clean up. So I don’t know how that
was necessarily better but I never heard any trouble out of it.

Michael: I heard someone tried washing off the pigs’ blood in that upstairs
room with a water hose and was making it leak in the living room causing
Jeff to scream at that guy which was amazing as he was always so calm.

Elzi: They must have stripped it down to the studs cos there's no way you
can get the smell of pig blood out. In the fucking summer.

Jvstin: We wanted to make the property so devalued that the people who
had screwed them out of the lease would regret having done that.

Elzi: Yeah. We were fucking mad about that shit.

Michael: The weirdness around HoD1 closing down wasn't that bad. I think
we all loved that place and each other and in a way it kinda ran its course. I
think all of the residents had a great deal of growth that occurred in that
crazy house and we all made decisions from that year that influenced our
lives for several years afterwards. And there really was a manic energy in
that group of people together that was difficult to sustain. I think all of us
felt the destruction party as a closer and we moved on to do different things.

Josh: So we were spread to the four winds.

Michael: After that final party, that whole close group of friends seemed to
have this mass exodus or break from each other. I had already signed up for
the army by then and left for boot camp and had gotten married to my now
ex-wife 4 or 5 weeks later.

Elzi: Jeff moved in with me and my boyfriend who was a very involved
member of the House of Discord.

Josh: I moved out to West Texas for a year.

Michael: Darwin moved in with a coworker of his and unfortunately died a

year or so later.

Elzi: The two Carols moved in together nearby. Cullen got his own place.

Josh: So, in 2007, the second House of Discord was started specifically to
be the House of Discord, to be an environment of elevated liberty and
expression and the wildest parties we could throw and people living
together and sharing creativity and each other and so forth.

Jay Hova: The second house felt more planned out and deliberate.
Elzi: I felt like it lacked that magic and it was just a bunch of people getting
together to get fucked up and do stupid shit and like wear stupid costumes
and have sex.

Jay Hova: Asking someone what the HOD was, was like asking a blind man
what an elephant is like. I would say like a stagecoach being pulled by a
thousand cats.

The second HoD didn’t have that closeness of the first with a steady group
of residents. People came and went with Josh and Danny the only two real
constants.

Tim: Josh is a great, intelligent guy with a strong appreciation for

weirdness. Danny was a bit more reclusive during big parties but enjoyed
smaller events like Thursday hangouts and Hobo Christmas. Also a very
intelligent guy, generally accepting. The house attracted people like that,
smart people who appreciated the art and creativity of being strange.

Timmy: There were five bedrooms, six at one point with a temporarily
converted garage. There were between seven to a maximum of nine usually.
After Hurricane Rita, there were a bunch of people there.

Tim: The place's revolving door nature sometimes brought in people who fit
well, sometimes brought in folks who weren't that odd but were steady with
rent, didn't mind a loud party once in a while, and got on no one's nerves.
Josh: If you look at the way House of Discord worked, most the time it was
a benevolent dictatorship. All decisions are ultimately placed with me. I ran
everything, I had final authority, which I used as little as possible and had
as few rules as possible to the extent possible. In the environment that we
had set up people could do just about anything that they cared to do. And
we liked to see people explore those limits.

Jay Hova: The HoD2 had as a goal to attract the kind of people that the
people who formed the HoD wanted it to.

Timmy: Ten I think would be the max [people living in the house], and
that’s not counting people who stayed overnight. Like when Hurricane Ike
hit, since we were in between the Third Ward and the Medical Centre,
electricity came back immediately. If the ghettos don’t get electricity back
there’ll be riots. And if the medical people don’t have electricity there’ll be
dead people. We had 40 people, and there were Discordians and non-
Discordians there, we had all kinds. People were standing on rooftops like
New Orleans, painted across the roof NEED INSULIN. Then there was us
saying, “I think we’re running out of Brie, is there any Brie left?” But
there’d always be a bunch of people coming through, we’d always take in
travelers. There was always a bunch of people, Thelemites and Discordians
and whatever.

Josh: So we had a questionnaire of potential roommates. We asked, “Say

you come into your living room and you see the following things, tell us
one to five how cool with this would you be? How upset are you with this?
You come into your room and there’s a blue haired girl smoking pot. You
come into your living room and there’s a pale skinny young fellow
constructing a device with blinky lights that whirrs and he tries to explain
how it works but you can’t quite follow it all. You come into your living
room and three people are having sex on the couch. One of them is a
transsexual. You come into the living room and someone is setting off
firecrackers inside.” So we had this whole list like this, and we wanted to be
sure that everyone was not just OK but enthusiastic about most of them,
except for the fireworks, because we all rated the fireworks in the range of;
“I’m not really happy this is happening, but I’m not going to be the person
to say I think they can’t do it.” We totally had people who would set off
fireworks inside the house; they’d put a bunch of black cats in a bucket and
put it outside your door. This wasn't every day, but sometimes people would
set off fireworks and it was just something that, we were committed to that
level of disorder and sometimes taking a fair level of disorder out into the
world.

Timmy, who we met in Portland, was one of the residents. Unlike many of
the others he didn’t have any connection with the members of the house
before moving in.

Timmy: I walked into one of the parties pretty randomly with a girlfriend,
and I started having sex with people.

Josh: So, Timmy and Chloe, when they moved into House of Discord, it
was interesting, I didn’t know them. They had come to one of our parties
and we were desperate to get someone moved in because it was expensive
to run a house that had an empty bed... they turned out to be tremendously
awesome. Timmy was to me a model roommate because he did whatever he
wanted to do, all the time. He at some point he just sort of pointed out that
he appreciated that I myself did not have that level of freedom because I
was making sure that the operation kept going.

Timmy: The room with the safe opened up for rent and I took it. Nobody
knew who I was but it worked out pretty damn quick.
Josh: One of my O.T.O brothers moved in, because he needs a place to
crash, so I let him crash for a while, and then he started paying rent, so I let
him have his own room instead of just living on the couch. Timmy then got
into Thelema from talking to him and talking to me. He, to me, is super
sharp, he appreciates some of the more challenging ideas behind different
ways of looking at the world, mystical thought and things like that.

I ask Josh about the Thelemite/Discordian connections, and asked if there

was roughly the same representation of Thelemites and Discordians in both
houses.

Josh: No, not really - in the first house it was mainly me and then in the
second house people tended to identify as Discordian having moved in. We
didn’t necessarily find people who were Discordian.

Tim: I'm not the mystical sort. Friends are, but aside from a short stint with
Church of Satan in high school, it wasn't my thing. Timmy and Michael
were Thelemites, I think.

Timmy: I don't think it was possible to live there

without [a familiarity with Discordia] being the
case. Most of us in addition were Thelemites. Most
of the men including myself are also members of
Ordo Templi Orientis.
Josh: So and again, within terms of the question of theisms or ritual or
interest in those sorts of ideas, obviously a lot of us were O.T.O and were
Thelemites as well. Thelemites are also very hard to place because they
don’t have beliefs about gods that are similar to the way Christians think
about it - they’re interested in ritual. But it’s not even so much suspending
disbelief as suspending interpretation. They acknowledge that we may
approach this with multiple models but you're not in that model, you’re not
using that net, any particular net perhaps, or maybe you are, but your net
that’s in play for doing ritual is not necessarily the same as other times; one
of the bigger threads in Thelema, especially currently, is that it’s all in your
head but you have no idea how big you head is.

Timmy: We practically were the O.T.O presence in Houston. We didn't

interact with any other communes or venues as a collective entity. However
most weird/alt/whatever people in Houston had been to our house on at
least one occasion, whether they recall it or not. Even though that place
[Houston] is fucking gigantic and full of people, there wasn't a whole lot of
room for people who fell through the cultural cracks. As a result, the weird
people there were very tight knit.

Elzi: The house itself was really cool. It had the servants’ quarters in one
side of the garage, it had the meat locker, it had the crazy safe in the attic
that no one could open.

Timmy: Secret tunnels ran out of it. Place was about one-hundred years old.
Secret entrances and exits.

Elzi: You could climb into the pantry and crawl into it under the house. Like
the first party I went to, everyone came out muddy, like, “What are you
getting muddy for?” and they're like crawling from under the house they're
like, “We went through the pantry.”

Just as in the previous house, there were parties and alternate activities.
Thursday night became a regular hangout night.

Timmy: We had a weekly HoD Thursday event which we ended up making

monthly and themed. Anyone was free to show up to one of those and do
whatever. There was a group that wanted to have a five course Bastille Day
dinner somewhere and we let them do it at our place. Some DnD/tabletop
people used our living room weekly for their games. There were also of
course times where we'd just get a bunch of people over and drop acid or
something.

Jay Hova: The party culture was not excessive, it was deliberate. The
parties were planned events just like anywhere else.

Timmy: Often Josh was fronting a lot for our events which were always
free or house things, but we figured out that we had a fan base and we were
able to tap into that to get money, supplies, liquor, et cetera for whatever we
wanted to do. It was different from a normal co-op or commune. I mean,
they're all unique, but our model was different in that there weren't
necessarily goals and there weren't necessarily group decisions on events. It
was a forum for whatever you wanted to put together, as long as it wasn't
going to fuck up the house too bad for everyone else.

Tim: The really well-themed parties were the best. There were two foam
parties with homemade foam blowers set up in the backyard, a fun black
light party with uv-reactive booze that made everyone sick.

Josh: I’d always wanted to go to a foam party. I’d seen pictures of them, it
looked like a lot of fun… So we just went and intentionally overloaded our
dishwasher and then went and slid around and played in the kitchen. So that
was a lot of fun for a few people but really we need to be serious, so we
built our own foam machines and we had a fifteen by fifteen area that we
set up in the backyard and we had a foam party…We bought a lot of
alcohol, people were really good about contributing. Everybody brought
something to the party. At the foam party, the open bar was inside. Nobody
could be bothered to go and make themselves a drink because they were
having so much fun in the foam, so most all the alcohol was left by the end
of the party. Even though a whole lot of people were running around naked
in the foam it was relatively PG; there wasn’t a lot of sexual activity
because people were having so much fun playing in the foam. And the
music was good.

Tim: I was all black aside from two UV reactive makeup flames over my
eyes [at the Blacklight party]. That was the party where I had sex in the
meat locker downstairs. Got black makeup all over my new friend.

Jay Hova: I rimmed a girl’s ass after she came in and exclaimed, “I’m
wearing only one piece of clothing... See!” I once also performed a miracle
there. I was dressed as Satan Claws for the Nightmare immediately
Following Christmas where I was handing out AOL discs, bad porn mags,
and used sex devices when I stopped looked at a girl and pulled out from
the garbage bag over my shoulder a little black dress that fit her better that
the one she was wearing. Then her boyfriend got very aroused and they left
to get laid.
Tim: There was sex, but it wasn't really ‘out there’. Orgies aren't an
everyday thing, but they happen.

Josh: There was generally a room where people were having sex, and
sometimes that room was the living room.

Tim: Generally there were one or two rooms left closed, and every other
area was open. I got permission to use the back stairwell that night [New
Year’s] because it was fairly private. Some areas like the meat locker were
private if the door was closed. The rest were fair game, and there was a
good bit of public sex.

Josh: One of the very first parties we threw was a pudding party. This was
early in the second House of Discord. That was just a kiddie pool worth of
pudding. And that was a lot of fun. We just wrestled in the pudding - maybe
eight of us. To clean it up the next day I just took a knife to the kiddie pool
and let the air out and we dragged it over under a tree onto a tarp which had
been tied up and we just hoisted it up into the tree and just lowered the
whole mess into the trash can. The second pudding party was huge… I
found one of my O.T.O brothers that I hadn’t seen in a while and he helped
me, he contributed his truck. And we rented a trailer, and we went out and
we bought a trailer load of hay and hauled it back to House of Discord, and
we set up this huge arena, and we made 150 gallons of pudding. Ridiculous
amount. My man Jay Hova is a Subgenius, he’s an old school Subgenius, if
you listen to Hour of Slack, he’s got a whole ten minute rant that they
included and everyone else gets little sound clips. Jay cooked the pudding,
he’s cooking all day like a big 50 quart stock pot.

Jay Hova: Corn starch, sweetener, vanilla, powdered milk, a little fat. Mix
with water in a very big pot over lots of heat.
Josh: People ask, “Are we going to have a signup sheet to get into the
pudding or are there going to have like a tournament match?” I’m like,
“Nah, everyone who wants to get into the pudding is going to get into the
pudding and all wrestle each other at the same time.” So there’s a lot of
pictures of that; remarkably no one made us take those pictures down,
they’re just blurred, there’s quite a bit of nudity, and again the pudding
party was one of the ones that was more tame in terms of there weren’t
necessarily as many people having sex or anything because they were
having so much fun in the pudding.

Jay Hova: Dozens of naked girls wrestling in a 15' x 15' pool filled with
gallons and gallons of vanilla pudding I made as the pudding master.

Timmy: The cops came and saw a bunch of naked people wrestling in our
backyard in two-hundred gallons of pudding, so we had Batman take
pictures with them.

Josh: One of the great things that happened at that one; a guy shows up in a
prop quality Batman costume, and the cops show up. Right, so he goes and
greets the cops - when they get there Batman is already on the scene! Right,
we got pictures, some girl in a string bikini just crawling on the cops and
they can’t help but smile. They were just tremendously thrilled to be there.

Elzi: I think I went to the pyjama party… So we show up and it’s a pyjama
party, and most the guys are pretty much naked, and this old guy he’s like
mid-forties, maybe fifties, he’s dressed like a pirate, curly wig and
everything, and he’s unbelievably fucking drunk. And I’m standing there
like Jesus Christ can we leave?
They had one New Year’s party called Chronos Unbound, which used
ritual. Timmy was tied to Kate, another member of the house.

Timmy: I had a Golden Apple on my chest, I was green for the rest. I’m
trying to remember what Kate was painted as, it’s all kind of fuzzy, but
there’s pictures of people. And Pope... gave a speech… And then we were
gradually unbound and it involved us cursing at each other throughout the
ritual… We were unbound and I got like 100 Ikea pillows, and everyone
had like a huge pillow fight. Turned into a fluff fight after they all burst, and
there was Champagne, it was great.

Tim: I was having sex with a woman on the back staircase, and left her tied
to the handrail to go and get a New Year's kiss from my girlfriend. She was
in the living room buried under pillow fluff from the pillow fight that had
just occurred. Went back to the girl tied in the stairwell, opened the door to
the bedroom at the top of the stairs, saw two more of my friends having sex
and felt like I was among my people.

Elzi: The last flier I did was for the neo-HoD which was the Robert Anton
Wilson Memorial and Conch Party. You know the shell? I forget why it was
also a conch party.

Timmy: One of my favourite smaller events was our flag and book burning.

Josh: That was good, and actually one of the other people who hung around
with us at old House of Discord disowned us, he’s living in Korea now I
think, Michael O’Dwyer, he kind of disowned us because he thought it was
a really cheap gag to burn flags and whatever, it was just being offensive for
its own sake. Which I didn't think it was at all. I thought it really was in the
spirit of the five commandments and the story of the Original Snub and so
forth, where we burned all of the holy books, including most importantly a
copy of our own Principia Discordia, showing ultimately that we’re beyond
all these things, beyond all this.

The event Hobo Christmas was also controversial. Condoms, beer and
cigarettes were places in paper bags and given out on Christmas Eve to the
homeless of Houston. Written on each bag was a dedication:

- From your secret admirer.

- From Mayor Anise Parker.

- From the ghost of Hunter Thompson.

-This end towards enemy.

Comments on the group’s Facebook page posted late 2012 show some of
the flack they caught for this event:
Because why buy them food and warm clothes? Get them alcohol to further
the addiction that possibly contributed to their homelessness in the first
place!

You scumbags. Are you actually kidding me? You're handing out addictive
chemicals to homeless people instead of helping them. Pieces of shit.²

A post of Tim’s on the Facebook event page explains some of the rationale
of the event.

Tim: You're welcome to bring blankets, coats, or other "essential" items.

Remember, though: Sometimes gifts should be about what you want, not
what you need.

Timmy: We had people mad at us for various things, but we never paid too
much attention. We weren't media whores or anything.

Surprisingly, despite the chaotic nature of the place, the police rarely
interrupted the events or day to day happenings of the HoD.

Tim: The police were out there at least once or twice for most parties, to the
point that sometimes the same ones would mention being at previous
events. The host was always friendly and accommodating when they
showed up. He'd lead the police around, show them that nothing illegal was
happening, invite them to stay a bit if they liked.
Josh: They were just tremendously thrilled to be there. We had a reputation
with them. I think it must have been at the second foam party which was
after the second pudding party, and the cops showed up, and they weren’t
there to screw with us, just there to witness what was happening. I was
sitting in the backyard in my underwear, all this foam going on, and one of
my guys moves to intercept to make sure they’re taken care of, to see what
we need to do to make sure we don’t have to shut down, or if we need to
turn the music down, they’re like, “No we want to talk to Josh,” and one of
them’s like introducing me to the other, “This is Josh; he actually lives here
and pays rent and everything.” They were introducing me like I was a
celebrity. I guess I was. That was amazing. So people were pretty surprised
in that sense that we had a good relationship with the cops.

Timmy: It was Houston so they usually had better things to do. That said, if
we were all black then our house wouldn't have lasted a month.

Eventually, the end came too for the second incarnation of the House of
Discord.

Jay Hova: The HOD died because of a conflict. However, conflict was sort
of expected. When people do as they please, this often doesn't please others.

Josh: A gal rolls into town that I hadn’t seen for years that had been a
regular at the original House of Discord... So she rolls into town wearing a
golden apple necklace and totally sets things loose… One of the gals that
was living in the House of Discord got jealous of this friend of mine and my
interactions with her. And that escalated. I ended up leaving the house, just
like my friend calls up, it’s like late at night and things have gotten very
dramatic and he calls up, total coincidence... just like, “Hey do you want to
hang out?” I’m like, “Yeah come pick me up.” He had hit it off with the girl
from out of town too. So I grab what I can carry, like my most important
objects and bedding, and move. I left right then, and I ended up crashing at
his place for a month, or a month and a half until I got my own place.

Jay Hova: Some people get jealous. The girls in the house were upset with
Josh's personal choices and expressed it violently.

Josh: A couple of weeks later I came and like sort of gathered my stuff and
we officially retired the facility and painted over the mantle with spray-
paint where it had said ‘Do what thou wilt’ above the mantle… So yeah, I
think it’s fair to say there was a sour note but like, come on, how long can
you have a House of Discordians together and not have the chaos erupt in
some form? I was amazed that we lasted for five years. Because again,
somebody is going to burn something down or get arrested or an airplane
will crash into the building, something, something is going to happen.

¹ The similarity to the name of Jvstin’s other band ‘Splinters of Death’ was
not coincidental. Icicles of Doom was a band born partly of Jvstin’s desire
to be a member of his own tribute band.

² (Discord, ²⁰¹¹)
 9. Destroying the Fucking Cars

I arrive in New Orleans late at night and begin to walk my bag through the
dark and lonely streets. The now famous blue tarps can still be seen waving,
the aftermath of a hurricane now a half-decade old. Down the road from my
hostel sits half a home, torn open like a dolls house. The city seems to have
the memories of Hurricane Katrina etched into it – but they’re not the only
memories that lurk here.

Kerry and Greg moved into New Orleans together in 1961. Between this
year and 1965, the Discordian society would undergo a period of significant
growth. Here Thorney and Hill would interact with a number of figures who
would make their own marks on the Discordian Society. One of these
figures, a man known as ‘Brother-in-Law’ would boast of criminal links
and make provocative political statements, including celebrations of
Nazism. He would also go on to converse with Kerry – ostensibly playfully
– about the best way to, say, assassinate President John F. Kennedy.

Owing partly to his general disgust with the brutality of the institution of
government, and more specifically to JFK’s support of the United Nations
over the Katanga massacre, Kerry didn’t shed any tears when Brother-in-
Law’s morbid ‘hypothetical’ came true and Kennedy was assassinated. Ever
the loudmouth, Kerry made no secret of his feelings. He was however,
surprised to see that it was his old Army pal Lee Harvey Oswald who
apparently shot the bullet, and went into mourning when Oswald was in
turn shot dead by nightclub owner Jack Ruby.
 ***

“New Orleans knows if she wants you or not,” says a man to me in one of
the many bars with whirling alcoholic Slurpee machines. “If she doesn’t
she’ll chew you up and spit you out.”

I’m wandering with two girls I’d met at my hostel, who’d taken me to a
strip show where a regular had paid for them to repeatedly receive personal
attention from the strippers. I’m not drinking; the night before I had been
introduced to the New Orleans fixture ‘The Hurricane’, and even the smell
of alcohol now makes me feel ill.

It was this alcohol induced self-pity that had encouraged me towards the
fatal step of delaying my visit to the Preservation Hall, the famous music
venue founded by voodoo practitioner and Discordian Barbara Reid.

When I next try and visit, it’s closed for a private event.

It was after the JFK assassination that Reid had told Thornley something
extraordinary. She had, apparently, seen him with Lee Harvey Oswald in a
place called the Bourbon House, prior to the death of JFK. She produced
newspaper clippings as evidence that they were in town at the same time.
Kerry had no recollection of meeting Oswald but thought it was possible
that he had seen him without being able to put a name to the face. Reid
further suggested that Thornley may have been brainwashed or drugged not
to recognize Oswald, a suggestion that would grow in Kerry’s mind.
The Warren Commission, which had investigated the assassination, drew
the conclusion that Oswald had acted alone. Thornely who at first believed
in Oswald’s innocence, was drawn to this view and promoted it in his book
Oswald. This attracted the attention of David Lifton, author of JFK tome
Best Evidence. Lifton visited Thornley, and convinced him to renounce this
view of ‘Oswald as lone assassin’, returning to his former belief in
Oswald’s innocence.

District Attorney Jim Garrison suspected a conspiracy. Lifton (and with him
Thornley) agreed to assist Garrison in developing his case that Kennedy had
been assassinated by elements of the CIA, in connection with right wing
groups. However, when Garrison went in a direction Lifton considered
meritless, he extracted himself from the case - and with him went Thornley.
Without being able to use Thornley’s testimony to further his intended
direction of enquiry, Garrison targeted Thornley for perjury instead –
claiming he’d lied under oath when he said he hadn’t met with Oswald
since the Army. Supporting Garrison as a witness was Barbara Reid who
had apparently seen the pair together.

This is likely the key to the still unsolved mystery of why pages of the
Principia Discordia apparently belonging to Reid ended up in the JFK
archive. By whom, and to what end they were supplied – to incriminate, to
accuse, to defend – is a mystery worthy of measured speculation (or failing
that; wild guesses).

The perjury charge against Thornley swung in the breeze for a long time,
damaging his mental state. Despite the bother and bluster, it all came to
nothing, and Thornley never stood trial.

***
Every year in February New Orleans holds its Mardi Gras, an affair of
floats and alcohol, where flashing your breasts earns a handful of shiny
beads.

Each parade group is called a Krewe, many of which are named after the
Greek Gods. Naturally, it was the Krewe of Eris that got my attention.

New Orleans is a dead loss for me in trying to find interview subjects. I

can’t secure any interviews with members of the Krewe of Eris. The person
listed as ‘media spokesperson’ for the members facing prosecution for the
2011 march never responds to my requests for interviews, other than a four
word reply of ‘not sure if possible.’

What Google and email do not provide me with, the Goddess does. Josh
who we met at the Red Fox in Portland was involved with the parade. As he
began to tell me about the event, I mentioned that I had been trying to get
onto someone about it.

“Good luck,” he said, with a tone that implied I’d need it. “They’re banned
now, can’t even do anything.” He’s been coming to Eris marches for seven
years.

The parade came to life in 2005, when it was founded by Ms. Lateacha and
Lord Willin, previously members of the Krewe du Poux who felt they had
outgrown their previous group. The Krewe is as much about ideology as
aesthetic. While other Krewes are prohibitively expensive to join, or simply
closed to new members, Eris is free, open, and the costumes and floats are
all made by the participants.¹

While all Krewes are required by law to obtain a permit, the Krewe of Eris
have consistently refused to make requests for permits, preferring instead to
express their freedom by marching without permission. The parade is seen
by many as an actively anti-authoritarian reclamation of space.

This anti-authoritarianism is part of why I am unable to get an interview,

Josh explains.

“You might as well call it the Anarchist parade. That’s really what it is,” he
tells me.

In 2006 the theme was Noveaux Limbeaux (welcome to Limbo), capturing

the uncertainty that pervaded the city in the in the aftermath of Hurricane
Katrina.

In 2007 the theme was Planet Eris.

In 2008 the theme was ‘The swarm,’ which included many insect costumes
and a 15 foot papier mache decomposing dog carcass that emitted smoke.

In 2009 the theme was The Feast of the Appetites.

In 2010 the theme was Desire and Light.

In 2011 the theme was Mutagenesis, a criticism of the recent BP oil spill,
and featured a 60 person marching band. Marchers dressed as water
creatures whose environment had been disturbed by the incident. But it was
not just this aquatic environment that was due to be disturbed. Reports go
from pure, unprovoked police brutality, to reckless vandalism and
disruption from Krewe members. By some accounts, participants were
jumping on cars, throwing rubbish bins and painting cocks on walls.

The police intervened with the traditional NOPD restraint and sensitivity.
By the end of the parade, many marchers had been arrested, pepper sprayed,
hit with batons or tasered. Twelve people were arrested. One person filming
the events had their phone flung from their hand by the police. Another
blog claimed to witness police trying to bait a young man into attacking
them, and when he wouldn’t, hit him with batons anyway.² Another source
claims that members of the police force were equally appalled with police
behavior, including a failure to see to the injuries of an arrested man.³ The
website eris12.org, set up for the defense of those arrested, puts it this way:

We were beaten, tazed, pepper-sprayed, incarcerated and falsely charged.

Our brass band instruments were deliberately smashed; some of us were
beaten so badly we were hospitalized.

The police in turn had tires slashed on their cruisers, and one allegedly was
hit in the forehead by a brick. Six officers required medical attention.
“It almost looked like a protest,” Josh recalls. “Everyone started getting up
on the cars. I remember we were outside The Marigny, just outside the
French Quarter, we were jumping, we were destroying... There were 300 of
us, maybe 250 that year, and they’re just destroying the fucking cars, oh my
God! Then once we got to the quarter which was about 7 blocks later, like
100 cop cars; just like, “You need to disperse,” and so they kept kicking
them back to the Marigny, and that’s when things escalated. Started setting
fires and throwing- lighting garbage cans on fire, and trying to block the
streets, and cops have guns and tasers.”

“Push them back to the Marigny?” I ask.

“The parade always starts right on the Marigny, right on the cusp of the
train tracks, and they’re trying to push them back out of the French Quarter.
Things went horribly. I had one friend who got batoned in the head a couple
of times, and she was just watching.”

A 2011 Justice Department review of the NOPD following the Krewe of

Eris incident found that the NOPD habitually used excessive force.⁴

¹ (Bentley, ²⁰¹¹)

² (Jasper, ²⁰¹¹)
³ (Anonymous, ²⁰¹¹)

⁴ (Legal, ²⁰¹¹).
 10. Haunted with Unfinished Business

Nashville is famous as the country music capital of the United States, so it’s
appropriate that my first introduction to Sondra London takes place at the
house of a crew of musical jammers. She quickly ushers me over to a corner
of the room where she has prepared a ‘musical Eucharist’ to initiate me into
the Nashville music scene. I am told to drink grape juice and eat a pink iced
cupcake with a little plastic ring on it, featuring pop superstar Justin
Bieber’s grinning visage, thereby eating the flesh and blood of Justin
Bieber. One can easily imagine the original Discordians grinning along.

Sondra’s path to Discordia was a strange one (I’m sure by now this isn’t a
surprise!) When she was 17, Sondra started a relationship with a man
named Gerard Schaefer. He met her at a school dance, and was ‘a bright
well-mannered Catholic boy.’¹ Ultimately though, she walked out on him,
when he began to confide in her his violent impulses.

Nine years later Schaefer was convicted of the murder of Susan Place, 17,
and Georgia Jessup, 16.

In 1989, after Schaefer had served sixteen years of his two life sentences,
Sondra approached him. She’d been working an unsatisfying desk job, and
decided she could write true crime better than those currently in the game.
When Sondra saw writer Ann Rule launch a career partly through a tenuous
link between herself and killer Ted Bundy she realised she had a much more
direct link to a killer.
“I knew that to study any phenomenon, you could not just study one
exemplar,” London wrote in her blog.² So it was that she began to seek
other figures to write about.

Sondra’s work with Schaefer mostly went towards a piece called Killer
Fiction. An early version of Killer Fiction was released 1989, featuring only
Schaefer’s work. Later editions included the work of other killers.

Sondra continued to interview various persons on death row. Some of these

were sought out by Sondra. Others sought her out. Danny Rolling, ‘the
Gainesville Slasher’ was one of those who made contact. So was another
prisoner named Wayne Henderson who had originally contacted Sondra
hoping for Justice.³ Later in their conversations, Henderson asked her to
collect some money, then for some reason added; ‘Take Kerry Thornley
with you.’ When I asked Sondra online why he had asked for Kerry,
Sondra’s only answer had been ‘Eris.’

I recount this to her when I meet her, and she laughs.

“There you go. There is no other answer. Dig it! OK. Since you want an
answer you’re going to want to take that one. So he - you might say he was
a Discordian - the prisoner who sent me was not a serial killer. He was
convicted of four murders that all occurred at the one time. It was a drug
related situation. He was innocent.”
The trip never happened; it was a flop. She did however meet Kerry who
she took back to her place and smoked out. They got along fine, ‘touched
by 5 fingered hands’, as Sondra puts it.

“It was a pleasure smoking out Kerry. I did it more than a couple of times.
It was a pleasure, it was a privilege. He lived like an alley cat, you know. I
was trying to work and be a productive citizen so I would have a little bit of
cash when he would never have anything at all. Therefore, ‘Hey Kerry you
want to get high?’ ‘Sure.’ ”

Sondra describes, like others I interviewed, her entry to Discordia as more

of a realization than a conversion.

“I am not going to go read about something and then try to imitate it so I

can say I am it, OK? I’m not going to tattoo a chao on my arm so I can be a
Discordian because that’s what a Discordian is… I was a Discordian
Goddess before I met Kerry. And Kerry was attracted to me because I am
Discordian. Now you know he met a lot of people. So I didn't learn to be
Discordian from him. I was the senior professional in that relationship.”

***

In 1992 Sondra produced a segment on A Current Affair with Kerry

Thornley. The piece gave Kerry a chance to suggest that his conversations
with Brother-in-Law had a direct link to the plot to kill Kennedy, and
therefore amounted to conspiracy. I admit that I laughed out loud at
presenter Steve Dunleavy’s assessment of Kerry following the
assassination; ‘like the Warren files, his lips have been sealed ever since.’ If
there was a person to whom Kerry didn’t endlessly rant about his supposed
connections to the Kennedy conspiracy, I’ve certainly not heard of them.

PACING the streets of la Vieux Carre at dawn with Kerry raving, raving so
hard I let go of following the strings & just let them roll over me like
spangles of Mardi gras beads. The streets were haunted with unfinished
business, she wrote to me of the trip they took for the segment.

***

Sondra picks me up to take me out to a talk by Dr. Steve Davis named What
the Yankees did to us: Sherman’s Bombardment and Wrecking of Atlanta.
She passes me a bag full of stuff to look through: IllumiNet editions of
Zenarchy, the Principia Discordia and several photographs of Kerry, each
written over in silver pen in Kerry’s distinctive large sloped handwriting.

I am not a crook Kerry Thornley doing Nixon

Oh shit I really didn’t need THIS- Kerry Thornley

I was part of that JFK thing. (Photo with Kerry and Sondra)
Zenarchy is signed: Kill the Buddha! Smash the state! For Sondra. Kerry W.
Thornley. 10 May 1992.

The Principia has a rather more amusing signature. Always sincere, never
serious. From Keer. Kerry Thornley. The next bit of writing is incoherent,
though the next page featured a self-drawn caricature of Kerry, blowing out
smoke, in which was written;

Forgive me folks, I’m really stoned before now I at least could recall the
spelling of my own name.

Another book was covered in black ink drawings. “That’s Danny Rolling’s
artwork,” Sondra tells me. Rolling was the killer who sought out Sondra
London, asking her to tell his story. She agreed, and the pair later began a
romantic relationship, though the state refused them permission to marry.
With Rolling, Sondra wrote the book for which she is best known; The
Making of a Serial Killer: The True Story of the Gainesville Murders In the
Killer's Own Words. In the end, London was not to make money from the
works she produced alongside Rolling – courts decided her profits were a
violation of Florida’s Son of Sam laws. These laws prevent criminals
making money from their crimes – here the scope of it extended to Sondra
due to her connection with Rolling.

In court, Sondra was grilled by Judge George Waas in a bizarre exchange

where she used Discordianism as her justification for sharing the writings of
Danny Rolling online, and Waas used a Subgenius document as evidence of
Rolling and London’s ‘special relationship’ (a key point in the decision not
to allow London to make money from her work).⁴
After the talk on Sherman’s assault on Atlanta, Sondra takes me for an
assault on our stomachs at the Golden Corral all-you-can-eat buffet. She
speaks with me, animatedly, loudly, sometimes (with five ejaculations of
the word ‘cunt’) a little too loudly.

We talk about Kerry. Sondra addresses the challenges presented to anyone

handed the unenviable job of sorting Kerry’s genuine experiences from his
madness.

“Kerry’s experiences with MKULTRA: It’s a mixed bag. There are actual
things that actually happened. Then there are situations with Kerry when
he’s paranoid schizophrenic. And it’s up to you to discern. You are warned,
OK, it’s just every man for himself when it comes to shit Kerry says...

‘Because he was crazy. He was really crazy. Sometimes he was so crazy

you couldn’t stand it. I’ll give you a snapshot of that side of Kerry - let’s
just say you’re sitting in a restaurant with him talking about whether or not
Joel Love would be a better source than Cy,” she says, naming two of
Kerry’s friends who she would later put me in contact with. “And the
waitress, this kind lady, comes over and gives us a cheque. And the cheque
says $5.22. And you’re like, ‘oh fuck.’ Because that means you have to take
what appears on page 5 of Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book, and combine
it with what appears on page 22 of Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book.
Because that’s how you get the answer to your dilemma about whether Cy
would be a better source or Joel… You would have to endure this kind of
tiresome bullshit to hang with Kerry.”

I ask if some days were more lucid than others.

“Absolutely. And [Kerry’s wife] Cara said, which I never knew, I never
asked, that corresponded with his taking of antipsychotic medication. And I
discovered that by coincidence because I never asked him, ‘Are you taking
your meds,’ or anything like that, ever. But yes, he would be different at
different times, very different.”

Sondra also had one time contact with Greg Hill, when Kerry called him up.

“Greg told me, ‘Listen,’ Greg said, ‘Kerry Thornley is a paranoid

schizophrenic and you cannot believe a single word he says.’ That was
Greg’s opinion. With Kerry sitting right there. So Kerry knew that’s what he
said.”

“Did he commonly have contact with Greg or was that a one off?” I ask.

“Seemed like Greg wasn’t really there, tried to reach Greg a couple of
times, couldn’t reach him.”

Sondra also relays Kerry’s account of a rift with Robert Anton Wilson.
“There was a falling out between Kerry and Bob Wilson. And according to
Kerry it was a misunderstanding. Wilson’s daughter was killed. And Kerry
made a joke. And Wilson took it to heart. And Wilson never got over the
impression that Kerry had something to do with the daughter being killed.⁵
Probably because of Kerry’s smart­ass remark… And so he was very sad, he
wished that he could repair things with Wilson. But Wilson was mad at him.
Wilson would come up in conversation quite a lot. He and Greg.”
On Christmas Eve 1997 Sondra received a phone call from Kerry. “If you
want to see me, you’d better get here today.” Kerry was extremely sick,
diagnosed with Wegener’s Granulomatosis. Sondra flew to see him but
could not connect through the number he had provided. Stranded for hours
in the deserted Atlanta Airport, she was finally able to contact Frater
Flatulus Gelatinus, a Discordian in Reno, Nevada who in turn found two
Discordians in Georgia who came to pick her up. They took her to see
Kerry.

Kerry’s situation was not as urgent as he had implied. Sondra writes about
their time together being filled with tension in an article on her website
called Kerry Goes South. She was still affected by the death of Joe whose
story had been told in her work Knockin’ on Joe, as well as awaiting the
execution of Danny Rolling. She recalls Kerry as being deeply focused on
his cats with very little interest or regard for the people in his life who loved
him or his own creative talents.

She took the opportunity to take Kerry out to a group of Discordians. They
arrived at a house with three Discordians and received five more who all
spent time with Kerry, talking. They also hosted an impromptu Q+A session
with Kerry over the internet on Alt.Discord chat.

“He was tickled, he was gratified, he was pleased, he was kind of amazed,
and the youngsters were very deferential to him, very gentle. He was sick,
and he had to lie down most of the time, and he was there for so long he
was able to nap and rally and go down come up and so on, so he spent a
pretty good time with them. I felt that I did a good thing by letting him
know about the influence that his works were having and being sure that he
was aware that people knew and cared about him. Kerry was profoundly
humble, he expected nothing more than to live in the street.”
Kerry died the next year, on the 28th of November. He was given a
Buddhist funeral.

“He really didn’t expect anyone to notice him or anything. There was a very
sad thing written before he died. He just wished someone would come over
with a joint. Fuck! Couldn’t you pick up the phone and call somebody? I
didn’t know, you could’ve at least said, ‘Why don’t you come over and let’s
get high?’ But he was too humble, he would just sit there and wish that he
could get high, when he had so many people who would love to come over
and smoke him out.

‘There was a time when I was doing studies involving drawing, and if you
draw a house or person or a tree, these reveal your thinking about your
inner self and how you see yourself at the moment, and I was discussing
that with him, and I asked him, ‘If you were a house, what kind of a house
would you be?’ And he said he would just be a shack perched on the edge
of a cliff. That’s how lightly he held this human incarnation. He was a real
life changing influence.”

***

Sondra passes on some details for more of Kerry’s friends, and I continue
onwards to Atlanta to meet with them.

I meet Joel Love in a local diner. He is hooked up to oxygen, with tubing,

but the tubes quickly become invisible. Despite the evidence of sickness,
Joel is truly and vibrantly living. Our discussion is punctuated frequently by
loud honest laughter, and he smiles broadly and passionately as we talk. We
first order drinks, then begin to talk.

Joel is a Thelemite and a Subgenius as well as having an interest in

Discordia. He knew of Discordia from the works of Robert Anton Wilson
and was already in possession of a copy of the Principia Discordia when
Kerry suddenly popped into his life.

“I met Kerry first in like 89, 90,” he tells me. “As I was leaving a lodge
house in the O.T.O⁶ Kerry came up. He came in for an interview in a
magazine that we were doing. He was very suspicious. He thought that we
were the Illuminati. It was difficult to get him rolling, but we smoked him
up a little bit and he got disinhibited and we had a wonderful conversation.
When I met him, we both recognized each other, like you know, have we
seen each other before? There’s an off chance that I think we met
hitchhiking in Florida. It’s the only thing I could think of where we might
have met. He was very concerned with things like embedded phrases in
advertising. Like the Total Cereal; because it has the O.T.O in Total⁷ he was
convinced that General Mills⁸ was connected to the O.T.O, so he had quite
a long line about how the Illuminati was tipping everybody off by these
embedded phrases and commands and stuff inside of the literature.”

Kerry had arrived at the invitation of the author Alan Greenfield who
wanted to interview him for a magazine article.

“Since I lived in the house I just happened to be there sitting around this big
long table with a group of individuals having this conversation with Kerry. I
got to know him really well through the years. I’ve been in Little Five
Points for 25 years easy, and that was Kerry’s base for most of his life. And
just two days before he died, he was out there at the square selling his
books and trying to make a few extra dollars, and I sat down and had a
conversation with him, and I told him a story that I had about having an
epiphany, and I said, ‘Kerry, an epiphany to me is a moment where
everything that’s ever happened to you and everything that might ever
happen to you is worth that particular experience.’ I said, ‘Have you ever
had any epiphanies?’ He said, ‘Joel, I have been blessed with double
handfuls of epiphanies in this life.’ So I didn’t feel so bad when he died a
couple of days later. I meant to bring the thing from his wake; have you
seen the last journal entry that he made?”

I tell him that I haven’t, and he promises to send it along to my email. A

few days later I receive his email (and later a scan of the original document
from Adam Gorightly). The memorial service flier features some of the last
writing in Kerry’s notebook.

“So what happens next? I’ve got osteoarthritis and am supposed to stay off
my feet as much as I can. This could get old, fast.

What I need is some grass. Then I could write a damn fine poem at leaSt.
Maeaeaybe even clean my room.

A dustless

spot where Buddha

sat before

There always

comes, I guess a

time to cry.”

“It seemed kind of evident that he knew he was going to die, that the end
was near,” Joel says. “He was a Buddhist. His actual belief structure was
Buddhist. He didn’t believe in reincarnation, he believed you should live
your life like a log being burned and it should be burned completely. With
nothing left. What’s to be reincarnated if there's nothing left? He lived his
life completely, right up to the end and so it was very interesting. I went to
his wake which was at the Buddhist centre. His little brother was there. It
was interesting to get his point of view. Apparently Kerry's parents not
being the best of parents, Kerry being the oldest brother kind of brought up
his siblings. His little brother told this story; he said he had this neat little
spear stick with a little pointy thing on it. Kerry asked him if he would like
to get some more of those, so they went to the drug store and they bought
some little American flags and they burned off the flags leaving just the
spear part.”

It was here at Kerry’s wake that Joel first met Sondra and the two began an
enduring friendship.
I mention to Joel that I dropped into A Cappella Books, the shop Kerry used
to live out the back of, on my way to see him.

“A Capella books used to be right next door to the restaurant where Kerry
worked,” he says, “And unusual as it sounds, he used to be like the busboy.
He used to wash the dishes and always had menial tasks. For someone who
was such an important man intellectually he never really excelled
professionally.”

Joel was at Phenomicon, a conspiracy convention, where both Ivan Stang of

the Subgenius Church and Robert Anton Wilson were present. Here he
witnessed some of Kerry’s interactions with Stang.

“I hadn’t seen Kerry in quite a while and I was next to a table where Ivan
Stang was selling Subgenius stuff and Kerry walked up to say hi and,
‘Kerry, you’re a godfather of the Subgeniuses you know,’ Stang said, ‘do
you have a TV?’ ‘Well like, no I’m sorry I don’t,’ and Stang’s like, ‘Well
take these videotapes anyway,’ Stang’s like ‘Do you have a car?’ Kerry’s
like, ‘No I don’t,’ Stang says ‘Well take these bumper stickers anyway,’ and
gave him all this stuff Kerry had absolutely nothing to do with. And Kerry
looked at him and he said, ‘You know the only reason the Discordians are
around is to kill the Subgeniuses if they get out of line.’ ”

Things got pretty intense at the Devival.

“The Subgeniuses had this wonderful eye of Horus Acid that went with
them on the convention, so the Devival of course was 1500 people tripping
their brains out. And Kerry was there doing all that. He was nominally a
Subgenius.”

Joel, also at the convention, took the time to ask Wilson about Kerry.

“Kerry was convinced that he was the product of a German breeding

program, and his parents had been snuck in as Scottish immigrants but
really they were German. Robert Anton Wilson wrote the Historical
Illuminatus! series many years after he wrote the original one. And they talk
about this very thing, about this breeding program that Kerry was
convinced of before Robert wrote the book. I asked: Was he aware of the
fact that, what he wrote, Kerry seemed to live, and he said, ‘Yes,’ that he
was aware of this connection. They seemed to have some causal quantum
interconnectedness.”

Later he shares some more of the wisdom passed onto him by members of
the Subgenius church. “Of course, you’re familiar with fnords. You know
what that stands for?” he asks.

“I’ve never heard a theory on it,” I say. I know the meaning in Illuminatus!,
but never heard the idea that it stands for anything.

“For No One Really Dies.”

“Where’d you hear that,” I ask.

“A Subgenius Person told me. Somewhere along the line.”

***

“That was my massage room,” Cy tells me, as he invites me into his house.
He is a relaxed and friendly man who might well fit the ‘round Pan-like
face’ description that Kerry applied to Greg Hill. “That's where Kerry used
to live. With his thirteen cats... So this was his room. And then he built a
ramp on the porch so the cats could get in and out.”

“That's a lot of cats,” I say. The room, even imagining a ramp letting flocks
of felines in and out, doesn’t really look like it was made for a grown man
and so many animals.

“Yeah,” Cy says. “But we were having a problem with the neighbourhood

dog at the time, that turned out to be a cat killer. Kerry moved in with 13
cats which is sort of crazy to begin with, and he lost like 6 of them in the
first two months and he was just crushed. We eventually nipped the dog in
the bud but not before Kerry's and several of our cats were lunch.”

Cy walks me down towards the river where we sit and talk for the main part
of our interview. The way is lined with bowling balls. I like the look of it,
but he tells me he had originally planned to line the whole way to the bridge
before realizing it looked 'kind of dumb' and giving up on the plan.
The bridge hasn't been walked across for a long time, and probably isn't
safe to cross anymore. An older photo Cy sends me later shows him with
Joel Love and some others, standing on the bridge with big grins and long
hippie-ish hair.

Cy knew of Kerry before he showed up. Everybody knew of Kerry who

was a local fixture.

“I moved into this house, the Mill House, in '95 after a divorce, from the
house on the hill. That whole year is a blur but early '96 Kerry just showed
up at my door one day, down the hill and said, ‘Hey, my name's Kerry and
I'm wondering if you have a place for me to live.’ People had turned him
onto me somehow in the community, and it turns out I did and it was like,
‘OK, cool, come on in,’ and that's how he ended up living here and my real
connection began.”

Kerry was living in what Cy described as a ‘completely run down place in

East Atlanta.’ His landlord had had enough of Kerry's cats, and Kerry
needed, again, a new, cat-friendly place to stay.

“They were his babies, and he doted on them all the time,” Cy said. "So he
moved in here, and we had trouble with the dog who sadly cut them down.
That crushed him. It just got to the point where he was taking the dialysis
more and more frequently. He was doing so poorly near the end of his time,
he just couldn't live on his own anymore, and he went back to live with his
ex-wife for some two months and then died. Other than that, Kerry is still
here, he wanted some of his ashes to be here. So we had some of his ashes,
and we spread them on the creek and on the ground here and had a little
ceremony on the bridge behind you.”
The two didn’t particularly discuss Kerry’s difficulties, instead allowing
themselves to resonate silently with each other.

“I know his past but I wasn't really one to pry into his life.”

I later ask what Kerry and Cy did talk about.

“His cat. His health. As far as the conspiracy side of Kerry, I resonated with
it to a certain extent, because Kerry would veer into paranoia at times, and
he had personal experiences that really validated a lot of that paranoia. You
know, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that you're wrong, it just
means that you're aware. But he would take it to an extreme level
sometimes, and I didn't quite follow him there. I never wanted to go down
his tangled path...

‘When medications wore off or he would be upset or agitated about

something, sometimes he'd go off on rambling rants. They weren't really the
kind of profound rants you would look for. They're more sad because you
can tell he's brilliant, he's really trying to put these pieces together, he's in
an agitated state. I'm not sure if you've ever been around people that have
chemical imbalances; they put pieces together that aren't always there...
And often when he would go off on those rants it was more based on his
personal upset of the moment - his health or something like that - and there
wasn't really anything coherent about some of those. I've heard there are
taped interviews with him where there are true moments of brilliance,
where he was having genuine insights and revelations and was really in
touch. But really, during that period I can't give you a whole lot of validity
to that.
'A lot of the insights were where we resonated on one level but when we try
to expound the words, as words usually do - this is my biggest annoyance in
life - words always obfuscate and cause problems. They just get in the way
of what is and they never really help clarify. They make it more confusing. I
think at that point it was getting harder and harder for him to keep the
clarity through the words.”

Everybody knew Kerry and most people loved him, Cy told me. “Except
for a few. And even those - even Bob Wilson said that he'd had some
exchanges with Kerry that weren't always pleasant. But he feels that Kerry
was maybe misunderstanding him and there were no hard feelings on his
side.”

This assessment of Bob's views isn't just conjecture. Bob Wilson, like
Kerry, came into Cy's life in earnest when he showed up unannounced and
asked if there was room for one more.

Cy had met with him previously at a festival, so he wasn't entirely

unknown. He stayed for about a week with Cy at his old place, up the top of
the hill.

“He was almost exactly- not almost- he was exactly like his books. When
you read his books, he wrote just as he spoke, friendly, thoughtful, never
pompous, always open minded, just very smart, never shoving it, making
you think for yourself, great person to have fun long conversation with. The
conversations were just like if you were talking to the book he's writing.
That was kind of interesting to find someone who really is as they present
themselves, no artificial barrier like ‘this is my writing persona, this is my
personal persona’. That's nice, that's rare in the world.”

“Do you call yourself a Discordian?” I ask.

“No,” he says. “But I don't call myself anything. If you call yourself
Discordian you can't really be Discordian because you've already limited
yourself... I mean I have Discordian leanings. I understand chaos as the
foundation of all being. In that sense I guess people are, I am, whatever. We
all come from the primal nothingness void state, pure chaos state. And
everything is a manifestation of that. Would I call myself a Discordian
because life is? I mean I consider order an aspect of chaos. It's just another
part of it.

Unto them from whose eyes the veil of life hath fallen may there be granted
the accomplishment of their true Wills; whether they will absorption in the
Infinite, or to be united with their chosen and preferred, or to be in
contemplation, or to be at peace, or to achieve the labour and heroism of
incarnation on this planet or another, or in any Star, or aught else, unto
them may there be granted the accomplishment of their wills; yea, the
accomplishment of their Wills. ʼΆΥΜΓΝ. ʼΆΥΜΓΝ. ʼΆΥΜΓΝ.

Joel Love. 1960 – 2015.

¹ (Schaefer & London, ¹⁹⁹⁶)

² (London, RESPONSE: The Thing About Sondra London , ²⁰¹⁰)

³ Justice Hammond that is, a model whose poetry Sondra helped publish.
Wayne exchanged images for stories, and maintains his innocence. You can
read his account of events here; http://justicedenied.org/wayne.htm

⁴ Appendix two.

⁵ Christina Pearson, Wilson’s daughter, has confirmed that this is absolutely

not the case – but it would seem to give an insight into where Kerry’s head
was at, at this stage.

⁶ Ordo Templi Orientis, a religion influenced heavily by Aleister Crowley.

⁷ Until it was written down in front of me I didn’t notice that there IS no

OTO in total. He may have been interpreting the TOT as the opposite of
OTO. Regardless, we’ve established from Sondra and others that Kerry’s
thought processes were not always easy to follow. I also later found the
following post on Google groups, where Thornley proposes a link between
the O.T.O and Pepsico;
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.fan.rawilson/Y⁰lwL⁰qA⁴Iw

⁸ The company producing Total Cereal

 11. Plans Involve Building Some Flying Disks

I meet Groucho Gandhi at MARTA station in Atlanta. He’s a loud guy with
dense gritty facial hair and a deep booming voice. We shake hands and
introduce ourselves.

We’re heading out to his place where he is in possession of a treasure trove

of Discordian documents; a number of boxes filled to the brim with the
personal documents of Kerry Thornley and Greg Hill. But first we have to
stop off at the house of a friend whose pets Groucho is taking care of.

After feeding our feline compatriots, we take a moment to sit outside on the
balcony and rest. Gandhi begins to tell me about the materials he possesses.
The Hill stuff is of course a continuation of Adam Gorightly’s collection
from Bob Newport, but the boxes of the Thornley material were handed
down from a friend of Gandhi’s: the late-Ron Bonds, conspiracy publisher
of IllumiNet Press. Gandhi tells me how he met Ron Bonds, helped him
start his business and ended up in possession of his files. It started as a
teenager, in the early days of the Internet.

“I’d found IllumiNet BBS and it was like, ‘Hey I found some kindred
spirits here,’ cos they’re all into conspiracy and Ron’s kind of the hub of it
all. I was around 16 or 17, and these guys were in their mid-30s... they also
had this weird fetish for all the Illuminatus! and conspiracy stuff. So they
start putting text files on Ron’s bulletin board and people started calling in
from other states to get the text files.”
Gandhi’s relationship with Ron Bonds led to the revival of one of Kerry’s
earliest writings.

“Around ‘88 we were taking a family trip up to DC for about a week, and
Ron asked me and another friend who was going with us, ‘Would you go to
the National Archives? There’s a book in there.’ At this point he obviously
knew Thornley and had gotten some information out of him, and Thornley
couldn’t locate his copy of the manuscript of the Idle Warriors. It just
disappeared over time. And we’re like, ‘OK sure. We’ll do that.’

‘So we go to the National Archives, get a little research card to say we’re
researchers... So we get there and we’re like, ‘Hey we’re looking for this
book by Kerry Thornley, he gave some Warren Commission testimony, and
was charged by Garrison as one of the conspirators in that whole trial thing,
and we think there’s a book here that was entered into evidence in the
Warren Commission.’ The ancient archivist guy’s like, ‘I know what you’re
talking about, The Idle Warriors,’ because he apparently knew his collection
well.”

The Idle Warriors is a fiction novel by Thornley inspired by his experiences

at the Atsugi military base. Protagonist Johnny Shellburn was based on his
old companion Lee Harvey Oswald who was also stationed there.

“So the archivist takes us into the kind of Raiders of the Lost Ark style
storage area, just boxes and boxes, and labels and labels, and he lines up to
right where it is and opens it up, pulls out the entire manuscript, and we’re
like, ‘We need to photocopy this,’ and he’s like, ‘OK, I gotta get special
permission for you to-’ because it’s in a three ring binder, ‘-physically take
it apart, take it down to the photocopying station, photocopy it and then put
it back together.’ So that was about a three or four hour process getting a
copy. We walked out of there feeling great like, ‘That was easy’...

‘Later I realised I should have asked, ‘Where’s the brain? Where’s

Kennedy’s brain?’ Because they lost it. It would be the single most
important piece of evidence to tell where the bullets came from. Anyway,
we brought Idle Warriors back and handed it off to Ron and that’s what he
used to start IllumiNet Press. And I guess it took him a year to convert the
photocopies into whatever software he was using to lay out the book. Then
I think he did Principia Discordia next.”

This was the ‘Purple cover’ Principia, the one I saw a copy of on Louise
Lacey’s table in California.

“I think after that he published Zenarchy,” Gandhi continues.

It seemed like things could only go up and up for IllumiNet Press. Instead,
the company was repeatedly struck by tragedy with the loss of several key
authors. Kerry Thornley died. Author Jim Keith fell off a stage and injured
his knee at Burning Man, later dying in hospital from a blood clot.¹ Not too
long after, Ron Bonds also died of food poisoning from a bad burrito from a
local Mexican restaurant.

“So that whole nexus just disappeared within a two or three year period,”
says Gandhi. “Boom, gone.” He hums the theme to the Twilight Zone. “His
wife referred to the burrito as the single burrito theory,” he adds. “So when
Adam was here, we were able to get some more Thornley archives from
her. I hadn’t talked to her probably since the funeral which was around
2001.”

Gandhi had made an attempt to contact Nancy, Bond’s wife in 2003/2004,

but nothing came of it - she was still grieving heavily for the loss of her
husband. In 2012 though, Adam Gorightly made contact. This time four or
five boxes of Kerry’s personal effects were handed over.

“Ron died before 9/11 too which is really sad because it would be nice to
see his take on it. I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have gone in for the truther
stuff. Ron seemed to have a pretty good idea about conspiracy stuff which
was ‘don’t believe it’. Don’t ever fall for it, you know, use the Wilson
model, believe fifteen different things, and never take it on one idea. Cos
he’s like, ‘It’ll drive you crazy’. So I think for him it was a good way to
deal with all the publishing.”

I tell him I think I’ve unconsciously taken on the same strategy. It’s been
tricky to maintain my previous skepticism on the Kennedy conspiracy, and
keeping tabs on Kerry Thornley might as well be herding cats.

“Skepticism is really good in the entire endeavor,” he says. “Some of it you

just say, ‘OK, that’s got to be right.’ And other parts you say, ‘I like that
idea a lot but, I don’t know, I’m going to withhold judgment and still enjoy
it.’ ”

***
Gandhi takes me out to grab some food (tacos, not burritos). On the way
down, we talk conspiracy.

“I have to say, the interesting thing with the Thornley stuff is; what do you
take for real and what should you be skeptical about? Obviously when he
was first talking about it in the 1970s he wouldn’t have known it as MK-
ULTRA, and the ‘Monarch Mind Slave control’ stuff wasn’t really widely
discussed at that time, but he describes it to a T,” Gandhi says.

He considered himself lucky that his first exposure to the Kennedy

Conspiracy was through David Lifton’s book Best Evidence (Lifton being
the one who introduced himself to Kerry to challenge him on the claims of
Oswald) rather than the messy conspiracy madness of Illuminatus!

There are a lot more questions on Kennedy, ranging from the hard to
dismiss to the batshit mad. Was the killing CIA revenge for the Bay of Pigs
or an attempt to prevent planned cuts to CIA funding? Was the shooting
down of the U-2 pilot Gary Powers related to information provided by US
defector to Russia, Lee Harvey Oswald who had intimate knowledge of the
planes? Was the death of Kennedy on the 33rd degree of geographical
alignment part of the Masonic ritual killing of a king for magical purposes?
And where the actual fuck is the president’s brain?

It seems in the category of batshit mad to listen to Kerry’s theory that

Brother-in-Law was E. Howard Hunt who may also, according to some, be
one of the ‘three tramps’ seen at the site of the killing, and it’s always
jolting to see other sources lending credence to these theories. Such as E.
Howard Hunt’s deathbed confessions, published in Rolling Stone of April
5, 2007, implicating figures such as Lyndon B. Johnson and J. Edgar
Hoover of the FBI. Of course, there’s no reason to consider Hunt who was
also implicated in the Watergate conspiracy, a shining beacon of truth… and
the rabbit hole gets deeper…

“Once you go down the JFK rabbit hole you almost have to go all the way
down it then through it and back up to kind of get a perspective of, ‘OK this
complicated and here’s now my best understanding of it.’ But my best
recommendation would be to start with David Lifton, his book Best
Evidence,” Gandhi tells me.

Of course, Kerry wrote his own account several times in several forms, best
known as Dreadlock Recollections. Sondra London published an account of
this story titled Confession to Conspiracy. Another copy of it was published
by famous zine-scene figure Trevor Blake. Gandhi tells me Ron gave him a
photocopy of the Dreadlock Recollections in the late-80s with hand-written
annotations by Thornley, but that he can't locate that copy now. I’d been
told previously that Kerry had offered the story to Bonds who was too
scared to publish the work, afraid that they would come after him. There’s
an element of truth to that.

“Ron told me after a while that he didn’t feel like he could publish
Dreadlock Recollections, especially without being sued by E. Howard
Hunt. So it was one of those things that we got to read about that other
people didn’t know about - Brother-in-Law and all that.”

***

We get some lunch, my first Southern Scramble (I hope it won’t be his last!
cries the waitress) and Gandhi tells me more about Ron Bonds. He had
magical interests, playing around with the O.T.O.

“At some point I know he was trying to get deeper and deeper into that. I
know he did do some Freemasonry and stuff like that. But that’s light. Ron
got the mark on his left arm, the eye in the pyramid, he’d call it The Mark.”

Groucho himself is interested but a little impatient with the magical side of
things. He’s had his patience tried with the works of Aleister Crowley,
though he did enjoy The Book of Lies.

We return to the subject of Kerry Thornley.

“I’d say around the mid ‘90s Thornley was having some weird issues. I
know that Ron at one point stopped his truck on whatever road they were
on, and threw him out of the vehicle. Got out of the cab, went around,
opened the door and threw Thornley out. Because there’s just so much he
can take. I think he was probably being accused of being a CIA handler and
trying to keep Thornley down after he’s trying to pull Thornley back up and
shake the dust out of him and get him focused on his work again. And
Thornley, he did that with [Robert Anton] Wilson you know, thought that
Wilson was a CIA agent that was trying to control him.”

A later conversation reveals a little more about how Kerry was to be around
at this stage of his life.
“Ron started talking about how Thornley couldn’t really hold a job down,
but he’d be washing dishes somewhere, and he thought that if he washed
the dished perfectly, pretty much the world would work OK, but if he
dropped or chipped a dish, he caused the earthquake in Afghanistan that
day, or you know, washing the dishes would have world repercussions
depending on how he did the job. I couldn’t tell if he was joking,
exaggerating or telling his interpretation of Thorley’s truth. I’m pretty sure
it was the latter at that stage, because during the mid-nineties he was getting
a little wiry.”

***

Groucho, like Joel Love, met Robert Anton Wilson at the Phenomicon
conspiracy convention. In fact, he had half-jokingly, along with a friend of
his, made the suggestion to founders David Merrill and Scott Weikert that
they might like to host a conspiracy convention. Evidently, they took the
suggestion seriously enough to run with it, and Phenomicon was born.

“It was nice because I had a good 20 minute conversation with Wilson just
on Finnegans Wake. I’d been reading it for maybe three years, and I’d been
reading his works on it, just by coincidence, and man, he was just amazing.
I was just like, ‘Woah you’re blowing my mind.’ And about that point about
six or seven more people sit down at this table uninvited, Con people. He’s
holding court all of a sudden. And all they wanted to talk about of course
was Illuminatus! and Illuminati and all that stuff so I felt good that at least
what we talked about was his favourite subject, Finnegans Wake, because
there was no way he could resist talking about Finnegans Wake to someone
that was willing to listen.” He chuckles.
We finish our food and get into the car, driving a short way to Groucho’s
house. On his shelves are books by Adam Gorightly and Robert Anton
Wilson, and in plastic displays, three pope cards, including a John Dillinger
Died For You Society card.

And on the table are the East Discordian archives.

***

I sit down at the desk, in front of several boxes of Discordian materials. As

I read through the documents, it’s as though the dust begins to blow away,
and the stories of the early Discordians begin to take shape in front of me.

One of the most interesting was that of a young girl known as Molly
Moonie Rainstar. Molly and Kerry appeared to be close. Amongst Kerry's
effects were letters from Molly, typically written in a disjointed style,
phrases running up and down the page at all angles.

I love u. I miss u she writes in one corner of her letter. She also tells Kerry
that she 'graduated high school this week.' Other sections of the letter are a
cross between disjointed prose and poetry.

Not making it up in April trying to in

August. A gypsie once told me "Familiars

only have what power you give them"

The system sucks! What am I

paying for. I guess deep down everyone

knows y they got bad karma

made a dream tonight hoping

to continue existing

I'm in Hello ,goodnight

Love

Zylo Star
Kaliste

Jokers flaming red electric

scheme Like silver turning

the fingers green

Molly… may be from time to time stark raving mad wrote Kerry in a letter,
but she does not belong in a goddamned insane asylum.

This letter was in response to Molly's trouble in California. While visiting

the state, Molly was attacked on a beach and raped. When the case was
investigated, officials made the decision to put Molly into a mental health
facility.

Of course, they would let her out again, but to do so the law required that
she have a home to go to. This meant Molly needed a ticket to Atlanta, or
she would not be released. Kerry took on Molly's case as a serious cause
and devoted himself to raising funds for a flight home.

Kerry was a participant in a prisoner mail exchange program, exchanging

mail with a number of inmates. The most prolific of these was Tony,
convicted of armed robbery. A number of letters from Tony were amongst
Kerry's articles, as well as detailed colour pencil drawings he made,
including sketches of Lee Harvey Oswald. In one letter, Tony rants about
receiving a letter from high profile criminal and ‘cult’ leader Charles
Manson, bemoaning his ‘chickenscratch’ handwriting.

In Manson, Kerry saw the key to Molly's freedom. He obtained his address
from Tony and asked Manson to send him a Christmas Card.

The card featured a drawing of Santa Claus on the front. Inside, in Manson's
typical incomprehensible, ranting, chicken-scratch style, is some kind of
message. Our God numbers one computer owns everything - my count is
one world frog jumping... and so on. Kerry then proceeded to auction the
card for the benefit of Molly.

The card didn't raise the full amount, but Kerry continued to raise funds, to
finally release Molly who came back to Atlanta.

***

In Prankster and the Conspiracy, Adam Gorightly portrays Kerry Thornley

as stepping onto a boat, a socialist, with a copy of Atlas Shrugged under his
arm. When he stepped off again, he was shifting into a more Libertarian
philosophy. The boat Kerry seems to have boarded with a copy of Lars
Ullerstam's Erotic Minority Liberation may have been a metaphorical one,
but the ideological transformation seems to have been no less potent.
When Adam mentioned in Prankster that Kerry wrote a series that
‘defended nearly every taboo' including paedophilia in a thirteen part series
published in zine the San Francisco Ball, I had at first thought that Kerry’s
intention was to play devil's advocate in a kind of edgy intellectual exercise.
Reading the articles though seems to imply a certain sincerity. He praises
exhibitionism, suggests that prostitution should be unionized (a suggestion
in practice today in Amsterdam), suggests that necrophiliacs have deceased
bodies provided to them in the same way one might leave their body to
science and, most problematically, offers a straightforward defense of
paedophilia.

It is hard to imagine how gentle paedophilic attentions could be damaging

to children in a social context free of hysteria about sex, Kerry writes.
Indeed, many cultures permit degrees of adult-child erotic interaction
considered deviant in ours.

Kerry revisits this theme in a poem he wrote and illustrated called ‘the
Jailbait Blues Boogie’, featuring a conversation between an underage girl
and an adult man.

'Statutory rape you see' says the adult character in the song, 'is where we
rape the law.'

While it's unclear whether Kerry ever had impulses towards minor, he was
undoubtedly an apologist. In an interview with Timothy Bowen for Voices
of Chaos, Gorightly said the following; I wouldn’t say that Kerry had a
predisposition towards sex with children. However, he was an idealist about
all matters sexual.
He goes on to elaborate on a story already recounted in Prankster and the
Conspiracy;

Now, I wouldn’t classify Kerry as a paedophile, as the only documented

instance--which I wrote about in the book--occurred in the early 1970’s
with Grace Zabriskie’s daughter, Marion. It was an episode where Kerry
fondled Marion, who was 8 years old at the time. Knowing what I do about
Kerry, he probably thought it was all good, letting nature take its course,
that type of thing. Just all part of this philosophical approach he had to sex.
Perhaps, he was simply experimenting, wanting to try at least everything
once. Kerry, if anything, was naive. I don’t think he was manipulative, or a
predator.

While his behaviour may be more misguided than malicious, his views
were part of a larger, almost unacknowledged today, element of
countercultural history that challenged the legal sexual boundaries between
adults and children. This was the tradition of NAMBLA (the National Man
Boy Love Association) who state on their webpage that their mission is to
eliminate ‘age-of-consent laws and all other restrictions which deny men
and boys the full enjoyment of their bodies and control over their own
lives’. It was the tradition that countercultural figures Alan Ginsberg and
Hakim Bey promoted in some of their writings.

There’s exploring concepts in your writing and there’s ‘oops I accidentally

traumatized your child for life,’ which doesn’t cut it as an apology. Idealist
ideas in a less than ideal world have a habit of proving useful to less than
ideal people.
 ***

While there were a number of different newsletters in the mix, one I didn’t
get to view directly was The Greater Poop. Fortunately, Adam Gorightly
and Groucho Gandhi later uploaded a copy for the enjoyment of the world.

The Greater Poop #30, July/August 1970 elaborated, not just on how the
Principia was copylefted, but made a point of expressing Greg’s ideology
behind the choice.

Commercial publishers are not likely to be interested in the Principia due,

at least, to the counter copyright on it–for, if they had a good seller, then
other publishers could print it out from under them. Consequently
publication and distribution will have to occur spontaneously, thru the
“underground”, as alternative cultures learn to meet their own needs and
provide their own services. This non-commercial limitation of the Principia
is to provide less limitations in other respects, and it is not an accident. The
Principia is not simply a handbook, it is a demonstration.

For the most part, rummaging piece by piece through the treasures on the
table, it was a case of grabbing, glancing and putting back paper after paper
after paper. However sometimes when I’d grab a piece of paper it would
look me in the eye and grab me back.

“Oh my gosh,” I said, picking up one handwritten sheet.

“A contract,” said Groucho.

“He drew up a contract. Literally.”

This handwritten contract related to the 4th edition PD’s afterward. When
Mike Hoy of Loompanics decided to publish this edition, he threw in an
introduction by Robert Anton Wilson (whose popular Illuminatus! trilogy
had made the venture of taking on publication worthwhile by bringing
Discordia to the attention of the counterculture) and an afterward by Hill.
Hill wrote his afterward in the style of an interview between interviewer
‘Gypsie Skripto’ and several of his own alter egos sitting in a post office
box together. It was wacky, loony and did a great job of explaining a
number of Hill’s creative choices.

I knew I was taking liberties and didn't want my intentions to be

misunderstood. It was an experiment and was intended to be an
underground work and that involves a different set of ethics than
commercial work, Hill told Skripto.

The contract that I hold now, drawn up in October 1978, may be the first
legal example of Creative Commons style alternatives to Copyright. The
contract states that:
[W]henever the Afterword is published by Loompanics it will be
accompanied by the following line:

ALL RITES REVERSED (K) Reprint What You Like

This statement being understood that the Afterward is placed in the Public
Domain.

***

In Wilson’s introduction to the Principia, he tells us that Hill is a computer

programmer. This is entirely inaccurate.

“[Greg’s] desperately in the letters trying to get Hoy to change that to font
specialist,” Gandhi told me (Hill was ‘very anal’ about his record keeping
to the point of producing copies of everything he sent). “Something like
that. He was basically the guy who dealt with fonts, not computer systems.
Now if you think about that, it makes sense why his work had such a unique
fontography in it.”

One of the interesting ways in which we’ve been able to monitor the
passage of time in the Principia Discordia is through the loss of quality in
the image of the Sacred Chao.
Looking at the first edition copy of the Principia Discordia, the image of the
Sacred Chao on the front is in extremely detailed grayscale. Both Groucho
Gandhi and Adam Gorightly have some ideas on where the image may have
come from, but neither has any hard proof on the point.

“Possibly they had access to a printing shop that had what they call these
linear gradients. Halftones. And half tones pre-made packages. But the way
that they made the Sacred Chao, it's done with such precision that at first
when I saw it through Skype, I thought: Is this computer generated? And I
wouldn't put it past them to have some access to some of those resources.”

While whatever they used to produce the original manuscript may have
been swanky fancy technology, the photocopiers they used subsequently
were not. The deterioration of the image with each subsequent copy may
have been an annoyance to whoever had worked so hard on the beautiful
detailed picture but it’s a God(dess) send for Groucho and Adam who can
track the age of materials based on how much detail has been lost.

And then Ghandi pulls out the holy grail of the collection; The Paste Up
Discordia, also known as the PUD. This is the original document that was
constructed and photocopied to make the fourth edition Principia Discordia.
You can see from this version (from which there are plans to produce a
facsimile book version with commentary through Groucho's publishing
company Feejee Press) just how much work it’s been to produce the chaotic
slapdash appearance of the Principia Discordia. Many images are cut from
magazines, counter-culture productions or other such. Most frustratingly of
all (for me) is the revelation that the little box of answers to some long
forgotten quiz is actually real; this means that Testy Culbert is a real thing
and nobody on Earth knows what it could possibly mean. For my money,
this is the true Erisian mystery.
Groucho shows me something else too; one of the cards from the Illuminati
card game Das Hive (St. Mae’s family unit) showed me. The title is
Original Manuscript, and in the image, a Thornley-esque figure is holding
up a page - a real page - from the Principia Discordia manuscript. And
beside the card, Groucho positions himself with the exactly same page,
duplicating the image on the card. He laughs.

“Yeah it cracked me up because it's like, ‘great I got that!’ I got five extra
points,” he says.

***

Some of my favourite finds in the archives are as follows.

Greg Hill, like Thornley and Newport, served in the military. Greg’s
writings from around the period he was stationed in Germany are often
darkly hilarious, although sometimes besotted with death and loneliness.
Dedicated to Ambrose Bierce who wrote the sharply satirical ‘Devil’s
Dictionary’, Greg’s Draftee’s Dictionary included some of the following
moments.

COMMANDING OFFICER A man who played with toy soldiers as a

child and never grew up.

ENEMY Someone who doesn’t understand you either.

GI Government Issue; refers to soap, brushes, OD paint, soldiers and
other unimportant expendable properties of the army.

GREEN BERET An adult whose mind has been retarded to that of a

malicious child; easily distinguishable from a common vicious little boy
in that he is physically fully grown and his beany does not have a
propeller.

RACIAL PREJUDICE, LACK OF IN THE ARMY A miraculous state of

advanced affairs wherein a white based-caucasian never uses the word
“nigger” but for some unknown reason resents taking orders from a
Negro.

UNKNOWN SOLDIER, THE You and me baby, you and me.

On Kerry’s side was a wide range of zany and clever material (and more
than occasionally, disjointed and paranoid writings too). But some of the
most wonderful things in Kerry’s possession were the pieces of fan mail.

One person called Ratkov sent a good many pieces of writing, often very
difficult to follow. One delivery from Ratkov was a postcard with no
writing of his own; just two seemingly unrelated clips printed from a
computer.
The first: Los Angeles hypnotherapist Yvonne Smith said in May that more
than 30 people had joined her support group of those who say they have
been abducted by aliens. The group meets in Smith's home once a month to
discuss their problems in coping, for example, with memories of aliens'
sexual assaults, with aliens' planting of tracking devices inside abductees'
bodies, and with abductees' methods of distinguishing between alien
abductions and abductions engineered by the CIA said Smith, "Because
(alien abduction) is controversial, there's still a certain stigma attached to
it."²

Below it was glued another clip.

The German research firm Neue Technologien reported in April that it is

testing a birth-control capsule the size of a popcorn kernel, to be implanted
in a man's scrotum, that will kill sperm in the seminal fluid with a small,
self-contained electrical current. A doctor could neutralize the device and
restore fertility.³

My favourite piece of fan mail in Thornley’s collection was the following:

Mr Thornley,

Recently me & a couple of friends dropped out of high school for

philosophical reasons and jumped onto a freight train. Then we started the
Revolutionary Dance Party and now face multiple charges including
indecent exposure. I just read your book. Now we want to stop the world
and get off. Our current plans involve building some flying disks and
building a new home elsewhere for us and maybe a million or so other
folks.

One more amusing thing I came across was a hole burned right through one
of Greg’s documents. ‘Burned while stoned March 1971’ he wrote beside
the damage. Gnosis is imminent. Dude documented EVERYTHING.

It was a delight to read some of Greg’s poetry. Greg seems softer than
Kerry; by all accounts he was more introverted. His work is often cleverly,
sometimes savagely amusing, but often is also touching and thoughtful.

One poem plays with chaotic imagery and gives a glimpse into Greg’s
mind.

Ego Ipse Solus Sum

Gregory Hill 1962.

I lay my pen to paper,

Driven by a soul incomprehensible,

And by thought from the depths of a

mind unknowing.

A self much too tired for its years--

So, so young in years.

Yet lonely and in despair,

Silently groping for a shred of

reality other than its own indescribable

existence.

Confusion reigns in this frustrated mind,

Like a bowl of ill-mixed oil paints

My windows are unreliable-- I sense it--

but I have no others.

Is there a door by which I may leave?

Is there a place to which leaving is desirable?

And, finally, from whence would I be leaving?

And, why?

Like a bowl of ill-mixed oil paints,

ever stirring,
ever swirling,

ever mixing.

Chaos to chaos, only the variety keeps me going.

Another of Greg’s poems is notable in that it evolved to become a key

passage in the Principia Discordia.

Jesus eyeballed Judas

and said, “For Christsake, man, get it over with!”

And on the eve

of his assassination

Gandhi had the same

dream that, according

to Hassan I Sabbah, Jesus

had on the eve of His passion.

Of a splendid Woman

whose eyes were as soft as

feather and as deep as Eternity

and whose body was the spectacular

dance of atoms and universes.

Pyrotechnics of pure

energy formed her flowing

hair, and rainbows manifested

and dissolved as she spoke in a warm and gentle

voice.

“I

have come

to tell you

that

you are free.

Many years ago

My consciousness left

man, that he might

develop himself.

I return

to find

this development

approaching

completion, but hindered

by fear and misunderstanding.”

Her breath was the smell of burning lotus.

“You have built

for yourselves

psychic suits

of armour and clad

in them, your vision

is restricted, your

movements are clumsy

and painful, your skin

is bruised,
and your spirit is broiled in the sun”

Between Her legs was a White Horse Star.

¹ Fulfilling Keith’s own rule – Keith’s Law – that all conspiracy authors
must die under suspicious circumstances.
http://www.valsfa.com/valhalla/jkdeath.htm

² The apparent original source of the quote;

http://news.google.com/newspapers?
nid=¹⁹⁵⁵&dat=¹⁹⁹³⁰⁷¹⁷&id=xqokAAAAIBAJ&sjid=NqEFAAAAIBAJ&pg=
³¹¹⁵,⁶²¹⁵³²

³ Apparent source; http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/news-of-the-

weird/Content?oid=⁸⁸²⁴⁶² . Both seem to be from ‘News of the Weird’.
 12. Damn Skippy!

“Wakka wakka,” says Frazzleknot Kozody, shaking my hand as we meet

outside my Atlanta hotel. He has an easy-going, loose manner. The air is
crisp. With him is another man, Mitchell, the quieter and more serious of
the pair. They take me to a diner – a USA institution that I’m quickly falling
in love with - where we sit and grab some food. I have hotcakes and grits.

Frazz first contacted me through the Chasing Eris Facebook page;

Greetings, salutations, and similar simian silliness.

Let me introduce myself. I am the Revered Master Shaman Frazzleknot V

Kozodoj the 23rd, Mog-Ur of the XX3, co-KSC, CCC, FRZ, and overall
Hoopy Frood. I represent the Freewill Through Absurdity Foundation
(abbreviated as XX3,) a small cabal currently located in Rome, Georgia.
Discordianism was the seed from which the XX3 grew over the last decade,
and I would very much look forward to your visit to Little Five Points, on
the Idea of March Eve, to chat, deliver the XX3 point of view and to present
you with an assortment of XX3 documents, writings, drawings, and various
amusements. I do hope you can find some time for the Freewill Through
Absurdity Foundation. Wakka. Wakka.

Best Regardless,
The Absurdity of Life (but you can call me Frazz.)

Frazz and Mitchell are both part of the 'Cult of the XX3' which (somewhat
inexplicably) stands for The Freewill Through Absurdity Foundation.

“However everyone has found that it's more acceptable to say, ‘we are a
Discordian cabal,’ as opposed to, ‘we are a cult,’ ” says Frazz. “However
it's all also fair to say that we're not a cult because we don't have a leader.
Except for little Izzy who's 7. And always demands hotdogs on Friday.
Bless her.”

The XX3 was founded in 2002 as a ten year endeavor (in case the
apocalypse came), with a view to renegotiate the structure in a decade.

“We decided to keep it the same, by the way, for the next ten years, or at
least until the next apocalypse.”

Frazz describes the cabal as ‘very not-POEE influenced.’ Their take on

Operation Mindfuck – a broad range of shenanigans mostly designed to jolt
people out of their regular paradigms - is built largely around their mission
to promote Freewill through Absurdity: the use of silliness or the
nonsensical to jolt people into thinking for themselves.
“People think in ruts,” he says. “People tend to think in these pre-
programed ways, anybody can see that. Media has conditioned all of us to
have an exampled reaction to any social situation that you might encounter,
either positive or negative. This is what you should do, this is what you
should not do. This is what Mr Bunghole does; don’t be a Mr. Bunghole.
Or, this is what the leading man does in the romantic comedy, and it wins
him the girl. Through a combination of movies, TV shows, magazines,
books, Internet, most of us cannot conceive of a single social interaction in
their life where they haven’t already seen a positive or negative example of
how to behave in that situation. And so they respond however they’ve been
programmed to respond, either to emulate the positive response or do
whatever the opposite of the negative response is. But because of this,
people have stopped thinking.”

Frazz points out to me that this leads to an easily manipulated population; a

problem his ‘foundation’ seeks to combat.

“The Freedom through Absurdity Foundation first and foremost decided to

try to baffle people with bullshit and present people with social scenarios
that were so odd, surreal and unexpected that there could be no reference to
them - which would then hopefully, for some of them, kick into the
deductive reason and logic trying to figure out how to respond. Hopefully at
that point they realize they’re thinking again and continue thinking… and
that’s the Freedom Through Absurdity Method.”

The structure of the XX3 is as follows.

All members are identified by their ‘profane name’ (as opposed to holy
names). Frazzleknot Kozody, is known by the name The Absurdity of Life,
and his wife is The Voice of Reason. They live together in a closed
polyamorous relationship with another couple, The Agony of Bliss and the
Dependability of Chaos. Izzy, a child of one of the couples is identified as
the ‘maniacal overlord’ of the XX3 and is being raised by the whole family.

“Not with public displays of affection with everybody on everybody,

because that’s not how it is. I mean, to be bluntly honest, we’ve been
married for ten years - do you think anybody’s having sex? But in a way
that she has four parents that live with her. Mummy, Daddy, Mamma, Papa.
I’m Papa. Finding the way to raise her and to work out that fundamentally
democratic system that has to exist if you have four parents has really
helped the cabal itself in that sense, in that it has re-enforced our democratic
nature.”

The Older Pollack, Crash, Frazz’s father, also lives with them. The seven
members comprise the Den of the XX3, the house’s permanent residents,
but do not make up all the members of the group. Others are mostly
scattered far and wide. Two exceptions - Mitchell (The Intuition of
Madness) and The Perception of Perspective, have both ‘more or less
permanently rented a couch.’ These members possessing profane names are
the Denizens.

Under the Denizens are the Agents who are essentially members of the
cabal living outside of the Den of the XX3. According to the Book of the
XX3, agents espouse XX3 philosophy and employ the Freewill Through
Absurdity Method.

We finish our food and climb into Frazz’s car. We’re off to Rome, Georgia
where the XX3 are located. On the way there Frazz passes me a collection
of paper- it is the Book of the XX3, 25 pages of essays, cartoons and
oddities, all written and drawn by hand by the members of the cabal. He
adds in a few pages just for me as a special personalized edition.

“We are a cabal slash think tank dedicated to trying to trick people into
thinking for themselves,” explains Frazz to me. “We do so using civil
disorientation. This is pretty much the summary of who we are.”

The first few pages of the text give an explicit outline of the mission of the
XX3.

00001: To discover and grok the true name and nature of the usurper of
divinity (called by some Greyface, Apollo, Quetzalcoatl and YHWH; that
old wyrm, Skippy, the am*n) to break the 4000 year mindfuck, to rescue
spirituality from religion, and re-establish mass access to the collective
unconscious.

00002: To attempt to restore humanity to the sovereignty of mind (that

titular freewill), long suppressed by the bureaucratic/fascist/religious guilt
matrix by way of psychological self-exploration in pursuit of infinite
subjectivity, and strategic deployment of civil disorientation in order to
overwhelm the conditioned response of apathy and, in some sense, force
genuine ‘critical thinking’ thought to occur.

00003: To re-examine ancient legends and mythologies, employing a more

literal context, in hopes of utilizing them as a culturally biased (but no less
accurate) regional history, rather than fanciful superstitions; thus hoping to
achieve a larger more empirical perspective of world history, as well as a
deeper appreciation of the sophistication, technology and antediluvian
foundations of our oldest cultures.

00004: To attempt to evolve, naturally, a living society as an alternative to

the unnatural system of human domestication known as ‘civilization.’ An
alternative system that promotes empathy, personal liberty and the general
welfare of all as inherently superior to greed, privilege and subjugation.

00005: ...and (of course) … DAMN SKIPPY.

Much of this passage made no sense to me when I first read over it. Neither
did the sticker they passed back, covered in psychedelic imagery with
FNORD on top and DAMN SKIPPY below in big block letters.

“What does that mean?” I ask.

“It means Damn Skippy,” says Frazz, helpfully.

“It’s one of our secret teachings though,” says Mitchell. Secret though it
may be, I was eventually entrusted to the secret of Skippy. But all in good
time.

Other sections of the book were clearer. One comic features, in Frazz’s
words, “The brain of Timothy Leary explaining word-for-word the Freewill
through Absurdity Method with illustrations.”

An article entitled Paranoid Discord is one of a series of ‘slightly

Discordian themed paranoid conspiracy articles’.

“They're written not necessarily from a paranoid conspiracy theorist point

in my heart but in such a way as to encourage thought to occur by
presenting conspiracy theories that were not necessarily, you could say,
‘mainstream’ conspiracy theories. Instead of them, I've tried to think of the
weirdest shit I could. The example in the book is the government is tricking
us into believing in extra-terrestrials through reverse psychology. We know
the government lies, they issue endless, clumsy denials of the existence of
aliens; everyone believes that there's aliens. Alright, it's a way of arriving at
an idea that I don't think most people would use. And so I try to use that
platform and pulpit as a way to enact Freewill through Absurdity.”

As we drive towards the Den, Frazz shares some thoughts about the appeal
of Discordianism.

“One of the things that I think draws people to Discordianism is that in a

sense it’s atheism but with the trappings and the ceremonies and the
pageantry of Catholicism which is a void a lot of people feel. Speaking as
an atheist, yeah I have a God hole; I am jealous of people who honestly,
deeply, profoundly get their comfort or belief in hereafter or some sky
person who is going to take care of all of their problems. Personally I say
that’s a self-reliance thing but that’s just me. But yeah, it gets rough when
there’s a tragedy, right? Who do you turn to for comfort? Yourself? Well,
‘yourself’ is already ripped up because you’ve had terrible things happen.
And I think to a certain degree for atheists or even lapsed ex-theists
Discordianism is a comfortable shoe with many of the old trapping of
religion but with none of the reverence or seriousness.”

He also shares some thoughts on the nature of Eris who he sees as neither
malevolent nor benevolent. “She’s a good person to party with,” he says,
“but not necessarily the person you want to make your designated driver.”
He doesn’t practice ritual or devotion as such but he does occasionally roll
dice when he feels like he needs to catch her attention, a habit appropriated
from before he was a Discordian.

“I was a lot of things before I was a Discordian,” he says. “The only

religion I ever actually tried before Discordianism was Wicca. Of all the
religious options available to me in Georgia, Wicca, or more broadly
Paganism, seemed the most flexible. Nope. Did nothing for me. In fact I
could have been giving devotions to a library book, or a phone book.”

One thing that did stay with Frazz from this period though, was his love of
the moon. In his Pagan period, he was a devotee of Artemis of whom the
moon is a symbol. He shows me a tattoo on his shoulder, a symbol like two
parentheses facing away from each other, an open circle on top with a dot in
the middle. This symbol came to him from a dream that repeated ten nights
in a row while in jail. He saw a naked lady standing on a rock in the middle
of the ocean wearing nothing but long red hair.

“I thought it was Artemis,” he says. “But since then I’ve begun to suspect it
was Eris talking to me much, much earlier.”
The dream figure stood below a crescent moon sitting with horns up, and as
she raised her arm two waves crashed up on either side of her, and in the
centre of the moon opened a green eye.

“So I took a staple and a toothbrush and made a tattoo,” he says pointing at
the tattoo. “And that ended the dreams.”

The symbol is also on the lower left hand corner of the Book of the XX3,
and Frazz commonly uses it as a shorthand signature.

***

We arrive at the Den of the XX3. It is a comfortably sized house with two
levels and a broad balcony. I am introduced immediately to the Frazz’s
partner, the Voice of Reason, and Mitchell’s sister, codenamed Agent
Redlight.

I ask Agent Redlight if she’s into Discordia as we sit on the balcony with
her, Mitchell and a sleepy ginger cat.

“Yes very, I am,” she says. Her voice is chirpy and confident. “I find all
religions interesting regardless of whether I think they’re true or not. But
this one, I like it.”
Izzy is sitting at the computer when we come in. There is geeky
paraphernalia, much of it from Doctor Who, all around the room. The
television is hollowed out, fitted with a blacklight, and filled with brightly
coloured toys, candles and other things. This is the shrine of the room.

Reason takes Izzy out for a walk, leaving the rest of us to discuss.

“I'm fairly new to this Discordian thing,” Mitchell tells me. “I met Frazz a
little over a year ago and that's when I got into the Discordian thing. Started
hanging out with him and it's changed my life. It really has.”

“In what way?” I ask.

“Well I've never been a big religious person. The biggest thing I had to that
was when I was a big fan of ICP.¹ I listened all theirs and had all the Jokers
cards and everything. And then this. Which is exactly the kind of thing I
had in my head, the ideas put down into words. And it's really put me in a
place where I know what I want. I’m only 22 in April. I have grown up in
the last year meeting these people and learning the things they have taught
me and it's quite amazing.”

It was the XX3 who introduced Mitchell to Discordia. After hanging out
with Frazz, he was given a copy of the Book of the XX3. Later, the
Dependability of Chaos passed on a copy of the Principia Discordia and he
fell in love with it.
“I got the Sacred Chao tattooed on my left calf… just healed up real good.
That’s how quickly I came to it.”

He shows me the tattoo, a large dark piece.

“I want that tattoo,” Frazz tells me. “I told him that he's got a month and a
half left before he has to start watching out when passing out on the couch
for me with a razor blade and tanning kit.”

***

Frazz’s Paranoid Conspiracy articles are not completely detached from his
personal views. While I didn’t go into details with him, he did make it clear
that he believed in a number of conspiracies, including 9/11 conspiracy.
Earlier in the car he had mentioned that he believed in some kind of behind
the scenes force, possibly generational.

“Acting to what ends?” I ask.

“Acting toward bringing national sovereignty to an end in order to attain a

global government,” he says.

In the house now, he points out that Rome, Atlanta seems to be a fascist
city, citing the large amount of money poured into the town by the ‘robber
barons’ of American history (Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie and so on), the
apparently disproportionate police to citizen ratio and the Capitoline wolf
statue that sits at the stairs of the courthouse; a gift of the unambiguously
fascist Italian Dictator Benito Mussolini.

“Rome has desperately, desperately resisted growth over the last 20 or 30

years,” he tells me. “It has really, really resisted growth like the Southern
Cities around it. I think this is where the bigwigs are coming when the shit
goes down. Because if you lost all electricity in general, highways, you
cannot transport things, right? Rome can. We’re at the centre of three major
rivers. The Oostanaula, the Etowah, the Coosa. In fact that’s the reason why
Rome gained any importance at all. The history was that it was where three
rivers converged and it became a major shipping point. If the chips fall, we
can easily become that again, because that whole area has been resisting,
massively resisting change for decades. All I’m saying is when the insane
offspring of John D. Rockefeller finally gets his nuclear bomb working and
pops an EMP that wipes out Western digital civilization as we know it, all
of the psions of the robber-barons will be coming to Rome for their summer
house. Which sucks for us. Unless we get really good at being labor
spawn.”

Frazz’s wife’s profane name, The Voice of Reason, is not chosen by

accident.

“Someone’s got to balance out all of the Discord,” she tells me, “So I bring
a little reason to the party.”

A nice melding of the disordered and ordered, perhaps! She and Frazz
discovered Discordia together though another person they refer to as
Simplexity. Discordia was, Frazz says, the seed that led them to XX3-ism. I
ask how the XX3 culture impacts the family, and Voice of Reason answers.
“I think that the direction we take does impact the way our family is, just in
the fact that we try to promote people actually thinking for themselves and
not following their programming. That’s definitely something that we try to
keep in mind for when little Izzy develops, and we try to combat all the
programming that is hard to avoid in our society.”

“Izzy,” calls Frazz, “How do you feel about commercials?”

“Terrible,” she says.

“Terrible, why?”

“Because some commercials don’t exactly tell the truth.”

For Frazz, as a Discordian, the most influential part of the Principia is the
discussion of the Eristic Illusion (apparent disorder) and the Aneristic
Illusion (apparent order) and the concept of reality as ideas about reality.

“I had come to this conclusion before Discordianism had been introduced to

me, but never had it been put so succinctly or elegantly, and for me that
tends to be what informs most of my interrelations with other people; the
knowledge that your reality is not going to match my reality and you
probably don’t realize that as much as I do, so it’s my job to try to find the
reality grid that most matches yours, and then I can try to relate to said
person in a more effective manner. I’d say for me that’s what Discordianism
has had the most influence on.”

“For me I guess it’s just not taking it all too seriously,” says Reason. “You
gotta have a sense of humour. I was raised as a Christian and it was all
serious and guilt and ‘you’re going to hell’. Discordianism gave me a way
to reclaim my soul.”

***

Damn Skippy!

The members of the XX3 take me downstairs where we further relax and
they tell me finally the tale of Skippy and the 4000 year old mindfuck
which I have here paraphrased.

Erich von Däniken wrote a book called Chariot of the Gods, a work that
offered an evidence based case for prehistoric extra-terrestrial contact.
We’re going to assume that this is accurate. It’s an idea that seems to fit the
mythology of all the Middle East cultures.

There’s a period where the gods were among us. The cities weren't just
dedicated to the gods, they were literally run by the gods in civic function.
The theory is that extra-terrestrials set themselves up as gods. But for
whatever reason these larger than life, greater than life people were in
control of us humans for quite a while.
Then kingship was handed down from those gods to humanity and those
gods left and they were gone and that was it. People prayed to them and left
offerings to them but they were gone. Egyptian mythology and Sumerian
mythology both refer to this, if somewhat obliquely, by referring to a time
when the gods walked among us. And then that time was over. Even the
Hebrew bible God walked among Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. He
doesn't do that any other time. He becomes far off and distant. So for
whatever reason the gods left.

So what if you were one of these gods? But like, maybe one of the janitors.
One of the lowly flunky gods? One of the ones who got the shit jobs. And
you know whenever you get back to Romulax or wherever the fuck you’re
from, you're going to get the shit job too. Why go? You've got this entire
population that has been designed to be subservient to you. Why leave? If
they all leave, then you become the biggest fish in this pond. And so one of
them stayed. We call him Skippy. He is responsible for monotheism and the
4000 year old mindfuck. And what Skippy did as soon as they left was start
jumping from place to place, convincing people to give up their old
pantheons and accept monotheism the only one god. He had a lot more
success some places than others.

But ultimately, the history of the western world was written by the conflicts
between three children of Skippy's religion. Christianity, Judaism and
Islam. Divide and conquer.

And the whole world, despite their own religion, has to align themselves
with one of these forces to some degree or another just for sheer survival.
It's the same divide and conquer that was used for communism vs
capitalism.
Skippy's probably dead by now. Honestly. Even if he was some sort of
crazy alien God, it's been 4000 fucking years. However the system that was
put into place by him and his people is still running rampant out of control
and is still twisting and shaping the minds of human beings. Damn Skippy
is a world that we use is place of the A-word. The A-word is the word that
comes at the end of every Jewish, Muslim and Christian prayer. We think
that's a bad word at the den of the XX3. And wherever we hear that word
we say ‘Damn Skippy’.

The very good reason for this is, around 3300 years ago, honestly not that
long after the gods left, something weird happened in Egypt. It is currently
called the Amona heresy or the Ahten incident. One of the Pharos of the
new kingdom named Tut Moses the third suddenly changed his name to
Akhenaten, banned most of the priesthoods and then declared that all of the
other gods were invalid or aspects of the one true supreme god Ahten who
cannot be seen and whose image must never be known and is represented
by the disc of the sun. That was it, and it was the only religion allowed. He
moved the capital to a new city built in the desert called Amaorah. All of
the artwork of that period was very strange and markedly different to other
Egyptian art, that's why he's famous, that and he had a wife named Queen
Nefertiti and a son named Tut Ankh Ahten which, once shit went down and
his father was exiled, changed his name to Tut Ankh Amen. Ahten worship
was banished, the old priesthood was restored, but the system itself, the
priesthood of Amen, not only remained the dominant priesthood, but gained
an utter stranglehold, and instead of being a variable thing as to which
regional god would be supreme during any given pharaoh's reign, after the
Ahten incident, Amen - Damn Skippy - became the only chief god. He was
called Skippy.

Now, Akhenaten and his worshippers were exiled out of Egypt. And they
vanished off into the desert never to be heard of again, vanished from
history. Coincidentally, at approximately the exact same time in history,
according to the Bible, Moses was spoken to by a powerful God who was
so powerful and awesome that he whispered to him from behind a bush,
‘Hey, psst. If you smuggle me out of Egypt I'll take your people with me.’
(Now as an aside, how fucking powerful is the god of the Bible that he has
to be smuggled out of Egypt; why couldn't he just leave?)

So at the exact same time, Moses proudly defies the pharaoh and leads his
believers out into the desert as monotheists, using an astounding number of
the same religious trappings. I believe there is a very real connection. If
Moses is not Akhenaten himself, he is someone who is inspired by him-
although I will point out that Akhenaten's actual birth name was Tut Moses.
Let’s assume that it was Skippy being smuggled out of Egypt after failing to
initiate monotheism to turn what he thought of as the empty machine.

This is the main gist of why I tell the story; every time you say the word at
the end of a prayer, you have just negated whoever that prayer was
addressed to, and are sending that prayer to a parasitic Egyptian God. And
I'm not one who believes that prayers are necessarily answered or listened
to. But I do believe that energy is accumulated when you believe in
something. And if you believe in something strong enough to start sending
personal messages to a deity, make sure you send it to the deity you want to
send it to. I mean if you're praying to Jesus, make sure Jesus gets that email
or that jolt of caffeine or whatever it is prayers are like to gods. Certainly
don't say ‘Dear Buddha; thank you for the lovely porcelain tiger and piece
of glass from the ashes. You're absolutely my favourite god in the world and
I hope you have many, many more deaths under the Buddha tree - I
DEDICATE THIS PRAYER TO THOR.’ And that is what you are doing by
using the A-word.

Now I know I can't stop this. People use this word to indicate 'absolutely' -
to indicate firm agreement. Again, more power to Skippy, to someone we
don't like. So to take that power from him we never use any of his preferred
energy taking names. We use Skippy. Whenever we hear that word we say
Damn Skippy.

That's one of our secret teachings; don't write that one down.

¹ Insane Clown Posse.

 13. The Master That Makes the Grass Green

New York gives one hell of a greeting. I end up immediately in one of the
big crazy parts. My immediate reaction is one of repulsion. Too busy, too
impersonal, too crowded. WAY too crowded.

But once I’m on the underground, things chill a little. And getting off again
in Brooklyn, things are quite relaxed. From there it’s a short walk to the
house of Jay Ackley.

Jay is excited to see me, though he’s a pretty chilled guy. He’s a musician
with a considerable catalogue under his belt. He has a box to the side of the
room of musical instruments, and on the wall are a number of guitars, each
named after an author of science fiction. A number of his songs and a
collection of sheet music called ‘A Hymnal for the Dystopia’ are available
for download from his website jayackley.com.

His work is deeply, almost at times uncomfortably, personal, and is as

touching as it is irreverent and humorous. He has a number of tracks that
delve into Discordian themes. One track, Oh Nietzsche, quotes from the
Illuminatus! trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson and Bob Shea.

I’m in love with Vlad the Impaler

Hitler, Nixon, and Ahab the Whaler

Oh Nietzsche,

what did you think about?

Oh Nietzsche,

what did you figure out,

When you went insane?

Another, RIPRAW, was written as a tribute to Robert Anton Wilson after he

died.

Hey Bob, I want you to know

that you rocked my world and you saved my soul

you had me convinced that you'd never go

I wish that goddess never took you home

Hey Bob, you might like to hear

that you saved a young boy, from a lifetime of fear

and I know that you're gone

but I can't help but feel that you'll live on

He’s passionate about Discordia, as a quick review of his bookshelf reveals.

Robert Anton Wilson takes a prominent position, as do several versions of
the Principia, Loveshade’s Ek-Sen-Trik-Uh, and Etcetera Discordia by
Professor Cramulus and Triple Zero, both of whom I know from my time in
the PeeDee online cabal. It was the books from Wilson though, that first
introduced him to Discordia.

“I’ve introduced a number of people that I’ve lived with and near over the
years to it through Robert Anton Wilson. Just different people - I played
music with some - and I was like, ‘Hey, you should check out this book, I
think this stuff’s hilarious.’ And more recently, ‘This is what my tattoo’s
about.’ ” His tattoo is a golden apple on his left forearm (since our
interview, he tells me he’s also added Starbuck’s Pebbles – a design of five
dots that can be perceived as the outline of either a pentagon or a
pentagram, thus demonstrating the way in which humans project patterns
onto their version of reality).

“I’ve got some religious members of my family and I don’t really know
what they think about it,” he adds.

I’m unpacking my stuff, showing off a few of the bits and pieces I’ve
collected on my way. I take out a golden apple Josh Jackson gave me from
the House of Discord and toss it to Jay telling him what it is. He thinks I’m
giving it to him. “Wow thanks,” he says.

He later realizes that he misunderstood and offers it back, but I don’t take it.
The apple seems to know where it wants to reside. I’m starting to trust more
and more in synchronicity. Maybe the pattern is an illusion, but if you
decide it’s real, maybe it is.

***

I’m not in the house long before a few other people start to arrive. The first
is David, tall, well-dressed with an intelligent articulate manner and a thick
black mop of black hair. The next is Ryan, with black framed glasses. One
has the sense of being with someone who is perpetually realising that
something delightful and amusing has just happened. He is new to
Discordia.

He is here to be initiated.
“About a year and a half ago, I was told a lot,” Ryan says. “Right up front. I
was also told not to believe any of what I heard. That’s where I stand now.
You had to dive deep. You had to read outside of Wikipedia.”

We chat a little in the lounge room. David works in social justice programs.
Ryan works in Copyright law, an area which of course intersects
intriguingly with Discordia.

“I always get a good kick out of Copyleft,” he tells me, “Because I believe
many facets of it. Most notably if people want to make and mass produce
something and give it away for free, there should be ways to do it. No need
to stymie someone because they’re affiliated with someone who has
money.”

Jay then introduces me to the miracle of snickerdoodles. I still have some

Pope cards to give out, and I do so. Ryan tells us that he’s placed his Pope
card in the slot usually reserved for a debit card. The other day, he tells us,
he pulled his Pope card out when he went to pay for a coffee. ‘That’s right,
I’m a Pope!’ he said. ‘Good for you,’ someone responded.

The door opens and a new figure comes in. This is Becca, Jay’s sister in
law, Ryan’s girlfriend. (“I never had a sister until I married Liz and now I
have Becca and she’s amazing,” Jay later tells me.) Later a few other people
come by, including Jen, the illustrator of much of the Hymnal to the
Dystopia booklet. The initiation ceremony is going to have to wait. We have
Church.
 ***

Church is only called Church for the Discordians who attend, mostly
members of what Jay calls the Grand Army Cabal. For everyone else it’s
music club.

“Jen has been coming to music club for a couple of years now,” Jay says.
“Which David considers Church and sometimes I consider Church. And it’s
a pretty good time. It’s had its ups and downs; for a while there it was just
Jen and David and I singing Smiths and Morrissey covers which was a lot
of fun. More recently Ryan’s been joining us a lot-”

He’s interrupted by Bob, another arrival. Liz, Jay’s wife, Becca’s sister, also
arrives at some point.

Together everyone takes a position. We begin to jam some tunes. Jen and he
jam together in a wonderful track called Sexuality is Weird. I bang away at
a bongo drum and it sounds alright. It’s a wonderful, vibrant night and I
enjoy the company of Jay’s little New York community immensely.

The next day I have a chance to hold a detailed conversation with David
and Jay, before we initiate Ryan into the great mysteries of Discordia.

“I think that Discordia serves a need in just laughing at meaninglessness,”

Jay says, “and being able to process in an emotionally healthy way this idea
of meaninglessness with which we are confronted.”
There is brief, solemn silence, where his words dangle in the air, before an
explosion of laughter.

David sees Discordia as a way to consistently work on breaking down

binary systems and opinions vs facts. “The symbols that we use to represent
a thing; we can only talk about the symbols and not the thing. The
map/territory difference, the don’t-eat-the-menu difference. And when I
moved in with Ryan that’s what I kept saying to him. Also that and my
favourite koan from Robert Anton Wilson, but I think it’s from everyone, is
‘who’s the master that makes the grass green?’ I was kind of just punching
Ryan yelling ‘who’s the master that makes the grass green?’ Punching him
in the arm.”

“You!?” says Ryan in feign panic. “I don’t know. Is it you, is it me, who is
it? He just kept punching me in the arm.”

“Just kept punching him.”

Ryan describes this exploration of ideas as like removing a scab from his
way of perceiving the world.

“It was difficult to pry off, but once it was off it really changed the way I
thought about things.”
“I infected Ryan with a memetic verbal tic,” David adds. “He keeps
finishing sentences with ‘it seems to me to be.’ Every time he’s stating an
opinion he would compulsively do that. It was either because we were
changing the way we were thinking or he was afraid I was going to hit him.
I don’t think one is necessarily less fun.”

Jay goes to and returns from the bathroom. He opens his Principia
Discordia to a page listing The Mysteree Rite. The ceremony is ready.

This Mysteree Rite is not required for initiation, but it is offered by many
POEE Priests to proselytes who desire a formal ceremony.

Jay: Would you consider yourself one who would enjoy a-

Ryan: Yes, I consent.

1) The Priests and four Brothers are arranged in a pentagon with the
Initiate in the centre facing the Priests. If possible, the Brothers on the
immediate right and left of the Priest should be Deacons. The Initiate must
be totally naked, to demonstrate that he is truly a human being and not
something else in disguise like a cabbage or something.
To no particular surprise, nobody seems too concerned about Ryan
remaining clothed. Apparently we’re fairly sure he’s not a cabbage. We are
also one person short of the five popes we need for the ritual so we employ
the services of poorly painted poorly dancing mannequin man.

2) All persons in the audience and the pentagon, excepting the Priest (I’m
going to say ‘including the priest, says Jay), assume a squatting position
and return to a standing position. This is repeated four more times.

Jay: Now stand! And do five squats!

As we do so, David assists poorly painted poorly dancing mannequin man

in the task at hand. He suffers a terrible injury, but with a little effort his red
left foot is able to be reattached.

Jay: This dance is symbolic of the humility of we Erisians. Discordians.

OK.

Step three is basically a script which Jay reads from, with minor adaptations
(Ryan doesn’t have a copy so he’s guessing at the ‘correct’ response).

Jay: I, Jayjamin, self -ordained Pope of the Grand Army Cabal, Office of
the Polyfather,¹ do herewith Require of Ye: Are ye a human being and not a
cabbage or something?

Ryan: (hesitates) Yes.

Jay: That’s too bad. Do ye wish to better thyself?

Ryan: (laughing) Yes.

Jay: How stupid. Are ye willing to become philosophically illuminized?

Ryan: Yes.

Jay: Very funny. Will ye dedicate yeself to the holey Erisian movement?

Ryan: Yes.

Jay shakes his head.

Ryan: Maybe.
Jay shakes his head.

Ryan: No.

Jay shakes his head.

Ryan: Yes.

Jay shakes his head. Long silence.

Jay: Will ye dedicate yourself to the holey Erisian movement? It’s like
maybe.

Ryan: Possibly.

Jay: Really close.

Ryan: Perhaps.

Jay: Possibly was closer. (Much laughter.)

Ryan: Undoubtedly.

Jay: No it means the same thing as possibly, and it start with the same and
ends with the same letters. You got all the other answers right with no
prompting. Just throw soap in it.

Ryan: Oh man.

Jay: The answer’s probably.

Ryan: Probably!

Jay: Swear the following after me- I don’t know where the Erisian
affirmation is.

David: Pages previous. Perhaps one page previous.

Jay: There it is.

The instruction here is The Priest here leads the Initiate in a recital of The
Erisian Affirmation. Jay does this, substituting Grand Army Cabal for
Legion of Dynamic Discord.

Before the Goddess Eris, I (name or holyname (Ryan of course says

‘Ryan’)), do herewith declare myself a POEE brother of the Legion of
Dynamic Discord (substituted; Grand Army Cabal). Hail hail hail hail hail
Eris Eris Eris Eris Eris All Hail Discordia!

Jay repeats: All hail Discordia.

All: All hail Discordia.

Jay: I do here proclaim ye Grand Army Cabal sibling, Legionnaire of the

Legion of Dynamic Discord. Hail Eris! Hail Eris! Hail Eris!

4) All present rejoice grandly. The new Brother opens a large jug of wine
and offers it to all who are present.

5) The Ceremony generally degenerates.²

***
Professor Cramulus (or ‘Cram’), one of the authors of the Etcetera
Discordia, lives just a few hours by train from Jay. I take advantage of this.
When I call, I’m at his house waiting for him, and he’s at the train station
waiting for me. Eventually we meet; he’s coming up a hill, holding a fake
moustache to his face, something that’s become a trademark.

We walk up the stairs to his apartment. The place is full of moose, including
cardboard moose heads, and moose pictures. Cram decorated his place for
Moosemas, (a multipurpose Discordian celebration rediscovered by another
PeeDee cabalmate, Ratatosk) and has not yet gotten around to taking any of
the decorations down.

I grab a seat on the couch beside a cushion with a renaissance style painting
of Batman sucking on the nipple of a busty female Robin. The moon
goddess looks lazily up at me.

Cram’s apartment is no ordinary apartment, but in fact is also known as The

Main Way Monastery and Waffle House, the site of a cult he began in his
spare time. The Church of the Main Way employs a complex local
mythology, including the worship of Cram’s cat Chica as the moon
Goddess, and his housemate Danny as the Sun God.

“When Danny is at work, he’s a cool guy,” says Cram. “And when he’s out
of work, he’s the same cool guy, he’s not fragmented like I am in the office.
He’s the same fun guy at work as he is at a party. All the people at work are
squares at work, myself included. They’re probably cool people to hang out
with when they’re at a party and they loosen up. But maybe it would be
better to just be one awesome person all the time. It’s inspirational.
‘The mythology of the Main Way: Danny’s the sun God whether he likes it
or not, and Chica’s the moon Goddess. Her philosophy is very simple.
Never work. Always sleep and cuddle. The sun and the moon are within
you. I think I’m more in moon mode than sun mode most days. And we live
upstairs from this amazing smooth jazz musician who plays street jazz and
is dubbed the wizard of Tarrytown. I don’t know if you know smooth jazz;
it’s really like the worst genre of jazz. And it kind of keeps in balance the
fact that all the art galleries here are populated by vampires, and the warring
sandwich guilds on the street, like there’s a lot of restaurants on this street.
And they’re like the Kingdoms of Westeros in Game of Thrones. They’re
all very noble and vying for power. Friendly until it’s necessary to betray
one another, it’s so dramatic. And then between the vampires and the guilds
and the regional deities, we're just living in Valhalla here, really.”

“You put that together as a PDF a couple of years ago,” I say. The
document, called Prophets of the Main Way is an entertaining read. The
Main Way is both a philosophy and a religion, it states. It is an organic
reflection of life in the suburbs of New York in 2011. There are two deities
of the Way: the Sun and the Moon. These deities have prophets here on
earth so that we can learn how to live better.³

“How many people are there who acknowledge the divinity of Danny and
Chica?” I ask.

“Probably 9 or 10, I’m going to say.”

“Wow. That’s not a bad number.”

“We hold sermons now and then but- Danny kind of gets- he gets humble
and self-conscious. Nobody likes being called out as a God, you know, it’s
an enormous responsibility. But there’s no denying that he gets up and he
drives that blazing chariot across the sky every goddamn day. And he’s
working for us. Praise him.

‘But I’ve been a sun-worshipper for a long time before I realized that
Danny was an avatar of the Sun God. You should meet Mike. He’ll come
over later. Mike and I go for a sect of Discordianism called Wingitism of
which there is nothing written and there are no rules and you just wing it.
Every moment, you just wing it and hope for the best. A long time ago I
used to work in the Retail Cabal at Lord and Taylor. Mike was the HR
manager and I was a shoe salesman. Every day at lunch we would walk
through the parking lot. We played this game. It would be really crowded
after lunch in the parking lot, and we’d stare at the sun and go, ‘Oh my God
look at that!’ and point to it. And people would look, and they’d be
squinting trying to see what we’re seeing. We’re looking directly at the sun,
going, ‘OH MY GOD LOOK AT THAT!’ Just over and over again.
‘What?’ ‘OH MY GOD!’ Everybody’s squinting at the sun for no reason. It
was a good time.

‘When I was working at Lord and Taylor I was living in a weird magical
headspace. I’d come off from 6 months of working for a LARP company
and basically 6 months of running LARPS. Twenty-four hours a day I was
thinking about stuff that wasn’t real. I was very out of touch with reality.”

LARP is an acronym for Live Action Role Play. It’s a practice that evolved
from tabletop roleplaying games, among other places. LARP asks the
question: what if you could actually experience what it’s like to be a
character in a story? LARPers organize live role playing events which are
one part game and one part theater.

“I started working for Lord and Taylor when the money from running
games slowed down. I had to get a job that didn’t involve, you know, being
an orc. I think I was still an orc for a while. I pulled so many pranks at Lord
and Taylor….

‘There was a lot of hiding rubber snakes on people. My co-worker was

extremely afraid of snakes. Snakes were popping out of cash registers.
You’d open up a shoebox and there’d be snakes in it. Rubber snakes are one
of those things, like fake moustaches, that get funnier on a curve the more
you own them. It gets exponentially funnier; ten snakes is better than five
snakes, but twenty snakes is more than four times better than five snakes.
Same as fake moustaches - if you have a ton of them, suddenly everyone
else has fake moustaches. It’s the best. You can buy them in packs of 50 and
hand them out to everybody and it’s like an instant party.”

***

I’ve had conversations in the past with Cramulus over the Internet. He was
probably the single most influential Discordian on my own Discordian
journey. He introduced me to two works that helped me begin exploring
how ideas travelled; Unleashing the Ideavirus by Seth Godin and The Art of
Memetics by Wes Unruh and Edward Wilson, both of whom are known
figures in Discordianism.
“The Art of Memetics shows you how you can act on your really big idea.
There is a connection between the stupid micro shit we do every day and
the larger collective organisms that we’re in,” Cram says. “Big systemic
changes start from very small motions at a very local level. With the right
position and angle, a small message can get vibrated up into successively
higher levels of amplification. And when it gets to the top, everything
below it changes. That book helped me understand how our world is like a
network and how the self is a similar network. It really jolted me.”

He also began open-source Discordian magazine Intermittens, which was

the project that got me interested in participating in the community in the
first place.

In one of these conversations he spoke to me about how he was introduced

to Discordia while in high school.

I was really interested in Chaos Theory, Fractals, and Chaos Magick. I had
been meticulously numerically charting and graphing my moods in an
attempt to find some formula for how I worked. During a search for essays
on hyperspace and the 4th dimension, I discovered the Principia in its
classic rough HTML format. Despite parental discouragement, I printed the
whole thing out and carried it around with me, showing it to people,
doodling on it, getting more and more attached the more I read it.

When my dad (who was very uptight about my curiosity in the occult) found
out that messy stack of paper I'd been carrying around was religious in
nature, he gave me a long, stern lecture about cults and why to be careful of
them. I tried to explain Discordia, but he just ignored me. I tried to turkey-
curse him but it just pissed him off. I eventually shut my mouth and let him
be wrong, but also secretly hoping that Discordia was a big evil
brainwashing cult. So in part, I became a Discordian as some sort of teen
rebellion against my dad.

He tells a story on his blog about his use of Discordianism in High School.

I am so glad I discovered Eris in high school, I used Discordianism to get

out of so much shit. Like, what do you mean I have to say the Pledge of
Allegiance? My religion forbids eating menus and swearing oaths to
symbols. And I don’t have to do anything—-I’m the freaking POPE.

One teacher finally called me out on it. She was like, “You can’t just use
religion to justify any crazy thing you want to do or don’t want to do.”

I started to unleash my well-practiced ramble about religious tolerance

when she cut me off — “You can’t bullshit me,” she said, “I’ve read The
Illuminatus! trilogy.”⁴

From here he began to investigate a question that played on his mind.

“It was such a mystery, like are there actually other Discordians out there?
There’s Alt.Discordia which has people talking on it, I don't know if there’s
real groups of people - from reading the Principia it seemed like there were
Discordians at one point, out on the West Coast and they exchanged letters
and stuff like that. It was really hard to pin down and I just wanted to know;
are they actually out there, is this really a thing? I’ve gone out of my way to
meet as many Discordians as possible. It’s cool to see there actually is a
community of people- I don’t know if there’s even A Discordian
Community but there’s lots of little Discordian communities. But it’s real,
it’s not just a leftover joke from the 60s.”

One Memorial Day, Cram hosted a gathering of Discordians in an old,

allegedly haunted guesthouse for two days. A number of members of the
PeeDee Forum Cabal attended, bringing the group to thirteen. Dutch
Discordian Triple Zero sat on the front porch whittling and chanting, ‘I am
an American and I have rights’. Cram’s friend Mike showed up too. The
members enjoyed a number of activities including a game Cram designed
called Not Under My Roof, where players chase each other around the
house, using cards to interact with the environment and the players. They
also played 1000 Blank White Cards – a card game that players develop as
they play, using only a pen and… you know the rest.

Cram’s relationship with the PeeDee Cabal began after he read the Black
Iron Prison document, a more serious exploration of the ideas of Discordia.

“My first reaction was getting extremely angry because it wasn’t funny and
I thought Discordian writings were supposed to be funny. Then after I
calmed down a little, I realized they made a good point. I really only have
myself to blame for a lot of the stuff that pisses me off. And when I shared
my thoughts with the forum, someone invited me to make my own cut. And
that’s what happened.”

Cram has folders upon folders upon folders of posters and miscellany. I flip
through the pages. Typically, the files within tend to be under a Creative
Commons or Copyleft license.

“I was at the HOPE convention, ‘Hackers Over Planet Earth’, and there was
a guy there who had a Copyleft Creative Commons advocate booth. He was
giving out literature and stuff like that,” Cram tells me. “This guy said that
he was the one who came up with the term Copyleft. And I leaned in and
said ‘no you’re not. Kerry Thornley did.’ He goes ‘OK, OK, you’re right. I
didn’t make it up, Kerry Thornley used to live up the street from me in
Berkley. Kerry told me I could say that I invented it because it’s a creative-
commons-idea’... I love that this guy’s reaction to me calling him out was,
‘You’re right but shhhhh’. He could have been blowing smoke up my ass
but it’s a good enough story.”

One of my favourite of Cram’s works is a Room for Rent flier with a

picture of a house; at a glance the poster is perfectly conventional. The
description is as follows.

2 BEDROOM RENOVATED TOWNHOUSE IN BAD NEIGHBORHOOD.

JENKEM RING OPERATED OUT OF BATH ROOM. MONSTERS LIVE
UNDER BEDS. HOMELESS PEOPLE AGGRESSIVELY ACOST YOU FOR
CHANGE. PTERODACTYLS CIRCLE OVERHEAD. HOUSE IS
ACTUALLY ON FIRE.⁵

“Writing content for a telephone pole is very similar to writing content for
the Internet. People have short attention spans; you’re giving them
information in an environment where there’s other things that they’re
focused on.” He points to some posters that are dense with text. “Those
posters that have paragraphs on tabloid style paper, I used to put them up in
Yonkers all the time I lived there. And I watched people reading the first
three sentences and then would keep going.”

A number of things in the folders are in fact from Tom who we met in
Portland. Tom and Cram have collaborated a lot over the years.

“We get along pretty well. I’ve learned a lot from him, he’s a really sharp
designer, and he’s helped me understand the layout and design process.”

One project in which Tom and Cram collaborated was one of my personal
favourite Discordian books, the Etcetera Discordia.

“The story of the Etcetera was that I wanted to write a Discordian book
really, really fast. When I finish a project, it gives me a burst of energy that
allows me to finish other shit. I’ve got a lot of starting-shit energy, not so
much finishing-energy. So the idea was a forum we would set up for one
week, and anybody who wanted to submit stuff for the book could post it on
the forum. That would be it! And it ended up growing to two weeks. And
then it took like five years to make the book because Tom made such a cool
layout, so we ditched the idea of turning it around really quickly. But on the
forum, I promised people, if you submit it, I might print it. I wanted to give
people an excuse to write something worth reading. And I wanted to take a
snapshot of what people had to say about Discordia in that year.”

I flip through the book and find a piece called Pope Joan, by Reverend Dry
Roasted Chaffinch.
“It’s funny, that Pope Joan piece,” says Cram. “I kept that in the Etcetera
Discordia as my own personal Easter egg. Everything else in the book was
edited, cut-up and arranged with great care. But the Pope Joan piece, I
never read it. I knew from the outset that it was good and I wanted to print
it, and decided that I was only going to read it once it was in print. And
towards the end of production, I told Tom about that, and he’s like, ‘The
whole book’s like that to me, I’ve never read any of it, I’ve just juxtaposed
stuff with stuff.’ ”

***

Later, Cram and I venture out to a pub where we meet with Jay briefly, and
David. Cram brings his partner Barb, a short intense girl with a pronounced
Portuguese accent, and his Wingitist friend Mike.

David is familiar with Cram’s work, and as the conversation turns to

PosterGASM⁶, Cram recounts the story of a girl who had been searching
for secret messages in his posters.

“My friend told her, ‘You need to meet my friend; he’s the one who puts up
all the posters you’re finding,’ ” he says. “And she freaked out. Because,
I’ve been putting up these tacky-ass posters for a year now, and this girl
who lives about a block from me decided they had a Da Vinci Code like
quality to them. She went to the library and started looking up stuff, she
learned all about Discordia. She learned about the Illuminatus! trilogy with
Robert Anton Wilson, all that stuff. All based on the PosterGASM Dingus
poster that has the word principiaDiscordia in it. She Googled it, figured out
what it was, and she thought there was a hidden message, like a specific
one. She thought there was something like a Dewy Decimal number that the
poster was trying to give her. She checked out no less than 50 books from
the library trying to find out what the posters were getting at. Bumping into
these random posters on the street gave her this aneurysm of curiosity. It
was kind of gratifying to learn that all those posters I put up over the years
finally drove someone crazy. When I met her in person, it was this huge
relief for her. I handed her a bunch of stickers and pamphlets and stuff as a
reward for getting to the end.”

“Like, you’re in on the joke now, go forth,” adds David.

“You gave her a book,” recalls Barb.

“Yeah, I gave her a copy of the Principia,” says Cram. “I gave her an
evangelical edition, a 6 x 4 copy.”

“Awesome,” says Mike.

“But it was cool though, someone coming to you after being led on a totally
wild goose chase for a number of months- like to the point that her friends
were annoyed with her talking about it cos she was obsessing. And I
explained to her really straight, I’m a Discordian and I do this for fun. And
she seemed really let down; ‘I thought there was a hidden code!’ I’m like,
‘There honestly was a hidden code, you found it, you really, really did it.’ ”

“You passed through Chapel Perilous and now you’re hanging out on the
other side checking out a bunch of books,” says David.
David tells Cram a little about Ryan and our initiation ceremony, then talks
a little about Jay’s tattoo. Jay himself has already made tracks back home.

“The way I interact with Discordianism the most is thinking about ways of
knowing,” says David. “It’s the semantics and the semiotics and the
psychology, human development. I love thinking about it, talking about it.
And it’s mostly gibberish.”

“Oh yeah,” says Cram.

“It sounds like mostly gibberish. But occasionally you can suss a tiny bit of
meaning out of it. I have a really hard time communicating meaningfully to
people about those things. But, I see you asking these questions about how
we think, how we know, how we fear, how we are, whatever. It tickles me
in the right way.”

Cram is always a large personality, and grows to fit a crowded room. More
than once he draws the attention of people around him. Once this involves
him and Mike reliving their short lived musical career with the high falsetto
rock ballad ‘I’m gonna jizz so hard, baby gonna think that I’m pissing’.
Later, in a theological debate about hotdog buns (in which I later realise,
I’m wrong)⁷ he calls for a schism, slamming both hands down on the table,
standing bolt upright and screaming “SCHISMMMMM!”

¹ The Omnibenevolent Polyfather of Virginity in Gold, a title claimed by

Malaclypse the Younger (Greg Hill).
² (Hill & Thornley, Principia Discordia, ¹⁹⁷⁸)

³ (Comstock, The Main Way, ²⁰¹¹)

⁴ (Comstock, Cramulus: An Illustrated Guide to the Strange Times, ²⁰¹²)

⁵ (Comstock, Postergasm: Volume Dingus, ²⁰⁰⁹)

⁶ GASM is a cheeky acronym that represents ‘Golden Apple Seed Mission’

– indicating that other Discordians are being invited to join in.

⁷ But being a Pope, still right.

 14. Trolled By Eris

I had been told, long before I began plans for my trip, that Brazil was a hub
of Discordian activity. Cramulus had posted on PeeDee that Barb had
recognized the Sacred Chao on his bag. When asked about it, she told him
that she had seen it on a popular blog in Brazil.

I spend a night in a hotel in Rio, stumbling through small amounts of

Portuguese ordering breakfast at a bakery nearby. I’ve arranged a place to
stay with a guy called Julia Fenderson. He wasn’t Julia Fenderson when I
met him.

Julia picks me up at the train station. He has shaggy hair and sharp blue
eyes, and rockets into excited speech. He’s a non-Discordian who contacted
me randomly a year ago over the Internet, on a whim, well before my idea
of a Discordian Pilgrimage (if that’s what this is) had begun to form, and as
synchronicity would have it, lived in Rio, and was willing to host me.

Julia is talkative and enthusiastic. He helps me set myself up with a

Portuguese number and a bed at his place. At one point he takes me through
his computer’s images.

“That’s Eris,” I say, pointing to an image of a woman in red holding the

iconic Apple of Discord.
“Oh yeah,” he says. “I wrote a blog about her years ago.”

Synchronicity strikes again!

***

Almost immediately after I set up my Brazilian phone number, I get a call.

Mistre, at seventeen the youngest of the Discordians I was to meet, gives
me a call to welcome me to the country.

Not long after this, I am contacted by Marcelo, a Chaos Magician who

worships both Eris and Aphrodite. I would later mention Marcelo in
conversations around Brazil, and a number of people would respond
immediately to his name. He is well known, especially in Chaos Magic
circles.

Julia, Marcelo and I meet in São Salvador square in Rio. Julia is by my side
as we introduce each other. Rain is falling lightly as we sit in the open air.
In front of us, a group of teenagers kick around a soccer ball.

Marcelo takes Julia and me into a small bar. “The bar in Brazil is a kind of
national institution. This kind of bar anyway,” he tells us. He has a candid
manner, with a sense of bubbling energy waiting to erupt from inside. He
orders us a round of Brazil’s national cocktail, Caipirinhas. They are sweet
but powerful, with a generous dose of Cachaça.
“Let’s have a toast,” Marcelo says. “Long live Discordia.”

“Hail Eris,” I say, and the three of us clink glasses. I sip mine, and reel with
the hit of alcohol.

“It's like a deadly beverage because it's very sweet and it can really make
you think strange things,” says Marcelo.

“Now you know the reason birth rates in Brazil are so high,” adds Julia.

Marcelo was introduced to Discordianism by a book called

Ciberxamanismo [Cybershamanism], by Eduardo Pinheiro.

“It's a very strange and interesting book to read. It's a book designed to
mindfuck you. I remember, I was around fifteen years old. My school was
in a small city, and the people there were very small and greyfaced people.
And so, I was travelling on the Internet, and at that time I had never heard
about Discordia or magic in that real sense or all this weird stuff. So I was
randomly on the Internet and that name caught my attention.
Cybershamanism, whoa that's weird, what's that? I started to read it, it was a
.txt file or something like that. It was not even in book format…

‘And so that was there and there was the word fnord. Beware fnords. And I
said, ‘What? What's fnords?’ And the word stuck in my mind. Fnord, what's
a fnord? And I used some tool to search on the Internet, to find what a fnord
is. And I ended up finding Principia Discordia and the Delinquentes site and
another Brazilian site. I think, for me, it all started with Discordianism and
magic and maybe Anarchism and free love. Things like that.”

The ‘delinquentes site’ is run by Ari Almeida, author of The Guide to

Juvenile Delinquency. “Ari Almeida was not, obviously, a real name,” says
Marcelo. “But he had a blog which was like a meeting place of Discordian
people like 8, 9 or 10 years ago. And he was inspired by Hakim Bey, Poetic
Terrorism and so on, so there's a lot of strange stories from him, and in
general we cannot know if all the stories are true or not, of course, because
he is a Discordian soul.”

The stories Marcelo tells me include a group invasion of a church with

people dressed as SpongeBob Squarepants, filling the card slot of ATMs
with shit, disrupting a TV station to send weird things into people’s
televisions, and putting a dead dog into an expensive box of ladies shoes.

Almeida is now ‘retired’ from the prank life however, and writes a music
blog for MTV under the name Timpin. The name is derived from Timóteo
Pinto, a shared name similar to Luther Blisset. The name is a pun; Pinto is
dick. Timóteo Pinto sounds something like 'I will show you my dick.’¹

***

It’s possibly not fair to say that most Brazilian Discordians are Chaos
Magicians, but as far as Rio is concerned, they seem to represent the larger
part of the active community.
“I think the Brazilian Discordian scene is in some sense weak,” Marcelo
says. “We don't have like a lot of Discordians, because most of the people
involved in Discordianism are more involved in Chaos Magic. The pattern
here is that people discover Discordia and then later start with Chaos
Magic.” He later elaborates a little; there are plenty of Discordians who
don’t participate in the magical side of things, but they’re not the ones who
tend to be active outside of the Internet community.

“Is that what you enjoy?” I ask.

“Yeah, yeah for sure. I think most strange stories of things in Brazil are
because of Chaos Magic.”²

“You should stop that magic, stop things going crazy,” says Julia.

If this was a movie, that moment would have slowed down and been
weighted with heavy importance. At the time it was just another quick quip,
barely acknowledged. So too, the next day when Julia was complaining of
the incoming price hike of public transport, his words have been crisp and
clear and prophetic. As it is, I only have a vague memory of Julia saying
something about the price of riding the bus as we dawdled towards the
beach.

In June, three months after I’d returned to Australia, in planning stages for
the European leg of the trip, television was saturated with images of riot
police firing rubber bullets at protesters, shooting live ammunition into the
air; of Molotov cocktails lighting up the night as protests began, inspired
partly by the rise in the cost of public transport. I chatted with Marcelo over
the Internet during this time. He was in the thick of it, running from riot
police in the chaos soaked night. As far as I could tell he was having the
time of his life.

***

“I brought a strange gift to you,” Marcelo says, passing a feather over to

me. “An owl feather, because the owls are not what they seem to be.”

I accept the feather. The light rain that had sprinkled Julia and I while
outside has turned into a torrential downpour.

“Oh it's a thunderstorm,” says Julia. “It's going to end as quickly as it

started.”

“It's a Brazilian thing,” says Marcelo.

The conversation later moves into Marcelo’s experiences with chaos rituals.

“There was a Chaos Magic ritual called Assassini Mass. Assassini like
Assassin… Because there's a legend of the medieval heretic leader Haasan-
I-Sabbah. And he said, 'Nothing is true, everything is permitted.’ ”
This mythology of the mystical origins of the ‘assassins’ was tied into
Discordianism through the influence of William Burroughs. His
construction of the Assassins as a mystic group under the command of
Hassan-I-Sabbah was also fictionalized in Robert Anton Wilson and Robert
Shea’s Illuminatus! trilogy.

“Their followers were the assassins, and in the assassin mass we try to kill
our self to some extent. And so we negate a lot of things during the ritual.
Everyone went to this ritual with a copy of the text, but we didn't know
about the content of the things we would speak until the exact moment. It
was very strange because it was reading things like, 'I have let go of my
sexuality' and, 'I have let go of psychology' some things like that, and the
end of this ritual was crazy. Like screaming and shouting in an ecstatic
trance, and afterwards everyone was exhausted. And I was asking a friend
of mine, ‘Whoa, it was intense. Who was the guy who was jumping and
screaming a lot in the centre of the room? Oh it was me. I forgot.’ ”

“It was you?” I say.

Marcelo gives an impression of his trance state, jumping and screaming.

“Of course it was. And we went to a bar to drink, and a lot of crazy things
started to happen. It was a bar near here, Largo do Machado and the bar was
next to a brothel. A shitty one. And there was whores in the bar, and the
whores came to drink with us and so there's old men there-”

“You were in the bar and a horse came to drink with you?” asks Julia.
“Whores. Prostitutes,” I clarify.

“And so we start to sing Candomble and Umbanda stuff. Candomble and

Umbanda are like Afro-Brazilian religions here like Santeria. And so we
start to sing chants and songs to entities and there was a prostitute arguing
with a cop - the prostitute starts to threaten the cop that she will cast a spell
on him, and so she came to us and started to sing too. And so my father, he
doesn't live here, and suddenly he appears.”

“Your father?”

“Yes. ‘Hey, hello son!’ And I was like with beer, cachaça, cigarette and
whores, singing magical stuff and so, ‘Hey, hello Dad!’ It was a crazy night.
And after that, people said that stuff happened. Really crazy, girlfriends
broken, people lose jobs, and start new ones and it was a strange ride. But it
was very, very cool.”

“What did your father say about it later?” asks Julia.

“Nothing. I think he had a little stroke.”

Another time, Marcelo and friends were doing a ritual around the same time
as Carnival. On the way to the ritual they picked up some girls and their
male friend who was high on acid.
“The girls arrived in the middle of the Pagan bacanal.³ And they start to be
afraid of us. ‘Ah, oh yes,’ ” he imitates, in the tones of a terrified American
college girl, “‘It’s wicked it’s cool.’ And we say, ‘Shhh. Wait.’ ” He chants
like in the ritual, rocking back and forward excitedly. “The guy was
freaking out with LSD. And the girls were so afraid, ‘Oh, oh OK. Oh yeah.
Good, good, good,’ and forgot like a jacket or something like that, and
forgot the guy. And we baptized the guy with pouring rice from a
Cornucopy.”

He tells one more story of ritual practice from when he was younger.

“I had like an enemy, he harassed me a lot, so one night I did a very simple
shouted ritual to try to take the guy out of my life. It was crazy; that same
night in the same hours he was in a car and a truck hit the car and he was in
hospital for almost a year. And the next day I was in class, and I was
shocked. Where’s that guy?”

He sounds genuinely shocked and upset at the outcome of the ritual.

“I had not asked for it. I asked for him to leave me alone. And so, but it
happened. Very strange.”

***

“Maybe this Friday we can go to see the chaos of Lapa,” Marcelo suggests.
“What do you think about it?”
I’ve never heard of Lapa, but I agree with enthusiasm.

“I see Lapa as parasitic⁴ like a lady who drains your energy by the end of
the night,” says Marcelo as we walk in to Lapa the next night. Julia is with
us too. “A lot of people standing around, drinking, looking for you know
what.”

Lapa is busy, dirty, full of people. Bulky tourists with singlets wearing
sunglasses at night, old men and women with badly twisted backs and legs
begging for change, stunning Brazilian women wrapped into tight clothing,
with big black hair and piercing eyes, packs of mates yelling and drinking.
We stand outside a crowded bar where we grab beers and stand around
talking and waiting. Fernanda, another Discordian, has agreed to meet us,
but she finds herself unable. Another though, Rajuphun Maldonado⁵ is still
on his way. I am nervously checking the time, making sure that we don’t
miss him. I am not yet fully appreciative of the more relaxed attitude
towards time that seems typical of the region.

We leave the bar for a while to wander through Lapa, and we stop at
another to take drinks of Cachaça. I am informed, with watering eyes and
burning throat, that it comes in a teeny-tiny cup because you only need a
teeny-tiny amount, not because it is intended as a shot.

We return to the previous bar where we meet with Maldonado. He is an

unassuming guy with short hair. He has a lot he seems to wish to say but
struggles with English, and my nearly negligible Portuguese is no help. He
worships the Norse trickster archetype Loki as well as Eris. Earlier this
year, in an act dedicated to Loki, he posted his Facebook password on
Facebook. His profile disintegrated into chaos. Friends were ringing him
up, asking him if everything was OK. Eventually, Facebook shut down his
profile.

One thing I discover talking with these two is the vast new vocabulary the
Chaos Magic Discordians of Brazil have developed. While the usage is
widespread, the creation seems to be mostly through Rajuphun Maldonado.
The pair describe these to me as we stand around in Lapa.

Hihicroned is the most important, and the least clear of these. It is a

magical word with no established definition. It ties into various ritual
practices developed by the Chaos Magicians. Marcelo tells me of
himself and Maldonado walking around Lapa calling out, ‘Hihicroned,
hihicroned,’ to bring weirdness into their night, in a ritual influenced
by the Derives of the Situationists. It also functions as a kind of
conceptual wrapper for an ever growing concept set of words.

“The way to explain the hihi words, it’s a very simple ritual,” says Marcelo.
“You open Paint. You know Paint, the software that comes with Windows?
You open paint, let it flow. Just draw.”

“So what does Paint help you do?” I ask.

“To capture, to catch the hihi words, I don’t know, in a visual way.”

“Like to summon it?”

“Yeah, maybe. The hihi world is very vast and complex.”

One concept they tell me about is the Wanamingos – Greyfaced spirits who
must be hunted down through ritual. They regard themselves as Amorelhos;
Wanamingo Hunters.

Another concept is that of Kenacity. The word they used was “Kenacidade”
however they ‘translate’ the word into English by making it consistent with
English grammar rules. Having kenacity is like being streetwise, however
instead of being able to handle yourself of the street, it refers to being able
to handle yourself in the weird. Weird-Wise, you might say. A person with
good kenacity could be described as Kenacious [Portuguese; Kenaz]. A
highly kenacious person, for example, might hang out with a UFO cult,
enjoy the weirdness, go home, eat dinner and get ready for work the next
day. A less kenacious person however might freak out completely, or find
themselves drawn into the cult.

Maldonado tells me about the Caos Mijado or ‘The Piss’d Chaos’.

“It’s like a divinization of your pee,” he says. “Your pee is divine. When
you pee you get inspiration. You think many things, invent many things.
That’s the fixation of Chaos Mijado. Pee from chaos, pee chaotic.”

Then there’s the Bus of High.

“If you take alcohol and if you smoke marijuana, things will not happen by
themselves,” says Marcelo. “You need to take the high bus. The Bus of
High; you have to take it for half an hour, for an hour, metaphorically: it’s a
metaphysical and a spiritual bus. You take it, and it goes away.” He begins
to repeat the word ‘hihicroned’, softly, slowly, as does Rajiphun
Maldonado, ‘Hihicroned, hihicroned,’ louder, faster, speeding up, imitating
the sound of a bus shooting down the highway, ‘Hihicroned, hihicroned,
hihicroned, hihicroned!’ and now they’re yelling, voices quick, excited,
people looking uncomfortably behind them. They stop.

We continue into Lapa; we can hear the sound of drums and the harsh
grinding of metal on road. There is chanting and singing. As we get closer
we can see protestors, Anarchists, singing and dancing in the middle of the
road, banging on drums, holding ropes attached to pieces of corrugated iron
that they slide around in circles to make as much noise as possible. They
wear the bare minimum of clothing. One girl has no top, only black tape
over her nipples, and a hole torn through her shorts revealing her panties. A
nervous police presence is growing nearby. “O Choque Mata! O Choque
Mata!” they chant. It is written on their signs. It means ‘the riot police kill.’
There has been a recent killing of a Brazilian citizen by police, something
that’s not unheard of. They are also chanting, ‘Who are you building for?’:
an anti-gentrification slogan. At one point they address the police. ‘We
supported the ambulance workers in their struggle. We helped you in yours.
You should be protecting us.’ The pre-echoes of riots to come.

The tensions are high, despite the Carnival-like atmosphere of the protest.
Drivers are frustrated by trying to move past the protests. One drives off
with a protester still on the hood of their car, who leaps off as it speeds
away. Later, when I’m back in Australia, reports emerge of a protester
killed by a car ploughing through a group, and I wonder if it was in similar
circumstances.
‘Viva a democracia!’ they yell. I film the protest as it takes place. Later, we
come across the protestors as we wander the streets. They are leaning
against a car. One thanks me for filming the protest. It keeps them safe from
police retaliation, they say. They give us some Anarchist propaganda,
before we move on.

We continue to Rat Alley. There are beautiful prostitutes everywhere, in

bright dresses.

Marcelo hears a squeak. It’s a rat. We have to follow the rat, he decides.
That particular rat disappears but we still have to try to follow the signs.
Maldonado takes us to a wall, where he points out a poster of A4 paper on
the wall. Discordiano em Potencial it says in bold, in the middle of large
passages of Portuguese; ‘You may already be a Discordian’. Maldonado put
up this poster, and many others around the city some weeks ago.

We end up back in the city. It is early morning. I’m wrecked. We see the
shoulder of a woman, with what looks like a rat on it, but it turns out not to
be so. Whatever message Marcelo was channeling, this is not its
destination. Eventually, Julia and I go back to his place to rest. We need to
be ready for the big meet, tomorrow.

***

Julia and I arrive at our scheduled meeting place, a restaurant called

Brasilerinho, and grab some chips to snack on while we wait.
Our first two arrivals are Fernanda and Mistre. I’ve been in contact with
Mistre through PeeDee for a number of years. He is in high school, with
thick, tussled black hair and thinly framed glasses. He strikes me as being
profoundly agnostic, and tends to temper any assertions by emphasizing
that he doesn’t really know anything for certain after all, and of course it
could be different, but that’s just how it seems to him.

Fernanda has soft, feminine features and mannerisms, and long black hair.
On her shoulder is a tattoo of a snake. She struggles a little and is
embarrassed by her English, but expresses herself clearly and precisely,
only reverting to Portuguese when frustrated with trying to express more
complex ideas. At these times, Julia translates for me.

Marcelo also arrives. He is loud and personable as always. The group chat,
bouncing between Portuguese and English for my benefit. The atmosphere
is warm and relaxed.

Mistre tells me he really enjoyed and was influenced by Black Iron Prison.
He read it in English even though another Brazilian resident, Peterson Silva,
produced a Portuguese translation.

“I thought, actually, how far can I get out of prison?” he told me. “How far
can I escape it?... And I found nothing. I found that all my mind's reactions
are the things of my life. All the things I think, are not so, they’re illusions.”

Marcelo voices disagreement. “I think that Black Iron Prison is too much
greyface red tape,” he says. “I think it tried to be deeper than other books,
Discordian books, with a more serious approach, but it doesn't work. It
works, but it doesn't work more than Discordia Principia or another book. I
do not like it so much. In comparison I think something’s wrong.”

We finish our chips and make tracks to another, less expensive location.
The other members of our party-to-be are still en route; Rajiphun
Maldonado who we met last night and Kaos Vortek, a stocky, solid guy,
with a tall black trilby meet us at our second location, a cheaper, more
relaxed shop.

With everyone present, I begin to ask more pointed questions. Of the group
only Mistre has approached Discordianism from a more atheistic/agnostic
perspective, whereas the others are involved in Chaos Magic. Most work
with multiple deities in their practice. Marcelo worships Aphrodite as well
as Eris; Maldonado works with Loki; Vortek with Ganesha; and Fernanda
with Lakshmi, though she says that she seems to be ‘followed by’ Ganesha.
She discovered Discordianism through prominent cyberspace Discordian
figure Sydada Fenderson, leading to real world connections with other
Discordians.

She is a fan of Jungian ideas, and describes the idea of a magician in an

archetypal sense.

“The magician is also the archetype of a divine messenger,” she says. “A

joker. Sometimes a message comes in dreams or when you’re not expecting
synchronicity.”

“They have a message to tell but they pass it on their own way and their
will is their own,” says Julia, helping to clarify.
“That’s what we do,” says Marcelo. “It’s like, I see a rat, so I think this rat
is a message-”

“I dream with a rat last night and today I found a rat in my basement,”
Fernanda says.

“It’s this message, a paranoid message,” says Marcelo.

“Yeah,” says Fernanda and gives an understanding chuckle. “Paranoid

message.”

It was a man who came into Fernanda’s life and impressed upon her an
attitude of acceptance and irreverence towards life.

“I have this education with this spirit of nothing is serious but everything is
serious and nothing's serious and everything is serious. And you know,
you're talking seriously and then nothing is serous and you just talk about
the problems of the world, there's the war then there's the economic issues
of the world. And then in one minute nothing is serious. But you’re not only
making jokes, you’re not laughing about nothing. And then I found
Principia Discordia, and the connections there with oriental philosophy.
There is a Chinese master, Sun Tzu. He’s very funny… His systems impress
you with humour. It’s not boring. I love the humour of Sun Tzu. It’s more
bacanau and personal. To live in the world this way, you’re laughing, and
you can read about the state of the world - you can banish the bad energy,
the bad vibes with ‘bahaha.’ ”
“You banish with laughter,” says Marcelo, referencing the widely accepted
Chaos Magic ideas of Peter Carroll.

Many of the people here are involved in Chaos Magic groups. It’s difficult
to get information as many of these groups pride themselves on keeping
secret much of their magical practice. Most of the people at the table
seemed to be part of a group called Caos RJ: Chaos Rio De Janeiro.

Fernanda is an exception to this style of practice; rather than practicing her

Discordianism or Chaos Magic through ritual she has interwoven it into the
fabric of her everyday life.

“Out of this state of spirit, I can’t leave anymore. It’s in everything I do. I
wake up and then everything has a point in time. I’m not using rituals in
Chaos Magic. I try to live in this way all day long. Everything in
professional life, personal life, familial life, sexual life, everything, you
have a sense of Discordia. I can’t live outside of it.”

I speak to Kaos Vortek through Julia as a translator as we don’t have the

language skills to communicate directly. Vortek is a part of Caos RJ but he’s
also part of a group called IOT, the Illuminates of Thanateros, an
organization started by Chaos Magicians Peter Carroll and Ray Sherwin.

Vortek was introduced to Discordia through a mish-mash of interrelated

ideas.
“I think it was around the start of the century,” he says in Portuguese. “I
started to read Hakim Bey, Nietzchean Proverbs, the Situationists, Andre
Breton, and then little by little I got to Discordianism.”

“What was the first explicitly Discordian book you read?” I ask.

“My memory is failing me. Mushrooms have fried it. I think I’ve read some
books from Principia Discordia on the Internet. It was connections between
things I was reading, and the sum of everything. The meet-up group is
where Chaos Magic and Discordianism came all together.”

***

After we finish eating and pay, we travel to a store to buy drinks before
heading down to a famous rock structure at the end of the beach, a Rio
landmark known as Pedra do Arpoador. Fernanda has somewhere to be, so
she bids us goodbye. It is getting late. Marcelo buys two apples with the
intention of offering up each as a devotion to his two Goddesses. He finds
one yellowish in colour for Eris and a nicer looking one for Aphrodite.

We climb the rock. There is no kind of safety barrier here, so if you fall it’s
going to be painful at best. We are carrying drinks in low quality plastic
bags, cautiously stepping up the rock in the limited evening light. We sit.
The humid night air is punctuated by cool breeze. In the distance we can see
the lights shine out from a favela.
There are metal rings nailed securely into the rock at the very top.

“What are these for?” I ask.

“This is where they chain up the strippers,” Maldonado tells me.

“Strippers?” says Marcelo.

“The police have to come up here every night and chain the strippers to the
rock,” Maldonado tells us. “Every night a giant eagle swoops down and eats
them. In the morning they come up and there’s nothing but arms. The police
then take the arms away so nobody sees them.”

Marcelo is staring out into the sea. The ocean is the domain of Aphrodite.
He speaks about the duality of the solid rock coming in contact with the
fluid ocean, of the deepness of the night and of the water.

“The ocean is deep and uncontrollable and vast like emotion,” he says.
“You can’t control your emotion, but you can direct it. Like a sailboat.” The
ocean is tied to love for him, to Aphrodite.

“But, I will ask nothing of love from Eris,” he adds. “Because she is a
bitch.”
I chat with Mistre for a moment. Someone passes me a bottle of alcohol. I
drink from it and pass it along. Mistre is telling me that he likes to connect
with people on a deeper level. He is frustrated by small talk and
conversations about nothing. He wants to talk about big things, ask big
important questions like, ‘What are you afraid of?’ Marcelo tells us he likes
to have big conversations about small things.

Marcelo closes his eyes, visualizing. “I am seeing something,” he says. “A

white rabbit on white snow. Does anyone have Internet connection here?
Can someone check if this is connected to Aphrodite?”

I google it. Chaos Magicians, unlike many other mystical traditions, have a
tendency to embrace technology. My search confirms it. The rabbit is a
symbol of Aphrodite.

I’m not sure how Marcelo performed his devotion to Aphrodite, but we’re
left with the one apple to offer to Eris in devotion. Our company stands and
begins to descend down the rock to discuss the matter.

“You can make art from material,” says Marcelo as we descend. “You can
make art from perception. Maybe art and magic are manifestations of the
same thing that we don’t have a name for.”

When we reach the rocks below, we stand and look over the ocean. Julia
(who is not named Julia yet) tells us that he has sometimes used Julia as a
pseudonym. Our company had earlier discussed the Fenderson family (a
Thornley concept: the Fendersons are a family one can be connected to just
by having the Fenderson surname attached, even against their will), and
these two things seem to collide elegantly. We quickly come to the
agreement that Julia Fenderson is the right Holy Name for our shaggy
haired companion.

Marcelo, meanwhile, is imploring everyone to not even consider hurling the

devotional apple into the ocean. It’s pretty clear from the tale of the
Original Snub that Eris and Aphrodite do not get along well, and this is his
love life we’re talking about, which he would rather not resemble the
Trojan war.

Julia, in the end is the most compelling with his suggestion. He wants to
recreate the Original Snub by writing Kallisti on the apple, approaching
some beautiful girls and telling them it’s a present for the prettiest; if they
can agree amongst themselves who the prettiest is.

The progress from here resembles a series of stops and starts, walking a
way down the boardwalk before stopping suddenly to discuss the matter,
passionate rapid discussion in Portuguese, then continuing. There are
disagreements of all sorts. This continues for something like an hour. Kaos
Vortek has on him what I’m later told is an authentic Soviet gasmask he
bought at a flea market earlier that day. He wears it for some time as we
continue down the boardwalk. Eventually, after another passionate debate,
we head towards the city of Rio, up and down streets until we get to a club.

Rajiphun Maldonado and Mistre take the apple, with kallisti scrawled
across it in pen in to the club. They are gone barely a few minutes before
coming back out with goofy grins on their faces.
“We just got trolled by Eris,” says Mistre. They had offered the apple with
the attached conditions to a group of three girls. They had agreed, turned
around to discuss, and thirty seconds later two of them pointed to the other
and said, “We think she’s the prettiest.”

The pair gave over the apple.

All the Discord that had been created by the ritual was amongst the
Discordians.

¹ In the years following this trip, the use of this name has grown more
visible, as has the female equivalent, Sarah Gulik.

² Marcelo later told me he meant to refer to the Brazilian Discordian scene

more than Brazil overall.

³ Marcelo made the following comment when I ran a copy of this chapter
past him; “Bacanal” (the Portuguese for bachannal) actually has to involve
a sex orgy. In this case there was drink, drugs, food, drumming and
chanting but no sex.

⁴ Parasitic to some degree. But also symbiotic if you know how to work
with the spirit of the place, Marcelo tells me in an email.
⁵ Maldonado seems to come from the character of Banana-nose Maldonado,
from the Illuminatus! trilogy.
 15. That’s Not a Religion, That’s Bullshit!

I continue to travel across Brazil. In Sao Paulo I arrive to the backdrop of

Baixo Centro: an open-source, Copyleft, community-run arts festival. I
meet Alleseyo here, a shaman and Discordian who also held links with the
Illuminates of Thanateros for a time.

“The Chaos Magic people have strong feelings for Eris, the Greek Goddess
of Discordia,” he tells me. “And because of this kind of conversation, I
knew the Principia Discordia and I tried to read it, and I understood
nothing. So I hadn’t learned the book. Sometime later I began to study Zen
Buddhism, and I had a Satori and an Illumination that I don’t need to
understand, to understand. I need to just to feel. To read - and I took the
Principia Discordia again and just read without thinking on understanding,
deep understanding. The ideas just flowed. So I create a persona for myself,
a Discordian Persona. The Buddha Desistir. The Buddha who gave up.”

In Florianopolis I meet with Peterson Silva, the young university student

who was responsible for the Portuguese language translation of the Black
Iron Prison.

“I don't think it still exists,” he tells me, somewhat sheepishly.

“The translation?” I ask.

“Yes, I don't think so. Like, I translated it and I posted it on my blog at the
time - 'The Facebook of the odd individual'. After some years working
there, I decided just to burn it all away, so I deleted the blog. You know,
without saving my old posts or anything. So I kind of regret not saving
Black Iron Prison. I don’t think it still exists unless somebody saved a copy
or something.”

Silva took part in the creation of a number of original Portuguese

Discordian works with the help of well-known Discordian blogger Ibrahim
Cesar. One of these was Discordia Brasilius, a magazine style publication
released some years ago. Recently, a new edition was released by a new
generation of Discordians.

“It was a really nice process you know. Together with the Ibrahim crowd
and everyone. And people from Rio and everything. I think around that
time I had seen the Black Iron Prison, I conducted an interview with the
guys from the principiadiscordia.com forums.”

That interview, translated into Portuguese, formed part of the edition of

Discordia Brasilius. This was followed many years later by Contos
Discordianos: Discordian Stories, featuring other Portuguese Discordians
Raphael Berado, Carol Peters and Duuhglas Juarezzz. The whole thing was
licensed under a Creative Commons license.

“Ibrahim wrote the introduction. And then we published it. It’s a cool
collection.”
As we talk, a friend of his comes by. Peterson introduces us to each other
and translates a little between us. The girl has come from a gender studies
class. Previously she and Peterson took a class on religion together, which
involved investigating whether Discordianism could be regarded as a
legitimate religion by members of the public.

“Some people were like, ‘That's not a religion, that's bullshit,’ some people
were like, ‘Come on, that's philosophy or something.’ But some people
were like, ‘No you have to have a moral authority,’ or something like that,
so we kind of devised that's what people wanted from religion- the moral
authority.” He adds though that some people did accept the idea that
Discordia could be a religion. He indicates towards the girl. “She still
doesn't profess herself as a Discordian or anything?” he says. It’s more a
question than a statement. “Still?”

She shakes her head, with some degree of amusement. No converts here.

“What percentage of people did you get who considered it to be a religion?”

I ask.

Well, our sample was ridiculous, it was very small,” he says. “We had no
time. But we got around 30, 40 per cent. Around that.”

Silva passes the details of other Discordians to me. One is Anthony Stanton
who Silva credits as being the first person to introduce Discordianism to
Brazil. We won’t get to meet. I do meet however with his second contact,
Janos Biro, a figure once well known in Discordia who has since hung up
his Pope hat.
 ***

I meet Biro in Goiânia. He is tall, with jet black hair and has a gentle
manner.

He is a big reader, into books on psychology, philosophy and theology, and

so on. He was also interested in Role Playing Games, which brought him to
the Illuminati game from Steve Jackson Games. As often is the case, the
rabbit hole opened up and sucked him in. He found and read Principia
Discordia on the Internet before his own Internet activities brought him to
the attention of one of Brazil’s most prolific Discordians in 2001.

“My first contact with Discordians began when I made a page which I
called Randomic Art. It was in Portuguese.”

Randomic Art was, the page purported, the practice of taking a screen-shot
of Windows Media Player’s visualization art - swirly special effects that
would play to compliment your music - and presenting them as real,
authentic art.

“I took a screenshot and pretended that was art. Made a lot of pictures like
that and pretended it was an interview with the artist; the artist was trying to
explain how he got to this concept of Randomic Art, why it was
revolutionary. It was a joke.”
This attracted the attention of the infamous and influential Discordian Ari
Almeida who wrote the Guide to Juvenile Delinquency. Almeida proceeded
to copy Biro’s page word for word and replaced Biro’s name with his own.

“He is crazy, he’s totally crazy,” Janos tells me, laughing. “He’s the craziest
guy I have ever met… I commented that he stole my page, he said,
‘Everything is stolen, but the bread is always for the fisher. It’s never for the
fish.’ ”

The pair became close over the Internet but met in person only once in Sao
Paulo. They were attending a meeting of Anarchists gathering to hear
Primativist and Anarchist philosopher John Zerzan speak.

“Ari Almeida was there and he took- maybe the craziest thing- he picked up
a chicken,” Biro says. “And he hides it in his bag. And he was planning on
releasing the chicken in the middle of John Zerzan’s talk. To see his
reaction. To see people screaming. He’s crazy.”

“Did he release the chicken?” I ask.

“No. I convinced him that it was not a good idea. It’s too crazy, mostly
because it was a vegan meeting. Vegans would kill him, you know. And so
he didn’t do that and he’s still alive so it’s better.”

Almeida was in close contact with Discordians in Brazil.

“He identified himself as Discordian and I didn’t. But he took my things,
my writings, and he showed them and they said, ‘This is Discordian. This is
so Discordian,’ so they wanted to make me a Reverend, and they took some
of my phrases for their site- they have a site with a compilation of phrases
that explain Discordian thought. There’s two or three of my phrases there.
So they liked what I wrote, and I read what they were writing. I was in
contact with their ideas. But I left; I really think there was a serious thing
there but I wouldn’t consider myself Discordian. Mostly because I never
considered myself anything back then.”

I ask a little more about Almeida.

“He took it too deep you know,” Biro says. “He abandoned everything. He
went to live with artists of Brazil in a very poor area. And he was a driver, a
school driver there. And after that he was back, and he was writing about
popular music… He even got to write on the Brazilian MTV blog site, and I
was talking to him, what the hell you are doing, it’s so strange, you write
about a music style that I believe no other Discordian I’ve met likes.”

“Is that that kind of Favela sexual funk?” I ask. I’m intimately familiar with
‘Funk Carioca’ now, through Julia Fenderson’s penchant for randomly
periodically breaking out into song in the style.

“Yeah, yeah. He liked it a lot. And then he got to read Jung. Scholarship.
Psychoanalysis. Then one time he said to me he was becoming a Christian.
He never stops changing. It’s difficult to chase him. It’s difficult to find
him, he’s always in a different place, he uses different names. He thinks
different things.”
Shed yourself and your idea of what has to be, I think.

***

Biro was well known in many circles. While not identifying explicitly with
any given identity, he was claimed and respected by many. The Anarchists
enjoyed his writings on Anarchism, the atheists enjoyed his tirades against
religion, vegans loved his pro-vegan writings, and he gave the Discordians
free reign to take his writing with or without attribution for a website that
collated quotes relevant to Discordianism. They only ever attributed one of
his quotes to him; Reality is not real, and that’s not a contradiction. He was
loved and respected by many – as long as he was cheering for the right
team.

***

Biro is now a Christian. “I was an atheist in 2008,” he says. “I was a very

active atheist. I was writing letters to religious leaders. Many atheists here
in Goiânia had me as a reference because I was a religious philosopher. I
knew how to argue, how to identify fallacies. I was writing against all kind
of religions. I was taking it very seriously. And then I heard of this small
church, this place where the minister had a formation in philosophy,
theology, sociology. They said he was very bright. He was very intelligent.
And so I went there because I was convinced that no matter how intelligent
he was, there had to be something wrong, because religion was nonsense, so
you couldn’t take it seriously. If you were taking it seriously there had to be
something wrong. And I already argued with every religious person I’ve
met, and I proved them all wrong, from my point of view, so I wanted to
prove he was wrong too. No matter how smart he was, I’d prove him
wrong. But I ended up questioning myself, and I thought what he was
saying was really different and really made sense to me. I ended up
questioning atheism, so I moved from criticizing religion to criticizing
atheism. And then I got to a point where I had to make a decision, if I
wanted to be a theist or an atheist. Be a Christian or non-Christian. And I
decided to be Christian. That’s the simplified version.”

The atheist community was displeased.

“A lot of friends said that it was because of my wife now. She was looking
for a religion and we met and we start dating. I wanted to bring her to
atheism but… she didn’t accept atheism. And we broke up. My friends were
saying don’t go, if you become a Christian right now it’s just to stay with
your girlfriend. Don’t let a girl make you a Christian. And I knew this, I
didn’t want to forget all I knew about religion and accept it just to stay with
her. It would be unfair to her. It would be awful. So I had every reason not
to be a Christian.

‘But at that point it came into my mind, I remembered something I thought

many years ago. I have every reason not to be a Christian, and I’m actually
thinking about it. Why? It’s somehow complicated but my friends didn’t get
it. They are sure I became Christian because of my girlfriend at the time,
my wife now. They’re convinced there’s no logical, no rational, no other
reason for a person to become Christian. And that’s not true, even for a
Discordian, you know. So it’s a kind of a contradiction to argue like that.”

“So you talk about the reaction of the atheist community, that’s the reaction
of the Discordian community as well?” I ask.
“Many Discordians. They had a wiki page. They had a Discordian wiki
page, Discordia Brazil I think and they had an entry for my name. Janos
Biro. And they wrote, Janos Biro, he’s a guy. I don’t know if he’s a
Discordian but he wrote a lot of things closely connected to Discordianism.
He was becoming greener and greener until he became a cabbage. Yeah,
they described me like that. He was becoming green until he became a
cabbage. And not satisfied with that he became a Christian.” He laughs
cheerfully. “But my atheist friends thought that was a treason. It was a
betrayal. They took it seriously. Discordians made jokes about it. Atheists
got sad about it, they were saying like, we lost him, he is dead now.”

Along with his rejection of previous life ideologies; alienating not only the
Discordians and Atheists, Biro inspired a wave of antipathy from vegans as
he returned to eating meat, and disdain from Anarchists as he abandoned
Anarchist thought. Combined with going cold turkey on the crack/cocaine
of the computer generation – Facebook – Biro has lost almost all touch with
his previous contacts.

“I lost almost all the contacts I had the first time I got off Facebook. I had a
lot of contacts on the internet and now I have almost none. My contacts
now are more face to face,” he says. And perhaps it’s my subconscious need
to build a narrative out of his story, but I feel like I can detect a hint of
sadness in his voice.
 16. The Sum of Sacred Chaos

When I first arrive in Argentina, I find the tone of my surroundings to be

challenging. I walk through dirty streets, past the same damaged car every
day, past seemingly solemn, unhappy people. Unlike Brazil’s outgoing
population I find it hard to get to know locals. Later I have this tendency
explained to me; that Argentina is the ‘land of the trickster’, so people take
a little longer to trust.

But nobody has told me this yet – I will hear it soon from Rita, a local
Discordian and Steampunk aficionado who has offered to let me stay at her
place later in the week. For now, I take a trip out to Tierra Santa, one of the
world’s only two Christian theme parks. There are bizarre booming voice of
God light shows, the hourly rising of a gigantic Christ from a mountain and
a huge number of statues (apparently there was a special on concrete
sheep). There are also frequent belly dancing shows featuring beautiful,
seductive women, which does little to dissuade various unchristian
inclinations.

I am also given details for other Discordians by Sirius Mazzu who is

probably the biggest Discordian figure in Argentina and is well known for
translating the Illuminatus! trilogy into Spanish as a fan-project. While I’m
not able to meet with Mazzu, he keeps in contact via email, setting me up
with several Discordian figures including Kokote Multiversal.

The house where I meet Kokote is crowded and at first I can’t find him. It’s
not clear yet what’s happening; ‘some kind of show’ was all I’d been told.
We are ushered into a small room where the band, Astrosuka, is setting up.
There are two members, one a girl on drums and vocals and a guy on
electric guitar. Their sound is harsh, playful and catchy by turns, a type of
indy pop electronic noise metal. People in the room sit around, bobbing
heads with enthusiasm. Eventually when they finish their tour de-force,
people wander out and I am introduced to Kokote.

He is a tall, slim man, with a bold moustache and goatee. He himself is in a

band called Sensacion Tropicale, amongst others.

“Right now I'm writing a musical,” he tells me.

“In a band or…”

“Yeah. In a couple of bands,” he says.

“It seems everybody here is in a couple of bands,” I say.

“Yeah… with the regulations it’s getting harder and harder,” he says.

The regulations date back to 2004, when the band Callajeros performed on
New Year’s Eve at bar República Cromañón. A flare was set off inside
which ignited a fire that ended up killing nearly 200 people. A number of
factors contributed to the tragedy including the fact that the club was given
a permit despite lacking basic safety features such as fire extinguishers, the
flammable materials used in the club as decoration, and a number of doors,
including fire escapes, having been locked to prevent people entering
without paying.

The fire was reported worldwide, but the story of the aftermath has not
been. When strict new regulations were put in place, many clubs did not
have the money or perhaps inclination to meet the requirements. The
opportunities for bands to play dried up, and the scene died.

On the outside anyway.

From what I see, the Argentine music scene is one of the freshest, most
exciting, and most incestuous musical scenes around… if you know where
to look.¹

Kokote discovered Discordia through the works of Robert Anton Wilson,

which he read (and ‘couldn’t stop reading’) on the Internet in English. I ask
what about Discordia appealed to him.

“Mostly the humour. And I really like religions. I’m anti-dogma, so I like
the ‘do it yourself’ thing. Also the paradoxical humour. It’s like, when
you’re confronted with a paradox, your mind stops and something
interesting seems to happen.”

There are two more bands to play. One consists of three solo acts
performing together, a group who don’t have a name. They begin to play
with a girlish, sweet almost folk sound. Someone has hooked up a projector
to a laptop, and is playing pornography up against the wall. They are
followed by a third act, El Espiritu Santo, a rollicking bordello style band.
This was formed as a fictional band within a play, I am told, and the
performers just enjoyed what they were doing enough to continue playing
after the play was over.

***

Rita puts me up a few days later. She strikes a curious figure, bold in her
vibrancy and larger than life personality. She is keenly intelligent, with a
sharp, curious thoughtfulness, but physically tiny, almost sprite-like, with a
girlish black hair that drops down in a fringe. She’s a writer, an academic, a
steampunk and an artist.

In a discussion online before we met, I’d chatted to Rita about the

Illuminatus! and had (not so) helpfully let her know that it was available in
her native Spanish. She’d told me she much preferred to read it in English.
Once I’m there, I quickly see why. Rita speaks eloquently and poetically
and indulges in Shakespeare and Chaucer; she’s got a better handle on the
language than I do. Her apartment is a small yet comfortable space that
overlooks the greyed facades of other buildings. She has a copy of
Illuminatus! on her shelf, a work she discovered in 2003, a decade after her
first exposure to the Principia Discordia.

“It was because of a friend who said, ‘Rita you just have to read it you'll
love it,’ ” she says. There’s an almost British tinge to her voice. “I instantly
got hooked because it was a time of my life where I was meeting these
really interesting people and I think that in my teenage years I went from a
Catholic background to a very atheistic belief or nonbelief. I was taking it
very seriously. I mean, I was like a full-time atheist. I had been such a
Catholic that I had to react with some strength and in 2002/2003, all my
structures were breaking down.

‘I was moving from town to town, and I was leaving a career and starting
another and meeting loads of new people. And I think that it was all very
fertile to a redistribution of my belief system and that I started taking things
a lot less seriously, my atheism as well. Just grabbing whichever kind of
pieces, religious, non-religious, philosophical and other things, pieces of
belief, truth or just sheer lies and whenever they fit I just took them and
made them like a part of my background, my setting, and we were all
having these philosophical conversations.”

She is a writer herself, and sees creativity as inherent to the spirit of

Discordianism.

“I think that's inside the very spirit of the thing, just like transmuting and
making things new and lying and telling the truth all at the same time. And
here I think that I felt very lonely, and we didn't have some kind of
organized cabal or movement or anything. My other friends lost their
interest very quickly; I just kept up with it. I read some pieces which I could
find on the net time and again, but I couldn't find the books or anything. I
only got the physical copy of the Illuminatus! trilogy a little more than a
year ago. I didn't even know there were other Discordians here in Argentina
until you contacted me. Just shows how unorganized we are here. I'm
speaking for myself, but maybe it extends to other people here; I didn't feel
that I needed to be with other people to promote the beliefs. I think that it is
a way of life. It's just like how a meme works, when you just try to live an
idea you are broadcasting this idea to the world even if you don't name the
idea. Our cultural meanings and behaviours traverse from individual to
individual…
‘I mean I am not a Discordian, I am not just a Discordian. And I think that
we are so changeable, and we have these many faces and personalities and
belief systems, and they just mix in the culture of your personality and
yourself or many selves… Discordianism was for me something that
reflected what I already thought. And it seemed like the kind of aphorism
and wordplay and funny fragments that I already wrote and read and I was
interested in from earlier times. I think that it was just a name for a set of
intellectual processes and creative outcomes that I was kind of already
having.”

A few nights later I take her out to meet with Kokote Multiversal and his
band Sensacion Tropicale. They're having a rehearsal and have invited us
along.

They play their tracks, with Kokote dressed in a witch’s hat, growling and
singing into the microphone while swaying like a drunken sailor.
Afterwards they take us out to a traditional style Argentine barbecue. We
drink and talk and celebrate, and I ask Kokote if there’s any way to live off
your music in Argentina.

“It’s more like a religion,” he says. “We work other jobs and waste all our
money playing music.”

***
A few days before I leave, another Mazzu connection, Mad Crampi of
Agencia Ouranios replies to me. Rita translates.

Aloha! Sorry I can not speak good English, but the 233 Invisible Agent will
contact you shortly to arrange a meeting. FADE TO BLACK.

Soon after, I am called up, and invited to come and visit the Agencia
Ouranios headquarters. It is a private residence on a slim sidewalk. A young
man who soon introduces himself as Auric shakes my hand and invites me
into the elevator. Like the one in Rita’s apartment, it is rickety with a metal
folding door pulled shut by hand. He leads me up into a large apartment.
There is a very clear theme of magic with mystical paintings, tarot cards
and ceremonial weapons. This is the headquarters of Agencia Ouranios.

Agencia Ouranios means ‘the Uranus Agency’.

“We call it Uranus because the planet is related to chaos and magicians,”
Auric tells me when we’re inside.

The Agency is chiefly represented by Auric and filmmaker Mad Crampi.

Auric frequently talks to Crampi before responding to me. Sometimes he’s
translating, sometimes he’s using his own words and ideas. Sometimes he’s
translating his own statements back into Spanish for Crampi’s approval.
The two are communicating as a unit, and while almost always the words
come from Auric’s mouth, it’s really the agency speaking.
Auric is a young university student with short brown hair. Crampi is older,
bulky and looks almost like a biker. He’s established in Argentina as a
filmmaker. He has a tattoo on the side of his head in Greek writing and
another of 777 on the shoulder. I ask about the tattoos. Both relate to
Thelema, the religion founded by Aleister Crowley.

“He was going to have 666,” Auric tells me. “He figured 99% of people
associate that number with Satan, the devil and he would have to explain to
all of them wait, that number’s not actually Satan. You know, from a
Thelemic point of view 666 is the sun. The sun, not the star. And he doesn’t
consider himself a Satanist or anything of the sort, so he just says to
himself, ‘fuck it I’ll go with 777,’ which does have a lot of meaning as well
in Thelema, esotericism, gematria which is the study of numbers.”

The Greek on the side of his head is the word Thelema.

Both men are members of the local O.T.O and Thelema is one of a very
large number of influences on their agency.

“We are very invested in Thelema. And then we are Discordians and Chaos
Magicians... Even we have a lot of Kibanda type magical practices. So I
guess we could define ourselves as very eclectic, if you want to use that
word.”

This broad range of influences is reflected in the numbers associated with

the group; 23, 222 and 93. The first, 23, has its roots in Discordianism and
the work of Robert Anton Wilson (and further back to William Burroughs).
The second, 222 comes from Ningunismo, an ideology native to Argentina
founded by an Argentine youth. The thesis of Ningunismo (roughly
translatable as none-ism) states that the youth have abandoned social values
due to being forced to exist inside of a virtual reality which can be breached
with practices such as Urban Exploration. Sadly, it may have been this
practice that led to the death of founder Roy Khalidbahn and three of his
friends while exploring a sewer in stormy conditions.

The last number, 93, is from Thelema.

“We consider ourselves to be in debt to those three currents so we use those

numbers. We try to cover everything. The logo is the chaos symbol mixed
up with the symbol of the planet.”

The organization have taken on a number of projects. Their boldest and

most interesting was a recent one named Operation Mindfuck, perhaps after
the Discordian practice of the same name.

“It was a sort of initiation for the masses... We mixed up a lot of things,
Magic, Thelema, Discordia, but it was Guerrilla Ontology.”

Guerrilla Ontology is a term devised by Robert Anton Wilson that refers to

the practice of interrupting people’s ‘reality tunnels’ and introducing them
to new ideas by stealth.
The agency hold two types of operations; public and private.

“The operation we organized last year was open to anyone. But it still was
secret in its contents until you were here. This year, actually we turned the
house around... people were blindfolded, there’s some strange substances
involved as well, there was a lot of interaction, dialogue, acting, poetry,
music - we don’t want to give too many details, but it was a kind of
initiation.”

He shows me to a hook where biohazard suits and gas masks are held.
These and ‘other things’ were used to dress the members of the agency
during the ritual.

“We have three agents and a secretary as well who was the girl who
welcomed the guests, and she blindfolded them in this area until we
received them. One of the three of us was a more muscular type guy; he had
a baseball bat. Then the two of us were more like mindfuckers.”

After the ‘initiation’, attendees were given an envelope with a sigil² on it,
some instructions and a pin with the logo of the agency.

“They have been expecting since then some message or something. But we
are planning some more than thought and all the tricks. We are very
interested in… the Poetic Terrorism philosophy. We are much more
interested in that now. We are very much indebted as well to Hakim Bey.”
I mention that I know of Temporary Autonomous Zones, one of Bey’s
ideas; a temporary space in which the usual laws and values no longer
apply.

“In fact we are very interested in making temporary autonomous zones,”

Auric tells me. “We’re being watched every day. More so in the USA, like a
police state. We don’t have that yet here but we are on our way...³

‘So in a way, we are ontological warriors… You could say we are armed but
with other types of weapons.”

He takes me through some of the Tarot cards. These were part of the ritual
too, with initiates being given cards to take home and decode later. There
are multiple decks all over the apartment.

“How about you take one,” Auric tells me.

“That would be lovely, thank you,” I say.

My card is the Two of Wands. Mad Crampi has gone downstairs, and Auric
suggests we wait until he returns to get a reading of the card. Crampi is
much more into tarot than himself.

“Of course he considers the Thoth tarot to be the best one,” he says, “Which
is the Crowley Tarot.”
When Crampi gets back he explains the card to me, using Auric as a
translator.

“The double Wand of Power. It’s Will. Pure Will. Well it does make sense,”
Auric says as an aside to Crampi, “He’s on the other side of the world. The
Lord of the double wand. In Thelemic terms it’s Ra-Hoor-Khuit. He’s one
of the three entities who speaks to Aiwass.”

Aiwass was the spiritual entity that dictated the Book of The Law to
Crowley.

“In 1904 Crowley was in Egypt with his wife of the moment and he made
some magical operation,” Auric explains. “It didn’t quite work but she
started to hear voices. And she told him that, ‘They want to talk to you.’ So
he took her to a museum when they were in Cairo. They were walking
through the part, when they spotted this, made of wood.”

He points at a tablet on Crampi’s shrine. It is a famous image known to

Thelemites as the Stele of Revealing, though was historically known as the
Stele of Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu, after the priest for whom it was made. The
image features the priest standing before the God Ra-Hoor-Khuit Above
them is a red circle with wings, representing Hadit, and creating a border
over the whole scene, stretching over the other figures is a blue female
figure called Nut.
It doesn’t really matter if the message was dictated or not, Auric tells me.
He sees a profundity and value in the text itself that cannot be negated by
the questions one might raise about the validity of the origin story.
Regardless, he continues to tell the story, as per canon.

“So it goes that he sat there at noon on the first day and he started to hear a
voice over his left shoulder, an entity who describes himself as Aiwass. And
this Aiwass is like an intermediary between Crowley and the three entities
that dictated the book of Law.”

“So for Thelemites this is important because you have the whole cosmology
of Thelema explained,” he says. “In fact this guy here is Ankh-ef-en-
Khonsu.” He points to the priest in the stele image. “It’s very particular that
this stele tells of the relation – the guy’s at the same height as the God.
That’s very relevant in relation to Thelema, and even to Discordia in a way,
because you are a Pope. To find the divine in yourself, I would say it’s very
much related to Discordia... I think Robert Anton Wilson used to say it
about Crowley, that he was the one who introduced laughter into mysticism
and magic. Which is another connection you might find with Discordia.”

***

Mad Crampi used to look through his father’s books on magic as a kid. His
father did not encourage him but didn’t discourage him either. His interest
in Discordia followed a kind of ring-around-the-rosies, from Crowley, to
Chaos Magic, to Robert Anton Wilson, to Discordianism and then back to
Crowley.
“If you check out our page again we have a gallery called Saints of our
Current.” Auric says.

This brings us deeper into the broad range of influences on Agencia

Ouranios. Both men have an interest in Sufism, being mystical Islam. Auric
rattles off a list of additional influences.

“We kind of think that modern current of open knowledge or surge of

Guerrilla Ontology etc was started with Crowley. We believe that. In fact
you can see that Robert Anton Wilson and many others were influenced by
Crowley. Burroughs, Timothy Leary, Hakim Bey very much, Alan Moore,
all of those… Crampi’s a very big fan of Phillip K Dick.”

“Terence McKenna. Michael Moorcock. Alex Grey,” says Crampi, before

speaking in Spanish briefly, “Carlos Castaneda.”

“He just used a very interesting phrase. He said, ‘The prophets of the
psychedelic era.’ We think Crowley might have been the first prophet of
that particular era. There are others who came before him but not in the
psychedelic age.”

“John Lilly,” adds Crampi. “Hoffman. Huxley.”

“Wilhelm Reich,” adds Auric.

 ***

Towards the end of our time together Crampi begins to speak to Auric in
Spanish.

“Another story, the backstory to our agency which he is about to tell you, is
related to extra-terrestrials,” Auric tells me.

The story begins with Crampi meditating in the summer of 2011, when he
saw the image of a white triangle.

“He discovers a space time vortex of sorts while he is meditating,” Auric

says. “So he enters in communion with an extra-terrestrial entity, or that’s
what he thinks. Which at that time had no name. He begins communicating
in symbols that are unpronounceable. And it transmits a message which I
can’t- linguistically it’s- I’ll say it in Spanish first. Los amigos-enemigos
estamos en guerra-paz- which means the friend-enemies are in war-peace.
The message was longer but that was the most interesting part for him
because the power of that symbol. From that moment on he starts to write a
short novel a micro-novel, which he calls the Conspiracy of Uranus.

‘He starts experiencing some synchronicities between what he’s writing and
what happens. He starts to research about that and he finds that it is actually
quite common. In fact Grant Morrison had a lot of stories like this when he
was writing The Invisibles. He’s saying these entities are radios, radio
stations and we have to tune in to them or, tune in, turn on, drop out.⁴
‘He says that while we could say that we created the agency it’s actually
kind of inherited by us though these kinds of means. Just as the account of
the Invisible College.⁵ Like different names for the same kind of thing, it’s
like a current through which we are all connected somehow. The agents
more than anything. He speaks in terms of a virus; we were extra-terrestrial
seeds that had been planted and it’s sort of our mission to spread this very
same virus. William Burroughs used to speak about language in that sense,
a virus from outer space. Rock n’ roll is a virus. Discordia is a virus. Magic
is a virus. There are pathological agents, in the good sense of the word, who
are better, much better than others at this, in this transmission. This mission.
Robert Anton Wilson and all the other guys we have mentioned and lastly
our Pope [Crowley].⁶ The purpose is to expand our mind and prepare
ourselves for the quantum jump. Which also involves having fun. Lots and
lots. And fuck minds.

‘It’s interesting to note that both Robert Anton Wilson and Timothy Leary
insisted very much on this concept of migration to prepare ourselves for,
whether it was space or another stage. Robert Anton Wilson went as far as
to say, ‘Who told you, you had to die?’ Which I think is a fascinating
concept. We all have it as a given that we must die. But- [he is briefly
interrupted by Crampi in Spanish] Prepare ourselves for zero gravity, that’s
right. So in a nutshell, our agency, we can say we created it, we use that
name and everything else but we are an agent of something bigger, we
inherited it from some other place. Just as you could say Discordia is the
sum of sacred chaos.”

¹ I’ve begun to write on this in detail – see sinosorganizamos.weebly.com.

² In a literal occult sense, a symbol charged with energy. Sigil can also be
used as a term to describe this general idea in a more agnostic sense, being
applied metaphorically (for example, book The Art of Memetics describes
trademarks as being similar to sigils).

³ Prophetically, I returned to Buenos Aires a few years after this interview,

and the most obvious change was the notable increase in police presence.

⁴ A quote from Timothy Leary.

⁵ Again, from Grant Morrison’s comic The Invisibles.

⁶ Crowley was (semi-)jokingly referred to as the Pope of the Psychedelic

movement in previous conversation.
 17. Long Day’s Journey Into Insanity

I return home and the days pass. I write and write and write. I take a
teaching job where I’m staying in Cairns to put a bit more money into my
trip. For a time, I enter into a polyamorous relationship myself with a
couple I meet while actively pursuing counterculture communities. I feel
like I’m building an understanding of something I’ve known for a long time
but never quite had the words for. Any hippy can exhale smoke, twiddle
their dreadlocks and say, ‘reality is an illusion, man.’ What are the
mechanics of this idea though? What potential does it hold? And what are
the limitations? I’m developing a hunger for putting these ideas into
practice, to rely on imagination, playfulness and pure potentiality as the
building blocks of a life that doesn’t have to resemble any existing
structures.

This is just the eye of the storm though, not the start of fine weather. When
I have the money and the opportunity, I gather myself and prepare to travel
to Europe to continue my explorations. The curious art of building myself a
life freed from the shackles of ‘ought to’ and ‘got to’ is going to have to
wait – I’m still in a story that’s half told.

The next part of my story is in London, though I stay in Bristol, an artistic

city close to my interviewees. On one of my first days in the city I jump on
a train to London.

There are two key stories of Discordia waiting to be told in the UK. One is
of the KLF, the superstar band that took the world by storm before quitting
the music business and burning a million pounds of cash. The starting point
of their story is our other tale, the Illuminatus! play.

Our tale begins, like so many have, with that delightful divergent Robert
Anton Wilson. Wilson first discovered Discordianism through his mail
correspondence with Kerry Thornley in 1967. In a 1992 interview with
Reverend Wyrdsli, Thornley discussed Wilson’s interest in Discordia.

He said, very early in our relationship, that one of the things we needed
were God models that were appropriate to Anarchism. And he had written
some stuff about Taoism and the spirit of the valley lady; the eternal female
and about Chen Dynasty matrism and so on and so forth, so I suggested to
him Eris Discordia and told him about the Discordian society, and he was
just very enthused about it, plunged into it, got very active in it, and was
responsible for a lot of our creeds and dogmas and so on and so forth.¹

Robert Anton Wilson would become involved in the Discordian

shenanigans known collectively as Operation Mindfuck that next year. It
was of course, his and Robert Shea’s Illuminatus! trilogy that would
introduce the phrase to the majority of people. His involvement in O:MF
included the development of a large mythos built up around the Bavarian
Illuminati. O:MF included many facets, Wilson in particular using it as a
form of Guerrilla Ontology to disrupt people’s usual comfortable thinking
processes.

Robert Shea, the editor of Anarchist zine No Governor, was Wilson’s

partner in crime. They worked together, editing the Playboy letters section.
A number of the letters the pair received were from paranoids alleging that
they were the target of various conspiracies. Using the concept that perhaps
every single one of the alleged conspiracies was true, they began work on
the Illuminatus! trilogy.

One of the features of the trilogy was a long-running feud running between
the Discordians and the Illuminati, which was invoked in the Illuminatus!
trilogy at Shea’s bequest.²

The trilogy was released in 1975 and quickly developed a higher profile
than the Principia itself. In fact, many readers assumed the earlier published
Principia Discordia was one of Shea and Wilson’s many fabrications and
were often stunned to discover it was real.

***

In 1978, another player in this tale, Ken Campbell, went into Compendium,
a bookshop in Camden Town. He was looking for a work to perform at the
Liverpool Theatre of Language, Music, Dream and Pun: the site founded by
poet Peter O’Halligan. In this store he spotted a copy of Illuminatus!, a
yellow submarine on the cover, representing a possible synchronicity to the
Liverpool music scene that spawned the Beatles. This became the first
project to be performed in Liverpool Theatre of Language, Music, Dream
and Pun.

Anyone who has seen a copy of Illuminatus! has had the sheer size of the
work impressed upon them. Completing it is no mean feat. Adapting it
down to the size of a typical play would be even more daunting. However
Campbell took it a step further; instead of cutting out huge chunks of the
text, he kept the work at largely its original size and developed eight and a
half hours of performance. In Liverpool he presented five plays over five
nights, with the fifth being a presentation of all five, one after the other, in a
mammoth all day performance.³

The creative team behind the play included Chris Langham who helped
produce the play alongside Campbell as lead role George Dorn; Jim
Broadbent in a number of minor roles including biological weapon designer
Dr Charles Moncenigo and the sadistic Sheriff Jim Cartwright; Bill Nighy
as magazine editor Joe Malik; David Rappaport as Markoff Chainey; and
the work of Bill Drummond, later of The KLF fame, as a set designer.

I walk up to the National Theatre. After the Liverpool shows, the play
moved on to performances in Amsterdam before finally coming to London.
I have come here just to stand in front of the theatre and do a small video
talking about the Illuminatus! but decide to try my luck wandering in and
asking at the theatre shop if they know anything about the play. They refer
me to the National Theatre Archive.

The next day I go to the archive and am given a large case full of
documentation from the play. The most voluminous is the play itself, an
enormous pile of A4 paper. Sketches of the Eye in the Pyramid, set plans
and advertising images are scrawled across the backs of several of the
pages.

I pull out several newspaper articles. Most are reviews, but a small number
stand out as oddities that contribute an additional layer of weirdness to the
already larger than life Illuminatus! saga.
One article is titled Horror Mission of an Actor Obsessed with the Occult
from the Daily Mail, 7/9/82 about Illuminatus! cast member Chris Taynton
whose roles included the pimp Carmel and Robert Putney Drake, the head
of the American Crime Syndicate. The article told of how Taynton,
believing he had been overcome by alien forces, attacked Adrena Smith, a
57 year old lady, by stabbing her multiple times. He blinded her in one eye
and sadistically killed her pets. Taynton’s involvement in the Illuminatus!
play was raised in court by his defence, Patricia May, specifically in regard
to the play’s supernatural and occult themes.

“Having taken an extremely exciting part in a somewhat bizarre play he

became more and more involved in the principles that were propounded in
that play,” said May.

It seems a number of the cast went on to have troubled futures. David

Rappaport, an actor with achondroplastic dwarfism who played a main role
in Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits struggled with depression in his later life
and ultimately shot himself fatally in the chest in 1990, in Laurel Canyon
Park, California.

Chris Langham was jailed for 10 months in 2007 for possessing level five⁴
child pornography which he claimed was both part of researching a
character and helping himself deal with his own abuse as an eight year old
child.

Before we enter into curse of Tutankhamen⁵ territory, it’s worth noting not
all actors in Illuminatus! had such tragic destinies. Jim Broadbent and Bill
Nighy continue to enjoy prosperous acting careers, and Ken Campbell left a
long legacy of genius (as well as a record for longest play ever- not in fact
for Illuminatus! but for the 22 hour long The Warp). He was remembered
by Liverpool Everyman Theatre and Playhouse Artistic Director Gemma
Bodinetz as “The door through which many hundreds of kindred souls
entered a madder, braver, brighter, funnier and more complex universe.”

Another article I read was titled Raising School Fees for Gorilla, and was
published in The Guardian on 19/04/77.

In Illuminatus! our intrepid heroes encounter a group of Gorillas that they

spend time with. Hagbard Celine, played by Neil Cunningham, has a
conversation with them in Swahili (the gorillas all speak English, but are
much more comfortable with Swahili). When Malik (Bill Nighy) asks if
Celine taught the gorillas to speak, he responds that the gorillas have always
been able to speak but have largely kept their abilities secret;

...the gorillas themselves are too shrewd to talk to anybody but another
anarchist. They're all anarchists themselves, you know, and they have a very
healthy wariness about people in general and government people in
particular. As one of them told me once, 'If it got out that we can talk, the
conservatives would exterminate most of us and make the rest pay rent to
live on our own land; and the liberals would try to train us to be engine-
lathe operators. Who the fuck wants to operate an engine lathe?' They
prefer their own pastoral and Eristic ways, and I, for one, would never
interfere with them.”

Meanwhile in Stanford University (apparently unaware of the gorillas’ long

term bluff) Miss Penny Patterson was busy trying to teach English to Koko
the gorilla. Koko, according to Drawing the Line: Science and the Case for
Animal Rights knew 2000 spoken English words and 1000 words in
American Sign Language as of 2003. However, in 1977, the project was in
very real danger of running out of money, in which case Koko would find
herself returned to the San Francisco Zoo.

Perhaps because of the plot connection, perhaps for other more cosmically
unfathomable reasons, the Science Fiction Theatre of Liverpool (the
organization run by Campbell and Langham specifically to produce the
play) decided to support the project, even going as far as to consider adding
an optional 50p levy to the audience, in addition to setting up a stall to raise
money.

“It was exactly the sort of research we think should be continued,” said
Nighy.

“You never know what might be found out,” Campbell was quoted as
saying.

***

A lot has been written about the play from the internal perspective. Adam
Gorightly writes in The Prankster and the Conspiracy about Wilson and
Shae being flown to London and witnessing the performance. On a dare,
Wilson joined the cast masked and naked for the Satanic Black Mass
sequence, chanting ‘do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the law’.
Adam also discusses a performance of Illuminatus! that took place in
Seattle, where a number of the heavy hitters of Discordianism came
together; Bob and Arlen Wilson, Louise Lacey, Bob Newport (both of
whom we met in California), Rita Newport, and several other friends of the
Wilsons. Persons unnamed brought along enough MDMA for everyone,
and helped the party of Discordians warm up in the cool night. The
experience was deeply enjoyed, and they spent the whole time high, a little
on MDMA but for the most part on fun and friendship.

John Higgs also discussed the play in KLF: Chaos, Magic and the Band
Who Burned a Million Pounds. He adds to Adam’s account that on the
night of the London performance, Wilson had brought with him a large
amount of LSD that he offered to the cast.

“Everyone went very quiet and then… ‘Yeah, why not, thanks,’ and we all
dived in,” Higgs quotes Nighy as saying.

I’m curious about the audience reaction. How did audiences react to eight
and a half hours of performance (with ‘at least’ five intervals)? I was
extremely interested to find out and spent a good deal of time rummaging
through archival reviews.

Definite themes arose. The play was praised mostly for its unrestrained
ambition, for a number of strong individual performances, Bill
Drummond’s brilliant set design, the quality of dialogue, the puppets used
(including Howard the dolphin, managed by Jim Broadbent) and for
providing value for money, being a whole day affair. It was criticized,
predictably, for its length (a number of less favourable critics openly
admitted leaving the play partway through), for its explicit sexual content,
the confusing nature of the plot, the niche appeal of the story, the lack of a
clear resolution and the disappearance of many of the most engaging
characters by the end of the play.

The Sunday Times described the play (or at least the two hours of it the
reviewer stayed for) as ‘feeble stuff; lifeless chatter about international and
interstellar conspiracies, in the form of a poorly animated strip cartoon’.

It gets another grilling (though not by name) in a charmingly hysterical

piece entitled Let us Stop being Polite About Pornography by David
Holbrook who quotes a ‘leading British industrialist’ describing second
hand what is unmistakably the black mass sequence from Illuminatus!. He
had, apparently, been shivering ever since it was described to him by a girl
who was ‘pretty and gentle and 22’.

(In case there was any doubt that Holbrook was referring to the Illuminatus!
play, the depiction he gives of the unnamed director coming onto stage and
yelling, ‘if more of you f-ing people would come to this f-ing play we might
be able to make enough money to put on more like it,’ seems to be
unambiguously Ken Campbell.)

There were positive reviews. Playboy (Wilson and Shea’s old employer)
said ‘Somewhere between an initiation rite, a marathon dance and an
experiment in communal living, Illuminatus! long day’s journey into
insanity should appeal to closet lunatics everywhere.’

Another rave review came from Michael Coveny in the Financial Times
who praised in particular the dialogue, the acting of Chris Langham, Neil
Cunningham, Prunella Gee and John Joyce, and the set design of Bill
Drummond.

‘The work remains and astounding testament to what can be achieved on a

minimal budget with the right man in charge,’ he wrote.

“It’s definitely a cult production,” said Lois Allen, reviewing the play on
BBC radio. “You either fall into it with delight as some people did, or you
come away with a sense of despair at the waste of such tremendous effort.”

***

I had heard a number of times of musician Bill Drummond’s stunning set

design for the Illuminatus! play before arriving at the archives. However, I
had no idea what to expect when I got there.

When Ken Campbell was setting up for the play he told the cast to ask
themselves the question ‘is it heroic?’ when making decisions. Drummond
wrote this on the back wall of his workshop and got to work.

The sets were stunning. One sequence featuring a tarot card reading placed
the table and seat directly onto the vertical plane of the wall so it was as
though the viewer was looking down from above. Much of the set was far
too large for the actors, or far too small. One image shows George Dorn in
prison, on a teeny tiny stool in a teeny tiny jail cell. In one sequence, a lover
disappears from a scene through the bottom of the bed.
At the first night of the performance, Drummond told the cast he was
popping out to pick up some glue.

He never came back.

***

While in London, I have a chance to further unravel the great KLF,

Campbell, Wilson knot. I am lucky enough to be in London in time to see a
talk titled The Late Great Robert Anton Wilson, a night organized by author
John Higgs. His talk tonight however, does not relate directly to the subject
of his most recent release - The KLF - but is instead devoted to the life and
times of Robert Anton Wilson.

This is a kind of mission for Higgs. “This is a delicate time at the moment
for his [RAW’s] legacy,” he tells us in the opening moments of his speech.
“The way these things normally happen, the natural rhythm, when a writer
or artist dies or stops producing, interest in their work dwindles for a decade
or two. And then it is either reassessed or rediscovered and they get their
place in the pantheon, or it’s not. And it’s forgotten. We like to think it
stands to the quality of their work, but I think we all know it’s a bit more
arbitrary than that. It’s a bit more chaotic than that.”

Higgs discovered Robert Anton Wilson through his first book, I have
America Surrounded: The life of Timothy Leary. Wilson was close friends
with Leary and Higgs interviewed Wilson on Leary towards the end of his
life.

Higgs’s meeting with Wilson left him feeling compelled to write about him
and his idea of multiple-model agnosticism. That book didn’t turn out with
Wilson’s name and face plastered over the cover, but in fact became the
previously mentioned work on The KLF.

Higgs published the work himself as an eBook, not really sure of the kind
of interest that could be generated. The interest, happily, was considerable
and he ended up with a book deal. The book needed pictures, and the
journey to find pictures brought Higgs into the company of Illuminatus! star
Prunella Gee who played the role of Eris. She instructed Higgs to ‘go kick
her daughter’, Daisy Eris Campbell, who had the pictures he needed.

“When Eris tells you to kick her daughter, you obey,” Higgs said. He was
already on his mission to evangelize on the anti-evangelism of Robert
Anton Wilson, and the surprising interest in his book had confirmed for him
that there was in fact a vast current of interest in Wilson’s work. He invited
Daisy to present alongside him at the Horse Hospital.

***

When director Ken Campbell and Prunella Gee took a moment to

themselves in the ‘slow bits’ of the Illuminatus! play, Campbell’s loins
proved as fertile as his mind, and thus Daisy Campbell was conceived.
It was Illuminatus! that bore Daisy, but it was The Warp that wrapped her
up and swaddled her. Illuminatus! had toddled on for a paltry 8 and a half
hours. The Warp went beyond that, representing a full 24 hours. The play
was a collaboration between Neil Oram and Ken Campbell (though Oram
would later claim Ken was stealing all his credit and go handing out flyers
outside one of the performances saying as much) and told the story of the
60s complete with aliens, scientology and sexual freedom. Daisy was the
youngest actor in the cast at a mere six months, being wheeled onto stage in
her pram.

The Warp wasn’t done with Daisy. At eighteen she directed her first
production of the play and later went on to direct others. She also played a
number of bit parts such as King David. Actor Oliver Senton won praise for
his representation of lead role Phil. Daisy’s own original starring role - the
baby in the pram - was soon awarded to Daisy’s own daughter, breaking the
record for youngest actor in the play by a number of months.

While Illuminatus! in a very real sense was responsible for Daisy’s birth,
Daisy herself wouldn’t read the books for a long time. When she did, the
effect was dramatic. She speaks about this on a podcast by fellow
Discordian, Cult of Nick.⁶

“You’re a fellow Discordian, that’s what you are,” he says excitedly.

“I am yes, I am.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I’ve had a little journey through Chapel Perilous. I think at least
once, to call yourself a Discordian, I think you’ve had to have at least a
peek through Chapel Perilous, and come out the end, I hope, a little bit
different.”

The phrase ‘Chapel Perilous’ dates back to the Arthurian Legends of the
late 1400s, but the sense in which it is used here is as proposed in Cosmic
Trigger by Robert Anton Wilson. Chapel Perilous is entered specifically in
Wilson’s case through researching occult conspiracies, but the chapel has
many doors.

You come out the other side either a stone paranoid or an agnostic; there is
no third way. I came out an agnostic, Wilson writes.

Illuminatus! was part of the cause of Daisy’s own entrance into Chapel
Perilous. She read the novel aged 23, describing it as like being initiated
into a magical order everyone she knew was already in, like she could
suddenly speak the language of her tribe. Despite RAW’s insistence of ‘no
third way’ she became, rather than paranoid, pronoid. This, she described
as the sense that rather than secretly being out to get her, everyone was
secretly out to support her and help her create wonderful things.

Specifically, Daisy’s wonderful thing was to be the next step in epic theatre.
Conceived in an 8.5 hour play, making her first stage appearance and
directorial debut in a 24 hour play, Daisy saw it as incumbent on her to take
on and write the next piece.
Pronoia, though perhaps not as destructive as paranoia, did not prove to be
any kind of effective way to write a play. At one point, Daisy adorned her
head with a pair of rainbow knickers – perhaps like the paranoid using
tinfoil helmets to keep THEM out, Daisy was using the colourful
undergarments to let THEM in.

One night at her father’s house, a story came onto the television. A man was
speaking in tongues down at the Hackney police station. Daisy told her
father she needed to be taken down to the station to operate as an
interpreter. She would be able to understand him, she was certain.

On the way to (she thought) the station, she determined that she needed to
collect some things from a service station. These included an edition of
Soap Opera magazine. When she arrived, knickers on head, at a ‘Loony bin
in Kent’ (the trip to the Hackney police station down the road was in fact a
ruse) she was asked by one of the residents why she was there. She
produced the as yet unopened Soap Opera magazine and told them the
answer was within and opened it to a random page. The headline in pink;
Daisy must lose some of her passion.

Following this experience, Daisy began to study transpersonal psychology,

especially in regards to Stanislav Grof’s ideas of Spiritual Emergency. The
tendency is, she says in her podcast interview, to look at an event like hers
and regard it as a psychotic episode and disregard it from there, even
though having experienced such a thing, the affected individual may remain
profoundly, and perhaps spiritually, impacted.

***
Tonight, Daisy is here with us on a mission. She is producing a play of
Robert Anton Wilson’s ‘other’ autobiographical work Cosmic Trigger.
She’d been fending off requests over the phone to produce a new
performance of Illuminatus! and had instead decided to put together a
different performance.

Her Cosmic Trigger play, starring Oliver Senton, has since this night had
considerable success, and plans are underway for a US performance.

¹ (Thornley, Kerry Thornley on the Birth of Discordianism, ¹⁹⁹²)

² (Wilson R. A., Robert Anton Wilson: Searching For Cosmic Intelligence,

¹⁹⁸⁰)

³ (Merrifield, ²⁰¹¹)

⁴ SAP scale. This means the pornography included Sadism or bestiality, and
is the highest possible rating.

⁵ Damn Skippy!

⁶ (Margerrison, ²⁰¹⁴).
 18. Money to Burn

My next destination after the archives is to Arch 402 near Hoxton where
there is an artwork on display by James Cauty. Cauty and Illuminatus! set
designer Bill Drummond together made up the band The KLF.

The artwork is called The Aftermath Dislocation Principle. It’s a square

mile of a charred and devastated post-riot landscape. A police helicopter
sits above, lights flash, sirens go off. Cauty has said this is a representation
of the perfect police state; there is nobody in sight other than authority
figures for nearly as far as the eye can see. There is a great deal of humour
to the piece; a gallows stands on the X-Factor stage. A truck has
destructively driven through the McDonalds drive-through. Billboards have
been subverted or culture jammed, including a woman eating an apple on
the side of a building (a possible Discordian headnod). At one juncture,
cops goof off and play golf or slide down the McDonalds slippery dips.

After my trip, this artwork was to find its way to Banksy’s Dismalland, and
later the new Discordian festival Festival 23.

Before Jimmy Cauty came to the art world though, there was the KLF…

***
Mummu is a Babylonian/Sumerian God who plays a major role in the
Sumerian creation myths. Mummu is often referred to as the craftsman God
but can also be understood as the potential and formless from which all
things are possible.

In the Illuminatus! trilogy, Mummu is explicitly referred to as a God of

chaos. One creation of this trilogy is that of The Justified Ancients of
Mummu, an ancient Anarchist group, were founded in 2500 BC, in
opposition to the Illuminati. In order to express their devotion to chaos, they
chose the mythologically dead God Mummu as their figurehead, claiming
he still lived.

After failing in their quest to destroy the Illuminati, they developed a

different tactic, joining them instead, to humanize them from within. They
were able to maintain this strategy over the next centuries, until they were
kicked out in 1888.

The group were also known by their acronym The JAMs. The trilogy
alleges, amongst many other things, that the Illuminati, through their
control of the music industry, had the band MC5 release the track ‘Kick out
the Jams’ in order to add insult to injury.

Back in our present dimension, in 1986, nearly ten years after his
revolutionary set-design, Bill Drummond was reading through Illuminatus!.
He had just quit his job at WEA Records, having released the solo album
The Man and spent time working with bands The Teardrop Explodes and
Echo and the Bunnymen.
On New Year’s Day 1987 he felt compelled to start a hip-hop act named
The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu. He rang up Jimmy Cauty and proposed
the idea to him, Cauty accepting. Having seen Illuminatus! on stage,
(though not having met Drummond there)¹ Cauty would have understood
the reference. They took on new names, with Drummond as Kingboy D and
Cauty as Rockman Rock.

Their first album, 1987 (What the fuck is going on) had a heavy reliance on
large indulgent samples, including Top of the Pops, The Beatles, ABBA and
The Monkees. They promoted the album with at the time unconventional
techniques, (today known somewhat dismissively as publicity stunts) such
as vandalizing billboards and creating crop circles.

This first album had a number of Illuminatus! references. The line ‘They
don’t want to upset the apple cart,’ from Hey, Hey We are Not the Monkees
also reappears in various manifestations of the track that was to later
become ‘Justified and Ancient.’ There’s also the line ‘23 years is a long
time to wait,’ a sample of MC5 yelling “Kick out the JAMS
motherfuckers,” and the line “They never kicked us out, 20,000 years of
‘shout shout shout,’ ” which seems to imply that the eponymous JAMs were
in fact those of the Illuminatus! trilogy. Track All you need is love quotes
the line ‘Immanentize the Eschaton!’ (meaning, to make immediate Utopia
(with apocalyptic undertones in the trilogy)). More obscurely, the quote,
‘OK everyone, lie down on the floor and keep calm,’ appeared. Historically,
this is a line from bank robber John Dillinger who in Illuminatus remains
living, and is only one of the many members of the Justified Ancients of
Mummu who have used the phrase since the age of Diogenes. There was
also the iconoclastic Mu! Mu! chant that stayed for the band’s whole career.

The album is seriously weird, and while a lot of fun, hard to digest. It was
also, of course, a legal time bomb. Cauty and Drummond had assumed that
the album would be so underground that nobody would ever hear it. Instead,
their company leaked their real identities, helping to generate a good deal of
interest, and the album was heard or at least heard of by many, including the
lawyers of ABBA who were unimpressed and demanded the remaining
copies be destroyed.

Drummond and Cauty journeyed to Sweden to talk with ABBA’s lawyers

who, predictably, didn’t want to see them. They gave a golden record (for
‘sales in excess of zero’) to a prostitute who they thought looked a little like
one of the members of ABBA, burned a number of the records in a field
(where they were subsequently shot at by a farmer), and then dropped the
remaining copies of the album into the ocean.

The next album, Who Killed the JAMs? was more easy to listen to, and
there’s hints that Cauty and Drummond have noted their popularity, and
without being too straightforward about it, are operating with a bit more
seriousness.

By most counts, the JAMS are in their rightful place in 1987, after which
they changed name to The KLF. Before this however, they released a
novelty album under the name The Timelords, in 1988.

Playing around with the Dr Who theme, the pair had realized the only beat
that would work was a glitter beat. To listen to the final product however, it
was clearly not in sync with the rest of the JAMs’ material. It was straight
up pop music. They decided to release it under another name, in the end
recreating themselves as the Timelords and crediting Cauty’s car (listed as
Ford Timelord) with having written the song. It was an obnoxious and
irresistible hit, and won acclaim for the band.
In ‘89 they released a book called The Manual (How to Have a Number
One the Easy Way). The Manual was a step by step guide to having a
number one hit, and the key concepts within have been used by bands such
as German hit duo Eidelweiss and Britpop band The Klaxons.

In the same year, The KLF was born as a band. However The JAMs had
been releasing songs under KLF records for some time. The meaning of the
name was unclear, though it was rumoured to stand for Kopyright
Liberation Front. Even if this were true, they weren’t in it to make a
political statement about copyright in the same way bands such as
Negativland were. In a KLF info sheet to fans, Drummond wrote;

Two things that we are pissed off at ourselves about over the past year is
that we didn't do more live dates and that we let people expect us to lead
some sort of crusade for sampling.

The KLF also led a departure from the style of The JAMs. While The JAMs
were a hip-hop outfit, The KLF became part of the rave scene. What time is
love, along with 3am Eternal and Last Train to Transcentral were popular
straightforward dance tracks from The KLF.

They made a number of appearances at shows where they gave away things
to their audience. At a show in Scotland they gave away their appearance
fee in cash, each bill with ‘we love you children’ written on it. At the
Liverpool festival of comedy they gave away ice-creams from an ice-cream
van. One time they even gave away instruments in a show in Amsterdam in
the Paradiso Club who in fact owned said instruments and probably wanted
them back.
The band experimented with film, though two of their three completed
works - The White Room and Waiting are generally regarded as
unwatchably slow. Waiting and the third film, The Rites of Mu were both
filmed in the Scottish Island of Jura, my next destination.

The White Room, and the accompanying soundtrack were something of a

nightmare for the KLF, with a complex story behind it. The bulk of this story
is expressed in another of their Information Sheets, Information Sheet 8.

In this information sheet, they begin by giving an overview of the history of

both The JAMs, first the mythological enemies of the Illuminati, then the
musical act they themselves comprised. After each description, the reader is
reminded that it is no matter whether or not the statements are fact or
fiction.

Then the story of the film unravels. The JAMs had been receiving a large
amount of mail from overseas, where news of the band was available, but
their music largely was not. A good deal of this would seem to be a
continuation of one of the practices of Operation Mindfuck; Discordians
sending weirdness by mail to fuck with people. While Cauty and
Drummond had both taken creative cues from the Illuminatus! play, they
were not necessarily Discordians, and were probably not aware of what
Erisian hi-jinx were popular across the pond. In fact, at this point, neither
one of them had even read the trilogy in its entirety.

One such piece of weirdness was a contract on behalf of a person or

organization named Eternity.
The wording of this contract was that of standard music business legal
speak, but the terms discussed and the rights required and granted were of
a far stranger kind. Their solicitor (played by himself, David Franke, in the
film) advised them not to sign. They of course did.

The contract obligated them to create a representation of themselves

arriving at a place called The White Room. As a result, they would be
permitted access to the real White Room, whatever that was. Higgs in his
book says that in Discordian terms the meaning is relatively clear, and it
symbolizes enlightenment. I asked him why on Twitter and he told me;

Not so much in 'Discordian terms', other than it was used by the

Discordian-influenced KLF but a journey to a white room seems a fitting
metaphor for achieving the distinction-annihilating white light state, no?

The work was made, however it wasn’t very interesting. A lot of driving, an
examination of a dead eagle, a contract with ‘liberation loophole’ scrawled
on it, and a final entrance to the white room. That’s pretty much the film’s
summary.

Then a chance encounter apparently took place. The KLF had just finished
pelting clubbers with polystyrene pellets, and had wandered off stage where
they met Micky McElwee who traded a dinner for a story. The story,
omitted in the information sheet but offered in Higgs’ book, is as such.
McElwee used to do odd jobs for an arms dealer called Silverman who
hired him to keep an eye on Cauty and Drummond, believing they were in
contact with the real JAMs who were planning a nuclear war just for the fun
of it. The JAMs were being followed by a second figure too however, a
government agent who, also knowing about the ‘real’ JAMs, was about to
assassinate Drummond with a sniper rifle and would have succeeded if
McElwee hadn’t killed him first.

Now, the band stressed that McElwee’s tale wasn’t likely to be true. On top
of that, Higgs emphasizes that he suspects the band’s own claims of being
told the tale aren’t true. Either way, the McElwee plot was to be put into the
White Room film, except that the money they needed wasn’t forthcoming.
That film never happened, though the incomplete original version is
available on the internet today.

As an interesting aside, Higgs identified an interview with Drummond in

BLOWN magazine where he expresses the meaning of the phrase liberation
loophole as a need to embrace and accept the contradictions. It is this
phrase, accept the contradictions, with which Information sheet 8 is signed
off. It may not have been intentional, but the theme of embracing
contradictions is a major one within Discordianism.

GP: Is Eris true?

M2: Everything is true.

GP: Even false things?

M2: Even false things are true.

 GP: How can that be?

M2: I don't know man, I didn't do it. ²

The KLF on the whole, were continuing on their way up. They’d stopped
mucking around in their slapdash manner, and had been in the process of
working and reworking existing tracks with a perfectionism antithetical to
their The JAMs approach. The dance credibility their singles had earned
them was catapulting them into being one of the biggest bands in Britain.
They had three more albums, a collection of What Time is Love
interpretations, a surprise venture into ambient music called Chill Out
which I feel is vastly underrated, and represents an interesting approach to
the genre, and the long delayed White Room. I liked The White Room, but
it’s simultaneously the most polished and the least exciting of the albums.
They also remade as a single the track Justified and Ancient, with Tammy
Wynette coming on board to perform with them.

They were asked to perform at the 1992 Brit awards. The performance was
memorably extreme, though not half as extreme as the band themselves had
wished. One original idea was for Drummond to cut off his own hand
during the performance. Deciding against that, they planned to chop up a
dead sheep on stage and throw the gore into the audience.

However, the sheep dismemberment was not to take place; their

performance was to be alongside Hardcore band Extreme Noise Terror who
were largely vegans and animal rights activists. They, unsurprisingly, were
having no part in hacking apart a dead sheep. The band performed on stage
with a noisy and almost unrecognizable version of 3am Eternal, and
Drummond shot machine gun blanks into the audience. The dead sheep was
dropped off outside the after party, but the arrival of police meant that the
eight gallons of blood wasn’t added.
The KLF were done. They announced their end in the newspapers, ceased
work on their current project, (The Black Room, a hard rock version of The
White Room) cancelled their entire catalogue of music, and spent some
time in Mexico.

Cauty got sick of his Brit award and buried it at Stonehenge. Someone
found it and gave it back. He returned, and with Drummond’s help, buried it
deeper. On their way back, their conversation let to the creation of Arts
group The K Foundation.

Much of their work was obsessed with money. Twice they nailed large sums
to a board, once as a statement about being in control of the money (‘We
nailed it to a bit of wood so it can’t function as it wants to,’ said Cauty in
one interview)³ and once as a ‘worst artist award’ to Turner prize winner
Rachel Whiteread. The money given to Whiteread was put together as part
of a large stunt; each journalist was given an amount of money to hammer
onto the board. When Whiteread (who, until filmmaker Gimpo
prophetically threatened to set it on fire, had refused to collect it) collected
the money, she found it ₤14,000 short of the full ₤40,000 she’d been
promised and demanded the rest be made up. The music journalists had not
hammered in all the money they were given.

***

I leave London for Jura. This is a small, unassuming island, mainly famous
now for its Jura whiskey. This is the island where Eric Blair, known (though
not as well at the time) to the world as George Orwell came, tragically ill
with tuberculosis, to find the peace and quiet he needed to write his work
1984. While the book was the success he'd been hoping for, he didn't live to
see much of it. Like many artists, he lived most his life under-read and
under-appreciated.

Jura also comes up in conversations about The KLF, which is what brings
me there.

I have the cash that I've managed to take out with my emergency card (my
own bankcard, along with my wallet disappeared in Bristol). It's a far cry
from the million pounds in cash Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond had on
their person when they set out on their journey to the same destination.

The banks were hesitant to give the money to the pair, regarding the
presence of £1 million in cash to be unsafe.

“They didn’t want it to go out because they thought it was a danger out
there on the streets. People might- obviously people would kill for a million
pounds,” said Drummond on an interview on the Late Late Show.

From London I take a train up to Glasgow, Scotland, passing through

Manchester. From there I take a bus in the wrong direction, get off at the
wrong airport, board a train back to the station I'd arrived at in the first
place with the wrong ticket in my hand, cut my losses and take a taxi to a
hotel beside the correct airport.
The next morning I board a small plane from Glasgow airport to the island
of Islay. From there I miss the bus to the ferry and again, catch a taxi
instead.

Cauty and Drummond had their own plane to Islay, with only the two
musicians, video maker Gimpo, and their friend Jim Reid on board.

Everybody wants to know what I'm doing here. In particular, who’s mad
enough to come outside of tourist season when the wind is harsh and cold,
and the festivals are few. Especially for someone like me who doesn't like
whiskey, the product that Islay and Jura are famous for.

I explain as best I can. “I'm researching a philosophy called

Discordianism,” I say. “There was a band who had links to it that came here
and burned a million pounds.”

“The KLF,” says my taxi driver. She, like pretty much everyone else on the
islands, has heard of the money burning. “We were watching TV the other
night and a question came on; who were the KLF? I said, ‘They burned a
million pounds on Jura,’ and the answer came on, burned a million pounds
on a small Scottish Island. My kids were saying, ‘Really Mum? Why'd they
do that?’ I said, ‘I don't know. You'd have to ask them.’ ”

I arrive at the ferry, which takes a short time to cut across the narrow but
fast-moving body of water that separates the islands.
Four years before they had ‘money to burn’, the KLF came to Jura with
different intentions. In 1990 they filmed a video they called Waiting. It’s a
weird work, with low quality VHS visuals, mostly focused on natural
scenes in Jura along with sequences of The KLF setting up their musical
equipment in various locations, often in the classic arrangement of one
speaker stacked horizontally on top of another vertical speaker - later to
become the cover of The White Room - a recurring KLF motif. A long
shiny piece of material hanging off the speaker and blowing in the breeze is
given a fair bit of airtime. The soundtrack is reminiscent of ‘Chill Out’,
although on the whole somewhat more jarring. The video was filmed during
an eight day stay on Jura.

From the ferry, I take a bus to the hotel. The Jura Hotel, or 'the Jura' as it’s
known, is the only hotel on the island, though some of the residents operate
smaller bed and breakfast operations.

The local driver takes me there. He asks me the same questions and I give
him the same answers. He wasn't there when the money burning happened,
but he's heard about it. People were finding burned notes everywhere. At
first there was suspicion of foul play but the culprits of the burning were
soon found. The stalkers (pheasant hunters) were unimpressed and decided
to take matters into their own hands.

In the early hours of the morning they paid a visit to Cauty and
Drummond’s room, pheasant shooting guns in their hands. They took the
pair downstairs and put them on a bus which took them down to the ferry
where the stalkers had arranged a very special trip: a one way journey the
hell out of Jura for those scoundrels Cauty and Drummond.
The driver gives me some numbers to call of people he thinks may be able
to help me out. I enter the hotel, and call each one as I wait for my room to
be prepared. Two fail to answer and a third down at the service point is
unavailable but tells me that Jane, another worker at the building, may have
some material that could be of use to me and is willing to call me back. I
pass on the number of the hotel and wait.

***

I meet Jane at the pub for lunch. She is professionally dressed with a frizz
of untamed hair and sports an accent that is all the more distinctively
English for being surrounded by thick country Scottish accents.

“We’re just in the process of launching a sound archive,” she tells me. The
audio history project, Jura Lives, has almost 200 hours of material, all in the
process of being organized.

“At the moment we’ve processed about 80% of the collection. We’ve got
about 506 clips. So when that’s finished we’ll have about 700 records
probably,” she tells me.

I tell her the story of the stalkers ushering The KLF off the island.

“That’s news to me,” she says, laughing.

“Even the teller was unsure,” I admit.

“I mean, I like it, I can see the sort of image,” she says. “There are
volunteer police here. I would be amazed if the stalkers with their shotguns
took the initiative with authority like that. I think there would be the special
constable who calls the police from Islay. I mean over the last sort of 50
years that seems to be the pattern. I don’t think they’d get a gang of
heavies… I don’t think they would go into the social sphere with weapons
or anything. I can’t imagine that.”

Through these archives, Jane’s gathered a number of tales about the KLF.

“They were sort of friends with one of the sons of the people who owned
the estates at the south end. So they came a few times, I don’t know how
many exactly, before that chap died, and they did two sort of remarkable
things here: the rave in 1991 midsummer’s eve, and they also burned a
million quid.”

‘That chap’ turns out to be Francis Riley-Smith, a much loved member of a

well-known estate owning family, now sadly deceased. He was a well-
known eclectic figures with a reputation for bohemian living quarters and a
host of exciting and artistic friends. One of these friends from his teenage
years was Jimmy Cauty. They used to take helicopters back and forth from
Glasgow to Jura.⁴ It was he who invited the pair up for the rave. However,
it was like no rave I’ve ever heard of.

This was The Rites of Mu. Along with a number of music journalists, those
coming off the ferry were met by Drummond, elaborately dressed with a
fake moustache and official looking customs uniform, stamping passports
with The KLF pyramid blaster logo.

Journalists were then dressed in yellow robes and led down towards the
boathouse. Interview clips Jane supplied me with confirm that at least some
members of the public were invited to join in at the end of it. The leader of
the procession was Drummond again, dressed in a white robe, with a horn
poking out from under it.

One of the members of the public who were involved was Mr Vincent
Snell. He offers his account in one of the audio clips;

“Along with a pal called Rat who people will know up here, somehow we
got involved on the day when we were asked if we would put these yellow
smocks on and join in the procession from the boathouse, heading back to
Jura house, chanting… I clearly remember the music, I clearly remember
not knowing who was in the band, because nobody played an instrument
because it was all computerized, and I clearly remember the wicker man
being set fire to, it was- because it was such a beautiful evening, it was a
fantastic clear night, it was just mental actually. It was just brilliant fun.”

Drummond, unidentifiable in his hood and horn, was standing in front of

the audience before the wicker man. He spoke in an improvised tongue, a
nonsense language that Cauty was simultaneously filtering through into the
electronic music that was being played. Once his piece was finished, the
wicker man was set on fire.
Jane takes me back to the Service Point where I sit and use her laptop to
listen to the other audio recordings. She puts them onto CD for me.
Afterwards, I walk back to Jura house. The air is thick with the scents of the
island. The whole island smells. The boat ramp is full of seaweed. The
ocean has that distinctive fishy air, there are ditches that smell of the mud
and wild brambles, and the sour mash scent of the brewery permeates the
air around the hotel. We're so used to the idea of smell as a negative thing, a
nuisance, something to be fought off with sprays and scents and chemicals
with unpronounceable names. But there's a sincerity in the rich and
pervasive smells of Jura. It smells like an island. It smells like life.

***

I take the bus towards ‘the gardens’. The area is closed, and there are bold
signs marking the area out as private property, though I’m still allowed in
via the Scottish legal institution of Right to Roam. I enter in, and am able to
find someone at the bottom of the road. I ask for the groundskeeper but he's
out with the stalkers. I ask if there's any problem with me going down to the
boathouse and am told, “I wouldn't think so.”

There’s a strange feeling in the air. The wind is sharp and chilled, and drops
of rain splash down on me, but the long walk down the rocky driveway
leaves me feeling overheated and I end up carrying my coat by my side.
Occasionally I pass a few pheasants who enact their traditional defence
mechanism of screaming and making as much noise and movement as
possible. It hardly seems fair to shoot them.

Soon the boat house appears in the distance, down the bottom of the long
rocky road.
Cauty and Drummond made their way down this road, excited and nervous,
early in the morning, on their way to burn the money.

I arrive at the boathouse. Parts are locked up, but the door to the room
where they burned their money is wide open. The chimney that threw
charred notes out across the island is to the right of the room. The room
itself is filled with bits and pieces with a look that suggests disuse.

One of the audio clips Jane supplied is from Mr. Alexander and Mrs. Penny
Riley-Smith who owned this property (though they say in their talk that it
was more Francis’s home than anything by that stage). Francis, it’s said,
used to go to and from the island quite frequently, and was away during the
money burning.

The Riley-Smiths went walking on the morning of the burning. There were
50 pound notes in cowpats. There were others badly charred on the ground
or washing up from the ocean, burned pieces flying about in the wind. At
first they thought some kind of foul play had taken place, a drug smuggling
ship burned at sea or some such. Eventually though, the KLF’s actions were
discovered.

The next time they came down to the boathouse there was burned
monopoly money there; it seemed that the local children had turned the
whole thing into a game.
The video that Gimpo took shows Cauty and Drummond throwing the cash
into the fire. At first notes, then wads, handfuls of it burning up.

“I was on autopilot,” said Drummond on the Late Late Show. “You had to
be on autopilot to do something like that.”

Another story I hear from the recordings came from William Campbell
(Jane also told me this story was confirmed by other sources), and told of a
local resident, Duncan who had racked up a large debt at the bar. One
member of the KLF had returned to Jura alone after the burning, and the
other guys at the bar were having a joke about him burning all his money.

“I’ll tell you what,” our unidentified half of the KLF apparently told
Duncan. “If you burn whatever money is in your pocket now, I’ll pay your
bar bill.”

Duncan did so, and the KLF member went to pay the bill - only to find that
it was in the vicinity of £500.

There are those who believe that the KLF money burning was a hoax, but
the general consensus from fans, the band themselves, friends of the band
and John Higgs who ‘wrote the book’ on the KLF, was that it was real.

And as for why? The short answer is ‘who knows?’ The long answer comes
down to a particularly long and complex, ‘who knows?’
“There was a lot of reasons why,” said Drummond during his interview on
The Late Late Show, “And we’re still discovering more every day.”

¹ Higgs’s book tells of Drummond signing Cauty’s band Brilliant to his

record label, so I suspect they met there.

² (Thornley & Hill, Principia Discordia, ¹⁹⁹¹)

³ (YFY, ²⁰¹²)

⁴ (Roux, ²⁰⁰⁶)
 19. A Hundred Different Interpretations

I arrive in Dublin airport and catch a bus out to where I’m staying. This is
kind of the tourist trap of the city. Something about the previous portion of
the trip has left me exhausted, and I try to avoid the busy streets and
obnoxiously loud tourists. A dwarf dressed as a leprechaun charges money
for photographs. It is Halloween; I step into the cinema across from where
I’m staying for a screening of Nosferatu.

This was the place Robert Anton Wilson, often affectionately known simply
as ‘Bob’, regarded as home. Ireland will always be my home, no matter
where I am, he said in one interview.¹ He was born though in Brooklyn to
an Irish Catholic family in 1932, during the Great Depression. He had polio
as a child, and suffered later in life from post-polio syndrome.²

My mother often told me how, when I had polio at age 4, I kept trying to get
up and walk. She said that no matter how hard I fell, I’d stand and stagger
again until I fell again. I attribute that to Irish genetics–after 800 years of
British occupation, the quitters did not survive to reproduce, you know. But
I still loathe pessimism, masochism and every kind of self-pity. I regard
loser scripts as actively nefarious and, in high doses, toxic. Due to that
Nietzschean attitude, and the Sister Kenny treatment, I did walk again and
then became highly verbal, he said in an interview with David Jay Brown.
The Sister Kenny method was the work of Sister Elizabeth Kenny, a non-
accredited Australian nurse who emphasized the importance of exercising
muscles, contrary to the conventional medical wisdom of the time. Her
work is regarded as the basic of modern physiotherapy. Perhaps Wilson’s
impatience towards the unquestionability of scientific claims has some of
its roots in this early moment.

The time Wilson spent with polio gave him time to read, which he did with
great appetite. He was well known early on for his way with words.

Wilson may have been saved in his infancy by the work of a nun, but his
relationship with organized religion went downhill fairly rapidly from that
point onwards. He was terrified of the nuns at school to whom he showed a
soon-to-be uncharacteristic obedience and consciously chose to pursue later
education at secular institutions.

My education was mostly scientific, majoring in electrical engineering and

applied math at Brooklyn Tech and Brooklyn Polytech. Those imprints made
me a life-long rationalist, he said of his early education (though he
regarded rationalism as a favourite model, not an objective truth).³

In 1958, Robert Anton Wilson married Arlen Riley. He met her when
giving a talk on general semantics. Arlen was married to another man at the
time, and had two small children. In a Bold and the Beautiful-esque set of
circumstances, Arlen was introduced to Bob by a lady who brought her to
the talk- who herself had eyes for Arlen’s husband.
“Looking back I’m sure she had ADHD because she was like a whirlwind,”
Christina said of her mother. “But Bob could handle her.”⁴

Bob has said that Arlen has expressed occasional umbrage at finding her
ideas uncredited in his books, having forgotten where he’d heard the line.
Arlen was the star of Bob’s life; an intellectual equal, partner and
collaborator.

It's been a trip, she said of her relationship with Bob in her final interview,
before passing away in 1999. He has opened me up to many things that I
wasn't aware of before, and vice versa. We make a good team. We're very
different, but we're also very much alike. I think that lays a foundation for
good communication.⁵

The couple had two children together: Graham and Luna – along with
Christina and Alexandra who were already on the scene. Christina
described Wilson in interviews as treating the children as ‘whole entities’ -
which could be problematic at times. She describes among other things, the
autonomous decision of the siblings to go vegetarian, banning their parents
from cooking meat in the kitchen.

The Wilsons had an active home in Yellowsprings Ohio for a short time in
early 60s, with various people coming in and out of the house. One day in
1962, Wilson came home upset from the barbers. The barber had refused
him a haircut, having discovered that the company of Wilson’s dinner
parties had included an interracial couple.
Wilson moved through jobs in his areas of education before moving into
writing. His daughter described him as being compelled to write, having a
great creativity and work ethic, but few business management skills. She
recalls seeing him in desperate situations, signing bad checks just to ensure
food was put on the table.

He became an editor of Playboy Magazine letters section alongside Bob

Shea in 1965 (two years before coming into contact with Kerry Thornley
and the ideas of the Discordian Society though his editing of small press
magazine The New Libertarian). Wilson spoke in an interview of how his
work with Playboy led to the Illuminatus! trilogy.

Shea and I were working on the Playboy Forum, that being a discussion
between the editors - that being Shea and me at that time - about the basic
ideas of civil liberties and the limitations of government and the general
libertarian philosophy. And since we were attacking the Government for
attacking the rights of the individual on all sorts of issues like drugs and
abortion, consensual sex between adults, we were getting an awful lot of nut
mail from people who thought they were being persecuted by the
Government, imagining the most baroque paranoid fantasies.

And we started thinking of how all these people had different theories about
what was wrong with the world, and suppose they were all right? Suppose
all these conspiracy theories were going on at once? (laughs) So we
bounced that around for a few drinking parties and then suddenly Shea said
"You know, we could turn this into a novel." We should really have
dedicated the book to all the paranoids, from whom we learned so much.⁶
I wonder if these ‘drinking parties’ were the meetings known as Discordian
Salons. I discovered numerous mentions of the term from author Antero
Alli whose work is overtly influenced by Wilson.

Says Alli in an interview;

I became involved with his circle of friends in the Berkeley Hills, when he
was living there, in what was called back then Discordian Salons, where
scientists, writers, and poets convened in these informal and jovial think
tanks. I was just a kid, around 26, and for reasons I still cannot fathom, Bob
took a liking to me and invited me back to more of these salons.

Attending the think-tanks, I mostly didn't say anything. I was a fly on the
wall taking in all the amazing energies and information passing back and
forth between people like Jack Sarfatti and Greg Hill, who is responsible
for this little book called Principia Discordia, and of course Bob, and his
wife Arlen. These Discordian Salons were a kind of rotating skeleton crew
of different poets, philosophers, and scientists who met mostly to exchange
ideas. Bob had a favourite thing he liked to do and that was read these
almost pornographic Irish limericks just to make people laugh, get their
spirits up.⁷

Shea and Wilson’s trilogy, Illuminatus!, was a cult success which became
an 8.5 hour play and fnorded the minds of millions of readers. It also
cemented the legacy of conspiracy and the Illuminati into the shared
mythology of Discordianism.
Shea went on to write a series of historically inspired novels, and Wilson
further developed his own agnostic and esoteric brand of writing.

***

In 1976, tragedy hit the Wilson family with the murder of his youngest
daughter Luna Wilson. Wilson spoke very fondly of his daughter Luna - he
did of all his family - but his love of Luna shines through in Cosmic
Trigger.

Luna was so beautiful she could tell macho adolescent hoods to stop
shoplifting because stealing makes more bad karma and they would stop.
Even the cops loved her.⁸

“It tore the fabric of our family,” Christina Pearson said in an interview. “It
hurt my mother in a way where she never fully recovered and from that
time on Bob just really protected her.” ⁹

Her brother Graham who had struggled with schizophrenia, was one of the
worst impacted, experiencing a huge psychotic break.
Robert Newport took care of Graham during this period. When we spoke
earlier he told me how this affected his relationship with Robert.

“I took care of his son. I became his doctor and took care of him. That
introduced a change in our [the two Roberts’] relationship too, because I
wasn’t able to be as close to he and Arlen as I had been, because I kept
some distance so I could work better with his son.”

“It’s like all of a sudden this magical miraculous world was not safe. Was
not OK. It was dangerous,” said Christina.

As a response to the tragedy, Arlen and Bob had Luna’s brain cryogenically
frozen, in hope of seeing at least some good come from the horror they had
experienced. They were able to do so at the suggestion and through the
support of Wilson’s friends, and those his work had inspired. Wilson spoke
at length about this time in Cosmic Trigger.

And so Luna Wilson, who tried to paint the Clear Light and was the kindest
child I have ever known, became the first murder victim to go on a cryonic
time-trip to possible resuscitation. We are the first family in history to
attempt to cancel the God-like power which every murderer takes into his
hands when he decides to terminate life. Understanding fully the
implications of what we were doing, I knew the answer to those who would
ask me, as they did in later months, “Do you still oppose capital
punishment?” The reply is, of course, that I oppose it more vehemently than
ever. I have made a basic choice for life and against death and my whole
psychology has changed in the process. If I still remember that all realities
are neurological constructs and relative to the observer, I am nonetheless
committed now to one reality above all alternatives: the reality of Jesus and
Buddha, in which reverence for life is the supreme imperative.

***

While in Ireland, I meet Helen who drives me out to County Kerry, the land
of the Pookah; the mythological entity that manifests as a six-foot rabbit
and is known to meet unsuspecting strangers outside of pubs. She
discovered Wilson’s work at a time in Irish history when censors were still
keeping such things out of book stores. She talks to me with energy and
enthusiasm.

“The idea of Discordianism, at the time, was linked in my mind with the
idea of history being quite different to how it’s presented to us,” she tells
me. “And if you believe that what we’re told of history is, if not completely
false, then quite largely false, then the idea of chaos and Discord and some
larger thing going on becomes more attractive or apparent.”

It’s no surprise that readers of Wilson’s work so frequently find themselves

skeptical after reading his books – be it of history, politics, religion, or
themselves. His ideas frequently revolved around uncertainty, skepticism
and an acceptance of one’s own limits (remember, as he puts it, that you –
yes YOU dear reader – are a cosmic schmuck!) As a whole, this concept set
revolved around the theme of ‘Generalised Agnosticism.’

Wilson’s work is a portal into a complex blend of ideas. This is true not
only for his readers, but as history proved, he was the channel through
which a great many elements were added to the mythology of
Discordianism – from the concepts of Alfred Korzybski’s General
Semantics to the 8-circuit model of his friend Timothy Leary.

Wilson not only wore his influences on his sleeve, he wore them in large
print, to allow his readers to be properly introduced.

Through Cosmic Trigger, readers were introduced to the works of

ceremonial magician Aleister Crowley with Wilson testing out Crowley’s
concepts and processes. One experiment Crowley performed was to stop
using the term ‘I,’ a discipline aided by slashing himself with a razor every
time he failed. Wilson went for the milder alternative of biting his thumb.

By about the fourth day, I had a very sore thumb and an even more painful
ego. The subjectivity and self-centeredness of normal human consciousness
was hideously obvious to me. By the seventh day I had entered an altered
state of consciousness and regarded ego as something of an inconvenient
fiction.¹⁰

Another inconvenient fiction Wilson took to biting at (though only

metaphorically this time) was that of the persistent illusion that perception
was reality. Here he found early 20th century scholar Alfred Korzybski as a
comrade in arms. Korzybski’s General Semantics explored the idea that
language is a tool used to create ‘maps’ of reality, leading to the precept
now widely adopted by Discordians, ‘The Map is Not the Territory.’ Wilson
also adopted the idea of E-Prime, developed by Korzybski’s student D.
David Bourland Jr, which eliminated most forms of the verb ‘to be’ from
speech; instead of saying John is a moron, the speaker would be forced to
say John seems like a moron to me.
One of Wilson’s most famous aphorisms was that ‘belief is the death of
intelligence.’ By refusing to limit himself to one possibility he opened up a
world that entertained all things without wholly accepting any. Readers who
opened his books submitted themselves to a vortex through which their
minds and worlds were expanded. This willingness to entertain all
possibilities got some exercise in Wilson’s life when a voice began to speak
to him. Various sources suggested various things; from the stunning
suggestion that he was being contacted by extra-terrestrials from the ‘dog-
star’ Sirius, to the disappointingly mundane possibility that his right-brain
was talking with his left. Wilson settled somewhat on the theory that he was
being approached by County Kerry’s Pookah; a theory favoured because it
was difficult to take as literal truth.¹¹

His works also explored and expanded on Timothy Leary’s 8-circuit model
of consciousness; a theory proposing that four ‘larval’ circuits needed for
human survival were supplemented by four ‘stellar’ circuits that could lead
to dramatic expansion of consciousness.

Today, conspiracy, e-prime, Crowley, ‘cosmic schmuck’, Leary’s Circuit

Theory and many other favourite topics of Wilson are mainstays of
Discordian thought.

***

I return to Dublin to visit some sites relating to Irish author James Joyce, a
figure Wilson wrote about at length. I try to get onto the light rail, but end
up having to walk around Dublin to find one not undergoing repairs.
Eventually I get off a good walk’s distance from James Joyce tower and
start heading towards it. Only a very short distance from this tower is where
Wilson used to live when he arrived in 1982.

The move was inspired by a variety of things. Foremost, the Wilson family
was still badly scarred by both the horror of the loss of Luna, and the
subsequent decline in Graham’s metal health. They needed a radical change
and Ireland was a country that held a special place in Robert Anton
Wilson’s heart. There was a small financial benefit in not having to pay
income tax in Ireland, due to being an artist and being able to prove three
generations of Irish ancestry. Finally, Wilson had also stated in an interview
that he’d sworn he’d leave the US if Reagan won, and it seemed
disingenuous not to hold himself to it.¹²

RAW had a number of successes here. In 1984, he collaborated with Irish

Band The Golden Horde on the album The Chocolate Biscuit Conspiracy. I
had read that the album included a number of monologues and spoken word
performances from Wilson, but it turned out to be a lot more fun than that
with Wilson yelling incoherently about JFK and the Easter Bunny over the
top of raucous music. Wilson also wrote the lyrics to tracks Black Flag and
The Lawrence Talbot Suite. Black Flag represented the final track of
fictional band The American Medical Association as played at the rock
festival in the finale of Illuminatus!. The Lawrence Talbot Suite is a tribute
to Talbot, the usual identity of the Wolfman - the series of Universal
Monsters being childhood favourites of Wilson’s. The song ends with
Wilson reading his poem Werewolf Bridge (the one ‘kind of’ quoted in the
Principia).¹³

At midnight, as I rise from my coffin, I ask:

Am I Christ or Mehmet Ali Agca?

 Am I Count Dracula or just another Hiroshima Werewolf

Howling for human flesh?

In 1986 his play Wilhelm Reich in Hell was performed at the Edmund
Burke theatre. Des O' Byrne of The Golden Horde wrote the music.

I continue walking past Wilson’s house. There is a yellow door and also a
family in front of it, so I take no photos. I wonder if they know of the
house’s previous owner. Unlike the various locations pertinent to Joyce,
there is no label on Wilson’s place to mark that he once lived there.

I continue to James Joyce tower. It’s closed, but I spend some time looking
at it, standing out the front lashed by wind before turning and walking
home.

Joyce only ever stayed six nights in the tower, but it is immortalized in the
opening lines of Ulysses.

Ulysses seems to me the only realistic novel of the twentieth century,

because it's the only novel that contains at least a hundred different
interpretations of itself, within itself. Therefore it's contemporary with
quantum mechanics and Gödel’s proof in mathematics and Cubist painting
and movies like Citizen Kane, where you get five versions of the same story,
Wilson said.¹⁴

This begins to hint at the reason for Wilson’s obsession with Joyce, and also
draws Joyce in to the synchronistic swarm of ideas we have yet been
exploring.

While Wilson praised Ulysses for its multiple viewpoints, it was Finnegans
Wake that was his true love. He referred to it ‘only half-jokingly’ as ‘The
Good Book’ and regarded it as the best, funniest and dirtiest book of all
time.

On a wonderful interview hosted on the Maybe Logic blog, Wilson begins

to deconstruct some of the deeply complex layers of Finnegans Wake;

[There is] a running theme about the atoms and if’s, which goes back to the
first sentence of the book, “Riverrun past Adam and Eve’s”. Eve And Adam
are the male and female archetypes that dominate the book, and become all
the different male and female combinations. And they’re like the Yin and the
Yang in the I Ching, they’re also a river and a mountain as well as a woman
and a man, and they seem to be complementary cosmic principles. And the
‘atoms and the if’s’ is a pun on the ‘Adam’s and the Eve’s’, the basic Yin
and Yang duality, but it also refers to the uncertainty principle in atomic
physics, atoms and if’s, everything is uncertain on the quantum level, and
Joyce has all these quantum puns running through the chapter, not only
atom’s and if’s, but ‘blown to atoms’, which takes you back to Garden of
Eden again, and there are “sullied bodies all atom’d”¹⁵
It’s said that Joyce regarded two perfect sentences as a full day’s work; with
this complexity I’m starting to understand why- I had once thought of Joyce
as lucid stream of consciousness, but am realizing his work may be more
akin to a supercomputer full of deeply compressed information. Every
sentence has multiple meanings, and patterns repeat themselves throughout
the work, throughout time and space, and weave a web of interconnectivity,
much like what Jano Watts called ‘the Net’ in Cosmic Trigger. Wilson,
making the claim that Joyce was a better prophet than Nostradamus, would
likely have been pleased by the echoes of synchronicity here with the work
of Joyce reflecting computer technology.

Joyce might have called his methodology synchronicity, if the concept had
already entered the lexicon. However, that term was coined by another
frequent visitor to this memetic space: psychologist Carl Jung. Wilson
discussed this in an interview;

Well, I’ve been into FW for so long - there are so many sides to it. The side
that’s been preoccupying me lately is the synchronicity aspect which is very
curious because Jung didn’t publish on synchronicity until long after FW
was finished, and yet Joyce - FW - seems to be an illustration of Jung’s
theories, but it isn’t; it was written before Jung developed those theories.
Joyce and Jung met a few times, and they didn’t like each other, by the way.
Joyce thought Jung thought Joyce was a possible candidate for therapy,
and Jung thought Joyce was a man on the edge of schizophrenia who
remained on the safe side through his art: if he lost his art he’d go complete
wack-o. So there was... (Inaudible)...Joyce did not wish to believe his
daughter was schizophrenic. He told Jung, “I’m doing the same
experiments with language that she is.” And Jung said, “The difference is
you’re diving, and she’s sinking.”¹⁶
Another figure well known in this world of repeating patterns is Joseph
Campbell,¹⁷ whose work has been influential to multiple Discordians.

It was through the study of Joyce that Joseph Campbell developed his
unique approach to anthropology. The first book he wrote after “The
Skeleton Key” was “The Hero of a Thousand Faces”, and that book would
be impossible without “The Skeleton Key”; “The Skeleton Key” gave him
the monomyth, the archetype behind all the other archetypes that he uses in
“The Hero with a Thousand Faces” and then develops in his later books
like the four-volume “Masks of God”. But Joyce was Campbell’s guide, just
as he’s the guide to quantum mechanics in many senses.

***

Arlen Wilson’s failing health was beginning to cause complications in the

80s. The Wilsons returned to America in 1988, to LA, and as her health
continued to decline, the younger Wilson siblings encouraged their parents
to move nearer them, to Santa Cruz.

“He loved my Mom so much; his world revolved around her,” said
Christina Pearson in an interview with Gweek. “As she was dying… she
had to be taken out of the hospital bed that was in the living room and put in
a chair so she could sit, because she could not move any more, she had all
these strokes. So he and I kind of positioned her in the chair, and I’m over
across the room. There’s only three of us there. And he’s just totally focused
on her. And here she is, she’s, you know, near the end of her life and
looking a bit bedraggled but, you know, she is who she is. And he says to
her, ‘You are so beautiful’. She can barely speak. She says ‘That’s just my
soul you’re looking at’. And I was floored because it was true. He couldn’t
even see her body, which could barely function. And he was just- it was a
moment of poignancy that was so precious to be present for.”¹⁸

Arlen Wilson passed away in 1999.

In later life Wilson developed post-polio syndrome, the pain of which

slowed his work progress and eventually left him bedridden in 2006. His
dying wish was to pass away at home: an option that was seeming less and
less possible. Wilson didn’t even have the money for the next week’s rent.

To try to offer some help to one of his heroes, Mark Frauenfelder reposted
his friend Douglas Rushkoff’s (both regular BoingBoing contributors) blog
post about Wilson’s situation on BoingBoing.

I hope people I’ve inspired with my work would band together to help me
out in my later years if I needed it. Which is at least part of the reason why
I’m sending what I can to support cosmic thinking patriarch Robert Anton
Wilson, whose infirmity and depleted finances have put him in the
precarious position of not being able to meet next month’s rent.

In case the name doesn’t immediately ring a bell, Bob is the guy who wrote
Cosmic Trigger — still the best narrative on how to enter and navigate the
psycho-spiritual realm, and co-wrote the Illuminatus! trilogy, an epic work
that pushes beyond conspiracy theory into conspiracy practice. Robert
Anton Wilson will one day be remembered alongside such literary
philosophers as Aldous Huxley and James Joyce.

But right now, Bob is a human being in a rather painful fleshsuit, who
needs our help. I refuse for the history books to say he died alone and
destitute, for I want future generations to know we appreciated Robert
Anton Wilson while he was alive.

Let me add, on a personal note, that Bob is the only one of my heroes who I
was not disappointed to actually meet in person. He was of tremendous
support to me along my road, and I’m honored to have the opportunity to be
of some support on his.

The call was heard by fans, and over $120,000 was donated in amounts
from 23 cents to $2000. This allowed Bob his dying wish of being able to
live out his final days in his own room and preserved his quality of life
(Christina tells me over the phone that they were able to feed him oysters
on the half-shell in these final days). Bob sent out a note of thanks relayed
to fans through BoingBoing.

Dear Friends, my God, what can I say. I am dumbfounded, flabbergasted,

and totally stunned by the charity and compassion that has poured in here
the last three days.

To steal from Jack Benny, "I do not deserve this, but I also have severe leg
problems and I don't deserve them either."
Because he was a kind man as well as a funny one, Benny was beloved. I
find it hard to believe that I am equally beloved and especially that I
deserve such love.

Whoever you are, wherever you are, know that my love is with you.

You have all reminded me that despite George W. Bush and all his cohorts,
there is still a lot of beautiful kindness in the world.

Blessings.

Robert Anton Wilson.

Wilson transmigrated from his human fleshsuit in the early hours of the
morning, in the same room as his beloved wife Arlen, on January 11, 2007.

¹ (Wilson R. A., Illuminating Discord, ¹⁹⁷⁶)

² (Anonymous P. , ²⁰⁰³).
³ (Wilson R. A., Illuminating Discord, ¹⁹⁷⁶).

⁴ (Frauenfelder, Gweek ⁰³⁵, ²⁰¹²)

⁵ (Wilson A. , ¹⁹⁹⁹).

⁶ (Wilson R. A., Robert Anton Wilson Interview, ¹⁹⁹¹).

⁷ (Ali, ¹⁹⁹⁰)

⁸ (Wilson R. A., Cosmic Trigger, ¹⁹⁷⁷).

⁹ (Frauenfelder, Gweek ⁰³⁵, ²⁰¹²)

¹⁰ (Wilson R. A., Cosmic Trigger, ¹⁹⁷⁷)

¹¹ (Wilson R. A., Cosmic Trigger, ¹⁹⁷⁷)

¹² (Wilson R. A., Robert Anton Wilson Interview, ¹⁹⁹¹).

¹³ The ⁴th edition Principia Discordia marginalia contains a quote from an
early draft of Werewolf Bridge that does not exist in the finished poem.

¹⁴ (Wilson R. A., KBOO FM Portland Interview with Robert Anton Wilson,

¹⁹⁹⁰).

¹⁵ (Campbell B. , ²⁰¹²)

¹⁶ (Campbell B. , ²⁰¹²)

¹⁷ While we’re on the synchronicity kick it might be worth mentioning that

this discussion of the work of Joseph Campbell was illustrated and posted
by Bobby Campbell who is at time of writing helping support the efforts of
Ken Campbell’s daughter Daisy Campbell to produce the Cosmic Trigger
play – and other than Daisy and Ken, none of them are related.

¹⁸ (Frauenfelder, Gweek ⁰³⁵, ²⁰¹²)

 20. The Lol Cabbage and the Rubber Gorilla

I touch down fairly late in Helsinki. It’s a race between my rapidly

depleting phone battery and the rapidly setting sun. I’ve been in contact
with a Finnish researcher called Essi Mäkelä who’s offered me a place to
stay. She’s sick when I arrive though, so it’s up to me and my deeply limited
sense of direction to get to her place. Fortunately I arrive with just enough
battery to call her up and gain admission to the building.

It is a fairly short first meeting involving mostly a quick hello and being
shown to my bed, but in the morning we talk properly.

Essi is slightly taller than me, with deep red hair and a perpetual smile on
her face. She speaks slowly with a breathless almost child-like excitement.
She introduces me to Hirko, her flatmate. He possesses typical male Finnish
stoicism, though his words are thick with dry humour. He has light blonde
hair, almost white, and a thin plaited beard dangling down to the end of his
neck. I am also introduced to Panu Paavi Pallero XIV, their cat whose name
translates to Panu the Purry Pope.

Only the next day I experienced one of the staples of Finnish culture: the
Sauna. Having never before been socially nude in mixed company, it was
bizarre for probably a few minutes before I was converted for life. How
quickly the mind can reform its expectations of normal behaviour when
willing to adjust itself.
Essi was introduced to Discordia in 2005, by a boyfriend who passed her a
copy of the Principia Discordia. “I read some of it, and after we broke up I
read all of it and ordered the paperback,” she tells me while out to lunch
with Hirko.

Five years later she took on Discordianism as the subject of her Master’s
thesis.

“After my BA Thesis I thought I couldn’t make a thesis on Discordianism

because it’s such a mess, and you cannot define what Discordianism is, so I
took a year off from religious studies and did literature studies and went on
an around the world trip. While I was on the around the world trip…
[researcher] Hannah Lehtinen began sending questionnaires about
Discordianism to Discordians and I answered. It had questions about how
people do Discordianism and how people see it. It was the last thing that
made me decide I would have to do an MA on Discordianism because I
realized I don’t have to define it; I can just interview people and explore
Discordianism as they present it. So I kind of had to go around the world to
collect my courage to write about Discordianism.”

This contact led to an academic collaboration with Hannah.

“I thought I could either use the material she had, if she wanted to share, or
then we could get more stuff together.”

Essi has also collaborated with another academic, Johanna Petche – a

student of well-known Discordian researcher Carol Cussack. Petche
assisted Essi in her work analysing Discordia within the framework of
Teemu Taira’s concept of Liquid Religion. This argues that ‘rather than
simply disappearing, the solid borders of institutional religion have broken
down or ‘liquified’ as it slips into the nooks and crannies of society, in the
process becoming almost unrecognizable as ‘religion’ according to the
traditional model.’¹ I ask Essi what kind of conclusions she was able to
come to.

“Discordianism is like liquid religion in liquidizing the boundaries between

different parts of culture to be able to use as religious ideas, like questioning
everything. It also kind of actively liquefied boundaries because of the
questioning everything. It’s not just a product of this liquid modernity, it’s
kind of enhancing the liquidity in these modern times.”

A sample of the abstract for Essi and Johanna’s article is as follows;

This paper argues that although Discordianism originated as an absurdist

joke and is often dismissed as a ‘parody religion’, over time it has
developed into a meaningful world-view for practitioners.

While out to lunch, I ask Essi what she thinks lies in the future of
Discordianism for Finland and the world. She hesitates.

“Blurry,” interjects Hirko.

“The future,” muses Essi. “Well I guess the word will spread and more
people will get interested. It’s really a counterculture phenomenon.”

“So you think it will continue to spread?”

“It fits the world today in very many ways. Even if it has its countercultural
appeal, I think many people not from the countercultural circles have been
interested. As in, I’ve been surprised by what kind of people have been
interested in reading about it. It has an appeal in these days. It’s usable even
after 60 years.”

***

On my second night here, Essi takes me out to a monthly Pagan moot she
runs at a restaurant called Iguana in Kaisaniemenkatu. She took on
organizational responsibilities in 2007.

“In 2007, there was no official organizer for it and I was like, ‘Oh, if there's
isn’t anyone-’ They were like, ‘Ha! We just organized our local meeting
representative.’ ”

Those meetings were in a separate restaurant, also part of the Iguana chain.

“Actually there was this group of old ladies who thought that we were too
loud for a restaurant. And we weren’t even that loud. But then the staff
decided that either we find another place or are silent so we go, ‘OK, we’ll
shut up. Not be so loud.’ Then, they didn’t even serve us anymore. So we
decided, ‘OK, we’re gonna go.’ One of the founding fathers broke a glass
on the wall, and when he was going out he patted the doorman on the
shoulder with his bloody hand.”

They were not invited back.

Instead, the Pagan Circle began to meet in the Kaisaniemi address.

I walk in with Essi and Hirko, after taking the delightfully efficient Finnish
tunnel train system. After only a little time here, I am already falling in love
with Finland. We arrive at the restaurant. Gaudy bright colours adjourn the
walls. We walk past the bar to the end of the room, and Essi introduces me
to the other members of the spiral.

First is Miikka, a large red bearded Finn with a gentle voice and slightly
uncertain English. He tells a story that seems endemic to Finland; he read
the Principia and it just made sense (or rather, made as much sense as
anything else). Of all the people I’ve met he’s the only one who has actually
gained POEE Chaplaincy through the official channels outlined in the
Principia, nose prints and all.

HOW TO BECOME A POEE CHAPLIN

Write the ERISIAN AFFIRMATION in five copies.

Sign and nose-print each copy.

Send one to the President of the United States.

Send one to The California State Bureau of Furniture and Bedding1021 'D'
Street, Sacramento CA 94814

Nail one to a telephone pole. Hide one. And burn the other. Then consult
your pineal gland.

He is also part of a team that Essi is involved in who are presently working
on translating the Principia Discordia into Finnish.

I meet another girl, Anni, who is quiet and introverted. There’s a

coincidence here - before my excommunication from PeeDee com, I’d
completed a fictional story that I wanted to self-publish and requested help
in creating a cover. Anni, as it turned out, was the member who had
supplied me with a beautiful illustration.

To the side of me are two other men, taller and somewhat intimidating,
speaking only in Finnish. For reasons that weren’t clear to me, one had
painted his face in skeleton makeup, with an upside down cross on his
forehead. I was later told he was dressed as Abbath from Immortal. I still
don’t know why.

Finally, I meet Eelis, Essi’s younger brother. He has thick, black hair and a
confident manner.

“Do you know who Eelis is?” asks Essi. “A Gleek Goddess!”

Eelis discovered Discordia through Essi. He read the Principia, and tells me
it just made sense to him. I later ask why.

“Well mostly the relevance of chaos being just as relevant as order as such,”
he says. “And I'm not much into the whole ‘there's a God’ thing, but if there
is a God I just got the idea if there is a God, it's probably pretty much like
Eris. You can see all the chaos in the world.”

Aged 17 when he discovered Discordia, it was another year before Eelis

began attending the moots. Like his sister Essi, he also left the Finnish
church.

“It took me maybe about a year or so about since to formally leave the
church in Finland. You have to be 18 or you have to get permission from
your parents… My parents said when you turn 18 you can do whatever you
want but until then just go along with the ride. Just continue on as you've
been doing. But when I was 18 I went onto a website and left the church
and then I signed on to Pagan network.”
Eelis tells me that he’s also read the Black Iron Prison document and
regarded it favourably. Miikka was less impressed.

“I didn’t like the Black Iron Prison,” he says. “It’s easy to write a critique of
modern society, but it’s harder to do it and stay funny without getting too
serious.”

We finish our drinks and head back to Essi’s place.

***

One of the institutions of the Pagan Network was that of the Pagan Circle
camps. The spring camp is during Easter and the fall is close to autumnal
solstice. The location varies and there are saunas, shaman drumming,
meditation, association meetings, Pagan Olympics and rituals. One of the
many things that occur at these camps is the ‘Disco ball.’

“If a Disco Ball is about to happen, it means that for some reason all of the
Discordians within a certain vicinity want to go to the same spot at the same
time,” says Essi. “So it’s just a pile of Discordians.”

“How does that work?” I ask. “You announce a time and a place?”
“No it just happens.”

Other Discordian events Essi has been involved in include a pilgrimage to a

giant rubber gorilla and the Lol Cabbage ritual.

“It was a misheard mantra from the Around the World in 80 Days animated
series. They said ‘Oh Kali’ - like Kali the Goddess, worshipping Kali - but
Kaali is cabbage in Finnish and someone heard that they said, ‘Lol Kaali’,
and that’s the mantra that we picked up, and just got a cabbage and went
around the city saying ‘Lol Kaali.’ And then we brought it home and then
we kind of had a circle of energy and burst out laughing and then we ate the
cabbage.”

There’s sense to the silliness, Essi explains.

“One of the points is to build the social side of Discordianism. Especially

with the Lol Cabbage ritual, it had a feeling kind of like a magical ritual,
like raising the energy in a similar way and releasing it and mustering this
Discordian group identity, especially as we did it outside. It’s fun to do with
other Discordians, I mean, we do talk about Discordianism randomly
sometimes but this is the kind of physical and social thing. It shows that
there are people who are a bit like you, and that’s OK.”

***
Essi has offered to take me out to recreate the Gorilla Pilgrimage, but first
I’m set to meet with another Discordian I’ve made contact with over the
Internet. Jaana has the air of a spiritual soul. Despite being quite tall, she
has a pixie-like quality, and a soft voice. She wears thin reading glasses.

We order hot drinks. I’m still getting used to the Finnish custom of paying
for the product and then making it yourself. Once made, we sit and begin to
talk. I ask about her circle of friends, if any are Discordians themselves.

“It’s not the reason why we’re friends. Something happens to be common.
I’m not sure if I have- how do I say it- Discordian friends who would be
so... open about it. It’s just kind of part of their eclectic Paganism.”

“So it’s something they have, but they wouldn’t go on a camp, or a Gorilla
pilgrimage, or nose print documents?” I ask.

“Actually I had a friend print out the colouring book so he has those
coloured prints on his walls,” she tells me animatedly. His name is Mika, an
ex-boyfriend of hers (not to be confused with the red-bearded Miikka who
we have met).

“I’ve been trying to send messages to him, but he’s mostly sleeping. But
maybe someday. Because he’s fun and he’s probably the most Discordian
person I know. He introduced me to Discordia.”
I asked her what it was that appealed to her about Discordia after being
introduced to it.

“Total randomness at first,” she says. “I wasn’t so much into all those little
funny things that people do where they run around and shout fnord or
something like that. That doesn’t appeal to me that much. It’s more what I
see as an underlying thing in Discordianism that I’ve also adapted to my
own worldview that everything can be true. Anything can be true and it’s no
use taking things seriously. It’s so hard to explain because it’s a feeling
based thing. It’s not that I don’t take things seriously, because I do kind of, a
lot. That’s why I keep sticking to this thing that none of this is actually is
real, it’s all actually a joke and sometimes I remember to laugh at it. But I
have a tendency to take life too seriously so this is more like balancing it
out.”

“And do you practice other forms of Paganism or religion on top of

Discordia?” I ask.

“Well, yeah. I actually call it candy shop religion because you take a piece
here and a piece there and you don’t like this piece so you leave it out.
What part? Well I have some kind of Buddhist things, mostly about breath
watching and meditation. And well, I suppose there’s still some basic Pagan
Wiccan background.”

We drink our tea, and I look through the window as people flock through
the centre of Helsinki. Jaana lived outside of here originally, but moved
towards the city for the opportunities it offered. She’s made connections
with the various countercultures in Helsinki. Like Cramulus, she’s a Larper.
She also has explored various Pagan paths and is part of the polyamory
community. She picks up a pen and draws a circle, writing Larpers in the
middle. She draws another, forming a Venn diagram.

“Larpers,” she says, “and here’s the Pagans.”

She draws a third circle down the bottom, intersecting with the others. “And
here’s the poly.”

“So you’ll find a lot of Polyamorous Pagan Larpers around the place?” I
ask.

“Yep. And this part-“she taps the middle where the three circles intersect-
“should actually be bigger because they interlap a lot.”

***

We’re getting late into the day. It is time for the Great Gorilla Pilgrimage.
Jaana agrees to come along too, and we wander into the bus station to meet
with Essi, Hirko and Anni. Anni has brought with her the Zebra of Discord,
a comically long papier mache giraffe.

We get out. The air is already brisk; we are sinking into the evening. The
Gorilla sits like a Buddha.
Essi can barely speak for her raw throat, so she uses her phone to type out a
message while on the bus.

The gorilla because it’s KING KONG and King Kong died for your sins;²
it’s 5ft high and National Radio interviewed me next to it because they
wanted me to take them somewhere religiously important within the city. I
was interviewed as a Discordian and thought it was fair enough for a city
Pagan to use city surroundings for finding a sacred place, no matter how
dumb. But it’s made of tyres which is kind of a comment about waste, which
is very Pagan.

We chat, and joke and climb over the statue. Hirko sits on the monkey’s
head.

It’s getting late and we are hungry. As a group we all go off to a local food
place and order meals and continue to chat. The night is full of laughter and
discussion, with a distinct highlight when Essi decides to add a large
squeeze of hot chili sauce to her ice-cream, with predictable results.

***

Anni goes home. Jaana has successfully made contact with Mika who she
mentioned before, and the four of us take another bus to go out and meet
with him.
We arrive and chat a little with his housemates before entering his room. It’s
a stunning sight; dark with small lights draped across the place. Posters are
everywhere, including many pages from the Discordian colouring book.³ To
the side is a large collection of books sitting on a bookshelf itself made
from even more books.

“One of my drawings is there,” says Jaana, pointing to one picture. The

image is of a fawn dancing with a mermaid with a caption taken from the
Principia; No two equals are the same.

“Tea is done,” Mika announces. He is mellow, with limited modulation in

his voice. He has wiry black facial hair. The nails on his left hand are
extraordinarily long. Hirko asks if he’s using them as weapons (he’s not;
they hurt him if he tries to scratch someone). Essi asks if he’s going to paint
them like rainbows (unlikely; varnish weakens them).

We sip our tea, and are soon passed cake to go along with it.

“What do you do?” asks Hirko. “Do you study physics?”

“Cognitive sciences. That’s just starting the basic stuff. Mathematics for the
background... machines and also currently the visual systems stuff. Frogs
and cats, and how to cut them open.”

“So when Panu dies we can cut him open,” Essi says and giggles.
“It’s not really useful to open them after they’re dead,” Mika says. “You
don’t get any reactions from them when they’re dead.”

“If I want a reaction I just follow them home,” Essi says.⁴

The university work Mika is progressing through seems to relate to a long

interest in religion and spirituality. “I seem to be heading in my studies
towards the neurological basis of religious experience. So I think I’ve been
interested in that for a while,’ he tells us later, to which Jaana feigns
surprise.

I look around at the space we are sitting in.

“Jaana described your room before we got here as a temple to Eris, is that-”

“No. Just a chaotic place. If a chaotic place is a temple for Eris then yes,”
he says.

I ask Mika how he came across Discordianism.

“In the late 80s I come across, in some pre-Internet or bulletin boards, to
some Erisian or Discordian publications. I think I found Principia in some
kind of RSK format. That was between ‘88 and ‘91 sometime. And it
started to make sense, more than anything else.”

Everyone laughs, Essi loudest of all. “That’s what my brother said,” she
says.

“I’ve notice that some kind of religious structures and festivals are nice to
have even for an atheist, so why not have something that’s really enjoyable?
Therefore I’d nearly describe myself as a shamanic Discordian Thelemite or
something like that.”

“I was about to ask about the Thelemite thing because I saw you had a few
different pieces from Crowley around the place,” I say.

“He was the one occult author who really encouraged people to test their
hypothesis and limits and-”

“He’s not the only one,” Jaana interrupts.

“Well, the first one, one could say.”

“I think Steiner wrote before him.”

“Mmm,” Mika says, begrudgingly. “Yeah. Some decades. But. Yeah.”

“He did?” says Jaana. She seems surprised to find she’s right. Rudolf
Steiner developed his philosophy of anthroposophy- the accessing of
spiritual realms through personal development- some several decades
before Crowley began his own works. Steiner also wrote about Lemuria
(which Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea characterize in Illuminatus!
as The land of Mu) and Atlantis (also discovered in Illuminatus!).

“But he’s more boring,” says Mika at the same times as Essi passionately
(though, sore throat prevents loudly) cries, “But Crowley’s cooler!”

“It depends,” says Jaana. “Did Crowley write about Atlantis?”

“Yeah,” says Mika.

“OK, well fuck you,” says Jaana lightly. “I like Crowley too. But still, I
have to defend Steiner.”

We talk about other communities around Finland. Mika tells me he spent

quite a bit of time checking out Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth.

“They seemed very serious, and there was practically no activity in

Finland,” he says. “So, not much activity in Discordia either. The circles
seem to be kind of small. Just the generic new age group and then the
Wiccans and the Finnish traditions and Norse traditions but most others are
really a few people scattered around.”

“They’re in Pagan Network,” says Essi. “But they’re starting to be a bit

more New Age I think.”

“I don’t do the social things anymore. I’m just being Pagan by myself,”
says Jaana.

“Are there other Discordian or Thelemite groups in Finland?” I ask Mika.

“There’s some.”

“But they’re idiots,” Jaana adds.

“Mostly yeah,” says Mika, in the voice of a disappointed child discovering

an empty cookie jar.

“Thelemites suck more than Discordians,” says Essi.

“I mean, they do have the tendency to take things too seriously too,” says
Mika.
I ask Mika what interested him about Discordianism.

“Mainly the relaxed attitude that still allowed people to have different
experiences and made it possible to joke around important things instead of
being silent about them like most other groups.”

I take a moment to duck into the toilet. In the bathroom is a copy of

Ylioppilaslehti, a student magazine. This edition features Essi and her
research. The front cover is taken up by a close up of a cabbage, and the
words Olet Paavi; you are a pope.

“I’ve noticed something interesting,” says Jaana later in the conversation.

“When you talk about some kind of spiritual or religious stuff, in general,
those things have become more common, people know about them. When
you think of something that’s kind of a-joke-but-not, you hear a lot more
about the Pastafarians. But you don’t hear about Discordianism as a joke
any more. Like, it’s not really serious but it’s definitely not a joke.”

“Not in the same way that Pastafarians are,” I add. Pastafarians, also known
as the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster represent an explicit parody
of the claims of religion through the worship of a deity made from pasta.

“We haven’t been in problems because we cannot use our official headgear
in passport photos which is what the Pastafarians have been in the news
for,” says Mika. Since 2011 many Pastafarians have successfully gained
permission to wear their religious headgear - spaghetti strainers - on their
heads in driver’s license photos.

“The Pastafarians are quite evangelical; even though Discordianism is more

so quite an evangelical religion,” says Essi. “But one of Hanna’s theses is
that Pastafarians might be turning into a kind of Discordianism, that there’s
actually more to it.”

***

Essi and I travel up to Turku to see the aforementioned pasta pundit Hanna
Lehtinen, with whom she worked on her MA. We meet at a local university.
There’s a double presentation on; a studia generalia, meaning that anyone
can attend, connected with the university or not.

I meet Hannah. We shake hands and chat briefly. She’s a slender, straight
faced woman – though seems to have a strong sense of humour, against an
insanely busy schedule. Tonight she is presenting a talk, titled Modern
Parody Religions. Fittingly, it is largely focused on Discordianism.

Essi returns home but I stay a little with Hannah, and we go back to her
apartment to talk. Hannah’s a deeply intelligent and friendly person who
takes good care of me. We talk candidly. She tells me about meeting
academic Carole Cusack, one of the highest profile researchers of
Discordia, and their late night partying. Our conversation is pleasant and
flows naturally - the discussion shifts to our mutual research. We talk about
what paths people had in bringing them to Discordianism, as far as
generally observable patterns went.
“A lot of them had a Pagan background,” she later tells me. Many of
Hannah’s small sample (she stresses that the small number- only five- of
subjects limited the overall picture of the results) had been interested in
Ásatrú (Scandinavian God Pantheon) and druidism, which she describes as
‘the Finnish reconstruction of a Finnish pre-modern or prehistoric religion
which has obviously never existed in that form’.

“Usually it was that way around,” she says. “So first they got involved with
Paganism and then they got involved in Discordianism as kind of a- I don’t
know if I’d say step further but it kind of had a certain function in their
identification religiously. A few of them said that for them Discordia is kind
of balancing things out… they often had Discordianism on the table to
remind them not to grow too attached to these particular ideals that they got
from Paganism, so I found that really interesting. It was a way to have a
good laugh but also to kind keep reflexive of what you’re doing and not
take it too seriously.”

***

Hannah first discovered Discordianism through a badge passed onto her by

a friend. The badge featured the generic text of the Discordian Pope card.

“At first I didn’t make anything out of it. I just thought it was a good joke,
but well, I do religious studies, and at a point in our second year which
would have been four years ago, we had a course where we had to study a
new religious movement, and I decided to figure out what this
Discordianism was about really, and write about it. And as I delved into it I
noticed it seems to be at least a very widespread joke- if it is a joke- and I
read through Principia Discordia and it made sense to me- if you can ever
say that about Principia Discordia really. And I found all the forums and I
found there’s really an active scene, and so I contacted the Pagan Network
because I knew there were Discordians involved in there and other places,
and I found five Finnish Discordian practitioners who I then interviewed.
At first it was via email, and so I sent them a questionnaire. And after that,
when I started doing my bachelors, I decided to go on with that theme, and
then we had a group interview in Helsinki with Essi. So it’s been kind of a
scholarly thing the whole time, but also I started to get attracted to the idea
also on a personal level. I think it’s really interesting, the way it relates to
the world. The way of kind of trying to laugh at things. Especially when
they’re terrible. So yeah. It was a bit of a backward thing; usually people
get into it first as a personal thing, and then study it academically. For me it
was kind of vice versa.”

“Do you tend to call yourself a Discordian if somebody asks?”

“No, not necessarily. I don’t call myself anything for a start. It kind of feels
wrong in the sense that Discordianism for me is a phenomenon where I kind
of play with it, interact with it, find inspiration in it, but then I do so with
other things as well. I might say I’m involved in Discordia, but I can't call
myself a Discordian practitioner. I don’t know though what the
requirements of that are, but somehow I don’t like labels.”

The subjects of Hannah’s study liked her work, which she regarded as a
good sign. It also caught the eye of Carole Cusack.

“She invited us to Budapest in 2011 to have a paper on it. So people have

been interested in the topic, because a fair few academics I’ve come across
don’t really know what it is.”
The Budapest session sounds like a crazy time. It was here that Cusack and
Hannah went out partying. Hannah told me their presentation was nerve
wracking- she became quieter with nerves, and in classic Essi style, Essi got
louder, with more laughter.

Hannah continues to talk about their reception at Budapest.

“People know about Pastafarians because that’s very much in the news and
people who are interested in religion do come across it, but somehow
Discordianism goes under the radar. At least it seems to be the case that
people always ask, ‘What is this movement, I’ve never heard of this
movement.’ But responses from my work, mainly from my supervisors,
have been positive. My thesis supervisor for my Bachelors really liked the
topic. He was really interested - although we have very different views on
whether it is a religion or not, because I was claiming that it is, whereas he
says it’s not, but he has a very particular view on what can be called a
religion.”

“And what measure have you used to say that it is a religion? Based on
what criteria?”

“Well, in religion studies, the definition of religion is a real open- it’s like
energy in physics: everyone needs it but no one really knows what it is. So I
go with the approach that the category of religion entails changes over time.
For example if you look at it historically, in the Middle Ages what was
understood as religion encompassed much more than what it entails now.
So the way we quite often think of religion - faith, some kind of private,
serious faith, into some kind of dogma - is a very Protestant, very modern
view. So now what I think is happening is, as society changes so does the
category of religion and what a religion might include. I think a lot of these
new religions including Discordia are part of this redefinition process, as
well claiming the name of religion and claiming the right to define for
themselves what religion is and not go by the Judeo-Christian model. So
what I think is, if they say it’s a religion, I have to accept that on some level
as a researcher, because I don’t have any foolproof criteria to say
otherwise.”

Hannah’s moved on from Discordianism for now, however. Her current

focus is the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or Pastafarianism.

“It’s very new, so it’s very interesting to see what happens with the
movement, and there are people who start taking it to heart, and they want
to be involved, and they write a lot of blog posts about it and identify
themselves strongly as Pastafarians. And then there’s the huge majority for
whom it’s just a joke to make religion look ridiculous or who don’t even
have any ideology behind it. It’s kind of interesting in the sense that it
started as an atheistic joke, but given time, I don’t know what’s going to
happen with it.”

¹ (Mäkelä & Petsche, ²⁰¹³)

² A line from the Principia marginalia.

³ Published by Laramie Sasseville in ¹⁹⁸², preceding the adult colouring

book fad by several decades.
⁴ When I ran this chapter past Essi she confessed that she had absolutely no
idea what she meant by this. Maybe her fever was increasing.
 21. Everyone is a God

I have finished my time in Finland, so I catch a plane from Helsinki out to

Poznan airport, via Norway.

Roger Wójtowicz, better known in the Discordian scene as Lao Hunluan,

meets me at the airport and buys me a ticket onto the public transport
system. He is very tall, casually but carefully dressed with styled, floppy
hair and a reserved manner.

Lao has a high profile in Polish Discordianism, having created a Polish

translation of the Goetia Discordia by Kerry Thornley and early Discordian
‘Roldo’, and more recently, the Principia Discordia.

It’s a long walk from our bus stop. I am quickly struck with the impression
of how visually different Poland is to anywhere I’ve been up until now.
Poland may be part of the EU, but its aesthetic is distinctly post-communist.

We stop in at a liquor store, before continuing on to arrive at his house. He

shows me through his room. On one wall is the face of a grinning yellow-
skinned demon with sharp teeth, reminiscent of an ancient Chinese scroll.
FEAR YOURSELF is written above in blue letters, LOVE YOUR
ENEMIES below. To the left are two postcards of Discordian Saints by
artist Alex Screen, a sprig of sage and a picture of Jesus. To the right of the
picture, a photograph of his young daughter who lives with her mother. On
the bench below are little statues of Buddha and Bagua.

Above his bed is the Sigil of Ellis, and below is a more complex chart made
for him by his friend Sabina. On the bench opposite he introduces me to his
cactus. “This is Leif Erikson,” he tells me. “He has mescaline inside.”

We soon have company. Lau’s friend Karolina has come to join us. I am on
perhaps my second beer, and there is a mood of indulgence. Also on offer is
a powdered substance called 3MMC.

I rarely drink; I’m a bit of a control freak. I especially don’t tend to indulge
before an event like tonight where there’s a few others to hear me talk. As it
is though, I make the choice to put Eris in the driver’s seat and tell Lao I’m
appointing him as my manager for the night. I polish off my beer and he
offers me another.

Karolina is beautiful, with perfect European features and bright blonde hair.
Lao loads up his computer and shows me some photos of her modelling.
She is bold, passionate and confident. I ask if she is a Discordian.

“Maybe,” she says. There’s something teasing about her.

We hang in Lao’s room and talk shit for a while before moving to travel
down to a small club he has booked us into for the night. The beers and
3MMC come along for the ride.
A small group of people associated with Discordia to varying degrees are at
the club. Some are Discordians themselves, others are just curious. I find
myself, not quite as stable as I had been six hours ago, heading the table. I
pass out the recorder to the first of our table, a guy called Remik. He has a
very limited grip on English, and mostly communicates through a translator.
He is solidly built and frequently falls into chuckling laughter that, so far as
I can tell, has no particular object.

“Would you call yourself a Discordian?” I ask.

“Would you? Can you rephrase?” he says.

“Are you a Discordian?”

He ponders. “Hmm.”

Karolina steps in as a translator and the pair discuss in Polish.

“This is an idea that is very newly his ideology. Nearest yes,” she says.

“How did you discover Discordia?” I ask. Karolina translates.

“There was some- about- Discordianism-” he begins, struggling.

Karolina cuts in. “Honestly, we introduced him to it.”

“What do you like about it?”

“He is more fond of his freedom of choice,” Karolina translates. “He has
lots of possibilities to choose from. You can change everything in you, in
this ideology or religion.”

I pass down the recorder to the next person, named Akregon. He’s not a
Discordian himself, but just came along to meet some company.

“I for so long don't know anything about Discordia, don't even have
arguments to say why I don't like it. For me, it's people that stay in one joke
and it's something that you can read and it's fun, it's nice, it's for a short
time and not something that you can use for your whole life.”

He first encountered Discordians on an occult forum. “We discuss about

Chaos Magic and about Satanism and a lot of other stuff, and for me
Discordia was this old philosophy, and it's not for me. Some people like it. I
don't approve it. It's not useful for me. It's not something I can use to be a
more effective man and I don't need it... I just want to use things like
Hermeticism, like Buddhism, something that is useful for me, and I can't
use Discordia effectively.”
The recorder passes down the table once more. The next subject doesn’t
regard himself as a Discordian either. Instead he tells us that he finds
Discordians and Thelemites and so on to be open, interesting people.

The conversation turns back to Karolina.

“I asked if you were a Discordian before, and you said maybe.”

“Yeah,” she says. “I think this is the most Discordian answer to this
question. Maybe.”

“Is there something you like about Discordianism?”

“The freedom. Mostly the freedom, and the opposites. Opposites being the
truth. That my opposites can also be true. And that no one can deny it. No
one can negate it all. I can be a Pope to myself, no one can say anything to
me.”

Finally I return to Lao.

“About six years ago I was kind of an atheist,” he says. “And when I read
about Discordianism, it was for me just rebellion against theistic types of
thinking, just rebellion, and maybe a year or two later I discovered in
Discordianism something more. At first I was thinking that Discordianism
is about fighting with religion. Then I rediscovered it because it is not about
fighting. It's about a way of living and everything not having to be in order.
Not everything has to be -” he struggles with the word in Polish until
someone offers the English translation; “-serious. Too many times we think
about philosophy as a serious thing. It’s not a good way. It should be fun.”

“What do you like about it?” I say.

“Like my colleague said, freedom,” he says, indicating towards Karolina.

“Freedom of entertainment, enjoying everything, not taking anything
seriously. My religion, my philosophy can be funny and it's great. Does not
have to be just believing everything someone's told you. I very much like
Discordianism, not knowing things - everything is maybe now.”

***

Akregon takes the recorder next. It is from him that I begin to uncover a
recurring theme - gone though it may be, Communism casts a long shadow
over Poland. The post-WW2 Communist regime and its conflict with the
church have shaped not only the politics, but the consciousness of the
nation.

“Church was a ‘resistance’ thing for communism. It was a place where

people could be free from Communism. Now Christianity is dying, the
church is dying, because the clergy have learnt to be something like
politicians… We are the first generation in Poland that is really free. I'm
born in 1989 and it's the year Communism fell.”
“And the Catholics were resistant towards the Communist stuff,” Lao adds.
“Before, Communism was the problem... Afterwards, the Church started to
be a problem.”

“When you meet us, you know every one of us was born in a Christian
family. And every one from us wants to break from this tradition,” Akregon
says. “So every one of us has in our lives a moment where we have to break
with some clergy. And you know it's not easy; your grandmother and your
mother and your father and your uncle and all these old people in your
family are Christians and they think that you betray the Church. It’s not
even about church; it’s because they still think about resistance from
Communism and when you say that you are not Christian they say you are
not someone that wants to fight Communism...

‘Poland and Russia are two fighting brothers. We are really similar when
you look at our history and culture and lifestyle but in politics we are
fighting. Because we can’t forget about Communism and when you look at
Poland - in no other country did Communism grow so big and so powerful
because in the Second War we lost almost everything.”

Lao steps in. “We won the war but-”

“We paid really very much. We fought for five years and when you reach
that, Hitler kills seven million people. We lose twenty percent of our
population, so it’s a really huge number of people who died. There were
celebrants, there were politicians, there were doctors.”
“Before the war Poland was very tolerant and multicultural. And after war-
we lost many Jews for example.”

“Before the war, Jews are about 10% of our population. And now you can't
find Jews on the street. So we are still trying to face with this loss. And we
now have to build our new age- because we lost everything, and when we
lost it Communists came and they have their own ideas.”

“We have to change our way to think about everything,” Lao says. “To be
released from Communism here.” He points to his head.

“Lots of old people don't get Capitalism… They can't think about not
getting something from the government. You have to work. And that kind
of thinking is really powerful and we have now a fight, between two
generations - this freedom generation who don't remember Communism and
these older generations who lived under Communism and now our
government are people that lived in Communism… We don't even think it's
something to talk about; it's normal.”

“So we found new ways to think, not like older generations. Discordianism
is about freedom of mind. It's about changing what we think about society
and everything.”

“So you can know why Discordianism, why Satanism and Chaos Magic are
popular in Poland, because there are a lot of exercises and lots of stuff
where, by using this you can sort of remove your-” Akregon hesitates and
checks in with the others, searching for the last word, “-mind's imprints.
You want to remove it, and we don't want to use the imprints that our
parents gave us. We want to be free in modern Capitalism. So, we have to at
first destroy our minds, destroy these imprints and build ourselves from
there.”

“And you find for some people Discordia helps that but doesn't help you
personally?” I ask.

“Yeah, because Discordia it’s-”

“Just the beginning,” Lao interrupts, “Chaos Magic, it's one thing from the
group of things that can help but-”

“For me Discordia was only a moment in my life,” says Akregon. “I read

the book. I think it was good aphilosophy, and it’s helped me to remove all
this Christian believing.”

“It’s good for changing your way of thinking and going forwards.
Discordia, Chaos Magic, magic at all, counterculture.”

Akregon tells me he has found Chaos Magic useful. “You change your
paradigms, and you look for something that is useful, and it can improve
your life. Some people from our groups are Chaos Magicians. But really
they use very different philosophies. A lot of our groups become
Hermeticist. Lots of people are interested in Buddhism. And they stay with
what’s useful for them. Also psychology. Lots of our people from our
groups find something that's useful for them and stay in this paradigm. And
maybe then when you find somebody from this group you can say that it’s
Chaos Magic, because he is now Buddhist, Christian, Hermeticist, and now
even Rosicrucian.”

He returns to this theme a little later.

“Chaos Magic is good for changing yourself. And you are not looking for
faith and believing in some system. You just wanted to find something to
help you to be a better man, to be a better person with your friends, family.
And Discordia is something you can use, but for me it was only for a
moment.”

***

The next night Lao takes me out the train station and we board a train for
Warsaw. We are heading off to Trans/Wizje, an event run by Okultura, the
oldest and biggest Occult publisher in Poland. On the way we meet with
Lao’s friend Mateusz who is smiley and cheerful with a Zenlike calm. His
head is shaved but for a monk-like ponytail. Our duo is later joined at the
door by a man who waves at Lao and lights a joint which he offers to share.
They smoke outside, waiting for the doors to open.

Once inside we look around. In the little hall there’s a large range of
Okultura books, themes including psychedelia and the occult. There’s also a
magazine with the event’s name that Lao buys a copy of. I later learn that
this is this Magazine’s 4th edition launch party.
We sit in the corner for the first band, a group called Gaap Kvlt who
describe themselves as post-industrial haunted bass. I recognize samples in
the song from Robert Anton Wilson’s speeches. They are followed by
Cotton Ferrox, a band comprised of two men who enter with plague doctor
masks. One sits with a tablet creating the music, another stands reciting
poetry into the microphone drifting in and out of the ambient sound. I
discover later that the speaker is Carl Abrahamsson who was foreign
minister to Genesis P-Orridge’s Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth.

The third band is Column One. The performers announce themselves by

walking in dressed entirely in white with face masks (that is, masks of
human faces) and spraying entire cans of deodorant into the air while
walking back and forth through the stage area. My throat begins to feel a
little sore. All three are completely bald. They begin to play musical saws,
and show clips of themselves engaging in bizarre public ritual on the large
screen behind them, while several of the members create shapes on the
stage floor with foodstuffs such as eggs and flour. One has an egg broken
over him. This band too has collaborated with Genesis P-Orridge. Finally
the last band we see is a German act called Troum. They have a much
gentler sound and play scenes of natural beauty on the screen behind them.

We go out and mingle with the folk around us and Lao points out a man to
me with a red shirt. This is Dariusz Misiuna, he tells me. He’s the owner of
Okultura and the first person in Poland to develop a translation of the
Principia Discordia.

We follow the crowd to the afterparty once all is over. The streets of Poland
smell pungently of the sweetness of vapour cigarettes that everyone here,
including Lao, seem to smoke. I am getting powerfully hungry and am
relieved that the site of the afterparty serves food. Hunger seems to go hand
in hand with my Polish experience due to the rock ‘n roll lifestyle of the
chaotic people I spend time with who would occasionally simply replace
whole meals with more eclectic appetites. There was a lot of indulgence in
Poznan. I would go to several events with Lao and Karolina, involving
heavy drinking and frequent drug use. I drank, smoked and took snuff with
them at a gathering that lasted all night, and then half the day as the
hangovers took hold. If New Orleans was hungry, Poland’s chaos diaspora
was insatiable.

I take the chance to chat with Dariusz, and we agree to set up a meeting.
That night a random woman gives me her scarf, and someone else gives me
a lighter shaped like a cock that ejaculates fire. Poland was a place for
strange gifts; before I left I was also given a Discordian rosary that Lao
made me by hand (23 beads), a corporate album of Polish Christmas carols
from Remik, and the wheels of a broken handmade skateboard and a
genuine Nazi medal from Mateusz.

***

I travel out to meet with Dariusz at a small pub. He seems relaxed and holds
himself with effortless confidence. He has untamed hair and respectable
plain reading glasses. We begin to talk.

Dariusz was the first person to offer up a translation of the Principia

Discordia in Polish, though the edition is out of print, and his own
publication company Okultura has never published it. He published it in
1999 through Fox Publishers, which he describes as ‘some smart arse guy
who wanted to get some money from occult crazy guys’ community’. Fox
also put out a monthly magazine called Wiedza Tajemna, or Secret
Knowledge, an ‘occult- esoteric libertine monthly.’
“They published lots of articles about Discordianism, funny stories, lots of
articles on sex and drugs and magic and so on, and because I was interested
in Discordianism for some time I decided to use them to publish this
Principia Discordia, with a little input from myself; this was an introduction
called… ‘We Discordians’ written under a nickname Frater Carezza. I also
wrote some articles for various magazines as Frater Carezza as well. I wrote
in this collection the story of how I found Eris. And, to remember it…”

You can imagine if you wish, the trilling harp and the wavy screen
animation taking us into the past of Dariusz.

“I was quite active in this Anarchist punk movement,” he says. “I had my

magazine called Anarcholl; quite a big magazine. I organized some concerts
and I staged some demonstrations and so on.”

Misiuna started Anarcholl while still in school, in the year of the fall of the
Berlin wall: 1989. It was an attempt to create ‘a funny self-press samizdat
magazine’.

“It was basically technique of cut and paste. We were cutting words out of
official newspapers and constructing the magazine through these cut ups. In
a sense it was a platform for culture jamming. I had my own view of
Anarchism and shared it with my friends who were interested in something
we called self-dependent Anarchism. We were not interested in a strict
political Anarchism, perceiving it as too narrow and obsessed by herd
mentality. My Anarchism was kind of existential Anarchism. I just wanted
to do everything by myself, according to a DIY ethic. And I’m still doing it.
I have never had a chief in my life. I'm my own owner. In a sense this one
idea sticks throughout my life.”
During his period of interest in zines, Dariusz discovered Factsheet Five.
This was edited by Mike Gunderloy who was a Discordian. Dariusz
describes it as a freaks’ phonebook. “Of course there was no Internet so it
was really enlightening to find all these addresses of strange book
publishers, crazy artists, and even stranger magazines; if you wanted to find
something unusual you just took Factsheet Five and had almost everything
there.”

Through these circumstances, Dariusz was exposed to Discordia for the first
time, around 1990/’91, aged 18. His eclectic interests were destined to meld
nicely with his forays into translation.

“I translated few Aleister Crowley books for one Warsaw publisher and
Principia Discordia for Fox publisher in Wroclaw. It was the beginning of
my own process of self-exploration through cultural creations of my own
imagination. The first Polish edition of Principia Discordia had a huge
impact on Discordianism in Poland but I have to admit, even before then,
there were people in Poland who were doing something which could be
described as Discordian, or people who were self-describing as
Discordians.”

He thinks Fox’s magazine Wiedza Tajemna had a huge impact on the spread
of Discordia.

“The circulation was quite big - around 30,000 – 45,000 copies. Bear in
mind Polish mainstream magazines are selling less copies now. I don't think
the Polish edition of Playboy sells so many copies. Anyway, it had a huge
impact on many people. People who were later involved in Wicca, Chaos
Magic, Thelema and so on. Some of them are high adepts of various
magical orders now…

‘But I was dissatisfied because publishers I collaborated with had very low
aesthetic and editorial standards. I couldn’t stand their shitty covers and
commercial adverts. That’s why I decided to start my own publishing firm.
I prefer always to do everything by myself or through my friends, because
I'm a bit of a control freak. But how to do it if you have no money to invest
in? You have to use your own imagination! I used a trick and designed
advertisements in a few issues of Wiedza Tajemna magazine, declaring
starting of publishing firm, Okultura. It was like two years before Okultura
even started. I just made a bluff. There was a text in my advertisement: The
Order of Star and Serpent present Okultura Publishing, and I mentioned a
list of authors whose books I wanted to publish - Austin O Spare, Aleister
Crowley, Robert Anton Wilson, so on so on. Okultura will publish
everything nobody else dares to publish. I got like five hundred paper mails.
And I gathered quite a large address base of people who might be interested
in reading books I was ready to publish in near future. So it started like
this.”

Okultura’s first publication was Aleister Crowley's Little Essays Towards

Truth.

“Generally at this time, I was perceived as a black pope,” Dariusz says.

“Everybody though that I was hardcore Satanic guy, only because I was the
only one writing about Crowley for various magazines in not a sensational
style. Almost all other articles on Crowley or magic were usually Catholic
propaganda. I also translated a few of Crowley's books for other publishers.
These were Book 4, Magick in Theory and Practice, some Crowley’s
essays, his yoga teachings. First book published by Okultura was Little
Essays Towards Truth by Crowley. After that, we had a brief period of
publishing occult stuff like Austin Osman Spare’s Book of Pleasure, some
Chaos Magic books like Liber Null by Peter Carroll, or Condensed Magick
by Phil Hine. Here you could find a crossroads of Chaos Magic and
Discordianism. I would say Phil Hine is a Discordian author because his
style in writing on Chaos Magic is Discordian one. And then we started
publishing Robert Anton Wilson books also.”

To make it more complicated, Dariusz also translated Wilson's books for

other publishers before he started publishing them himself, including Sex
and Drugs for Graffiti Publishing in around 2000. A friend of his was also
responsible for the Polish translation of Illuminatus!.

“I think our fifth or sixth book was Robert Anton Wilson, it was Cosmic
Trigger because Cosmic Trigger was one of the most important lectures for
me. One of these books that in some sense built my perception of the world.
Also thanks to New Falcon Press guys who were very nice. They were very
easy going, they communicated with me in a very good sense, they were
sending me all these packages with these books for free. I think I owe them
a lot. So therefore it was very easy to publish some of those books.”

Other authors of Okultura books include Lon Milo DuQuette (who you may
remember performing at PantheaCon), as well as countercultural and
psychedelic figures Kerry Thornley, Stanislav Grof, Albert Hoffman, Chris
Hyatt, Terence McKenna and Timothy Leary. Misiuna particularly
expresses an appreciation of Chaos Magician Peter Carroll whose work
Psychonaut he describes as the first magical text to do anything for him.
Okultura also publishes two magazines, Trans/wizje and Hermaion.

“Hermaion is about scientific research of western esotericism. So it's mostly

about some academic stuff… Trans/wizje is a psychoactive magazine so
people think it's about psychedelic culture. It's not. Psychedelics are an
important factor in it but for me, anything may be psychoactive. It's all
about enhanced brain activity, about making the brain alive all the time. Of
not channeling into one reality tunnel. I would like to have it broader. So
mostly we write various stuff, also on psychedelic culture, some magic,
some shamanism, some experiments in art.”

Every release of a new edition of Trans/wizje is coupled with a launch party

such as the one I attended.

“One of the reasons I love the festival we are doing is that people are
gathering; they are finding they are exchanging information. Sometimes
there's some creative collaborations after them. It's really good. Perfect.”

The festival typically involves music with psychedelic or neo-shamanist

elements. Two of the bands who performed at the last event - Column One
and Cotton Ferrox - held connections to Thee Temple ov Psychic Youth.

“I was involved in this Industrial Culture so I got to know about Crowley

through the industrial culture, through all the Genesis P-Orridge stuff and so
on. So it was this way I found many things but Discordianism was before it;
I think my inspiration was through these Anarchist channels. After that, it
mixed together, everything mixed. In a sense we are living in this collage
culture.”

This interest in psychedelics set Dariusz at odds with many of his Anarchist
friends.
“Many Anarchists at the time called me crazy because in their opinion I was
interested in something Marx called ‘false consciousness’. ‘Psychedelics,
what is it, some bourgeois culture?’ They were quite critical about it. They
were interested in the ideas of 1968, not of the US but in Paris. More
political events. So, in the beginning of 90’s, I had to distance myself from
the Anarchist movement in Poland because of my rather heretical ideas.
The funny thing is some of the people who called me heretical then are
Okultura readers now.”

“Do you, or did you call yourself a Discordian?” I ask at one point.

He pauses. “I don't know. I could only cite Alejandro Jodorowsky who in

the interview for last issue of our Trans/wizje magazine said ‘Whoever
could describe me thinks that I'm dead.’ I’m still alive and kicking, so I
don't know. I think Discordianism has influenced me and for sure it had an
impact on my cultural activity. Okultura is a trickster thing in Polish culture
for sure. I think we’re the biggest unknown publisher in Poland.” He
laughs. “Because we operate mostly in the underground but are frequently
noticed by other people from the mainstream for example. Discordianism is
good because it makes you more perceptive. When you don't reserve your
energy on maintaining the status quo of your life, you can find something
else. That's what I think is the most important thing in Discordianism. I
would even prefer Discordianism to Chaos Magic, with a kind of label.
Chaos Magic is kind of for me now, a little old-fashioned. It was a
movement of the 70s, 80s, after that it hasn't changed. In a sense we can say
that everybody is a Chaos Magician because we live in these cultural
conditions that are highly chaotic. I think it’s a label that says nothing now.
But Discordianism's OK, it's wittier, it's more clever.”

Misiuna is still open-minded about the future of Okultura.

“I think we have to change for sure,” he says. “In the beginning we were an
occult publisher, hard-core occult, Satanic press… after that we were
Discordian, because of Robert Anton Wilson and other things. After that,
we found some space in transpersonal psychology and psychedelic thinkers,
published Timothy Leary, published Albert Hoffman, published Stanislav
Grof books, all of these guys from psychedelic culture.”

Now, Misiuna considers alternate modes of distribution.

“That means of course the Internet. Maybe some kind of television. That's
why every edition of our festival is filmed, recorded by professional TV
cameras so we have fantastic archives. The best thing is that we have so
many talented, gifted friends. Life is easier because I cannot do this kind of
stuff like filming, painting, I don't do music, so many people around are
doing it.”

***

Dariusz begins to talk to me about the history of Discordia in Poland. The

happening group Pomarańczowa Alternatywa (the Orange Alternative)
seems to him to be, while not explicitly Discordian, certainly similar in
tone. In Illuminatus!, character Hagbard Celine claims that unlike others
whose attempts at self-issued currency were skittled by the government,
Emperor Norton’s self-issued notes were protected by the absurdity of their
circumstance. The Orange Alternative used absurdity similarly.

“I even think they were the main factor behind the collapse of Communism
in Poland,” Dariusz tells me.
The Orange Alternative, as a method of protest, employed various absurdist
elements in gatherings, including painting pictures of dwarves over pro-
government billboards, handing out sanitary pads or toilet paper,
serenading an orang-utan at Warsaw zoo with Stalinist hymns, or holding
large gatherings of people wearing dwarf hats, or dressed as Santa Clause,
or just wearing the same colour. The authorities’ inevitable heavy-handed
response to such apparent frivolous absurdity left them open to criticism
and mockery.

“Can you treat a police officer seriously, when he is asking you: “Why did
you participate in an illegal meeting of dwarfs?” the founder Waldemar
Fydrych had been quoted as saying.¹

“Because people thought Communism was absurd,” Dariusz says, “Nobody

believed in the system anymore. Their happenings gathered 5000 people or
more, much more than demonstrations organized by ‘official opposition’.
They started in the middle of 80s as a forefront of Anarchist-artist-absurdist
movement. But I don’t think they had any idea about Discordianism. Their
main source of inspiration seemed to be Provos, Dutch happeners from the
mid-60s.”

Later in Polish history, more explicitly Discordian communities began to

form, especially through the links formed through Internet culture. In the
90s many Poles gathered on Internet who were involved in things such as
magic. Some of them organized COIM, Cybernetic Order of InfoMatrix.

“They were mixing some things. They were mixing Discordianism with
Pagan stuff, they had eclectic ceremonies on the Sleza mountain, near
Wroclaw. They were experimenting with various stuff from different
traditions – everything they perceived as interesting instruments for
deconditioning. They also had baptisms and Discordian marriages. They
were based on a loose network of early Internet geeks in Poland. Some of
these people are now Reiki masters, Taichi masters and so on. One was a
Satanic Priest but now she lives in New Zealand and helps foreigners to get
a job there…

‘If we are talking about history of Discordianism in Poland, we need to

mention the biggest ceremony of Discordian Popes’ nomination, which
involved about 23 people. It was in Torun (a city of Copernicus) on the 2nd
of April of 2005, in the evening when the Polish Pope died. It was the third
day of our festival because I also organized some experimental and magical
film festivals in other cities. And these were also very nice events, and on
the third day of the festival the Pope died, and we went to the place called
the Krzywa Wieża like the tarot card Blasted Tower, and then we decided if
the Pope died, everybody would be nominated.”

Dariusz tells me another story; there would be no Discordianism in Poland,

he claims, without Polish psychedelic and magical painter Andrzej
Urbanowicz. Urbanowicz founded his Atelier in Katowice in 1960, an
experimental art space.

“It was Communist Poland; things were really harsh. But people gathered
and were using psychedelics, some deprivation methods. In some sense
they were like the first European Chaos Magicians. They were also
participating in Buddhist meditations; they started first Buddhist group in
Poland. For 50 years, this place was in the centre of Katowice and was a
very nice old building with two towers, and he had one of these towers and
anybody could do anything there.
‘So it was Discordianism as well because of the eclectic and subversive
style of our experiments in magical art. We had everything there. We had
Discordian ceremonies, we had a psychedelic workshop gatherings where
people were painting, singing, doing music. Huge space like 400 meters
square. Everybody could experiment there with anything but control over
others. Basically, it was a school of unbound imagination, neverending
performance. Andrzej Urbanowicz died in 2011. The space is still there. It's
called the Piastowska 1 in Katowice…

‘He's a very important Polish painter, a little like Duchamp of France but
completely unknown now I think, unfortunately. But we are trying to make
him more popular by publishing his art on magazine covers and so on. I’m
also sure the future generations will discover him as a pioneer of Polish
magical and psychedelic art who was a visionary just out of his times.”

Misiuna himself had the pleasure of participating in the events of

Piastowska 1.

“I met Andrzej in 2000 and at the first meeting I gave him the Principia
Discordia. And later he painted a series of paintings called Letters to Eris.
So there are a few dozens of paintings in Poland called Letters to Eris.”

He also attended ‘funny parties’ where everybody played roles. “We had
masks, we had various themes like fetish things and so on, and also there
were Discordian ceremonies where my girlfriend had a scourge and
someone else was a priest in the manner of a Catholic Priest but baptizing
everybody. And we had badges; The owner of this badge is a fully ordained
Discordian priest. Ceremonies involved 50 to 100 people.”
Dariusz steps out to go the bathroom. When he returns to the table he tells
me there is a poster in the bathroom that makes liberal use of the phrase
Operation Mindfuck. It’s bizarre to see how well the phrase has spread.

“This meme’s all over,” Dariusz says. My mind is well and truly peanut
butter. I say goodnight to Dariusz outside, on the cobbled streets. I return to
Mateusz’s house for the night, before continuing down to Krakow.

***

In Krakow I meet Matragon, a musician and artist in Krakow whose track

The Sacred Chao quoted the Principia Discordia and nestled itself in the
charts for several weeks. He’s physically large, bulky and tall, and is
measured and intentional in his speech. He has a number of Asian
influenced images around his house, including a famous illustration of Lao
Tsi, Buddha and Confucius titled Vinegar Tasters.

“When I realised that Discordianism was Zen for roundeyes, I started to

meditate and look for answers and ask the question, what is Zen? What is
Buddhism as well? What is Taoism, and what Lao Tsi wants to teach us?”
he tells me.

“How did you go with the answers?” I ask.

“People in the East were living in a completely different world to the West,”
he says. “Especially East many years ago and West in the 50s. So I
understand this is not so simple to teach these ideas to people who grew up
at completely different times, in completely different cultures. That’s why I
think that the people who invented Discordianism as an idea or as a kind of
cultural movement wanted to teach people in America or in the West, what
Zen is, what Taoism is… they probably invented Discordianism as a joke
and as a first step to understand what Zen is and all this Eastern thinking -
not religion, because I still think Buddhism is not a religion. This is not a
philosophy either, but a kind of way to process your relation to reality.”

I leave Matragon, and Sabina meets me at the station, where we board a bus
for Wroclaw. We’re on our way to a kind of ‘chaos gathering.’ She has been
to a previous event that was the 'spiritual precursor' to this gathering,
though hasn't been to the first of the official gatherings. She tells me that
there had always been a great deal of drug use spread throughout the
community, and the shift in the types of drugs that were largely accessible
had caused rifts.

"A lot of people moved away because they didn't like the direction things
were going," she tells me. What once featured psychedelic drugs such as
LSD were starting to feature stimulants such as 3MMC more heavily.

Sabina and I meet with Remik, Lao and Karolina at the station. Remik is
wearing coloured contacts that made him look like a vampire. We take a bus
to the apartments.

Entering in, we begin to meet additional members of our party. Many of the
attendees are familiar with Discordianism, though many qualify their
interest by saying ‘not as much as Lao.’ I meet Piotr who speaks non-stop
about Chaos Magic after a few beers and is involved with Technomancy -
the mixture of magic with the powers of technology. Scorpio, one of the
event organizers, is suffering deeply the effects of sleep deprivation from
trying to maintain the state of a house that never quite goes to bed. He is a
Chaos Magician, and a part of the previous online incarnations of this
group, as well as the physical meetings. Another girl wearing Minnie
Mouse ears is present, and giggles constantly. Later Mateusz arrives. Some
of the men wear jumpsuits, one a zebra onesie.

The apartment can be entered from an outside area that doubles as a

smoking space, also occasionally used by those who wished to take ether.
On this level is the first bedroom with four beds, featuring a table where
3MMC can be taken, and a powerful sound system.

Upstairs are two rooms. The first is kept dark. Aluminium foil is draped
from the roof in long shining trails across the curtains, down the walls. To
the side is a coat-hanger rack that holds a strip of foil on each hanger. I am
later told that this works as a Faraday cage, a space that is designed to
confine the effects of magical activity. In this room, the drug of choice is
MXE, a legal though powerful dissociative. For some reason, the upstairs
and downstairs substances are completely incompatible with each other, and
mixing them causes heart irregularities and trouble breathing. The majority
of sleeping space is in this room.

Beside this room is another, sometimes public, space with only two beds.

***

The first night is a party, with a large supply alcohol available, along with
the harder substances. I move between the different levels, talking with
various members of the party. I ask Mateusz about the role of altered states
in magic. ‘Every state is an altered state,’ he tells me.

He interprets magic holistically, telling me that rather than trying to escape

from the everyday to find magic, he seeks to find the magical within the
everyday, and sees 'the ordinary' as a magical experience. We talk on a walk
on the first night with a few other members of our party. One of them asks
if sex can still be magical if it’s only magic to one partner.

“Everything is magical,” he replies.

“What if one partner doesn’t see it that way?”

“If someone prays to a God that doesn’t exist, do they still get a result?” he
asks in reply. “It's the same thing.”

The rhetorical question above might not have as obvious an answer as one
would expect. A Chaos Magician usually sees fit to utilize multiple Gods in
ritual – whether or not they believe in the God the rest of the time. Mateusz
speaks matter of factly, with a friendly relaxed manner.

Music blares out of both floors. It’s not until the second night that people
start to talk about a Chaos Magic ritual. That night, the ritual prepares to go
ahead.
The four priests have been dressed in their priestly garbs, which vary from
an authentic looking druid robe, to dressing gowns. These four play roles in
the chaos ritual, described to me as a ‘deception.’ One priest represents
each of the four elements. The intent is to connect people with their true
will.

The ritual is chaotic in its preparation, as well as its execution. On the floor
is a Valknut Symbol; a unicursal (one line) symbol made of three
interconnecting triangles, producing a fourth triangle in the centre. Mateusz
sits to the side, his cape/sheet around his waist as a toga, and a loose fitting
shirt around his body. Tonight he represents Aether. With green and white
paint, and black outlines, his lower jaw is decorated in tribalistic designs.

The ritualists require everyone in the room to walk across the whole of the
sigil on the floor. With the lights on, there isn't much sense of atmosphere.
Karolina is unimpressed and walks the sigil with a look of 'are you fucking
kidding me' before sitting back down. Eventually, some kinds of
conversations are held in Polish, and members of the room began to leave. I
head downstairs with them.

The baby-faced girl wearing Minnie Mouse ears, is high. Practically

everyone is high, but she is on a whole other frequency. I gather she has
indulged heavily in the MXE. In her heavily altered state, she has decided
partway through the ritual that she isn't ready for the honour of being a
prophet of chaos that fate has thrust upon her.

Things are thus delayed for a while.

I wait with Sabina, Lao and Karolina as preparations are advanced. Sabina
leaves at one point and comes back with news; the ritual presenters seem to
have taken umbrage with the less than serious attitude of some of the
attendees and we are not invited to return.

While at this point I have kind of given up on seeing any kind of ritual at
all, Sabina and Karolina in particular take offense to my exclusion, and talk
to the organizers on my behalf. Soon, Lao and I are ushered into the room,
now dark.

At the four corners of the room are flat, silver triangles illuminated by
different coloured glow sticks. On each triangle stands a different
individual, representing the four elements. Mateusz stands by the door
facing the sigil, speaking softly and calmly, to the point where the music -
harsh ambient rock - has to be turned down so he can be heard. He
represents a God-figure, similar to Krishna. One of the priests is brought
into the middle of the sigil and pushed to his knees, representing the Will.

Around this point Scorpio who represents Air, unexpectedly leaves the
room, leaving the door wide open. Eventually, Lao goes to close it and
stands in his place.

I don’t follow much of the conversation that is held by the characters in the
space. Other than a passionate English, “He must be destroyed!” they speak
in hushed, serious sounding Polish.

At several points in the ritual, the door opens again, as those ‘not invited’
make their way into the space to see what they are supposed to be missing.
The elements continue to taunt the Will. The element wearing a red
jumpsuit shakes it off and stands in just his boxer shorts. Eventually the
elements make their way out of the room and go downstairs, where they
begin to argue loudly enough that they drown out the ritual as they continue
upstairs. Eventually they return with a bottle of whiskey, perching
themselves on the edge of the bed and talking loudly amongst themselves,
before directing comments towards the representative of the Will. They pull
him down on his back and force feed him whisky.

In the final part of the ritual, the elements approach the Will. Then
suddenly, they turn to the God-figure instead, and push him over, before
helping the Will to his feet. This symbolizes the triumph of Will over all
things. Everyone laughs heartily. In the tradition of Peter Carroll, this
functions as a banishing ritual.

We go downstairs. Lao and Piotr seem upset by the way the ritual
proceeded. Lao later told me their loud argument downstairs was trying to
salvage some kind of credible outcome from the ritual. Piotr is upset by the
lack of power in Mateusz's soft spoken God-figure, and is still complaining
about it as Mateusz walks slowly and indifferently down the stairs.

“He's meant to be this God-figure OK, like Krishna, but I think, I am more
like a God than he is,” he says as Mateusz arrives on the level and looks at
him indifferently.

“Everyone is a God,” he says calmly.

 ***

The second part of the ritual involved sigil magic. Sigil magic started in the
Renaissance, with links back to older traditions of magic, but contemporary
sigil magic is heavily influenced by 20th century occultist AO Spare who
practiced a form of sigilization where letters were superimposed over each
other.

Before the event, back in Wroclaw, Sabina had told me that participants
were encouraged to create a sigil that expressed their intention for what
they hoped to get out of the party.

This second part of the ritual involves the creation of a hypersigil-² a large
work of art created using processes of sigilization- to represent the whole of
the party. Everyone adds their sigil to a large piece of cloth in the middle of
the room. The centre of the cloth is taken up by a large chaos star. Once the
sigils are in place, participants use glow sticks to create a mandala in the
middle of the room. In the corner of the cloth sits Mateusz's portrait of
Vladimir Lenin with an infinity sign over the top. Lao later tells me that the
infinity symbol is known as Lemniscate; and Mateusz’s ‘Leninscate’ is in
fact, an elaborate pun.

I crash into bed and sleep solidly. I think I may have been the only person in
the house who slept at all, before the morning anyhow. But this is my last
day in Poland, and in the morning I say my goodbyes and board a train to
Germany.

¹ (The Gnome Revolution: 'Major' Fydrych & the Orange Alternative, n.d.).
² The term was popularised by Grant Morrison.
 22. Anarchy in the EU

Germany, like Austin, has Discordian strangeness in its DNA. This is where
a young hacker by the name of Karl Koch got in deep with drugs and
espionage. He named himself Hagbard Celine after the Illuminatus!
character, and developed a paranoid obsession with the Illuminati. His
paranoia couldn’t have been helped by his abuse of speed, or the fact that he
was providing Russian agents with secret documents he obtained through
his hacking. Eventually he took advantage of an amnesty to turn himself in
and seemed to be on the way to getting his life back together… before
apparently killing himself in an abandoned field in questionable
circumstances. A film called 23 represents a fictional account of his life.

I stay away from empty fields, hard drugs and espionage, instead choosing
out a hostel in Cologne. Still I don’t quite keep myself out of trouble; I am
chewed up by the hostel administration for using a washing machine
without proper consultation. I’m the Pope, dammit; I’m infallible! I’m
observing that conditions that appear to oppose Discordianism can be
instrumental in forming Discordian community, and the deep bureaucratic
streak I witness in Germany seems consistent with the fact that most the
Discordians I meet here are also Anarchists.

That first night, I go out to drink with a few members of the hostel. I also
meet with Bwana Honolulu and his partner Teapot. Bwana in particular has
a considerable profile in the Discordian community, and is the defacto
‘leader’ of the Aktion23 Discordian web forum. They share a few drinks
with us and show off their legacy deck of 1000 Blank White Cards.
“One of the best ones that one of the guys made was the clone card,”
Bwana tells me later. “It says the card player has to take a blank card, make
a perfect copy of this card and shuffle both into the drawing pile. After that
game, we had 20 clone cards at least. It was an epidemic; we had to make a
Clone-a-geddon card to get rid of them. There were clones all over the
place.”¹

The next day is our official meet-up - I meet not only the Germans today
but the members of the Dutch crew. Our party meets outside the Cologne
Cathedral. First is Tarvoc, a round faced man with a big smile. Following
him is Alexis of Silverfang - a name he tells me means ‘law of the wolf’ -
who has a more reserved, nervous manner. Other members of our party
seem to have been delayed a little- Bwana, Teapot and a third I haven’t met
- Lord Caramac, as well as the three Dutch Discordians Triple Zero, Ixxie,
and El Sjaako. Rather than stand in the hideous cold air, we walk past the
rows of travelers who have run out of money, sitting in the brutal cold
begging for change, and enter into a coffee shop.

While I have the first two of our party with me, I ask them how they got
into Discordianism.

“After 9/11 I began developing an interest for conspiracy theories,” Tarvoc

tells me. “I was posting on a board on the Internet and Discordianism and
Robert Anton Wilson’s novels came up there, so I read them and that’s how
I got into Discordianism.”

“You’re not so into the conspiracy theory thing now?” I ask. I wonder if
I’ve signed up for an afternoon of paranoid rantings about fluoride and
9/11.
“No, no,” he says. “There may definitely be some things like conspiracies
out there but they are definitely not controlling everything or something like
that. So no, that’s not really interesting. I think power structures function
differently and social structures function differently. You can’t just control
them by means of a conspiracy. Unless you have extraordinary technical
means that aren’t even yet developed, there isn’t that type of conspiracy out
there.

‘I think it’s something like an allegory; you see that there are social
differences, hierarchies and authority and something like that and you say,
‘Oh maybe there’s something behind that, why does crazy stuff exist?’ and
then you say, ‘Oh it’s all constructed by a conspiracy.’ Really most of this
stuff just develops and it can develop in one direction or another. If there
are conspiracies, they develop in a similar way. People have certain
interests and certain aims. They come together, and over time they maybe
develop institutions or structures.

‘Also I can’t really see the difference between a conspiracy and a peer
group. That’s something Wilson himself already remarked, I think. If we do
it, it’s a peer group, if they do it, it’s a conspiracy. So I’m not really into this
conspiracy stuff anymore.”

I ask Alexis the same question of how he found Discordia.

“In 2003 I had a mental breakdown with Jesus complex,” he tells me. “And
in the aftermath, a friend of mine, Lord Caramac to be precise, offered me
the Principia Discordia to read, and I just laughed with all the truth put in
there. And then the bitch stayed with me.”
Alexis of Silverfang then made a personal connection with Bwana before
joining the online community.

I chat with the pair of them for a while and am informed that Tarvoc is a
student of philosophy at university.

“Where does Discordia fit on the spectrum of philosophy?” I ask him. “Is it
a philosophy or- what is it?”

“I think the epistemology, or metaphysics even, behind classical

Discordianism in the Principia Discordia, and also in what Wilson did is
very close to Immanuel Kant and his philosophy and what he did. There are
some modifications, maybe modernization, but I think there are lines you
can draw from Kant’s critique of metaphysics to Discordian epistemology
and metaphysics.”

“What specifically is the connection between Discordian epistemology and

Kant, what particular ideas?”

“Kant performed this so called Copernic Turn in philosophy where, before

Kant they said, ‘What is there, how does the world really look?’ And they
build cosmologies like, ‘Here’s Earth and then there’s Heaven, and Heaven
is infinite, and there’s God somewhere,’ and Kant turned it around and said,
‘In philosophy we don’t have to look at the object - we have to look at what
the subject itself puts into its own effort to discover the world.’ All these
structures of cognition, that’s very similar to the web² metaphor from
Principia Discordia. We put a web on things and only some things come
through and others don’t and we can change the web - Kant didn’t actually
think that, but that was something new that came in the 19th century, there
may be different webs that we can somehow exchange and then different
things get into view and other things always fall out of it.”

“So would you say that Discordianism does represent a coherent philosophy
in the same way that Absurdism or Nihilism does?”

“It’s definitely not coherent because there are simply so many voices.
Verthaine [Discordian figure from New Orleans] has a very philosophical
approach and a very different approach than Wilson had. And Wilson again
is very different to the original Principia. And Wilson himself changed over
the years.”

Soon we get a phone call; the Dutch Discordians have arrived. Triple Zero,
commonly called Trip, is extremely tall, and possesses an almost detached
matter-of-fact manner. El Sjaako is bookish, with glasses, often quiet but as
far as creative output and community participation, incredibly industrious.
Ixxie is passionate and brimming with energy, with distinctly European
Jewish features. I know all three through my time at PeeDee.

Trip subtly entered Discordia through the Internet by accident and didn’t
realise it until he picked up the Illuminatus! trilogy.

“All these things that I just thought I happened on randomly on the Internet
were in this book, so I was properly mindfucked, and from there I went
investigating what it was about. I think I took one particular thing from the
Illuminatus! to check one thing to see if it’s actually real, and for some
reason I picked references to tarot cards that are at the end of the book.
Turns out he did indeed partially make up some shit and got some real
stuff.”

El Sjaako, the creative wunderkind, found Discordia to be a satisfying

alternative to atheism.

“I really like how Discordianism is kind of like spirituality, the best bits, for
me. You can sort of discover a religious ritualistic side, which I don’t do a
lot of, but sometimes I feel like lighting a few candles and burning some
incense. It’s just fun.”

He later shows me a number of his creative works; stamps fashioned out of

erasers, letterheads, zines, and a document that he sent to the newly elected
Catholic Pope, along with two Pope Cards. I’m not a Catholic but our
religions have much in common, for example people often have trouble
understanding whether Discordia is a joke or a religion. And the rock on
which the Catholic Church is built is a pun, he wrote.

Ixxie encountered Discordia in 2011.

“I was reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and got into
Lao Tsu. And then reading Nicolas Nassim Taleb’s The Black Swan I
became quite skeptical. I used to be quite rationalistic and reductionist, and
atheistic. And then I had a summer in Vienna that was one of the best in my
life. I was partying outside every week, doing whatever, smoking, drinking.
And I got really relaxed and abandoned belief of pretty much anything for
the time being. Then I took acid one party; it was the first time I ever took
acid. I saw the moon. And something blew in my mind. So I started reading
a lot of mysticism and I decided to go back and look into Discordianism. I
read Principia Discordia, I read Illuminatus! trilogy and it just fit because I
understood I needed a tool to explore this type of consciousness and this
one really appealed to me. I wasn’t really into Anarchism before but now
some of the ideas of Anarchism begin to appeal. And Discordianism just, it
allowed the freedom to explore any aspect of it that I wanted to. And what a
style, what an explosion of human ingenuity and humour. It’s quite brilliant
I think. And then I started exploring on the Internet I guess. I was
wandering around Facebook forums and I found Cramulus who showed me
onto #Discord.”³

Eventually Bwana and Teapot, as well as Lord Caramac arrive. Caramac is

dressed in a long elegant gothic coat and a tricorne hat. There’s a general
agreement to move out of the small café, and we head out. Triple Zero stops
to give our serious-faced barista a pope card and we wait for him to reach
us while he tries with limited success to explain to the barista that being a
now card-carrying Pope he is empowered to bless the milk and make it
holy.

The trip ends up being much more epic than any of us expect, and we
wander for something close to an hour through the streets of Cologne. At
one point we pause. Lord Caramac pulls out a steaming hot thermos of
mulled wine he has made, and we stand in a circle sipping on the
deliciously warm liquid. Ixxie has brought cake with him, and we eat it too.

We continue along until we find our new destination, a student bar with
Eristic vibes, and settle down in it.
One of the persons NOT with us is Bratislav Metulevskie, the founder of
Aktion23 who is away at a gig. The name is probably a pseudonym, Tarvoc
tells me, taken from a character in a mid-90s German movie. Some of the
members of the table tell me that he’s a musician, one-time Thelemite and
beekeeper who was into Chaos Magic and Crowley, and is now possibly
involved with the O.T.O. He doesn’t have much involvement with the
forum these days.

Metulevskie directly inspired Bwana’s own introduction to Discordia.

Sometime ‘over 10 years ago’ Bwana was completing his civil service,
working in a hospital.

“One day I was cleaning up the offices of the civil services,” he says, “and I
discovered this was a Discordian temple because in this there was a shrine,
where some original Discordian documents were lying, waiting for me.
Some of the printouts of some of the parts of Bratislav’s book, just left
there. He was doing civil services one and a half years before me and just
left his stuff there. I asked my boss about it and he was like, ‘Yeah it was
this guy there, do you want his telephone number?’ I was like no, better not
have contact with this person I don’t know, and took his things, and did
some research, and later found out, oh, Discordia.”

From there Bwana started his own group called Room 523, before joining
the existing Aktion23 site. Eventually, Bwana would be promoted to head
of the Aktion23 forum.

Bwana has brought two books from Bratislav Metulevskie with him. The
first features a cut-up of a naked woman with an obelisk in place of a head.
“I’m not sure how to feel about these books,” says Bwana. “I don’t agree
with them. I think he’s a nice guy and it’s great he started the whole thing
but I don’t always agree with his books.”

These books represented the original philosophy of Metulevskie and the

forum, to which they no longer adhere.

“Especially there are very many Thelema elements and we haven’t got them
in there anymore because we don’t have any Thelemites,” says Tarvoc.

“Of course there are many conspiracy theory elements we don’t yet agree
on,” Bwana says, to laugher. “I know he’s into stuff like Orgone generators.
I personally don’t agree with it.”

Orgone generators were devices used to collect ‘orgone energy,’ a concept

proposed by Wilhelm Reich, about whom Robert Anton Wilson wrote the
play ‘Wilhelm Reich in Hell.’

Tarvoc holds a copy of part one, Grundkurs Humanoide Metaphysik, a

mixture of elements, with the complete second half taken up with fliers. In
the mid-90s, under the name Aktion23 Metulevskie had made conspiracy
fliers to ‘wake people up’ and put them in places such as clubs. A long time
later, revisiting the clubs with a friend, he again found copies of his fliers,
made by others. It turned out they had made waves after all.
“Somehow he cramped some of this stuff up and wrote some more lengthy
text passages and threw them into this first book,” Bwana tells me. “And
sometime later, I think because he was bound by law, he did a second
book.”

The naked-girl-obelisque-head book is the second, though Metulevskie has

called it Part Zero.

“This part has more of a story of some guy waking up into the wrong
personality, talking to the collective mind of some ants, the egregore,”
Bwana tells me.

“Changing him into an insect and his name is Gregor, I think I’ve heard that
story,” quips Trip.

“No, this time it’s the other way around, the insects change into a collective
personality,” says Bwana. “The person gets fucked up because the aliens
take him away and rape him in space or something.”

“Then there’s something where he snaps and goes into a supermarket and
shoots everyone or something like that,” adds Tarvoc.

“I think he’s talking to an aubergine, an eggplant,” says Bwana.

The conversations breaks up a little again. Christmas is looming; this is the
period when the Dutch celebrate Sinterklaas, which includes the tradition of
being given large chocolate letters in the receiver’s name. They quickly
arrange a chocolate E.R.I.S on the table. Ixxie, for reasons I’m not entirely
clear on has also brought a plastic decapitated angel head, which he puts on
an empty beer bottle, where it sits creepily. He suggests adding a Hitler
moustache to make it less creepy. Triple Zero opposes this on the grounds
that we are in Germany. Later I am told that Lord Caramac took the head
home after our meeting, and painted it.

We go through some more materials. The Germans pull out a series of

memebombs that they have found on the Internet and put up on walls on
various trips around the world - short, clever phrases designed to deliver a
mental shock or moment of clarity to the reader - and to their delight they
find that Triple Zero is responsible for the webpage they took them from.
Also spread around the world have been the PosterGASM creations of
Cramulus.

They pull out something else. It’s a small box, exactly like an emergency
fire alarm you break in case of emergency but bright purple. The caption is
in German and reads In case of normality, break glass. Contained in the box
is a fake moustache. This is the Troll Box.

“This is the prototype,” Bwana says. “We have to think about what we want
to put in the other ones. A few ideas in my sketch-book here. Many prank
ideas in here. Contents: fake moustache, lollypop, a button, garlic candy,
prank candy, these chewy bones for dogs, a clown nose or like a magical
wand, these are things we want to put in there. And we have plans for a
different kind of troll box. It’s a little box with an information sign on it,
you press a button and it says something random to you. About life, the
universe and everything.”
Bwana takes yet another German Discordian artefact from his bag. This one
is religious regalia, a large blue dressing gown, almost completely covered
in badges. There’s an eye in the pyramid, an ankh, a ‘Kallisti’ apple
(actually a spray-painted Christmas decoration), a swoosh shape donated by
forum member Captain Bucky Saia. Bwana points to a star.

“I’m very happy with this, the highest civil order of the Planet Melmack
where Gordon Shumway is coming from; this is the aluminum star with
peanuts. I don’t remember how I got it - I think I was pretty drunk.”

Another badge is actually the earring of a ‘Discordian Voodoo guy’.

“And this-” he indicates a metal badge with starfish on it “-is from the order
of the starfish. The Starfish Cult. Oh, I have something for you.” He pulls
out a tea strainer. “This isn’t tea. She didn’t make,” he says, pointing at
Teapot. He struggles something out of it and eventually succeeds. It’s a
starfish. He passes it to me. “Captain Bucky Saia has something about
Starfishes, he started this whole thing called The Starfish Cult. Great
Mother Starfish is an ancient incarnation of Eris. That’s what the starfish is,
that’s what he found out.”

Cpt. Bucky Saia is one of the major artistic contributors to the Aktion23
community, responsible for a great deal of visual art, as well as the concepts
of the Starfish Cult and Dark Elvish Eris. Bwana tells me of the experience
that led him to Discordianism.
“He had a headache, a really awful headache and he found a way to direct
the pain right into his forehead, and as soon as all the pain was in his
forehead he had visions. And he wrote them down. That was his start with
Discordianism. That was right before he joined us. So he was the start of
the Dark Elvish Eris. He had another idea called the Starfish Cult I’ve
already told you about. It’s the idea that there are certain incarnations of
Eris in time, so there’s this old Greek one, and then there’s the one from the
Principia, there’s our Eris 2.0, there are other incarnations…

‘But before the Greek Eris there was a cult back in ancient times where
Conan and Takool lived⁴ and Atlantis was still flourishing, there was a cult
called Starfish Cult, the cult of Big Mother Starfish, and it was the starfish
worshipped by all other starfishes, it’s a weird thing; that’s where all other
starfishes came from, that’s another incarnation of Eris, in prehistoric times
and everyone forgot about it, same as we forgot about prehistoric Great
Worm which is the precursor of all subway trains.”

The concept of Dark Elvish Eris was explored in an article written by

Tarvoc, called Discordian Dark Elves. It represented a challenge to
contemporary Discordianism.

We, the Discordians of today, can not be the cute, funny and transparent
ELFes⁵ of the past. We have become dark elves who wander in the dark
places of the world to bring their repressed truths and fundamental
fantasies to light again. We walk in the shadows where no one else travels.⁶
We also make use of symbolism and ideology of the ruling order where we
consider it appropriate. But we use it to show people their repressed and
concealed dark shadows.
“So this was the next big thing we had,” Bwana says. “We were all so into it
and we wanted to change everything. Why didn’t that happen, why didn’t
we change everything Tarvoc? Why aren’t we all Discordian Dark Elves
now?”

“I don’t know,” says Tarvoc. “I wrote that one thing and then I wrote that
flier on Apocalyptic Consciousness. And that was January and February of
2010 and I was in a very strange mood at that time. It was like something
inside me took over and wrote this stuff and then switched back so maybe
we had not enough stuff for a real change. It was also not very well
received. I can imagine why. Many Discordians rejected it, maybe because
it didn’t emphasize the funny side, it emphasized the dark side, very much
to the Anarchist direction. To the politically active direction and maybe that
was a bit scary to some.”

I take a moment to speak with two of the quieter members of the table. Both
Teapot and Lord Caramac have been very quiet during our meet.

“How did you discover Discordianism?” I ask Caramac.

“Basically it discovered me,” he says. “Basically I was just playing around

with all this occult magic stuff around the turn of the century and I had just
discovered Chaos Magic, and at some Pagan group I met a Chaos Magician
who also was a Discordian. I just happened to discover a copy of the
Illuminatus! trilogy and I read the whole thing in just a few days, being
stoned out of my mind most of the time and afterwards I decided to
download a copy of the Principia from the Internet and I was hooked.”
“And what about it appealed to you?”

“Basically, reality is something that our mind creates to make sense of all
the chaos that comes through our senses. While science is pretty good at
getting rid of all the superstitions that really are just human constructs,
some things are still kind of real even if they are just in our minds because
everyone believes in it. So I had been thinking about how to break into
people’s minds, how to put little time bombs into their minds that will
explode after a while. Make them see things in a different way. Then I met a
guy who did that to me. I was like wow, I need to find out how he did it.”

(“Actual time bombs,” Triple Zero suggests.)

I’d tried to speak to Teapot earlier in the afternoon, but she’d asked me to
come back to her later. Later she signaled to me that she was ready to give
me some answers.

“I remembered how I heard about Eris and the apple and Kallisti and that
stuff. It was in Greek school actually… I visited both German school and
Greek school. That’s where I heard stuff about Eris and through different
coincidences and conspiracies I stumbled upon Robert Anton Wilson, books
from him. Masks of The Illuminati, that’s how I found Discordianism. Then
I found some Discordians on the Internet.”

I ask what she liked about Discordianism.

“It’s an opportunity to channel my weirdness in some way, and I think I like
the philosophy.”

The German Discordians appear broadly tilted towards Anarchism. Bwana

tells me they don’t have formal connections to other Anarchist groups, but
more or less all of them have some ties to Anarchism.

“For me it’s a family tradition,” Bwana says. “My father when he was
younger was an Anarchist. I’m still looking for his black star; I don’t know
where he left it. I want to have this thing. I want to add it here.” He points
to his gown. “While he was in the military, he had a passport. When you
opened it there was a cardboard figure of a naked guy and he was stretching
his giant penis towards you. So when you had this passport and opened it,
in the case of a policeman, he was getting a huge penis to his face.”

¹ When I ran this chapter by Bwana, he gave the following comment. I can
neither remember this having happened during any ¹kBWC game I’ve
played nor can I remember having told this story. Still it’s quite a good story
and I will probably incorporate this card into one of the next games. Maybe
I’ve accidently remembered the future instead of the past again.

² I suspect this is a translation issue: the word in my copy of the Principia is

‘grid.’

³ IRC channel also accessible at http://principiadiscordia.com/irc/

⁴ These are characters from a fantasy series by Robert E. Howard who are
also referenced in the ‘Illuminati Letter’ featured in the Principia Discordia.

⁵ A pun here; one Discordian Cabal, the Erisian Liberation Front is known
as the ELF.

⁶ A reference to ⁹⁰s Sci-Fi show Babylon ⁵

 23. Cutting off the Finger

I travel up to the Netherlands, and crash at Ixxie’s place for a few days.
When I go to meet with researcher Christian Greer who Essi has put me in
contact with, Ixxie joins me. We meet in an Amsterdam pub. Greer has a
rough unshaven face and liberal use of ‘dude,’ ‘man,’ and the occasional
‘dudeman.’ He is a trip of deep knowledge and excited speech, and there’s
little to do in his presence but grab hold onto a thread of conversation and
hold on for dear life.

Lubricated by the sweet nectar of Amsterdam’s pubs, we talk about his

research. It’s mainly built around the study of Discordianism through the
examination of primary sources; namely the zines floating around from the
glory days of the zine scene. He’s also teaching a course on esotericism and
politics, along with two classes on Ontological Anarchism.

“For people who don’t know Discordianism I can put it in a different way
but for someone who knows about it I’m going to change my tune,” he
says. “Though Discordianism pre-dated the term Ontological Anarchism, I
still use the concept as an effective means of classifying what Discordians,
as well as the SubGeniuses that came after them, were getting at. It is
anachronistic though.”

“In response to old ideas?” I interrupt.

“Yes,” he says. “Well, in response to one dude’s ideas, Hakim Bey’s ideas.
Hakim Bey coined the term in the mid-1980 in the context of Chaos Magic.
Here I should say Discordianism represents an American version of Chaos
Magic. Or, rather, considering that Discordianism came first, it may be
more correct to say that Chaos Magic is a British response to
Discordianism- amongst other things. Though some people in the US were
participating in it as it developed, Chaos Magic was largely a British
phenomenon. It was a response by British occultists to a number of spiritual
and scientific trends that had been coalescing for some time. In my work, I
go to great lengths to map the overlap between Chaos Magic from
Discordianism, as the two are often incorrectly conflated- at least on the
theoretical level. On the historical level, it is much easier to differentiate
between them, as one flared up within occult communities within the
British Isles and the other was embedded in the ‘lunatic fringe’ of US
culture. During the 1980s, there was no American Chaos Magic, only
Americans who participated in the discourse on Chaos Magic, which was
primarily in Britain. ‘American Chaos Magic’ is more accurately described
as Ontological Anarchism, which says, when you breach reality, you are
able to manipulate certain things.”

This represents a theme that will twist and wind its way through our
conversation tonight – that Discordianism represents a kind of breach of
reality – a concept that Greer later ties in to multiple other political and
spiritual traditions.

“You know Burroughs?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say. Burroughs knew Wilson, and introduced him to the 23 enigma.
“So he believes that we are trapped by language which is a virus from outer
space,” Greer says. “And it had infected us and then replicated. What does a
virus do? It makes other viruses. How do we talk about language? We talk
about it. How do we express language? We talk about it. So he believes that
we are imprisoned by this virus.

‘OK, so language was ultimately the mechanism for Control. If you breach
Control, everything that language constrains is unleashed. What does
language constrain? According to Burroughs, the ‘magical universe’. After
you breach the language virus, you become open to things like
synchronicity, the 23 enigma, as well as the practice of sorcery. The Law of
5s was a Discordian response to Burroughs decree to break down the
mental conditioning of Control. Aside from the 23 enigma, Burroughs
favourite method of sorcery was the cut-up method.

‘It’s like The Matrix, which was influenced by Grant Morrison’s The
Invisibles, which was, in turn, derivative of RAW’s work, which owed a
great deal to Burroughs. The Matrix presented audiences with a compelling
portrait of the way in which the universe we believe we inhabit is in fact a
construct. Burroughs claimed the same thing; as did the Discordianism who
followed him. Here, it may be instructive to introduce the Discordian
concept of “fnord”. A fnord is an invisible word, which triggers anxiety in
unsuspecting readers. Fnords can only be detected after one has achieved
illumination. What does this all mean? Well, the idea is that the visible
world is an illusion, which we must breach. Burroughs’ work was oriented
in facilitating a gnostic breakthrough; his idea was to breach the confines of
the ‘matrix’ of Control. He referred to it as a ‘Breakthrough in the Grey
Room’. Discordian authors, particularly Robert Anton Wilson, followed
him in this regard; although the Discordian Pope put a great deal more faith
in the ‘meta-programming’ power of LSD, and various occult techniques...
What is the Marxist’s way of saying someone’s ideas are totally fucked up?
False consciousness. That’s what The Matrix illustrated: false
consciousness.
‘Once you take the ‘red pill,’ you undergo a gnostic breakthrough in which
everything you thought was normal is revealed to be a con. After your
awakening, you won’t be able to go back to how you saw it before. So, in
Marx, you develop class consciousness. You see exploitation whereas
before you only saw normal life.

‘Burroughs believed that once you breached Control, you could not go back
to living in the matrix, so to speak. After that, you exist in a world of
sorcery, magical attacks, and weird synchronicities. The fact is that once
you breach reality you can construct your own reality. Or, as RAW put it:
“reality is what you can get away with”. This logic was also at play in the
Situationist International. A decidedly non-psychedelic revolutionary
movement of the 1960s, which also claimed that humans are trapped in a
false world. They termed this false world “the spectacle”- You’ve heard of
Situationists Internationale?”

Again I have – their work has influenced many of the Discordians I’ve met,
including Vortek, Marcelo and Maldonado in Brazil.

“In some sense, it’s a French radical movement. We don’t know if

Burroughs read any of their major work. Anyway, once you breach the false
reality, the matrix, the spectacle whatever, you enter into a more Taoist
situation of potentiality. Nothing is true; everything is permitted. And what
is pure potentiality? Chaos! That’s what chaos is! It’s the opposite of a
prefabricated universe. And who reigns over this universe? Eris, dude! She
is a personification of it, which means that Eris is also an “idol”. For
Discordians, she’s an effective idol. Like all Goddesses - you know what I
mean by that? If ideas are tools, that’s what I mean. Ideas are tools. So you
use the idea of a Goddess to get shit done. Doesn’t matter if it’s true or not;
it works. That would later become a part of Chaos Magic. But before you
had Chaos Magic you had Burroughs.”

Greer sees this same pattern repeated in the Church of the Subgenius.

“It becomes difficult to maintain a link with chaos. And the Discordians
were radical enough to say that all these things are fingers pointing at the
moon and not the moon and you cannot ever idolize them. Well, the joke
didn’t have a lot of legs. So there was a vulgarization a little bit in the
Church of the Subgenius which was to say I’m going to give you “Bob”
Dobbs as an image and every time you see him, you’re going to remember.
And “Bob” Dobbs will be like a crutch, like a fake prosthetic, cos you know
that Bob is chaos, you know that “Bob” is reality breached and everyone
else is a ‘pink’. This is a very ablest conversation,” he adds, thoughtfully.
“This metaphor might not be appropriate for some of our differently abled
comrades, but anyways, “Bob” is a prosthetic, and that’s why you put
“Bob” everywhere, “Bob” is chaos and putting him everywhere reminds
you everything is super fun… If you take the joke too seriously you miss
the fucking joke. Bob’s a crutch! It’s not supposed to be about “Bob”. Bob’s
a way for you to remember that you’ve breached reality.”

Greer talks of seeing elements of Discordian thought as a response to this

breach.

“Once you breach you make your own. In Robert Anton Wilson’s
terminology, you construct you own “reality tunnel”. He explains this
concept at length in his occult manual, Prometheus Rising. It is based on
Leary’s eight circuit model of consciousness, which Antero Alli would later
employ in Angel Tech. It’s important for me as a scholar to make this clear:
I have a bias towards Wilson because he was so articulate about the
genealogy of his ideas. I’m not sure if Hill or Kerry read Burroughs, so I am
not inclined to speculate on the connection between their contributions to
Discordianism and Burroughs’ work.

‘Their work did not really resemble Illuminatus! It had a different flavour to
it. Thornley often equated Discordianism with Zen and Anarchism; he made
this clear in his book Zenarchy. It is something to mark, particularly with
regard to the history of Beat Zen. Thornley was followed by another
Discordian, Camden Benares who had his own vision of Discordian
Metaphysics. Also of note is Tundra Wind, but he came later, in the 1980s.
Benares’ work is great; he was big on “cosmic consciousness”; have you
read much about cosmic consciousness in the Discordian Context?” ’

Both Ixxie and I say “No,” in chorus, though at least one of us is wrong. Dr
Bob Newport had told me about this back in LA.

“I think Thornley always had it in his mind that Discordianism was a way
in which Westerners could achieve Buddhist enlightenment,” Christian
continues. “Background reading in Alan Watts is helpful here, as Watts was
the most popular exponent of “Eastern Philosophy” to the spiritual seekers
of the so-called ‘hippie movement’. The proponents of flower power. Watts
presented Zen Buddhism as a “Way of Liberation,” which was both in
keeping with what he had been taught, as well as a major innovation. For
him, Zen was not a religion but as a series of techniques you could use to
liberate yourself from ego; ego was back then a synonym for false
consciousness. Anyway, so much of Thornley's work was derivative of
Watts’s idea of what religion should be, which is liberatory. It should
liberate you! That comes directly from Watts¹.
“And they pretty much say that in as many words through Eris,” I say. “I
have come to free you, blah blah blah.”

“Right. So it’s coded as liberation. We know that the word freedom is null.
The word freedom is completely empty of value. Everyone uses it right,
fascists use it, everyone uses it right. It’s very little semantic value I would
say. And that’s Korzybski also and Wilson, Robert Anton. So much of the
early Principia Discordia stuff is saturated with this Eastern Wisdom.”

***

I ask Christian about his own affinity with Discordia. “I’ve met a lot of
people who’ve said I read the Principia, or did this Discordian thing and
realized that this was what I’d always been, or this was where I belong,” I
say. “Would you say that?”

“Absolutely not,” he says, dropping an anchor in that particular sea of

thought. “Absolutely not. Look at it like this man; you could read the
Principia Discordia like you could read Che Guevara’s Guerrilla Warfare,
Mao Tse Tung’s Red Book. It’s strategies. If anything it’s strategic. That’s
why it appeals to Anarchists. They can pick up a book like that and read
strategy. In my opinion, the most astute readers of the PD are the ones who
take what they can from it and move on; they are not stuck repeating the
same jokes that were made more than forty years ago. They read it as a
strategic toolbox and develop their own shit.”

It’s getting late. Happy Hour has come and gone, with predictable effect on
my sobriety.
“I don’t even remember who says it or what idea it is, but that there’s many
paths to whatever,” I say. After a wave of ideas, (and cider) I’m trying to
put a thought together that seems just out of my reach.

“Eris?” asks Christian, and chuckles.

“Well Eris if you want to call it Eris.”

“Eris is simply the first perception of breaching control,” says Christian

sagely. “Chaos is merely the first glimpse of - you could call it the Tao - just
the first glimpse of that shit.”

I stumble home afterwards with Ixxie. Christian, a creative himself, spoke

to Ixxie and I at one point about the power of a zine-maker to exert a
coherency onto their product, and maybe he’s exerted the same coherency
onto my journey tonight.

Memories of things people have said to me are falling into place. Words
always obfuscate and cause problems. They just get in the way of what is
and they never really help clarify, Cy had told me. We use our words to
make sense of the world, but our senses are always limited – Burrough’s
idea of language being a virus from outer space is one articulation of this.
The PeeDee forum called our various self-imposed limits the Black Iron
Prison. By using this you can sort of remove your mind's imprints… we
don't want to use the imprints that our parents give us Akregon said of
Discordia. Is Discordia just another tool, maybe one with a more playful,
more relaxed attitude, to try to breach whatever illusionary reality sits in
front of you. What can you do? You make your own reality tunnel. Once
you breach, you make your own, Christian had said. Does Discordia in fact
give us the tools to shape our own reality? If you can’t escape the illusion
after all, maybe you can create your own.

***

I take a trip down to Ingolstadt, the birthplace of the Illuminati. They prove
typically elusive, and I find myself returning to The Netherlands. I stay
another few nights with Trip, before travelling down to Amsterdam, to
catch Greer one more time before I fly home. This time El Sjaako comes
along with us.

Greer, as per usual is a storm of ideas, but this time he cuts right to the
point. He wants to know why I mentioned in our earlier conversation
tonight why I think it’s dangerous to get too serious about Discordianism.

It’s something I’ve been thinking about recently. Not too long before this
conversation I wrote an article on my blog called I Heart Intangibles;

People can form emotional connections to intangible concepts. Sports

teams, religions (some religions in some sense), political groups… all form
a sense of unity and community through a focus on a third thing. People are
being brought together through a shared relationship with a TV show or a
religious figure or a sports team.
This isn’t a problem as long as you don’t let the map become the territory.
While we treasure and adore the ideas we form emotional connections with,
we need to remember they’re ideas. They’re concepts. They can’t love us
back.

The people that become part of our community can. Our fellow Broncos
supporters, our Game of Thrones fans, our Communist comrades build a
culture, language and a set of rituals that we can engage in together to
bring us all together. We’re like a group sitting around a campfire, singing
songs to the flames. When it comes time for a hug, you need to remember-
it’s the person beside you who’ll appreciate it, not the fire.

So for us as Discordians, we’ve formed a relationship through a deity

generally considered explicitly a symbolic or metaphorical entity. I think we
might need to remind ourselves that we are a collection of wonderful,
curious people who are brought together by Eris…

But she can’t love us back.

I paraphrase this as best I can. Eris is great, but she’s not really ‘there.’

“Are you sure?” says Greer. “I mean be brave, if you think it’s all bullshit
feel free to say so. It might be a practical prosthesis. Eris might be a
spiritual prosthesis.”
“I think she’s real in some sense,” Sjaako offers.

“Classic,” Greer says, and laughs.

“I interpret Eris in a way that means she exists in at least that sense. In a
kind of literal sense, no,” I say.

“Well I’ll tell you this, the existence/not existence binary is bullshit; it’s just
another reality tunnel. Think of the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, which
hinge on the futility of this binary. You can’t have one without the other. It’s
front and back. I’m with you there. That was a mean question, I didn't mean
to spring it on you.”

I tell him I’m not worried and we talk a little on metaphors.

“I think that’s the first premise of Discordianism is that it’s true in one
sense, not true in one sense, I think the punchline to that joke is to say
existence/non-existence is a false dichotomy,” says Greer. “To start, it’s a
false dichotomy, and beyond that it can be true if you use it in a Tao system.
Chaos Magic is about employing certain paradigms to get the fuck you
want, and that’s one paradigm you can employ to get what you want. And I
think there’s a Zen koan- it’s not a koan it’s more like an adage that talks
about the finger pointing at the moon. You guys know this one right?”

“I don’t.”
“Japanese Zen Buddhists - and they didn’t call themselves Japanese Zen
Buddhists- in fact the best of them, like Bankei, were straight-up cranks -
they would accuse Buddhists of staring at the finger and forgetting that the
finger’s pointing at the moon. So they would become engrossed in the
minutia of Buddhism, all of the methods, practices and meditations. The
Zennists would insist that all would impede any effort to achieve a higher
level of consciousness. They would claim that their piety was, in fact, mere
fetishization. Worse, still, they would draw attention to all of the power
games involved with orthopraxis. The Abbot. The Hierarchy. The Sanga.
All of it. Zen was like a sword to cut through all of the detritus that had
become encrusted around the Dharma. If they insist on starring at the finger,
chop it off.”

***

This is the last of our meetings. I stay at Christian’s pad for a night, and he
drops me to the airport in the morning. It’s a long flight, and I have a lot to
think about. As the hours pass, I turn my head to the window, and look at
the moon.

It’s the end of something so big, so strange and so dominating that I’m
going to need to take some time to comprehend what it’s all meant. I’m
certainly not the same person who set out on the journey nearly a year ago.

I had set out to find out why people enjoyed Discordia, but it’s not about
Discordia; it’s about life. It’s about the experience of being a creature who
has a limited capacity to sense and comprehend the meaning of the universe
that engulfs them, and how to deal with that with grace and humor. It’s
about learning to find solace in the knowledge that all comprehendible
patterns and certainties are just illusions produced by a mind terrified of the
incoherent chaos of being, and developing tools to work within that to grasp
at the chance to

shed yourself and

your ideas of what has to be.

¹ I think it’s worth noting here that I’ve seen Cramulus identify ideas of
Watts that appear again, almost identically, in the Principia Discordia, such
as the discussion of grids, and also places Greg and Kerry in Whittier at a
time when his lectures were regularly aired on Pacifica Radio.
 Afterfnord

In 1958 or 1959, two teenagers got together for drinks in a bowling alley
and had a ‘You know what the world needs? A chaos religion’ conversation.
And 50+ years later, that conversation has morphed and ricocheted through
so many minds, it could have become anything.

Brenton Clutterbuck set out to discover what it had become. Because it's
always changing, you can't know the Discordian society, you can only
discover it. You can only chase it. Sometimes it feels like you're following
it, sometimes it feels like you're chasing it out with a broom going, "Get
outta here!" And if you hang on to what you think you know; you will only
be confused. Well, you'll probably be confused either way.

I can tell you what that feels like. In 2008-2009, I put together the Et Cetera
Discordia to capture what the Discordian Society felt like at that exact
moment. I wanted to grab a snapshot of the 50-year anniversary of
Discordia. So that it would feel like a work of its time, I included a lot of
the memes and joke formats of the day. It took me three or four years to
finish the project, so by the time it was released, it already felt dated.

Constant disorientation is the hallmark of the Strange Times. If you're

asleep, everything seems like business as usual. If you're awake, you can
see that the world is alive, and you're alive with it. The living world twists
and pushes against itself, using "dynamic tension". Like a bodybuilder, our
world builds muscle by pitting one half of itself against the other. Each of
us are muscle fibers, sometimes relaxed, sometimes straining to the
breaking point, a symbiotic symphony of potential and kinetic energy.
Through this struggle, this friction, through that discord, something new is
formed.

Things have changed since Brenton started chasing Eris. At the moment of
this writing, we are living in the Trump moment, we are living in the Pepe
moment, we are living in the wildfire. It's a time of uncertainty, of potential-
kinetic alchemy. The plus-discordians have always clashed with the minus-
discordians and now both are outdated. In search of disorder and lulz, many
newcomers have found the golden apple. Many know Eris by another name,
Kek, a chaos god who wears the guise of a cartoon frog. Many communities
have been slowly agitated into hysteria by right-wing trolls. You see it in
political spaces, in Pagan spaces, you see them courting chaos by lighting
torches and using ‘free speech’ as a baton to beat people with. It makes me
wonder if today's golden apple says "To the Shittiest One". I'm anxious
about the future of the Discordian Society, because in the last few years it's
changed in ways I don't like. And somebody once told me that if you make
a funny face for too long, it'll stick and become permanent.

But every generation since the dawn of time looks at the ‘goddamn kids
these days’ and goes, “Ughhhhhh, come on, knock it off.” And let's be
clear, it's not like the Discordian Society didn't have any asshole nihilists
before. Part of the beauty of the Discordian Experiment is that it can mean
so much to so many. It's about doing it yourself, about recognizing your
own papacy and living like it. And so, is it any surprise that this kind of
radical spiritual empowerment might also empower some shitty people? As
the Chase for Eris shows us, we run in circles. And even writing about
what's going on ‘right now’, in 2018, I feel like everything will change
again by the time you read this.

That's why it's important to take these snapshots. Life moves pretty fast; if
you don't stop and look around once in a while, all these moments will be
lost in time like tears in the rain. Maybe, in these pages, you have had a
taste of the Discordian Society as it was, and this gives you a vision of what
it could be. We are a kinetic people, we invite you to go to the next step and
drag us along.

We've come this far without any dogma, and the office of the Polyfather has
been closed for decades. We stick apart so hard that sometimes it feels like
the whole thing may just vanish one day. Maybe we need a little more
stickiness. Something that can keep the Discordian Spirit kindled, some
well that we can draw from to renew our madness. I know I'll need to duck
as soon as I say this, but maybe we need some Discordian Traditions.
To that end, let me tell you about Moosemas.

Moosemas is a mobile feast invented by the Coven of Our Lady of the

Woods, a group of Pagans in Oregon who evidently let Discordians steer
now and then. In the early 1980s, they hosted a bunch of Moosemas parties-
-and wrote a document instructing others how to host their own. This
document was lost for over 30 years, until it was rediscovered by Ratatosk,
squirrel of Discord. Since then, Discordians have been hosting Moosemas
parties, adding their own flair and flourishes. This year, I hosted my 10th
annual Moosemas party. You should do it too.

Here's how I celebrate it: Along with traditional holiday decorations, I print
out like 50 pictures of mooses and thumbtack them up all over my house. I
gather people in the morning for brunch. We celebrate our own laziness
with Mimoosas, Bloody Mooseys, Moscow Mooses.... We yell Moosletov!
and kiss while standing under the Moosletoe. We sing the 12 days of
Moosemas ("Seven dogs-a-fucking, Six dogs-a-fucking, FIVE! FUCKING!
DOGS!, four dogs-a-fucking"--etc etc--"and a dog that is fucking itself").
People get dressed up fancy, or wear Halloween costumes, or just chillax in
their PJs. The party could be hosted whenever we want it ("Moosemas in
July" parties are not unheard of). It's been exactly the screaming hysterical
madness I need every year, around December, to get through the holiday
season.

I also want to mention "Day of Discord" on the 23rd of May. Reverend

Synaptaclypse proposed that this be an annual holiday where Discordians
seek out other Discordians and hang out in person. Find the other nutjobs in
your area and do things with them, even if it's just meeting up for a hot dog
or stapling a couple of zany posters to telephone poles. Maybe you cats will
spot Eris and chase her a little further.

Brenton chased Eris around the globe. I wonder if he ever caught her. When
I met him at the Main Way Monastery and Waffle House, he struck me as
bright, inquisitive, hilarious, open-minded, and genuinely having a good
time. I was stuck by his bravery and sincerity. Like a psychedelic
hummingbird, he was taking a sip from all these strange flowers growing in
Eris' garden. And as we spoke, I got the sense that we were both being
invigorated, we were both in direct contact with the wild and creative
Discordian spirit and were being renewed by it.

In this book, that spirit is laid bare. You and Brenton have chased Eris from
page to page. Now you're at the end, the last page, and there's nowhere else
to run. But I've got news for you--the spirit is behind you now, and a new
chase is on.

Tag, you're It.

-Professor Cramulus (Dan Comstock), 2018.

Appendix One: Discordian Ritual at PantheaCon.

The Avatar Jones Memorial Cabal run an Erisian High Mass, a ritual which
is actually very structured, featuring heavily scripted audience participation,
and taking a great deal of dialogue directly from the Principia Discordia.
They also perform the Sacred High Mass of the Krispy Kreme Kabal, a
light-hearted pun heavy piece found in Dr Jon’s project, Apocrypha
Discordia.

Another past ritual told to me by the AJMC was the Caffeine Mass of the
Javacrucian religion, an invocation to coffee. As part of the ritual, the
attendees sung a joyful song of praise to coffee. I’m told a number of those
who had participated in the ritual later found themselves in a very long line
of folk waiting for coffee, and began to sing the coffee hymnal, this time to
the tune of a mournful funeral hymn. For good measure they threw in a
touch of Monty Python and between lines, beat their heads against their
empty thermoses. The caffeine Gods evidently heard their misery and took
great pity on them, as the managers suddenly took it upon themselves to
process the Javacrucians as rapidly as possible.

I met another person through Das Hive named Ted, a vibrant and delightful
individual. Ted had performed a large number of Discordian rituals at
PantheaCon. He later sent an overview of these via email;

For all rituals I encouraged people to turn their cell phones on to maximum
volume.
All rituals also included SMS invocations: Gave out my cell phone number
at the ritual, and encouraged people to text me with invocations. Read
basically all invocations aloud for audience to repeat. (Since it's an all-ages
ritual, I didn't read pornographic invocations aloud.)

All rituals also included an audience-participation chorus, conducted by my

choir director Max Bernstein. Everyone is asked to think of a song and then
begin singing it simultaneously. Max controls volume. Often people ended
up switching to singing the catchiest song from anyone nearby.

Here's a brief description of each ritual, and all attachments:

RITUAL OF THE ORANGE CIRCLE: This was the first ritual I did at
PantheaCon, and did it alongside the Dalai Lemon. Described as a
"warding and protection circle, to prevent the creation of a Ritual of the
Orange Circle." [It] Involved wrapping bright orange yarn around all
participants and asking protection from the Ritual of the Orange Circle
ever occurring.

Also included a collection plate: I seeded the plate with a stack of cards,
and encouraged people to take or leave items from the collection plate as it
was passed around, but warned them that I'd throw away anything still on
the plate.

Also included in the ritual was Dalai Lemon's excellent "Schrödinger’s

Egg" ritual: Passed out plastic Easter Eggs, empty. Told people to write a
message in them and then give them back to me, all in one basket. Then
asked Eris to change the text of each egg to be a new message, the answer
to whatever question was asked. Then passed out the eggs again. The eggs,
therefore, were in an "unresolved unknown state" -- an uncollapsed
waveform which therefore potentially contained every possible message.

RITUAL OF TIME TRAVEL: This ritual started at 11pm, lasted an hour,

and transported everybody a whole day forward in time.

I passed out instructions for components to individuals and groups, and left
a lot of materials in the middle of the room (mostly stuff I'd cleaned out
from my home that was too cool to throw away, but also random crafts,
electronics, toys, etc.) People were asked to create the components and
assemble them into one time machine. The second person to come up made
the machine out of her very patient boyfriend, who was then decorated with
the rest of the components, making an amazing human time machine.

I also had people write out retroactive time travel request forms, and file
them with the time travel request machine, which was also a paper
shredder.

MARRIAGE OF OPPOSITES: A ritual of wedding between yourself and

your evil twin, or yourself, or anyone else around. Themes were basically
centred around invoking opposites. Everyone was given a marriage
license, and they were encouraged to fill it out, get as many people as
possible to sign it, and then transmit the message into space (with the
shredder).
Included a distributed subritual creation trick. I had five friends volunteer
to work with groups, one for each Discordian element (SWEET, ORANGE,
BOOM, PUNGENT, PRICKLE) and asked the groups to create a small
ritual around that element. Once everyone had their subrituals ready, each
group explained their ritual to the crowd and led that part of the ritual.

Also included "The Mask of Opposites". For the mask I used costume
Groucho Marx glasses. Those who wished to do so were encouraged to put
on the glasses, and channel the exact opposite of themselves to say
something that is opposite of their usual thoughts. These were in the form of
bold declarations to contemplate later. For instance, I wore the mask and
declared, "I don't need more gadgets, I need to get into more fights!" Max,
my choir director, wore the mask and declared, "Ack! I can't speak in front
of crowds!"

INVOKING TOTEM ROBOT: Another crafts-based techno-ritual,

basically a little like an egregore-creation ritual with randomized
elements, which was an awesome innovation that Autumn had introduced
to me previously. After invocations, etc., participants were given little slips
of paper with attributes of the robot, then they were told to exchange these
with people they didn't know. Once they had a completely new set of
attributes, they were given materials -- crafts items, empty bottles, old
Lego sets, electronics, and a lot of tin foil to wrap everything in -- and
invited to build robots. Programming instructions for the robot were filled
out in a form and transmitted to the robot -- via shredding machine, of
course, or they could roll it up and keep it with the robot. (Program,
Robot Attributes, and Request Form in attachment.)

TEMPLE CEREMONY: A ceremony to create a tiny internal temple.

Participants wrote down desires and instructions, and then passed them
around. Then, each participant was asked to give a gift of something that
they had on their person and didn't need. These were placed in covered
altoid tins, along with notes, folded origami paper cranes (I happened to
have a lot of those), and anything else that seemed like it belonged or
would decorate well, to make a tiny portable altar for people to use.

This also involved a presenter-led group meditation. Here's a paraphrase:

"Please close your eyes and imagine that you are in a temple. If you
regularly use a temple of the mind, or a house of memory, or anything like
that in your practice, please don't use that. Imagine some other temple.

Imagine the way light comes into that temple.

Imagine the way it smells.

Imagine the sounds and sensations as you walk through that temple.

Next, imagine that you have a robot friend, strong and loyal, and that it's
joining you in that temple. Imagine how he or she moves around, and
imagine going around the temple with your robot companion.

Now, please imagine a delicious dessert topping, and imagine that dessert
topping slowly filling that temple. Let that dessert topping first cover the
floor, then rise higher and higher in the temple, in huge quantities, until the
whole temple is filled to the ceiling with it.
Next, I have some bad news for you. As you probably know, there is a real
estate loan crisis happening, and some payments are due. Please imagine
two men in suits, employees of the bank, delivering a foreclosure notice to
your temple.

Now, please imagine that robot companion, so strong, picking up the whole
temple off its foundations, and pouring all the dessert toppings out from the
temple onto to surprised and displeased bank officers, and then leaving.

Now, bear with me a moment, because we're going to change settings.

Imagine, instead of all that, a beautiful natural setting, with wide open
spaces. Feel the fresh air, the plants. Imagine the horizon, off in the
distance.

Now, imagine a speck at that horizon, moving toward you. As it comes

forward, closer to you, you can begin to see what it looks like. And as that
speck comes closer, you realize that it is your temple, being carried by your
faithful robot friend.

Now imagine your robot friend setting the temple down next to you. There is
still probably some leftover smells from the dessert topping. Sorry about
that. But now picture the robot, beckoning you to come along with him or
her, into the temple."

Then filling out a form describing that meditation. And filing it with a
shredder. Participants were then encouraged to link this vision of a temple
with the portable altar that they had made.

St. Mae has also presented a great number of rituals. I quote her directly
here on a number of Discordian rituals.

Greyface Self Banishment. (With Lon and Dalai Lemon)

We had two Greyfaces that we brought in, where we did it like a hero’s
journey, where one of our people would dress up and tell their story, which
was meant to be one of the Greyfaces that we all fight within ourselves. So
one of them, the Daily Lemon, performed the hipster irony Greyface, where
you don’t take anything sincerely, and it’s just like, ‘Oh, yeah, I think that’s
sooo cool’ where you just kind of live in sarcasm. The other Greyface that
we chose to poke fun on was the ritually correct Greyface. Where, you
know, ‘Your wand is 10 and a half inches and it really should only be ten
inches, so, I don’t think you’re casting the circle correctly, and that robe is
actually charcoal and not midnight so clearly we’re going to have to call the
whole thing off.’ So, once each Greyface had told their story, we broke the
audience into two different groups, and the participants had to make
Greyface laugh, because that’s how you kill Greyface. And so they told
jokes until each Greyface laughed, and then we popped a giant balloon and
gave people bubble wrap so the next time they felt there was an eternal evil
Greyface within themselves they should pop the bubble wrap to ritually
break the spell. I was very pleased I found a spiritual use for bubble wrap.

Talismans of Change.
We took an Open Source Order of the Golden Dawn ritual and turned it into
making talismans of change out of nickels... we divided the groups up into
five groups where each one was for a different element and they had to
create a chant that they would use as part of it. I don’t remember the whole
specifics but it was pretty good, and one of the things that was really
fantastic was that the group who we stole the ritual from turned up and
officially proclaimed us official heretics at the end.

Kermetic Journey to the Underworld¹

SM: We did the Kermetic Journey to the Underworld where we took the
ancient Egyptian trip to the underworld using muppets.

BC: I heard that Johnny Brainwash became quite wild upon that and joined
in somebody else’s ritual.

SM: That’s what I heard yes.

BC: And there was projectile vomit at one point?

SM: Yes there was. We won’t do that again. If you’re familiar with the
Muppets, he was one half of Statler and Waldorf who were official ritual
hecklers. And they got really, really drunk, both of them, and made an
awful lot of trouble and it was really fantastic but boy we won’t do again.
That one overall, it was a pretty cool idea. It didn’t come out quite as well
in terms of execution but it was fun.
Unicron (Transformers based ritual using Transformer ‘The Unicron’)

Unicron, the Chaos bringer [was used] to transform Paganism into being
more interested in technology.

Super Meta Ritual

The last one we did was a super-meta ritual where we created a sigil; the
idea was to create an entity without any metaphoric trappings. And then, so
we all created a sigil together and did a chant together to burn it into our
consciousness to create an extra-conscious entity.

Sandman Reconstructionism

There was the Sandman ritual where we were doing Sandman

reconstruction, and freaked out the people summoning Goetic Demons next
door. There was a Goetic Demon summoning right next door to us, and
what we were doing is we were summoning the character Destruction, and
so, after our summoning, [our] character yelled out ‘I’m here already!’ And
we heard later that this was right as they were halfway finished with their
words next door. And so they just hear this disembodied voice shout out
‘I’m here already’ while casting these demon summoning spells, and
apparently everybody was panicked momentarily. And this is why you go
hang out in those suites because people tell you these stories later.
Pope Canonization

That was the year Robert Anton Wilson passed away, so we did it as a
memorial to RAW and also canonized everybody who came. And so we had
a dummy pope who we imbued with the symbols of popeness. With a
golden apple and a Pope hat and a Pope Card. So we ritually enacted the
Pope Coronation on our Dummy Pope and then gave, enacted it for each
person who was there, and gave them little mini Pope hats and Pope Cards
and golden apples.

¹ Kemetic means Ancient Egyptian, Kermetic being a Muppet pun thereof.

 Appendix Two: Transcript of exchange between
Sondra London and Prosecutor George Waas.

Pros: (Indis.) Talks about a cyber-wedding does it not?

Sondra: Yes it does.

Pros: Are you married [to Danny Rolling] in cyberspace?

Sondra: What we have here is a document called a Shor-Dur-Mar.

Pros: Are you married in cyberspace?

Sondra: If you want to read this document and draw that conclusion, you
may.

Pros: I’m not asking you to impinge my conclusion, I’m asking whether
you are married in cyberspace. I need a yes or no.
Sondra: I don’t think it is yes or no. I don’t think there’s any jurisdiction
that would recognize this facetious article as constituting a marriage.

Pros: Your characterization of the article is facetious, is that true?

Sondra: Palpably so.

Pros: Did you write it?

Sondra: No.

Pros: Who wrote it?

Sondra: It is the result of a computer software program, which is on another

website.

Pros: Is it your position that everything in- marked as exhibit A is facetious

in nature.

Sondra: No.
Pros: OK, then let’s eliminate the facetious stuff and go to the non-facetious
stuff. The non-facetious stuff also talks about being married in cyberspace
does it not?

Sondra: It does?

Pros: I’m asking you Miss London.

Sondra: I don’t see anything of that nature.

Pros: You see Danny Rolling’s writings in there you recognize Danny
Rolling’s writings?

Sondra: These writings right here?

Pros: Yes.

Sondra: You want me to read it?

Pros: Go ahead.
Sondra: At wedding. Just a few close friends at the ceremony. Reception at
Disney online 2-NY@COM@NTT3. Sondra the movie star Erisian
Illustria, and I, the hallucinated alien, the Gainesville Slasher. Danny, do
you take this princess supreme Erisian Illustria to be your subgenuis wife in
spiritual matrimony? Quote, “I do.” And Sondra, do you take this
hallucinated alien as your caged knight? For better, for worse? And the lady
says “I, I, think so. Then so be it. You may kiss now. Mwah! Good sugar.
The movie star and hallucinated alien forever, amen. Bonjour ma cherie,
love always, your Danny.

Pros: Was that also done in humour and facetiousness, or do you, or are
you-

Sondra: It’s hard to tell.

Pros: You don’t consider yourself married in cyberspace do you?

Sondra: No.

Pros: OK. Why’d you put that on the webpage, why put that on the
internet?

Sondra: I’m a Discordian.

Pros: What history does that tell?

Sondra: I’m sorry I don’t understand your question.

Pros: You say you’re a historian-

Sondra: I didn’t say that.

Pros: What did you say?

Sondra: I am a Discordian.

Pros: What does a Discordian do about putting items like that on the
internet? How does that relate?

Sondra: It’s kind of a deep subject; do you really want me to discuss that
here?

Pros: As briefly as you can.

Sondra: Alright, I’ll tell you about Eris Discordia who is the Greco-Roman
Goddess who tossed the provocative item into the set of the Goddess and
then left the neighboring Gods and Goddesses to fight over who deserved
the designation of ‘the prettiest one.’ Now as you know, Paris intervened,
and offered various bribes¹ to the different Goddesses, and the one that
bought the bribe was Venus who guaranteed the hand of the most beautiful
woman in the world who turned out to be Helen of Troy, such that resulted
in the Trojan War. Therefore when I say that I am a Discordian I say that a
lot of my philosophical background would emanate from the background of
the Goddess Eris Discordia.

Pros: So there’s nothing there that explains to the world why Danny
Rolling’s a serial killer, is there?

Sondra: No.

Pros: OK.

Sondra: You mean in that document.

Pros: Yes.

Sondra: No.

Pros: OK. Have a look at the valentines, love letters.

Sondra: OK.

Pros: I assume you put these on the Internet as well?

Sondra: Yes.

Pros: And I suppose you did that because you are a Discordian?

Sondra: No.

Pros: What purpose do those letters serve to inform the public as to why
Danny Rolling is a serial killer?

Sondra: That’s a very good question.

Pros: That’s why I asked it, now answer it.

Sondra: As you know that the crimes he committed were ostensibly

sexually motivated and I think that there’s been quite a lot of discussion
about this offender’s relationships with women, womankind or how he sees
women, I find it very enlightening to examine him and the way he sees the
woman in his life, which would be me. If there were any changes in his
expression that would be equally relevant, which I would expect any time.
Pros: And all of those explanations were on the web page were they not?

Sondra: Excuse me the explanations-

Pros: The explanation you just testified to.

Sondra: No.

Pros: So the public has no idea why you put those on the web page.

Sondra: Like Eris Discordia I toss the provocative item into the fray and let
them argue about it.

¹ Of course, as written, Paris is OFFERED bribes. Sondra’s story seems

consistent with this, it’s just her wording that is a bit off.
 Appendix Three. Reviews of the Principia
Discordia sent to Greg Hill by Michael Hoy.

'I suppose this is an elegant crap on all the weirdo fringe religions today but
it was lost on me and I'd say it's of extremely marginal interest. Loompanics
shouldn't have bothered exhuming this thing. I'd recommend not waiting
four dollars on it.' [Fantasy Newsletter #9]

I view this as a caricature, a send-up, a mocking, of all religion, cults, secret

societies and of the basic faith of mankind that life has meaning. It's all a
fraud, people, and so is this book which is at least entertaining in its
fashion. [Science Fiction Review 30.]

To a person who flipped out on Vonnegut and A Clockwork Orange in high

school rather than acid and pot, Principia Discordia is a fun and enjoyable
book. According to the preface "when you start making up your own
history, and adding your own gospels, then you have caught the spirit." Well
I reached page five and I was ready to write a sequel! .

The Principia Discordia is a disjointed history of the 'founding' of the

religion of the worship of Chaos and the principal goddess Eris or
"Discordia". This book inspired the Illuminatus! trilogy, Cosmic Trigger,
and Zen Without a Master.¹ It is fantasy, humour, and religion all rolled into
one and none taken seriously.

It is a book to be enjoyed so if it is your bag, enjoy! [Nicki Linch in Chat

Vol 2 #6.’79.]
What can I say? If you enjoyed the trilogy, you will probably like this and if
not, not. There are those who will insist that the funny parts are nothing but
a cover for the Serious Message, but they are no doubt the sort who believe
that The Song of Songs is REALLY about Christ's love for the Church and
not what you think it is. There are those who may believe that it is just a
joke but remember, he who laughs last found a meaning the censors missed.
In any event, I urge you to read this book in the spirit of practically the first
words in it:

A Discordian is prohibited of believing what he reads. .

[The Diagnal Relationship 8.] .

PRINCIPA DISCORDIA is of great interest to Wilson's fans. It is the

original it is the original document of the Discordian religion, largely
created as a satire years ago and sold briefly as a sort of comic book. The
people involved were, I believe, friends of his; at any rate he liked the idea
(may have contributed parts of it even) and used it as the 'religion' that plays
a central role in his great satiric/comic masterpiece. .

[Tom Collins in response to FN 8; Fantasy Newsletter 10.]

Hoy would also give Hill some updates on who the Principia was
generating interest for. PD has had a lot of circulation within the neo Pagan
communities. And a new printing is anxiously awaited he said in one letter.

¹ Presumably, this is meant to be Zen without Zen Masters by Discordian,

Camden Benares.
 Who’s Who?

The Agony of Bliss – Member of the XX3.

Akregon – Discordian we meet in Poznan.

Alleseyo – A Discordia we meet in Sao Paulo.

Antero Alli – Author of Angel Tech.

Ari Almeida/Timpin – Well known Brazilian prankster.

Auric – Discordian and member of Agencia Ouranios we meet in Buenos

Aires.

Barb – We meet with Cramulus in New York.

Bayleaf – A traveler we meet in Austin.

Hakim Bey – 20th century philosopher and counter-cultural figure.

Camden Benares – Early Discordian, author of Zen Without Zen Masters.

Tantra Bensko – Lived for a period with Kerry Thornley. We meet in

Berkley.

Janos Biro – Ex-Discordian we meet in Brazil.

Trevor Blake – Major figure in the US Zine scene.

Ron Bonds – Publisher with IllumiNet press.

Timothy Bowen – Discordian and author of Voices of Chaos, Jonesboria

Discordia.

Johnny Brainwash – Discordian we met in Portland.

Brother-in-Law – A mysterious figure who knew Kerry Thornley.

William Burroughs – American author, popularized the ‘23 Enigma’.

Daisy Eris Campbell – Director and creative responsible for the Cosmic
Trigger play.

Joseph Campbell – Philosopher who developed the idea of the ‘hero’s

journey.’

Ken Campbell – Well known British theatre figure.

Peter Carroll – High profile Chaos Magician, influenced by Discordianism.

Jimmy Cauty – Member of the KLF and artist.

Ibrahim Cesar – Discordian and blogger in Brazil.

Chops – Discordian we meet in Austin.

Fox Magrathe Circe – Member of Church of No Dead Saints. We meet at

PantheCon.

Mad Crampi – Discordian and member of Agencia Ouranious we meet in

Buenos Aires.
Professor Cramulus – Discordian we meet in New York. Editor and
organizer of various Discordian works, notable member of PeeDee cabal.

Aleister Crowley – Major occult figure, founder of religion of Thelema and

reformer of Ordo Tempeli Orientis.

Grandmaster Armadillo Curmudgeon – Discordian, Anarchist, Chaos

Magcian from Brisbane.

Carole Cusack – Researcher of Discordianism.

Cy – Hosted Kerry Thornley at his home in Atlanta.

David – Discordian we meet in New York.

Dependability of Chaos – Member of the XX3.

Domme Discordia – A dominatrix we meet in Austin.

Lon Milo DuQuette – Major figure in contemporary occulture.

Bill Drummond – Member of the KLF and participant in Illuminatus! play.

Elfwreck – Two Discordians we meet in PantheaCon, from the Avatar Jones

Memorial Cabal.

Julia Fenderson – Met in RDJ.

Sydada Fenderson – Well known Discordian figure in Brazil, especially

online.

Fernanda – Discordian and Chaos Magician we meet in RDJ.

Groucho Gandhi – Discordian in possession of the East Discordian

archives.

Jim Garrison – Investigator of the Kennedy assassination.

Becky Glaser – Early Discordian.

Adam Gorightly – Author of Discordian works including Historia

Discordia, Caught in the Crossfire and The Prankster and the Conspiracy.
Christian Greer – Academic we meet in Amsterdam.

Stanislav Grof – Researcher and co-founder of Transpersonal Psychology.

John Higgs – Author of KLF: Chaos, Magic, and the band the Burned a
Million Pounds.

Pope Hilde – See Reverend Loveshade.

Greg Hill – Cofounder of Discordianism.

Jaana – Discordian we meet in Helsinki.

Jeanetta Hill – Early Discordian.

Bwana Honolulu – Discordian we meet in Germany.

Michael Hoy – Editor of Loompanics.

Lao Hunluan – Polish Discordian, translator of Goetia Discordia, Principia
Discordia.

E Howard Hunt – Figure implicated by some to be involved in the Kennedy

assassination.

Izzy – Overlord of the XX3.

Jason – Discordian we meet in Brisbane.

Jeremy –Discordian we meet in Portland.

Joey – Traveler we meet in Austin.

James Joyce – Irish author.

Carl Jung – Student of Sigmund Freud who developed ideas of archetypes.

Karolina – Discordian we meet in Poznan.

John F. Kennedy [JFK] – American president assassinated in 1963.

Frazzleknot Kozody – Member of the XX3.

Lane – Artist and America Discordian.

Chris Langham – British actor, writer, director, creative.

Timothy Leary – The ‘most dangerous man in America.’ Advocate and

evangelist for LSD, major counterculture figure.

Hannah Lehtinen – Discordian and researcher we meet in Turku.

David Lifton – Author of Best Evidence, book challenging the official story
of the assassination of JFK.

Sondra London – Discordian we meet in Nashville, friend of Kerry

Thornley in his later life. Assisted publication of Confession to a
Conspiracy.

Joel Love – Discordian and Thelemite who knew Kerry.

Reverend Loveshade – Contentious Discordian figure, author of Ek-Sen-
Trik-Uh Discordia. Apparent owner of KerryThornley.com under
pseudonym Johnny Shellburn. Apparent user or creator of various other
identities.

Roger Lovin – Early Discordian.

St. Mae – See Autumn Tyr-Salvia.

Essi Mäkelä – Discordian and researcher we meet in Helsinki.

Eelis Mäkelä – Discordian and Gleek Goddess we meet in Helsinki.

Rajiphun Maldonado – Discordian and Chaos Magician we meet in RDJ.

Charles Manson – Leader of ‘the family’, a group who committed a series

of high profile murders.

Marcelo – Discordian and Chaos Magician we meet in Brazil.

Mateusz – Discordian we meet in Poland.

Sirius Mazzu – Notable Argentine Discordian who created a fan-translation
of the Illuminatus! trilogy.

Richard Marshall – See Reverend Loveshade.

Matragon – Discordian and musician we meet in Poland.

Bratislav Metulevskie – Founder of Aktion23 forums, author.

Michael – Discordian from Brisbane.

Miikka – Discordian we meet in Helsinki.

Mika – Another Discordian we meet in Helsinki.

Mike – Wingitist we meet in New York.

Dariusz Misiuna – Head of publishing organization Okultura.

Mistre – Discordian we meet in RDJ.

Mitchell – Member of the XX3.

Kokote Multiversal – Discordian and musician in Bueno Aires.

Karl Musser – Discordian in Maryland who helped supply rare Discordian

materials to Jon Swabey.

Paul Neimark – Publisher of newspapers, magazines, paperbacks.

Rita Newport – Early Discordian.

Dr Robert Newport – Early Discordian we meet in LA, contributor to

Principa Discordia, provided early documentation to Adam Gorightly.

Bill Nighy – British actor.

Emperor Norton – Quirky historical figure in San Francisco who declared

himself the Emperor of the United States.

Olivia –Discordian we meet in Portland.

Lee Harvey Oswald – The apparent assassin of JFK.

Christina Pearson – A child of Robert and Arlen Wilson, currently with

Hilaritas Press.

Johanna Petche – Researcher of Discordianism.

Peter – Discordian and Subgenius we meet in Brisbane.

Genesis P-Orridge – Chaos Magician, head of Thee Temple ov Psychick

Youth.

Mike Quinn – See Reverend Loveshade.

Ayn Rand – Author influential in Libertarian circles.

Agent Redlight – Member of the XX3.

Wilhelm Reich – Researcher who theorized about ‘Orgone energy’.

Barbara Reid – Original Discordian, participant in the Garrison
investigation.

Remik – Discordian we meet in Poznan.

Rita – Discordian we meet in Buenos Aires.

Roldo – Early Discordian, illustrator of Goetia Discordia, Historia

Discordia.

Ryan – Discordian we meet in New York.

Sabina – Discordian we meet in Poland.

Oliver Senton – Actor who played Robert Anton Wilson in Cosmic Trigger.

Robert Shea – Early Discordian, co-author of Illuminatus!

Shii – Discordian well known on the internet for (now defunct) website
Everything Shii Knows, and his participation in Discordia related
Wikipedia battles.
Johhny Shelburn – Character in Kerry Thornley’s Idle Warriors. Also, see
Reverent Loveshade.

Peterson Silva - Brazilian Discordian, translated Black Iron Prison into

Portuguese.

Gypsie Skripto – Character in the afterward of the 4th edition Principia

Discordia. Also occasionally a probable alt of Reverend Loveshade.

Austin Osman [AO] Spare – Occultist who popularized certain practices in

sigil magic.

Miley Spears – See Reverend Loveshade. Actually, Loveshade contacted

me to tell me Spears was upset to be included in the Loveshade sockpuppet
list, so ‘she’ sent him an enormous email filled with ‘proof’ of her identity,
including screenshots of online arguments and the words ‘Miley Spears’
scribbled on an envelope. So, anyway, see Reverend Loveshade.

Reverend Ivan Stang – Co-Founder of the Church of the Subgenius.

Jon Swabey – Editor of Apocrypha Discordia. We meet in Brisbane.

Telarus –Discordian we meet in Portland, member of PeeDee cabal.

Kerry Thornley – Co-founder of Discordianism. Co-author of Principia
Discordia, author of Idle Warriors, Zenarchy, Oswald.

Timmy – Discordian we meet in Portland, Thelemite, House of Discord

resident.

Tom – Discordian we meet in Portland, member of PeeDee cabal.

Contributed design to Etcetera Discordia.

Trouty Troutsman – Literally a trout. Does not feature in this book.

Autumn Tyr-Salvia – Discordian we meet at PantheaCon. Owner of

Discordian.com, host of KallistiCon. Leader of Church of No Dead Saints.

The Voice of Reason – Member of the XX3.

Kaos Vortek – Discordian and Chaos Magician we meet in RDJ.

Arlen Wilson – Early Discordian, poet.

Graham Wilson – A child of Robert and Arlen Wilson.

Luna Wilson – A child of Robert and Arlen Wilson, tragically murdered at
the age of 15.

Robert Anton Wilson – Early Discordian, author of multiple works

including Illuminatus! (with Robert Shea) Cosmic Trigger, Promethius
Rising.

Roger Wójtowicz – See Lao Hunluan.

joi wolfwomyn – discordian we meet in pantheacon, from the avatar jones

memorial cabal.

Aunty Wombat – Member of Church of No Dead Saints. We meet in

Pantheacon.

Zarate Zaalo – Discordian we meet in Austin.

Triple Zero – Dutch Discordian we meet in Germany. Member of PeeDee

cabal.
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