Do you have to be into the occult to be a discordian?

[Anonymous Poster]

I am a former drug addict (four months sober!) and, while I was recovering, I picked up a book by Alan Watts called the Way of Zen.  Fucking great book; it helped a lot!  Good thing I didn't pick up the fucking bible - it's such a cliche to get over a drug addiction through christianity!  Anyways, I went through a bunch of books because of the way of zen (it sparked an interest in me) and somehow I found myself at RAW and the principia discordia.  To me, Discordianism is the perfect religion fnord.  Reminds me a bit of zhuangzi who's me favorite philosopher.  zhuangzi said: "We cling to our own point of view, as though everything depended on it. Yet our opinions have no permanence; like autumn and winter, they gradually pass away."  He was the first erisian in my opinion - the first philosopher to truly piss on dogma.  Anyways, with discordianism, the thing is it seems to go hand in hand with occultism at times especially with RAW.  Like the cosmic trigger was totally about raw's interest in crowley.  Great book, but still!  Now, I understand that it's my reality-tunnel that won't allow me to accept something like angels from sirius or little green men you see on masculine, but, at the same time, I'm a recovering drug addict and it seems that a lot of occultism centers around psychedelic drug use.  I can't do occultism man!  I still get nightmares from when I did acid and if the acid turns out to be good, i'm scared I'd end up relapsing because I'd want to continue with that good feeling.  And I'm afraid also that I won't be able to understand what discordianism's about unless I also involve myself in psychedelic drugs or the occult.  Like, I did a lot of the experiments RAW described on the maybe logic dvd and in (I think it was) prometheus rising.  What happened?  Sudden changes in consciousness?  All out bliss?  No!  Nothing happened!  I can't help but feel that if I had smoked a little weed or ate some mushrooms I would have felt something.  Like I understand it intellectually, but I don't feel it and, while raw and other occultists who seem to have not only understood but also felt IT, I feel like a poor person around a bunch of rich people...makes me itch for a little oxycodone, you know what I mean?  So, does discordianism entail being involved in chaos magick or some other form of the occult?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Short answer: No.

Longer answer: Everyone tends to have a slightly different take on Discordianism. I personally find it to be more or less, as it's been described, Zen for Roundeyes. Someone once called Discordianism "Taoism in a clown costume". You are definitely not alone in finding that similarity.

Also, hi, welcome!

[The Good Reverend Roger]

No.  You do not need to be into the occult to be a Discordian.

Inferior human religions are inferior. <--- All the Zen you'll ever need.

[Brotep]

^^, ^

But also...

You don't have to do drugs to be an occultist.

You seem to be pretty well read.  Have you ever looked at William James' The Varieties of Religious Experience?
One of James' criteria for a religious experience is that it's passive.  You can't control when it happens.

What makes you a practitioner of whatever occult school is not exotic experiences, but doing the practices themselves.  There's no guarantee if and when you'll "bliss out."

[rong]

you don't have to do anything.

however, based on what the wikipedia description of Occult - i'd say that there are similarities.

but - i would also think that the more discordian you think you are, the less you understand discordianism.

i wouldn't get too hung up on it if i were you.

[Cain]

Do What Thou Wilt is the whole of the Law, but remember no-one likes a douchebag.  Also congrats on overcoming your addiction.

[Cramulus]

nah, tons of us hold the robe and wizard hat routine at arms length.


the reason RAW is all into it is because the occult is a great tool for a directed change of consciousness. But it's not at all necessary.

If you ask me, this Discordia thing is very much about distilling and crystalizing this "YOU" entity which is pulled and distracted from every possible angle. And also knowing that whatever symbols you pull out of the mix, they're temporary too.

Many people in this world need to fall off of reality for a little bit and see how it feels. Occult and acid are great tools for that. It seems to me that you're done with that trip and are trying to reestablish a tangent with consensus reality. If you don't think the occult will help - stay away!

there's no "right way" to do this thing

[LMNO]

"Occult" comes from the Latin word occultus (clandestine, hidden, secret), referring to "knowledge of the hidden".

What many Discordians try to do is to make that knowlegde not so hidden anymore.

Of course, it helps to know what's being hidden in the first place, so some Discordians have a working knowledge of some of the old Occultist heroes (Crowley/Jesus/Mother Goose/Bohr/Mozart).

Once the knowledge is brought to light, however, there's no need to go mucking about with a staff and magic helmet and redheaded virgins and so forth.


LMNO
-Occam's Razor is my Athame.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

"Occult" comes from the Latin word occultus (clandestine, hidden, secret), referring to "knowledge of the hidden".

What many Discordians try to do is to make that knowlegde not so hidden anymore.

Of course, it helps to know what's being hidden in the first place, so some Discordians have a working knowledge of some of the old Occultist heroes (Crowley/Jesus/Mother Goose/Bohr/Mozart).

Once the knowledge is brought to light, however, there's no need to go mucking about with a staff and magic helmet and redheaded virgins and so forth.


LMNO
-Occam's Razor is my Athame.

Well, I disagree about the virgins part... esp if they have red hair.

But generally, yeah. If you look at what RAW, Alli, Carroll etc are doing, it has a lot more to do with creating tools to keep your brain limber and poking at 'hidden' stuff... than believing in the occult or taking drugs.

For the people that like playing with the occult and/or drugs, thats just the sort of thing they like. For people that don't like it, its the sort of thing they don't like.

As Olga the Ostrich once said " Like what you like, enjoy what you enjoy and don't take crap from anyone"

(Anyone includes Cabbages, Thuddites, Upper Management, Religious Leaders, Other Discordians and Your own goddamned brain.)

[LMNO]

I prefer my redheads to already have some experience before I sacrifice them to the Great Work.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I prefer my redheads to already have some experience before I sacrifice them to the Great Work.

Well, you have a very good point there... but then I always took Crowley's concept of 'virgin' as metaphorical

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

I prefer my redheads to already have some experience before I sacrifice them to the Great Work.

Well, you have a very good point there... but then I always took Crowley's concept of 'virgin' as metaphorical

Metaphorical virgin?  I LOVE IT!! 

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I prefer my redheads to already have some experience before I sacrifice them to the Great Work.

Well, you have a very good point there... but then I always took Crowley's concept of 'virgin' as metaphorical

Metaphorical virgin?  I LOVE IT!! 

Well, his daily sacraficing of a innocent babe or something like that, was metaphorical for fapping off in morning ritual... the babe was a metaphor for his self/seed. So I saw the virgin more like Babelon, the eternal Virginal Whore. She could have sex with the entire Universe and remain a virgin because it was her nature, her innocence rather than money or power that prompted her actions.

Also Crowley liked to lie make misleading statements in order to fuck with the English public... in which he is a very good proto-discordian to examine





"Crowley was one of the great Metaphysical Comedians of all time." - Sjaantze, Harbinger of Distraction

[Halfbaked1]

All true, I am a very new Discordian and I honestly have no idea what the whole thing is aside from one statement in the Principia, "Reality is the original Rorschach Test."  I am an artist and one of the things they taught us was to make still lifes by visualizing a graph over the object you are reproducing and the blank page you are transcribing to, pertaining to how various cultures view reality through a window overlaid with a graph.  Being a martial artist i had used visualization often so all that was not a big stretch for me.  Now, I have never done drugs so I am at sea about what it is like, but I can say that if your mind is free enough and you understand visualization then there are no end to the vistas and the concepts that you can experience and delve into.

I am proud of you for beating drugs into submission man, it's a cool trip to know that you have done something alot of people say can't be done.  The way I see it, you don't need em anymore mate.  Your conciousness is expanded, you have seen what that path held and now you can take another.  I have never really considered my Discordianism occult like, I rather see it as finding the big cosmic joke that THEY never see cause they choose not to free their minds.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

All true, I am a very new Discordian and I honestly have no idea what the whole thing is aside from one statement in the Principia, "Reality is the original Rorschach Test."  I am an artist and one of the things they taught us was to make still lifes by visualizing a graph over the object you are reproducing and the blank page you are transcribing to, pertaining to how various cultures view reality through a window overlaid with a graph.  Being a martial artist i had used visualization often so all that was not a big stretch for me.  Now, I have never done drugs so I am at sea about what it is like, but I can say that if your mind is free enough and you understand visualization then there are no end to the vistas and the concepts that you can experience and delve into.

I am proud of you for beating drugs into submission man, it's a cool trip to know that you have done something alot of people say can't be done.  The way I see it, you don't need em anymore mate.  Your conciousness is expanded, you have seen what that path held and now you can take another.  I have never really considered my Discordianism occult like, I rather see it as finding the big cosmic joke that THEY never see cause they choose not to free their minds.