Category Archives: Discordianism

The Et Cetera Discordia

Culture-jamming, Discordianism, download, Professor Cram's Fun Lab

In 1958 or 1959 (we’re not sure which), Eris, the Goddess of Confusion, sent an Emperor Penguin to a bowling alley in California. It appeared before Malaclypse the Younger and Lord Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst and inspired them to create the Discordian Society: a tribe of philosophers, theologians, magicians, scientists, artists, clowns, and similar maniacs.

The Et Cetera Discordia proudly celebrates 50th the anniversary of this prophetic vision. It is a collage of the funny, weird, and often profound writings and art created by numerous modern (and post-modern) Discordians. This book is an invitation to join them in exploring, celebrating, and remixing this strange and exciting century.

A bit of background: Triple Zero and I had this idea back in 2008. The original idea was to create a quick one-shot internet forum which gathered content for quick publication of a new Discordian text celebrating Discordia’s 50th anniversary. So we threw THE PARTY AT LIMBO PEAK, an intentionally shortlived Internet forum, where people could post anonymously and then later unmask themselves at the end of the party. The project got out of control and we took a million years to finish it. And the finished product is a beautiful 128 page paperback, the latest addition to Grand and Glory Old Discordjia!

The Etc. Discordia can be purchased in paperback or downloaded for free in PDF form here.

Intermittens: Lesser Poop

books, Culture-jamming, Discordianism, download, Humour, memes, poetry, Propaganda, satire, shameless self promotion, surrealism, writing

Well after several weeks of dilligent effort, it’s finally done.
Lesser Poop is a DIY Discordian Magazine of “Bathroom Reader” style content. Lesser Poop contains low brow humor, awful jokes, really short stories, exercises to mindfuck yourself, and much more. Most of the art is by Cramulus. Most of the text is from the principiadiscordia.com/forum community.

Intermittens #6: Lesser Poop

Chaos Magic and the Dark Side of the Moon

ChaoSkeptic, Discordianism, magick, music

I am not a expert at Chaos Magic. Hell, let’s face it, I downright suck at it. As a skeptic I barely believe that it exists. I personally feel that it is just a way of putting yourself in a trance like state that changes your subjective view of your surroundings. It is just an occult tradition that has no traditions. It is DIY and MYOB religion. It is the refusal to listen to anyone else when it come to what works for you.

And it almost never works for me. I’m entirely too antsy for meditation. I can’t sit still for more than a couple of minutes before my skin starts to crawl and my muscles rebel against me. Pagan rituals don’t seem to work for me either. I just can’t turn off the disbelief center in my brain. I also couldn’t do it back when I was a Christian. I’d often hear people after a service talking about how “the Holy Spirit sure moved here today” and be completely dumbstruck by the concept. It was just so foreign to me. Props or pageantry don’t seem to help either.

Having said that, there are a couple of things that do actually put me in the ultra-fine religious state of gnosis. I’ll just cover the first one in this post and talk about the others later on.

One thing that seems to work about 75% of the time for me is a simple music relaxation technique. As I’ve said before I am a very auditory learner and music can have a very strong effect on my psyche. First, I isolate myself in a distraction free room, which isn’t easy when you are married and have a 2 year old. The only equipment I need is an MP3 player and a good pair of headphones. I’m not an obsessive audiophile but good headphones are a must for this. I like hearing every single note clearly and it helps to block out any background sounds around you. I then lie as still as possible while listening to an album with an ethereal feel to it. The old standbys like “The Dark Side of the Moon” almost always work. I get chills every single time I get to “Us and Them”. I’ve also used Radiohead’s “Ok Computer” and Broken Social Scene’s “Feel Good Lost”with good results.

As with any Chaos Magic this technique doesn’t work for everyone and doesn’t work every single time. This particular technique can get me into a shallow trance-like state and positively affect my mood. However it doesn’t seem to be good for much else. I’ll get to the more powerful stuff next time around.

Two Thousand and Nein

bizarre, current affairs, Discordianism, Humour, society, Stuff

The Germain Cabal of Germans has officially declared 2009 the year of nothing. That’s right, the year of nothing. I mean, it makes sense doesn’t it? I mean, just look at the economy, it is moving in the direction of less, not more. What does that mean? It’s moving towards nothing! Will it achieve nothingness, or will it fail along the way?

What about the relationship between Michael Jackson and Michael Bloomberg. Oh, that’s right, THERE ISN’T ONE. Zoiks, the Year of Nothing works its mysterious magic again. And don’t even get me started on the Chicago Cubs this year.

In accordance with tradition, of which there is none, the GCG encourages all other Discordians and those that aren’t to pay special observance to the Year of Nothing by choosing the nothing to do of their choice. This can be quite challenging for some, especially anyone with any compulsion to do stuff. Spread the word to your friends and family and postal workers. Okay, well maybe not the postal workers, but everyone else.

Good day and other such pleasantries.
-Rev. What’s-His-Name? official fill-in spokesman for the GCG

Right Where You are Sitting Now

ChaoSkeptic, counterculture, Crowley, Discordianism, Eris, Illuminati, magick, Occult, podcasts, Robert Anton Wilson

The guys over at the Right Where You are Sitting Now podcast decided to dedicate their 23rd (fnord) episode to the memory of Robert Anton Wilson. In the 2 hour long episode they spliced in quite a few of RAW’s clips from various lectures along with interviews with Rev. Ivan Stang, Richard Metzger of Disinfo Corp, as well as chaos magicians Lon Milo Duquette and Taylor Ellwood. They cover everything from The Illuminus! Trilogy, e-prime, Aleister Crowley, Prometheus Rising, chaos magick, the future of counterculture, and of course, Discordianism.

I had never heard of this podcast before but I’m a big fan now. I don’t know how I’ll be able to fit yet another podcast into my busy schedule but I’ll find a way.

Verwirrung 2.0

counterculture, current affairs, Discordianism, metablogging, Operation:Mindfuck, Propaganda, shameless self promotion, writing

For those of you who read Warren Ellis’ excellent blog, you may be aware that today is meant to be the fifth Annual Rabbit Hole Day, in celebration of the birthday of Lewis Carroll.

However, we are not doing that.  Not as such.  Instead, we have decided to launch our revamped blog.  Myself and Cramulus threw some ideas around while drunk a few weeks back, and this was essentially the result.  We want Verwirrung to be more than just a blog for the Principia Discordia community.  We want the blog to be a place where we can network, link, confer and argue with people, as part of our drive to improve and understand the crazy world around us.

So, first off, our blogging is going to increase.  By a lot.  Secondly, our writers are each going to concentrate on a particular sphere of interest, in addition to using the blog to write about whatever they feel.  So, for example, we will have writers here concentrating on the Law of Fives and how the brain works, on the art of pranking and operation mindfuck, some idiot dealing with politics and warfare, a guy investigating online subcultures, someone keeping a close eye on the world of religion, someone who can help you prepare for any situation, a guy interested in how maps do not correspond to reality, a biology expert and much, much more.

Secondly, we want our blog to be more of a community.  We want to break into the blogosphere, have people reading us and agreeing or disagreeing, but in short to have a lot more in the way of connectivity with the rest of the world.

Our focus is going to be on the near future, in all our fields.  What will happen 20 minutes in the future.  We want to equip you with knowledge you will find useful, and hopefully you can equip us in return.  I don’t need to tell anyone here that rough times have started, and this is probably the first recession of the internet age.  Lets see what we can do with this incredible tool, while the power is still on.

And most of all, we want to have a good time.  I’ll let each of the writers introduce themselves individually.  Bye for now.

Message from POEE.co.uk owner

books, current affairs, Discordianism, FAIL, Internet - a series of tubes

I am strongly advising people against buying the hardcover version of the Principia Discordia I have brought out ’til further notice.

My publisher has done a bunk and run off with the money. I wish it were not true, but it is. Exposure Publishing/Diggory Press have walked off with the only cash I have to keep POEE online.

I have now published the paperback version through Lulu http://www.lulu.com/content/683873 . It will be available on Amazon in a few months, but if you buy through Lulu http://www.lulu.com/content/683873 we will make more money.

Please, for the love of whatever (maybe this community, maybe something else) tell everyone you know, who may be interested.

Thanks, people.

Syn out.

Naturally, this sucks beyond words, and its terrible that his publishers have done this to him.  So for now, if you are thinking of buying a hard copy of the Principia, please buy from one of the above links.  Furthermore, if you already have the PD, but have some spare change knocking about, consider donating some in order to keep POEE running.  Its a great Discordian resource and site, and deserves our help.

Summum Trolls the Supreme Court

Christianity, current affairs, Discordianism, Law and Disorder, Pastafarians, religion

(Cross post from ChaoSkeptic: http://chaoskeptic.blogspot.com)

Some time later on this spring the Supreme Court of the United States will hear the rather interesting case of Pleasant Grove City (Utah) vs. Summum. For those who have never heard of Summum, they are a religious group based in Salt Lake City founded by a man named “Corky” Ra. It’s sort of Gnosticism meets Mormonism meets Scientology. Weird but mostly harmless.

Back in 2003 they petitioned the government of Pleasant Grove, Utah to ask if they could erect a monument to their “Seven Aphorisms of Summum” next to a thirty year old monument of the Ten Commandments in the city park. The city, of course, said no and Corky, of course, filed a law suit saying that his free speech rights had been violated. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit agreed with Corky, stating that since the park is a public forum and that the Ten Commandment monument was private speech from the original donor Corky is allowed to erect his monument. The city appealed it to the highest court in the land which that brings us around to today.

Interestingly enough, Pleasant Grove is being represented by Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law & Justice, a right wing Christian group that has often fights against the separation of church and state. I say interesting because the ACLJ is going against their usual argument that religious groups should have equal access to public property. They are actually arguing that the original Ten Commandments monument government speech rather than private speech and that the park isn’t a public forum. This means if they win there would be a precendent in the legal system saying that monuments on public property is government speech and every single Ten Commandments monument in America would be subject to removal.

However, if Summum wins it could also be a huge win for all minority religions and irreligions. All public property that currently has a religious monument on it could be considered an open forums that would have to accept almost any religious monument. Discordians could argument for a monument to the Law of Fives. The Pastafarians could argue for even more Flying Spaghetti Monster statues. Atheist could ask for a monument to… um… nothing? It would be just like the chaos in the Washington state capitol last December times several thousand. Sounds like a great idea for a GASM to me.

I’m in ur conspiracy theoriez, doin performance art

Art, Articles by others, bizarre, conspiracy, counterculture, Culture-jamming, Discordianism, download, Lulz, Operation:Mindfuck, Situationism, Tin-foil hats

Link

The very idea of a 911-TV-Fakery researcher faking their own suicide as a performance art piece is incredibly synchronistic for me given the last year and half’s experience of investigating the mysterious double suicide of conspiratorially minded artists Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake. In that case several folks at the Rigorous Intuition and Dreams End websites and forums were talking about the wild and weird world of Situationist performance art and related artistic movements, some of which seem to involve a lot of parapolitical intrigue that sometimes includes hoaxing, culture-jamming and even the faking of people’s murder or suicide, aka pseudocide. Other discussions centered on the idea of both real-world and online group-stalking and gaslighting of people driving them to perhaps commit suicide. In my interview last year with parapolitical activist, writer and researcher Len Bracken (author of the biography on Situationist movement leader Guy Debord – Revolutionary) I brought up the possible confluence of some of the wilder personalities within the 911 Truth Movement (folks who seem more like performance artists than activists and researchers) and the Situationist and Discordian communities.

Also, a link to the mentioned interview can be found here.