Breaking: Albert Hofmann, discoverer of LSD, allegedly dead

Apologies for the gap in time between the previous article and this. I've been busy attending to personal issues and have only recently had the time to put the finishing touches on this section. With that out of the way, we shall continue with the critical evaluation of the How to Keep Your Coven from Being Destroyed.

The second part of that essay starts with a restatement of the original principles and conclusions of the previous entry, namely that conspiratorial thinking about the cause of conflicts are good things, that negotiation is letting the terrorists, I mean trolls, win, and that despite all of this being a natural process, it should somehow be confronted and dealt with, presumably because many Pagans are only in favour of nature when its inoffensive.

However, the purpose of this section of the essay is to identify the difference between a (supposed) troll and a (supposedly) normal coven member. Eran likens the troll to a "tarantula or scorpion", while an ordinary coven member is apparently more akin to a "pet hamster."

There is a rock along a mountain path, sitting upon which you can learn everything there is to know about Other People. This rock (and I sit upon it often) grants one a fine and admirable view of the path, both one way and the other. It lets you see the long road up which the pilgrims walk, and around the corner, it lets you see the bear that eats them. I’m not a cruel man very often, and when I see the pilgrims approach my rock at the corner I’m given to warning them, in the spirit of goodwill: “I wouldn’t go that way if I were you… there is a bear just around that corner, and darn it if he doesn’t have the taste for pilgrims!”
And of course, as pilgrims are wont to do, they shout back in reply “How dare you tell us how and where to go, you think you know better than us? Are there not many rocks with many views? Who are you to sit up there and pass judgement down upon us?”
“Who am I? But a man who sees a bear of course” but the pilgrims they will have none of this.
“Such pretension, such arrogance,” they mutter as they walk around the corner into the hungry embrace of the bear.
Soon the survivors will return, running back around and let me tell you a thing; they do not admit fault, or thank me for my attempted warnings, quite the opposite. In fact, they make a virtue of their ignorance, and blame me still further:
“Who are you to judge us?” They say, “You have never even been attacked by a bear! It’s easy to philosophise up there on your ivory rock, but try walking our path.” And so they amble away, grumbling about the men on rocks deceiving the noble-but-simple salt of the earth pilgrims.
But this is not the worst thing, not at all. After the pilgrims leave, a young boy on the rock above will always say “I told you not to sit there!”

Can you imagine? The arrogant little pup.

As a Discordian, I often feel it is not only an obligation, but occasionally a duty to undermine, question and, if necessary, personally destroy authoritarian systems of control and coercion. Sometimes I do it out of deep-seated distaste, sometimes out of boredom and sometimes for profit, but that is another debate.

Furthermore, I subscribe very much to the views of the noted child psychologist, Jean Piaget, who considered that socio-cognitive conflict was a critical part of the learning process. While researchers have rushed to note that this does not necessarily mean confrontation or opposition, these are in fact important facets of socio-cognitive conflict. If we wish to learn and evolve, it is only through disagreement and conflict that we can ever hope to mentally improve ourselves.

Therefore, when I see groups who not only approve of creating an authoritarian system that stifles this dissent, but that it hypocritically takes this position under the mantle of some philosophy or religion, I get somewhat annoyed. And when I see groups or individuals giving out advice on how to perpetuate this state of affairs...well, that has to be answered. Especially on the internet, where such advice may be put to immoral use, even if that was not the original intention of the author. Such an article would be, for example, How to Keep Your Coven from Being Destroyed by David Petterson (aka Eran). Under the guise of saving covens from villainous trolls, he gives very sound advice on how to maintain systems of control, and his work has been fairly widely disseminated.

I intend here to critically analyze his arguments, both in order to show this is in fact the case, and to highlight the authoritarian strain that it helps legitimize. A follow-up counter-essay may follow, but for now, this alone will do.

Eran starts off by laying out what he sees as “the problem”. Namely that...

This is another arbitrary division of the Discordian society into two basic philosophical camps. In fact, its very similar to the LDD/ELF distinction that has been made before, only I intend to look at it just a little more deeply. I want to look at basic attitudes to Chaos and how that shapes a person's perception and thinking as a Discordian. Although I'm looking at them as two separate topics, no-one is really only one or the other. Rather, people tend towards one way of thinking or the other, even if they show many of the traits of the 'opposing' system.

Yes, we're back, but don't celebrate just yet, there's about a madjiqullion things wrong, broken and in need of fixing.

The major problems are the missing articles, which I am having to painstakingly re-post by hand since the old site database is incompatible with the new one. The downloads section is in need of an overhaul as I'm not too happy with the way it's presented. I also want to have a better theme than this slightly modified basic version. Other than that, it's all good. :)

We'll get there in the end...

Bad Faith

There was no American Revolution

Uncle Sam, yesterday

Jesus Loves Fisting Bono

Bono, anally fisted by Christ at various gigs

Shock revelations rocked the foundations of Christianity yesterday, as it was revealed that their Lord and Saviour, their head honcho, Mr. J. Christ (2007), of Palm Springs, CA. admitted to stalking Irish rock star and legendary arse, Bono. The news didn't end there, however, it was revealed that Jesus H. Christ claimed a 'relationship' with Bono and that He fisted Bono in public, regularly. He even cited his favourite type of lubricating gel, "the anaesthetic kind, you know, for when they put in catheters. It just eases the way." The Christian world reeled in confusion and panic following the announcement.

Mr. Christ's predilection for sneaking up on the star unawares, while Bono was performing on stage, in interviews or generally making a horses arse of himself and ramming His tightly clenched fist up Bono's vulnerable and unprotected anus has alienated Christian believers globally. Bono admitted that their "relationship" had been going on for some time and that he didn't see it as blasphemous, or wrong in the slightest. When questioned whether receiving from the Son of God was appropriate behaviour for two people very much in the public eye, he replied, "we're both consenting adults. Are you judging the Son of God?"

The first incident took place while Bono was performing with U2 on Saturday 18th June at the Twickenham Stadium in London. A witness stated, "He [Christ] just ran on stage in nothing but his sandals and rammed His divine fist up Bono's arse as he sang, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For." Bono praised his security staff after the incident, saying that his security team was exceptional and "how were mere mortals supposed to stop the son of God getting through, anyway?" A security insider informed us that they'd actually been told to stand down by Bono prior to the first 'attack' and that Bono had been expecting divine intervention at the concert that night. "He [Bono] had this funny little smile on his face afterwards" said one security guard. "He always has that" said another. The security staff were also warned not to interfere with Mr. Christ's mission by His Father, God. God declined to comment beyond stating (before slamming the door in this reporter's face) that he'd "warned Bono to cut out that pseudo religious crap he's been spouting for years." Through the window, I asked him if he would comment on whether his Son's apparent and continuing gay-sado-fisting relationship with Bono had gone beyond the precepts of His original 'mission'. He responded by threatening to throw a couple of nearby planets at me if I didn't get off his lawn.

The Catholic church refused to comment. They all just stood there with their hands over their ears and their eyes closed singing "LA LA LA LA LA LA LA WE CAN'T HEAR YOU LA LA LA..."

Bono's closing statement was "I have finally found what I was looking for."

The Edge looked on, sternly.

~Rev. St. Syn, KSC

Discordia: The RPG
Dame Discordia does D6
by Pope Nag
6/16/2005 12:59:42 AM

In celebration of 'Discordia Day' (that's 5/5/5, people - and yes, Pope Nag is late as usual), game designer John Wick released a shiny new rpg; Discordia: a little game about a lot of chaos. It has a fun little mechanic involving the Law of Fives, a novel 'magic' system based on dogma and catma, and more quotes from the Principia than you can shake a small toddler at. I'm not totally convinced it's actually, well, playable, but I suppose that's to be expected when She What done it All gets involved. And hey, isn't that Scarlett Johansson dressed up as Eris?

John Wick has released this version of Discordia under the auspices of , so feel free to do with it as you wish. You can download it from 23 Apples of Eris, or from our own downloads section. Please check out John's site for more RPG fun.

We are indebted to 23AE for their fantastic stuff and open, sharing KopyLeft policies. We replicate some of their material here for the sake of it continuing to be available and to spread the bandwidth load.

TRY TO REMEMBER SOMETHING ABOUT A CAT
(Part 00005 of 00008)

by Kerry Wendell Thornley

Originally printed in issue 7 of “OVO,” a ‘zine published and edited by Trevor Blake - ovo127.com
This work is in the public domain. It has been formatted for publication at poee.co.uk by Rev. St. Syn, KSC.

Push Button:
Q: Remington.
A: The Ravenhurst Raiders (2 points)

Randal Carlson is an archival man; his vast dining room is converted into a library of magick and science and assassination history -- an extension of his mind, which seems saturated with like information, both known and unknown. I slept in the house in his backyard last night -- Monday night -- with his permission, after first discussing the astrological conjunctions of Saturn and Jupiter at the time of both John Kennedy’s and John Lennon’s assassinations. Similar tragedies have clouded history every 20 years when that conjunction occurs: in 1940 Franklin Delano Roosevelt became president.

Push Button:
Q: “Rainbow Family headed South… ask for James.”
A: Even if I knew I wouldn’t tell you (29 points)

That’s what Randall said. Now that I think of it, FDR was President all through the thirties. I’ll have to mention that to him.

FDR didn’t get us out of the depression until getting us into the war, and his war administration began after his 1940 re-election. So maybe that’s it There things become more manifest the harder you look. Anyhow the Saturn, Jupiter conjunction is supposed to symbolize the death of the old King and the ascention of the new King.

Latin Catholics don’t much resemble American Catholics as a rule. There are Moslems who keep harems of young boys. Belief is only related to behaviour by tenuous connections. Someone’s character is usually formed, as a result of predominately accidental conditioning, by the time they are six years old. Convert a bastard to, say Marxism and you get a Marxist bastard. Convert a saint and you get a Marxist saint. Conditions -- such as not having to live in psychologically overcrowded conditions -- improve the tolerability of behaviour. Which is why coercive Puritanism and land monopoly have to go if we aren’t all going to suffer. What ideologies most people maintain in elaboration of all the additional trivialities of existence don’t much influence anything at all.

“Too much is not enough.” –Nat

So I just don’t think about the Satanists much. I like their defiant irreverent spirit. It just gets bogged down in taking religion too seriously though. To me there isn’t much difference in attitude between a Satanist and an Irish Catholic. Both like to fight about Jesus. Both are very colorful. Both are quite militant about any number of absurdly feeble abstractions. Both think they are somewhere near the center of the whole universe.

We could give Ireland to the Catholics and California to the Satanists.

Both California and Nevada if we let the Okies keep the Great Central Valley as an autonomous republic.

I met a Taiwanese woman one day. Before that I’d never thought that much about the indigenous population of Formosa. What if all the reactionary Chinese were encouraged to migrate to Hong Kong and Taiwan were made an autonomous Taiwanese republic within the peoples republic of China? Hong Kong looks as if it may become a defacto community of reactionary Chinese under guidance of China. That’s just a brainstorming suggestion that might spur a more sophisticated idea along the same lines.

Wouldn’t it be rational to emphasize the rights of Taiwan’s native population?

The woman I met didn’t like foreigners ruling Taiwan since the K.M.T. exile-occupation either.

To me, if all anti-Catholics simply organized to stop the church’s tampering with states, the Catholics would cease to be a problem to anyone but themselves. And it would happen soon, if everyone weren’t spreading their efforts too thin. Instead people, as complicated as Jesuits try to destroy them once and for all.

The Libertarian premise is groups only become problems when they begin pointing weapons (via military or legalistic maneuvers) at other groups. For example, what’s to prevent Catholics from outlawing cremation? Or Christian Scientists from

(fig1)

Do you think you'd notice if your child had become a Christian?

Don't be so sure!

Too many parents, when asked this question, have replied "sure, of course I would notice. He'd buy a Bible, start going to Church, hum 'KUM BA YAH' in the bathroom!"

Well the sad truth is MOST PARENT'S ARE THE LAST TO KNOW!

Christians are very very good at hiding their 'faith' and don't normally display the outward symptoms until much much later on.

Here are some sure fire ways to find out if YOUR child is infected.

1.Check his school books and room for the letters WWJD?, this is a secret Christian recognition code. Also look for a 'fish' symbol like this (see fig1 above right) It does NOT mean he's still interested in fishing/angling! DO NOT BE FOOLED.

2.Check that those porn mags under his bed are really porn! A favourite trick of this cult is to get their young acolytes to simply swap covers. Your child might not be reading Playboy but something very very sinister indeed.

3.Has he/she suddenly stopped reading Harry Potter or Tolkien and started reading the 'Narnia' books? BEWARE these Narnia books are a cover for an extreme form of Christian belief!

4.Check your computer! Has he/she suddenly stopped regularly disabling 'Net Nanny' (despite your openly leaving a PostIt with the password on, on the fridge?)

5.Has he started to complain that there is not enough 'healthy' food in the house? Christians brain wash their young recruits to reject good wholesome American food like Twinkies and burgers. Some groups even teach beer is wrong!

6. Can you remember when your child last had an attack of the 'munchies'? He might not be smoking that hash at all!

7.Ask at your local drug store, has he stopped buying condoms? Or if it's a girl, has she suddenly switched from Tampax to towels?

These are just some of the common signs.

PARENTS BE VIGILANT!

~Scribe

This POEE UK Public Service Announcement was brought to you today by the letter 69 and the number Q.

Just by carrying these cards you could save up to 10 people (per sheet) from damnation for FREE!

Get them from our downloads section TODAY!

The Parable of the Unwanted (Or "Billy, don't be a hero")

As revealed to Pope Casanova Frankenstein The Younger with five invisible Umlauts plus three

All Hail Discordia!!!!!

And then Eris Discordia was walking down the street, minding her own business, on her way to her new position as frycook at the local Burger King, daydreaming about the shopping she would make with her first paycheck. Yes, it would be easier to seduce one of her legions of cultists and take his wallet, but for once she wanted to try earning money while spitting inside the buns of the undesirables, the chaos she would bring to the hapless mortals!

And then she found a young discordian weeping, sitting on the sidewalk. The goddess, who still had some minutes to spare, decided to comfort her saddened child;

"What's wrong, child?"

"I am so depressed, I have tried to do the Goddess' bidding and convert my whole family and my workmates to the sacred ways of Discordia, and they have rejected me, they hate me so much they forgot my birthday"

"And why would you do such a thing" Eris could not hide her disgust.

"I have found the way to the truth thanks to the only Goddess and I want to share my joy, winning souls to Eris. I have spread her gospel, I have given charity in her name, I have defended my neighbor against the iniquities of the system and they keep calling me names and spitting at me"

"Ok, "by now Eris realized this poor chap had not recognized her, "Did your gorgeous and smart goddess tell you all this? Is this her will" She asked, knowing the answer was negative.

"Of course, I consulted my pineal gland as the goddess told me"

"Welll, I think you should clean between your ears"

"How would you know?" he shouted; "Discordianism is the only true religion and we are the only ones who are going to heaven, not as those heathens the Subgenii"

"Listen, you asshole, you wouldn't know your goddess even if she bit you in the ass. Besides, No one ever said you are going to heaven, you don't know shit"

And as the young deluded one turn his back on the goddess she proceeded to bite him in the ass. Never turn your back on a crazy woman, chum!

Then he was iluminated, and recognized Eris.

"Sorry, my lady. I am a sinner, how can I atone for my blasphemies against you?"

Eris smiled and simply said: "Become a christian and forget everything about me, I don't want deluded retards as followers

If I wanted sheep I would eat lambchops

If I wanted evangelists I would put a classified ad in the newspaper

If I wanted servitude I would hire a guatemalan maid

If I offered salvation I would sell it for big bucks

If I wanted to spread my word I would possess the Catholic Pope and dance the watusi

If I condemned the other religions I would teach my followers to create atom bombs

If I wanted souls I would get them from garage sales, they are a buck a piece"

"Could you tell me the moral of this story, My lady"

"*sigh* Well, gimme all your worldly possessions and I will get you a ticket in heaven"

The guy immediately gave Eris his car, his house and 100,000 bucks in cash. After blessing him Eris went to the shopping mall and bought until her "shopping bone" was sore.

She never made it to her new job and the guy was devoured by Lord Cthulhu at the end of times as was everybody else.

Rant 136

"Try it. Fail. Try again. Fail better."
-Samuel Beckett

"Fuck Mr. Beckett and fuck existentialism!"
-The White Mouse

I have had enough of telling you all that there is no real difference between an Erisian and a Discordian (though I could be lying). What kind of Erisian-Discordian or Discordian or Erisian would I be if I did not contradict myself further and further anyway? (It's a habit I picked up from the Guide to Episkoposes from the old days way back before the rise of the internet.) So at last... a working definition of an Erisian: One who reveres and or worships the Goddess of Discord, Chaos and Confusion, or at least the personalized form of the ideas, if that makes any sense. Erisian: One who has been at the Discordian game for so long that it actually works spectacularly well, regardless of the individual Erisian's literal or metaphorical "belief" in Eris Herself. (It doesn't matter to Her much, since She is Eris after all.) Discordian: one who calls themselves Discordian. By all gods, if one is nutty enough to call oneself Discordian, then one deserves the label. "The label?" You ask.

Some people get so caught up in the labels of the whole movement that they get whiny and tripped up over the perceived differences, and then get angry or bothered that others don't recognize them. Hell, sit and think about it for a minute. The vast majority of the population on Earth would say "?" if you told them you were Discordian. It means about as much as calling oneself a Radical Hematologist or a Marxist Histopathologist. (Unless there are cases of radical blood types or Marxist tissue diseases that I don't yet know about.) The word Discordian means absolutely fuck all to anyone outside of the Discordian Society, really. (Except for a few Neo-Pagans who know their history.) The word Erisian means little to nothing to anyone, except for the few human beings on the planet who can make the connection to Eris. Even then, what does Erisian mean to the greater society at large? (And if you think I stand by this you should read some of the previous rants wherein I provide contradictory ideas and definitions which have as much to do with the practice of Discordianism or Erisianism as they would have with underwater basket weaving. Now there's an ancient Discordian art if ever there was one.)

As usual I asked Eris about it (I tend to have polytheistic days when I am not slipping in or out of agnostic or non-theistic modes), but She said "Hewn, you step into this, you had better throw some apples." She is not talking about it any further, but I bet She'll have a grand old time watching the rest of us argue and fight over something so silly and innocuous as definitions of terms. Thinking that the Principia Discordia is full of shit is just as much of a dogma as thinking of it as the greatest holy scripture ever written. Both sides or views have merit, but they are both simply approaches. Neither one any more true or real than the other, no matter what personal stake you have in your opinion of it. Kill the Buddha if he happens to be blocking your path, but remember that the Buddha may just smack the crap out of you...and then what? You lay there writhing in agony looking like a retard because you thought you were so cool that you could read some pithy Zen saying and think you could understand it. Like Zen, Discordianism cares nothing about whether or not you "get it" or "understand it." People who rush to a conclusive understanding of anything are simply those who confuse their prejudices with reality. (Discordianism=Other Discordians.) Like Zen, Discordianism has been constructed precisely to screw with the mind states of the fools who rush around thinking that they can or must understand things.

I may or may not care about whether you feel or think you understand it. I may or may not even care or like your own version of Discordianism. Hell, I may even rant and rave about how much of a jerk you are. But so what? Arguing over the fakeness or the realness of certain Discordians is just as fruitful as taking all of your hard earned money and flushing it down the toilet. And besides, you ever stop to think about what you sound like when you do it? No one has to take anything or anyone else seriously. And there isn't a damned thing in the world or in your mind that can change that. You can coerce others to agree with you, but those people are just sheep anyway, and why would you want to surround yourself with acolytes anyway? Perhaps, another religion or ideology would serve you better in that regard. You can't coerce a free person into even acknowledging that there is a point to your existence. And why would you need someone else to validate your life anyway? Why do you really care what other Discordians do or think or say? What do you care about other Discordian sects or approaches or any of that? Why do you feel the need for any sort of orthodoxy?

I'd rather have a bunch of people running around confused about what Discordianism is then to have some sort of official truths proclaimed as the one and true "real" Discordianism. Though it would be better to just have some sort of agreements as to what may or may not be Discordian, we don't have to go to the other extreme and think that we need to clarify and define exactly every little idea or action that we do. Besides, Discordianism isn't some sort of bottled-air spirituality on sale at your latest new age seminar. If you want tight definitions and easy answers, go convert to one of the fundamentalist faiths. Remember no one asked you to become Discordian, not even Eris. And we'll be just fine without hordes of people running around trying to define something that has "nonsense as salvation" (or was it salivation?) as one of its starting ideas.

Stop taking it all so damned personally. It's not as if the whole of the Discordian-Erisian family belongs to you. And if you think it does, then we have jihads and vexations to give you. In the end, who really gives a shit? It's just fun to do. And don't worry about Eris. Don't start thinking that She gives a shit, especially if you don't even care enough to say "hello" to Her when She shows up and gives you a little nudge, or steals your tequila. She could care less about whether you believe in Her. She's not like that other god who holds you hostage and threatens to send you to hell for not believing. She's also not one of those "pray-to-and-get-things" gods that is so busy trying to garner up huge numbers of followers that they'll do anything for anyone who calls upon them. She is Eris. She may just wipe out your entire collection of leftover pizza crusts that you had carelessly left underneath the cushions of that old couch in your front room.

In conclusion: I have already told you to stop picking your nose in public. So stop it. Otherwise jihad will be called.

September 23rd, 2005
-Irreverend Hewn, KSC (Nicotine withdrawal again; this time cold-turkey)

Rant 13

"Insert your own fucking quotes."
-The White Mouse

Can you trust the founders of Discordianism? Why would you want to when you could trust yourself? Researching the two of them, we find two former acid heads. One who lost his mind to the US military. The other lost his mind to literature it seems. Neither of them thought that Eris was real in the beginning, though their opinions changed later on. Neither of them could be shown to be telling the truth at any time. They gave us the first modern Erisian Revelation along with some other collated abnormail that they made into the PD and then went off howling like loons into the proverbial night. In case you were noticing, a lot has happened with the damned Irreligion since those ancient days way back in the sixties. True to its original Eristic intentions, every individual or group of individuals having anything to do with the Discordian Society has taken the Irreligion off into new directions. For some of us, it is an Irreligion that mirrors (and parodies) much of what is going on with the family of rather new religious outlooks that are now known as "Neo-Pagan" by both adherents and researchers. For some of us it is its own thing without any recourse to any assumed similarity or differences with the religions, spirituality and philosophies of the present day. For some of us, it has nothing at all to do with any spirituality. For some of us it is merely a means of blowing off steam. For some of us, it is a chance to parody and have fun with the various pompous occult traditions that seem to want to dominate the "alternative" market. For some of us, it is mainly about Eris and what She does and what we can do with Her. For some of us it is about breaking shit, but perhaps with some intelligent justification for doing so. And there are countless other aspects and types of outlooks and practices. [Insert yours here.] Is it even possible or desirable to come to some common understanding of Discordianism?

Yes. It is desirable and possible to come to some common understanding. People like the Good Reverend Roger have come up with certain categories of actual Discordians (and for that he was denounced as a heretic, which is actually a label to take pride in, for "defining" Discordians), so I won't spend any time with categories themselves beyond saying that unlike what many assume, there really is no meaningful difference between Erisians and Discordians. Those of you who think there is a difference have, to put it mildly, been had. The assumption that Discordian comes from "discord" and that Erisian comes from Eris is a false etymology. Both terms are bastardized combinations that come from the Greek suffix "-ian" and the Latin and Greek versions of the name of the old Goddess Discordia or Eris. (Both names do equate to "strife," however. And today we have words like eristic or discordant as adjectives.) But regardless of the etymology, the words Erisian and Discordian have always been used interchangeably. Some of you may disagree with that usage, but at least know where it is coming from.

As to the common understanding of Discordianism, there are some traits to point out. The fact that some of you refuse to accept that even this could be possible make us sound like the fluff-bunny Wiccans of today who are always spouting their spurious crap lies like "There is no one definition of Wicca" in an effort to excuse their pernicious misunderstandings and blatant disregard for other people's religion by bringing it down to the lowest commercial denominator. (For more info on the Wiccan fight against the usual useless idiots who call themselves Wiccan and whom you may see from time to time, contact me and I will inundate you with links and info.) There may not be any "one definition" of Discordianism, but there are some things or "ideals," if you will, that I think makes us distinct from, say, the Baptists, or the Buddhists, or the Unitarians.

This is what I have come to learn are some common understandings of Discordianism. Feel free to make your own addenda to this. Discordianism is about Eris, whether that means literal belief in Her existence or toying with the idea of a Goddess of Chaos, Confusion and Disorder (as an archetype or something else). It is at heart, an irreligion, which would be best described as a "religion of parody and play." It is about seeking the freedom that a balanced perception of disorder and order can give rise to. That comes with seeing that disorder and order are balanced and part of the same damned chaos, regardless of which one you prefer. It is about the practice and exploration of creative aspects of disorder and order, though because that idea was formed during the birth of the Neo-Pagan movement, many may assume that means some weird trippy hippie ideal of all-is-light-and-peace-man creativity. This assumption is false. In both modern Neo-Pagan conceptions and in earlier pre-Christian Pagan societies, creativity encompassed a lot more than just making art and getting high. There is destruction in creation and vice versa, and no, this isn't some hard to understand Zen-like riddle. It is simply an observation that anyone can see directly in front of themselves. (You need to "destroy" the blank page to create a letter or poem. Forests sometimes need to burn, in order for new plants to grow. I could go on with a list of examples, but you can pretty much figure this one out.) Creation can be quite severe and sometimes outright "destruction" is the means for new directions or new insights or something else to arise.

Discordianism, is also, to the chagrin of some of you, about disrupting the very processes and practices that are limiting and enslaving to individuals. I say "to the chagrin" because some of you feel the some of the rest of you go too far in your projects of disruption. But it is just a matter of degree. And we Discordians, though it looks like the opposite sometimes, do spend more time disrupting the schemas of the "rest of the world" than we do with each other. (If Discordians stopped fighting amongst themselves and stopped trying to out-disrupt each other and turned that energy onto the world at large...well, never mind. Just pointing out something to think about.) Along with that is the idea that we should learn as much as we can about the ways in which we humans perceive "reality" and seek as many different ways as possible. The Chaos Magic current calls this "paradigm piracy." The Robert Anton Wilson "brigade" (him, Tim Leary and those that like what they both say) calls it "metaprogramming." Discordians usually just call it an excuse to have fun with other people's beliefs and rituals, but the point is not missed by any of us, whether we admit it or not. One way we do this is to hold to contradiction and complexity of thought. Sometimes this makes us look stupid, since intelligence is mainly measured by how much one can parrot the correct linear factoids in the correct way, but we shouldn't reject linear thinking out of hand, since it is supposed to be so much