Discordianism

(recreation)

/dis-kor'di-*n-ism/ The veneration of Eris, also known as Discordia; widely popular among hackers. Discordianism was popularised by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson's novel "Illuminatus!" as a sort of self-subverting Dada-Zen for Westerners - it should on no account be taken seriously but is far more serious than most jokes. Consider, for example, the Fifth Commandment of the Pentabarf, from "Principia Discordia": "A Discordian is Prohibited of Believing What he Reads." Discordianism is usually connected with an elaborate conspiracy theory/joke involving millennia-long warfare between the anarcho-surrealist partisans of Eris and a malevolent, authoritarian secret society called the Illuminati.

See Religion, Church of the SubGenius, and ha ha only serious.

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References in periodicals archive

Remember the first law of Discordianism: "Convictions cause convicts." Whatever you believe imprisons you.

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Thornley helped his high school buddy Greg Hill invent the comedic religion of Discordianism in dull suburban Southern California in the late 1950s.

A sad fate for someone dedicated to spreading forces of upheaval and chaos: from his Discordianism to his advocating a libertarian diaspora populating stateless floating cities in The Innovator, to his inspiration of Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea's classic trilogy, Illuminatus!, to all the aftershocks spreading from that earthquake of a novel.

Historia Discordia meet Kerry Thornley, the second Oswald

Under this header one finds Discordianism, the "NonProphet Irreligious Disorganization" devoted to the GrecoRoman goddess of disorder; the Church of the Sub Genius, inspired not by classical mythology but by conspiracy theories, UFO cults, and sales manuals; and the Moorish Orthodox Church, which might best be described as Discordianism crossed with Afro-American Islam.

Inside the spiritual Jacuzzi: what JewBus, Unitarian Pagans, and the Hot Tub Mystery Religion tell us about traditional faiths

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