11.

Religions of Paradox and Play

“LARGE PARTS of the Neo-Pagan movement started out as jokes, you know,” Robert Anton Wilson, author, Witch, and a former editor of Playboy, told me one day. “Some of the founders of NROOGD will tell you their order started as a joke; others will deny it. There is a group that worships Mithra in Chicago which started out as a joke. The people in many of these groups began to find that they were getting something out of what they were doing and gradually they became more serious.”

There have always been spoofs on religion. But religions that combine humor, play, and seriousness are a rare species. A rather special quality of Neo-Pagan groups is that many of them have a humorous history. As we have seen, the Church of the Eternal Source, a serious attempt to revive the ancient Egyptian religion, began as a series of yearly Egyptian costume parties. The Reformed Druids of North America began as a humorous protest movement against a regulation at Carleton College requiring attendance at chapel. The Elf Queen’s Daughters, a network of “elves” located mostly in the Far West, sent out each week three pages of quite beautiful poetic prose, most of it composed by automatic writing. “Most of it’s nonsense,” they told me. “We don’t take it too seriously.” In Minneapolis a group calling itself the First Arachnid Church began to publish hilarious leaflets calling for the worship of the Great Spider and the True Web.¹ It was pure satire and a great parody of fundamentalist Christian leaflets. But it was also pure Neo-Paganism. And, most preposterous of all, there is the worship of Eris, goddess of chaos and confusion, popularized in the science fiction trilogy Illuminatus. ²

Since we live in a culture that makes a great distinction between “seriousness” and “play,” how does one confront the idea of “serious” religious groups that are simultaneously playful, humorous, and even (at times) put-ons? How seriously can we take them?

The relationship between ritual and play has long been noticed. Harvey Cox, in Feast of Fools, develops a theory of play, asserting, like others before him, that our society has lost or mutilated the gift of true festivity, playful fantasy, and celebration. In 1970, when an interviewer asked Cox about the “rise of the occult,” he replied that astrology, Zen, and the use of drugs were “forms of play, of testing new perceptions of reality without being committed to their validity in advance or ever.” When the interviewer observed that sociologist Marcello Truzzi had called the occult “trivial” because people were not serious about it, Cox replied, “That’s exactly the reason it’s important. People are playing with new perceptions.”³

The classic study on play was written in 1944 by Johan Huizinga. “Human civilization,” he says, “has added no essential feature to the general idea of play.” Both animals and humans play, and play is irrational, defying logical interpretations. Yet the “great archetypal activities of human society are all permeated with play from the start.” Further:

You can deny, if you like, nearly all abstractions: justice, beauty, truth, goodness, mind, God. You can deny seriousness, but not play. . . . Play only becomes possible, thinkable and understandable when an influx of mind breaks down the absolute determination of the cosmos.

Huizinga writes that play and ritual are really the same thing and that all sacred rites, mysteries, sacrifices, and so forth are performed in the spirit of play, that poetry is a play function, and that all these things may well be serious since “the contrast between play and seriousness proves to be neither conclusive nor fixed . . . for some play can be very serious indeed.” In addition, “The outlaw, the revolutionary, the cabalist or member of a secret society, indeed heretics of all kinds are of a highly associative if not sociable disposition, and a certain element of play is prominent in all their doings.”⁴

In the light of these words we can look at two Neo-Pagan groups that have combined seriousness with play: the Reformed Druids of North America and the worshippers of Eris. These two groups, while differing in almost every way conceivable, illustrate the idea that once you embark on a journey of change in perception, even when you start this journey as “play,” you can end up in waters far different from those you may have originally intended to enter.

 

The Reformed Druids of North America (RDNA) began in 1963 at Carleton College as a humorous protest movement directed against the school’s requirement that all students attend a certain number of religious services. Since “attending the services of one’s own religion”⁵ was one way to fulfill this requirement, a group of students formed the RDNA to test it. The group was never intended to be a true alternative religion, for the students were Christians, Jews, agnostics, and so forth and seemed content with those religions.

In 1964 the regulation was abolished but, much to the surprise—and it is said, horror—of the original founders, the RDNA continued to hold services and spread its organization far beyond the college campus. One of the founders, David Fisher, who wrote many of the original rituals, is now an Episcopal priest and teacher of theology at a Christian college in the South, having apparently washed his hands of the RDNA. Many of the original founders considered Reformed Druidism not so much a religion as a philosophy compatible with any religious view, a method of inquiry. They certainly never considered it “Neo-Pagan.”

The original basic tenets of Reformed Druidism were:

1. The object of the search for religious truth, which is a universal and a never-ending search, may be found through the Earth-Mother; which is Nature; but this is one way, one way among many.

2. And great is the importance, which is of a spiritual importance of Nature, which is the Earth-Mother; for it is one of the objects of Creation, and with it do people live, yea, even as they do struggle through life are they come face-to-face with it.

These tenets were often shortened to read

1. Nature is good!

2. Nature is good!⁶

The original founders seemed to hold the fundamental idea that one should scrutinize religion from “a state of rebellion,” neither embracing traditional faiths nor rejecting them. They intended RDNA to avoid all dogma and orthodoxy, while affirming that life was both spiritual (Be’al) and material (the Earth-Mother) and that human beings needed to come to a state of “awareness” through unity with both spirit and nature. The founders also seemed to distrust ritual and magic, sharing the prejudices and assumptions of most of the population.

RDNA has always had a sense of humor. The Early Chronicles of the Druids, as well as many later writings, are written in a mock biblical style. Here, for example, is a description of how the regulations at Carleton were abolished:

1. Now it came to pass that in those last days a decree went out from the authorities;

2. and they did declare to be abolished the regulations which had been placed upon the worship of those at Carleton.

3. And behold, a great rejoicing did go up from all the land for the wonders which had come to pass.

4. And all the earth did burst forth into song in the hour of salvation.

5. And in the time of exaltation, the fulfillment of their hopes, the Druids did sing the praises of the Earth-Mother.⁷

 

Similarly, the original “Order of Worship” has many similarities to a Protestant religious service, complete with invocations and benedictions. Reformed Druids are not required to use these rituals and—as is true of so many Neo-Pagan groups—participants have created new rituals to take their place. I did attend a RDNA ritual in Stanford, California, that sounded not much different from a number of liberal Christian services I have attended, despite its being held in a lovely grove of oaks. But when I described this ritual to another leader of a Reformed Druid grove, he merely laughed and remarked, “It all depends on who’s doing the ritual. A service by Robert Larson [Arch-Druid of an Irish clan in San Francisco and a former Christian Scientist] often sounds like Christian Science. My services are influenced by my own training in Roman Catholicism. Besides, most religious ceremonies follow the same kinds of patterns. It is natural to find similarities.” The Reformed Druid movement is extremely eclectic, to say the least.

The festivals of the Reformed Druids are the eight Pagan sabbats we have come across before: Samhain, the Winter Solstice, Oimelc (February 1), the Spring Equinox, Beltane, Midsummer, Lughnasadh (August 1), and the Fall Equinox. The rituals are held (if possible) outdoors, in a grove of oaks or on a beach or hill. The officiating Druids often wear robes—white is traditional, but other colors are acceptable. During the ritual, which can include readings, chants, and festival celebrations, the waters-of-life are passed around and shared to symbolize the link between all things and nature. (During the ritual I attended in Stanford, California, the waters-of-life was good Irish whiskey. Whiskey in Gaelic means “waters of life.”) All worship is directed toward nature and various aspects of nature retain the names of the Celtic and Gaulish gods and goddesses:

Dalon Ap Landu, Lord of the Groves
Grannos, God of Healing Springs
Braciaca, God of Malt and Brewing
Belenos, God of the Sun
Sirona, Goddess of Rivers
Taranis, God of Thunder and Lightning
Llyr, God of the Sea
Danu, Goddess of Fertility

The “paganizing” of the Reform Druids came as a great surprise to many, and some of the originators regard it as a regression. But from its inception there has been much in RDNA that is Neo-Pagan in nature. The “Order of Worship” includes hymns to the Earth-Mother, to Be’al, and to Dalon Ap Landu, lord of the groves, as well as ancient Welsh and Irish poems. This is fertile ground for anyone with a love of nature, an interest in Celtic lore and myth, and a love of poetry, music, and beauty.

Once the initial protest was over, the most important aspect of Reformed Druidism had to be that it put people in touch with a storehouse of history, myth, and lore. Isaac Bonewits, who was Arch-Druid of the Mother Grove of the NRDNA in Berkeley (see below) and certainly an avowed Neo-Pagan, told me, “Over the years it grew and mutated, much to the horror of the original founders, into a genuine Neo-Pagan religion. There were actually people who were worshipping the Earth-Mother and the old gods and goddesses, who were getting off on it and finding it a complete replacement for their traditional religion.” Bonewits, Larson, and one or two others played a large role in this change in direction.

As of 2006, the Reformed Druids of North America have about fifty groves and proto-groves in the United States, Canada, and Europe. Besides members of groves, there are about three thousand solitary RDNA members. The grove at Carleton has existed on and off to this day as a philosophic path open to members of many different religions. Over the years there have also been a number of offshoots, Norse Druids in San Diego, Zen Druids in Olympia, Wiccan Druids in Minneapolis, Irish Druids (with services in Gaelic) in San Francisco, Hassidic Druids in St. Louis, and various Eclectic Druids in Oakland, Berkeley, and Los Angeles. These groups come and go. For example, the Hassidic Druids formed in 1976; the group was made up primarily of former Jews who wished to keep certain aspects of Hebrew and Yiddish culture, but wanted to avoid what they considered a patriarchal theology. They added Yiddish and Hebrew scriptures to the Gaulish and Celtic ones. They had a set of additional scriptures called the Mishmash and the Te-Mara, which, in Reformed Druid tradition, satirized, in a good-natured way, the scriptures—this time the Talmud. Most of it was both humorous and somewhat profound. I could not locate the group in 2005, and I assume it no longer exists.⁸

Some Druid groups are Pagan; some are not. Isaac Bonewits often publicly stated that Reformed Druidism could only survive if it recognized its own nature, which was that of a Neo-Pagan religion.⁹

Since the RDNA was not Neo-Pagan, per se, Bonewits started the New Reformed Druids of North America (NRDNA), which was avowedly Pagan. He described his grove as:

. . . an Eclectic Reconstructionist Neo-Pagan Priestcraft, based primarily upon Gaulish and Celtic sources, but open to ideas, deities and rituals from many other Neo-Pagan belief systems. We worship the Earth-Mother as the feminine personification of Manifestation, Be’al as the masculine personification of Essence, and numerous Gods and Goddesses as personifications of various aspects of our experience. We offer no dogma or final answers, but only continual questions. Our goal is increased harmony within ourselves, and all of Nature.¹⁰

Over the last fifteen years, contemporary Druidism has undergone a stunning renewal. In 1985, when the last serious revision of Drawing Down the Moon took place, most of the Reformed Druid groups were moribund. There was a Druid group in Seattle, and a lively group in Berkeley, California—the Live Oak Grove, which published A Druid Missal-any. Then, after a long absence from the Pagan scene, Isaac Bonewits started Ár nDraíocht Féin (Our own Druidism), as well as a new journal, The Druid’s Progress. At the time, Bonewits told me, “It started out as a simple network for a few dozen people who wanted to coordinate research on the old religions of Europe. Then more and more people wanted rituals and clergy training. Now it’s a collective act of creation. With the help of 200 people we’re creating a new religion.”

Bonewits said that he came to realize that the Reformed Druids was not an appropriate vehicle, at least not for him. “Most people in the RDNA were Zen anarchists,” Bonewits said. “They had a philosophical approach, applicable to any religion. Most of the RDNA were not Pagans. They resented me and felt I was infiltrating their group.”

In The Druid’s Progress, Bonewits laid out his vision of Ár nDraíocht Féin. It would be an attempt to reconstruct, using the best scholarship available, what the Paleopagan Druids actually did, and then try to apply such knowledge to creating a Neo-Pagan religion appropriate for the modern world. It would use the scholarship of authors like George Dumézil, Stuart Piggot, Anne Ross, and Mircea Eliade. It would create rituals and liturgy and would set up a complex training program to achieve excellence. It would “keep nonsense, silliness and romanticism down to a dull roar,” he told me. “After all, the Druids had some unpleasant customs which I have no intention of perpetuating. They were headhunters, for example. But it is important to know where you are coming from if you are going to claim you are connected to certain ancestors or traditions. If you say you are a ‘Druid’ you ought to know what kind of people they were and what kinds of thoughts they had. Then you can pick and choose what parts make sense in modern America.”

Bonewits’ vision of Druidism was not entirely Celtic or even Pan-Celtic, but Pan-European. It included all the branches of the Indo-European culture and language tree—Celtic, Germanic, Slavic, Baltic, even pre-classical, archaic Greek, and Roman. While most people are aware that fragments of Druidism seem to have survived in parts of Wales and Ireland, some of them surviving in disguise through the institutions of the Celtic Church and among bards and poets, research done by Russian and Eastern European folklorists, anthropologists, and musicologists, writes Bonewits, “indicates that Paleopagan traditions may have survived in small villages, hidden in the woods and swamps, even into the current century! Some of these villages still had people dressing up in long white robes and going out to sacred groves to do ceremonies, as recently as World War One!”¹¹ Much of this research had been published in Soviet academic literature and had never been translated. Much of it is coming to light today. Bonewits believes that this material, combined with Vedic and Old Irish sources, will provide many of the missing links in reconstructing Paleopagan European Druidism.

One of the most important aspects of Ár nDraíocht Féin was its training system, which was based on a series of levels or circles, somewhat like the organization of the old Church of All Worlds. You can move forward and (if you lose knowledge or skills) backward! Since the Indo-European clergy were supposed to be the intelligentsia of their culture—the poets, the musicians, the historians, and the astronomers, the training for each level included drama, music, psychic arts, physical and biological and social sciences, counseling, communications, and health skills. Languages were also emphasized.

Bonewits has always been extremely opinionated and often difficult, even egotistical, but he remains one of the most interesting Pagans around. In talking about Druidism, he says flatly that there is no indication that the Druids used stone altars. They did not build Stonehenge, the megalithic circles and lines of northwestern Europe, the Pyramids, or have anything to do with the mythical continents of Atlantis or Mu. What’s more, he will not accept what he considers to be the questionable scholarship of Louis Spence, Margaret Murray, Robert Graves, H. P. Blavatsky, and others.

While the local druid groves would have lots of autonomy, Bonewits made no apologies for the fact that this group would have a structured hierarchy and that Bonewits would be the Arch-Druid. He told me, “I’m being extremely out front about running it as a benevolent dictatorship. I get a lot of feedback, but I make the final decision. These are the rules of this game. You can criticize them, but the rules of the game are the rules of the game. If you don’t want to play by them, you should probably start your own Druid group, and I hope you succeed. Some people will think that makes me autocratic,” he laughed, “and they’re probably right.”

Reaction to this approach in Pagan periodicals ranged from attacks: “Bonewits has come out with his plea in the wilderness. ‘Support me and I’ll be your Guru.’ Give me a break Isaac” (Pegasus Express) to great praise: “This is actually a good approach for a young organization whose founder wishes it to proliferate and generally be successful” (Paneg yria). Appearing at major Pagan festivals, Isaac had a rousing response. Clustering around him on an evening, you might find an intense discussion, or three Celtic harpists playing for each other and exchanging information. His training program got many people talking.

By 2006, Ár nDraíocht Féin was thriving, and many other Druid groups had come into existence, often going in a slightly different direction from either ADF or RDNA. These groups included the Henge of Keltria—which goes in a more Celtic direction than Ár nDraíocht Féin, the Order of the White Oak, and many other organizations (at least a dozen are listed in the Resource guide). As for the Reformed Druids of North America, they are still going strong. And they illustrate something important: When one combines a process of inquiry with content of beauty and antiquity, when, even as a lark, one opens the flow of archetypal images contained in the history and legends of people long neglected by this culture, many who confront these images are going to take to them and begin a journey unimagined by those who started the process.

 

If a number of Neo-Pagan groups began in a spirit of play and, while remaining true to that spirit, grew more serious, there is one Neo-Pagan phenomenon that will never become too serious: the Erisian movement and groups connected with it that have been engaging in absurdist and surrealist activities for many years.

In a way, it’s ridiculous even to talk seriously about the Erisians, a group, or collection of groups, that has called itself a “Non-prophet Irreligious Disorganization” that is “dedicated to an advanced understanding of the paraphysical manifestations of Everyday Chaos,”¹² and at other times has stated, “The Erisian revelation is not a complicated put-on disguised as a new religion, but a new religion disguised as a complicated put-on.”¹³

The Discordian Society was founded (if one can call it that) in 1957 (or 1958—even this primary confusion has never been cleared up) by Greg Hill (Malaclypse the Younger) and Kerry Thornley (Omar Ravenhurst). After the initial “Erisian Revelation” (see below), Malaclypse the Younger went on to start an Erisian Neo-Pagan Paradox Cult called the Paratheoanametamystikhood of Eris Esoteric (POEE), and in 1970 POEE published the Principia Discordia, or How I found Goddess and What I Did To Her When I Found Her. The first edition—there have been five—was five photocopies; the second was quickly offset in New Orleans, and the third was printed in Tampa. By now, at least several thousand have been distributed. Omar Ravenhurst went on to form his own Erisian organization, the Erisian Liberation Front (ELF). The Principia puts the story of the beginning of the Erisian movement this way:

THE BIRTH OF THE ERISIAN MOVEMENT

The Earth quakes and the Heavens rattle; the beasts of nature flock together and the nations of men flock apart; volcanoes usher up heat while elsewhere water becomes ice and melts; and then on other days it just rains.

Indeed do many things come to pass.

HBT; The Book of Predictions, Chap. 19

 

The Revelation

Just prior to the decade of the 1960s, when Sputnik was alone and new, and about the time that Ken Kesey took his first acid trip as a medical volunteer; before underground newspapers, Viet Nam, and talk of a second American Revolution; in the comparative quiet of the late 1950s, just before the idea of RENAISSANCE became relevant . . .

Two young Californians, known later as Omar Ravenhurst and Malaclypse the Younger, were indulging in their habit of sipping coffee at an all-night bowling alley and generally solving the world’s problems. This particular evening they were complaining to each other of the personal confusion they felt in their respective lives. “Solve the problem of discord,” said one, “and all other problems will vanish.”

“Indeed,” said the other, “chaos and strife are the roots of all confusion.”

FIRST I MUST SPRINKLE YOU
WITH FAIRY DUST

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 chest; 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.

 

Eris—Goddess of Chaos, Discord & Confusion

They awoke to the sound of pins clattering, and found the bowlers engaged in their game and the waitress busy making coffee. It was apparent that their experience had been private.

They discussed their strange encounter and reconstructed from memory the chimpanzee’s diagram. Over the next five days they searched libraries to find the significance of it, but were disappointed to uncover only references to Taoism, the Korean flag, and Technocracy. It was not until they traced the Greek writing on the apple that they discovered the ancient Goddess known to the Greeks as ERIS and to the Romans as DISCORDIA. This was on the fifth night, and when they slept that night each had a vivid dream of a splendid woman 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 years 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.”

During the next months they studied philosophies and theologies, and learned that ERIS or DISCORDIA was primarily feared by the ancients as being disruptive. Indeed, the very concept of chaos was still considered equivalent to strife and treated as a negative. “No wonder things are all screwed up,” they concluded. “They have got it all backwards.” They found that the principle of disorder was every much as significant as the principle of order.

With this in mind, they studied the strange yin-yang. During a meditation one afternoon, a voice came to them:

“It is called THE SACRED CHAO. I appoint you Keepers of It. Therein you will find anything you like. Speak of me as DISCORD, to show contrast to the pentagon. Tell constricted Mankind that there are no rules, unless they choose to invent rules. Keep close the words of Syadasti: ’TIS AN ILL WIND THAT BLOWS NO MINDS. And remember that there is no tyranny in the State of Confusion. For further information, consult your pineal gland.”

“What is this?” mumbled one to the other, “A religion based on the Goddess of Confusion? It is utter madness!” . . . And amid squeals of mirth and with tears on their cheeks, each appointed the other to be high priest of his own madness, and together they declared themselves to be a society of Discordia for whatever that may turn out to be.¹⁴

The Principia was composed from articles and ideas that Greg Hill (Mal) collected during communications with co-conspirators. In 1969 Mal started the Joshua Norton Cabal. (Emperor Joshua Norton lived in the late 1800s in San Francisco. He declared himself emperor of the world and issued his own money, and, proving that one can often create one’s own reality, much of San Francisco humored him—accepted his money in bars and so forth. It is said that thousands came to his funeral.) Other Erisian cabals formed. At one point there were rumored to be more than twenty, although some may have had a membership of only one. Since radical decentralization is a Discordian principle, it is impossible to know how many Discordians there were and are, or what they are doing. Most of these cabals engaged in various nonviolent, absurdist, revolutionary, magical, and surrealist endeavors. A number of these “actions” were done under the name of the supposed “Bavarian Illuminati,” a rather mysterious organization founded by Adam Weishaupt in 1776. The Erisian “Illuminati” have mostly been the inspiration of someone known as Thomas Gnostic. Similar actions were initiated by ELF. Omar Ravenhurst, for example, invented a Do-It-Yourself Conspiracy Kit, complete with assortments of stationery bearing dubious letterheads. Robert Anton Wilson, a leading Discordian (sometimes known as Mordecai the Foul), described one such action.

Omar would send a letter to the Christian Anti-Communist Crusade on Bavarian Illuminati stationery, saying, “We’re amused you’ve discovered that we’ve taken over the Rock Music business. But you’re still so naive. We took over the business in the 1800s. Beethoven was our first convert.”

A number of these Discordian actions found their way into the underground press in the late sixties and early seventies. They were not, Wilson told me, “hoaxes,” for “a hoax suggests something that’s done out of adolescent perversity. I regard them rather as educational projects. We are teaching people that there are alternate realities.”

Discordianism is an anarchist’s paradise. One of its mottoes is “We Discordians Shall Stick Apart.” And all you have to do to become a member of the Discordian Society is (1) decide it exists and (2) include yourself in it. Greg Hill has described himself as a “Transcendental Atheist” who has always been interested in absurdist religion and, discovering that the ancient Greeks had a goddess of confusion, decided it was the funniest thing he had ever heard. But POEE is a priesthood of sorts, and you can become a priest by (as you might expect) declaring yourself one. POEE has thousands of wallet-sized “Pope Cards.”

Wilson (Mordecai) has described himself as a “Transcendental Agnostic,” although, he added whimsically, “There are many me’s.” He once told an interviewer from a science fiction magazine:

I’m an initiated witch, an ordained minister in four churches (or cults) and have various other “credentials” to impress the gullible. My philosophy remains Transcendental Agnosticism. There are realities and intelligences greater than conditioned normal consciousness recognizes, but it is premature to dogmatize about them at this primitive stage of our evolution. We’ve hardly begun to crawl off the surface of the cradle-planet.¹⁵

Wilson, along with another Erisian named Robert Shea, coauthored Illuminatus, a three-volume science fiction/occult/conspiracy novel that takes place in an Erisian framework. Its success in both science fiction and occult circles may prove to be the springboard for more Erisian activity, although the opposite could just as easily occur. In fact, one Erisian magazine in New Jersey published a notice dissolving the local Erisian cabal. The reason: “Since the beans were spilled in the proverbial manner (see Illuminatus) it is necessary to retreat to a more esoteric position.”¹⁶ Meanwhile, Malaclypse has given notice that the Eris in the Principia and the Eris in Illuminatus are not the same Eris.

Whichever Eris you choose, she always seems to take the form of paradox, and an Erisian notice printed in Green Egg said that the Erisian path generally appealed to those who have “an affinity toward taoism, anarchy and clowning; who can feel comfortable in a Neo-Pagan context; and who probably have a tendency toward iconoclasm.”¹⁷

And Discordianism plans to stay humorous. Wilson says, “Much of the Pagan movement started out as jokes, and gradually, as people found out they were getting something out of it, they became serious. Discordianism has a built-in check against getting too serious. The sacred scriptures are so absurd—as soon as you consult the scriptures again, you start laughing. Discordian theology is similar to Crowleyanity. You take any of these ideas far enough and they reveal the absurdity of all ideas. They show that ideas are only tools and that no idea should be sacrosanct. Thus, Discordianism is a necessary balance. It’s a fail-safe system. It remains a joke and provides perspective. It’s a satire on human intelligence and is based on the idea that whatever your map of reality, it’s ninety percent your own creation. People should accept this and be proud of their own artistry. Discordianism can’t get dogmatic. The whole language would have to change for people to lose track that it was all a joke to begin with. It would take a thousand years.”

The Erisian position on humor has always been clear, and to prove it, here is another section from the sacred scriptures, the Principia.¹⁸

 

THE DISCORDIAN SOCIETY

Joshua Norton Cabal

San Francisco

GREYFACE

In the year 1166 B.C., a malcontented hunchbrain by the name of Greyface, got it into his head that the universe was as humorless as he, and he began to teach that play was sinful because it contradicted the ways of Serious Order. “Look at all the order about you,” he said. And from that, he deluded honest men to believe that reality was a straightjacket affair and not the happy romance as men had known it.

It is not presently understood why men were so gullible at that particular time, for absolutely no one thought to observe all the disorder around them and conclude just the opposite. But anyway, 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 a bad trip. Man has been on a bad trip for a long time now.

It is called THE CURSE OF GREYFACE.

 

The Curse of Greyface and The Introduction of Negativism

To choose order over disorder, or disorder over order, is to accept a trip composed of both the creative and the destructive. But to choose the creative over the destructive is an all-creative trip composed of both order and disorder. To accomplish this, one need only accept creative disorder along with, and equal to, creative order, and also be willing to reject destructive order as an undesirable equal to destructive disorder.

The Curse of Greyface included the division of life into order/ disorder as the essential positive/negative polarity, instead of building a game foundation with creative/destructive as the essential positive/ negative. He has thereby caused man to endure the destructive aspects of order and has prevented man from effectively participating in the creative uses of disorder. Civilization reflects this unfortunate division.

POEE proclaims that the other division is preferable, and we work toward the proposition that creative disorder, like creative order, is possible and desirable; and that destructive order, like destructive disorder, is unnecessary and undesirable.

Seek the Sacred Chao—therein you will find the foolishness of all ORDER/DISORDER. They are the same!

Principia Discordia or How I found Goddess and what I did to Her when I found Her

And yet Erisianism should not be treated frivolously. Greg Hill told me his experiences with Eris had been quite profound. Although it started as an atheistic joke, his perceptions began to change.

“Eris is an authentic goddess. Furthermore, she is an old one. In the beginning I saw myself as a cosmic clown. I characterized myself as Malaclypse the Younger. But if you do this type of thing well enough, it starts to work. In due time the polarities between atheism and theism became absurd. The engagement was transcendent. And when you transcend one, you have to transcend the other. I started out with the idea that all gods are an illusion. By the end I had learned that it’s up to you to decide whether gods exist, and if you take a goddess of confusion seriously, it will send you through as profound and valid a metaphysical trip as taking a god like Yahweh seriously. The trips will be different, but they will both be transcendental. Eris is a valid goddess in so far as gods are valid; and gods are valid when we choose them to be. The Christian tradition has become so totally alienated from reality in the Western world that people have had to start inventing their own damn gods. Some people are doing it seriously and it is validly working. The Neo-Pagan phenomenon is an example. Another path would be transcendental atheism: using atheism as a spiritual path. The phenomenon of Eris is a hybrid between the two. She is an absurdist deity who shows that nonsense is as valid as sense, since Eris is as preposterous a deity as ever invented. Yet, if you pursue her, it can be a valid spiritual experience that can carry you to the point where you no longer relate to things in terms of deities and nondeities.”

For Wilson also, Discordianism is a perceptual game, a means of expanding one’s perception of reality. The Discordian position, he has written, “demands, then, continuous motion. To stop at any one metaphor and establish it as dogma is to put the mind in chains.” He adds, “Although Discordians move about the country and the world constantly, in many guises, there is always one major Discordian ashram in the San Francisco Bay Area ‘on the site of the beautiful future San Andreas Canyon.’ The only way to remain sane is to know that the ground below you is pure Void.”¹⁹

I asked Malaclypse, “What’s Omar Ravenhurst doing these days?” He said, “Ravenhurst has recently been in a state of extreme discord. We were talking about Eris and confusion and he said, ‘You know, if I had realized that all of this was going to come true, I would have chosen Venus.’”

The Erisian Movement Today

Discordians and Erisians still make their presence known at Pagan gatherings and in the pages of newsletters. And there are many Erisian sites on the Web (see Resources). Dennis Moskowitz (Brother Max Flax Beeblewax), who was part of the Five-College Discordian Society of Saint Rufus a number of years ago, writes that what’s most noticeable now is the influence of Eris in the culture at large. “Most Pagans and magicians seem to be familiar with Discordianism,” he says. Moskowitz notes that Eris was one of the main characters—albeit a villain—in a recent Sinbad animated movie, and Discordian references can be found in Grant Morrison’s 1994–2000 comic series, The Invisibles. There is a role-playing game created by designer John Wick called Discordia! It is free to the public. There were some Discordian protests of the movie Troy because it told the story of the Trojan War without mentioning any gods, and therefore denied the role of the Goddess Eris in starting the war. Moskowitz observes that Discordianism “will always be a movement that begins with high school and college students who discover it, perhaps take it too seriously, mellow out as they get older,” but then, every so often, Erisian elements will wind up in their future artistic work.

Another Discordian, who calls herself Elfwreck, notes that Eris is a recurring villain in the Cartoon Network show The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy. She also says there is an annual Discordian convention called KallistiCon a Discordian (un) Convention, usually in California. And at PantheaCon, an annual Pagan convention in northern California, there is usually a Discordian ritual attended by a couple hundred people. There are also occasional pilgrimages to Emperor Norton’s gravesite. A member of the Avatar Jones Memorial Cabal (AJMC) is in the process of starting an Erisian church, the Fifth Trinity Church. Elfwreck said the Discordian/Erisian movement was as strong as it ever was, “which is to say, there are tiny clots here and there with delusions of grandeur, and the illusion of a much larger web connecting all the dots.” Elfwreck says that the fact that public Paganism has developed a tolerance for Discordians “rather shocks me,” and she says it may well show the superficiality of much of Paganism.

Some Pagans argue that since Erisianism is mostly playful nonsense, people leave it once they get into Paganism more seriously. An entry on a Pagan scholars list read “The jokes get tiresome . . . perhaps the movement has lost steam.” The writer adds that any real reading of Greek writers like Hesiod shows Eris to be the mother of all harm—and not a goddess to emulate.

But others would argue that the Pagan community is one of the only spiritual communities that is exploring humor, joy, abandonment, even silliness and outrageousness as valid parts of spiritual experience. Oz, a Craft priestess from New Mexico, wrote these words to me, just days before the 1986 edition of Drawing Down the Moon went to press.

The Pagan movement is exploring social change in a way that I don’t see it done anywhere else. We are living with nudity, sexual freedom, license for experimentation, freedom of thought and a loose, fun joy that is unique. I don’t see other “magickal” people developing a culture of boisterous joy. To find it in expression, silliness, outrageousness, pushing the limits—to find that in this there is spirit. If you think about the dual meaning of the word “spirit” for a moment, I think you have it. I now get much of my intellectual and even spiritual stimulation from people who are not Witches or Pagans, but when I want to be around people with whom I am comfortable living my life the way I like to live it, who are being exceedingly open about everything from soup to nuts, who won’t think you’re crazy if you express a silly desire and act on it, I hang out with Pagans.

There are now many places where you can find alternatives to patriarchal Christian culture, places that are open to the mystical and the feminine. What exists in Paganism is the exposure to others that aren’t afraid to dream a different dream and try to live it. We’re not following anybody. We are like explorers on a new planet in some ways. And we say as Discordians say, “Don’t make plans.”

Now, almost twenty years later, the Pagan movement has matured and some of these aspects are a bit more muted. And as Paganism becomes a more mainstream movement, many Pagan festivals are family friendly and are downplaying alternative forms of sexuality and other more edgy ideas. The Erisians still have that flavor of outrageousness of twenty-five years ago, and it would be sad to lose all of that as Paganism comes of age.