DU HEXEN HASE!

Alan Moore, As Usual, Gets It

2012-02-02T12:15:00.000-08:00

Some day Mr Moore will be looked back upon as one of the greatest philosophers of our age, and he worships a 2000 year old sock puppet. Life is good.

Enjoy!

Praise "Bob"!

2011-12-24T12:34:00.001-08:00

2011-12-17T14:49:00.001-08:00

I Have No Ass and I Must POOP! A 'Shut Up™' Sermon by TGRR

2011-12-12T11:52:00.000-08:00

by: The Good Reverend Roger

This Discordians thing isn’t just End Times Porn. We’re not just here to make an ugly situation uglier…We’re here to strip away the glitter and makeup and drag the situation out into the light, so that the ugliness is viewed in its true form, to show the average human that their society is akin to a black velvet Auschwitz. After all, if they don’t know what it really is, then they can’t change it, right?

For this, of course, we are called all manner of horrible shit by stupid people. “conservopagans” & Magicktards, libertariantards, Democrats, Republicans, teabaggers, the DAR (& other racists), and I’m pretty sure the Rotarians have put hits out on us. It is un-American to point out that things aren’t utterly perfect, that there might be a flaw or two in our glorious system.

We – at least the portion of Discordians that I feel comfortable speaking for – no longer buy into the left/right false dilemma that has been propagated by the media for the last 65 years or so. “Both sides” are moronic Punch & Judy dolls set up for you to throw rotten fruit at. If at this point you find yourself saying “Well, sure, but at least the isn’t AS BAD as , then congratulations: You’ve bought half the lies, which is all that is required.

And the 3rd party morons? As I’ve said before, just because they’re funnier doesn’t make them better. No, the sad fact is that all politics is utter garbage which must be studied without buy-in…Because, though those police may be a social fiction, their pepper spray and billy clubs are just as real as they need to be.

This applies to ALL politics. Dumb fucking anarchists are buying the same shit in a different wrapper. In fact, anarchy is the STUPIDEST form of politics, because it doesn’t even TRY to put forth a workable agenda, let alone a system that primates can live with. Also, it was invented by the French, and anyone who has studied their governmental history has no further need of any evidence, whatsoever.

Related to politics is, of course, religion. Religion, as defined by us in The Church™, means “any group of people who believe the same things without considering (or even looking at) evidence that contradicts those beliefs”. Religion therefore includes the American Left & Right, all major denominations of all the Abrahamaic religions, Hindus, Zoroastrians, atheists, Bears fans, Free Market retards, communists, Scientologists, television viewers, and people who get their “information” from AM radio. Please note that this is by no means an exclusive list.

All of the above have one thing in common: They steal your Slack™, and then give your formulaic, false-slack pap in exchange. They typically do this by offering you what primates need: An alpha, usually a surrogate one. The character “Jack Bauer” comes to mind, as does the president, the pope, Rush Limbaugh, or anyone else who will take from the masses the burden of thinking for themselves. Typically, this is sold with John Wayne stapled all over it, the only example required to demonstrate this is the recent & laughable “Rick Perry is Strong” ad. Same with the fictional Jack Bauer…He’s hard as nails, and has no time for hippie shit like due process & the rule of law. Don’t you wish we had a Jack Bauer to cut the crap and do horrible shit to really bad people?

If you answered yes, for any reason – for any crime - then you are essentially no different than a Roman citizen in 50 BCE. You are part of the problem, and you need to REPENT, SINNER, or else resign yourself to a lifetime of walking on your knuckles. Know ye well the signs of the End Times, fools, for is it not written that false prophets shall deceive the multitudes? Is it not written that a sucker is a sucker, and should not be trusted with cash? IS IT NOT WRITTEN INDEED, THAT LO, THERE’S LOTS OF SHIT HAPPENING THAT YOU AREN’T TOLD ABOUT?

Indeed. You merely aren’t told. Nothing is hidden from you, because they just have to convince you that many things aren’t worth looking at. They’re “uncool”. “Math is boring!” “That’s crackpot shit.” “You’ll never get a good job without what we have.” “There’s nothing I can do, anyway.” “Watch our special report on the dangers of stepping outdoors, at 9.”

People believe that shit, and it is the fucking ROAD TO PERDITION, paved by The Spider with bricks made out of the purest Conspiracy™. Jesus tried to warn you about this shit, and they turned him into the God of Capitalism. “Bob” tried to warn you about this shit, so they assassinated him a half a dozen times. The Occupy geeks are trying to warn you about something. They’re not quite sure what it is, specifically, but they know there’s something HIDEOUSLY WRONG.

And if a pack of smelly hippies and tragically cool hipsters can figure at least that much out, I expect no less from you. And, not unlike them, I expect you to fucking DO something. But I won't tell you what. Use your fucking head for something more than a glory hole lure, and FIGURE OUT YOUR OWN METHODS YOURSELF. Oh, and then SHUT THE FUCK UP. It's a sad fucking day when 35 year old hipster creepers get more done to fuck the system than we do.

Get the fuck on it.

Or Kill Me.

Penn Jillette on Religion in 2012 Election and MORE...

2011-12-12T11:49:00.000-08:00

Anniversary of Lord Buckley's Death

2011-11-12T15:27:00.001-08:00

It's certaily wouldn't be difficult to make the argument that Lordy Buckley was for live humorous monologues what Elvis Presley was for Rock n Roll and, more recently, what Eminem was for Hip Hop... he was a honky who got kudos for using something black people invented but received next to no admiration themselves for. And that's true. It's pretty much impossible to argue against.

But unlike The King and Slim Shady, squillionaires both of them, Lord Buckley never really escaped the cult hero ghetto. He died November 12th 1960 at the age of 54 unable to play most venues due to his cabaret card (a necessity in those days to perform) being revoked, allegedly for possession of whacky tobaccy.

He may have used the backstage parlance of his black jazz friends for the amusement of largely cracker audiences, but I'm personally happy I live in a world where Lord Buckley once existed.

Below is Lord Buckley on Groucho Marx's television show "You Bet Your Life"... he's a little stiff in the beginning, but relaxes as the clip progresses and eases into the performance. Despite the onscreen claim, I suspect Groucho and Buckley were already acquainted before he walked onstage. I could be mistaken, but Groucho seems to me to have a little gleam in his eye when he begins questioning him:

And if you want a little sprinkled surreality to your morning Corn Flakes, dig this clip from Bob Clampett's "Beany and Cecil" cartoon which features Lord Buckley voicing the beatnik character of 'Go Man Van Gogh'...

How to Hypnotize a Chicken

2011-11-09T23:54:00.001-08:00

Any farm-savvy secret agent can tell you that it’s always a good idea to keep abreast of livestock-stupefying techniques. A chicken’s brain is small enough to be eclipsed by a dime, and is therefore a particularly easy subject. You’ll need A) an ordinary chicken, and B) a finger. In the old days they used chalk, but a plain old finger or a stick does the job just as well.

Start by holding the chicken’s head against the ground, and place the tip of your finger on the ground right in front of the chicken’s beak. Then, while holding the chicken’s head, use your finger to draw a straight line directly away from it. It will quickly enter a trance-like state with significantly reduced heart and respiration rates, and will remain this way for anywhere from fifteen seconds to several hours. Most of the time, it’s on the order of a few minutes before the bird normalizes.

Originally posted on Damn Interesting!, written by Alan Bellows

Marilyn Reads Joyce

2011-11-09T22:35:00.000-08:00

Tic Tac Toe is Unnatural

2011-11-09T10:24:00.000-08:00

A local television interview with RAW from the 1980s... I can't imagine an interview like this taking place today on any local station, even in Frisco.

The woman interviewing RAW is a gem. "If you are familiar with it, you will know that three novels appeared in the trilogy." You can't write lines like that. Well, you could, but it wouldn't be nearly as amusing.

This Is A Public Service Announcement:

2011-11-01T21:56:00.001-07:00

44th Anniversary of the Pentagon Exorcism

2011-10-17T18:50:00.000-07:00

Handbill written by Ed Sanders with instructions for Pentagon exorcism.

Next Friday, October 21, will be the 44th anniversary of the march on Washington, D.C. when 70,000 peaceful and very enthusiastic demonstrators gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial on the D.C. Mall to protest the war in Vietnam. Later that day, 50,000 marched across Memorial Bridge to the Pentagon. Among the demonstrators were Abbie Hoffman, Allen Ginsberg and The Fugs. In addition to protesting the war, the poets, pranksters and musicians had come to the Pentagon to levitate it. Fug member, wordslinger and alchemist Ed Sanders had prepared a magical incantation that would exorcise (exorgasm) the Pentagon and then lift it high into the air.

In the name of the amulets of touching, seeing, groping, hearing and loving, we call upon the powers of the cosmos to protect our ceremonies in the name of Zeus, in the name of Anubis, god of the dead, in the name of all those killed because they do not comprehend, in the name of the lives of the soldiers in Vietnam who were killed because of a bad karma, in the name of sea-born Aphrodite, in the name of Magna Mater, in the name of Dionysus, Zagreus, Jesus, Yahweh, the unnamable, the quintessent finality of the Zoroastrian fire, in the name of Hermes, in the name of the Beak of Sok, in the name of scarab, in the name, in the name, in the name of the Tyrone Power Pound Cake Society in the Sky, in the name of Rah, Osiris, Horus, Nepta, Isis, in the name of the flowing living universe, in the name of the mouth of the river, we call upon the spirit to raise the Pentagon from its destiny and preserve it.

Norman Mailer who attended the march summarized the exorcism ritual thusly:

Now, here, after several years of the blandest reports from the religious explorers of LSD, vague Tibetan lama goody-goodness auras of religiosity being the only publicly announced or even rumored fruit from all trips back from the buried Atlantis of LSD, now suddenly an entire generation of acid-heads seemed to have said goodbye to easy visions of heaven, no, now the witches were here, and rites of exorcism, and black terrors of the night – hippies being murdered. Yes, the hippies had gone from Tibet to Christ to the Middle Ages, now they were Revolutionary Alchemists.”

The Pentagon did not levitate, though some of us who were there may have seen it shudder a bit. As to whether the exorcism worked or not, I think it may have for the 50,000 ecstatic people in attendance - the vibes around the Pentagon would never ever be as sublime as on that afternoon.

In this rarely seen footage, Edward Folger shot some 16mm film during the march and created what he describes as an “impressionistic immersion in the experience of the march.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn6ihxO6IME

The Case Against Color

2011-02-13T19:34:00.000-08:00

It turns out that the 'golden apple' the one man was referring to was what is commonly referred to as an 'Orange', but he is correct that at one time the fruit was called a golden apple - the conversation centered around the man holding the orange trying to convince the other man that the fruit he was holding was in fact blue, not orange.

"It's like this," said the man. "color works in opposites. When you look at an Orange the light bounces off the Orange, and back to your eye. But, the thing is, the thing is this: the Orange absorbs all the colors of the white light, and only bounces back the color orange to your eye. So, really, the Orange is any color BUT orange."

"I don't get it." said the other man. "Why does it look orange to us, then?"

"Because that's the only color bouncing back to your eye. It looks orange because orange is bouncing back. The eye works on opposites. We actually see things upside down, but our eyes correct the image so that we see it normally. And, we usually see in negative, but the eye corrects for that too."

"That's fucked." the other man answered aptly.

It was at this point that I turned to the two men. "I'll tell you what's more fucked. Color doesn't exist at all."

They both just stared at me. I continued: "Think about this: Everything is made from molecules, right? Well, what color are molecules?"

The one man shrugged, and the other said: "I don't know."

I winked. "Exactly. That's because molecules don't have any color. And, if everything is made from molecules, and molecules have no color, than de facto NOTHING has color."

Before either man could respond I disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Canonization: Cyrus Teed

2010-06-17T10:55:00.000-07:00

Cyrus Teed was one of the few who have spoken directly with Our Goddess, Eris Nancy Discordia, and because of not only this, but also for his unflinching devotion to promoting her Divine Madness, he has been canonized in the First Church of Discord.

Teed, born in 5839 YD, was a cousin of another who came in contact with some form of Mystical Touch, Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, and while working in his "electro-alchemical laboratory" received an electric shock which sent him into blissful reverie. While in this other world he was contacted by the Goddess, who told him that She alone had created the world, referring to Herself as 'She What Done It All', claiming the well-known Christian Male god had nothing whatsoever to do with the formation, but claimed full credit nonetheless. In doing so, She informed Teed, he had created gross falsifications about how it all worked, and moreover, had allowed scientists to twist the lies even further.

The Universe, She lectured, was NOT as we had been lead to believe, natch. She, however, would enlighten Teed on how things really were, and he would resolve the war between science and religion with the hot scoop: The Universe consisted of solid rock from here until Goddess only knows where . . . one hollow spot in the center of it all is where we live. According to Her divine testimony, human beings live on the inside of the planet, not the outside. Gravity thus does not exist, and humans are held in place due to centrifugal force. The sun is a giant battery-operated contraption, and the stars are merely psychedelic refractions of its light.If any proof of the Goddess's identity was needed, it may be found in the divinely ludicrous postscript to Her message: that Teed should end racism by uniting the Whites and the Blacks, while keeping the Orientals out of the country altogether, a trait he had in common with another Discordian saint, St.Bean.

[The management at DU HEXEN HASE! would like to point out at this juncture that we do not endorse the views on race held by all of our saints. We both love, and despise, people of all cultures and walks of life. So there. -Ed.]

Teed changed his name to Koresh (the Hebrew version of Cyrus) and formed a new religion named Koreshanity, attracting thousands of followers. The group set up camp in Estero, Florida eventually planning to usurp the insane popularity of Christianity. It was, alas, not to be: in 5907 YD Teed was beaten severely by the town marshall, a member of the Illuminati, and died shortly thereafter. His followers, who -like Teed- followed the Goddess's theory of reincarnation, believed Teed would come back to life, so instead of burying him, they propped him up in the traditional Discordian meditation device: a bathtub. After several days, local health officials stepped in due to hundreds of complaints of something smelling worse than a White Castle burger, and forced the burial of Teed, thereby ruining his chances of reincarnating back into the same body, and effectively closing down Koreshanity. Some say you can still hear the Goddess giggling near Estero, Florida to this day.

And so, as Pontifex Maximus, I hereby rename Cyrus Teed as 'St.Teed'.

Combustable Jesus

2010-06-16T14:35:00.000-07:00

A six-story statue of Jesus Christ was struck by lightning and burned to the ground, leaving only a blackened steel skeleton and pieces of foam that were scooped up by curious onlookers Tuesday.
The "King of Kings" statue, one of southwest Ohio's most familiar landmarks, had stood since 2004 at the evangelical Solid Rock Church along Interstate 75 in Monroe, just north of Cincinnati.
The lightning strike set the statue ablaze around 11:15 p.m. Monday, Monroe police dispatchers said.
The sculpture, about 62 feet tall and 40 feet wide at the base, showed Jesus from the torso up and was nicknamed Touchdown Jesus because of the way the arms were raised, similar to a referee signaling a touchdown. It was made of plastic foam and fiberglass over a steel frame, which is all that remained Tuesday.

No comment.

A New Teaching

2010-06-15T14:04:00.000-07:00

It came to pass one day that two students of Zaurn the Grey were sitting in the school garden, marveling at all their newfound knowledge. Nearby, the Heirophant was quietly reading a comic book.

Pohkaroo turned to ZauZajer and said: 'Zaurn the Wise taught me today about the true nature of solidity. He taught that seemingly solid objects are, in fact, made from tiny particles. They appear to our eyes and fingers as solid, but in reality much space is between these particle, in a relative sense.'

ZauZajer stroked his goatee, which meant he was pondering. 'Interesting,' said he. 'for Zaurn the Erudite taught me today that vision and touch are the results of signals being passed to our minds from the outside world. We see, yet we are verily as blind as a Srizzlefish. For all we know our signals may be crossed and our vision and touch may be all lies.'

Pohkaroo stared for a moment at the flagstones under his feet. 'Do you realize what this means?' he asked.

'I think I do.' ZauZajer answered, with a tremble of fear in his eyes.

'With so much uncertainty, how can we know anything?' Pohkaroo squeaked.

'Yes!' cried ZauZajer. 'With so much uncertainty we ourselves may not even exist.'

The Heirophant, overhearing the discussion of the two students, strolled over. 'I overheard your discussion, because I was eavesdropping.' said he, then went on in this manner: 'If I may, I think I may be able to help you both with your problem. That is, if you would like the help?'

'Yes!' cried Pohkaroo. 'We are lost!'

'Please!' wailed ZauZajer. 'Enlighten us!'

The Heirophant smiled, rubbed his hands together briskly, then put a hand on each of the student's shoulders. He leaned toward them, conspiratorially. Pohkaroo and ZauZajer leaned in, waiting for the answer.

The Heirophant swiftly knocked both of the two skulls together, letting out a ringing GONG sound.

Thus, were both enlightened.

Unearthed RAW Interview

2010-06-10T07:12:00.000-07:00

The Cobbler And Bean

2010-05-14T11:37:00.000-07:00

One hot arid day in the small town of Langtry, the inimitable Judge Roy Bean stuck his head into the doorway of the town cobbler. "Hey there old man," Bean said. "have you ever seen me before?"

The cobbler stopped his work. "No," he replied.

"Then," cried Bean, with a laugh. "how do you know I am me?!"

With that, Judge Bean disappeared in a puff of smoke. Thus, the cobbler was illuminated.

Amazing Randi Came Out

2010-03-24T20:26:00.000-07:00

Is this news? I guess so.

James "the Amazing" Randi, prominent skeptic and debunker has come out of the closet, at age 81.

Return of the Fnord

2010-02-22T05:56:00.000-08:00

Eric White certainly isn’t the most dangerous criminal in Portland, but his crimes are among the most visible blights on this city.

The scraggly 22-year-old from Newport, Maine, started writing the nonsense word “fnord” on buildings, signs and sidewalks around town in early 2003. He estimates there are now upwards of 1,000 such tags spray-painted and written in marker throughout Portland, and countless more in other parts of the United States, Canada and Mexico.

According to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, the word fnord originally appeared in the Principia Discordia, a cult treatise written in 1965. The term was popularized in the Illuminatus! trilogy by sci-fi writers Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. In Shea and Wilson’s work, the word is said to appear in newspaper and magazine articles about current events, and to cause a vague sense of unease in readers who’ve been programmed not to consciously notice it.

White’s done some of the tagging himself, but since he moved to town a few years ago, four or five others have taken up the tag, as well. One of them, 24-year-old Harry Bishop, is with White in the Cumberland County Jail. The pair were arrested on the night of Oct. 17, after a drunken fnord-scrawling spree on buildings and cars along Marginal Way.

Last June, White was arrested, jailed for three days, and fined $150 for spray-painting the word on the Cumberland County Civic Center.

After this latest arrest, White was originally charged with a felony — aggravated criminal mischief — because the damage from the tags was estimated to cost over $2,000. That charge has since been changed to four separate counts of criminal mischief, a misdemeanor. He is being held in lieu of $5,000 cash bail, but during a recent interview, White said he expects that will be lowered to as little as $500 at the end of this month – a sum he can pay with some of the $6,000 he said he has saved in a bank account.

In person, White is an easy-going, soft-spoken young man – a demeanor one might not expect from someone with the words “sick” and “fuck” crudely tattooed between his knuckes and finger joints. The Bollard interviewed him in jail on Oct. 21. An edited version of that interview follows.

The Bollard: Why would you do something like this? Why write ‘fnord’ on a building?
White: I’ve read one of the books, and it just struck me as a really fascinating book.

According to the books, ‘fnord’ is a word that people can’t consciously see. Do you think people can’t see it?
Originally I didn’t even think anybody would get the connection, besides, like, maybe one or two in a hundred people that might’ve read this book. Then thePortland Press Herald started publishing what it was.

But yeah, it is supposed to be a subliminal message. It’s supposed to cause anger, confusion, and all kinds of different stuff. And it seems to be working, ’cause it does piss a lot of people off. A lot of people around town hate me.

Is this a form of ‘culture jamming’ [activities meant to force people to consider the negative effects of mass advertising]?
Yeah, like [culture jamming], like Ad Busters…. That’s what I would hope to get across, but I don’t think it would ever work…. I think maybe a few people may be inspired to go out and do something, but I really don’t think it’s going to affect many people at all. I don’t think society’s ready to change yet, which kind of sucks.

What angers you about society?
When I look in the newspaper and see 217 new laws passed this session in Congress. We don’t need that. The law originally started out as common law. It was basically a judge that decided whether you encroached on someone or their property. Like, ‘Did you hurt this man or did you hurt his property somehow?’
Just the way things are run, people – I’m at a loss of words right now.

Do you have any other tags?
Just that.

How long have you been doing this?
When did the Iraq war start?

The invasion began in the spring of 2003.
I came to town the same day the Monument Square protests started, like the official start of the Iraq war. I’ve been doing it ever since then.

What brought you to Portland?
I was originally going to head down to Boston for a little bit because there was nothing to watch on TV. I got tired of playing games on my computer and tried turning on the TV, but there was nothing on TV, so I was like, ‘Oh, I’ll go to Boston.’ I gave up on my plans to run for [Palmyra] City Council. [A town near Newport, west of Bangor]

How many tags do you have up?
Probably close to a thousand, and it’s not just me. There’s a bunch of people that do it. There has been a bunch of people, but it’s down to about five different people actively writing it now. There’s people in Bangor doing it. It’s in Canada, it’s in Mexico, it’s from California to Maine. Every stop on the Greyhound from California to Maine has it.

So this is an international thing?
No, the Canada thing was me, probably like five or six years ago when I was up there, before I even started doing it in Portland. Mexico would be another friend of mine. An ex-girlfriend got people started because she lives in Bangor.

Where have you been living here in town? Do you have an apartment?
I was living with my ex-girlfriend at the time. Kind of. On and off. When I came in [to jail], I was actually working on getting an apartment. I’ve got like $6,000 in the bank and I get close to $600 a month, so I figured I could go in with a friend, but then the friend I went in with wrote a statement [to the police]. I don’t really blame her that much. She’s kind of slow in the head.

How do you choose where to write ‘fnord’?
It depends on how drunk I am. That’s the only time I’ve been caught for it. This is my third time being caught.

What happened the first time?
I faked a seizure and went to the hospital. They treated me for an overdose that I didn’t have. I just started pretending to foam at the mouth, shaking all over the back of the cop car. I dropped some vitamins on his floor.

I went to the hospital. They gave me a ticket. I went to court. I got like a $90 or $150 fine or something.

The second time I got, I think, a $250 fine [it was $150]. But now they’re not offering me restitution or anything. I tried getting the lawyer to talk to the D.A. and say, ‘Hey, [White] can pay restitution.’ I can do whatever – clean up the tags. A lot of people are going around the city for community service cleaning up tags. They’re refusing to let me either do community service or pay fines. They just want me to do straight jail time.

I’m sure that’s what the victims would want – either me out doing community service or paying for their stuff to get cleaned up.

Do you target businesses owned by large corporations rather than mom-and-pop operations?
Yeah, normally I do city and state property only, unless I’m really drunk.

Have you been working here in town?
I’m on disability right now, for lack of a want to work.

So what’s your disability?
Ergo phobia, fear of work. A bunch of mental stuff, basically.

Are you getting treatment?
I don’t really need treatment. It’s just not wanting to work. I have no problem with working if I’m working for myself. I’ve been considering running an ad in the newspaper for computer repair. I’d probably be less motivated to be walking around drinking five liters of wine everyday and writing on things.

Did you graduate from high school up north?
Yeah, I got a G.E.D. and I’m gonna be starting college, hopefully the next semester or the one after.

Where?
SMCC [Southern Maine Community College] or wherever.

What do you want to study?
Chemistry and philosophy.

I think most of the public thinks the people who write graffiti tags are just idiots, but you’re not stupid, you’re preparing for college. Is the public’s perception true?
Depending on the people. It’s just like anything else. I’ve met really stupid people that do it and I’ve met some other people that do it. But a couple people are pretty smart and some of them do have, like, a message. Like there’s somebody named Learn.

Yeah, I’ve seen that around. Learn’s still around, huh?
[No answer]

Maybe?
He did part of the legal wall behind the Asylum.

Have you ever hooked up with those kind of graffiti artists?
Nah, I really don’t have much skill. I don’t even really call it tagging.

What do you call it?
Mindless vandalism.

Are you sorry for this latest spree?
Yeah. Like I said, I normally don’t tag private businesses, unless I’ve got a reason to, like I don’t like something they’re doing, or whatever.

Whatever the result of these latest charges, will you stop doing this when you’re free again?
I’ll just leave my markers at home when I’m drinking. Cause this time and the last time I got caught I was drinking, and I’m pretty sure the one before it, too.

After you got caught the last time, did you just go right back at it?
Yeah.

Is there anything the city can do to stop this?
To stop me, money would probably be the best thing to take away from me. I don’t have much of it. But they are smartening up some to stop graffiti. All the articles in the Portland Press Herald get read a lot, and people start complaining about it.

They’re also, after they clean off a tag on heavily tagged things – those traffic-control boxes get tagged a lot – they spray this stuff over it that makes it easier to clean off with water and soap or whatever.

Hopefully taggers will just get more creative. Like, when I was arrested, they caught me with a bottle of hydrochloric acid. If you dump that on cement, it bubbles up green and smokes a little bit, but as soon as it rains, that one spot where you dumped it will be bleached white.

Chemistry.
Or hydrofluoric acid will etch into glass.

I saw a tag like that on the new bus shelter on Congress and Center streets.
I think they used glass cutters, ’cause I’ve seen a bunch of those around. Starbucks [the one on the corner of Middle and Exchange streets] is covered with ‘em. I heard those are like $900 windows.

Was there a chase before this latest arrest?
Me and my friends were going into Arby’s to get something to eat, and as soon as we turned the corner around Arby’s there was a cop there, and then two other ones pulled up.

Do you think the cops are getting any better at catching people like you?
No. They’re not that smart. [Reading from the police report]: ‘In most cases the males used the tag “fnord.” In one place, they wrote: “fuck yo cat.”‘ I don’t think either one of us wrote [that].

You didn’t write that?
[Laughing.] No….

I know down in Boston, it’s a felony if you get caught. Somebody was arrested for it down there, got out on bail; a couple days later, just left the state. I believe he’s actually in here right now. I’m not sure if he’s been sent to rehab yet or somethin’. An ex-friend of mine.

Have you seen any tags here, in the jail?
Normally, yeah, there is usually one in whatever cell I go in.

Have you ever put yourself in life-threatening situations, climbing high building and such to do this?
I’ve climbed up ladders before, scaffolding.

Last winter, someone stray-painted ‘fnord’ in big letters, with white paint, on the bricks in front of Longfellow’s statue. Did you do that?
Allegedly that was me.

Last year, someone wrote ‘fnord’ on a stop sign on Lewis Street, right by where I live, so it said ‘Stop Fnord.’ Do you remember that one?
No, but for a while I was making stickers that said ’stop writing,’ in tiny letters, then ‘fnord,’ in big letters. Occasionally I’ve written ‘ford.’ I’m guessing people either get the joke or think I’m an idiot.

I saw one on a candidate’s sign recently.
I was pulling those up for a little bit and bringing them up to my girlfriend’s; turning the signs around, the paper ones, and writing weird things like, ‘Vote Jesus for Savior.’ I really don’t think I can get into trouble for that, unless they’ve got some sort of permit to put those there. It’s basically the equivalent of littering.

Do you think having these arrests on your record will hurt your ability to find work in the future?
I don’t really want to work. I just want to go to college to learn. I’m not really looking for a career… I might be self-employed.

Do you want to be an artist, or a writer?
Art. I’m not really good at writing. Art, computers, chemistry, that’s my only interests.

You mentioned philosophy. What sort of philosophers are you into?
Nietzsche, random stuff.

Do you have any other charges on your record?
I got probably 20 charges, but they’re all really nothing. I got a disorderly conduct at the Monument Square protests, and I got a couple of thefts, drinking in public, carrying a concealed weapon – even though I don’t really think a flare gun’s a weapon.

A flare gun?
Me and my friends walked around town shooting off flare guns, probably about a year ago – just shooting them up into the air.

The police report says ‘fnord’ is like your religion.
Fnord isn’t a religion, but it comes from the Principia Discordia, which is a religion based around discord. It’s pretty interesting.

It’s mainly a stupid religion. It’s not really something you take seriously-seriously, but it’s fun to take it semi-seriously. There’s only five rules: every Discordian must eat a hot dog, sans bun, on a Friday. That comes from like a variety of different religions… The last rule is a Discordian is prohibited from believing what he reads. You just get done reading these five rules that are supposed to be the things you run your life by, and you’re like, huh?

When will you stop doing this? Will you be 30, 40, 60 years old and still at it?
I don’t know. I haven’t grown up much in my life. Probably someday it’ll stop. I’ll probably be 30 years old, still getting picked up for disorderly conduct, criminal mischief or something.

Are you worried about that?
Just as long as I keep my charges like nothing serious. I’m a pacifist actually. Never even had a violent crime.

Original story here.

Celine's Laws

2010-02-16T09:23:00.000-08:00

CELINE'S FIRST LAW:

National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity.

Reflecting the paranoia of the Cold War, Celine's First Law focuses around the common idea that to have national security, one must create a secret police. Since internal revolutionaries and external foes would make the secret police a prime target for infiltration, and because the secret police would by necessity have vast powers to blackmail and intimidate other members of the government, another higher set of secret police must be created to monitor the secret police. And an even higher set of secret police must then be created to monitor the higher order of secret police. Repeat ad nauseam.

This seemingly infinite regress goes on until every person in the country is spying on another, or "the funding runs out." And since this paranoid and self monitoring situation inherently makes targets of a nation's own citizens, the average person in the nation is more threatened by the massive secret police complex than by whatever foe they were seeking to protect themselves from. Wilson points out that the Soviet Union, which suffered from this in spades, got to the point that it was terrified of painters and poets who could do little harm to them in reality.

At the same time, given the limitation of funding and scale, the perfect security state never truly emerges, leaving the populace still vulnerable from the original threat while also being threatened by the vast and Orwellian secret police.

CELINE'S SECOND LAW:

Accurate communication is possible only in a non-punishing situation.
Wilson rephrases this himself many times as "communication occurs only between equals." Celine calls this law "a simple statement of the obvious" and refers to the fact that everyone who labors under an authority figure tends to lie to and flatter that authority figure in order to protect themselves either from violence or from deprivation of security (such as losing one's job). In essence, it is usually more in the interests of any worker to tell his boss what he wants to hear, not what is true.
In any hierarchy, every level below the highest carries a subtle burden to see the world in the way their superiors expect it to be seen and to provide feedback to their superiors that their superiors want to hear. In the end, any hierarchical organization supports what its leaders already think is true more than it challenges them to think differently. The levels below the leaders are more interested in keeping their jobs than telling the truth.
Wilson, in Prometheus Rising, uses the example of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI. Hoover saw communist infiltrators and spies everywhere, and he told his agents to hunt them down. Therefore, FBI agents began seeing and interpreting everything they could as parts of the communist conspiracy. Some even went as far as framing people as communists, making largely baseless arrests and doing everything they could to satisfy Hoover's need to find and drive out the communist conspiracy. The problem is, such a conspiracy never existed in any form. Hoover thought it did, but any agent who dared point out the lack of evidence to Hoover would be at best denied promotions, and at worst labeled a communist himself and lose his job. Any agent who knew the truth would be very careful to hide the fact.
In the end, Celine states, any hierarchy acts more to conceal the truth from its leaders than it serves to find the truth.

CELINE'S THIRD LAW:
An honest politician is a national calamity.
Celine recognizes that the third law seems preposterous from the beginning. While a dishonest politician is interested only in bettering his own lot through abusing the public trust, an honest politician is far more dangerous since he is honestly interested in bettering society through political action, and that means writing and implementing more and more laws.
Celine argues that creating more laws simply creates more criminals. Laws inherently restrict individual freedom, and the explosive rate at which laws are being created means that every citizen in the course of his daily life does not have the research capacity to not violate at least one of the plethora of laws. It is only through honest politicians trying to change the world through laws that true tyranny can come into being through excessive legislation.
Corrupt politicians simply line their own pockets. Honest idealist politicians cripple the people's freedom through enormous amounts of laws. So corrupt politicians are preferable according to Celine.

Life, Summed Up In One Photo:

2010-02-16T09:11:00.001-08:00

A Literary Deconstruction of the PD

2010-02-04T06:28:00.000-08:00

by: Cain

What religious narrative in this present day, teaches us such lessons in fabulous morality as the Principia Discordia? Does any other belief system teach that uncertainty and ambiguity trump order and discipline? Or that order and discpline themselves contain an a priori possibility of the state of uncertainty coming into play?

This discourse of order and disorder, from where does it arise, this formidable tradition that includes Lao Tzu, Heraclitus, Nietzsche, Artaud, Dali, Duchamp, Tazara and Deleuze? Does Discordianism truly belong to this august, if mutuable geneology?

From the outset, the introduction to the Principia introduces ambiguity, foreshadowing Barthe's Death of the Author. The nature of the author of the tract is purposefully concealed and denied, in an attempt to escape the tyranny of subjectivity, pinning the blame instead of a vast number of culprits, perhaps to show the futility of subjectivity as a starting point for a critique. Yet the authors are nonetheless identified, so does this not make a mockery of their post-structuralist stance?

Not necessarily. For the claimed authors are in fact fictional constructs themselves, as we well know. Furthermore, their approach to their work is detatched, almost bemused by their own interests and obsessions. The irreducibly textual nature of the work is thus reaffirmed, and the simplistic, postivistic attempts to criticize the Principia with simplified versions of its own arguments are easily dismissed.

The apparent eccentricities of the text, such as Wilson's claims about the time-travelling anthropologist, are often dismissed as harmless as whimsical diversions on the part of a critic who required some form of ‘creative’ escape from the exigencies of high-powered theory. This attitude, typical of Anglo-American criticism, draws a ﬁrm line between the discipline of thinking about chaos and the activity of writing which that discipline is supposed to renounce or ignore in its own performance. Criticism as ‘answerable style’ (in Geoﬀrey Hartman’s phrase) is an idea that cuts right across the deep-grained assumptions of academic discourse. It is, as I shall argue, one of the most unsettling and radical departures of Discordian thought. A properly attentive reading of Wilson brings out the extent to which critical concepts are ceaselessly transformed or undone by the activity of self-conscious writing. His subversive tactics come down to an inordinate fondness for paradox disguising a commitment to order and method.

The interview of Malacypse the Younger by the Greater Poop illustrates not only the need to draw boundaries between meta-fictional philosophical discourses, but also to transgress these boundaries when the cease to have utility for the reader. This boundary was always subject to periodic raids and incursions by the more adventurous Proto-Discordians, especially those poets and novelists among them who felt uneasy with a discipline that drove a doctrinal wedge between the two kinds of writing. The issue was more than a matter of critical technique. What the orthodox Proto-Discordians sought in the language of poetry was a structure somehow transcending human reason and ultimately pointing to a religious sense of values. Thus the autonomic-reflexivity of poetry became not merely an issue in aesthetics but a testing-point of faith in relation to human reason. Behind the Proto-Discordian rhetoric of irony and paradox is a whole metaphysics of language, where poetic and religious claims to truth are bound up together. At the same time there were those who assented in principle to this discipline of thought but found it in practice hard, if not impossible, to live with.

The Greater Poop reporter like Barthes, asserts the critic’s freedom to exploit a style that actively transforms and questions the nature of interpretative thought. In itself this marks a decisive break with the scrupulous decorum of critical language maintained in the Situatioist's wake. This is to argue that theory, in so far as it is valid at all, is strictly a matter of placing some orderly construction upon the ‘immediate’ data of perception. Barthes and Malaclypse totally reject this careful policing of the bounds between literature and theory. Where the post-Situationist's proposed a disciplined or educating movement of thought from perception to principle, they discovered an endlessly fascinating conﬂict, the ‘scene’ of which is the text itself in its alternating aspects of knowledge and pleasurable fantasy.

Q: Why Are There So Many Different Kinds Of Discordians?

2010-01-27T11:00:00.001-08:00

A: Discordianism is the open-source religion, in that most people who adopt it and use it seriously bring their own flavour and new ideas to it, improving it and making it their own. One person's personality is starkly realistic and practical, so his version mirrors that. Another's worldview is closer to the original recipe by Thornley. Cosmic poetic absurdism with a dash of mysticism.

Other Discordian practices incorporate a fundamentalistic view of Eris as an unkind goddess of disruption and strife, a doctrine which finds favor quite naturally among the ranks of trolls. Some people (myself) take Discordianism as a foil for a Vonnegut-esque worldview.

(Answer was written by Felix, here)

2nd Circuit, Posing As 6th Circuit

2010-01-26T12:06:00.000-08:00

Maybe Logic forums, I'm looking at YOU.

The Nature of the Universe is Self-Evident

2010-01-20T11:22:00.000-08:00

by: The Good Reverend Roger

The nature of the universe is self-evident.

It's a huge, cold empty place, with the occasional - or at least one - algae covered rock. On this rock live monkeys. The monkeys act really dumb a lot of the time, but sometimes they find time for better behavior, and make friends. The universe then punishes the monkeys via their own bad wiring, and they part ways, and go back to being desperately unhappy.

The End.

Poe's Visitor Doesn't Show

2010-01-20T06:20:00.001-08:00

A mysterious visitor who each year leaves roses and cognac on Edgar Allen Poe's tomb in Baltimore, Maryland, has missed his rendezvous for the first time in 61 years, the Poe Society has said.

"He did not show up this morning," Jeffrey Savoye, secretary and treasurer of the 380-member society, said.

Each year since 1949, the 100th anniversary of Poe's birth, a individual, often wearing a cloak, left a bottle of cognac and a few roses at the foot of Poe's tomb, usually at night, in tribute to the legendary poet.

"Occasionally he showed up early, like 11:00-11:30 the evening before. But normally it's from midnight to 5:00 am," Mr Savoye said.

About 50 people waited in vain from Tuesday night to watch the "Poe Toaster," as the visitor has been dubbed. Many had travelled from across the United States for the 201st anniversary of Poe's birth.

"As far as we know, they have not missed a year until now," Mr Savoye said of the Poe Toaster.

The original yearly visitor apparently died in 1998, but left the pilgrimage up to his two sons.

"We were left a note some years ago saying that the original toaster had died... We interpreted the message that the torch will be passed... We are assuming that two sons of this person have been carrying it on," he said.

"We don't know who they are."

The visitor's absence this year only deepened the mystery over his identity. One name mentioned as a possibility was that of a Baltimore poet and known prankster who died in his 60s last week. But there is little or no evidence to suggest he was the man.

There is an alternative tale of the toaster's origins, one that the Poe Society vehemently disputes.

Sam Porpora, the former historian at Westminster Hall, claimed in 2007 that he was the original Poe toaster, saying he came up with the idea in the late 1960s as a publicity stunt. But the details of Porpora's story seemed to change with each telling, and he acknowledged that someone had since made the tradition his own.

In 2001, as the Baltimore Ravens – named in honor of the bird in Poe's most famous poem – were preparing to face the New York Giants in the Super Bowl, the toaster left a note that praised the Giants and said the Ravens would suffer "a thousand injuries." Then in 2004, amid tense relations between the United States and France over the invasion of Iraq, a note said Poe's grave was "no place for French cognac" and that the liquor was being left "with great reluctance."

The Legend of Zaurn The Grey

2010-01-13T19:49:00.000-08:00

1. When the world was still young and called Pangaea by the gods, a man came from out of the sea clad in robes of black and scarlet, his hair was long and brilliant ivory white; his skin a powdery light grey; his eyes golden. He beheld the inhabitants of Pangaea: little more than Hairless Apes, with no idea of Intelligence; Consciousness; Morality; Illumination; Credit Rating . . . these were little more than common animals. He pulled himself up to his full height, placed his slim smooth hand onto his chest, and said in a strong, beautiful melodious tone: ZAURN. The Hairless Apes looked up at him, scratched their heads, scratched their crotches, sniffed their hands, then looked back up at Zaurn the Wise. Zaurn pointed at one of the Hairless Apes, and said forcefully: MAN. Then, he placed his hand back on his own chest and repeated: ZAURN. One ape scratched his chin, cocked his head to the side and repeated: “Zaurn.” Thus was communication known to Humanity.

2. Soon after the Hairless Apes conquered speech Zaurn the Magnificent blew their minds anew. He wrote on a nearby wall his name, which at that time was spelled: IA. He gestured to the name, IA, then told the Hairless Apes that it referred to himself. One ape scratched his balls, approached the writing on the wall, pointed to it, then pointed at Zaurn the Brilliant, saying “Zaurn.” Thus was writing and graffito known to Humanity.

3. Zaurn then instructed the Hairless Apes that they really must name everything, for If It Is Not Named: It Does Not Exist. The apes quickly began to name everything around them, with various levels of success: if a good word didn’t immediately present itself they would make up a word on the spot, such as “boob” or “diarrhea”, thinking a better word would eventually present itself in the future.

4. Zaurn the Verbose was pleased, and his golden eyes twinkled, but mentioned that there was still much more for the Hairless Apes to learn, for he had yet to teach them about the important concepts of RIGHT and WRONG, which were intrinsically intertwined with the heavy concepts of GOOD and EVIL . . . it would take a long time to explain these Objective Truths to the apes, and an even longer time to get into the esoteric concepts of WORK and LAZINESS, not to mention such crucial topics as NORMALCY.

5. Once the apes knew what was RIGHT and what was WRONG, Zaurn the Grey was truly delighted: the Hairless Apes were both Free and Trapped simultaneously, just as EIEIO, the Goddess of All had intended. EIEIO, the Great Kaos, had sent Zaurn the Grey to the Hairless Apes to both free and ensnare their minds: giving them the gifts of speech and communication so that they may be able to form thoughts and thus become more than they are;, while at the same time having these thoughts bind and constrict their ideas, through endless labeling and defining so that it takes true imagination and magick to break beyond.

χάος

2010-01-13T06:57:00.000-08:00

by: Golden Applesauce

IN THE BEGINNING:
Everything was CHAOS, which is notoriously hard to work with. It came to pass that a piece of chalk (which was made of CHAOS, naturally) was procured and used to mark the CHAOS into sections. This made things much easier. It was now possible to ignore a great deal of CHAOS (for example, the sections like those marked "Things That Don't Really Exist", "Things That Can't Hurt You", "Africa", and "Barbers Who Don't Shave Themselves") while focusing on parts with labels like "Good", "Interesting", "Things That I Can Have Sex With", and "Things That Are Useful In The Part Of CHAOS Called 'The Real World'". It's a past-time of people (which are little sub-sections of the one marked "Things That Are Hard To Categorize") to go around making their own labels. Some people like to work together, and use each other's labels (you can categorize more stuff this way); others work independently (that way, you can put all the labels right where you want them). At some point the practice of keeping little sections marked "Areas Of CHAOS That Somebody Mislabeled" got established, and spawned endless additional practices, a great deal of which are found in areas with labels like "Strife", "Categorizing Somebody As A Malicious Fool", "Yelling Really Loudly", and "Open Warfare". This wasn't that bad for a grand total of 1.4 seconds before everybody agreed to extend the zone of "Things That Really Are That Bad" to encompass the entirety of "Things That Happen When CHAOS Gets Mislabeled". After that first debacle, people have spent a great deal of time and effort trying to make sure that every label is itself a member of "Labels That Are Correct", and also a great deal of time on subproblems like trying to populate a region called "Ways To Tell If A Given Piece of CHAOS Is Labeled Correctly" - so far the intersection of that one and "Things A Significant Fraction Of Things People Agree On" is empty. Suprisingly, few have questioned the decision to include "The State Of A Label Being Correct" under "Things That Can And Should Be Achieved."

IN THE PRESENT TIME:
Everything is still CHAOS. Whether or not this is a good idea is open to debate, but so far nobody has suggested anything other than "Null Universe", which we don't like very much.

Quake With Fear, My Vegan Friends:

2010-01-06T10:12:00.000-08:00

this excerpt can be found at the following site: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/science/22angi.html

But before we cede the entire moral penthouse to “committed vegetarians” and “strong ethical vegans,” we might consider that plants no more aspire to being stir-fried in a wok than a hog aspires to being peppercorn-studded in my Christmas clay pot. This is not meant as a trite argument or a chuckled aside. Plants are lively and seek to keep it that way. The more that scientists learn about the complexity of plants — their keen sensitivity to the environment, the speed with which they react to changes in the environment, and the extraordinary number of tricks that plants will rally to fight off attackers and solicit help from afar — the more impressed researchers become, and the less easily we can dismiss plants as so much fiberfill backdrop, passive sunlight collectors on which deer, antelope and vegans can conveniently graze.

“Plants are not static or silly,” said Monika Hilker of the Institute of Biology at the Free University of Berlin. “They respond to tactile cues, they recognize different wavelengths of light, they listen to chemical signals, they can even talk” through chemical signals. Touch, sight, hearing, speech. “These are sensory modalities and abilities we normally think of as only being in animals,” Dr. Hilker said.

Now, please excuse me, while I go make like Andy Warhol...

Who Gives A Shit About Liberty Anymore?

2010-01-05T08:03:00.000-08:00

Some yahoo jackass spends five hours trying to put together a bomb on an airplane and suddenly the entire continent goes berserk. Apparently it never occurred to anyone that these sorts of measures never work because nobody tries exactly the same method ever again. It also apparently didn't occur to anyone that the fuckhead would-be terrorist was clearly a complete and utter moron who couldn't put together the potential bomb through an entire cross-Atlantic flight. I'm assuming someone gave him an overview of what would be necessary at some point, but he was apparently doodling in his margins, or checking his text messages.

Here's the lowdown, folks: you can't screen for crazy. If someone wants to fuck with you on a plane, they will find a way, no matter WHAT you do, so why put all the innocent good people through all this nonsense? If you fly in an airplane you choose to take your life in your hands, terrorism or not. It's a fact. We all need to get used to it.

My proposal is this... the back of each seat on an airplane is equipped with a weighted baton. To be used as a weapon, and with no other purpose. Could someone start something with this baton? Certainly, but he would have a hundred and twenty other people opposed to him, each with their own batons as well. Mob rule, in some situations, can be a good thing. This would counteract the need to screen for weapons on the way in. If someone comes on the plane with a gun, they are outnumbered. Is it possible that someone would still be killed? Of course, but this is the real world, ladies and gentlemen, and the world is not coated in Nerf for your protection. Life is dangerous. Wear a helmet.

EAT IT WITH CATSUP!

2010-01-04T11:52:00.000-08:00

Life, Summed Up In One Photo:

2009-12-25T06:59:00.000-08:00

Pope Ratzinger is NOT Infellable!

2009-12-25T06:48:00.001-08:00

2009-12-24T14:06:00.000-08:00

I'm Not Sure WHAT To Think Of This One...

2009-12-23T10:56:00.000-08:00

Lady Gaga: Illuminati Puppet

2009-12-22T08:04:00.000-08:00

"The symbolism surrounding Lady Gaga is so blatant that one might wonder if it’s all a sick joke. Illuminati symbolism is becoming so clear that analyses like this one becomes a simple exercise of pointing out the obvious. Her whole persona (whether its an act or not) is a tribute to mind control, where being vacuous, incoherent and absent minded becomes a fashionable thing."

read more here...

Does Gaga approve of this story?

On The Subject Of: Abstraction

2009-12-22T06:20:00.001-08:00

Pablo Picasso was once present at a dinner where one guest loudly denounced modern art. Picasso ate quietly, saying nothing. Later, the same guest showed a wallet photo of his wife, and Picasso asked to look at it more closely. When it was handed over, Pablo stared at it intently and then asked innocently, “My God... is she really that small?”

Perhaps There's Hope For Us Yet...

2009-12-21T09:58:00.001-08:00

(spotted in Portland, Orgegon)

Dear Roger,

2009-12-19T20:01:00.001-08:00

It sure as shit ain't getting better. I had an incident tonight. I was sitting on the miserable rattle coaster excuse for this city's Public Transit, and without the shielding of a book or some form of music device I was forced to look the monkey in the eye, face to face with the Brothers and Sisters that were forced on me because of the spot on the face of Planet Mudball I was unfortunate enough to have been born onto. It was as if the work of Hieronymus Bosch sprang into life around me, but wearing blinking sneakers and sparkling vampire t-shirts. I'm just a man, Roger, I have my limits, dammit. Picture the Incredible Hulk doing the tango; picture Godzilla going for sushi; picture, hell picture Frankenstein dusting. It was not pretty. There's something about the smell of fresh brain that reminds me of my first bedroom. It was purple. What sane parent paints a kid's bedroom purple? I didn't stand a fucking chance, Roger.

Some questions:
Is it possible that the typhoon in the Philippines is the direct result of the whale-tail of Miley Cyrus? Does the ghost of Anna Nicole Smith fart? What did Pope Ratzinger say to Megan Fox and David Hasselhof when they all met in the Los Angeles headquarters of the Kabbalah Center™? I don't know either, but I suspect we will all find out, sooner rather than later.

Roger, why is it that anyone can pop out a kid, yet to receive a free coke at McDonalds I have to fill out a quiz? How can I be expected to hear the word 'crantini' and not snap and strangle someone? Can you answer me that? The green olives of the world weep, my friend.

My great grandfather watched for German planes on a rooftop during WWII. When someone called out that the war was over, he fell from the building, impaling himself on a spiked fence far below. A co-worker asked him, "William, does it hurt?" My grandfather replied: "Only when I laugh." Me too, Roger; only when I laugh.

Hoopla

PS: I need you to wire me some bail money.

CONSUME! The Goddess DEMANDS It!!!!!

2009-12-18T06:55:00.000-08:00

Are You A PseudoSkeptic?

2009-12-16T16:57:00.000-08:00

Marcello Truzzi, in a 1987 issue of “the Zetetic Scholar”, offerred this list of the attributes of the pseudoskeptics:

-The tendency to deny, rather than doubt.

-Double standards in the application of criticism.

-The making of judgements without full inquiry.

-Tendency to discredit, rather than investigate.

-Use of ridicule or ad hominem attacks.

-Presenting insufficient evidence or proof.

-Pejorative labelling of proponents as ‘promoters’, ‘pseudoscientists’ or practitioners of ‘pathological science.’

-Assuming criticism requires no burden of proof.

-Making unsubstantiated counter-claims.

-Counter-claims based on plausibility rather than empirical evidence.

-Suggesting that unconvincing evidence is grounds for dismissing it.

-Tendency to dismiss all evidence.

DD;DPH/DCM Qr/13 c++/x5 s: a34 M;V;E;M;J;S;U;N comp VVVVV P++ F NsP R tv b+++ OM(6) FILK(0) CON(2) SF(8) PHI(10) RAW+ DCehr+++ yz+++ XPsK Te/Tdr/TL;DR

2009-12-14T19:30:00.000-08:00

clickety-click, barba trick!

THERE IS A FAULT IN REALITY

2009-12-11T16:58:00.000-08:00

many thanks and salutations to the ever popular and fully illustrious Madame Dharma Jam

Tiger Woods & Wife:

2009-12-08T09:49:00.001-08:00

PERFECT FOR WHEN YOU DON'T WANT THE MASSES TO NOTICE WHAT'S REALLY GOING ON!

Discordianism As Perfect Nihilism

2009-12-03T16:08:00.001-08:00

written by: Cain

It’s funny, but the more I read about Nihilism, the more I think Discordianism is one possible antidote to it. I know this seems to contradict the title, so perhaps I should explain my terms a little, before I get ahead of myself.

Nihilism is a word that is thrown around a lot. As such, it is often misused, and open to abuse. Its very nature often makes it derogatory, though perhaps not unjustly, which also helps obscure the meaning. However, it does refer to a very real and precise phenomenon. Although the word itself dates back to Jacobi, in his attacks on Kant’s “critical philosophy”, the meaning by which it more usually understood goes back to Kierkegaard and Nietzsche.

The former referred to nihilism as a process of levelling, whereby individual uniqueness ceases to exist and being able to affirm one’s existence becomes impossible. However, it was more fully developed by Nietzsche and, more recently, Deleuze. In its modern meaning, nihilism is the disavowal of not only meaning in the world, a grand unifying ideal or scheme or plan, but all possible meaning for all time. Some of the theorized psychological stances that may lead one to nihilism are an inability to accept pain, conflict and antagonism. Because these are parts of our world, no matter how regrettable that may be, nihilism therefore becomes the quest for another, illusory world, where these imperfections do not exist, a transcendent and perfect realm.

Nihilism is tied to religions, but not purely a part of them. Though Nietzsche correctly diagnosed its presence at the heart of Judeo-Christian-Islamic culture, ceasing to believe in these religions alone cannot end it. Instead, as faith in these religions becomes less pronounced, we have two sorts of nihilism, which Nietzsche called “strong” and “weak” nihilism, in his typical manner. The weak version is pretty much as I explained above: the individual becomes passive and content with this world, giving up on passions and values and becoming almost without a will or desire at all. In “strong” or radical nihilism, the situation is reversed. Here the person cleaves so tightly to their passions and values, that they come to hate the world which cannot live up to them, and so, eventually, seeks to destroy the world they inhabit.

Clever readers, which you all are, will no doubt see a certain symmetry here. Like, say, that between contemporary Western life and radical fundamentalism? I’m sure I’m not the only one. The imperative of our current civilization is to moderate everything. Moderate political positions. Moderate exercise. Moderate religious views to go with our moderate meals. Everything has to be sanitized, made safe and comfortable and fluffy. Showing any sort of passion or conviction, especially of a radical kind, is frowned upon and considered frightening (both due to the fear of failure and the fear of success of any radical program or measure). We even seek to deny the discomfort from the effects of eating or preparing certain food, like with genetically modified onions that don’t make us cry, or diet coke. You can have anything you want...so long as it’s not radical or extreme, so long as its effects are constrained.

And on the other end of the spectrum, we have the religious bigots. The Islamic kamikaze bombers that will stroll into a crowd without hesitation, the Christian terrorists plotting to acquire WMD, the Jewish extremists willing to blow up a girl’s school, not to mention the likes of Aum Shinrikyo. The fallen, apostate and sinful world around them sickens them so much...especially since they have a direct line to God and what he Really Believes. Through violent yet ultimately impotent acts, they hope to divorce themselves from a society they despise. This will for nothingness can and often is directed inwards as well as outwards. The suicide bomber or mall shooter who commits “death by cop” is as much a nihilist as any other example here. The one thing the radical nihilist most fervently disavows is the kind of life and society that passive nihilism produces.

Therefore we have two distinct types which, while sharing a common origin, cannot combine or synthesise in any way. Equal and opposed, they can never meet, never resolve themselves. Yet both define our modern world. Is there any way to break out of this trap, to somehow perhaps go beyond nihilism into new, greener pastures?

I believe so. Furthermore, I believe the answer lies in nihilism itself, in some way.

The problem is this: nihilism itself needs to be negated, which is no small task. Or, to put it another way, anti-nihilism must be nihilism of a higher magnitude, to the degree that it can undermine its own premises. However, anti-nihilism, or, if you prefer, this perfect nihilism must also contain one extra component: it must not only destroy old values but also force a reassessment of how we come to determine our values in the first place. Anti-nihilism also must bring the focus back from imaginary metaphysical realms and transcendent planes of existence to this world, to find meaning in the reality in which we inhabit.

I think Discordianism can do this.

Firstly, most Discordians I know are not transcendent in their views. They don’t see order and disorder as absolutes, abiding in another Universe through which pale reflections are painted onto this reality. No, instead, most Discordians that I know believe that the order/disorder/chaos synthesis is instead a description of the world, and how it actually is, how it acts and reacts and how we perceive it. This immediately moves Discordianism from the theological realm of transcendent theories to the philosophical realm of immanent ones. Immanence holds, roughly, that there is no “beyond”, no “supplementary dimension” or other realm which determines our reality. There only is reality and nothing more.

Anti-nihilism therefore affirms the world, by taking a hammer to these phantoms and illusions that plague us with seductive, yet ultimately empty promises of eternal and external values.

But more yet needs to be done. The act of creation requires the destruction mentioned above, to clear the field of these nihilistic idols. Discordianism not only approves of, but greatly recommends the act of creation, and indeed, some have suggested the two are the same thing. And because Discordianism works from the frame of order/disorder and destruction/creation (=chaos), it is, in a very real sense, “beyond good and evil”. This doesn’t mean, as some think, beyond “good” and “bad” as concepts or descriptions, but denies a moral ordering of the world. The introduction of the idea of evil in particular has definite theological (and thus transcendent) overtones. While order is often seen as bad by Discordians, it is more often than not on a subjective, by which I mean individual case. Because Discordians mostly accept order is a natural part of the world, it is necessary in some sense. Where, when and for whom however, are different questions and often based on the context. Immanence, once again, is evident here, denying transcendence a foothold.

Chaos also denies teleology. Eris does not order her apostles to set themselves free, she tells them they are free. What they choose to do with this information is up to them. Teleology is one way to secularize transcendent values, by posting a utopia in the future. Against this, chaos suggests that there can be no eternal categories, absolute truths or timeless facts, and change cannot be reduced to one-directional evolution to progress.

And, perhaps most importantly, Discordianism meshes almost perfectly with the theory of Agonism. Against most political theory, Agonism suggests conflict is a permanent feature of human society, and so the question is not how to eliminate conflict – as with theories as diverse as liberalism to fascism, who aim at consensus – but instead how to channel this potential for conflict so that it can be used in a positive manner. Agonism is, despite the similarity in spelling and pronunciation, not the same as antagonism. Instead of merely allowing hostility and conflict to flourish, which could, if unchecked, result in the destruction of the social system entirely, Agonism allows for conflict within bounds and with respect for one’s opponents as adversaries. Recognition that conflict is, in a sense or in some part irrational, and cannot ever be entirely eliminated, is very similar to the Discordian synthesis of order and disorder into chaos – a dialectic without final resolution or end stage, because either the victory of order or disorder over the other would be disastrous.

An Agonist society would be very similar to that relationship between order and disorder. Such a society would lack a unity of principle, which could then be exploited by demagogues and would be tyrants. It would also allow for the fullest expression of real difference and dialogue, a return of those values and passions that passive nihilism tries to deny. Agonism reintroduces contest and dispute into a society deadened by consensus, the need for “bi-partisanship”, the “best interests of everyone” and the pathological desire to make everything safe and un-radical.

Nihilism is, in my opinion, the opiate of the 21st century. It is so easy to fall into apathy, to wish to cocoon yourself in a little bubble of comfort and nice things. Equally, it is easy to grow to despise everything around you, for not living up to childish and unrealistic ideas about the world, to the point that you cannot bear the gap between expectation and fact, and so let that frustration out in destructive and terrible ways.

I think a third way exists. Through the sort of “creative destruction” that Discordianism promotes, old idols can be brought low and new idols can be created. Until, they too, need destroying. And so on and so forth.

Q: what do you call TWO different 10 year old kids being tazed by police in the last 2 weeks?

2009-12-03T15:50:00.000-08:00

A: a good start!

Satire In Politics!

2009-12-01T14:51:00.000-08:00

A man in California is putting forward a satirical measure on the ballot next year, which would effectively ban divorce, in response to California's refusal to allow gays to marry.

Life, Summed Up In One Photo:

2009-11-25T11:38:00.000-08:00

This Post Is About EVERYTHING:

2009-11-25T00:41:00.000-08:00

1: We look for patterns in the world outside our heads.

2: When we find patterns, we call it order; when we don't we call it disorder.

3: The ability to find patterns comes from within ourselves.

4: So order and disorder only exist dependent on how much we want it to be there.

5: To realize that Order and Disorder are subjective, and that all is Chaos, is to find Eris.

A Video By Bones

2009-11-24T14:21:00.000-08:00

2009-11-24T12:53:00.001-08:00

You Are What You Watch

2009-11-24T05:28:00.001-08:00

Taoist Chaos Magic

2009-11-18T11:51:00.000-08:00

by: Cramulus

Back in college, I met this guy who "used to be" into chaos magic. He was a pretty heavy dude. --in the sense that he was always talking about fate and death and the mysteries of the universe and what have you. Walked around with a staff which he had "sigilized the fuck out of". I asked him if he still did ritual things, and he said no, he was into "Eastern stuff" now.

Like what? I asked

like Taoist chaos magic

What's that mean?

It's effortless, he said sagely. You don't do anything.

somewhere, a bong sounded

The Supposedly Green Baby Making Machine

2009-11-12T11:00:00.001-08:00

she's so green she doesn't watch movies because of film being made from organic beings. She cherishes her liberal guilt like a close relative whose recently lost its legs in a landmine accident. If youre going to eat meat, she says, at least buy free range haven't you seen the PETA ads? Don't you listen to PETA? she only drinks rain water, and seems never to bathe. she speaks often and lovingly about green condos, as if they might be a viable answer to the urban sprawl problem. she sneers at ketchup, but then again, so do I... but wait, there's more... she refuses to use toilet paper, MUCH TOO WASTEFUL! she instead has rags which she washes over and over again. stop and think about that before moving on. she has rags of shit she washes over and over again. shit. and, don't get her started on paper towels, she will foam at the mouth, like she does when she brushes her teeth with baking soda. yes, she brushes her teeth with baking soda. she refuses to listen to music by artists who don't share her worldview, and barely tolerates those around her who don't. she speaks often about moving to the country. moving to the country. moving to the country. moving to the country. she speaks often often often about moving to the country. anywhere to escape the stink of the city. the stink of millions of people crammed together daily. does she consider what we would smell like if we all used rags to wipe the shit from our asses? i wonder.

where does her greenness stop? what is her limit? BIRTH CONTROL, apparently. the woman has four children already, and a fifth one up the stick. five children, my friends. five more mouths to cry for McDonald Happy Meals. five more mouths to grow up and consume. five more bodies to stink up this city. five more bodies to add to the 6,602,224,175 bodies already weighing down and stinking up this mudball we call Earth.

GREEN? don't make me laugh, bitch, i'm goofy enough as it is.

2009-09-09T10:47:00.000-07:00

Thwarting The System

2009-08-31T07:53:00.001-07:00

by: fictionpuss

Used to be you could thwart the system by growing your hair and listening to songs pre-ordained as anti-establishment.

Now you have to think and stuff, and realise that there may be times when you've wasted years on failed approaches.

It's no longer a free lunch, or free love.. yet I think it's progress.

Fuck it, every revolutionary movement uses the tools in its environment, to do otherwise would be foolish. I mean, I see the angst, but I don't understand where it's coming from.

Cults believe they have all the answers, Disordianism is not a cult. Why then weep at the marvels of your electric toothbrush?

original here

A Message For The President...

2009-08-17T08:16:00.000-07:00

From Dillinger To Bugs In 5 Easy Steps

2009-08-10T12:36:00.000-07:00

1) On July 22, 1934 John Dillinger and friend visit the Biograph Theater in Chicago to see the film “Manhattan Melodrama” starring Clark Gable and Mirna Loy.

2) On leaving the theatre, Dillinger is promptly filled with holes by Federal Agents.

3) Due to the publicity showered on “Manhattan Melodrama” following Dillinger’s death Clark Gable and Mirna Loy are thrust into super stardom.

4) Cashing in on his new success, Clark Gable quickly stars in “It Happened One Night” where his fast-talking character munches on carrots. In addition, a character in this same movie is named “Bugs Dooley”

5) Spoofing on Clark Gable’s “It Happened One Night” character, a fast-talking, carrot-munching cartoon rabbit, Bugs Bunny, is created.

DILLINGER AND BUGS ARE BOTH DISCORDIAN SAINTS

do you STILL believe in coincidence?

From the Dawn of Civilization,

2009-08-06T08:55:00.000-07:00

we have existed in order to undermine it. Our only enemy is the status quo. Our only friend is chaos. We have no government ties and unlimited resources. If something goes wrong, we are the cause. Every corner of the earth is under our surveillance. If you do it, we see it. Always. We believe the powerful should be made less powerful. We have heard the voice of society, begging us to destabilize it.

WHERE ARE ALL THE BANANAS?

2009-08-05T23:53:00.000-07:00

The cabbage view is incredible because it suggests that we can have experience of objects out in the world directly, beyond the sensory surface, as if bypassing the chain of sensory processing. For example if light from your screen is transduced by your retina into a neural signal which is transmitted from your eye to your brain, then the very first aspect of the computer screen that you can possibly experience is the information at the retinal surface, or the perceptual representation that it stimulates in your brain. The physical monitor itself lies beyond the sensory surface and therefore must be beyond your direct experience. But the perceptual experience of the page stubbornly appears out in the world itself instead of in your brain, in apparent violation of everything we know about the causal chain of vision. The difficulty with the concept of direct perception is most clearly seen when considering how an artificial vision system could be endowed with such external perception. Although a sensor may record an external quantity in an internal register or variable in a computer, from the internal perspective of the software running on that computer, only the internal value of that variable can be "seen", or can possibly influence the operation of that software. In exactly analogous manner the pattern of electrochemical activity that corresponds to our conscious experience can take a form that reflects the properties of external objects, but our consciousness is necessarily confined to the experience of those internal effigies of external objects, rather than of external objects themselves. Unless the principle of direct perception can be demonstrated in a simple artificial sensory system, this explanation remains as mysterious as the property of consciousness it is supposed to explain.

The indirect realist view is also incredible, for it suggests that the solid stable structure of the world that we perceive to surround us is merely a pattern of energy in the physical brain. In other words, the world that appears to be external to our head is actually inside our head. This could only mean that the head we have come to know as our own is not our true physical head, but is merely a miniature perceptual copy of our head inside a perceptual copy of the world, all of which is completely contained within our true physical skull. Stated from the internal phenomenal perspective, out beyond the farthest things you can perceive in all directions, i.e. above the dome of the sky and below the earth under your feet, or beyond the walls, floor, and ceiling of the room you perceive around you, beyond those perceived surfaces is the inner surface of your true physical skull encompassing all that you perceive, and beyond that skull is an unimaginably immense external world, of which the world you see around you is merely a miniature virtual reality replica. The external world and its phenomenal replica cannot be spatially superimposed, for one is inside your physical head, and the other is outside. Therefore the vivid spatial structure of this page that you perceive here in your hands is itself a pattern of activation within your physical brain, and the real paper of which it is a copy is out beyond your direct experience. Although this statement can only be true in a topological, rather than a strict topographical sense, this insight emphasizes the indisputable fact that no aspect of the external world can possibly appear in consciousness except by being represented explicitly in the brain. The existential vertigo occasioned by this concept of perception is so disorienting that only a handful of researchers have seriously entertained this notion or pursued its implications to its logical conclusion.

The key to this problem of fitting a spacious world into our brains is to notice that our experience is a 'view' of a spacious world. Things are separated by angles relative to an observation point. The separation of things by angles at a point means that we do not have a sense of depth that operates in the same way as our sense of things being separated in horizontal and vertical directions. Our sense of depth is based upon cues rather than an actual experience of the space between things. As an example, the stars in a planetarium appear incredibly distant even though they are on the ceiling of a room and would appear just as distant if viewed through virtual reality goggles. Visual depth in particular is a set of inferences, not an actual experience of the space between things in a radial direction outward from the observation point. This means that the things that are the spacious world of experience could be as small as just a few cubic millimetres of brain tissue!

If there is anything to be learned from the long history of the epistemological debate, it is that the issue is by no means simple or trivial, and that whatever is ultimately determined to be the truth of epistemology, we can be sure that it will do considerable violence to our common-sense view of things. This however is nothing new in science, for many of the greatest discoveries of science seemed initially to be so incredible that it took decades or even centuries before they were generally accepted. But accepted they were, eventually, and the reason why they were accepted was not because they had become any less incredible. In science, irrefutable evidence triumphs over incredibility, and this is exactly what gives science the power to discover unexpected or incredible truth.

We should remember that the following considerations are also part of informed commonsense.

What we perceive is often dependent on our organs of perception and their condition. If we had compound eyes, as flies do, we would receive information about the visual world in a completely different form. If we had jaundice, things would look yellow. If we had other sense organs altogether, like infra-red detectors or echo-location devices, things might appear to us in ways which we can’t even imagine. (Let’s call this ‘perceptual variability’).

Even our current perceptual apparatus is obviously not infallible. We are all familiar with perceptual illusions of various sorts. A major sub-classification of such illusions relates to whether the sensory organs are malfunctioning (as in jaundice) or whether they habitually misrepresent objects to us even in full working order (e.g. the Müller-Lyer illusion).

Sometimes these perceptual illusions extend to cases where we think we perceive things which in fact aren’t there at all (rather than just misperceiving the properties of things which are there to be perceived). This is a more radical case of perceptual error than simple illusion. (Call it ‘hallucination’ or ‘perceptual delusion’).

The basic claim is that in cases of illusion or hallucination, the object that is immediately experienced or given has qualities that no public physical object in that situation has and so must be distinct from any such object. And in cases of perceptual relativity, since objects with different qualities are experienced from each of the different perspectives or under each of the relevant conditions, at most one of these various immediately experienced or given objects could be the physical object itself; it is then further argued that since there is no apparent experiential basis for regarding one out of any such set of related perceptual experiences as the one in which the relevant physical object is itself immediately experienced, the most reasonable conclusion is that the immediately experienced or given object is always distinct from the physical object. (Or, significantly more weakly, that there is no way to identify which, if any, of the immediately experienced objects is the physical object itself, so that the evidential force of the experience is in this respect the same in all cases, and it is epistemologically as though physical objects were never given, whether or not that is in fact the case.)

The naïve realist theory of perception is not threatened by these facts as they stand, for they are accommodated by that theory by virtue its very vagueness (or ‘open-texture’). The theory just isn’t specific or detailed enough to be refuted by the (actually very rare) occurrence of these cases.

The cogency of this argument has been challenged in a number of different ways, of which the most important are the following. First, it has been questioned whether there is any reason to suppose that in cases of these kinds there must be some object present that actually has the experienced qualities, which would then seemingly have to be something like a sense-datum. Why couldn't it be that the perceiver is simply in a state of seeming to experience such an object without any object actually being present? (See the discussion below of the adverbial theory.) Second, it has been argued that in cases of illusion and perceptual relativity at least, there is after all an object present, namely the relevant physical object, which is simply misperceived, for the most part in readily explainable ways. Why, it is asked, is there any need to suppose that an additional object is also involved? Third, the last part of the perceptual relativity version of the argument has been challenged, both (i) by questioning whether it is really true that there is no experiential difference between veridical and non-veridical perception; and (ii) by arguing that even if sense-data are experienced in non-veridical cases and even if the difference between veridical and non-veridical cases is, as claimed, experientially indiscernible, there is still no reason to think that sense-data are the immediate objects of experience in veridical cases. Fourth, various puzzling questions have been raised about the nature of sense-data: Do they exist through time or are they momentary? Can they exist when not being perceived? Are they public or private? Can they be themselves misperceived? Do they exist in minds or are they extra-mental, even if not physical? On the basis of the intractability of these questions, it has been argued that the conclusion of the argument from illusion is clearly unacceptable or even ultimately unintelligible, even in the absence of a clear diagnosis of exactly where and how it goes wrong.

AMAZING RANDI'S MILLION DOLLAR CHALLENGE CONTINUES!

2009-08-04T05:12:00.000-07:00

It was announced about a year ago that the Amazing Randi's JREF organization was going to be disscontinuining the challenge, as it was a strain of both time and effort, but fear not those who would choose to break the laws of physics - the contest is not ending!

read more...

A DAY FOR RAW

2009-07-23T00:00:00.000-07:00

A Conversation Between Sigismundo Celine And Sigismundo Celine

2009-07-21T11:44:00.001-07:00

I am Sigismundo Celine, not the man in the moon.

But then he was the man in the moon. Earth was a distant light in the sky far, far away. Various famous Lunatics were gathered around explaining moon-logic to him. “You never get ‘outside’. What you call ‘outside’ is another part of ‘inside’. See?”

“Yes,” he said. “I have never experienced another human being. I have experienced my impressions of them. Even in sexual intercourse I did not, strictly speaking, experience the other: I experienced my experience of her.”

“Then the whole universe is inside my head?”

“But your head is inside the universe. How do you explain that?”

“Well, then, I must have two heads, so to speak. The universe is inside my actually experienced head, but that head and the universe itself must both be inside my head logically necessary conceptual head. Is that it?”

“Yes. My conceptual head contains the universe, or a model of the universe to be strictly precise, and inside the that model is the model of my conceptual head, which is of course also my experienced head.”

“Careful now. You’re building up to an infinite regress.”

“I can see that, but it must be because consciousness itself is an infinite regress. I think that explains coincidences.”

“Are you quite sure you know what you are saying?”

“Yes. A coincidence is an isomorphism between the contents of my conceptual head, outside the universe, and my experienced head, inside the universe.”

“And why would there be such an isomorphism?”

“Because, damn it, my two heads are really only one head. I’ve just separated them for logical analysis.”

“But how can your conceptual head, outside the universe, be your experienced head, inside the universe?”

“Because, because . . .”

“Yes?”

“Because concepts are experiences, too. My conceptual head is experienced, and becomes my experienced head, whenever I think about mathematics or pure logic. Yes, by God. When I see a spotted dog, that is inside my experienced head, as Hume demonstrated. But when I think about the actual dog that creates the image in my experienced head, I must be expanding my conceptual head to include the actual dog, not the image of the dog. So the dog, and the rest of the universe, are actually in my conceptual head, not in my experienced head, which only has their images.”

“But then my experienced head is both inside and outside my conceptual head – which means it is both inside and outside my universe.”

“You’re still in the infinite regress.”

“I can appreciate that. By the way, am I talking to you or talking to myself?”

“Is there a difference?”

2009-07-20T12:49:00.001-07:00

LEFT SIDE/RIGHT SIDE

2009-07-17T10:30:00.000-07:00

common grey matter has two components:

PENTAL: The Pental is very observant, very quick, and likes to compartmentalize everything it witnesses; the Pental is also extremely arrogant. The Pental isn’t usually aware of the Pomal, and when it is aware of its existence is very jealous and manipulative. The Pental believes itself to be the entire universe, and in a sense it is correct. The Pental IS the entire universe, at least for each of us. Everything I see is part of the Pental, everything I think about is part of the Pental, and my Pental tells me how to see and think about things. When I look at a “tree” I only “know” it is a “tree” because my Pental tells me. The Pental would have you believe that it is the only thing which exists.

POMAL: On the other hand, the Pomal has none of those qualities, in fact, to even attempt to describe the Pomal is doing it a grave disservice . . . any description or definition I gave would only be my Pental’s idea of the Pomal anyway, and would therefor be useless. The closest I will come to pinning anything on the Pomal would be to compare it with the “Tao” . . . but even that is off. The Pomal is the Pomal, and thats really all there is to say about it. Don’t let the lack of a definition trick you into believing the Pomal is lesser than the Pental however, that’s just your Pental whispering to you. The Pomal rules dreams, intuition, synchronicity, tarot, the I-Ching, and magick – perhaps even quantum physics. Anytime the Pomal pops itself into your “normal world” the Pental will immediately pounce on it, and dominate it, to show you that it is boss, in this way the Pental shows that its power is over everything, and at the same time saves itself from destruction (despite what it believes, the Pental is very fragile, and can be disrupted easily by extreme emotional jolts, heavy drugs, meditation and yoga). The Pomal’s influence on the world of the Pental is subtle, but profound.

2009-07-17T10:02:00.000-07:00

The Funeral of Oxo Marx

2008-10-11T19:11:00.000-07:00

Oxo Marx's funeral was a small, sad affair, attended only by his mother, who was blind, deaf, dumb and not very good at crossword puzzles; his sister Oxa, who was on an oxygen mask, not because she needed it, but because she thought it was hip; his almost girlfriend Priscilla, who was now considering returning to the circus; his landlord, Willy Man, who had found the self-beheaded Oxo and considered him a pretty good tenant; and a mysterious woman in black, whose face was obscured by a thick veil.

The funeral was lead by the Good Reverend Ricardo, who Oxo's mother trusted with her life, and most of her savings. His speech was short, and to the point. "Let's be honest, people. Oxo wasn't an overly popular man. And, for good reasons. His breath was rank, his teeth had a fuzzy film, he made objectional comments on a routine basis, and besides all that he never liked reality tv. There were many things wrong with Oxo, and the world is probably better off without him. He beheaded himself, which to my knowledge has never been done before, this is itself an accomplishment, and probably his only one, so let us savour it. Uh . . . yeah, that's about it I suppose. Does anyone want to say a few words?"

Oxo's sister Oxa raised her hand wearily. The Good Reverend Ricardo stood aside as she staggered to the podium, and took three minutes to arrange her oxygen mask perfectly. Then, she cleared her throat, leaned down to the microphone and said: "Phlegm. Formica. Saliva. Bochi. Wang Doodle. Syphon. Thank you. These are. Just some words. I like to say. Thank you."

Oxa shuffled back to her seat and noisily rearranged her oxygen mask. There was some awkward silence before the Good Reverend Ricardo made his way back to the podium. Just before he spoke for the final time he turned away and took a nip from his flask. "Well," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "I guess that's it. It actually took longer than I expected. Who wants to get drunk?"

The mourners wandered away from the grave, except for the mysterious woman in black, who lingered by the grave stone until the cemetery was empty, then she leaned down and whispered to the stone: "I just like to go to funerals."

Then she walked away, went home, and ate some white toast.

The Problem of the Pimple

2008-10-10T19:09:00.000-07:00

Oxo Marx awoke on a Monday morning with a large blemish on his left cheek. He felt it the moment his eyes opened; the muscles moving to let light into his brain sent a sharp, fierce pain throughout his face, and he let out a small sound: -Gahaaa.

Sitting up, within his sheets, he sought it out with his fingertips, delicately feeling out the soft flesh below his eye like a blindman might. When he touched the pimple another shockwave of pain fluttered through his face, causing his eyes to blink a few times without his permission. A tear rose to attention in his left eye, but didn't have the heart to jump.

-Goddammit, Oxo hissed through clenched teeth. -A pimple. A fucking pimple.

He was angry not only because it was Monday, a day he routinely loathed, but also because he was meant to have his first date with Priscilla later than evening. He had bought tickets for the circus. He didn't know if Priscilla liked the circus anymore, but she had been an elephant rider for years, and then quit one summer day to become a dental hygienist. Just like that. He hoped she still liked the circus. He hoped she wouldn't notice his pimple.

The pimple, not his pimple. He wasn't going to think of it as his, he had nothing to do with it, apart from the fact that it had decided to nest on his face.

-Goddammit, he hissed again, and got out of bed.

As he walked to the bathroom to survey the damage, he let out a fantastically long and loud fart. Feeling slightly better, he faced his reflection in the mirror. It was worse than he thought. The pimple was about the size of a quarter, red, pulsating, a drop of pus just starting to ooze from the head. 'A decidedly ugly pimple', he thought to himself. He laughed then. -As if there's an attractive pimple. he said to himself.

It was then that the pimple spoke.

YOU'RE NOT SO HOT YERSELF, YA KNOW. it said. He believed he even saw the pore open and close slightly as it spoke. The movement was painful, and uninvited. It was, to be quite frank, insulting. He was not used to being addressed by blemishes, and chose to ignore the remark.

Oxo turned on the water in the shower, and when it had reached the desired temperature, he stepped inside. The water smacked the pimple immediately, jolting him again, and Oxo turned his back to the hot stream. He cursed slightly under his breath, and the pimple throbbed. He felt it was gearing up to speak again, or had he imagined that? No blemish had ever spoken to him before, and he had never heard of a blemish speaking to anyone else. He had just gotten out of bed, after all, perhaps its the was the remains of a dream. A hypnogogic hallucination . . . or hypnopompic maybe, he could never remember which was which.

As he stood in the shower, feebly washing his chest with a sudsy rag, he went over what he had heard the pimple say. "You're not so hot yourself, you know." it had said. He washed the back of his neck. He knew he wasn't the best looking guy in the world, that's precisely why getting the pimple in the first place had angered him so much. He really didn't need the pimple to point it out to him. He washed his left arm. Oxo had never been particularly attractive, in fact he still harboured the memory of a girl on the bus telling him point blank "You're ugly" when he was fifteen. He hated that memory. He hated the memory, and hated that he remembered it so vividly, when he had forgotten so many other memories. He wasn't certain if the memories he had forgotten were good ones or bad ones, since he had forgotten them, but he secretly always assumed they were good ones. It would be just like him to only remember bad memories. He washed his genitals. The thing about that memory that bothered him most was what he had ended up responded at the time. He didn't like to think about it. Oxo washed the crack of his ass. Witty comebacks had never been his strong suit, nor had quick thinking on his feet. When she had told him he was ugly he hadn't known what to say, he was so blown away by the sheer naked honesty of the comment. He responded, quietly, "I know." and quickly taken a seat, his ears and neck turning red, and burning hot. Oxo washed the back of his neck again.

He thought of the memory again, saw the girl's face, her casual indifference, and started to become angry again, after fifteen years. He would love to meet the girl again. He would love to see her on the street, or on the bus, and have something to say back to her. Oxo was mindlessly running the rag back and forth across his chest now. He imagined bumping into her on the street and saying "Oh I remember you, you're the girl who said I was ugly. Well, did I mention that you have bad breath?" No no no.

He slapped the sudsy rag down to the bathtub. What a terrible retort. Even after fifteen years he couldn't think of anything good to say back to her. Say something hurtful, something that would make her think about the comment later, much later. Maybe for the rest of her life. Tell her that she has fat thighs or that she has . . . he paused, remembering. It occurred to Oxo that he couldn't actually remember the girl's face anymore, he could only remember his memory of it. She had blonde hair and blue eyeshadow, that much he knew, but would he be able to recognize her on the street if he saw her now? He didn't think so.

Oxo turned the water off, and stood dripping. He was going to be damned if he would spend another fifteen years wondering if he could have responded more appropriately to his pimple. Without drying, he stepped out of the bathtub and faced the mirror. He wiped away the fog that steam had left on the surface and looked at the pimple. It still throbbed.

-Say something, smartass. he said to it. It throbbed on, but made no reply. He looked down at it, another single drop of pus starting to ooze out of the head. -C'mon smart guy. Say something smart. I dare you.

The pus dribbled out of the head, but still no reply was forthcoming.

Oxo leaned in, toward the mirror, almost pressing his face against the reflection. -Say something you little fuck, I know you want to . . . come on!

And then the pimple spoke again. The pore opened and closed as it said YOU'RE UGLY. then began to giggle.

Oxo stared at it, dumbstruck. He had expected it to repeat its original comment. Standing there, still dripping wet and nude, Oxo began to shake with rage. Again! Again with that comment, and now from a pimple. A fucking pimple. That was the last straw.

He was getting rid of the pimple. The pimple was going to be gone, that's all there was to it. One way or another.

Oxo stalked off into his apartment, slammed open a closet, and began to rummage through a box in the bottom. He thought he could hear the pimple ask what he was doing, but kept lifting objects up, feeling beneath them and then dropping them back down and moving on. Finally, his finger tips found what he was looking for.

Oxo Marx pulled out his father's saw. -HA! he cried out in triumph. He walked into the kitchen, took out the cutting board he had never used, and placed it onto the counter. He turned his head, laid it onto the cutting board, and began to saw at his neck in long quick strokes. In three full slices his head came off from the stump and rolled into his sink.

In this way, the problem was solved.

Origins of Tarot

2008-10-10T18:45:00.000-07:00

I have it on good authority from my contact on the 'inside' that the first recorded tarot deck was created by a Mrs. Eugenia Fish in the 800s (CE) but that she based the cards on an older Atlantean deck which was common knowledge at the time - the differences that Mrs. Fish brought to what is known now as the more or less common deck was the addition of the Fool card, which she included out of respect for her dead husband Roland Fish the Idiot of Ford, who was crushed beneath the largest crouton in history, which was being created for Emperor Charlemagne, to be added to the World's Biggest Salad, which was intended to be one of the Wonders of the World, but never really took off.

In addition to the adding of the Fool, Mrs. Fish also cut out some of the less popular Atlantean trumps, which were 8 - "The Hangnail", 12 - "Gut Rot", and the infinitely unpopular 15 - "Halitosis". I think most modern tarot scholars would admit that her changes were prudent.

Mrs. Fish didn't only invent modern tarot either, she also invented Backgammon, Monopoly, Strip poker, and Battleship. She truly was a Renaissance woman, before the Renaissance.

Modern Sisyphus

2008-09-20T19:17:00.000-07:00

One night Quiche invited four friends over for some drinks and smoking. She invited Tab Matsui, who always worried about people and her boyfriend Don Mosher who was always worried about animals. She also invited Carmonita Scarfoni, who was always worried about life, and Toni Carboni, who was always worried about death.

Drinks were poured, spliffs were lit, and conversation ensued. Tab never took spliffs overly well and soon began to worry about the people who were being afflicted by natural disasters. "there's nothing you can do to prevent something like that," she said, and began to weep. Don, her boyfriend said "think about the animals though, they truly have no idea what is happening. it must all be a mystery to them. just like everything to us."

"what's a mystery?" Quiche asked. Carmonita said, "life is a mystery. how can we know what the point is?"

Toni said, "you can't know the point until you've died. it's too profound." Quiche began to giggle. Don turned to her, his drink splashing on the tabletop. "how can you laugh, Quiche? terrible things happen all the time. what's so funny?" Quiche spoke through a bouquet of laughter: "everything."

Tab asked: "you think it's funny that we don't know the meaning of life?"

Quiche answered, "no."

"well then, what's so funny?" Don asked. Quiche turned to him. She smiled. "i find it funny that you all believe there is a meaning to the universe. there isn't." Carmonita sat forward. "how can you dare to say that? if there isn't a meaning then there is no point in living!"

Quiche asked, "no?" and began to giggle again. Toni sat very quietly, and finally said "Quiche is right. there is no point. if you think about it, it's perfectly obvious. there is no meaning to life."

Tab began to weep again. "well then what are we living for?" Don answered: "nothing."

Carmonita's face lit up. "we should kill ourselves!" Toni turned to Carmonita. "yes, you're right. it's the only logical response to an illogical universe."

As the four prepared to kill themselves Don noticed Quiche was lighting up another joint. "what are you doing, Quiche? aren't you going to kill yourself with us?" Quiche laughed again. "no, i have no intention of killing myself."

Tab asked, "but why? it was you that made us realize the universe has no point."

Quiche shrugged. "so?" was all she replied.

Don turned away from Quiche. "forget her, she's just afraid. come on, let's get on with it, i can't stand this world another second." and he, and the other three killed themselves, and fell back away from the table. Their feet stuck up in the smoky air.

Quiche sat back, gathered their weed with hers, took another haul on the spliff, and said "this is the life . . ."

Bean

2008-09-10T18:47:00.000-07:00

Phantly Roy Bean was a saloon-keeper, and arbitrary judge who called himself "The Law West of the Pecos". Discordian legend tells that Judge Roy Bean held court sessions in his saloon along the Rio Grande River in a desolate stretch of the Chihuahuan Desert of West Texas.

As a youth Judge Bean was accosted on a stretch of road by a group of bandits, (or native americans, legends differ on the details) he was attacked ruthlessly and left for dead amongst the cacti. He survived for fifteen days by murdering armadillos and cracking them open for moisture - on the fifteenth day the Judge had a vision of a woman with golden hair who called herself "the Heiress", she gave Bean the strength to pick himself up and make his way on foot to a nearby town called Langtry, which would be his home for the rest of his life. He believed the Heiress to be a goddess who had spared his life so that he may make the world over in his idea of her image.

Roy built a saloon he named the Heiress that also served as his home. He hung a tattered picture he himself had drawn of his vision behind the bar. Above the door he posted signs proclaiming "ICE COLD BEER" and "LAW WEST OF THE PECOS." From there Roy Bean dispensed liquor, justice, and legends, including that he himself had named the town in honor of the actress Lillie Langtry on the Heiress' bidding. He was elected to office in 1884 and re-elected many times.

His court methods were arbitrary and comical and inspired many outrageous tales. His court paraphernalia included only one revolver, one law book and a pet bear named Boopsie. It is said that, when performing marriage ceremonies, he always ended the service by saying "And may the Goddess have mercy on what is left of your soul."

Judge Roy Bean was a merciless dispenser of justice, often called "The Hangin' Judge, having sent a record 23,00 men and two women to the gallows during his career. He was quoted often to have said "and there's LOTS more where they came from!"

Actor Michael Richards probably would have liked Judge Roy Bean a hell of a lot, since one of Bean's most outrageous rulings occurred when an Irishman was accused of killing a Chinese American worker. Friends of the accused threatened to destroy the Heiress if the Irishman was found guilty. Court in session, Bean browsed through his law book, turning page after page, searching for a legal precedent. Finally, rapping his pistol on the bar, he proclaimed, "Gentlemen, I find the law very explicit on murdering your fellow man, but there's nothing here about killing a Chinaman. Case dismissed."

In 1896 Bean organized the world championship boxing title bout between Bob Fitzsimmons and Peter Maher on an carnival island in middle of the Rio Grande, because boxing matches were illegal in Texas. The resulting sport reports spread his fame throughout the United States, as well as convincing a young Don King to enter into the world of boxing.

The Case Against Colour (or, NOTHING Is The New Pink)

2008-08-10T18:49:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I overheard a conversation between two homeless men who were waiting in a line for lunch at a nearby shelter. I was waiting for a bus on a bench close to where the two were standing, and happened to overhear one of them mention a 'golden apple'. This, of course, piqued my interest, so I began to listen to the two.

It turns out that the 'golden apple' the one man was referring to was what is commonly referred to as an 'Orange', but he is correct that at one time the fruit was called a golden apple - the conversation centered around the man holding the orange trying to convince the other man that the fruit he was holding was in fact blue, not orange.

"It's like this," said the man. "colour works in opposites. When you look at an Orange the light bounces off the Orange, and back to your eye. But, the thing is, the thing is this: the Orange absorbs all the colours of the white light, and only bounces back the colour orange to your eye. So, really, the Orange is any colour BUT orange."

"I don't get it." said the other man. "Why does it look orange to us, then?"

"Because that's the only colour bouncing back to your eye. It looks orange because orange is bouncing back. The eye works on opposites. We actually see things upside down, but our eyes correct the image so that we see it normally. And, we usually see in negative, but the eye corrects for that too."

"That's fucked." the other man answered aptly.

It was at this point that I turned to the two men. "I'll tell you what's more fucked. Colour doesn't exist at all."

They both just stared at me. I continued: "Think about this: Everything is made from molecules, right? Well, what colour are molecules?"

The one man shrugged, and the other said: "I don't know."

I winked. "Exactly. That's because molecules don't have any colour. And, if everything is made from molecules, and molecules have no colour, than de facto NOTHING has colour."

Before either man could respond I disappeared into a puff of smoke.

Comedy in Cinema is More Realistic Than Drama

2008-07-23T19:05:00.000-07:00

In a word? Defecation.

Defecation is a large part of daily life, even if most of us would prefer to imagine it isn't. In fact there are those of us who would prefer to pretend it doesn't even occur. These people make the majorities of the dramas we see today.

In Ulysses James Joyce portrayed a man who urinated and defecated as any normal person would, in what was possibly the first truly realistic novel. The lesson, however, was not learned by the rest of the entertainment industry. It would still be at least thirty years until even a fart was heard on a movie screen, let alone any actual movements of bowels.

Today, defecation is still very taboo in films, unless it is a comedy. So, in this way, comedy is more realistic than the average drama. However, it should be noted that the only type of defecation allowable even in comedies is of the 'explosive diarrhea' type.

Planet YoYo

2008-07-13T19:19:00.000-07:00

On this day, in 1854, a boy named Fudgio Montobono succeeded in securing a string all the way around the circumference of this glorified ball of mud we call Earth.   He then proceeded to use the planet like a yo-yo, for a record time of twenty-three seconds before the string broke, and he careened off into interstellar space.   The vast population at the time wasn't aware of this astounding feat, and as a result, to this day, most people are still unaware of what Fudgio Montobono achieved.

Hermit Day

2008-07-05T18:53:00.000-07:00

Today is the day when all intelligent aspiring hermits remember the life of Paul of Latrus, and vow never to repeat his mistakes. Paul had always wanted to be a hermit, ever since he was knee-high to a pariah, and had been hording hermitty things in preparation for years: lanterns, furs, nuts and berries, pornographic etchings for those long winter solstice nights . . . not to mention dreaming up strange and glorious manifestations of his chosen deity's awesome powers; truly an important part of a hermit's repertoire.

He was more than ready for life in solitude when he finally waved goodbye to his family and friends and trudged up the mountain to the cave which would be his home, sanctuary, and bathroom for the rest of his life; but he hadn't anticipated the biggest problem that every prospective hermit faces: fame.

Paul found it very difficult to rinse his socks out in the nearby River Hotsauce without hordes of curious onlookers watching his every move; he was unable to meditate while standing on his head -as was his wont- without fans asking "does it make your face hot?" or "can you hear China now?"; he wasn't able to chant through the Trumps of the Tarot without people shouting out cards which didn't exist (like 'Halitosis' and 'Stubbed-Toe') in a deluded attempt to help him out. In short, his new career as a hermit was already the pits.

Paul had an idea. He decided the best way to get rid of the crowd of gawkers was to frighten them away with his awesome connection to the Higher Beings, and promptly began to start vomiting blood everywhere and anywhere he went. True, he was dizzy, but he felt that he would finally have the solitude he had constantly craved.

Did it work for Paul of Latrus, I can almost hear you ask . . . of course it didn't, did you read the opening sentence? His stardom, of course, rose to heights he had never dreamed of, and he was a constant attraction in his part of the land for the rest of his life, with an entire industry built up around him: selling candy apples, pony rides, face-painting, etc.

So, let this day be a lesson to all prospective hermits: if you are planning to walk off into the woods to become holy, KEEP IT TO YOURSELF, dammit!

Agamemnon and the Ill Wind

2008-06-10T19:01:00.000-07:00

Some time after the ORIGINAL SNUB, which started the Trojan War, but before the war actually began, Agamemnon son of Atreus had collected his fleets at Aulis in Boeotia but found himself unable to sail for Troy due to a contrary wind.

Agamemnon clutched his long ivory scepter forged by the god Hephaestus who gave it to Hermes, who dropped it in a fountain when plonked at one of Dionysus’ parties, where it was subsequently found by Agamemnon’s grandfather Pelops, and was then grudgingly passed down to him. He clutched the scepter and shook with rage. He was consumed with revenge and honour, two ingredients which--when mixed--can become poison in a man’s blood. In desperation he called out for Calchas, who spoke with the gods.

‘Calchas, you sweet bitch, who speaks with the gods,’ Agamemnon said. ‘tell me which god is it who is pissed with me and has asked the ill wind to blow against the long-haired Achaeans so that they may not sail against the wife-robbing bastard people, the Trojans, who stole the completely foxy Helen from my brother Menalaus, King of Sparta?’

Calchas was not a stupid man; he knew that those who gave bad news to kings soon became deprived of what was most dear to them: their lives. Hades did not have a good rep at that time, some would argue it still doesn’t, but it beats Toledo Ohio in a pinch. Conversely, everyone knew that lying about the gods could get you in worse places than either Hades or Toledo. The choice was obvious. ‘Good King Agamemnon, it makes me sick to say it, but there are five gods angered at you.’

‘Five gods?’ sputtered Agamemnon. ‘But how? But why? But when?’

Calchas said, ‘It is the truth Agamemnon son of Atreus that swift and sleek Artemis is angered with you because she overheard you boast that you were a better marksman that she.’

Agamemnon said ‘Shit. It’s true. I did boast to be a better marksman than Artemis the swift and sleek. Tell me Calchas, what does wise Artemis ask in return?’

Calchas quivered in the hips as he said, ‘Only your first born daughter Iphigenia, sacrificed on an alter, the fat from her thighs burned in respect.’

‘Ach,’ said Agamemnon. ‘Gag. That I cannot do. Calchas, you sweet bitch, who speaks with the gods, tell me which other god is it who is pissed with me?’

Calchas said, ‘It is the truth Agamemnon son of Atreus that beautiful and nubile Aphrodite is angered with you because she heard you vowed to sacrifice the most beautiful treasure in your life in exchange for victory against the little Trojan shits.’

Agamemnon said ‘Aw fer fu-. Mmm. It’s true. I did vow to sacrifice the most beautiful treasure in my life in exchange for victory against the little Trojan shits. Tell me Calchas, what does wise Aphrodite ask in return?’

Calchas shivered in the groin as he said, ‘Only your wife Clytemnestra, sacrificed on an alter, the fat from her thighs burned in respect.’

‘Feh,’ said Agamemnon. ‘Gak. That I cannot do. Calchas, you sweet bitch, who speaks with the gods, tell me which other god is it who is pissed with me?’

Calchas said, ‘It is the truth Agamemnon son of Atreus that Zeus lord of the sky, had sent an omen to you of two young studly eagles meant to represent the Atridae, which tore to pieces a pregnant hare. White-armed Here, big mama of all the heavens and gueen of all the mothers was beyond pissed.’

Agamemnon said ‘Great Googly Moogly! Grr. It’s true. Zeus did send an omen of two young studly eagles meant to represent the Atridae, which tore to pieces a pregnant hare. Tell me Calchas, what does wise Here ask in return?’

Calchas jiggled in the gizzard as he said, ‘Only all your children, sacrificed on an alter, the fat from their thighs burned in respect.’

‘Bah!’ said Agamemnon. ‘Yuk. That I cannot do. Calchas, you sweet bitch, who speaks with the gods, tell me which other god is it who is pissed with me?’

Calchas said, ‘It is the truth Agamemnon son of Atreus that flashing-eyed Pallas Athene, unsleeping daughter of Big Daddy Zeus was offended by your father Atreus. He vowed to sacrifice a lamb to aegis-bearing Athene in exchange for success in battle, this he did not do.’

Agamemnon said ‘Mother fuck! Mmm. It’s true. My father was a complete dipshit, he did stuff like that all the time, one time he promised me half of Caledon- aw fuck it . . . Tell me Calchas, what does wise Pallas Athene ask in return?’

Calchas trembled in the pancreas as he said, ‘Only all your only son Orestes, sacrificed on an alter, the fat from their thighs burned in respect.’

‘Homina homina homina’ said Agamemnon. ‘Retch. That I cannot do. Calchas, you sweet slut, who speaks with the gods, tell me which is the last god who is pissed with me?’

Calchas said, ‘It is the truth Agamemnon son of Atreus that Eris also called Strife is offended by your feeding of hot dogs to your troops. Her only sustenance when she went into self-imposed exile after THE SNUB was the hot dog bun, it is an affront to the goddess of Discord and she smites you in bitter and somewhat petty retaliation. It’s boring on Mt. Olympus.’

Agamemnon said ‘Rats. It’s true. I feed my soldiers Armor Hot Dogs, they’re the dogs long-haired Achaeans love to bite. Tell me Calchas, what does wise Eris ask in return?’

Calchas twitched in the pineal gland as he said, ‘Only all the soldier’s hot dog buns, torched on an alter, in respect.’

‘Uh uh.’ said Agamemnon. ‘No way. That I cannot do. They would eat me alive. Besides, it is never that easy.’

Agamemnon pondered all the gods requests and wondered which would be the least disastrous for him. The easiest in the eyes of a misogynist bronze era Greek was obviously the sacrifice of his eldest daughter Iphigenia, but once she was dead and cut up for sacrifice Agamemnon and Calchas realized they had no kindling. The only thing flammable to start the pyre was the hot dog buns.

Agamemnon broke his scepter across his knee, ‘This is ridiculous! I promised my soldiers those buns, but if I must, I must . . . burn the buns, Calchas.’

The moment Calchas lit the buns the wind began to change. Agamemnon felt sick, and tried to convince himself that the fat of Iphigenia’s thighs was already starting to burn, but he knew in his heart the truth. Despite that, he turned to Calchas ‘A cheer for swift and sleek Artemis who granted muh-mercy on the long-haired Achaeans.’

A loud cackle from high above startled Agamemnon and Calchas as they toasted, but neither of them asked from whence it came.

Emotion: Intellect's Retarded Little Brother

2008-05-19T18:57:00.000-07:00

Any emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary.
Mark Twain

The emotions aren't always immediately subject to reason, but they are always immediately subject to action.
William James

You are, of course, a robot. Don't bother denying it. If you weren't, you would have complete control of your entire body at all times, both physical aspects and mental. But, you do not. You are governed to varying degrees by a strange group we call 'Emotions'.

These emotions sit inside your skull watching everything you do and edit the information before processing it through your brain. No information reaches you unaltered.

For this reason all intelligence you receive from the outside world is skewed in some direction away from what we often refer to as 'objective truth'. The old adage 'garbage in, garbage out' is especially relevant in this situation, and because of this skewed view we always react to situations in a slightly off-kilter manner; some more inaccurately than others, but none are immune.

"Is there any hope of eradicating this disease and becoming like Vulcans?" I hear you ask. Probably not. In fact, I don't think I would want to live in a world completely devoid of emotions. Complete lack of emotion is just as dangerous as being completely controlled by emotion.

"So what can we do?" I hear you ask. Become aware of your emotions. Observe your emotions and how they manipulate you. Go out and get in an argument. Get into a fist fight. See how you react when a fist comes into contact with your jaw. Were you able to think clearly afterwards?

The more you observe your emotions and become familiar with them the easier it will be to identify them in a hostile situation. Once you are keenly aware of your emotions it is much easier to observe them with something close to objectivity. Once you can observe the emotions with something close to objectivity it will be much harder for them to completely take over your mind and become blinded by them.

2008-03-10T19:22:00.000-07:00

"Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be."

-William Hazlitt

That is almost, but not entirely, true. Platipussies are struck with the difference too, but most people pay little heed to this fantastic and wonderful marsupial. So, it's up to us, and the Platipussies, to enjoy this weird and wonderful world Eris entertains us with on a daily basis.

About The Crumbs...

2008-01-15T19:29:00.000-08:00

This is about insignificant crumbs of nothing.    You are an insignificant crumb of nothing. Your size, when compared with the sheer vastness of our known universe, would be roughly close to that of a single atom floating next to the island of Manhattan. We (you, me, everyone you've ever met) are all insignificant crumbs of nothing. If you could get a bird's eye view of the entire universe, that vast collection of billions of interstellar shopping malls, you wouldn't even be able to see our galaxy, the Milky Way. Neither would you see any of our neighboring galaxies, or even the large cluster of galaxies we reside inside: no, we are truly cosmically insignificant.   But, we are conscious. At least, we believe so. Possibly, just possibly, the only conscious beings in the entire universe, as unlikely as that may seem. And each of us: you, me, your mother, a dog down the street, are all composed of atoms created in the Big Bang.

We are all the same age, and we are all made up from matter that was once smaller than the head of a pin. You, a potted fern, and a stapler are all essentially the same. Think about that. 

Rex Bologna, for an insignificant crumb of nothing, took being evicted from his crumb of an apartment quite seriously. He was pissed off as he ran with his olive green turtle-shell suitcase to catch the crumb known locally as the 501 Streetcar.   At exactly that moment, as he ran sweating, a large throbbing red star in a relatively nearby galaxy winked out for the final time, and collapsed upon itself, sucking everything –even rays of light– within millions and millions of miles into the hole it left behind. This star choking on its own vomit would not be visible to people on Earth for six million years.  

Rex had no idea the star even existed.  

A gargantuan super-galaxy that was spinning out of control, destroying stars and planets like a child destroying ants, swallowed up  Three large galaxies on the opposite side of the universe. Rex was only aware of one other galaxy: our nearest neighbor: Andromeda, which will eventually collide with our galaxy forming a super galaxy of our own. Perhaps, we too will careen out of control gobbling up star cities for the rest of time. Think of it as something to look forward to.  

Rex knew that he immediately needed to find a place to stay, and at the same time was vaguely aware the universe was expanding, but had no idea that the more it expanded the faster it traveled. He had no idea that our 'Big Bang' was, in fact, the fifth big bang. The universe had been expanding and collapsing on itself for a googol's worth of years. Rex had no idea this was the fifth try at a universe anymore than he was aware that he'd existed since the very first big bang. And, so have you.  

Happy Birthday.

Know Thyself

2008-01-10T18:58:00.000-08:00

How can you be aware of anything, if you aren't fully aware of yourself?

People believe that they know themselves, but for the most part do not. Believing that they know themselves already, most people never think about getting to know themselves. How are you sitting right now? If a photograph were taken of you surreptitiously right now, what would the photograph tell people about you?

(And why are you so sure a photograph ISN'T being taken of you surreptitiously?)

To become aware, start by becoming aware of everything about you, down to the smallest detail. When you aren't paying attention, do you shuffle your feet? Do you chew your lips? Or your nails? Twirl your hair? Lick your lips?

Why?

Do you even know? If you didn't move consciously, who is in control of you? Become aware of these movements.

Do you like funny movies? If so, why?

Do you like foreign foods? If not, why?

When you become aware of yourself fully you will begin to become aware of what is around you more fully. When you become more fully aware of what is going on around you it will all start to come together.

'Know thyself' is more than just a catch-phrase.

YooHoo In Creationist Museum

2007-04-18T20:49:00.000-07:00

Hoopla:

As instructed, I have managed to obtain a position within the Creationist Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky, and Hoopla, it is almost exactly as you had predicted – how do you do it, you wiley bastard?? You were completely half right. How do you see through these scams? Yes, the Christian Creationist Museum is -indeed- a front for The Discordian Society: The First Church Of The Wholly Chao: and yet it isn’t. The ingeniousness of its creation is remarkable . . . it is a Discordian organization pretending to be Christian, but it is genuinely creationist. There are actually Creationist Discordians, can you believe it?

These Discordians take Eris seriously -quite seriously- and consider her ‘She What Done It All’, in the most literal sense. These bastards are Fundies, you had better believe it. They believe Eris created the world last Thursday, and that all the memories we have as a collective society were implanted by the Goddess to give the illusion of a rich history. For what reason, they don’t say.

When chatting with a security guard one day he pointed out that there were several theories of evolution that go against Darwin . . . I didn’t have much to contribute since I hadn’t done much of anything in a few weeks so I asked him to elaborate. He pointed out that Dr. Rupert Sheldrake proposed a completely different theory of evolution which involved cataclysmic disasters as major factors in our development . . . in addition to Sheldrake there was also Prince Peter Kroptokin, Tielhard de Chardin, Dr. James Lovelock, Lamarck, Dr. Gregory Bateson and Henry Bergson who all proposed theories of evolution different than Darwin’s. After he finished, and there was a lull in the conversation, I asked him what that had to do with whether Tyra Banks was a lesbian or not, (which is what we had been discussing at the time) he answered: “Everything is connected, asshole.” He might be right.

The museum itself is intended as a surreal experiment in cognitive dissonance, by showing things like T-Rex’s and human children playing hopscotch together, but the actual lessons of the First Church Of The Wholly Chao will be implanted in a more subtle manner: pamphlets.

The pamphlets will be handed out by a Discordian agent outside who will be continually ‘asked to leave’ and escorted from the premises, only to sneak back on again. That Discordian agent? Yours truly. A bona fide double agent.

I have a big problem, though, Hoopla . . . these Last Thusradyite people from the First Church Of The Wholly Chao . . . they’re chiseling me out of pay . . . I’ve been here for two months now, moving around styrofoam rocks, polishing stegasaurus statues, handing out pamphlets and whatnot, but have yet to get paid a red cent. Everytime I ask for my paycheck they keep telling me I haven’t put in a full week of work yet. Their reasoning is since Eris only created the world last Thursday that means I haven’t worked a full week yet . . . I’m down to my last pair of clean-ish gitch, Hoopla . . . can you send some? Any kind will do, even Underoos.

Hurry. It’s not pretty.

-Count YooHoo, K.S.C., S.H., H.M.
Esoteric Order Of Eris, Van Vliet Cabal

Concordia Guy is Losing It...

2007-03-27T19:47:00.000-07:00

I really think the Concordia Movement guy is losing (or has lost) it. Grok:Discordianism Linked With Ong’s Hat Cult

Score One For Fort:

2007-03-10T20:41:00.000-08:00

On this date, in 1888, according to the Madras Mail, pieces of bricks fell into a Pondicherry classroom in the presence of many investigators.

One brick marked with a white cross was placed in the centre of the room; a similar-sized brick, marked with a black cross, dropped out of the air onto the first brick. In reference to such appearances in closed rooms, Charles Fort said: 'Oh, yes, I have heard of 'the fourth dimension,' but I am going to do myself some credit by not lugging in that particular way of showing that I don't know what I am writing about.'

2007-02-27T19:52:00.000-08:00

BOGOTA (Reuters) – Two clowns were shot and killed by an unidentified gunman during their performance at a traveling circus in the eastern Colombian town of Cucuta, police said Wednesday.

The gunman burst into the Circo del Sol de Cali Monday night and shot the clowns in front of an audience of 20 to 50 people, local police chief Jose Humberto Henao told Reuters. One of the clowns was killed instantly and the second died the next day in hospital.

“The killings had little to do with the show the victims were performing at the time of the incident,” Henao said in a telephone interview. “We are investigating the motive.”

With an entrance fee of under 50 U.S. cents, Circo del Sol de Cali attracts mostly poor Colombians. It pitched it tents in Cucuta, near the border with Venezuela, earlier this month.

“The clowns came out to give their show and then this guy came out shooting them,” one audience member told local television. “It was ghastly.”

Count YooHoo In Point Pleasant

2007-02-23T21:21:00.000-08:00

Hoopla:

Sweet Bela Lugosi’s backhair! It seems like I haven’t spoken to you in yurts and yurts. It took me literally ages to shake those goddam Grapes of Wrath – by the way, I think they MIGHT have actually been associated with that band you mentioned, does the name “Chris ‘Mister’ Hooper” mean anything to you?

I shook the group of mammary-obsessed maniacs in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, and took refuge in a homeless shelter, if it was good enough for Coleslaw, it was good enough for me. It did smell vaguely of urine, but to be quite honest, it could have been me: those Grapes of Wraths were savages, man, I tell you: and they made me a savage to boot. It wasn’t pretty.

The word twerp originally meant someone who bit bubbles of flatulence in bathtubs: isn’t that a bizarrely exact description?

Where was I?

Good lord, I haven’t even gotten to the point yet. Verbosity is not an admirable trait, Hoopla, don’t let anyone tell you different. Christ: The point: In the shelter I met a man who I thought at first to be an Al Jolson impersonator, but it turns out there was a much more simple explanation: he was simply covered from head to toe in the ashes of burned corpses.

But, let’s be perfectly honest, my good Baron, who hasn’t that happened to? On occasion?

The man’s name was Brian Jolson (it turns out he was actually Al Jolson’s grandson, but it was just a “coincidence”), he was part of a cult, or sect, or religion called the Aghori, who worship Shiva, and consider everything holy, including eating corpses, copulating with corpses, playing Five Card Stud with corpses, and swimming in shit. I don’t mind the Five Card Stud part, to be perfectly honest.

Brian cruises around looking for women on their – well, their time if you . . . get me . . . he performes tantric yoga with the women, which he describes as a sacred Aghori rite entitled “Surfing The Crimson Wave”. That’s the English phrasing for it anyway, that’s what Brian tells me. He hasn’t had much luck since I’ve been with him. Well, if you consider finding an abandoned 1978 Pinto near some railroad tracks “luck”, then he has some luck . . . but not in the area he would probably prefer.

Anyway, where was I? Right.

Money.

I need you to wire me some money, so I can get the Christ away from this freak, he’s eyeing me up rather strangely. I was well fed when with the Grapes of Wrath. Maybe too well fed.

Send money soon.

Count YooHoo, K.S.C., S.H., H.M.
Esoteric Order Of Eris, Van Vliet Cabal

Spotted In Jamaica:

2007-02-23T19:54:00.000-08:00

If I Told You...

2007-02-22T19:49:00.000-08:00

“if i told you..absolutely they would kill me…and no tin hat would save me”
– nikola tesla

the other night i was watching the demons crawl out of the woodwork again, which is why caulking is so damned important. if you caulk it hard enough and tight enough the demons can’t get out of the fucking walls and suck your one remaining eyeball right out of your head. anyway, one of these demons kind of oozed up to me and said, “thayne, old buddy. you do realize that your very own government killed nikola tesla right? they let him live long enough to drain his brains dry of every idea he ever had, and then they killed him.”

“and you’re next boy. you’re next. only they won’t keep you alive long enough for you to spit. because after all, what does the uncle sammy want with heated toilet paper, floating lawn chairs and seeing-eye armadillos? well okay, so they might like the tp idea, but you know damn well they’d keep it for the bigwigs and let the little fellows continue to freeze their nuts off, right? of course right.”

and i thought to myself, thayne, i thought, big brother is everywhere. and it’s just like the old lady always says “goddammit, leave your glass eye at home next time you go on a bender down at harold’s lounge or it’s just dejavu like when the cops haul you away and you kick the cop in the knee and they cuff your feet together so even if you kick open the back door of the cop car and try to hop away (again), the truth is the police can run faster than you when you’re cuffed at the ankles. and you know they’ll throw you back in the drunk tank where they don’t care what happened to your glass eye, or maybe they took it and spit on it or are saving it for their hallooween costumes, or for a trophy. yeah, that’s it a trophy eye hanging on the wall of the break room down at the jail. even if you get it back you don’t know where it’s been.”

so anyway, back to nikola tesla, the fucking genius who immigrated here from Serbia , and either knew transmigration or teleportation or else had tunnels under his house that led to his secret lab. but then one day he decided to do things much as an ordinary man would and got hit by a car while crossing the road and died in the street like a dog and the fbi came in and took all his papers and his secrets when they raided his place. but he got revenge and the last laugh because the fuckers tried to photograph tesla in his casket and the photo blurred and they were unable to make the camera focus on his face. there’s not one death picture of his face which is the way he wanted it. the question that begs here is this: what good is the last laugh if you’re dead?

the moral of this rant is listen to your old lady, but not her mother. leave your glass eye at home, never forget your ankles are cuffed and the man can run faster, caulk those cracks in the woodwork, dig your tunnels deep and don’t cross the road like everyone else, or the they’ll get you next.

your friend,

thayne

Discordianism And Thelema

2007-01-30T19:59:00.000-08:00

Are Discordianism and Thelema representative of emerging consensus belief in the 21st Century?

by: Tristram Burden

Introduction

The following is an analysis of two new religious movements that emerged in the 20th Century, Discordianism and Thelema. It is the authors intention to assess the cultural functions of these movements, and also to demonstrate that in the modern age of secularisation and the breaking apart of old social infrastructures (for example the family and the church), the structure, practices and particularly the philosophies of these two movements are representative of the possible future of religion and also the possible future of consensus belief, or non-belief, of western society. No attempt is made at forecasting when this change in human belief systems will occur, but certain trends will be analysed in conjunction with the tenets of Discordianism and Thelema, to demonstrate the emergence of these philosophies as an emerging standard of faith, or non-faith. A profile of each religion will be given, detailing its main tenets, how it was founded, and the practices that accompany them. The practices involved in both religions will be treated under one heading, as this involves a discussion of the current trends in Ritual Magick and Mysticism, and ties in strongly with the actual purpose of both religions.

What is Discordianism?

“If Religion is the opium of the masses, Discordianism is the marijuana of the lunatic fringe.”

In 1958, Kerry Thornley and Gregory Hill (known within the Discordian movement as, respectively, Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst and Malaclypse the Younger) were sitting drinking coffee in an all-night bowling alley, discussing the amount of confusion in their lives, when time appeared to freeze, and they perceived themselves as the only two people moving. After a sudden flash of light, and an ensuing sensation of peace and stillness, a chimpanzee holding a scroll walked into the bowling alley, and proclaimed to them the following:

“Gentlemen, 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? SOMEBODY HAD TO PUT ALL THIS CONFUSION HERE!”

Proceeding this outburst, the chimpanzee unrolled the scroll he held, on which was transcribed The Sacred Chao. The two then watched the chimpanzee explode, and they lost consciousness.

After conducting extensive research about the symbol, discovering only its relationship with the Taoist Yin-Yang, and the symbolism of the Pentagon and the golden apple inscribed with the Greek word Kalisti (To The Prettiest One), they were visited by the Goddess Eris Discordia, who told them, among other things: “Tell constricted mankind that there are no rules, unless they choose to invent rules.”

The two men then ordained each other High Priests of their own madness, and the Discordian society was created.

Discordianism has been described as either a joke disguised as a religion or a religion disguised as a joke. Such ambiguity is found throughout Discordian literature. It presents itself as a semantic meta-puzzle which all enquirers are encouraged to sift through and solve.

“The Discordian take on reality is that there is no reality as most people understand it. ‘Reality implies some kind of structure, some sort of guideposts. There is no structure. No bird, no song and no cage. And there is no goddess, so I guess this is all a waste of time. You might as well go home now.” Mao Kung Pao

The religion of Discordianism is centred upon the Greek goddess Eris, recognised by the Romans as Discordia, who acts through mediums of chaos, confusion and mayhem. This is partly a semantic attack on the idea of a male god, Yahweh or Allah, obsessed with order. The primary discourse evinced in Discordianism is that everything follows a pattern of total disorder, and that reality is entirely up to the perceiver. It is the Discordian view that the main religions in the west have been dominated by ideas of order and patriarchy, and that ideas of matriarchy and chaos deserve a chance. These are Discordian catmas, as opposed to dogmas.

Discordian Practice

“Is Eris true?”

“Everything is true.”

“Even false things?”

“Even false things are true.”

“How can that be?”

“I don’t know man, I didn’t do it.”

- Malaclypse the Younger (Gregory Hill) in conversation with Greater Poop.

The bible of the discordian movement is the “Principia Discordia, or How I found the Goddess and what I did to Her once I found Her.” Gregory Hill printed the first copies of the Principia Discordia on Dallas District Attorney Jim Garrison’s Xerox machine in 1963. It immediately achieved a wide notoriety in the subculture of the 1960’s, and became something of a cult classic. Between 1963 and the printing of the fourth edition in 1969, only 3,125 copies were sold. It has since been reprinted five times, internationally, and this serves as a possible indication of the Discordian movements membership, though this may reveal more about its popularity than actual membership. Discordianism has become particularly popular among the modern community of Chaos Magicians, to be discussed in further in part 2 of this article. Since there are no organised bodies in Discordianism, and considering that anybody can proclaim themselves or anybody else a High Priest or a saint (but not a prophet – there is a no-profit rule running through Discordianism), verifying the exact membership is close to impossible. Many, many people, it is theorized, are probably Discordian without knowing it, being proclaimed so by other Discordians – which abides entirely by the Discordian rule of no rules.

The goal of Discordianism is to confuse the time-bending semantic circuit (using Timothy Leary’s 8-cicuit model of consciousness) until a state of tabula rasa, or heightened input sensitivity, is reached, whereby the Discordian recognises that whatever one believes, one projects into the world faultlessly. Accordingly, belief is everything, and surrendering belief produces a brain state whereby everything the experiencer experiences is reinterpreted in the light of chaos.

“The Real Reality is there, but everything you know about “it” is completely in your mind and yours to do with as you like.

Conceptualisation is art, and YOU ARE THE ARTIST.

Conviction causes convicts.”

- Principia Discordia

What is Thelema?

The reader is referred to Liber Oz for a comprehensive summary of the main tenets of Thelema. The two phrases that bind these principles are “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law”, and “Love is the Law, love under will,” both of which are quotes from the Thelemic bible, The Book of the Law, referred to here as Liber Al.

Thelema is not entirely recognised as a religion (and is only refered to as such here on account of its mythic language and focus upon spiritual practice) due to the minority that espouse its doctrine. But, as will be shown below, its popularity may well be rising steadily. The religion contains echoes of Gnosticism and Hermeticism, particularly overt in its rites. To do one’s True Will, the major focus of the religion, is analogous to acquiring a daemon, in the Hermetic sense, or contact with the Higher Self in general Mystical terminology. It holds that we behave like stars (“Every man and every woman is a star.” This is very similar to Manichean tradition.), in that each individual has their own particular orbit, or path to follow, during their existence – the primary focus of existence for a Thelemite is to discover this orbit and to act entirely within this orbit. The causes of suffering in the world are a consequence of the majority of mankind existing unawares of their true orbit, and thus causing friction by interfering with other peoples orbits. To discover your True Will is identical to enlightenment in the Buddhist tradition, or attaining the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel in the modern Western Magickal Tradition. In Thelemic terms, then, to “do thy will”, is to attain a level of mystical illumination whereby the Thelemite is in unobstructed contact with his/her supra-mundane self.

The origins of the religion are tied into the work of Aleister Crowley, a man still regarded with suspicion (usually very hostile) in modern day society, but who can be regarded as simply a modern mystic in the tradition of Madame Blavatsky, G.I. Gurdjieff and Krishnamurti, even though these three, especially the latter, are regarded with less cynicism. There is no overriding reason to regard Crowley with either more or less suspicion than these mystics.

In 1903, while in Cairo with his pregnant wife, Rose, Crowley performed a magical operation designed to bring to visible appearance certain entities for Rose, who had no experience of such phenomena. The operation failed, and instead Rose fell into a trance-state. Crowley questioned her intimately, while in this trance, about the details of the Egyptian Mythos, which Rose had begun to show signs of knowing, even though she had, according to Crowley, no previous knowledge of it. The next day, while Rose still exhibited signs of being in trance, Crowley decided they both should visit Cairo’s Boulak museum, in order to further test her new-found extensive knowledge of Egyptian mythology. The god Horus was referred to in particular by Rose as requesting Crowley to perform a ritual designed to evoke him, which Crowley met with his characteristic scepticism. The exhibit number she pointed out was numbered 666 – this number had special connotations to Crowley, who had been styling himself the Beast 666 for a number of years. This and various other occurrences encouraged Crowley to take notice of what Rose was espousing. The incident culminated in 1904 when Crowley performed the invocation requested to him. The result of this was the dictation of the Book of the Law, Liber Al, by an entity known as Aiwass, and is the central text of the religion of Thelema.

The mythology used in Thelema is borrowed from Egyptian mythology, “for literary convenience” and the Revelation of St John the Divine from the Bible. The sky goddess Nuit; Hadit, a winged globe at the heart of Nuit, and Horus, the crowned and conquering child; Mega Therion, The Great Beast 666, and the Scarlet Women, Babalon, The Whore Archetype. Detailed analysis of these concepts is beyond this treatise, but the reader is discouraged from attributing classic definitions of Satanism to such concepts as The Beast 666.

Thelemic Practice

The practice of Thelema is largely the domain of people who work within the Western Magical Tradition. Two particular ‘official’ bodies are, though, existent, whose self-proclaimed mission, among other goals, is to spread The Law of Thelema. These bodies are the Ordo Templi Orientis and the Argenteum Astrum. The latter was formed from the ashes of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a quasi-Masonic society that taught Ceremonial Magick. The O.T.O. is also a Masonic society, though many different orders exist, one of which, the Typhonian O.T.O., has discarded the Masonic structure all together. In the United States, the Caliphate O.T.O. has now a tax-exempt status, making it, in US constitutions, a recognised religious organisation. There is always a steady increase in membership and the establishment of lodges. It should be bore in mind that this is a representation of only one OTO, and that other bodies do exist, on an international scale.

To be a Thelemite does not require membership of either of these orders. As the key Law to Thelema propounds, it is entirely up to the individual whether or not he or she wishes to be formally initiated into the Western Magickal Tradition. Thelemic authors like Maggie Ingalls and Kenneth Grant encourage a self-initiatory journey. There is no authority in Thelema, though some bodies of the O.T.O. are prone to elevating Crowley to the status of a god, and propounding the dogma that Crowley himself despised, as his works bear out.

Thelema is essentially a mystical doctrine, encouraging the individual to become entirely self-responsible and self-aware. This awareness is achieved through a variety of techniques, incorporating Tantrism, Yoga, Gnostic and Jewish techniques of consciousness expansion. “Do what thou wilt” is not to be confused with “do what you like”, but rather is best seen in a mystical sense as, for instance, finding the Tao. Thelema teaches that the self is the ultimate authority, which is quite contrary to both the Judeo-Christian and Muslim traditions, and to the ‘established’ hierarchical structures in society. To be a Thelemite is to exist outside the laws that govern the general populace of humanity. With this message, it is understandable why Crowley is considered such a dangerous man in modern society.

Original Link

Lookey-Likeys

2007-01-29T20:07:00.000-08:00

FROM: Ramses Colossus,
Quinti-Primi Illuminati, Hermes Trismegistus Cabal

TO: Baron von Hoopla, KSC
Esoteric Order Of Eris, Kaufman Kabal

In response to your recent query, yes, you are correct to doubt the authenticity of the video you saw, purporting to show the hanging of Saddam Hussein, it was in fact a fake. It was not really Saddam who hanged, but was instead what we in the Invisible College refer to as a “lookey-likey”.

Perhaps you have heard of the mid-90’s American film entitled Face Off?

The plot here is remarkably similar. Saddam Hussein was smuggled into the USA in 2004 CE and has his face switched with “comedian” Andy Dick, while Andy Dick had his face switched with Hussein’s, then was stuffed into the “spider hole” in Iraq. So, if Andy Dick seems to have been acting slightly erratically lately, now you know why.

And yes, it was Andy Dick who was hanged. No harm no foul, eh Hoops?

Here’s a tidbit for you and your imaginary readers: The man who fundedSaddam’s smuggling into the USA is a “lookey-like” himself . . . He was the man known to the world as Comte de St. Germain; he was the man some knew as Giuseppe Balsamo, but was better known as Count Cagliostro; he told Edgar Allen Poe that his name was Arthur Gordon Pym; some knew him as Indian Prince Dakkar, the basis for Captain Nemo; he was the inventor of the enormous airships spotted in the skies all over North America in the second half of the Nineteenth Century; he got Charles Fort interested in the paranormal; he taught Harry Houdini everything he knew; he invented rock n roll in 1948; he staged the Roswell Incident, and then headed the MJ-12 investigation into the same incident; he was the man with the umbrella at the JFK Assassination; he convinced Bob Dylan to goelectric; he turned Charlie Manson onto LSD; he introduced Timothy Learyto the 8-Circuit Model of Human Consciousness; he telepathicallycontacted both Philip K. Dick and
Robert Anton Wilson; he introduced Pierre Plantard to the concept of thePriory of Sion; he invented both Disco and Punk Music; he trained the rabid mutant amphibious rabbit which attacked President Jimmy Carter; he toldCarlos Castenada that his name was Don Juan Matus; he convinced George Lucas to make Howard the Duck; and then in 1990, when an almost unknown actor decided to kill himself after being fired from the Americansitcom Roseanne he took the man’s face, and assumed his life, in a desire to live a relaxing, life of luxury . . . that man? None other than George Clooney. Of course, his real name is WiseAss Pomal Coleslaw

Toodles,

Ramses

King Of The Booze On: BOOZE

2006-12-21T21:36:00.000-08:00

It’s around this time of the year that people around the world really begin to pay attention to my subjects: the many liquors, beers, and wines of the world. I see people raising the wrist all over town, and hear people hiccup to one another “T’is the Season!” – which warms both the cockles of my heart, and the heart of my cockles. It pleases me to know that I can in some way bring joy to people at the time of their year when they celebrate the birth of a 40th century jewish stone mason.

However, a certain story in the news which came to my attention recently has brought me some dismay – I don’t like to see my subjects besmirched in the media, after all. The story is -of course- the recent ’scandal’ surrounding Miss USA, Tara Conner. Miss Conner has been stomped from all sides by the media in the last week or so for doing no more than ‘drinking under age’ . . . something any well-rounded individual has done in their own past (easily forgotten when on the witch-hunt bandwagon). How under age was she exactly? About a week; Tara turned 21 (the abominably high legal age in most US states) this past MONDAY. She almost got dumped as Miss USA for drinking a week before her birthday.

I feel at this point it would be prudent to remind my readers that Eris is also the goddess of Bureaucracy.

My point, though, is not about her drinking under age. My point, rather, is directed at the last sentence in the most recent article I read about the incident: “Miss Conner will be entering rehab.” She will be WHAT? Entering REHAB? For drinking a WEEK before her LEGAL BIRTHDAY? What in the goddess’ name could be the point of this? Are there not hundreds, nay, THOUSANDS of people more legitimately needing rehab counseling than this poor woman? She should be drinking for krist’s sake! SHE’S 21! I don’t even remember the age of twenty-one.

This obsession with rehab has grown to monumental proportions. There are two things the people of North America love: someone entering rehab, and someone forced to apologize.

I need a drink.

Anonymous Hermit Day

2006-12-19T21:40:00.000-08:00

Today is the day when all intelligent aspiring hermits remember the life of Paul of Latrus, and vow never to repeat his mistakes. Paul had always wanted to be a hermit, ever since he was knee-high to a pariah, and had been hording hermitty things in preparation for years: lanterns, furs, nuts and berries, pornographic etchings for those long winter solstice nights . . . not to mention dreaming up strange and glorious manifestations of his chosen deity’s awesome powers; truly an important part of a hermit’s repertoire.

He was more than ready for life in solitude when he finally waved goodbye to his family and friends and trudged up the mountain to the cave which would be his home, sanctuary, and bathroom for the rest of his life; but he hadn’t anticipated the biggest problem that every prospective hermit faces: fame.

Paul found it very difficult to rinse his socks out in the nearby River Hotsauce without hordes of curious onlookers watching his every move; he was unable to meditate while standing on his head -as was his wont- without fans asking “does it make your face hot?” or “can you hear China now?”; he wasn’t able to chant through the Trumps of the Tarot without people shouting out cards which didn’t exist (like ‘Halitosis’ and ‘Stubbed-Toe’) in a deluded attempt to help him out. In short, his new career as a hermit was already the pits.

Paul had an idea. He decided the best way to get rid of the crowd of gawkers was to frighten them away with his awesome connection to the Higher Beings, and promptly began to start vomiting blood everywhere and anywhere he went. True, he was dizzy, but he felt that he would finally have the solitude he had constantly craved.

Did it work for Paul of Latrus, I can almost hear you ask . . . of course it didn’t, did you read the opening sentence? His stardom, of course, rose to heights he had never dreamed of, and he was a constant attraction in his part of the land for the rest of his life, with an entire industry built up around him: selling candy apples, pony rides, face-painting, etc.

So, let this 30th of Chico be a lesson to all prospective hermits: if you are planning to walk off into the woods to become holy, KEEP IT TO YOURSELF, dammit!

The Eris Society

2006-12-14T21:41:00.000-08:00

I stumbled across this group about a year ago, meant to look into them more, then completely forgot about it, as is my unfortunate wont. For some reason I stumbled across them again last week and decided to test the waters with them . . . they didn’t seem like the kind of group open to just anyone but I was interested to see. I suspected they couldn’t be as insufferable as the GD, but who knows?

I filled out the online application form, and was quite pleased that I was able to list “The creation of the Nation of Quebec” as one, feeling certain this would gain me access to the group. Just to be safe, I made sure to include my desire to give a speech outlining the esoteric aspects of the Carry On film series – knowing that it would cinch the deal . . .

Well, it’s been over a week and I still haven’t heard back from the Eris Society . . . I guess my initial reaction must be right, I guess they are just fat, spoiled, middle-aged hippies who feel guilty that they sold out so early and are now desperately attempting to cling to the last faded vestiges of their youthful anarchism.

I hope they read up on Eris thoroughly, though, before they decided to take her as their namesake – she has a way of dealing with people who pay only lip service.

A PSA from Wilhelm Reich:

2006-12-13T21:44:00.000-08:00

Listen, Little Man: Your heritage is a burning diamond in your hand.

See yourself as you really are. Listen to what none of your leaders and representatives dares tell you: You are a “little, common man.” Understand the double meaning of these words: “little” and “common.”

You are afflicted with the emotional plague. You are sick, very sick, Little Man. It is not your fault. But it is your responsibility to rid yourself of this sickness.

You confuse the right to free speech and to criticism with irresponsible talk and poor jokes. He who has to protect the living against the emotional plague has to learn to use the right to free speech as we enjoy it in America at least as well for the good as the emotional plague misuses it for the bad. Granted equal right in the expression of opinion, the rational finally must win out.

What is important is not individual treatment but the prevention of mental disorders. You have locked up the crazy people, and the normal people manage this world. Who, then, is to blame for all the misery?

You have begun to play a governing role on this earth. It is on your thinking and your actions that the future of humanity depends. You give impotent people with evil intentions the power to represent you. Only too late do you realize that again and again you are being defrauded. You must come to realize that you make your little men your own oppressors, and that you made martyrs out of your truly great men.

You are different from the really great man in only one thing: The great man knows when and in what he is a little man. The little man does not know that he is little, and he is afraid of knowing it.

For you are afraid of life, Little Man, deadly afraid. You will murder it in the belief of doing it for the sake of “socialism,” or “the state,” or “national honor,” or “the glory of God.”

I recognized the deadly fear of the living in you, a fear which always makes you set out correctly and end wrongly. You had the happiness of humanity in your hands, and you have gambled it away. You had the world in your hands, and at the end you dropped your atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Through the centuries, you will shed blood where life should be protected, and will believe that you achieve freedom with the help of the hangman; thus you will find yourself again and again in the same morass.

I found what makes you a slave: YOU ARE YOUR OWN SLAVE-DRIVER. I have ceased to be willing to die for your freedom to be anybody’s slave. I tell you: Only you yourself can be your liberator!

You yourself create all your misery, hour after hour, day after day. You think the goal justifies the means. You are wrong: The goal is in the path on which you arrive at it. Every step of today is your life of tomorrow. You stand on your head and you believe yourself dancing into the realm of freedom.

You could have long since become the master of your existence, if only your thinking were in the direction of truth. You are cowardly in your thinking, Little Man, because real thinking is accompanied by bodily feelings, and you are afraid of your body. Many great men have told you: Go back to your origin – listen to your inner voice – follow your true feelings – cherish love.

The kindly individual believes that all people are kindly and act accordingly. The plague individual believes that all people lie, swindle, steal and crave power. Clearly, then, the living is at a disadvantage and in danger.

There is only one antidote to the germs of the emotional plague in the mass individual: his own feeling of living life. The living does not ask for power but for its proper role in human life. It is based on the three pillars of love, work and knowledge.

You beg for happiness in life, but security is more important to you, even if it costs you your spine or your life. Your life will be good and secure when aliveness will mean more to you than security; love more than money; your freedom more than party line or public opinion; when your thinking will be in harmony with your feelings; when the teachers of your children will be better paid than the politicians; when you will have more respect for the love between man and woman than for a marriage license.

You will no longer believe that you “don’t count.” You will know and advocate your knowledge that you are the bearer of human society. Don’t run away. Don’t be afraid. It is not so terrible to be the responsible bearer of human society. Inflated leaders would have no soldiers and no arms if you clearly knew, and stood up for your knowledge, that a field has to yield wheat and a factory furniture or shoes, and not arms. All you have to do is to continue what you have always done and always want to do: to do your work, to let your children grow up happily, to love your mate.

You are GREAT, Little Man, when you are not small and petty. You are great when you carry on your trade lovingly, when you enjoy carving and building and painting and decorating and sowing, when you enjoy the blue sky and the deer and the dew and music and dancing, your growing children and the beautiful body of your woman or your man, when you learn to understand and think about life. You are great when you hold your grandchildren on your knees and tell them about times long past, when you look into an uncertain future with their trusting childlike curiosity, when you lull your newborn to sleep, when you sing the good old folk songs.

Follow the voice of your heart, even if it leads you off the path of timid souls. Do not become hard and embittered, even if life tortures you at times. There is only one thing that counts:

to live one’s life well and happily.

excerpt from “Listen, Little Man” by Wilhelm Reich, 5948 YD

Dissecting Movie Quotes

2006-11-27T21:48:00.000-08:00

It has been said by many so-called ‘adepts’ that big-T Truth can be found anywhere, if you know where to look for it. With that in mind, I decided to contemplate my favourite movie quote of all time, as seemingly inane as it is, which is from ‘The Shining’(1980), and is: “Pink and Gold are my favorite colors.”

The quotation wouldn’t be inappropriate as a code used to express interest in matters of alchemical knowledge, as the sentence expresses just such an interest in a somewhat vague, but still rather direct manner:

The sentence is a formula for the alchemical method of enlightenment. The colours are obviously the central point of the quote, which is apt as colour was so important to ancient alchemists since before the advent of modern chemistry the changing of colour often provided the only proof of transformation in an experiment.

While pink is often associated with strictly feminine principles it actually represents, in alchemy, the union of opposites: red, the kingly colour, is associated with sulphur and the sun; while white is the feminine, the queen of the opus, associated with mercury and the moon. Together, joined in union, they are pink – this is literally the motto ‘Solve et Coagula’ at work.

Gold is more obviously linked to alchemy for the average cabbage on the street, being the known goal of transmutationists throughout history, but Carl Jung, in “Psychology and Alchemy”, launched a bold attack on the notion of alchemy as a quest for physical gold; he claimed the alchemists were perpetually using code and riddle to disguise the true goal: philosophical gold (lapis aethereus).

So, ‘gold’ is essentially the desired end product of the alchemical quest, and ‘pink’ is the method to obtain the ‘gold’. The formula is complete.

Grab Your Pens and Paper: "The Definition"

2006-11-24T21:49:00.000-08:00

“When someone says “I identify as Discordian,” or whatnot, that is a short, buzz-wordy way of saying, “if you want to know who I am and what I am about, you’re gonna have to ask me directly. I am not a definition in a book, I am not a collective, I am not a broad brushstroke of society. I will not be sorted, filed, stamped, briefed, de-briefed, or numbered.”

-LMNO

The Esoteric Significance Of "Inky Pinky Ponky"

2006-11-14T06:16:00.000-08:00

by: LMNO

Inky Pinky Ponky
Daddy bought a donkey.
Donkey died, Daddy cried.
Inky Pinky Ponky

There are a plethora of Twos rampant in this Epic Chant: The lead line (three words) is repeated (twice), and the words “Donkey” and “Daddy” are also repeated.

Please notice, five words, twice repeated. So much for the Law of Fives.

So, Two on the Tree of life is Chockma, Wisdom. The magical image is the Bearded Patriarch– this is obviously the “Daddy” of the Screed.

What did Wisdom do? It bought a Donkey. The donkey, of course is the talking donkey of Balaam in the Book of Numbers. This donkey quailed before YHWH, and was beaten by Balaam, for he did not see. In this, we can easily see that Wisdom is blind to the Lord, and only the stubborn nature can push through the suffering of life to achieve enlightenment.

The death of the Donkey then, is the death of the spirit in the face of the material world. Surely, wisdom must weep when it is overcome by the mundane.

America’s Next Top Discordian

2006-10-31T14:49:00.000-08:00

Score another one for individuality! The BRAVO! Channel has just announced its next entry into the increasingly saturated reality-tv contest market with it’s newest mid-season replacement: America’s Next Top Discordian, starting January 5, 2007.

Contestants have not been announced at this date, and it is unclear where try-outs were held at this point, but the decidedly unconventional judges panel announced is already raising eyebrows in the Discordian/Erisian/Mummuian/SubGenii community: The three (as yet unconfirmed) judges of the “do-your-own-thing-boldly-loudly-and-hopefully-annoyingly” program are a wheelchair-bound Robert Anton Wilson, drag queen superstar RuPaul Charles, and hopefully taking the Simon Cowell ‘crusty judge’ place in the panel is the founder of the Church Of The SubGenius, Rev. Ivan Stang.

No word at this point about what the winner of the contest would claim as a prize, but reliable rumor is naming the country of Chad as a top contender.

America’s Next Top Discordian will run at Mondays at 9pm EST, and Sunday afternoons at 2pm EST.

Official Illuminati Correspondence?

2006-10-30T14:49:00.000-08:00

To Hoopla:

THIS CORRESPONDENCE IS NOT INTENDED TO BE POSTED ON YOUR WEB LOG.

We have been monitoring your weblog for a long period of time, and feel it necessary to let you know that whomever is conversing with you under the moniker of the Illuminati is lying to you. There is only one Illuminati. There is nobody in our ranks with the name Ramses Colossus. So, unless you are writing the letters yourself you are being lied to.

The New World Order is a reality. It is being implemented slowly as I type this.

9/11 was just the first obvious step, there were several trials in the past which were successful.

Humanity has become much more ‘cabbagized’ than any of you ‘discordians’ even realize. Television was introduced to the public when it was realized how easily it induced a trance-state. The population of the world is being beamed the plans for our future one-world government at all times, in all programs.

Flying saucers are just the beginning.

Look to the stars.

Look to the rising sun.

We are everywhere.

Pay no attention to correspondences from others claiming to be the Illuminated Seers.

Pay very close attention to everything.

KING FELIX
ILLUMINATI

A Seinfeldian Moment

2006-10-27T14:50:00.000-07:00

I had a rather Seinfeldian moment yesterday afternoon when I was in the coffee break room of the Head Temple of the Esoteric Order Of Eris with Dharma Jam. I was laughing about the paranoia now running rampant on a certain pagan message board I had been spending time on recently, and telling her how they had deleted an alt I had created (based on the Pumpkinite who attempted to abduct Count YooHoo in the summer) despite the fact that they had no evidence it was actually me.

“Can you image the nerve of banning someone because they thought it was me, but with no evidence?” I laughed.

“But, it IS you.” she stated, as she finished a crossword with one hand. In ink.

“Yes,” I said. “but, they don’t KNOW that. It’s really nervy. I’m going to have Faux Sloatman write a letter of outrage.”

“But,” she said again. “It IS YOU.”

I smiled. “I’m all types of people.”

For Those OF You Just Tuning In...

2006-10-20T14:51:00.000-07:00

There is only one goddess, she is your goddess. Her name is Eris, and she’s crazy.

Aren’t we all?

She brings you a message:
You are free. Verily, you are as free as you choose to be. The rules of your society were created by you, not by the Multiverse. Follow them, or follow them not; but never forget they are your own creations, or surely they will crush you. Think for yourself. Wear a hat. Carry a big stick, just in case. I just flew in on the Noon Balloon from Banana City, thank you and good night.

May You Have Bats In Your Belfry Forevermore!