And yet such a pursuit was very difficult because of something fundamental in my belief system, I don't believe in spirits. Or more so, I don't believe in the metaphysical, I believe that all that exists is the physical, it's interactions and the abstraction of those interactions. Not believing in anything spiritual or supernatural makes becoming more spiritual pretty much impossible, or so I thought. In my soul searching I came across a religion I had not heard of, something that was truly unlike any religion I've ever seen before. It was a religion that was almost impossible to grasp and extremely difficult to learn about, but this to me made the religion more like a puzzle which made it even more interesting. Over time this religion became something more than a curiosity, starting off as something simply funny and now becoming, maybe, a true religion that I believe in. I'm talking about Discordianism.
What is Discordianism?
I had thought about writing this article for a long time but I kinda always hit a wall at this part, because Discordianism is really hard to describe. There is the literal history of the religion which I could talk about, the internal lore and the philosophy but none of this really grasps the Discordian mindset, a sort of feeling that's not so easy to describe. But for now these things will have to do.
The literal history of Discordianism is kinda unremarkable. In the 1960s two people under the pseudonym Omar Ravenhurst and Malaclypse the Younger decided to take it upon themselves to invent a parody religion. The religion was designed to make fun of contemporary religions at the time, particularly Christianity, by inventing a sorta counter-culture religion, an anti-religion. It is designed to be funny and not take things seriously, particularly it is designed embrace the absurd and the banal. The two wrote down this new religion into a book called the "Principia Discordia". The original writings of this book has since been lost to time with no original copies still existing, so the Principia that you see now is simply a retelling from what people original got from the book. Anyway the book, and the religion, spread like wild fire and actually resulted in quite a movement in the 1960's.
But how does a parody religion go from being a parody religion to an actual religion with real believers? This is in part because of it's unique philosophy on life and the universe. I should first mention that the biggest tenant of the religion is to not take anything, including the religion itself, too seriously. A hot dog is the holy food of the religion and the Principia itself is littered with jokes and self-aware paradox. People who take things too seriously are usually referred to as "Greyface", and while this is usually taken antagonistically it is never with scorn, because you can't take "not taking things seriously" too seriously either.
I think that comes to the philosophy of Discordianism which is fundamentally about chaos. Chaos is taken as holy in Discordianism and is taken as the true state of all things and the state to strive towards. This however creates some interesting paradoxes such as, if everyone is striving to chaos isn't that a form of order? Instead of shying away from these paradoxes Discordianism actively embraces them and says "Yes, ye Saint, nay shall one strive only for chaos, for chaos without order can become an order and so one must strive to be truly chaotic by rejecting chaos when it suits" (not an actual quote). So discordianism is actively a religion about paradox and confusion and so it actively hammers down on these paradoxes tenfold, which is why the religion is so hard to explain. For example the five rules of Discordianism, known as the pentabarf, are contradictory and one of the unspoken rules is to actively not follow any of these rules (including this unspoken rule itself). The discordian humour is both in its parody of the occult and it's self aware logical inconsistencies. Again it's hard to explain. Luckily there is a more traditional theological story to go with it.
Our Goddess Eris
Discordianism does have a deity, the Greek goddess Eris or (to the Roman's) Discordia. The original version of Discordianism effectively followed the same myths the Greeks had about Eris, namely the Judgement of Paris. In this Greek story, Eris, the godddess of discord, was not invited to a wedding between Peleus and Thetis because Zeus believed Eris would just cause trouble (to Discordians this is known as "The Great Snub"). Eris, angered by this, created a golden apple inscribed with the words "Th Kallisti" (which roughly translates to "The most beautiful" or "The most fair"), she then throws this Apple of Discord into the crowd at the wedding. Three goddesses fight over the apple each believing the apple belongs to them and through a series of events this leads to the war of Sparta and Troy, the first human war. While in the original Greek myth Eris is seen as evil and an antagonist, the Discordian perspective sees her as an endearing protagonist, bringing mischief and true chaos to the world.
Discordianism however is a religion about chaos and so this traditional narrative is not necessarily always followed, nor is it encouraged to be followed. In fact originally, Malaclypse the Younger did not believe Eris to be a real goddess (like Omar did) but instead a personification of true chaos in this universe, a philosophical idea as opposed to a true deity (something I subscribe to). Furthermore the original mythos has been widely discussed and new additions have been added, particularly the introduction of Harmonia, goddess of order and harmony (also a Greek deity, though in some texts Harmonia is also Eris). One thing that is now often accepted and alluded to in the original text is the distinction between disorder and chaos. The general idea is that there exists true chaos, a fundamental uncertainty at the brink of the universe that has no form or function but simply is. Arising from this true chaos is "Order" (personified in Harmonia) and "Disorder" (personified in Eris) which are apparent manifestations interpreted by humans. And while most religions embrace the order, discordianism instead embraces the disorder.
Funnily enough this distinction of order, disorder and chaos actually has some reflection of true modern physics. Quantum Mechanics, for example, is fundamentally chaotic and indeterminate as an observed system in a quantum superposition will "collapse" to one of it's states randomly. This apparent randomness is fundamental and is not explained any further in QM, only that it simply exists, this is the pure chaos. However, the nature of the chaos is well defined and behaves orderly, this means that statistically these chaotic events will cancel out and create an apparent order (like what is classical physics). However this order also creates numerous interactions that can become hard to describe in real world systems, this is a form of disorder that is also fundamental in physics. Order, Disorder and Chaos are all described here and are fundamental, but the most fundamental is the initial, unknowable, chaos. And don't even get me started on the nature of entropy.
The In Jokes
So that's a bit about the philosophy and theology of Discordianism, but as I stated this only really scratches the surfaces. Because this religion is fundamentally disorganized there's not some single location that explains everything, discordianism is a sort of unspoken culture full of in jokes. Some of these in jokes are fully described in the Principia and the illuminatus trilogy (a fictional story being heavily influenced by Discordianism), this includes things like the rule of 5's (everything comes in 5's, or is somehow related to 5's) and fnord (a word that exists everywhere but people are simply conditioned to never notice it). Some of these in jokes are a little harder to describe, one is kinda a concept of saying things that don't make sense but sound like they make sense, kinda like speaking similar to zen proverbs. Others are more systematic, like operation mindfuck which was a massive culture jamming movement of the 1960's and 1970's and to create countless ridiculous and satirical conspiracy theories (particularly relating the illuminati).
Some people truly and wholly believe in this religion, including the theological aspects of the religion. Some people incorporate the philosophy of the religion into their paganistic views, practicing magicks in the name of discord. Others, like me, take the religion to scratch a spiritual itch and to encompass the philosophy of embracing chaos and not taking things too seriously into our daily lives. The religion started off as a silly satirical religion, but given that is decentralized and chaotic it is only natural for it to evolve into something it was not intended originally. Discordianism is a parody religion that evolved into a true unique philosophy and a true religion that has many followers to this day.
While I didn't put Discordianism on the census, I'd still consider myself a follower of this religion, in whatever respects that mean.
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