Many people like to believe Hesiod (that old Greek writer) when he wrote that there were two deities called Eris; one a spur in your side to get you off your ass; the other a violent and angry war-causing spiteful power that strikes fear into the hearts of humankind—or probably just ‘mankind’ as women usually had no reason to fear Eris. However, Hesiod was just fiddling around with semantics. We know both descriptions of Eris are about one and the same being. And She is your Goddess. Of course, the description of Her being the one who spurs you to get off your ass, fits well with modern Discordian ideas, in as much as it can be said that we have ideas, in as much as it can be said that ideas can be possessed. But we know that the angry spiteful description of Eris fits Her as well. Snub Her and watch how She gets. (I must add that insulting Her really doesn’t anger Her, especially if you are one of Her Children, and She sort of expects that sort of thing from people going around calling themselves Discordians anyway.) Hesiod, though ancient and long dead, really didn’t know what he was talking about, and his mindfuck, while possibly effective back when he wrote, has no effect on we Discordians today. Though it might still be useful to use on THEM.

Let’s forget about Hesiod. In keeping with the law of fives, or something of that sort, there may be five main aspects of Erisian manifestations or visitations; Chaos, discord, confusion, bureaucracy, and the aftermath. Chaos being Eris’s usual aspect of laugh-happy freedom and the dynamic balance between creative order and disorder—the Hodge and the Podge. Discord being what happens when Eris and/or Her Children are snubbed, ignored, or attacked—Eris gets angry and She gets even, and so does Her Children. Confusion can be considered both the result of this discord started by Eris and Her Children (otherwise known as ‘us’), and the result of THEM—the snubbers, etc.—trying to manage the ‘problem’. But we know THEY can’t really manage the problem now, can THEY? Because of this confusion, THEY start to make laws, procedures, and ideas to cover every possibility in a feverish attempt to use confusion to get out of confusion, a.k.a. bureaucracy—and it’s because of ‘us’ that THEY do so. Of course bureaucracy is Eris simply making THEM look silly, and we are, of course, in on this gag. Eris also gets us to stuff the society at large with so many papers, files, reports, revelations, and ideas. So many uncategorizable damned things start popping up everywhere that society at large must use vast resources (such as paper or file space) to try to keep up. (Remember that when faced with Eris’s bureaucracy aspect of confusion trying to solve confusion, THEY begin to go bananas, whereas ‘we’ tend to laugh.) It is inevitable that the bureaucracy becomes so large and unwieldy by THEM that THEY begin to succumb to Eris’s whispers or shouts of freedom—the aftermath being the aspect of Eris turning on the pineal gland. Many of THEM become ‘us’ and do not even know it, unless we tell THEM. Or Eris tells THEM.

-Irreverend Hugh (from the Rant/Sermon called Erisianity)