"You know you're close to understanding Chaos when you either see it everywhere or nowhere, but you're not sure which."
-from the Summa Discordia
Whether we whine and complain or laugh and smile, Eris claims us all just the same. Just don't fall under the dangerous assumption that She wants everyone else in this world. She only really wants those who will laugh at Greyfaces and dance with witches and convince the followers of other religions that they are really the most despicable mind-shackling spiritual hucksters...but they are still fragments of the truth. After all, truth is on sale at your latest news stand or on the electronic highway. Hell, those other religions buy and sell their little truths too, all the while trying to convince you that their little truths are in fact the Whole Holy Greatest Truth(tm) . They really only do this because they are insecure. Whereas we like to mess about because we know the secret that there are no secrets but that mysteries are supposed to stun and amaze and confuse you. Especially the mysteries we carefully craft and peddle to the general population.
We like to engage the general population since we are trying to get the rest of the Discordians who are hiding to come out of their closets and play with us. Why should Eris have all the fun? Especially since She likes to share the proverbial wealth so fluently. But don't confuse us in the Erisian Movement with all of those other "slut religions" who will take any and all comers so long as they check their minds at the door and sell their souls to certain deities and/or mythological figures for a little piece of some pie in the sky. We refuse any and all cabbages, no matter how human they look. (Which is why we always ask the famous "You're not a cabbage, or something?" when initiating people. But you already knew that.)
And yes, we do make fun of any and all religions that get so caught up their own seriousness. We even make fun of Islam, though we tend to keep those activities under wraps because in today's world climate it has proven harmful to one's health to even talk the smallest shit about the Muslims. (We want them to know that chaos gets them all in the end just like the rest of humanity, no matter what was written down by so-and-so.) We like ribbing the monotheist trinity (Islam/Judaism/Christianity) only because they are prophet religions whereas we are a non-Prophet irreligion....and you are all messiahs and mad prophets anyway. All these other religions like making enemies out of everyone anyway, but we should firmly remind them that all of our opposition is to be illuminated. (And if the other religions don't want to play nicely, we will illuminate them with electrical appliances and cayenne pepper.) But I have digressed, as is usual, again.
Chaos is about being comfortable in one's own skin, regardless of whether or not you can conceptualize or believe in something. Belief is not important at all, except for believers. Chaos is the name for the oldest most ancient aspects of reality. Fear of that is inculcated into the nervous systems of our species by those who have every real reason to keep us afraid and therefore in line and obedient. Like the old Taoists of Classical China, or the Socratic philosophers of Classical Greece, or the Druids of Celtic Europe, or the witches and the shamans, there are many who choose to think for themselves and not flee chaos. Such people retrain themselves by deprogramming all the crap that gets shoved into our minds and hearts. We Discordians are here to help you in your deprogramming. (Though some of us have to admit we only do it for the humor-value. Blame Eris, if you want.) You know all about this crap. It's the shit that says you must think, believe, and feel certain ways about certain prefabricated dogmatic positions. Accept Jesus or go to hell. (But some Jesus people argue with other Jesus people about the ways to go about it. Back in the old days, they used to kill each other over such disagreements.) Submit to Allah or either go to hell or get blown up. (Hell, judging from the behaviors of some people in Islam, you can still get blown up no matter how much you submit to Allah.) Then there are the ideologies like "overthrow the capitalist/imperialist/fascist pigs or suffer in misery forever" and other such semantically manipulative traps. What does Eris say about all of this? She says "You Are Free." So you don't have to listen or get manipulated into subscribing to such inane and immature "either/or" thought prisons.
Chaos is about everything and nothing, whether or not you think that either one of those can exist. Our Goddess of Chaos, Eris, gives you license to do as you wish and to think for yourself and all that, but She doesn't like assholes. Neither do we. Think back to what happened on Olympus over 3171 years ago. Think back to what She did to the Roman Empire in the 400's...a little payback for what the Roman senate did to Julius Caesar, one of the most famous Discordian Romans in history. Think about all the private lines of bullshit She feeds to those who deny Her existence or who hate the fact that LIFE cannot be squeezed into the pre-conceived molds of people's myths and religious antics and rules and so-called revealed truths. All of these other religions and ideologies have been so thoroughly inundated with cabbages that they all sound like Greyfaces now. Sometimes we think that our only duty to the people who fall into such bullshit is to give them as much rope as they need to hang themselves, figuratively of course. (Since we are not in the business of depriving anyone of their Eris-given rights to life, laughter, and healthy confusion. Which is a lot better than what the other religions do.) We are chaos and we are free. And as the Age of Bureaucracy gets ground up in our misinformation multiplication party, societies everywhere will drift back to some sort of humanity in the Aftermath. Helping this come about is part and parcel of what we are about in this outfit known as the Discordian Society or the Erisian Movement (and a host of other silly titles and cabals that read like the end of a Robert Anton Wilson novel).
And yes, we Discordians do have this all figured out. Why else do you find so many contradictions, hidden jokes and put-ons in our writings? If your pineal gland is glowing and opened up to life, you will see that this is how the universe/multiverse is, regardless of whether you agree with the way I am putting it into words. And besides all that, if you have some other important info about chaos that I or any other of us have neglected to mention or have overlooked...you are free to rant and form your own sects as you wish. Why jump on someone else's bandwagon when you have your own fricken air-conditioned tour bus anyway?
Be silly and know thy chaos.
-Irreverend Hugh, KSC
July 8th, 2005
Rant 93
Rants Vol. 2 Index