Discordian Works: Wikipedia article

This article was on Wikipedia as of 16 Confusion 3172--but for how long? After being
up for just a couple of weeks, it's already being considered for deletion. Why? The
answer is the same one that we give for anything that looks like it's against us: The
Agents of Greyface. Just have faith. Goddess loves us, so if anything goes wrong,
blame it on The Agents of Greyface. Who needs to think when you can fall back on
that? (See note at top right)

Some of this is derived from the now-deleted article k-sen-trik-kuh Discordia, and not
all of it is accurate. We give it an accuracy rating of 9 out of 10, which is pretty darn
good. To see who all contributed to the article, see the artcle's history--assuming it's
still there. (We reformatted this slightly to fit our own devious purposes).

See the current Wikipedia article on Discordian Works (if it still exists--if not, create it!)
Discordian Works
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The most famous Discordian works are probably Principia Discordia, first published in
1965 (which includes portions of The Honest Book of Truth); and The Illuminatus!
Trilogy, which had its first volume published in 1975. But a number of Discordian
works have followed, particularly in the 21st Century. These recent works include
Book 5 (The Zenarchist's Cookbook), The Book of the Apocalypso, The Book of
Chaos and It's Virtues, The Book of Eris, The Book of Inconveniences, The Book of
Life (Discordianism), Jonesboria Discordia, Metaclysmia Discordia, Novus Ordo
Discordia, Principia Entropius, Principia Harmonia, and Summa Discordia. There is
even A Discordian Coloring Book. Probably the most famous of the newer works are
Apocrypha Discordia and Ek-sen-trik-kuh Discordia: The Tales of Shamlicht, also
known as “The Two Apocryphas.”

Summa Universalia

While Principia Discordia is often said to be the seminal Discordian work, the book
itself disagrees, at least in its first edition. That claims to have taken material from an
earlier work, Summa Universalia. (This includes the famous and long-missing The
Myth of Ichabod, more popularly known as The Myth of Starbuck, which was recently
uncovered in the John F. Kennedy archives). The work isn't mentioned at all in the
Fourth Edition of Principia Discordia, the only edition in common distribution (other
than the one-page "fifth edition" included in some versions of the fourth edition). It's
unknown whether this is an actual work, or was an early Discordian concept that was
never completed.

Novus Ordo Discordia

Novus Ordo Discordia, or The Gospel of St. Pesher, The Gardener, was created by
writer and roleplaying game creator S. John Ross. It's a short work of under 4,000
words, but contains several sections. Among these are About The Big Erisian
Ministry, The Mobile Illuminated Chapel of Discord, and The Garden of the King/Rain
of Flowers, which is a story about St. Pesher the Gardener.

The story begins

Pesher lived in a City, a dreary maze of concrete and glass where the legacy

of Greyface was ubiquitous.

Pesher was a gardener for the City's King, a bitter and pained champion of all

that is old and tried and in accordance with things that are also old and tried.

Pesher the Gardener had been hired because he had a magic with growing

things, and could make them green, when all the King could do was make

things become ashen and die.

The conflict between Pesher, the poor man who brings beauty, and the King, a rich
man who brings death, leads to an ironic twist and a moral seen in the fate of the
garden.

The work contains another moral in the form of a quote:

Don't Wake Up, If You Aren't Finished With The Dream. - St. Pesher

The Two Apocrypha Discordias

The concept for a sequel to Principia Discordia came as Steve Jackson Games was
preparing its 1994 edition of the work. According to that edition's introduction,
someone on the net (Russel Dalenberg on the usenet group rec.games.board)
suggested they publish an Apocrypha Discordia if they got enough material in the
true Discordian spirit. Several people sent submissions, but the company never
published the book.

But the title was used by two collections, one compiled by Rev. DrJon Swabey, and
the other an “evolving work” edited by Reverend Loveshade. Swabey’s collection was
completed in 2001, and the title of Loveshade’s work was changed to Ek-sen-trik-
kuh Discordia in late 2005. In May 2006, the subtitle The Tales of Shamlicht was
added to it. While a number of other Discordian works have appeared since 2001,
based on Internet searches these two are the most popular to appear in the 21st
Century.

Ek-sen-trik-kuh Discordia: The Tales of Shamlicht

The collection Ek-sen-trik-kuh Discordia (recently subtitled The Tales of Shamlicht)
is an evolving Discordian and personist work written primarily by Reverend
Loveshade with members of the Discordian Division of the Ek-sen-triks CluborGuild
and the Mythics of Harmonia, who created Principia Harmonia. It mixes humor and
absurdism with serious philosophy, promotes freedom including nudism and sexual
freedom, and stands against various forms of prejudice and discrimination including
sexism and, controversially, ageism. The collection features factual articles about
topics including animal sex, myths, humor, artwork, poetry, the Smagmoid Kids Club,
songs, quotes, and other material.

Whereas Apocrypha Discordia is a collection of pieces from various sources, most of
the material in the Ek-sen-trik-kuh was created specifically for the work. The book
claims its inspiration came from a dream-vision that featured Goddess Discordia, her
sister Goddess Harmonia, and their daughter, the naked Cherub Princess Shamlicht,
who had hundreds of monkeys flying out of her butt. These were actually Bonobo
apes, who gave their tales to Loveshade to first digest, and then to “spread them far
and wide, for digested flying monkey tales make great fertilizer.”

One of the included pieces is “The Myth of Starbuck” (originally called “The Myth of
Ichabod”) from the long-missing first edition of Principia Discordia. Ironically, it was
Swabey, who also features it on his site, who worked to get the story released.

He, She, or E?

The work promotes personism by the use of the word “e” and its various forms as a
genderless substitute for “he” or “she.”

e (pronounced the same as letter “e;” rhymes with “she” and “he”): Used

instead of “she” or “he.” A person. Examples: E went to the store and bought a

pineapple.

es (usually said to rhyme with “his,” but can be pronounced “eez”): Used

instead of “her” or “his” as a possessor or agent. Example: Who tried to steal

es pineapple?

em (rhymes with “him” or “m”): Substitute for “her” or “him;” pronoun objective

case. Example: When The Agents of Greyface tried to take it from em, e hit

them with five tons of flax.

emself (rhymes with “himself,” or can be pronounced to rhyme with the letter

“m” and “self”): Substitute for herself or himself; used reflexively, in absolute

constructions and for emphasis. Examples: Did e throw the five tons all by

emself? No, fool, e didn’t do it emself; e had help from a strong head wind.

Five Basic Beliefs

The work adopted the “Five Basic Beliefs” of The Loveshade Family. These are:

ONE: We believe in the rights of an individual to be treated as an individual by
society.

TWO: We believe in the responsibility of the individual to society.

THREE: We believe in the rights of a child to be raised in a loving, supportive and
disciplined manner to prepare that child for life, and in the responsibility of caregivers
to provide that environment.

FOUR: We believe in personal freedom, in a free society, if it harms no one.

FIVE: We believe in the principle of discordia concurs or “harmonic discord,” that
accepting differences and conflicting elements to achieve harmony is greater than
excluding differences to achieve unity.

Five Blind Men and an Elephant

Perhaps the best known piece in the collection is "Five Blind Men and an Elephant."
This is a Discordian version of an old Indian tale, and appears in the 1995 online
Non-Existent Apocrypha Discordia, the 2001 Apocrypha Discordia (a distinct work--
this story is the only piece found in both versions), Apocrypha Diskordia (German
translation of the 2001 version), in addition to Ek-sen-trik-kuh Discordia: The Tales
of Shamlicht.

In this story, five blind men examine an elephant, but each feels only one part. The
tusk-toucher says the elephant is like a spear, the leg-feeler says it's like a tree, etc.
A blind, self-proclaimed Discordian oracle feels the entire elephant, and plans to
profit from the mens' foolishness. (See the whole story at "Five Blind Men and an
Elephant".)

Child pornography, illegal drugs and terrorism

According to several websites (some of which are listed below), an early version of
the work was seized by authorities, and the Discordian Division of the Ek-sen-triks
CluborGuild that created it was the subject of a national and possibly international
investigation by the American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and several
other law enforcement and government agencies. This was for alleged crimes
ranging from promoting child pornography and illegal drugs to sexual predation to
consorting with terrorists. According to the work’s official website, the investigation
stemmed from information on terrorism and the American government that the group
gathered surreptitiously; postings and letters made after the September 11, 2001
terrorist attack in America that claimed governments were a bigger threat to freedom
than terrorists (including “Stripping Away American Freedom: A Call to Action"); the
group’s promotion of nudism for all ages, including children; and their stand against
ageism, using “an arbitrary age” to determine when a person was old enough to drink
alcohol, drive, raise children, and most controversial of all, engage in sexual activity.
The site claims all investigations were eventually dropped, and all seized material
was eventually returned by the FBI and other agencies.

An index search of several websites do have a verifiable date stamp showing that
discussions of the group's legal problems go back to December of 2001 ("Stripping
Away American Freedom") and January 30, 2002 (Illuminatus Inner Sanctum). (While
the dates listed on posted items can be faked, the date stamp appearing in a
website's index can be used as admissible evidence in international courts--for
example, to prove who first claimed a domain name). Whether the legal problems are
real or part of a hoax is uncertain.

See also

A Discordian Coloring Book
Apocrypha Discordia
Blind Men and an Elephant
Book 5 (The Zenarchist's CookBook)
Discordianism
Principia Discordia

External links

Novus Ordo Discordia: The Gospel of St. Pesher, The Gardener

First mention of the title Apocrypha Discordia, on the rec.games.board newsgroup on
March 16, 1994

Excerpts from Reverend Loveshade's 1995 online Non-Existent Apocrypha Discordia

BloodStar's original site of the 1990s "non-existent" Apocrypha Discordia which
became Ek-sen-trik-kuh Discordia

Ek-sen-trik-kuh Discordia: The Tales of Shamlicht Homepage

Wikisource: "Five Blind Men and an Elephant" by Reverend Loveshade

George_W_Bust's post of February 14, 2003, discussing Reverend Loveshade's
arrest

Lorien Loveshade’s Crib featuring portions of her seized diary

POEE UK, spiritual home of Synaptyclypse Generator Sect

Home of Synaptyclypse Generator Publishing

“Stripping Away American Freedom: A Call to Action,” by Reverend Loveshade,
dated December 1, 2001

Logical Reality, which discusses the ageism, legal and sexual issues dealt with in Ek-
sen-trik-kuh Discordia: The Tales of Shamlicht