“My priests in Joppa are faithful. I will speak to them in dreams and omens. –Dame Maggie Smith as Thetis
Please find below an online conversation between me and Chase, which took place after I posted about one of the Discordian Holidays.
Chase: “So what is Discordianism? I’ve heard of a lot of things in passing, but never of this.
Me: “Discordianism was founded in the late 50s by these two guys who had a spiritual experience in a bowling alley and decided to start worshiping Eris, the Greek goddess of discord. It’s basically a parody religion for conspiracy theorists.
Chase: “Well, that looks delicious.”
Me: “He has his moments. It attracts a lot of really fun and hysterical people, as well as a twinkle of fascist butterflies.
Chase: “That seems okay, from what I imagined.”
Me: “Before, there was a Discordian community in Houston, but it broken a few months before quitting drinking. Eris was most likely saving me from myself. Again.”
Chase: “Fun fact – all my knowledge of Eris stems from The Sinister Adventures of Billy and Mandy, where they constantly featured her at odds with the Grim Reaper. All she really did was show up, yell ‘Chaos’, and the bikinis followed.”
Chase: “Hijinks followed, that is. Not bikinis.
Chase: “However, she was wearing bikini-style yoga, so I’m not entirely wrong.”
Hunting: “Yoga”.
Chase: “Yoga.”
Chase: “TOGA”.
Nuke: “GO WALK YOURSELF, SIRI. I SAID WHAT I SAID.”
Me: “Love how your autocorrect crashed as soon as we started talking about Eris.”
Nuck: “SHE KNOWS.”
Another successful conversion. I will win a toaster oven.
I only heard about the Houston commune last year after reading about it in In pursuit of Eris by Brenton Clutterbuck (who is awesome and basically the Discordian version of draw the moon). Taking in all this information about the history, spread and evolution of Discordianism was quite inspiring, and after months of making jokes about writing a definitive text on Discordian Witchcraft, I thought to myself, “You Know what ? I will do it ! And I will call her Dr. Van Van Mojo’s Flashbang Apple: a Gen-U-Ine Bok [sic] Discordian Shadows, because it is a title with moxie.“
I’m nothing if not committed, so as soon as I made that decision, I turned off my computer and went shopping. At one point, I was like, “Oh, hey, I need some mouthwash,” and hid in a convenience store to get some.
I grabbed the first bottle I saw without really paying attention, and it wasn’t until I got back in my car and drove off that I took a good look at exactly what I had bought:
I don’t usually attach much importance to omens, but the random appearance of Greek Listerine in the midst of me going through a Discordian authorship phase can only be interpreted as divine encouragement. With the Spring Equinox and Mojoday approaching, it’s a great time for new beginnings and battles, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t tap into that energy and get some incentive insightful words on a page.
But I will definitely make sure to save the bottle and refill it with a custom herbal incense blend created in honor of Eris, as a sincere thank you for the awesome boost.
Or maybe I’ll make it a Sea-Monkey habitat and burn candles on it to bind the fascist butterflies.
I suspect the latter might be more pleasing to him.
