Discordianism

Branch of Neopaganism concerned with the worship of the Roman Goddess Discordia, or her Greek counterpart Eris. (Hence, Discordians are sometimes called Erisians.)

Discordianism (at least in the modern era) was essentially started in 1958 by Greg Hill (aka Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst) and Kerry Thornley (aka Malaclypse the Younger, aka Mal-2). Writing the Principia Discordia, the major “holy text” of Discordianism, they proceeded (somewhat unwittingly and accidentally) to start a movement that has been described as “a religion masquerading as a joke” and as “a joke masquerading as a religion”. To Discordians, there’s little difference between the two.

The movement consists of varying parts surrealism, “guerilla ontology”, Chaos Magick, Monty Python, Zen Taoism, and Marx Brothers, with a sprinkling of Thelema for good measure. Its basic tenets are that Chaos is just as valid and important (if not more so) as Order, and that “God is a crazy woman, and Her name is Eris”.

Though Discordianism’s “do what you want, dude” and “nothing is true; everything is permitted” credos align it partly with Chaos Magick and Thelema, its practitioners seem to fit best within Neopaganism, where their thealogy, morés and general style seem to match best.

Symbols of Discordianism include the Golden Apple (especially when inscribed with the word “kallisti” or καλλιστη, Greek for “for the fairest”) and the Sacred Chao (pronounced “cow”), a variant of the yin-yang with the dots replaced on one side by an equilateral pentagon (symbolic of order) and on the other by the Golden Apple (symbolic of Chaos).