In a previous post, DS Documents A-Plenty!, I chronicled Kerry Thornley and Greg Hill’s creative collaborative period of ’64, which is further documented in this postcard that Kerry (aka Omar) then living in Arlington, Virginia, sent to Greg.
At one point, Kerry had even toyed with the idea of taking out a post office box at the Pentagon (if that’s even possible) and making it the official address of the Discordian Society headquarters. Grace Caplinger (Zabriskie) is also mentioned on the postcard.
Hail Eris!
Front of a postcard of the Pentagon from Kerry Thornley to Greg Hill, 1964. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.Back of a postcard of the Pentagon from Kerry Thornley to Greg Hill, 1964. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
Camden playing the role of 'Trinidad John' sometime in the 1950s in Los Angeles. Photo courtesy of John F. Carr.In the 1950s, John Albert Overton attended Georgia State University, where he earned an engineering degree, and—according to one source—“chased more black tail than anybody I ever heard of.” (This in a state where at the time black/white sexual relations were punishable by imprisonment.)
During the Korean War, Overton served in the Navy and somehow finagled a tour of duty in Jamaica, spending most of his time, during the conflict, romancing beautiful black women. Due to these pursuits, Overton developed such an excellent Jamaican accent that when he returned to the states he hosted a local African-American sponsored radio show in Los Angeles, appearing as “Trinidad John.”
According to Discordian mythology—or at least Kerry Thornley’s version—it was following Overton’s first acid trip in the mid-60s that he decided to change his name to Camden Benares, the idea of which was to bring the teachings of the East into the West: “Camden” for Camden, New Jersey, and Benares after Benares, India, paying allegorical homage to the city where the Buddha delivered his first sermon.
In Europe, Camden is still considered a leading authority on Zen, and his books have been published in German, Dutch, and several other languages. He wrote a total of three books in his Zen series which included Zen Without Zen Masters, A Handful of Zen and his final—and as yet unpublished memoir—Riding Buddha’s Bicycle, finished shortly before his death in 1999.
Camden in the role of his Discordian persona, The Count of Fives. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.As Camden explains in Riding Buddha’s Bicycle, his name change was prompted not so much to escape his past, but to re-invent himself into the type of person he envisioned becoming, and which to some extent he ultimately became; an enlightened being tuned to the emotions of others; a teacher without a strict formula to follow on a path of Zen Without Zen Masters. As Discordianism was a disorganized religious practice where each Discordian became pope and overseer of their own self-styled church, likewise was Camden’s Zen Buddhist approach.
Throughout Riding Buddha’s Bicycle, Benares stressed that his method of peddling might work for some in some instances, but most likely not for everyone in all instances and that it’s incumbent upon each and every prospective Zen peddler—who mounts Buddha’s bicycle—to chart their own course of discovery as they move along at different speeds and vectors. Camden simply encouraged his readers to consider his methods and to either use them or discard them, as they saw fit. There are many paths up the mountain…
At the outset of his studies, Camden deeply contemplated the two schools of Zen thought, and which would be the most appropriate for him to pursue: 1) The School of Gradual Enlightenment, as opposed to: 2) The School of Sudden Enlightenment, accompanied by that blinding flash of satori that leads to illumination.
Camden decided the former—Gradual School of Enlightenment—was a more practical and attainable approach for him personally, and “would consist of gaining knowledge by seeing into one’s own nature and having a series of insights that would produce an enlightened state equivalent to the experience of sudden enlightenment…”
While Benares’ aforementioned LSD trip may have certainly been a catalyst to his mounting of Buddha’s bike, other episodes in his life were of equal or greater importance, such as a pivotal life-after-death experience, followed not long after by an ill-fated love affair. Each of these episodes set Camden forth on a quest of self-examination and personal exploration, to ultimately cultivate his own self-styled Samadhi, and to make himself a more tuned-in soul.
For Camden, it was more about the journey than arriving at any ultimate destination, for who really knows, among us, if there truly comes an end to consciousness, human or otherwise? It was what he discovered along the way, and living life to its fullest, that was forefront in Camden’s consciousness, as such seemingly trite maxims as “being in the now” and “living for the moment” truly came into focus for him—due to a health crisis he experienced in his early 20s—when given just mere months to live. My guess is that, at least in the back of his mind, Camden must have felt he was living on borrowed time, and that it was critical he make the most of each precious moment at his disposal, however fleeting they may have been, while riding Buddha’s bicycle.
Official Discordian Business. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.The times they were a changin’ back in ‘64. JFK had just been takin’ out and shortly after The Beatles emerged on the landscape to breathe a little positive vibe into the National Downer that’d just gone down the rabbit hole. Against this backdrop, Greg Hill and Kerry Thornley entered into perhaps their most productive collaborative period, sowing the seeds of what would become the 1st edition of Principia Discordia: Or How The West Was Lost.
Back in ‘61, Thornley and Hill moved to New Orleans where they engaged in a number of early Discordian activities, some of which were covertly copied on New Orleans D.A. Jim Garrison’s mimeograph machine by a friend who worked in the D.A.’s office, Lane Caplinger, who just happened to be the sister of Grace Caplinger, later to become known to the world as actress Grace Zabriskie, none other than Laura Palmer’s mother among other notable roles. Garrison, of course, would play a larger and much weirder role in Thornley’s consciousness in the years to come, to be covered in greater depth in my forthcoming book, Caught In The Crossfire: Kerry Thornley, Oswald and Garrison’s JFK Investigation, coming later this year from Feral House.
In ’63 — after JFK’s assassination — Kerry moved from New Orleans to Arlington, Virginia for a number of reasons, one of which included being in closer proximity to D.C. where the Warren Commission had recently convened, and Kerry — looking for an angle to promote his novel in the works, The Idle Warriors (the main character of which was modeled on Oswald before the Kennedy assassination) — was hoping to wrangle an appearance before the Commission. The rest, as we know, is a weird slice of history.
The documents I’ve posted here would — in the following year, 1965 — greatly influence the 1st edition of the PD, which will soon appear in its entirely for the first time in 50 “odd” years in our forthcoming book project Historia Discordia: The Origins of the Discordian Society, coming soon from RVP Publishers.
In these early years, Hill and Thornley spent an inordinate amount of time developing a Discordian Society hierarchical structure that would eventually dissolve into nothingness when Greg Hill later decided to forgo any type of formal Discordian structure and turn the whole thing into an art collage project without rules and regulations, which led to a more free form approach to later editions of the Principia Discordia.
Some items to note include Kerry’s (Omar’s) mention that he sent a copy of “Why We Think The DS Is A Hot Item” to Grace Caplinger (Zabriskie), as well as what is perhaps the first formal mention of the fabled Law Of Fives, a document lovingly adorned with a slew of Greg Hill stamps, as he was wont to do.
It’s been a working theory of mine that Dealey Plaza was some sort of inter-dimensional vortex of alternate reality perceptions. That’s why there are so many varying theories about the JFK assassination—because they’re all true and false at the same time.
To further elaborate on this theme, consult the Dealey Lama and enjoy the following video…
And for more ruminations along these lines, check out my recent appearance on The Sync Book Radio’s Always Record radio show:
In 1976, pioneering underground newspaper the Berkeley Barb published the below article on a then 44-year-old Robert Anton Wilson written by Ray Ramsay. The article posted below contains some interesting history on the writing and publication of The Illuminatus! Trilogy.
Greg Hill was thoughtful enough to stash a copy into the Discordian Archives.
Hail Eris!
Berkeley Barb article on Robert Anton Wilson, March 12-18, 1976 edition. Click to Embiggen. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
The Kabouters article in question.When researching the roots of Discordianism, I’ve found that one rabbit hole inevitably leads down another and so it’s best to just keep on burrowing.
Such is the case of our last post about an article on the Kabouters that Lord Omar (aka Kerry Thornley) co-opted and redistributed (via kopyleft) under the auspices of the Ancient Seers of Bavaria, all of this part of Operation Mindfuck (OM), the Discordian Society’s covert campaign to illuminate the masses.
While reviewing the Kabouters article in question, I noticed that in the right margin Thornley wrote: “Stolen for you by the Erisian Liberation Front of the Lemuel P. Grant Lodge” which I figured was just some vague reference that popped out of Lord Omar’s pineal gland to confuse us all the more.
Kerry Thornley's Paranoid Flash Illuminator zine, July 1970. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.Kerry Thornley's Paranoid Flash Illuminator zine, June 1970. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.Afterwards — in the same section of the Discordian Archives where I’d discovered the Kabouters article — I came across a couple copies of Thornley’s Discordian newsletter The Paranoid Flash Illuminator, one of which stated: “Lemuel P. Grant Influence Lodge grows rapidly on both fronts presently active, E.L.F. and the Uncle Remus Chapter of the Black Lotus Society…” and that “…Operation Mindfuck is gathering momentus…”
Of course, none of this helped clarify what the Lemuel P. Grant Lodge actually was until I read through the next copy of Paranoid Flash Illuminator, which elaborated further:
In case you were wondering, Lemuel P. Grant Lodge of the Bavarian Illuminati is named after its founder: “At 327 St. Paul Avenue SE stands what remains of a house which survived the burning of Atlanta only to be consumed 100 years later by the ravages of neglect. It was built in 1858 by Col. L.P. Grant…When General William Tecumseh Sherman’s forces put the torch to Atlanta on November 14, 1864, they left the engineer’s mansion unscathed despite that fact that it had been used as a Confederate hospital because paraphernalia used in Masonic rituals had been found inside. They had instructions not to harm the homes of Masons.”
Kerry Thornley during his Sacred Mind Ashram period in Atlanta, 1972. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.All of which suggests a Freemasonsic conspiracy of epic proportions that continues to this very day!
Although it’s sometimes near impossible to separate fact from fiction with much Discordian Society propaganda, the Sacred Mind Ashram referred to later in the above newsletter was an actual concept that Kerry and his wife Cara entertained during the period they lived in Atlanta in the early-70s. However, this idea of a “hip school for little kids” apparently never progressed beyond the concept stage.
As for the Good Vibe Machine, I have no idea what that actually was, though it would have made a great name for a 1960s sex toy.
Kabouters were a Dutch anarchist group in the 1970s. It was founded by Roel van Duyn and one of its objectives was to set up an alternative society based on Van Duyn’s ideas as stated in his book,“De boodschap van een wijze Kabouter” (The Message of a Wise Kabouter). Van Duyn for some time worked at an organic farm and asked the farmer if they were going to get a harvester. “No,” the farmer responded “Noisy machines chase away the kabouters [Dutch gnomes, elves or leprechauns], and we need them to keep our plants healthy.” That is why Van Duyn used this image.
While once again wading through the Discordian Archives the other day, I stumbled upon this startling document produced by the Ancient Illuminated Seers of Bavaria which demonstrates that Greg Hill at least had a clue as to who the Kabouters were.
Greg Hill's note on the difference between the Church of the Subgenius and Discordianism. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
While wading through the Discordian Archives the other day, I came across a hand-written note by Greg Hill commenting on the difference between Discordianism and the Church of the SubGenius.
Sayeth The Polyfather:
“The SubGenius is more DADA, while Discordianism tends to be more Surrealist. It is like having two different delicious flavors of the same revolting ice cream.”
Another Greg Hill sketch for Kerry Thornley's Church of the Laughing Christ. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.A Greg Hill sketch for Kerry Thornley's Church of the Laughing Christ. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
For your general amusement, here are a couple of rough sketches Greg Hill produced inspired by a Discordian Cabal that Kerry Thornley cooked up called the Church of the Laughing Christ.
This is a photo of RAW and yours truly from the spring of 2001. In it he is sporting a shirt that says “I have seen the fnords” and of course wearing his famous ring with the spiral on it. A couple years back I had a dream with RAW in which we engaged in a deep discussion about the meaning of his ring, and how it was an allegory to The Buddha. Photo courtesy of Greg Bishop.
Yesterday I was reviewing a list of potential posts for Historia Discordia, one of which is a piece I wrote on Robert Anton Wilson’s passing back in 2007. So I got to wondering what day RAW died, and thought it would be apropos to coincide posting the piece on that date.
I did a quick Google search and, as our crazy Goddess would have it, RAW died on the date of January 11th, which is just the sort of stone cold synchronicity one encounters when pulling cosmic triggers and rolling golden apples. Perhaps a day late and a dollar short, we share with you now my RAW eulogy. —Adam Gorightly
