Our March Eris of the Month was literally ripped from the pages of The Green Egg, Vol IX, No. 70 to be exact, an illustration accompanying a Robert Anton Wilson article entitled “Racism, Sexism and Evolution,” which you can view and download a PDF copy of the article here.
Send us your Eris of the Month Club submissions (more info here) by using the form at the bottom of The MGT. page.
Eris comes to us in many guises (“my father’s house has many mansions”), sometimes even in the form of St. Valentine’s Day cards, such as the one we see here sent to the founding father of the Discordianism, none other than Malaclypse the Younger aka Greg Hill in February 1977, apparently alerting him to a Discordian soiree of sorts. It’s not clear who the sender of said Erisian Valentine was, although the card says “Gnostic” on it, so I guess it’s possible it was sent from Thomas the Gnostic aka Tom McNamara.
Hail Eris and pass the candy hearts!
Send us your Eris of the Month Club submissions (more info here) by using the form at the bottom of The MGT. page.
Found Eris at artist Elaneith’s Renderosity account.
Send us your Eris of the Month Club submissions (more info here) by using the form at the bottom of The MGT. page.
During the Discordian Society halcyon days, McNamara distributed an Erisian newsletter, the alliterative Papish Pastoral Letter to the Provincials of the Provinces of Patareal Paratheo Providence, a sample of which is presented below.
Included in the Discordian Archives are scattered correspondence between Greg Hill and McNamara. In a letter dated March 22, 1971, Hill related recent Discordian developments, including a Chicago meet-up with Bob Shea, Robert Anton Wilson (RAW) and Tim and Mary Wheeler (aka Harold Randomfactor and Hope Springs). Of this Chicago meet-up, Hill wrote:
“Most sorry missed you at the Chicago Meet, but I supposed goddess knows what she is doing. I genuinely hope that the day will come when we can rap some face to face. This correspondence business, it only goes in some directions and it is hard to anchor sometimes. I’ll buy the beer should the opportunity arise….
“The Chicago Meet, incidentally, was no big thing excepting a retouch in the flesh. Met RF [Randomfactor] & Hope for the first time and was not surprised in any way. Wilson kept engaging in political arguments with them and it bummered kind of, it gets difficult to remember that substantial differences are in accord with the Erisian concept—it gets difficult indeed in personal issues. O Were We All Saints. That bit in diatribe about me slipping into the curse of greyface—that was from the soul my friend. Wilson and Tim had a touch of greyface then (at Chi) too. Doubt if Tim feels much a part of us much anymore.
“Mostly we just sat around and rapped on petty incidentals. It was a pleasant time, which is want I wanted actually. Wilson & I played around with literature some—that kind of thing. Very therapeutic. Got stoned and giggled a lot…”
While RAW occasionally described himself as a Libertarian, he was definitely on the anti-war/pacifist end of the spectrum, most notably taking to the Chi-town streets with all the hairy freaks during the 1968 Democratic National Convention protests. Wheeler—conversely—was a William F. Buckley conservative and, as noted in this exclusive Historia Discordia interview, worked as a humor editor for Buckley’s National Review. One issue that might have led to a “political argument” between Wheeler and Wilson would have been the Vietnam War. While there was plenty to be critical about Buckley’s worldview, one important contribution he made to the conservative movement was calling out John Birch Society (JBS) propaganda and its influence on the GOP. To this end, Wheeler produced a satirical piece on the JBS, which took the form of a hoax/gag issue of the National Review, kind of a play on Illuminati conspiracies ala the Trilateral Commission, Bilderbergers, etc. Check it out here.
Wheeler’s irreverent nature is what enamored him to his fellow Discordians, who for the most part were politically aligned with anarcho-libertarianism, which included a fondness for pot, another interest they shared with Wheeler, who was a notorious dope-smoking Republican.
While RAW and Wheeler disagreed on certain political issues, they both concurred that it was a fine and righteous thing to poke fun at Illuminati conspiracies of the John Birch Society variety, and then co-opt said JBS-Illuminati mythology for their own nefarious ends, Hail Eris!
Download the March 22, 1971 letter in its entirety here.
Next we find an exchange between Thomas the Gnostic and Reverend Dean Cleveland of the St. Procopius Rectory, wherein Thomas was evidently yanking the good rector’s chain.
Next in the chronology was a letter dated February 1972 from McNamara to Hill (aka Iggy):
“You know the phantasies you’ve had that the FBI might be after us? Well, you’ll be happy to know that they are at least after me. This is not just paranoia. It seems that recently I wuz incarcerated in the state mental prison here, no shit! How I got there is a long stupid story. How I got out is even simpler. I hired a lawyer to rescue me from the mad doctors. But in the course of all this madness I learned one thing. The F.B.I. is really keeping tabs on me. They made indiscreet ‘inquiries’ to both my lawyer and the keepers. I ain’t going to let this stop me from whatever it is that I am doing that is subversive’. I just wish I could figure out what it is that I am doing. Oh well. As for the mental prison: ‘God save us from those who would save us from ourselves.’
Also in the letter, McNamara mentions an Illuminati-mythology-then-in-the-making ala Morris Kaminsky’s The Hoaxers, which expounded upon a claim that the real brains behind that dreaded secret society was some dude named Sidney Weinberg.
McNamara’s visit to the funny farm notwithstanding, by the mid 1970s he apparently had his life together enough to author this stellar review of the Illuminatus! trilogy for the Berkeley Barb.
Hat tip to Prop Anon for the heads-up on this Berkeley Barb/Tom McNamara review of Illuminatus!
Eris Gluten Fnord submitted by azne_valentina.
Send us your Eris of the Month Club submissions (more info here) by using the form at the bottom of The MGT. page.
Discordianism is well-known to tolerate the traditional holidays and holydays of other delusional systems of belief and Christmas is no exception.
To demonstrate, here are some festive reason-for-the-season articles from the Discordian Archives about the pasts of Discordian Christmas.
Eris bless us, every other!
Fa La La La La, La La La fnord La!
From Camden Benares’ List of Discordian Holidays
12-25, Jay See Fitzdragon’s Birthday
The ideal celebration for this holiday is listening to bootleg recordings of the first Discordian rock band, Jay See and the Disciples of Eris. The rarity of these recordings causes most Discordians to celebrate in some other manner befitting the occasion.
Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
A Christmas Story: Excerpt from Kerry Thornley’s THE IDLE WARRIORS
A Very Merry Manson Christmas To All
Have a Merry Kerry Xmas All!
Starting around 1970, Sam’s Cafe orchestrated several Discordian flavored capers, a sort of cross between performance art meets culture jamming. In 1971, the group reached the pinnacle of prankdom with an op dubbed “Sam’s Collection Agency” that entailed mailing “false collection notices to twenty thousand people, demanding that they each send $76.40 to the return address (which was the San Francisco Chronicle’s TV station). The notice listed the phone numbers of news papers, TV stations, and the Bank of America, which were flooded with more than ten thousand angry calls. The artists made front page news in both local newspapers. Two days later, when Sam’s Café revealed themselves at a press conference—at which they handed out press kits that included vials of human excrement—they were arrested and indicted…” 00001
According to a March 20, 1971 article in the Cincinnati Enquirer entitled “Hippies Admit 20,000 Fake Bills In Attempt To Create Mass Chaos,” Sam’s Cafe was charged with mailing a “vile and filthy substance” in “small plastic jars of what appeared to be excretion. These were sent to news media Wednesday along with the announcement of the hoax…”
Ultimately, Discordian justice prevailed and Sam’s Cafe was acquitted of all charges following a two-day trial, an acquittal based largely on the testimony of the expert witness in the case, San Francisco Chronicle art critic Thomas Albright, who stated “that the act was in fact conceptual art.” 00002
“In the end, the judge shook his head and proclaimed, ‘Well, if the expert says it’s art, it’s art, but don’t do it again.’ Sam’s Cafe believed that by using print media, the postal service, and other ordinary means of communication, artists outside the system could reach a broad public audience. At the same time, they showed how easy it was to sabotage the U.S. Postal Service…” 00003
According to this note found in the Discordian Archives, Sam’s Cafe put out feelers to Greg Hill to see if he was interested in testifying, although it’s unknown how extensively Hill became involved in the case.
Notes
00001 Lewallen, Constance M., and Moss, Karen. 2011. State of Mind: New California Art, Circa 1970. University of California Press.
00002 https://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2011/11/pst-a-to-z-state-of-mind-at-ocma.html
00003 State of Mind: New California Art, Circa 1970. University of California Press.
“Eris Morrigan” art by lordaphaius28M at deviantart.com.
Send us your Eris of the Month Club submissions (more info here) by using the form at the bottom of The MGT. page.
Wile of Eris
Oil on board, 16” x 20” by artist Jaclyn Alderete
Spotted at Cactus Gallery LA.
Send us your Eris of the Month Club submissions (more info here) by using the form at the bottom of The MGT. page.
Yes, another belated EOTM. But this one is worth it: a really cool oak carving of Our Lady Eris by Voodoo Carving.
Find this and other incredible esoteric carvings (there’s even a Flying Spaghetti Monster!) at his Etsy store.
Send us your Eris of the Month Club submissions (more info here) by using the form at the bottom of The MGT. page.