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You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’: Roger Lovin and the Dark Side of Discordia (Part 00001)

Early Discordian Roger Lovin.
Courtesy of the Discordian Archives
To follow is a multi-part part series on Roger Lovin, one of the more mercurial characters of the Early Discordian scene. Lovin’s story does indeed have a dark tinge to it, as the subtitle suggests, all of which will be unveiled in our final installment with an audio interview of Jean Marie Stine recorded June 24, 2016… but let us begin at the beginning.

Born Roger Watlington in Knoxville, Tennessee on May 11, 1941, he later changed his name to Roger Lovin which would prove apropos in terms of the footloose and fancy free lifestyle he later adopted.

In the early 1960s, Lovin managed a French Quarter coffee house called The Gryphon, which doubled as a bohemian art gallery and hangout for French Quarter beatniks. In this regard, a curious news article appeared in the Oct 12, 1964 The Times-Picayune about a smoke bomb attack at The Gryphon that caused minor damage and one injury.

Oct 12, 1964 The Times-Picayune article about the smoke bomb caper.

It’s unknown if the bombing was in any way directed at Lovin, although that wouldn’t come as a surprise as he was always a somewhat controversial character fond of ruffling the feathers of the squares. However, I suspect this incident may have had something to do with the bohemian clientele that frequented The Gryphon and a certain conservative element in New Orleans that was probably none too thrilled about it. As noted in the news article, a similar smoke bomb attack went down at the Quorum Coffee House (also known as The Quorum Club), another establishment with deep Discordian ties. A Wikipedia entry describes The Quorum as “a coffee house in New Orleans, known as a model for multicultural exchanges in the politically and racially charged atmosphere of the 1960s. It became a frequent target of segregationist harassment in New Orleans after it opened to persons from all racial backgrounds in 1963. In 1964, police raided The Quorum and arrested 73 people on charges such as ‘playing guitars out of tune.’”

Although The Quorum was a multicultural beatnik mecca, Kerry Thornley returned to New Orleans in the summer of 1964 and delivered a decidedly un-beatnik type lecture there on Ayn Rand and Objectivism—but that was typical Thornley: an iconoclast who reveled in tweaking people’s sensibilities on either side of the cultural or political spectrum. It’s also important to note that Kerry’s last meeting with the notorious Gary Kirstein (aka Brother-in-law who supposedly lured him into the JFK assassination) took place on the back patio of The Quorum (cast in creepy shadows) following Kerry’s lecture there that night.

Another Early Discordian, Barbara Reid (the main witness against Kerry in the Jim Garrison fiasco), became known as a “den mother” to a group of hippie kids that hung out at The Quorum, so the Discordian connections ran deep and weird. Apparently, there’s a film documentary about The Quorum called, appropriately enough (yes, you guessed it), The Quorum, which speaks to the influence this coffee house had on French Quarter culture. The website for The Quorum film describes how it was started in 1963 “by an idealistic group of individuals most of whom had met at the Ryder, an earlier, short-lived, racially integrated coffee house on Rampart Street in the New Orleans French Quarter. When the Ryder was shut down by city officials on the pretext of needing the space to construct a hotel, approximately twelve of the former Ryder patrons banded together to establish a similar sort of establishment with a similar purpose….”

As it so happens, the defunct Ryder coffee house (mentioned above) became of interest to Jim Garrison during his JFK assassination investigation as a supposed meeting place where Thornley had met with Lee Harvey Oswald and other suspected diabolical doings went down, which I previously covered in this post. But I digress…

The Quorum and Gryphon smoke bombings occurred during the same period Jim Garrison rolled out a campaign to “clean up” the French Quarter, and the specific targets of this campaign were strip clubs and establishments catering to the homosexual community. This is not to suggest that Garrison was in any way responsible for the smoke bomb caper, but what these events spoke to was the tension and unrest brewing across the cultural landscape, particularly in the French Quarter which had always been a fertile breeding ground for freaks and free spirits to flourish.

Plot Or Politics?: The Garrison Case and Its Cast by Rosemary James and Jack Wardlaw.
This period is covered in Plot Or Politics?: The Garrison Case and Its Cast (1967), authored by award winning New Orleans States-Item reporters Rosemary James and Jack Wardlaw, who covered the Garrison investigation from its very beginnings. Plot Or Politics? also covers, albeit briefly, the rise of Garrison’s political career and provides an intimate snapshot of what was brewing behind the scenes with the Garrison investigation before it became a thing. Plot Or Politics? is also of interest because it devotes a couple pages to none other than Kerry Thornley regarding his interactions with Oswald in the Marines. This section on Thornley is noteworthy because it appeared several months before Garrison painted a target on Thornley’s back.

In regards to Garrison’s campaign against “vice,” pages 21 and 22 of Plot Or Politics? informs the reader that:

Almost as soon as he took office, Garrison took aim at the city’s sin strip—“The Street”, Bourbon Street. Former New Orleans newsman Bill Stuckey recalls:

“Shortly after he became district attorney in 1962, [Garrison] launched a crackdown on homosexuals in New Orleans, raiding ‘gay bars’ frequently, arresting ‘gay kids’ on the streets of the French Quarter. After one such arrest, the New Orleans States-Item sent me to the police station to see what the formal charges were. There, on paper, probably was one of the strangest charges in U.S. legal history: ‘Being a homosexual in an establishment with a liquor license.’ The drive died down after several weeks. One benefit of it may have been the creation of a body of homosexual informants for the district attorney’s office—informants possibly involved in his Kennedy plot investigation.”

It probably appears like I’m once again digressing, but I wanted to lay out the cultural landscape of the period—a culture in which Lovin was knee deep—and the conditions that precipitated the crackdown on the homosexual community, all of which might have attributed to the coffee house smoke bombings, and a cultural sea change which was only then just beginning to make waves…

When Greg Hill and Kerry Thornley moved away from the French Quarter in the mid-60s, they left the New Orleans branch of the Discordian Society in the capably chaotic hands of Mr. Lovin, whom Thornley described in the Illuminet Press intro of Principia Discordia as “a dashing, talented and handsome con artist who was too shallow to settle into any one thing. But for years and years after he read the Principia, under his Discordian name of Fang the Unwashed, he consistently and with unswerving devotion to the task excommunicated every new person any of the rest of us initiated into the Discordian Society.”

Discordian Society business card. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.

Kerry wasn’t just lightly tossing around the assertion that Lovin excommunicated new Discordian initiates, as revealed in this December 2, 1964 letter from Greg Hill (aka Malaclypse the Younger) to pilgrims Judy Gates and Bob Yeager.

December 2, 1964 letter from Greg Hill (aka Malaclypse the Younger)
to pilgrims Judy Gates and Bob Yeager.
Courtesy of The Discordian Archives.

The Early Discordians become infamous for these types of humorous letters, and one of the funniest I’ve come across was composed by Lovin dated December 17, 1964, addressed to Greg Hill (who appears to have been staying with Bob Newport in Chicago at the time):

All Hail Discordia!!!!!?!!!!!!!

To: MALACLYPSE (THE YOUNGER), K.C.: OMNIPOTENT POLYFATHER OF VIRGINITY IN GOLD AND HIGH PRIEST OF THE HERETIC FRINGE AND PROTESTANT PERSAUSION

FROM: FANG (THE UNWASHED), W.K.C.: LIBERATOR OF THE THIRD EYE, PROTECTOR of the WESTERN WORLD, EXALTED LAMA of the NEW ORLEANS CABAL, and L.L.L.L.L.L. (Lovin’s Licentiously Liberated Lightning Lechers)

Hail Eris,

Concerning thy recent epistle of Excommunication: Screw Thee. Thou wilt understand, of course, that it isn’t the humble Fang; but FANG, W.K.C.: L.T.E., P.W.W., E.L.N.O.C., and L.L.L.L.L.L. and wilt therefore realize that naught of a personal nature is meant… dig?

Wouldst do me the favor of communicating Lord Omar’s current whereabouts to me in the swiftest mode. This One is plagued with constant uncertainties and apprehensions due to an extreme dearth of information concerning That One. I fear me ever that the Foul Forces of Light and Reason have fallen upon him unaware and smotten (wow!) Him severely about the shoulders and intellect. Thou wouldst earn thyself everlasting gratitude and a mention in the evening maledictions by such an action. Also; if you don’t, I’ll kill you.

As to the progress of the New Orleans Cabal: The first Temple of Eris in New Orleans was formally defecated on Nov. 3, 1964, at 519 Decatur St. (which, oddly enough, is also my home address.) It occupied a converted broom closet. Admittedly, that is rather humble quarters for such a large and far-flung organization; but in the short space of one month we have more than doubled our area. This noble word was accomplished chiefly through the untiring efforts of our noble leader, FANG, W.K.C.: L.T.E., P.W.W., E.L.N.O.C., and L.L.L.L.L.L. and his noble assistant, Charles Noble. They single-handedly (one hand, three hooks) formed K.R.U.D. (Kollectors of Revenue Under Duress) and saw to the raising of funds. Our membership already includes two beatniks, one wasp, a hunchbrain, and a genuine, card carrying square who has 2.7 kids and a wife with a cloth coat. Therefore, be of good cheer. Today New Orleans, tomorrow the Catacombs – with some scattered showers in the evening.

As I am naturally curious about what sort of person would spend his time on such drivel as this, kindly send me some data about yourself. Send also a copy of HYMN. Barring the feasibility of a picture, send a piece of fingernail and some hair…..

In closing, let me say: MARY CHRISTMAS, SAVIOR MONEY!!!

(signed) FANG

Envelope of the December 17, 1964 letter from Roger Lovin to Greg Hill.
Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
December 17, 1964 letter from Roger Lovin to Greg Hill.
Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.

As the beatniks morphed into hippies, Lovin went right along for the ride. On December 9, 1966, he hosted a “psychedelic happening” billed as an “LSD trip without LSD” that certainly sounded Discordian in nature, as documented in the December 10, 1966 States Time Advocate news article below.

December 10, 1966 news article from the States Time Advocate.

On October 16, 1968, Lovin appeared on TV program called Hotseat revealing “The Truth About Hippies.” It was around this time that he started the first underground newspaper in New Orleans, The Word (later to be known as The Ungarbled Word.) While all of this was going on, Lovin became a suspect of sorts in the Garrison investigation, all of which will be discussed in more detail than you can possibly imagine in future installment of this series!

October 16, 1968 clipping from The Times-Picayune TV listings
of Roger Lovin’s appearance on Hotseat.
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Kill The Buddha! Smash The State!

Here at the Historia Discordia Hindquarters, we recently received the following chaotic correspondence:

My treasured copy of Zenarchy bears not only Lord Omar’s signature, but this cartoon sketch and Discordian koan. (My speculation on it here, BTW: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/thezenpagan/2016/05/an-anarchist-goes-to-court/ ) —Tom Swiss, Pope Zen Buffalo

Zenarchy signed by Kerry Thornley with illustration.
Courtesy of Pope Zen Buffalo.

Upon seeing this missive, Historia Discordia team member Groucho Gandhi, K.S.P., immediately validated Kerry Thornley‘s signing of Zenarchy for Pope Zen Buffalo because he has a copy of the Illuminet Press published book with the same Discordian koan signed by Thornley in the Discordian Archives donated for the greater grok by a friend.

Zenarchy, signed by Kerry Thornley.
Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.

So it appears Thornley signed copies of the book with this Discordian koan “Kill the Buddha! Smash the State!”

Let us know if you have a copy of Zenarchy, especially signed!

Thx!

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Principia Discordia: Celebrating 50 Years of Chaos! (Maybe!)

1980 yellow covered Loompanics edition of Principia Discordia.
 
Courtesy of the
Discordian Archives.
Prepare thyselves, O Discordians…

The Truth Shall Set You Confused… in 2,500 words or less!

2015 (or 3181 on the Discordian calendar) marks the 50th anniversary (maybe!) of the first edition of Principia Discordia, or How the West was Lost, published in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1965, consisting of a mere five copies that—according to Discordian co-founder Greg Hill—“were mostly lost.”

The details surrounding this rare 1st edition are enshrouded in as much myth and mystery as the JFK assassination itself, which—it so happens—will be forever linked to Discordianism due to its association with Discordian Society co-founder Kerry Thornley who served with Lee Harvey Oswald in the Marines.

Curiously enough, Thornley was writing a book based on Oswald three years before the Kennedy assassination and afterwards testified before the Warren Commission and was later accused (ridiculously so) by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison as being part of a JFK assassination conspiracy.

The Discordian Society included in its ranks such illuminated seers as Robert Anton Wilson (RAW) who noted in Cosmic Trigger: The Final Secret of the Illuminati: Volume 1:

“A search through the Discordian Archives revealed that the earliest of the Discordian holy books—How the West Was Lost, by Malaclypse the Younger (Greg Hill) — was originally printed on the Xerox machine of D.A. Jim Garrison, in summer 1963. (Greg’s girlfriend was Garrison’s secretary.)”

Thus was birthed the legend of how this mostly missing 1st edition was copied on a Xerox machine belonging to the very same man, Jim Garrison, who would later link Kerry Thornley to a shadowy cabal that allegedly orchestrated Kennedy’s awful offing.

Although RAW was partly correct regarding Jim Garrison’s association with the 1st edition Principia Discordia (PD), it appears that he might not have had his facts quite right. In the Loompanics edition of PD, Greg Hill added an afterword in which he corrected RAW’s claim about the Garrison copying machine caper:

“…Bob [RAW] says that when Oswald was buying the assassination rifle, my girlfriend was printing the first edition of Principia on Jim Garrison’s Xerox. It wasn’t my girlfriend, it was Kerry’s; it wasn’t the First Ed Principia, it was some earlier Discordian thoughts; it wasn’t Garrison’s Xerox, it was his mimeograph; and it wasn’t just before Kennedy was shot but a couple of years before that… The First Ed Principia, by the way, was reproduced at Xerox Corp when xerography was a new technology. Which was my second New Orleans trip in 1965. I worked for a guy on Bourbon Street who was a Xerox salesman by day.”

Afterwards, Hill received further clarification from Kerry Thornley, which he added as a footnote to his Loompanics afterword:

“I checked this further with Mr. Thornley. He says that the woman in question was not his girlfriend, she was just a friend, and it wasn’t a couple of years before Kennedy was shot but had to be a couple of years after (but before Garrison investigated Thornley).”

To confuse matters more (Hail Eris!), Thornley’s introduction to the IllumiNet Press edition of PD states:

“…the First Edition of Principia rolled off District Attorney Jim Garrison’s mimeograph machine (without his knowledge) in New Orleans in 1964. That was the work of Gregory Hill and of Lane Caplinger, a Discordian typist in the DA’s office.”

During the course of researching The Prankster and the Conspiracy: The Story of Kerry Thornley and How He Met Oswald and Inspired the Counterculture (2003 Amazon), I exchanged email correspondence with Lane Caplinger’s sister, actress Grace Zabriskie. For some reason, it’d never dawned on me to ask Grace about the legend of the 1st edition—probably because Grace, by her own choosing, was never really part of the Discordian scene.

In December 2012, I contacted Grace via email with some follow-up questions for my then book in the works Caught in the Crossfire: Kerry Thornley, Lee Oswald and the Garrison Investigation (Amazon) and at that time asked: Was the Garrison copying machine caper “truth, legend, or a combination of both?” Grace passed on my query to her sister Lane who replied, quite simply: “Legend. I recall occasional Discordianism reading and giggling only.”

Lane’s response now leaves us in a quandary and seems to put the kibosh on this whole wonderful mythos that the PD was created right under Jim Garrison’s nose by a diabolical Discordian conspiracy.

But wait, let’s not be in a hurry to dismiss the Garrison mimeograph legend. If we examine each of the seemingly conflicting stories regarding the origins of the 1st edition PD, I think in the final analysis there’s some measure of truth to each story, or as the old Discordian saying goes:

All statements are true in some sense, false in some sense, meaningless in some sense, true and false in some sense, true and meaningless in some sense, false and meaningless in some sense, and true and false and meaningless in some sense.

In the IllumiNet Press introduction to PD, Kerry Thornley identifies 1964 as the year of the publication of the 1st edition and that Greg Hill and Lane Caplinger were the culprits.

Thornley moved to Arlington, Virginia in late 1963 through 1964. Meanwhile, Greg Hill returned to New Orleans in 1964 and was there until mid-1965, which was the relevant period when the 1st edition was published.

My working theory is that Lane Caplinger did indeed run off some mimeograph copies of letters and writings by Hill and Thornley that later found their way into the first edition PD. However, it’s my impression that Lane had but a vague idea at best of what she was involved with—other than just copying some material for a couple of friends who were tinkering around with a joke religion called Discordianism.

As Greg Hill noted, only five copies of the 1st edition Principia Discordia were produced, most of which were lost. Later iterations of PD departed greatly from that long ago 1st edition, evolving into a collaborative art project that included the involvement of such notables as Robert Anton Wilson (Mordecai the Foul), Robert Shea (Josh the Dill), Camden Benares (The Count of Fives), Robert Newport (Rev. Hypocrates Magoun), Bob McElroy (Dr. Mungojerry Grindlebone)—and, of course, Thornley and Hill.

I first became involved in researching this craziness in the late-90s when I was overtaken with an obsession of writing a biography of Kerry Thornley, who had captured my imagination not so much due to my interest in Discordianism (that would come later) but because of all the other high weirdness surrounding his life.

In 2001, I initiated a Freedom of Information Act request for any Kerry Thornley related documents in the CIA and FBI files. Shortly after I was informed by the Feds that these Thornley FOIA materials had been previously released and were available through the National Archives. In short order, I obtained the materials, most of which had been assembled during the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) in 1977 and released to the public in 1992 through the Assassination Archives Research Center (AARC.)

In this Kerry Thornley-National Archives package were documents related to Jim Garrison’s investigation, including 36 Discordian related pages which didn’t mean a whole lot to me at the time as I was more interested in getting to the bottom of Thornley’s alleged Kennedy assassination associations than I was all of this Discordian doo-dah. If I’d been paying closer attention, I would have noticed that these Discordian related materials appeared to be the first edition of Principia Discordia, Or How the West Was Lost—or at least a collection of writings from the early days of The Discordian Society. These same materials were later identified in 2006 as the 1st edition PD by a fellow named Karl Musser, who came across the material during a visit to the National Archives.

National Archives version of Principia Discordia, Or How The West Was Lost.
Download PDF

At the time, Musser shared these documents with Discordian historian Dr. Jon Swabey who afterwards transcribed this apparent 1st ed. PD and posted it on the Internet via Creative Commons.

At the time, I was unaware that the Musser/Swabey tag team had brought to the Discordian world this apparent 1st edition PD. A couple years later, Dr. Robert Newport passed on to me Greg Hill’s Discordian Archives, consisting of all 5 editions of PD. However, the discovery of these different PD editions wasn’t immediately apparent and it took me some time to sift through the Discordian Archives and identity exactly what was what. The most amazing discovery of all was an actual honest-to-Goddess copy of the first edition of Principia Discordia, Or How The West Was Lost, numbered one of five, written in Greg Hill’s own hand.

Last page of the Discordian Archives version
of the 1st ed. Principia Discordia, numbered 1 of 5.

My discovery of the Holy Grail of Discordianism led to a period of intensive research into the history of PD. After a review of the Musser/Swabey/National Archives version of PD, I initially arrived at the conclusion (which I now consider erroneous!) that the National Archives version was a later and incomplete reproduction of the 1st edition PD. However, more recently I’ve come to suspect that the National Archives version is actually an early draft of PD.

For sake of clarity, I’ll henceforth refer to these two different versions of Principia Discordia, Or How The West Was Lost as: 1) the National Archives (NA) version, and, 2) the Discordian Archives (DA) version.

Although there are similarities between these two versions—the NA and DA—there are also a number of differences, one of which is the type font. Secondly, the NA version numbers only 36 pages while the DA version comes in at a whopping 60 pages including a number of illustrations that do not appear in the NA version.

My reasoning behind this theory—that the NA version is an early draft of PD—is based, in part, on the handwritten address on the front cover:

Kerry Thornley
5326 85th Street
Apartment T-3
Lanham, Maryland

At first glance, I was a bit befuddled by this address because Thornley’s Warren Commission testimony stated that he’d moved to Arlington, VA in late 1963 and lived there until late 1964. But after giving it some thought, I remembered correspondence in the Archives where Thornley noted that he’d stayed for a period of time—in late-1963/early–1964—with his friend Robert McDonald in Maryland before his Arlington move. This provides further evidence that the NA version actually predated the DA version, and that some of the content in the NA version (as my theory goes) were pages Lane Caplinger ran off on Jim Garrison’s mimeograph machine.

Cover page of National Archives version of the 1st ed. Principia Discordia.
Cover page of Discordian Archives version of the 1st ed. Principia Discordia.

Additionally, my colleague Grouchogandhi pointed out that on the title page of the NA version the author is listed as “Malaclypse the Younger, H.C.” The curiosity, in this instance, is the title of “H.C.” In subsequent editions of the PD—including the 1st edition in the Discordian Archives (DA)—Malaclypse is referred to as “K.C.” (Keeper of the Chao) and in later editions as “K.S.C.” (Keeper of the Sacred Chao).

Title page of the National Archives (NA) version of the 1st ed. Principia Discordia.
Title page of the Discordian Archives (DA) version of the 1st ed. Principia Discordia.

The third page of the NA version consists of a Legion of Dynamic Discord (LDD) certificate awarded to early Discordian Barbara Reid. Conversely, this certificate does not appear on the third page of the DA version. However, there is a blank LDD certificate on page 55 of the DA version, which suggests that the NA version was sent from Kerry Thornley (aka the Bull Goose of Limbo) to Barbara Reid in 1964 and included a signed LDD certificate as confirmation of Reid’s ordination into the Discordian Society.

Legion of Dynamic Discord certificate awarded to Barbara Reid which appears on page 3 of the National Archives (NA) version of the 1st ed. Principia Discordia.
Blank copy of Legion of Dynamic Discord certificate that appears on page 55 of the Discordian Archives (DA) version of the 1st ed. Principia Discordia.

So how, pray tell, did this early Principia Discordia draft wind up in the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HCSA) files? My guess is that Barbara Reid provided the document to the HSCA in the late-70s when she testified before the committee regarding her claims that she saw Kerry Thornley in the company of Lee Oswald in New Orleans in September of 1963. However, another person who might have submitted this document to the HSCA was assassination researcher Harold Weisberg, who worked closely with Barbara Reid during the Garrison Investigation period and entertained the notion, at one time or another, that the Discordian Society was some type of CIA front organization involved in the Kennedy Assassination dance party.

Hail Eris, indeed!



Adam Gorightly presents a brief introduction to the 1st edition of the Principia Discordia, courtesy of Brenton Clutterbuck of Chasing Eris.



Adam Gorightly presents the 1st through 5th editions of the Principia Discordia.

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The State of the Art of Research on Discordianism by Christian Greer

Christian Greer
Despite numerous attempts to analyze its history, symbols, practices, and beliefs, scholarship on Discordianism has been largely deficient. The most pressing problem is that scholars have neglected the majority of Discordianism’s primary source materials, and are thus unable to provide the necessary contextual understanding for the readily available texts (and web-resources) they do study. The effect is that academic treatments of Discordianism have essentialized the religion according to a small, self-selected number of commercial publications entirely removed from their historical context.1  

One of Discordianism’s two founders, Kerry Thornley, famously declared that if ‘religion is the opium of the masses, [then] Discordianism is the marijuana of the lunatic fringe,’ and this is made nowhere more clear than in its material culture over the last fifty-six years.2   The majority of Discordianism’s material culture has been comprised of self-published work in the form of religious certificates, ‘zines’, APAs (amateur press associations), live audio recordings of Robert Anton Wilson lectures, and, with the advent of the internet, BBSes (Bulletin Board System), PFDs, and blogs.3   The paper ephemera of Discordianism’s material history has not been catalogued by libraries, nor preserved by universities, but commonly remains in the possession of its initial recipients, or forgotten in the boxes that compose private zine archives. Lacking any familiarity with this ‘underground’ material, scholarly analysis of the mass-marketed Discordian texts, and Discordianism in toto, has been altogether superficial.

The front piece to the Paste-Up Discordia (The Sacred PUD). Courtesy the Discordian Archives.
There are three major issues that have so far marred the study of Discordianism. The first concerns what has emerged as the locus classicus of Discordianism, the Princpia Discordia. As the first major Discordian text, the Principia Discordia went through four different versions before the publication of the Loompanics 4th/5th edition in 1979/1980, which most Discordians and scholars consider definitive.4   Deriving an interpretation of Discordianism from the Loompanics version of the 4th/5th edition, or any other edition of the Principia, effectively ignores the decades of doctrinal development that took place from its founding to the first printing of the 4th edition in 1970 by Rip Off Press. In neglecting the historical developments that led to the mass-marketed 4th/5th editions of the Principia, as well as the enormous amount of other self-produced Discordian materials dating from the late 1950s onwards, scholars have anachronistically defined Discordianism according to aspects of its present existence.5  

The second issue concerns the lack of scholarly convention concerning which version of the Principia is regarded as authoritative. As a result of the 4th edition Principia’s ‘copyleft,’ or anti-copyright status, there are no less than five different published versions of the 4th/5th edition, in addition to innumerable online versions. While there is not a great deal of difference between versions, scholarly neglect of this point, as well as the lack of convention concerning which version of the 4th/5th edition of the Principia should be treated as authoritative, has instilled an unnecessary amount of irregularity into the study of Discordianism.6  

The third issue is partly based on the first, but regards a more general misinterpretation of the meaning of the Principia within the Discordian milieu. Scholars regard the 4th/5th edition of the text as the central Discordian holy work, and it is not hard to understand why; it seems to offer all of the requisite data for a normative appraisal of a religious movement. It contains an origin story for the religion, a list of commandments, a liturgical calendar, a list of saints, and an account of Discordianism’s principle deity, Eris. In sum, the 4th/5th edition of the Principia seems to be a perfect index of everything a ‘real’ religion needs. This, of course, is precisely the problem. Leaving aside the fact that many of the aforementioned ‘religious’ aspects of Discordianism were added in successive editions of the Principia, the primary issue here is that Discordianism is explicitly not based on liturgical observance or orthopraxis, but rather on the utilization of beliefs as heuristic tools. Scholarly preoccupation with the religious minutia contained in the Principia evidences that scholars have missed an essential aspect of the Discordian ludibrium.

Since the various publications of the 4th and 4th/5th editions of the Principia read like conventional holy texts, or at least as a parody of one, scholars have mistakenly taken it as the text that has governed Discordianism since its inception. While some contemporary Discordians may revere it as such, familiarity with previous editions of the text, let alone the history of Discordianism, make it clear that this was not always the case. Discordianism did not reach underground audiences until nearly two decades after it was founded, and even then it was not an edition of the Principia that publicized the religion, but a trilogy of novels. Despite having numerous quotes from the Principia, the fictitious nature of Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea’s Illuminatus! trilogy (1975) of novels led many to believe that the Principia did not actually exist á la Lovecraft’s Necronomicon. Needless to say, Discordianism’s underground popularization was not based on teachings outlined in the first, second, third, or fourth editions of the Principia, but Wilson and Shea’s interpretation of them in Illuminatus! The first widely popular edition of the Principia was published nearly five years after Illuminatus! as a result of Loompanics publisher Mike Hoy reading the trilogy, and querying Hill himself as to the existence of such a text.7   The shift to institutionalization in contemporary Discordianism has led to the formalization of Discordian beliefs, and, central to this has been the reframing of the Principia as foundational to the religion. The scholarly preoccupation with the contents of the Principia illustrates the way in which scholars’ research agendas owe more to the contemporary trend towards institutionalization within the religion than rigorous historical research on it.

Read in terms of its evolution and alongside other Discordian material, it is evident that the various editions of the Principia were never merely parodies of sacred texts, nor were they strictly genuine attempts to fashion one. Instead, they were iterations of an idiosyncratic form of genre appropriation based on the conviction that all beliefs are heuristic tools for creating models of reality. Said more precisely, the various editions of the Principia were not just satire, but prime examples of the assiduous playing with religious forms that epitomizes Discordian belief. Essentially, this type of humorous play functions as the liturgical language of Discordianism. Reflecting William Burroughs’s famous adage, ‘nothing is true and everything is permitted,’ Discordianism is a meta-belief system in which abstract concepts like ‘holy scripture’ are utilized as expedient means to destabilize fixed assumptions about reality. Though more salient in later editions, the Principia appropriated the genre of sacred scripture in the same way that Camden Benares’ Discordian treatise, Zen Without Zen Masters (1977), utilizes tropes associated with Zen koan books, and the same is true for the appropriation of conspiracy theory in Wilson and Shea’s Illuminatus! trilogy. Discordian texts have taken the form of science fiction epics, historical dramas, anarchist philosophy, psychologized-occult manuals, and Zen teachings, and regardless of their form, the dynamics of these genre appropriations are the same. Discordian authors appropriate genre conventions only to exploit their ability to communicate the central metaphysical truth of their religion, namely, that the experience of reality entirely depends on the belief system, or model through which it is comprehended.8  

Christian Greer is a PhD researcher in the field of Western esotericism at the University of Amsterdam. His primary focus is the history and material culture of Discordianism, the Church of the SubGenius and the Moorish Orthodox Church, particularly in the 1980-1990s. His dissertation, Angelheaded Hipsters: From Beatnik Antinomianism to Psychedelic Millenarianism is an intellectual history of the “counterculture” beginning with the revolutionary movements of the 1960s and ending in the 1990s with cyberpunk and fin de siècle cyberculture.

https://uva.academia.edu/ChristianGreer

 

1   For a more detailed analysis of this problem in the work of one scholar, see Greer, Christian. ‘Review of Carole M. Cusack’s Invented Religions: Imagination, Fiction and Faith,’ Correspondences 2.1 (2014), pp. 109–114.

2   Thornley, Kerry. ‘Introduction’ in Principia Discordia 4th/5th edition, Lilburn, GA; Illuminet Press, 1991, p.i.

3   See Greer, ‘Occult Origins’, pp. 166-187.

4   The Loompanics edition (1979) is known as the ‘4th/5th edition’ because it reprinted the original 4th edition published by Rip Off Press in 1970, as well as the 5th edition, which was nothing more than a Western Union telegram filled with the letter ‘M’. The Loompanics version is most likely considered authoritative on account of it being the first to include the 5th edition telegram, as well as material that was not included in previous editions, e.g. ‘the Gypsie Skrypto interview,’ and an introduction by Robert Anton Wilson. For a more comprehensive overview of the publishing history of the Principia Discordia see Gorightly, Adam. ‘Adam Gorightly on the Publishing History of the Principia Discordia’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUqVrH4luXc accessed 04/05/13; see also f.8.

5   Cusack’s Invented Religion (2010) exemplifies this error insofar as her familiarity with the Principia Discordia is limited to two mass marketed 4th/5th editions of the text, which bear little resemblance to the first edition produced decades earlier. This is made obvious by the fact that she seems unaware that the first edition had a different title as well as entirely different contents. See Cusack, Carole. Invented Religions: Imagination, Fiction and Faith, Farnham: Ashgate, 2010, p.28-29 as compared to the first edition reproduced in Gorightly, Adam. Historia Discordia: The Origins of the Discordian Society. New York: RVP Press, 2014, pp.25-80. Cusack is by no means the only scholar to make this mistake, indeed, the difference between editions of the Principia has not been noticed within any notable study of Discordianism; see also Urban, Hugh. Magia Sexualis: Sex, Magic, Liberation in Modern Western Esotericism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006, p. 233-235; Versluis, Arthur. American Gurus: From Transcendentalism to New Age Religion. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014, p.123-138.

6   The three most important academic texts on Discordianism have all used different versions of the 4th/5th edition of the Principia: Cusack cites the Steve Jackson Games version in Invented Religion (2010), Urban references the Loompanics version in Magia Sexualis (2006), and Versluis based his work in American Gurus (2014) on the Illuminet edition.

7   The earliest version of the popular Loompanics edition of the Principia was published in 1979, and it featured an introduction by Hoy. This version was superseded by the popular 1980 edition, which contained Wilson’s introduction. See Gorightly, ‘Adam Gorightly on the Publishing History of the Principia Discordia’.

8   Wilson refers to the means by which an individual can ‘meta-program’ their own reality as the ‘final secret of the Illuminati’. See Wilson, Robert A. Cosmic Trigger: Final Secret of the Illuminati Vol.1, Tempe, AZ.: New Falcon Publications, 1997, pp.29, 68-71.

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AUDIO: 1992 Interview of Kerry Thornley by Kenn Thomas: THE IDLE WARRIORS


From one of Adam Gorightly‘s cassette tapes courtesy of Steamshovel Press…

Kerry Thornley interviewed by Kenn Thomas about the IllumiNet Press publication of Thornley’s The Idle Warriors. Youtubed by Floyd Anderson.

READ A CHAPTER EXCERPT of the The Idle Warriors.

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Kerry Prankster: CIA, LSD, JFK

New York Press cover feature box on Kerry Thornley, June 19-25, 1991 edition. Clipping courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
Jonathan Vankin’s chapter on Kerry Thornley in Conspiracies, Cover-ups and Crimes was one of the main motivating factors that launched me on this strange voyage of chronicling Kerry’s life.

At the time, Vankin noted that he was considering writing Thornley’s biography, a notion that excited me immensely, as Vankin’s portrayal of Kerry in Conspiracies, Cover-ups and Crimes only whet my appetite for further revelations of one of the most curious characters to inhabit the counterculture and JFK assassination research scene of the 60s and 70s.

Of course, Vankin never got around to writing Thornley’s biography, so by the early 2000s I took it upon myself to dive down that particular rabbit hole, a journey which amazingly enough is still ongoing. I eventually pulled my research together in my biography of Thornley, The Prankster and the Conspiracy: The Story of Kerry Thornley and How He Met Oswald and Inspired the Counterculture, currently still available in all those various formats we read now. Hail Eris!

Here’s a fascinating article discussing Vankin’s coverage of Thornley from 1991 by John Strausbaugh, then-contributor and editor of The New York Press, then later host of the The New York Times’s “Weekend Explorer” podcast. This was a turning-point in Kerry’s life as IllumiNet Press was starting to publish Kerry’s works in a serious format, and subsequent coverage of Thornley, his works, and his story was being picked-up by earnest media types.

New York Press feature on Kerry Thornley, June 19-25, 1991 edition, Page 00001.
Clipping courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
New York Press feature on Kerry Thornley, June 19-25, 1991 edition, Page 00002.
Clipping courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
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A Christmas Story: Excerpt from Kerry Thornley’s THE IDLE WARRIORS

What was Lee Harvey Oswald really like?

In 1962, Marine Corps Pvt. Kerry W. Thornley (and Discordian Society co-founder with Greg Hill) finished writing his first novel based on a friend and fellow Marine buddy, Lee Harvey Oswald, who strangely ended up defecting to the U.S.S.R. in the middle of the Cold War.

Little did Thornley know that his former friend, Oswald, who he used as a template for his main character Johnny Shellburn in his oh-so-hot-new-first novel, The Idle Warriors, would soon become the most-hated-man-in-America, unbelievably accused of assassinating President John F. Kennedy. As a founder of Discordianism, perhaps a young Kerry should have expected some turn-about-is-fnord-play from his sweetheart Eris, the Goddess of Discord, in this matter.

Through the book’s fictional Oswald-based character Johnny Shellburn, The Idle Warriors gives a rare and first-hand insight into the mind of the man who allegedly committed the most infamous crime of the 20th Century.

The Idle Warriors is Thornley’s fictional book written about Lee Harvey Oswald before the John F. Kennedy Assassination, making the work the only unique and pre-assassination artifact completely free of later events and their subsequent biases regarding Oswald and the JFK Assassination. Unfortunately, after the events on 11/22/63 in Dallas, Texas and the subsequent Warren Commission investigation which ended-up hauling Thornley into testify about his personal relationship with Oswald in the Marines and included interest of Thornley’s own pre-Assassination writings about America’s First Lone Nut Assassin, the original type-written manuscript was somehow lost by Kerry Thornley to his eternal dismay.

Believed by Thornley himself and others to be forever misplaced and forgotten, a copy of the The Idle Warriors‘ original manuscript was miraculously rediscovered and rescued from the National Archives in the early 1990s by an unlikely pair of fellows attending a Dairy Queen Christmas-time franchisee convention in Washington, DC, who happened to have a side-interest in JFK Assassination lore, research, and materials.

Thornley gave his a copy of The Idle Warriors manuscript to the Warren Commission as background information to Oswald’s life and motives, and it languished as an obscure evidence item in the National Archives. Originally submitted as exposition to his testimony, the manuscript by Thornley had mostly been forgotten. Over the years, Thornley came to misplace his only other copy of The Idle Warriors and came to believe he had lost all copies of the manuscript.

By some Discordian Xmas miracle, the Dairy Queen franchisee amateur researchers requested, and were oddly granted, special permission by the National Archives to deconstruct the Warren Commission’s copy of the manuscript page-by-page and allowed to photocopy Thornley’s type-written The Idle Warriors pages.

Eventually this photocopy was handed over to infamous conspiracy and innovator publisher Ron Bonds of IllumiNet Press who immediately published The Idle Warriors, in conjunction with Kerry Thornley with a new introduction by Best Evidence author David S. Lifton, in 1991 under the IllumiNet Press imprint, launching the Ron Bonds conspiracy publishing empire.

The only book about Oswald before the JFK Assassination was finally published. Hail Eris and Dairy Queen dip cones!

Here’s your Christmas miracle fnord excerpt from The Idle Warriors:

Continue reading “A Christmas Story: Excerpt from Kerry Thornley’s THE IDLE WARRIORS”