Cedar Lanes BowlMy own personal Brunswick Shrine closed in 2012, the very same year the world was supposed to end—and it might as well have for all I care!—because Cedar Lanes is where I’d spent much of my wayward youth bowling and playing Pong and pinball and enjoying the most wondrous cheeseburgers that your belly-brain can imagine! It was like a central meeting place where myself and my hirsute colleagues would congregate on a Friday night before venturing out to a kegger or some other stoner dude outing straight out of Linklater’s Dazed and Confused.
When I caught wind of Cedar Lanes impending closure, I arranged a get together with some Discordian colleagues to enjoy a toast or two and partake of the holy hamburger (sorry, not hot dogs without buns) and bid farewell to this landmark of my youth where last I heard they were going to build an aneristic Wal-Mart in its place.
Golden Apples in the Sun.After high school, I drifted off to other parts of the Golden State then returned to Fresno in the late-80s and made a habit for awhile of visiting Cedar Lanes for an occasional hang over-breakfast (eggs over easy, hash browns and bacon, keep the coffee coming!). This was during the period Dr. Hunter S. Thompson was writing a weekly column for the San Francisco Examiner, and so I fondly recall on several occasions slurping my coffee with great gusto as I read the good Dr. Gonzo’s latest while awaiting my bacon and eggs in the old school padded leather booths of yore.
Wall of Discordian Saints.During our final Cedar Lanes pilgrimage we never actually got around to bowling but spent the preponderance of our time in the dim lit bar among a gaggle of regulars enjoying their Bud Lights, one of whom I later noticed in the photo below appeared to be a shapeshifting reptilian, just starting to shapeshift. Notice the eyes…
Reptilian Discordian. Of course, Fresno has always been home to strange occurrences such as these, including my own psychedelic UFO encounter way back when. After reviewing the remaining photos from our pilgrimage, I noticed what appeared to be a saucer-shaped UFO hovering to the right of the Cedar Lanes sign!
I WANT TO BELIEVE.Cedar Lanes Credit Card.
Back in the day, Cedar Lanes used to issue their own credit cards, something I’d hung on to over the years, as it occupies a special place in my wallet right alongside my Discordian Pope Card. Of course, they hadn’t accepted these credit cards for over a decade or so, but just the same I thought I’d lay it on the bartender to see if I could stiff him for a few drinks. This gambit didn’t work, but just the same the bartender didn’t hold it against us, and actually treated us to a toast on the house, which was some sort of lemon lime concoction that was damn good, I might add.
Cedar Lanes Neon Sign.The last vestige of Cedar Lanes now resides in a neon sign bone yard in northwest Fresno, a testament to a bygone age.
Find out more about fabulous Fresno here, the city of the future!
“No Muse-poet grows conscious of the Muse except by experience of a woman in whom the Goddess is to some degree resident; just as no Apollonian poet can perform his proper function unless he lives under a monarchy or a quasi-monarchy. A Muse-poet falls in love, absolutely, and his true love is for him the embodiment of the Muse…
But the real, perpetually obsessed Muse-poet distinguishes between the Goddess as manifest in the supreme power, glory, wisdom, and love of woman, and the individual woman whom the Goddess may make her instrument…
The Goddess abides; and perhaps he will again have knowledge of her through his experience of another woman…” —Robert Graves, The White Goddess
Robert Graves—in the above passage—was obviously referring to Eris, although he tried to sugar coat the whole thing to make it appear as if our Lady of Perpetual Chaos is all sweetness and light, which is totally missing the point. Or as Eris herself once said in a certain SoCal bowling alley:
I have come to tell you that you are free. Many ages ago, my consciousness left man, that he might develop himself. I return to find this development approaching completion, but hindered by fear and by misunderstanding. You have built for yourselves psychic suits of armor, and clad in them, your vision is restricted, your movements are clumsy and painful, your skin is bruised, and your spirit is broiled in the sun. I am chaos. I am the substance from which your artists and scientists build rhythms. I am the spirit with which your children and clowns laugh in happy anarchy. I am chaos. I am alive, and I tell you that you are free.
In The Big Lebowski, the Coen Brothers use the holy bowling alley metaphor to further expound upon the Erisian mythos, featuring Jeff Bridges in his classic role of The Dude, the embodiment of Southern California-cool-Eristic-forces-in-action. The last line he delivers in the film is: “The Dude abides,” which certainly seems a wink and nod to a certain Goddess who also abides—or as a way of saying that the Goddess abides in The Dude.
An erstwhile political activist—fond of White Russians, smoking dope and bowling (but not The Eagles)—The Dude goes with the Erisian flow, unconcerned about paying his rent and, in fact, it appears he has no visible means of support and relies entirely upon the will of Eris to guide his chaotic movements and settle his bills. Here the Dude expounds upon The Eagles:
At the eighteen minute mark in the film we see The Dude’s bowling lane identified as the holy Discordian number 23.
The Erisian forces are then set in motion when a guy named Smokey from the opposing bowling team steps over the line during a league match, which sends Walter (John Goodman) on a tirade; Walter brandishes his gun, aims it at Smokey and screams: “Has the whole world gone crazy?” Some may see Walter as an out of control gun wielding wacko, but in reality he’s channeling the chaotic Erisian forces in an attempt to bring some semblance of real order and sanity to a world gone mad with lane violations.
With all his ups and downs, The Dude always seems to land on his feet (more often than not in slippers… or bowling shoes) which attests to the fact that if you put your trust in Eris (In Goddess We Trust!) then some spectacular shit is bound to happen along the way—or at least you won’t be bored!
Conversely—on the other side of the yin-yang coin (or the Hodge-Podge, have you)—there’s that big meanie Jeffrey Lebowski; a man—due to his fucked-up control freak nature—who is crippled, both literally and karmically; a constricted and conniving sour-pus possessed by The Curse of Greyface.
Thus you have the two competing Lebowski’s, a veritable yin-yang/hodge-podge of counter push pull contrasting styles. First, Jeffrey Lebowski (The Big Lebowski played by David Huddleston) who has employed his wealth and power in an attempt to control others; whereas The Dude, well, you know how he rolls. Or as Sam Elliot (as “The Stranger”) says: “Dude, I like your style” …or something to that effect.
The grey-faced aneristic order the Big Lebowski conjures into existence is a group of nihilist Nazis ne’er-do-wells who attempt to rob The Dude of his Erisian powers. In the final showdown, the nihilists attempt to harness Eris and control chaos, but end up getting their asses handed to them when Walter invokes Goddess and launches a bowling ball (the symbolic Golden Apple) knocking the crap out of one of the nihilists along with chomping off the ear of another. Although a glorious Erisian victory, a casualty is unfortunately suffered during the melee when their buddy Donny (Steve Buscemi) dies of a heart attack. Here is Walter’s moving eulogy for Donny.
Goddess reveals herself in many others ways throughout the course of the film, one of which comes in the form of the Big Lebowski’s free spirited and fun loving wife, Bunny, who embodies the trickster spirit of that Great Discordian Saint, Bugs Bunny.
And of course the Goddess manifests in the Big Lebowski’s daughter—Maude (Julianne Moore)—who has rebelled against hers father’s control and chooses The Dude to impregnate her with a magickal child of Chaos; an intentional act to get that old Hodge-Podge-counter-push-pull moving in a positive direction, Eristic vs. Aneristic.
At the 20 minute mark, another deity in the Discordian pantheon appears, none other than his holiness Richard Milhous Nixon shown in full stride as he prepares to roll a Kallisti-inscribed bowling ball into the dark, savage heart of the American dream. Just one more among many apparent Discordian winks and nods imbedded in The Big Lebowski.
I must also mention another Nixon-related synchronicity that occurred not long ago when Andrew West Griffin of the Red Dirt Report tweeted a pic of Historia Discordia: The Origins of the Discordian Society with the very same Tricky Dick image in the background. And if that wasn’t enough, on Andrew’s table rested a copy of Jung’s Red Book—another stone-cold synchronicity which I probably shouldn’t need to explain.
When I asked if he’d intentionally placed the Nixon bowling photo in his Historia Discordia pic—or Jung’s Red Book, for that matter—Andrew replied it’d happened by pure dumb luck, which once again confirms the spirit of Eris busy at work directing human affairs and simultaneously blowing our brains.
If all of this wasn’t enough, I just recently discovered a religion dedicated exclusively to The Dude called The Church of the Latter-Day Dude.
In this regard, it should also be noted there are now more Dudeist Priests in Ireland than Catholic ones. Hail Eris!
Included in the Dudeism iconography is a yin-yang like symbol, which seems also a twist on The Sacred Chao but instead of the Golden Apple yin-yanging the Pentagon you have the bowling ball symbol with finger holes balanced against one another in the cosmic drama of life.
And just like Mal-2 back in the day, The Church of the Latter-Day Dudes likewise issues their own certificates of ordination if you so desire to become a Dudeist Priest.
And now, here’s the greatest musical interlude in… well… musical interlude history:
Intent on recreating a Bavarian Illuminati letter in the same manner as such forerunners as Mord, Mal-2 and Lord Omar, Floyd took it even further back old school by purchasing a yellowish orange vintage typewriter on which to perform his mindfuck.
Creepy orange typewriter on lower right, just before Floyd bought it.
The target of Floyd’s OM missive in this instance was one R.C. Christian of Georgia Guidestones fame. For those unfamiliar with the Guidestones, refer to staff member Groucho Gandhi’s primer on the subject here.
The inspiration for Floyd’s letter was the recent appearance of a six-sided cube at the Guidestones with 2014 engraved on it, a mystery discussed on a recent edition of Greg Carlwood’s The Higherside Chats with Jay Weidner.
Guidestones CapstoneIn his letter, Floyd (aka Creepy) makes reference to an “Untarnished Conspiracy,” a phrase that’s an apparent nod and wink to a monument located at the Guidestones that indicates the author is the aforementioned “R.C. Christian (A Pseudonyn)”, which is certainly peculiar because “Pseudonym” appears to be intentionally misspelled and “R.C. Christian (A Pseudonyn)” is an anagram for Untarnished Conspiracy.
One would think that if R.C. Christian paid for precise words to be carved in granite on a major monument like this, would he really have been OK with a misspelled word?
And is JAM (also engraved on one side of the six-sided cube) a reference to the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu?
Ewige Blumenkraft: Kerry Thornley. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.November 22nd commemorates a lot of things here at Historia Discordia, including the date we first launched this site—on JFK Assassination Day, no less!—an event forever after ingrained in Discordian mythology. And although we would never be so bold as to suggest that Eris had a five fingered hand in orchestrating the Killing of the King, it nonetheless appears that in some way or another our Goddess of Perpetual Chaos was responsible for the torrent of high weirdness that engulfed Kerry Thornley’s life after meeting Lee Harvey Oswald in the Marines, then afterwards encountering a couple of shadowy JFK assassination conspirators in New Orleans. If that wasn’t enough, Jim Garrison claimed that Thornley was a CIA agent who masqueraded as Lee Oswald and also pronged Oswald’s wife, Marina. For more on this mind-blowing caper check out Caught in the Crossfire: Kerry Thornley, Oswald and the Garrison Investigation.
Discordianism—for good or ill—will be forever linked to this dark day in American history. Like a chaos magician reaching down into his top hat-rabbit hole, the Discordian-JFK Assassination landscape is inhabited by Playboy magazine bunny ears, Ozzie Rabbit (Oswald’s nickname), Echo and the Bunnymen (see JMR Higgs’ KLF: Chaos Magic Music Money), a certain pooka named Harvey (“How are you, Mr. Wilson?”) as well as Bugs Bunny’s role as a Discordian Society patron saint. I could explain all of these Discordian-Bunny-JFK assassination associations, but that would be like trying to explain a complicated joke disguised as a religion.
Oliver Senton as Robert Anton Wilson in the Cosmic Trigger Play.11/22 is one of those magic, yet chaotic dates on the Discordian Calendar when the Eristic (as well as Aneristic forces!) come together to perform a triple whammy of sorts, and this year is no exception as Daisy Eris Campbell premieres her much anticipated Cosmic Trigger Play on this very day (11/22) in Liverpool, England at the Camp and Furnace, which looks like a very cool venue where I plan to hoist a pint or two and then slip into a Liverpudian accent.
To complete this Erisian Triple Whammy (the first anniversary of the Historia Discordia website coinciding with the premiere of the Cosmic Trigger Play), I’ll be a guest on Coast To Coast AM with weekend host Richard Syrett to discuss Caught in the Crossfire. And to confuse matters even more (Hail Eris!), my C2C interview—although slated for November 22rd—won’t actually air until the 3rd hour of the program, the witching hour, midnight 11/23. Appearing in the 3rd hour of C2C seems apropos in that it relates to the theories of that late great conspiracy sleuth James Shelby Downard who proposed that JFK’s assassination was orchestrated by high level Freemasons to occur along the 33rd degree latitude as a part of a death ritual ceremony known as The Killing of the King with the numbers 3 and 33 repeated throughout.
James Shelby Downard in the early-90s. Photo by Adam Parfrey. In Masonry there are the three mystical steps or degrees: The Apprentice, Fellow Craft, and Master Mason. The third degree of Master Mason pertains to symbolic Death and Resurrection and the ceremonial Killing of the King. To this end, 11/22 (11 + 22=33) signifies (maybe) a Masonic triple whammy, as 33 is the highest degree in Freemasonry. Dealey Plaza—situated near the Trinity River—was the site for the first Masonic temple in Dallas. Kennedy’s ill-fated motorcade was just about to pass through the Triple Underpass when three shots rang out, wounding Kennedy twice and Texas Governor John Connally once.
Photographic comparison of the Old Man Tramp (on left) and E. Howard Hunt. The 3rd Degree of Freemasonry tells the legend of three “unworthy craftsman”—Jubela, Jubelo and Jubelum—who murdered Hiram Abiff, the architect of Solomon’s Temple. Similarly, three tramps were arrested in Dealey Plaza, then afterwards released. One of the tramps was later identified as E. Howard Hunt, who Kerry Thornley later came to suspect as being one of his MK-ULTRA handlers.
On the afternoon 11/23, I’ll be speaking at the Find The Others Conferestival, along with other such illuminaries as Robert Temple (author of The Sirius Mystery), Daisy Eris Campbell, John Higgs and Robin Ince.
The number 23—as sumbutnotall of you may be aware—is yet another holy Discordian number (2+3=5) which in turns relates to the Discordian Law of Fives, so I think we should have all our bases covered. And although I might have taken the steam out of my so-called Discordian Triple Whammy by not actually appearing on C2C on 11/22, I will be on Clyde Lewis’ Ground Zero Radio on 11/21, although for me it will actually be 11/22 (at the illustrious hour of 4am!) calling in from my hotel room in Liverpool, which further illustrates the quantum mechanical nature of the universe where I can travel back in time from the future to appear on a radio show in the past!
And, of course, 11/21 also has its place inDiscordianism as 1+1+2+1=5!
A mysterious German-Discordian cabal known as Erisianisch Geistes Akrobatische Legion (EGAL)—who were at one time in direct communication with Lord Omar—went underground in 1996 after performing a “Discordian pope parade in a bowling alley in Eriskirch by the Lake of Constance.”
But now—all sudden and mysterious-like—EGAL has emerged once again (for how long only time will tell) with an outburst of curious correspondence and cool collages sent to yours truly for submission into The Discordian Archives, a sampling of which we display for you now.
Crowleymas, from Gitch25.In commemoration of the Anniversary of CROWLEYMAS, we bring you now announcements of a party—which could also be considered a ritual—that RAW organized with some fellow Pagan-Discordian friends during his Berzerkley daze 40 years ago.
IAO!
For further cosmic illumination refer to pages 159-166, Cosmic Trigger, Vol. 1, by RAW.
Robert Anton Wilson letter about Crowleymas, October 12, 1974, Page 00001. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.Robert Anton Wilson letter about Crowleymas, October 12, 1974, Page 00002. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.Greg Hill Crowleymas Party Invitation Announcement, October 12, 1974. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
RAW Bavarian Illuminati Letter to Joanna Wilson, dated September 15, 1973.Some good stuff being done by esoteric scholar, Christian Greer, who received a research fellowship to dive into the New York Public Library’s Timothy Leary archives established last year.
An illuminating snippet Christian has just posted is one of the infamous Bavarian Illuminati Letterheads sent from RAW to Leary’s wife Joanna in 1973 while Tim was serving time in the slammer.
Also included is some notebook stationary (created by Harold Lord Randomfactor) initiating RAW into the Discordian Society, courtesy of Discordian Society founder Mal-2 (aka Gregory Hill).
In the spirit of such long ago Illuminati inspired correspondences, we bring to you now—back by popular demand!—your very own pristine Discordian Bavarian Illuminati Letterhead (PDF)!
Download, share, write your Congresscritter, or hold it in your hand while you agitate loudly on street corners!
Brought to you by the Ancient Illuminated Seers of Bavaria (AISB).
Since launching historiadiscordia.com (on JFK Assassination Day last year) we’ve had—upon occasion—some rather eyebrow-raising visitors to the site, among them the Dept. of Justice, not to mention the Church of Scientology, and most recently the Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) and the U.S. Department of Defense.
We welcome you!
One can only speculate why THEY would be interested in little ol’ us, though I no doubt suspect that certain agencies in our gubmint have long been trying to get a handle on just exactly what Discordianism “is” and to determine if it’s a threat to National Security. (Why anyone would fear a religion based on the worship of the Greek Goddess of Chaos and Discord is beyond me!)
Department of Homeland Security visits to historiadiscordia.com.Department of Homeland Security visits to historiadiscordia.com.
Department of Defense visits to historiadiscordia.com.
As seen in the assembled screen shots—which were captured during a couple of the DHS and DOD visits—at one point THEY hit the Illuminati tag, a Discordian connection that dates back to the glory days of Operation Mindfuck (OM) when Kerry Thornley—in cahoots with his other Discordian miscreants—cooked up the modern day Bavarian Illuminati (The World’s Oldest And Most Successful Conspiracy).
Another fine example of OM courtesy of Ho Chi Zen (aka Kerry Thornley). Letter to John M. Fisher of the American Security Council Foundation, dated August 8, 1970. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
Discordianism—as Erisian history instructs—has enjoyed a long association with the Illuminati (which may secretly run the U.S. Government!) as well as certain other Governmental branches (because we all know where “true” chaos comes from!) among them the military, and in particular the Pentagon which is incorporated into the Sacred Chao, that most holiest of all Discordianism symbols.
Original printing of the Sacred Chao which served as a frontispiece to the 1st ed. Principia Discordia. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
The Sacred Chao is a twist of sorts on Taoism’s Yin and Yang, depicting as it does the opposing forces of The Pentagon and The Golden Apple, also known in Discordianism as the Hodge and Podge. The Pentagon—according to Discordian mythos—represents the Aneristic Principle (Apparent Order) in counterbalance to The Golden Apple, which represents The Eristic Principle (Apparent Disorder.) To find out more about all this you will have to consult your pineal gland and call me when the brain swelling goes down.
The 1st edition Principia Discordia lists several Orders of Eris, one of which is the Knights of the Five Sided Temple, “a movement that is specifically Anti-Discordian. Such people are almost invariably found to be either bureaucrats or militarists (frequently both). The Five Sided Temple referred to is The Pentagon Bldg. itself where there is an incredible concentration of Knights. In your own experiences with military service and bureaucracies, you will notice many people with a heavy tendency towards the Eristesque Principle, but every so once in awhile you will find a person who is absolutely wound up in all sorts of fantastic and technical formal order which due to its own weight ends up only in a comical-absurd cross-reference maze of nothing; and such a person who lives, thinks and breathes in such terms—he is a Knight.”
Knights of the Five Sided Temple illustration by Greg Hill from the 1st ed. Principia Discordia. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
As you can see, Discordianism has long been connected to the Pentagon, which some may also find confusing, because many people considered those old school Discordians just a bunch of long haired pot smoking no-good hippie types—which of course many of them were!—so the Discordian Society’s apparent veneration the Five Sided Temple might appear a bit perplexing to some. However, all of these five-sided Discordian endeavors were simply a means to demonstrate the dichotomy found in Discordianism—the Aneristic vs. Eristic principles—which is not unlike the ol’ good vs. evil dualism of Christianity, because without one you couldn’t have the other. (Maybe.)
If you’d like to find out more about the hidden history of Discordianism, Illuminism and its sinister connections to not only the U.S. Government, but all governments of the world, I would encourage you (and THEM) to pick up a copy of Historia Discordia: The Origins of the Discordian Society while copies last!
Kerry Thornley’s Senior Class photo, CalHi, 1957. Photo courtesy of Sylvia Bortin.In The Prankster and the Conspiracy, Kerry Thornley’s high school friend, Sylvia Bortin, recalled an infamous hoax which occurred in Drama Class at CalHi (Whittier, California).
Apparently the perpetrators — Kerry, Greg Hill and other unnamed cohorts — made a recording of what, at first, appeared to be a regular radio program, with music playing innocently from a radio positioned on the apron of the stage. In actuality, the sounds were projected from a reel-to-reel tape machine hidden backstage. Inserted into the seemingly mundane radio program, our merry pranksters had planted a series of interruptions, made by a newscaster, to the effect that Soviet planes were invading the U.S. and dropping bombs.
Photo of Greg Hill with the CalHi (Sophomore Class) Drama Club in 1957. Greg, who over the years cultivated a fetish for rubber stamps (featured prominently in the Principia Discordia), applied a stamp over his picture in the photo (center, top row). Photo courtesy of Sylvia Bortin.As Sylvia recalled:
“Somebody had told me early on that it was a joke, but some of the students didn’t know and got really scared… What made me feel bad was that one of the boys in the class was so scared that he was praying.”
Since launching 
