Cover, Illuminatus! LeviathanOn page 657 of Illuminatus!, a quote from Lord Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst (aka Kerry Thornley) starts out The Tenth Trip chapter with:
“Ye have locked yerselves up in cages of fear; and, behold, do ye now complain that ye lack freedom.”
“Kerry Thornley wrote those words in the mid 1960s and within 10 years he had become a clinical paranoid himself, in the judgment of almost all of his friends, including Dr Robert Newport, a psychiatrist who had known Kerry since high school. The moral of this seems to me: take great care which nut cases you dare to mock, for you may become one of them.”
In Illuminatus!, RAW and Shea indicate that this quote originates from “The Epistle to the Paranoids,” which was taken from Thornley’s The Honest Book of Truth… which is not the truth! In Historia Discordia: The Origins of the Discordian Society, The Honest Book of Truth is reproduced in its entirety, as is “The Epistle to the Paranoids,” which were two separate and distinct works.
The first chapter of “Epistle to the Paranoids” originally appeared in Principia Discordia, and the remaining two chapters were discovered in the Discordian Archives, which are reproduced here for your reading pleasure!
Chapter 1 of 'Epistle to the Paranoids' from page 00069 of the 4th edition of Principia Discordia.Chapter 2 of 'Epistle to the Paranoids,' page 00001. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.Chapter 2 of 'Epistle to the Paranoids,' page 00002. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.Chapter 3 of 'Epistle to the Paranoids.' Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
For further insights into Illuminatus!, you can find the group reading page at RAWIllumination.net.
After my apparent 2009 Brunswick Shrine discovery, (as noted in Brenton’s video) I came upon a handwritten note from Greg Hill which seems to identify the address of another Brunswick Shrine. And, of course, that’s what Bob Newport always insisted; there was more than one Brunswick Shrine and that it was actually several bowling alleys the boys would visit back in the day.
Note on the location of the Brunswick Shrine. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
When I goggle-mapped the above address, it appears the Santa Fe Lanes bowling alley—if there indeed ever was one there—is long gone, and in its place is a CVS Pharmacy—which tells us that the Brunswick Shrine can be whatever you want it to be. Hail Eris!
Trippy Dick Pickin' Up The SplitNot only is your humble author a card carrying Discordian (aka The Wrong Reverend Houdini Kundalini of the Church of Unwavering Indifference) but I also serve as the Northern California Bureau Chief for the League of Western Fortean Intermediasts (LOWFI), founded by my friend and fellow conspirator, Skylaire Alfvegren.
Over the past few years, LOWFI has sponsored a number of esoteric field trips. In early 2009—as a pilgrimage to the Nixon Museum was in the planning stages (in the prospects of summoning Tricky Dicky’s ghost!)—a Canadian-Discordian colleague contacted me (who was unaware of our forthcoming Nixon Museum freakout) and sent a couple of unsolicited Discordian Initiation Rites, which included a ritual dedicated to the legendary Brunswick Shrine, the Whittier, California bowling alley where Kerry Thornley and Greg Hill allegedly discovered Discordianism. It should be noted that the specter of Nixon is an integral part of this Discordian mythos, one of which involves Tricky Dick growing up in Whittier.
In the Principia Discordia the legend of the Brunswick Shrine is related, but I won’t spoil it for you right now, as at the end of this post I’ll share with you the aforementioned Discordian Initiation which relates the vision encountered in a long ago bowling alley that led to Discordianism’s un-maculate conception.
When I interviewed Discordian co-founder Dr. Robert Newport regarding the legend of The Brunswick Shrine, he claimed that no specific bowling alley was the site of the Discordian Society’s birth, and that it had evolved at several different bowling alleys located throughout the greater Whittier and La Habra area in the late 1950s. At the time, this revelation came as a devastating disappointment to your humble author, who—in the course of my research—had planned a grand religious pilgrimage to this envisioned holy site, where I would snap sacred photos and perhaps even fall to my knees before this fabled Mecca of Discordianism. But such was not to be my fate, or so I assumed at the time, because—according to Newport—the choice of a bowling alley really held no mystical significance, other than the fact that bowling alleys stayed open all night and served alcohol. Or at least this is what Newport claimed, explaining that Kerry Thornley, who—during that period looked old for his age—usually bought the beer for the rest of the Discordian gang, which all drank thereof and through holy intoxication summoned forth the chaotic spirit of the Goddess of Confusion and Discord. (So much for Hill and Thornley’s contention that they were busy sipping coffee in a Whittier bowling alley when the revelation of the Goddess Eris struck!) Thus, according to Newport, the revelation of the Goddess had as much to do with alcohol-induced reveries as it did caffeine-inspired visions.
Nixon’s Museum is located in the town of Yorba Linda, not far from Whittier, the home of this fabled bowling alley/shrine. At the time I had no idea what I was getting into, but—for some inexplicable reason—decided to do a websearch for bowling alleys in Whittier. And in so doing, I stumbled across a flickr page that made me do a double take, depicting—as it did—a retro looking bowling alley that immediately struck a discordant chord, and somehow I felt this was THE PLACE. I noted the name: Friendly Hills Lanes, and said AHA! The clouds then parted and I knew that it was so; that I was gazing upon a photo of the one and only Brunswick Shrine, which I’d previously convinced myself—with the aid of Dr. Newport—had never actually existed. But I now believe it is the real deal: Friendly Hills Lanes = The Brunswick Shrine, and I will present my evidence for you now!
First, as mentioned in Principia Discordia, it was Kerry and Greg (aka Mal-2 and Omar) who bore witness to the mystical experience that transpired at the Brunswick Shrine. So—while there can be no doubt that Bob Newport spent many an hour hanging out with Greg and Kerry in a multitude of SoCal bowling alleys—on the particular night in question (when Eris first appeared and blew their minds), Newport was not in attendance, at least according to the Principia Discordia, The Bible of Discordianism. (And everybody knows that bibles never lie!)
Brunswick Shrine: A Sign From Eris. Courtesy of Discordian Archives.
Secondly, in The Prankster and the Conspiracy it is recounted—from stories shared by Kerry’s brother, Dick Thornley—how as lads Kerry used to take his younger brothers to explore the Friendly Hills Development then under construction located nearby their Whittier home. And so we have in Friendly Hills Lanes a bowling alley that fits the timeline (constructed in the late-40s/early-50s) and located within walking distance from where Kerry Thornley grew up. As I was unearthing these amazing Discordian discoveries, I learned from LOWFI Chief Skylaire that not long ago a SoCal preservation society known as The Modern Committee was instrumental in saving the Friendly Hills Lanes “BOWL” sign. Little did they know they were also saving a piece of the Discordian legacy for the ages. As further evidence that Friendly Hills Lanes and the Brunswick Shrine are one and the same, when you walk through the main door the first lane that you see is Number 23! (Coincidence? You decide!)
As the revelation hit me that The Brunswick Shrine did indeed exist and was still in operation, I thought it might be cool—after visiting the haunted Nixon Museum—that our LOWFI group afterwards made a pilgrimage to the birthplace of Discordianism. To this end, I ran a Mapquest from the Nixon museum to Friendly Hills Lanes and discovered it would take approximately 23 minutes to drive from one locale to the other! When I floated this idea by Skylaire of visiting said shrine, she was down for it, and so I began contemplating what exactly we could do to consecrate the holy event and then remembered the Brunswick Shrine/Discordian Initiation rite with the Dick Nixon tie-in that had been sent to me by my Canadian/Discordian colleague, Mike Cook. And so it came to be, with me reciting the initiation along with Skylaire playing the role of Eris and throwing fairy dust on the assembled initiates gathered below the neon glow of the BOWL sign. Not to mention my wife squawking the ceremonial rubber chicken 5 times and another participant holding up a sign that said: “DOOM!”
Brunswick Shrine: Impending Doom! Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
But once again I’m getting ahead of myself, and I need to mention that prior to this Brunswick Shrine visitation/initiation rite, we did indeed pay tongue-in-cheek homage to the haunted Nixon Museum and I’ll be damned if our entrance ticket didn’t include a photo of a psychedelic Richard Nixon bowling! (We also learned that one of Nixon’s brothers died at age 23!)
Nixon Museum: Ticket with Psychedelic Richard Nixon Bowling. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
And now, in its entirety, I present to you the Fifth Degree Discordian Initiation Rite (its narrative lifted from Principia Discordia), which was performed the evening of March 1, 2009, at the one and only Brunswick Shrine.
The Fifth Degree Discordian Initiation Rite
In the Los Angeles suburb of Whittier there lives a bowling alley, and within this very place, in the Year of Our Lady of Discord 3125 (1959), Eris revealed Herself to The Golden Apple Corps for the first time. In honor of this Incredible Event, this Holy Place is revered as a Shrine by all Erisians. Once every five years, the Golden Apple Corps plans a Pilgrimage to Brunswick Shrine as an act of Devotion, and therein to partake of No Hot Dog Buns, and ruminate a bit about It All. It is written that when The Corps returns to The Shrine for the fifth time five times over, than shall the world come to an end:
IMPENDING DOOM HAS ARRIVED!
And Five Days Prior to This Occasion The Apostle The Elder Malaclypse Shall Walk the Streets of Whittier Bearing a Sign for All Literates to Read thereof: “DOOM”, as a Warning of Forthcoming Doom to All Men Impending. And He Shall Signal This Event by Seeking the Poor and Distributing to Them Precious MAO BUTTONS and Whittier Shall be Known as The Region of Thud for These Five Days. As a public service to all mankind and civilization in general, and to us in particular, the Golden Apple Corps has concluded that planning such a Pilgrimage is sufficient and that it is prudent to never get around to actually going. It was here that the following occurred…
Brunswick Shrine: The Ritual Unfolding... Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
THE BIRTH OF THE ERISIAN MOVEMENT
Just prior to the decade of the nineteen-sixties, when Sputnik was alone and new, and about the time that Ken Kesey took his first acid trip as a medical volunteer; before underground newspapers, Viet Nam, and talk of a second American Revolution; in the comparative quiet of the late nineteen-fifties, just before the idea of RENAISSANCE became relevant. Two young Californians, known later as Omar Ravenhurst and Malaclypse the Younger, were indulging in their habit of sipping coffee at an all night bowling alley and generally solving the world’s problems. This particular evening the main subject of discussion was discord and they were complaining to each other of the personal confusion they felt in their respective lives. “Solve the problem of discord,” said one, “and all other problems will vanish.” “Indeed,” said the other, “chaos and strife are the roots of all confusion.”
FIRST I MUST SPRINKLE YOU WITH FAIRY DUST
Suddenly the place became devoid of light. Then an utter silence enveloped them, and a great stillness was felt. Then came a blinding flash of intense light, as though their very psyches had gone nova. Then vision returned. The two were dazed and neither moved nor spoke for several minutes. They looked around and saw that the bowlers were frozen like statues in a variety of comic positions, and that a bowling ball was steadfastly anchored to the floor only inches from the pins that it had been sent to scatter. The two looked at each other, totally unable to account for the phenomenon. The condition was one of suspension, and one noticed that the clock had stopped.
Brunswick Shrine ChimpThere walked into the room a chimpanzee, shaggy and grey about the muzzle, yet upright to his full five feet, and poised with natural majesty. He carried a scroll and walked to the young men. “Gentlemen, why does Pickering’s Moon go about in reverse orbit? Gentlemen, there are nipples on your chests; do you give milk? And what, pray tell, Gentlemen, is to be done about Heisenberg’s Law?” (pause). “SOMEBODY HAD TO PUT ALL OF THIS CONFUSION HERE!” And with that he revealed his scroll. It was a diagram, like a yin- yang with a pentagon on one side and an apple on the other. And then he exploded and the two lost consciousness. They awoke to the sound of pins clattering, and found the bowlers engaged in their game and the waitress busy with making coffee. It was apparent that their experience had been private. They discussed their strange encounter and reconstructed from memory the chimpanzee’s diagram. Over the next five days they searched libraries to find the significance of it, but were disappointed to uncover only references to Taoism, the Korean flag, and Technocracy. It was not until they traced the Greek writing on the apple that they discovered the ancient Goddess known to the Greeks as Eris and to the Romans as Discordia. This was on the fifth night, and when they slept that night each had a vivid dream of a splendid woman whose eyes were as soft as feather and as deep as eternity itself, and whose body was the spectacular dance of atoms and universes. Pyrotechnics of pure energy formed her flowing hair, and rainbows manifested and dissolved as she spoke in a warm and gentle voice:
ERIS: 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.
During the next months they studied philosophies and theologies, and learned that Eris or Discordia was primarily feared by the ancients as being disruptive. Indeed, the very concept of chaos was still considered equivalent to strife and treated as a negative. “No wonder things are all screwed up,” they concluded, “they have got it all backwards.” They found that the principle of disorder was every much as significant as the principle of order. With this in mind, they studied the strange yin-yang. During a meditation one afternoon, a voice came to them:
ERIS: It is called the Sacred Chao. I appoint you Keepers of It. Therein you will find anything you like. Speak of Me as Discord, to show contrast to the pentagon. Tell constricted mankind that there are no rules, unless they choose to invent rules. Keep close the words of Syadasti: ‘TIS AN ILL WIND THAT BLOWS NO MINDS. And remember that there is no tyranny in the State of Confusion. For further information, consult your pineal gland.
What is this?” mumbled one to the other, “A religion based on The Goddess of Confusion? It is utter madness!” And with those words, each looked at the other in absolute awe. Omar began to giggle. Mal began to laugh. Omar began to jump up and down. Mal was hooting and hollering to beat all hell. And amid squeals of mirth and with tears on their cheeks, each appointed the other to be high priest of his own madness, and together they declared themselves to be a society of Discordia, for what ever that may turn out to be.
Grand Hailing Sign of Awkwardness and Confusion
As a Keeper of the Sacred Chao I now impart to you a secret Discordian sign. This sign originates from when Richard Nixon boarded his helicopter after he had resigned the office of the Presidency of the U.S. Put both hands in the “peace” sign and thrusting them forward on an upward 45 degree angle at the same time speaking the words “I am not a Crook.” Richard Nixon, having unconsciously taken part in our secrets as a Knight of the Five Sided Castle we rightly recognized this as the Grand Hailing Sign of Awkwardness and Confusion. It is only to be given when in of moments of extreme awkwardness or to display the feeling of total confusion, or when blatantly lying.
Dr. Robert Newport celebrating the day. riotheater.comI’ve often expressed my respect and admiration for Dr. Robert Newport (even though he sometimes calls me Bruce) who has been a huge part of the Discordian Archives project, and without whom it never would have happened.
Known in the annals of Discordianity as Rev. Hypocrates Magoun (Protector of the Pineal), Newport was high school pals with Greg Hill and Kerry Thornley back in the days of Bowling Alleys, Eris, and a Revelation with a Baboon. Newport contributed to the 4th edition of the Principia Discordia with “The Parable of the Bitter Tea,” which of course has a deeper meaning than you can read on the surface—although I’m not quite sure what that is—so I’ll leave it to Brenton Clutterbuck to reveal this deeper mystery in his forthcoming book, Chasing Eris.
After Greg Hill’s passing, the Discordian Archives ended up in Newport’s keeping, and he had planned to put these materials on a website but never quite found the time as he had become more interested in landscape painting. And so perhaps he got the best of both worlds, as HistoriaDiscordia.com (maybe) became what he was envisioning, and in the meantime, Newport was able to follow his painting passion and not have to dicker around with HTML and all that nonsense. More on current happenings of Dr. Robert in a bit…
Here’s some more on Dr. Robert Newport and Greg Hill, lifted (mostly) from my previous book The Prankster and Conspiracy:
— S N I P —
In the early-70s, Newport and Hill—along with Greg’s wife Jeanetta—started a movie theater in the town of Monte Rio, along the Russian River area in Northern California.
Cinema Rio Theater: Then. Courtesy of Dr. Robert Newport.
Cinema Rio Theater: Now. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
Housed in an old converted military Quonset hut, Cinema Rio had five hundred seats, as well as a vast population of rats until a twenty-two pound Siamese cat named Eldritch became a Cinema Rio regular. “And,” as Newport recalled, “that was the last of the rats, the night Eldritch walked into the theater. We brought him in, put him down in the lobby, his ears went up, and he was gone like a flash—and from that night on there were no rats!”
Cinema Rio Christmas Card, Front. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.Cinema Rio Christmas Card, Back. Featuring Eldritch the Cat. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
Cinema Rio was unique in the sense that it was a community effort, a theater by and for the local residents. In this spirit, local artists were enlisted to help decorate the digs, which included a beautiful colored marquee outside, displaying a cartoonish Mayan motif. The inside of the theater was originally a dull pink, so—to give it some pizzazz—columns and figures, swirling and twirling about, were painted on the walls, giving the place the funky feel of an old-time theater reborn with a psychedelic sensibility.
Greg and Bob ran Cinema Rio on a shoestring, with Greg putting the programming together, in addition to designing the posters and advertisement blurbs. As part of their community outreach, once-a-month programming meetings were held where the locals could contribute suggestions for films. Thus a concerted effort was made to involve the community, which meant employing it, as well. In fact, Greg and Bob ended up employing way too many locals to ever turn a profit.
Cinema Rio flyer designed by Greg Hil: Front. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.Cinema Rio flyer designed by Greg Hil: Back. The back side provides an example of community participation in the business. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
Eventually, Greg and Bob decided to expand their vision. As it so happened, right next to Cinema Rio was a huge old abandoned redwood dance hall, which one day came up for sale, so Greg and Bob decided they would start a community center there. After acquiring the building, they put in a restaurant, a health clinic, ran a community newspaper, and had weekend gatherings where they fed the homeless, including concerts on the beach.
While all of this was going on, Newport was somehow able to operate a psychiatry practice out of his house in nearby Guerneville, often getting paid for his services in baskets of garden vegetables or apples. Bob’s “office” was in a tree house on his property, located in the center of a circle of redwoods. The entire property consisted of an acre-and-a-half, with several cabins scattered throughout the redwoods. It was a diverse operation, including a school in his garage, which twenty-or-so kids attended. Dr. Bob was also heavily involved with the Psych Department at nearby Sonoma State, as on his property various group sessions were ran, such as encounter groups and primal therapy groups.
Cinema Rio and the Monte Rio Community Center eventually folded in the spring of 1973 due mainly to the fact that Newport and Hill got over extended financially. But there were other factors, as well, which caused the scene to run its course, namely the dissolution of Greg’s marriage to Jeanetta. As Newport recalled:
It would have been a miracle if the marriage had survived. Life at the River was incredibly difficult. I mean it was wild, it was high and it was fun, it was creative… and there was no money. Which meant that just trying to scrimp by with a living was hard to do, and it was hard for everybody. It was hard for me, too. I mean I had a little income because I had a little practice going. But the theater made no money—that cost us money. All these other activities we had going—none of them made money… So things were incredibly stressful. And when the marriage broke up, Greg became very depressed. And basically about that time, my mentor who lived next door to me, who had been a very interesting old man, who had dropped out as a President of Union Bank, and had come to the River, and had a very interesting Libertarian philosophy… ah, anyhow, he died, Jeanetta left, and pretty much everything collapsed. And Greg became incredibly depressed. And he went off to New York… and got a job with a bank doing clerical work, which is about as bleak an outcome as you can imagine. So he drank and that became his way of dealing with things.
— E ND O’ S N I P —
Rather than end this post on a bummer note, let’s get back to Bob Newport and where his path has taken him over the years, with a brief bio lifted from his website.
Art, and the study of painting, as a vehicle for probing into the relationship between the natural world and the human psyche, is Dr. Robert Newport’s second career following thirty-one years as a psychiatrist. Thirty-one years, during which he developed and refined his powers of observation while delving deeply into the nature of consciousness, exploring its relationship to body, mind and spirit. And when not engrossed in his practice, he was exploring and observing the natural world both as a backpacker and sailor.
Doctor Robert comes from a family of sailors and explorers who arrived with the first settlers in this country in 1607. He was born in the Midwest mid-century, and has never been in the middle of anything since, with the exception of the profound beauty and drama of the landscape. A maverick in everything he has ever done, (he was said to have invented the term “holistic psychiatry”), he came to painting naturally, if not exactly willingly. Drama was his first love; he turned down an offer for the professional theater to go to medical school. With one successful children’s play to his credit, his reading of his muse’s call was to write for the stage; drawing his material from the human dramas he attended as a psychiatrist.
As fate would have it, it fell to him to care for his ailing mother, a successful artist herself for 40 years. In an effort to find a way to have a meaningful relationship with her, he began to paint under her tutelage and later at the Otis College of Art and Design. He found not only that he loved painting, but that it gave him both the vehicle for communicating his experiences of encountering spirit in the natural world as well as the opportunity to continue to use his powers of observation in the further development of his craft. So as a painter and world traveler, he followed in his family footsteps, his sister and niece also being fine artists of some repute. Following his retirement from medicine, he obtained an Otis certificate in fine arts and has continued his studies with private teachers.
Painting by Newport: Could this be the Five-Fingered Hand of Eris??? Courtesy of Dr. Robert Newport.
Whether or not reading Historia Discordia will “blow your mind” or simply show you what a bunch of already blown minds can come up with, is besides the point. The point is that it is fun!
And now, back to our regular programming… whatever that is.
A card dated April 1970 with some Erisian information about the LBJ Cabal. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.I’ve been on the road of late and so finally getting around to commenting on the most recent Illuminatus! group reading (after a couple weeks MIA) reporting from an undisclosed location somewhere in Spook Central, VA where I’m using my ipad mini to read from a kindle version of the book—and it seems that the page numbers don’t always correspond with the paperized version, hail eris!, so bear with!
Laughing Buddha Jesus (short for LBJ) was a Discordian cabal Kerry Thornley cooked up back in the day, although I don’t know if Kerry ever referred to it with a “Phallus” added to the end—as the John Dillinger character does on page 127. For those versed in the alternate Dillinger legends, perhaps the addition of “Phallus” (to the end of LBJ) is associated with rumors that Dillinger was well equipped with a massive 23-inch you-know-what that was pickled for posterity and is now hidden away in the vaults of the Smithsonian.
To this end, Dillinger identifies himself as President of Laughing Buddha Jesus Phallus, Inc. (LBJP), a distributer of rock music LPs that Johnny D.—in cahoots with the Justified Ancients of Mummu (JAMS)—started as a front organization to counterattack the Illuminati’s strangle-hold on the rock music industry. In conjunction with this anti-Illuminati operation, Dillinger mentions that the LBJP had disseminated Illuminati revelations through certain unexpected channels such as The Christian Crusade, which—in “real life”—is exactly what the Discordian Society perpetrated via Operation Mindfuck (OM), a topic previously discussed here at Historia Discordia—so if you are still confused by the term “OM” (Don’t Leave OM Without It!) do a search of this site—or if all else fails, a pineal gland consultation has been known to work wonders.
Late-60s Bavarian Illuminati Hoax Letter to Rev. David Noebel. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
The Beatles: A Study in Drugs, Sex, and Revolution by David Noebel. (Amazon)Above is one of the famous Bavarian Illuminati hoax letters that RAW, Greg Hill, Thornley, et al, cooked up in the late, great Sixties. This one in particular is addressed to Rev. David Noebel who wrote a handful of somewhat provocative books (many of which inhabit my arcane library at Gorightly Hindquarters) including such startling titles as Rhythm, Riot and Revolution (Amazon) (mentioned in the Bavarian letter hoax letter)—as well as The Beatles: A Study in Drugs, Sex and Revolution (Amazon) and Communism, Hypnotism, and The Beatles (Amazon)—each of which includes, on their respective covers, some caricatures that bear uncanny resemblances to the Fab Four… sort of. The hoax letter, in this instance, was most likely composed by RAW (in the guise of Rev. Charles Arthur Floyd II) given the Evanston, Illinois mailing address, this during the period when RAW was under the employ of Hugh Hefner’s Playboy mag in Chicago.
Communism, Hypnotism, and The Beatles by David Noebel. (Amazon)Although Rev. Dr. Noebel wrote the above-mentioned titles way back in the 60s, he’s apparently still hard at it, penning additional classics along these lines and preaching from his pulpit situated somewhere deep in the heart of Texas. Noebel also has a presence on facebook but when I tried to friend him a couple years back he shined me on. 🙁
Below is a snippet from a lecture by Rev. Noebel on Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, which pretty much lays out his commies-infiltrating-rock-music thesis:
Emperor Norton Promissory Note, 50 Cents.On page 133, the “Norton Lodge in Frisco” is mentioned, which in the “real world” was Greg Hill’s pad in San Fran. A couple paragraphs later we see the first mention of flaxscript, an alternate form of currency that Dillinger and the JAMS are using to get over on the Illuminati’s Federal Reserve note scam, which is exactly what the real Discordians were up to when Greg Hill and his Discordian confederates—inspired by Emperor Joshua Norton (who had previously issued his own currency)—likewise followed the good Emperor’s lead with what became known as Flax Notes (or alternately, flaxscript.)
Flaxscript: Security Last Intergalactic, 30 tons of flax. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.Included among those listed as taking part in this exchange of Discordian currency were Malaclypse The Younger (Greg Hill), Lord Omar (Kerry Thornley), Mungojerry (Bob McElroy), Mordecai Malignatus (RAW), Hypocrates Magoun (Robert Newport), Iona K. Fioderovna (Jeanetta Hill) and Harold Randomfactor (Tim Wheeler).
Flaxscript: Bank of Omar, 1 ton of flax. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.Before Bitcoin: Security Last Intergalactic Bank Flaxscript. 2 Tons of Flax = 1 Principia Discordia. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
I Ching divination cast by Greg Hill for Kerry Thornley, dated April 26, 1970. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
A very-long forty-four years ago, this very day, during the rapidly loss-of-hippie-innocence known as that infernal year of 1970, Greg Hill cast an I Ching, or the Book of Changes, hexagram for Kerry Thornley (aka Lord Omar), based on Thornley’s inquiry:
“Lord Omar desires guidance for this coming year.”
As seen in the letter above, Hill cast Hexagram 38, K’uie (Opposites, or Opposition) moving into Hexagram 64, the I Ching’s last hexagram, Wei Chi (Before Completion, or Unfinished Business) for Thornley, where Hill tells Thornley based on I Ching interpretation tradition:
“Before the fox makes it across the ice, his tail gets wet.”
We Chi is an interesting casting for Thornley at this time. Thornley was ascending into High Weirdness after being targeted as a possible “Second Oswald” by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s JFK Assassination investigation. Thornley would soon, in the mid-70s and following years, order part of his life around the JFK Assassination based on his belief of recovered memories of involvement in the early-60s with the mysterious “Brother-in-Law” as he documents in his infamous The Dreadlock Recollections. As he tried to make sense of it all, Thornley could aptly be described as a “wet-tailed fox” during this time where his “transition from disorder to order is not yet complete,” although Thornley was trying his best to complete that transition with his increasingly conspiratorial speculations.
Not only did Hill cast hexagrams for fellow Discordians, but he also included exactly one reference to the I Ching in the Principia Discordia on the last proper canon page of the Fourth Edition of the book, Page 00074, entitled “Part Five: The Golden Secret.” This page is possibly the book’s most gung-ho positive message in the entire endeavor, giddily proclaiming:
And when men become free then mankind will be free.
My you be free of The Curse of Greyface.
May the Goddess put twinkles in your eyes.
May you have the knowledge of a sage,
and the wisdom of a child.
Hail Eris.
On the bottom-right of Page 00074 is pasted a black marker representation of Hexagram 11: T’ai (or Peace), shown below. This hexagram is also to be found in the July/August 1970 issue of Hill’s zine The Greater Poop #30 on Page 00004 discussing the Discordian Rev. Dr. Hypocrates Magoun, P.P., and his “antics” with LSD during his United States Air Force service. The Rev. Dr. Hypocrates Magoun is the Discordian name of Robert Newport, an Early Discordian and savior of Greg Hill’s Discordian archives.
As all these Greg Hill hexagrams occur around the same time in the late-60s/early-70s, shown above, below, and in previous posts, it’s clear Hill was at this time dabbling with the eternal mysticism of the I Ching and producing it in his literature and correspondences, as well as being called on by his fellow Discordians to cast their fates.
Now whether it did them any good? No Blame. Hail Eris!
Page 00074 of the Sacred PUD (the original Paste-Up Discordia): Part Five: The Golden Secret with I Ching Hexagram 11, T'ai or Peace. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.
Framed Discordian Artifacts. Courtesy of the Discordian Archives.A couple years ago or so, I was given Emperor Norton’s gravestone rubbing from an East Coaster named Fred McCann, a young twenty-something fellow who had read my book The Prankster and The Conspiracy and, due partly to it, traveled out to California to interview Early DiscordiansLouise Lacey and Bob Newport.
Along the way, Fred made a pilgrimage to Emperor Norton’s grave and the rest, as they say, is history.
Afterwards, I got the notion to take said rubbing and combine it with some other Discordian Archives artifacts, which I only finally got around to doing the other day. Anyway, here ‘tis, including the third edition of Principia Discordia, flax notes from both Omar and Mal, not to mention a Hail Eris bumper sticker designed by RAW himself, as well as several fnords!
The following review of Illuminatus! entitled “Anarcho-Surrealism” was among the Discordian Archives I was first turned onto by Bob Newport in the early 2000s. At first blush, the document appeared to have been composed by Greg Hill — under the pseudonymous moniker of “Mordecai Zwack” — circa 1974-ish during the period he was living in NYC.
Later, while combing through correspondence between Robert Anton Wilson and Greg Hill from the period, I soon discovered that they actually collaborated on the piece. This would explain the Mordecai moniker in the byline, as Mordecai — it just so happens — was the first name of RAW’s Discordian persona, Mordecai Malignatus aka Mordecai the Foul.
In retrospect, “Anarcho-Surrealism” seems a prime example of Discordian Culture Jamming, in the sense that RAW was writing his own clandestine review of Illuminatus! with the covert aid of Discordian Society co-founder Greg Hill, aka Malaclypse the Younger, Omnibenevolent Polyfather of Virginity in Gold (K.S.C.).
Illuminatus! poster for the Science Fiction Theatre of Liverpool production, 1976.On November 23rd, 1976 (which just so happens to be a high holy day in Discordianism, both due to the mystical manifestation of the number 23 and because it’s Harpo Marx’s birthday) an Englishman named Kenneth Campbell premiered a ten-hour stage production of Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea’s Illuminatus! (Amazon Kindle, Paperback, Hardcover) at the Science-Fiction Theatre in Liverpool. In true Discordian fashion, the production consisted of five plays of five acts each, with each act 23 minutes in length. As Wilson wrote in Cosmic Trigger (Paperback):
Ken Campbell’s adaptation was totally faithful to this nihilistic spirit and contained long unexpurgated speeches from the novel explaining at sometimes tedious length just why everything the government does is always done wrong. The audiences didn’t mind this pedantic lecturing because it was well integrated into a kaleidoscope of humor, suspense, and plenty of sex (more simulated blow jobs than any drama in history, I believe.)
Working with the National Theatre (under the Patronage of Queen Elizabeth, no less!), Campbell arranged for the two Bobs, Wilson and Shea, to be flown across the pond for the London production premiere. In appreciation of Her Majesty’s largesse, Wilson made a cameo appearance: “The cast dared me to do a walk-on role during the National Theatre run. I agreed and became an extra in the Black Mass, where I was upstaged by the goat, who kept sneezing. Nonetheless, there I was, bare-ass naked, chanting ‘Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law’ under the patronage of Elizabeth II, Queen of England, and I will never stop wondering how much of that was programmed by Crowley before I was even born.” According to Michael Coveney’s Ken Campbell bio, RAW was so nervous about his nude cameo that he dropped some acid before going on stage, as well as doling out hits to other actors in the play.
At some point, during the course of the production (if I got the story straight), Kenneth Campbell’s daughter, Daisy Eris Campbell, was conceived backstage. More on the adventures of Daisy Campbell in a bit….
A year after of the Illuminatus! stage production, a Discordian reunion of sorts took place that included Bob and Arlen Wilson, Louise Lacey, Greg Hill, Bob and Rita Newport, as well as several other friends of the Wilson’s who traveled to Seattle to take in the Illuminatus! stage production during its stateside run.
‘Twas a chilly Seattle night (as the story goes), so someone (who shall remain nameless) produced enough MDMA for Wilson and all his colleagues (ingested between the second and third acts) which in due time took the chill from the bones of the assembled Discordians—and cranked up the glow surrounding their collected auras—as they sat entranced by the spectacle which unfolded.
Wilson (l) and Shea (r) during the Illuminatus! publication period.The MDMA notwithstanding, Louise Lacey recalls the Illuminatus! stage production as a “sublime experience” which had one and all rolling in the aisles.
In the spirit of the Illuminatus! stage play—and filled with the same sort of Erisian inspiration as her dearly departed father—Daisy Eris Campbell has taken on the task of creating a stage adaption of Wilson’s Cosmic Trigger, which you can find out more about in the YouTube video to follow.
The following review of Illuminatus! entitled “Anarcho-Surrealism” was among the Discordian Archives I was first turned onto by 
