Pagan Pathways: Discordianism

The Discordian or Erisian movement is described as a Non-Prophet Irreligious Disorganization and has claimed The Erisian revelation is not a complicated put-on disguised as a new religion, but a new religion disguised as a complicated put-on. It all started with the Principia Discordia, or How I Found the Goddess and What I Did to Her When I Found Her, a collection of articles and ideas compiled by Greg Hill (Malaclypse the Young-er). The central theme is Chaos is every bit as important as Order as illustrated in the story of The curse of Greyface.

Humor is central to Discordianism, but Discordianism should not be dismissed as a joke. Profound experiences frequently accompany the practice or Erisinaism. It is a perceptual game, one which demonstrates that the absurd is just as valid as the mundane and chaos is just as valid as order. It frees the practitioner from the order games (that most have forgotten are games) to play games with order or games with chaos, or both. The effects of Discordianism upon an individual can be far-reaching and amazingly liberating.

Discordianism may, or may not, be a religion. It has a book and a set of rules, and could be treated as a way of spiritual guidance, but for many people it's a reason to use a silly psuedonym and put a lot of weird stuff on the Web. For some people, these two definitions are not contradictory.Discordia and Eris both relate to the Greco-Roman goddess of Chaos, who left a golden apple with the inscription To the Prettiest in Olympus. This began an argument that eventually caused the Trojan War