“My priests of Joppa are loyal. I will speak to them in dreams and omens.” –Dame Maggie Smith as Thetis
Please find below an online conversation between myself and Chase, which transpired after I’d posted about one of the Discordian Holydays.
Chase: “So what is Discordianism? I’ve heard about a lot of things in passing, but never that.”
Me: “Discordianism was founded in the late 50s by these two guys who had a spiritual experience in a bowling alley and decided to start worshiping Eris, the Greek Goddess of Discord. It’s basically a parody religion for conspiracy theorists.”
Chase: “Well, that sounds delightful.”
Me: “It has its moments. It attracts a lot of really fun, hysterical people, along with a scintilla of fascist wingnuts.”
Chase: “Sounds about right, from what I imagined.”
Me: “There used to be a Discordian commune in Houston, but it broke up a couple of months before I quit drinking. Eris was most likely saving me from myself. Again.”
Chase: “Fun fact — my entire knowledge of Eris stems from The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, where they featured her constantly at odds with the Grim Reaper. All she really ever did was show up, scream ‘Chaos,’ and bikinis ensued.”
Chase: “Hijinks ensued, that is. Not bikinis.”
Chase: “However, she did wear a bikini-styled yoga, so I’m not entirely wrong.”
Chase: “Yoga.”
Chase: “Yoga.”
Chase: “TOGA.”
Chase: “FUCK YOU, SIRI. I SAID WHAT I SAID.”
Me: “I love how your AutoCorrect went splooey as soon as we started talking about Eris.”
Chase: “SHE KNOWS.”
Another successful conversion. I am going to win a toaster oven.
I only learned about the Houston commune last year, after reading about it in Chasing Eris by Brenton Clutterbuck (which is awesome and basically the Discordian version of Drawing Down the Moon). Digesting all of that information on the history, spread, and evolution of Discordianism was quite inspiring, and after months of making jokes about writing a definitive text on Discordian Witchcraft, I was like, “You know what? Imma do it! And I’m going to call it Dr. Van Van Mojo’s Flashbang Apple: a Gen-U-Ine Bok [sic] of Discordian Shadows, because that is a title with moxie.“
I am nothing if not committed, so as soon as I made that decision, I turned off my computer and went to run errands. At some point I was like, “Oh, hey, I need to get mouthwash,” and I ducked into a convenience store to grab some.
I snagged the first bottle I saw without really paying attention to it, and it wasn’t until I was back in my car and heading out that I took a good look at exactly what I’d purchased:
I generally do not put much stock in omens, but the random appearance of Greek Listerine in the midst of me going through a Discordian author phase can only be interpreted as divine encouragement. With the Spring Equinox and Mojoday coming up, it’s an excellent time for both fresh starts and picking fights, and I would be remiss not to take advantage of that energy and get some inciteful insightful words down on a page.
But I’ll definitely be sure to save the bottle and fill it with a custom herbal incense blend created in Eris’ honor, as a heartfelt thank-you-kindly for the portentious nudge.
Or maybe I’ll turn it into a Sea-Monkey habitat and burn candles on top of it to bind fascist wingnuts.
I suspect the latter might be more pleasing to Her.
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