Year of Faith

23 by .olivia.

The Fortean Times has republished a 1977 article by Discordian philosopher Robert Anton Wilson on the phenomena surrounding the number 23.

Reading all the different coincidences associated with the number, it’s easy to see why it has attained such a mythological status in the Discordian religion.

I first heard of the 23 enigma from William S Burroughs, author of Naked Lunch, Nova Express, etc. According to Burroughs, he had known a certain Captain Clark, around 1960 in Tangier, who once bragged that he had been sailing 23 years without an accident. That very day, Clark’s ship had an accident that killed him and everybody else aboard.

Furthermore, while Burroughs was thinking about this crude example of the irony of the gods that evening, a bulletin on the radio announced the crash of an airliner in Florida, USA. The pilot was another captain Clark and the flight was Flight 23.

The article suggests that this was unearthed from the archives partially because Mr. Wilson passed away recently and partially because of the release of the recent Jim Carrey film, The Number 23.

Whatever the reason it was unearthed, it was a good read. I wish I’d found it back in January. You can feed your hunger for the number 23 over on Flickr, where someone’s created a 23 Flickr group.

I pretty much failed at being a Discordian.

I appreciated the philosophy behind it all, and found many of the points to be rather charming and close to the Truth. The problem is that I have strong impulse control, so no matter how many discordian ideas I had, I never had the guts to carry them out. No matter how many times I wanted to dance down the sidewalk, to strike up a random conversation, or to shout randomly from soapboxes, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I was too shy, too concerned with looking silly.

I try not to take life too seriously, and I am certainly not a bearaucratic cubicle dweller, so a lot of Discordianisms finer points had already been incorporated into my life. But I could not see life simply enough that it was all fun and games; my childlike imagination was bounded up by my useless trepidations.

But now, Eris and the Philosophers, as you were promised. (more…)

I am no longer Discordian, so this summary will not be in the form of interpretive dance. I’m sure you are all very disappointed.

In brief: January was a frustrating month for my budding spirituality—I don’t think I’m cut out to be a Discordian.

A religion based on disorder ought to be easy; any random thing you do can be correct. There are few rules, and even those are broken with encouragement. Eat hot dogs once a week, do silly things in public? Piece of cake.

Except when I’ve just spent several hours entering transactions into new accounting software, so I’ll have all my finances in—oops—order. Or when I plan out bus routes so I can get all my errands done in the most efficient manner. A month supposedly spent worshiping a Goddess of Chao is probably a bad time to start learning effective time management, financial planning, and home storage solutions.

Or perhaps not. As Michael said in his Discordian overview, the philosophy is about the freedom to do what you want, and not being constrained by other people’s opinions. As I was a pretty free spirit to start with, it makes sense that my habits wouldn’t need to change much. It still feels like I was missing out on the spirit of Discordia by not being more random, but really, how chaotic can you be when you have to plan it?

Another limiting factor was the fact that my life goes on after I’m done fomenting discord. I considered it a bad idea to rock the boat in terms of my job, my bills, my apartment. The financial organizing may not have been particularly discordant, but it is going to affect my life for much longer than a month. That seems to be the major pitfall to our religion-a-month club: some changes are easier to make because you know you won’t have to stick with them (veganism and celibacy come to mind), but others are hard to justify without a sincere leap of faith.

For now, I will be leaping to the next faith, and seeing if a surfeit of rules suits me better than none.

MEATAPALOOZA 2007

With January coming to an end, we are moving from formless, delightful Discordianism to strict, karmic Jainism. Part of the transition will involve swearing off meat and gorging ourselves on plant flesh for the month of February. To celebrate (perhaps mourn) the temporary hiatus of our carnivourus nature, we shall be GORGING OURSELVES ON MEAT on Wednesday the 31st. We do not know what will be happening, or where or when it will be, but it will almost certainly involve a STUPID QUANTITY OF MEAT.

Consult your Pineal Gland for an invite.

As for Jainism, I am currently trying to find some decent resources, but for starters I am recommending the first book of the Jain Sutras as well as the ‘Twelve Vows of the Layperson’. I am currenlty looking up some other secondary resources that might help flesh things out for us. I talked to a few of my professors at SFU and they agreed to help me with resources as well as answering questions or providing feedback. They both work in the Humanities department and were both very supportive of the project, which is always good to hear.

Also- Check out the article I finally got around to posting- The Philosophy of Discordianism.

Also Also- Jains pray at least once daily, usually in the morning. The most important prayer is the ‘Navkar Mantra’. Since we will be reciting it on a daily basis I thought it would be a good idea to post it early so we can start implementing it right away. I think it sounds pretty, moreso in hindi.

Namah Arihantanam: I bow to the Arihantas (the perfect human beings)
Namah Siddhhanam: I bow to the Siddhhas (liberated bodyless souls)
Namah Ayariyanam: I bow to the Acharyas (masters and the heads of congregations)
Namah Uvjhayanam: I bow to the Upadhyayas (spiritual teachers)
Namah Loye Savva Saahunam: I bow to all the Sadhus (spiritual practitioners) in the world
Aiso Panch Namahkkaro: Worshiping all these five
Savva Paav Panasano: destroys all sins and obstacles
Manglanancha Savvesim: Among all that is auspicious
Padhmam Havei Mangalam: this “Navkar Mantra” is the foremost.

In typical Discordian fashion, my cohorts and I recently accosted the Vancouver citizenry with pertinent questions.  Some were more willing than others, don’t worry though, they all had thumbs.  We checked.

You can’t dust for vomit.

So we made a survey of about twelve questions we thought were important to us and to Discordianism in general.  The nature of the survey allowed us to draw certain correlations between two, three, hell even five of the questions.  The conclusions we I came to were quite staggering…

We’ve got armadillos in our trousers.

When asked which colour they thought up was, most of the people surveyed ignored us completely.  The few that did answer that particular question thought that up was black.  Now that might not be the most interesting morsel of knowledge, but combine that with our discovery that all of the people surveyed flat out refused to ask for my number and we are left with this inevitable conclusion:

Pretty impressive, huh?

The other conclusion I came to was even more disturbing.  Of all those who participated in the survery, 50% said that they would kill a kitten if it would result in a scientific revolution.  That same 50% also had skirts on th-PINK FLAMINGO-ier beds.  Combined with these relevant statistics, I am forced to conclude that pants are holding us back as a society.

More discord to follow…

Discordian bowling was a success (if low on poetry), assuming one takes “success” to mean that we did indeed manage to complete two games at the bowling alley.  Alas, there shall be no pictures of the event, due to low lighting conditions in the cutting-edge “Glow” lanes.

There were pauses to read poetry by both Robert Anton Wilson, our dear departed Discordian, and Robert Burns, since I had inadvertently scheduled bowling on a day eminently suitable for poetry.  We could have perhaps chosen more selections, but I believe Discordianism is compatible with a lack of preparation.
Now, how do you play Discordian bowling?

• The focus is less on high scoring than on style.
• Scoring still matters, unless you are Discordian enough to snuff the competitive instinct entirely.
• Try to find as many ways to throw the ball as possible.
• Suggestions include: wrong-handed, between the legs, backwards, slow motion, from a hat, wearing a hat, sitting, lying down, and blindfolded.
• We shall not be held responsible should any of these maneuvers result in you being kicked out of the bowling alley.
• Damage to persons or property is not advised.
• By will of Eris, the first ball any player throws is required to be a gutter ball.
• Dancing and celebrating strictly encouraged.

Our last Discordian event is scheduled to be a survey, which shall require slightly more preparation than bowling.  Off to prepare I go.

Once a week, I call my parents in Halifax to update them on what’s new in my life and let them know I value their continued existence. These conversations often contain such gems as “nothing happened this week” and “I’m really glad neither of you ceased existing since we last spoke”.

I’ve mentioned in my profile that I’m a former Catholic. My dad is a non-practicing Anglican, my mom is Catholic and they raised me Catholic until I was about fourteen. At that point, through much chicanery, I managed to escape the oppressive regime of The Jesus. Since then, I’ve pretty much followed my own path that involves nothing in the way of religion and little in the way of spirituality.

My folks weren’t happy, but they largely respect my decision. Well, they don’t bring it up, but it amounts to the same thing. I go to church on Christmas or Easter, if I happen to be home, because it’s important to my mom. Beyond that, anything dealing with the great beyond just doesn’t exist.

This all sounds like an impressive buildup to a knock-down-drag-out telephonic fight about how I’m a giant heathen. I was half expecting it when I told them I was going to become a practicing member of twelve religions over the next year. Until I remembered that my parents are hardcore suburbanites.

If they even acknowledged that I had spoken, it would be to say ‘That’s nice.’ Sure enough, my mom said:

That sounds interesting, you can learn tolerance through exposure to different religions.

And the conversation moved on. I’m a bit disappointed.

Tonight will be the final official Discordian meat-related experience for the three of us. I will have glorious photos of us chomping down on the ‘dogs.

In a way, I’ll almost enjoy this more than any other hot dog simply because we will be vegetarian (at minimum) next month as part of Jainism. Any meat that I have before the end of the month is automatically treasured.

Expect to see a couple of Discordian articles popping up shortly. I’m working on one about the legendary Emperor Norton and I believe Michael has one or two up his sleeve.

Updates from me will be appearing with more regularity very soon. I have discovered that the practice of Discordianism is not all that different from the way I behave normally, leaving me with a lack of things to write about beyond ‘Woo! No effort!’. Jainism is going to be harshness on my cruel, egotistical ass.

I’m hoping the old saying about art coming from suffering (I think originall said by a member Dschingis Khan) holds true, otherwise you’re all screwed.

Discordian bowling was hella fun, but I will be leaving the lascivious details for Michael or Sara to post.

And so it was decided that at 7pm on Setting Orange, the 25th day of the Season of Chaos, 3173 (known to the unfaithful as Thursday, January 25, 2007) there shall be a celebration of life and little fishes at Grandview Bowling Lanes on Commercial Drive.

All are welcome. Bring your own poetry.

I am at work, waiting for Sara to get her boo-tay downtown. Upon her (no doubt) glorious arrival, the three of us shall then advance to the nearest Orange Julius.

Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

We will then proceed to joyously ingest copious amounts of hot-doggery.

Details about the feast, which may be cancelled, will be discussed along with a couple other planned Discordian events before the end of the month. I will endeavour to share these details with you tomorrow at the latest.
I am approximately twelve feet from an Xbox 360 and projector, yet I am still bored. Strange…