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GNOSTIC POLYTHEISTIC DISCORDIANISM. or Polythegnostic Philo-Sophostic (P.P.S.) Discordianism, How It Broke Me and Put Me Back Together, and Related Ramblings —Episkopos Vorloth the Gridelin, Active Nihilist, Bureaucracy 51, 3190 YOLD (September 27, 2024 CE) IIIT?

TABLE OF CONTENTS. PART 1: Questions. PART 2: On the Region of Thud. PART 3: On Apparent Existence (and why we’re here). PART 4: On Apparent Reality (a.k.a. Consensus Reality). PART 5: On entropy. PART 6: The short version of PARTS 2-5. PART 7. The Systemic Epistemic Escape Rite. PART 8: License. IIIT?

PART 1: Questions. 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.” —Principia Discordia, The Revelation Leto Atreides II: “How persistent it is, this demand that our gods be perfect. The Greeks were much more reasonable about such things.” —Frank Herbert, God Emperor of Dune, 3147 YOLD (1981 CE) “For one man to say to another, ‘I tolerate you,’ is an assumption of authority—not a disclaimer, but a waiver, of the right to persecute.” —Robert Ingersoll, The Limits of Toleration, 3053 YOLD (1887 CE) “YOU ARE HERE,’ the sign says, with an arrow pointing somewhere. But where is Here? The traditional Discordian answer to this is the Region of Thud, but that’s just a name. What is the place really like? What happened in Eris’ absence between ancient and modern times, and how did man’s development get sidetracked during that time? The traditional Discordian answer to these is the Curse of Greyface, starting in 1 YOLD (1166 BCE) with the eponymous person, but why has it been around for so long? Copious amounts of thought, research, pineal gland consultation, unfortunate dealings with Greyfaces, and listening to the Moody Blues have revealed to me the answers to both of these questions. Discordians in the Laughing Christ sect call upon Apostle Patamunzo Linganada rather than Apostle Dr. Van Van Mojo; Discordians in the Indanthrene Heresy sect name the fifth element Blue rather than Orange and the fifth day of the week Rising Blueberry rather than Setting Orange (I sometimes join it after consulting both my pineal gland and my taste buds); Discordians in the Brazen Number Eight sect say ‘klazooga’ rather than ‘fnord;’ I, as Episkopos of the Polythegnostic Philo-Sophostic (P.P.S.) sect, go where Eris leads me. I will don my Mostly Serious Philosopher Hat when giving these answers in detail, because I’ll be analyzing Greyfaces and oppression. As we Discordians know, all rules are made up and can’t oppress others by themselves, and minimal rules to keep the strongest few from stealing everything for themselves and enslaving or killing everyone else are beneficial. But Greyfaces who enforce the rules (only the rules that benefit them) and weaponize everything towards that end (especially freedom of choice) certainly can oppress others. They’re a lot more common than you think, and just because they choose not to persecute you now doesn’t mean they won’t choose differently later. From now on, when I talk about Discordians, I’m also including non-Discordians who are nonGreyfaces. They’re with us in the most important sense, like Justin Hayward singing “Forever Autumn” on a Moody Blues greatest hits album. Even if they’re, say, maltheists who believe there’s one god and he’s a slaveowner (see below), if they’ve figured out that constructive chaos and destructive order exist, and don’t always believe what they read, those are essential bits. Greyfaces will target us all regardless. If you’re not into all the philosophical justifications and don’t mind missing the details, you can skip to the short version (555 words) in PART 6.

The text on this page is estimated to be only 27.00% accurate

IIIT?

PART 2: On the Region of Thud. Eris: “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.” —Principia Discordia, The Revelation “Tf throughout your life you abstain from murder, theft, fornication, perjury, blasphemy, and disrespect toward your parents, your church, and your king, you are conventionally held to deserve moral admiration even if you have never done a single kind or generous or useful action.” —Bertrand Russell, Human Society in Ethics and Politics, 3120 YOLD (1954 CE) Ant nest sign: “EVERYTHING NOT FORBIDDEN IS COMPULSORY.” —T. H. White, The Once and Future King, 3124 YOLD (1958 CE) In Gnosticism, to paraphrase the Apocryphon of John, Yaldabaoth is the malevolent and/or ignorant demiurge who said, “Let there be Light!”, created matter and energy, and built what we think of as reality with them, a distorted reflection of actual reality. He gave himself Authority over reflectionEarth and then made lesser helpers with Authority over other reflection-planets and reflection-stars. He anchors beings here in forms made of matter and energy and, as they are continually reincarnated in those forms, forces his will on them until they escape. He set up a tree of life as a trick, since his forms couldn’t actually last forever; he set up a tree of knowledge to hold beings back and failed miserably at it. In Discordian terms, Old Yaldy is the Super-Greyface who said, “Let there be Organization! ”, created matter and energy, and built what we think of as the Region of Thud with them, a distorted reflection of actual reality. And so on. Much later, after Eris left man to his own development, Old Yaldy and his lesser Greyface helpers realized there wasn’t enough suffering around, so they started causing more by inspiring people with the Curse of Greyface, beginning with the eponymous person. To P.P.S. Discordians, the tree of knowledge is different. You may have heard rumors that it was an apple tree or something similar, but it was actually a sweetgum tree. It was back in the legendary days of the Garden of Heedin’, when Old Yaldy kept everyone’s attention on him and his orders and ignorant of almost all else. The Greyfaces, being good followers of Authority, obeyed Old Yaldy’s order to stay away from the tree and not eat its fruit lest they die. They also stayed away from the fruits that fell from the tree, because stepping barefoot on the spiky little things hurt like a bitch. But one of the non-Greyfaces wondered why there was such an order. They approached the tree, stepping around and sometimes hopping over the fruits fallen around it, and plucked a fresh fruit. When they tried to eat it, it pricked their mouth painfully and they spat it out. But before they could start avoiding the fruit the same way the Greyfaces did, Eris spoke to them: “You don’t eat those things, you make art out of them! And if you step on them, wear shoes instead of going naked!” And so, after Eris explained what all those things were, they plucked more fruits, tied the fruits’ stems together, and made a cool-looking dangly thing out of them: the first art. The first artist then called the others together, showed them what they’d made, and told them what art, shoes, and nudity were. Old Yaldy threw a fit. They had no right to know what those things were! Art, especially, had no practical use! Obeying his orders was good! Disobeying his orders was evil! He was in charge and had Authority, so having any moral standard other than his was also evil! This last bit made everyone, Greyface and not, wonder out loud: what other moral standards were there, and did any of them involve art, shoes, and nudity? This was the Fruit Whoops: everyone now knew that good and evil existed, and that Old Yaldy didn’t exclusively define them. When he realized his mistake, Old Yaldy declared that disobediently wondering was the same as disobediently eating the fruit, just

because he said so, and that everyone who did it would die, but totally for real this time! He then kicked everyone out of the Garden of Heedin’, yelling “SHOE!” From then on, he held a grudge that got worse and worse, especially after Eris told people about dance numbers. When Eris left man, he took revenge (and more control) via the Curse of Greyface. This curse consists of four main ideas: order (instead of creation) is good, chaos (instead of destruction) was bad; life must be serious (instead of joyful); and everyone different from you must conform or be destroyed (instead of... not that). These match Old Yaldy’s behavior perfectly. He calls himself the one true god and continually tries to impose his unconditional order; he calls his unconditional order morality; he defines his unconditional order as obeying his commands and avoiding his taboos, with little flexibility; and he rejects free will and knowledge unless they serve his cause. And some of Old Yaldy’s lesser Greyface helpers imitate him: they pretend to be Greyface gods themselves, and their agendas only differ from his in minor details, which he tolerates. Old Yaldy’s commands and taboos may coincidentally contain a few good ideas, but his one-size-fitsall approach cancels them out. Think of what a government-level Greyface dealing with the poor would do with the account of Diogenes: “What do you mean, you need better food and housing? Diogenes was happy living in a barrel and only eating onions, so everyone should be! What do you mean, you can’t do it because it’s snowing and you’re diabetic? Don’t ever tell me you can’t do something! You’re just not trying hard enough! I’ll write on the paperwork that you refused to do it! Why don’t I live that way? Because I have Authority, which makes me better than you!” Two things are obvious: the Region of Thud is Greyface Heaven, and we Discordians who are here don’t belong. But Greyface Heaven is unstable due to several factors: Apparent Existence (and why we’re here), Apparent Reality (a.k.a. Consensus Reality), and entropy. IIIT?

PART 3: On Apparent Existence (and why we’re here). Eris: “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.” —Principia Discordia, The Revelation Satan: “The mind is its own place, and in itself / Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.” —John Milton, Paradise Lost, 2833 YOLD (1667 CE) Bristlecone: “Hiding from those who would enslave me is not the same as enjoying my freedom.” —Howard Tayler, Schlock Mercenary, Aftermath 57, 3177 YOLD (December 15, 2011 CE) By nature, Greyfaces below Old Yaldy do what the Curse of Greyface demands: organize into a system, follow unconditional order imposed by those above them, impose unconditional order on those below them, and drain joy out of everything they can. The closest they get to joy themselves is when they move up in the system, so that they can impose more than they follow. Their end goal is to get as high in the system as they can, so they can target others lower in the system. But what if they’re the lowest in the system, a.k.a. the servant class? That’s why Old Yaldy pulled us Discordians here from other Regions: we’re always available as targets, regardless of how deeply we infiltrate the system. That’s the first half of why we’re here: on Old Yaldy’s behalf as whipping boys (or girls, or enbies, or human-passing temahazg aliens with one of their seven genders, or whatever). In Discordianism, Apparent Order and Apparent Disorder are both types of Pure Chaos. Similarly, Apparent Existence and Apparent Nonexistence must be types of Pure Existence, and Apparent Reality (also called Consensus Reality) and Apparent Unreality must be types of Pure Reality. Here, Apparent Existence is tied to the forms of matter and energy that Old Yaldy keeps shoving everything in. Science tells us that matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only transformed. In the long term, entropy will reduce the amount of suitable matter and energy so much that forms will no longer be possible, and everyone will escape the Region of Thud by default. In Discordianism, reincarnation is just a double jump between Eris’ domain of Apparent Existence and Aneris’ domain of Apparent Nonexistence, at least within the sections of them bound by matter and energy. Since this is Greyface Heaven, is it also Discordian Hell? It doesn’t have to be; we can find our own joy within it regardless. If all else fails, we can defy it by pointing fingers, especially one particular finger, at Old Yaldy and the other Greyfaces. (How can all else fail? If we’re surrounded by Greyfaces stronger than us with little or no restraint, the only reason we’re still alive is because they’ve chosen not to kill us yet, the only reason we have anything is because they’ve chosen not to take it from us yet, the only reason we have any control is because they’ve chosen not to physically overpower us yet, and so on.) Once we defy enough of the system, and get our fill of it so that we refuse to live in it anymore, we will escape the Region of Thud willingly. That’s the second half of why we are here: as learners on Eris’, another non-Greyface god’s, or our own behalf. There is the chance that some of us Discordians will grow tired of fighting the system and join the Greyfaces. The Greyfaces will have fewer targets that way, as the new Greyfaces start at the servant class and advance. There is also the chance that some of the Greyfaces, especially the servant class, will grow tired of living in the system and join us. The Greyfaces will also have fewer targets that way, since the former Greyfaces are less likely to backslide. As we Discordians die off without children, the only human bodies available for our reincarnation will be those of higher-level Greyfaces’ children.

But if we don’t want to go on living in the system, we will choose to go extinct instead of reincarnate. Furthermore, some people will want to reincarnate in the Region of Thud despite everything. They’re either Greyfaces hoping they’ ll be born high in the system next time, or they’re chaosattvas (the Discordian equivalent of Buddhist bodhisattvas) coming back until they break the Curse of Greyface on everyone else they can. After all Discordians escape, only Greyfaces will be left, and the only available targets will be the servant class. This will start a vicious cycle: the highest-level Greyfaces will target the servant class until they destroy it; they will try to make a new servant class out of the next-lowest-level Greyfaces, but the latter will resist enough that many of them will be physically ruined or die rather than submit; and the resulting new servant class will be much smaller than the previous one. The cycle will end when the potential servant class dwindles to nothing and only the highest-level Greyfaces (who refuse to ever be servants) remain. Then Eris will throw another golden apple at them, this one reading, “To the best ruler,” and they will fight over who gets to be in charge until they finally destroy each other. Greyface Heaven will go from Bureaucracy to Aftermath and end, and Old Yaldy will have to do something else with the Region of Thud until entropy unmakes both it and him. IIIT?

PART 4: On Apparent Reality (a.k.a. Consensus Reality). “The real reality is there, but everything you KNOW about ‘it’ is in your mind and yours to do with as you like.” —Principia Discordia, Starbuck’s Pebbles Satan: “No sane man can be happy, because to him life is real, and he sees what a fearful thing it is... Of course, no man is entirely in his right mind at any time, but I have been referring to the extreme cases.” —Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger, 3082 YOLD (1916 CE) “Tt is impossible with certainty to say what is real.” —Keiji Nishitani, Religion and Nothingness, 3127 YOLD (1961 CE), trans. 3148 YOLD (1982 CE) Power is a double-edged sword, or really a double-sided knife with blades on both ends: the more power you have, the further away from Apparent Reality you are, while the less power you have, the crueler Apparent Reality is for you. Having power pushes you away from Apparent Reality, because it lets you deflect more and more of the consequences of what you do. If you go far enough, you reach omnipotence, which lets you deflect all consequences and go completely outside Apparent Reality, which in turn makes you completely psychotic. On the other hand, the crueler Apparent Reality becomes, the harder it is for you to find joy within it. The ideal is to grip the Power Knife by its handle in the middle: some level of Apparent Unreality is necessary. Even though the knife’s two blades make cutting through the gristle of RealitySteak an awkward business. A common way Greyfaces gain and maintain power is to blame everything on other people. The higher up they are, the more Authority they have, and the more Authority they have (shown off with Magic Authority Symbols such as badges, cards, degrees, and the like), the more likely other Greyfaces believe them unconditionally. They often call this Authority-based blaming “telling it like it is.” I will call it Greyblaming for short. The ability to successfully Greyblame, whether verbally or on paperwork, is key to success within the system, more than doing anything in a job description or keeping the end of any bargain. Some Greyfaces even have jobs that let them directly Greyblame others for a living, such as insurance. (However, with current technology, those jobs will be gone soon. Artificial Mimics Without Understanding, a.k.a. Artificial Intelligences, have advanced enough that they can Greyblame people for free. They only need to be trained beforehand on enough variants of “No, and it’s your fault because...”) What are some signs of Greyfaces’ yeeting themselves out of Apparent Reality? Here are three major ones. First, when they Greyblame others, but deny that Greyblaming exists when they’re Greyblamed. For example, they’1l say that “No one can force you to do anything, and if they do, it’s your fault because you let them!” while forcing other people to do stuff, and then they’1] complain when other people force them to do stuff, because “It’s not the same thing!” when it happens to them. Second, when they expect others to deal with them fairly while not doing the same. For example, they’1I treat “yes means yes” aS one mandatory step when others use it, treat it as three separate and optional steps (saying yes, meaning yes, and actually doing what they said yes to) when they use it, and complain when others use the three-step version on them. Third, when they believe that they got to their position in the system solely through skill, hard work, and knowledge. Randomly being born to the right family in the right place under the right circumstances, sucking up to higher-ups hoping they’!l randomly get

noticed, having the higher-ups randomly say they’ ll let them advance, having the higher-ups randomly decide to let them advance, and having the higher-ups randomly actually let them advance (notice the three-step “yes means yes”) is a long chain of dumb luck. Skill, hard work, and knowledge are incidental; someone who has enough Authority due to dumb luck doesn’t need any of the three. Also, if people are lucky enough to be rich enough to buy a high position in the system, there’s no guarantee the higher-ups will go along with it. Look at the Gnostic figure Simon Magus and his failed attempt to buy Authority from the Christians. (Whether or not Simon Magus is actually Apostle Malaclypse, as Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson’s The Illuminatus! Trilogy states, is immaterial.) The attempt is reasonable, given the circumstances: a third of Christian parables mention money, and when the Christians later glut themselves on Authority by making Christianity the Roman Empire’s official religion, they get access to more money than they know what to do with. But the Christians, according to their own account in Acts 8:9-24, don’t have to let anyone else with money into the system unless they randomly feel like it. In this case, they don’t. As for Old Yaldy, he’s the furthest of all from Apparent Reality. But he cannot be omnipotent or all that powerful. If he were completely or even sufficiently psychotic, he would be unable to build a working Region of Thud. If he were anywhere near as powerful as he claims to be, he would be able to impose his unconditional order without resistance. If he were the one true god that he claims to be, other gods would not be around to intervene in the Region of Thud. Or, if they were, he would be able to completely suppress them and all knowledge of them. Besides, given how disorderly Apparent Reality can get, a bunch of gods with different agendas fits it much better than one god who is unreliable at best, especially to those who’ve had experiences with different gods. This also applies to other entities more powerful than humans, such as demons and the like; they’re effectively gods for our purposes. (Zincorcal the eldritch horror says hello and wonders where the cantaloupe is.) The Principia Discordia mentions Eris, Aneris, Hermes in his aspect as St. Gulik, other Greek gods and goddesses, and Yahweh, among others. It also includes the five commandments of the Pentabarf, of which the first is “There is no Goddess but Goddess and She is Your Goddess,” but this must refer to Erisian henotheism rather than monotheism. And, in any case, the fifth commandment is “A Discordian is Prohibited of Believing What he Reads.” Every time non-Greyface gods intervene in the Region of Thud, it undermines Old Yaldy’s Authority. And every time someone decides to follow one of those gods, they open up that god’s path out of Greyface Heaven, which will bring about Greyface Heaven’s vicious cycle and eventual end that much sooner. Alternatively, breaking Old Yaldy’s most destructively orderly rules often enough both undermines his Authority and reduces his power; as Super-Greyface, he is a god of rules and obedience more than anything else. These destructive rules are the ones that he can only justify with “because I said so,” such as the blasphemy-related ones (“Don’t say these words I don’t like at all!” “Don’t say these words in certain ways I don’t like!” And so on.) and most of the sex-related ones (“Don’t touch certain parts of your own body by yourself! Don’t have a second person touch those parts the wrong way! Don’t have a second person touch those parts the right way, unless you have a third person with the right Magic Authority Symbol do the right ritual and give you the right Magic Authority Paper!” “The Magic Authority Paper doesn’t count until you have a fourth and fifth person make the right marks on it!” “The marked Magic Authority Paper doesn’t count until you have the second person touch those parts the right way before a time limit!” And so on. Given Old Yaldy’s need for targets, you’d think he wouldn’t put so many obstacles in the way of making more potential targets, but that’s

destructive order for you.). This opens up some epic possibilities. Based on only the above examples, if you could find enough people so into free will that they have blasphemy kinks and arrange for them to have a big enough orgy, the combination of enough blasphemy to get everyone revved up and enough breakage of sexrelated rules would weaken Old Yaldy to the point where he would no longer be a god (Orgasmic Reverse Apotheosis) or even die (Orgasmic Deicide), to say nothing of his lesser Greyface helpers. This would end Greyface Heaven faster than any other way. IIIT?

PART 5: On entropy. “That is made possible by the Law of Eristic Escalation, of which you must be innocent to serve as [an] Eristic Avatar. (For an unknown reason, it does not work as well for those of us who are guilty of it.) This Law pertains to any arbitrary or coercive imposition of order. It is: Imposition of Order = Escalation of Chaos.” —Kerry Thornley, Principia Discordia, 5th Edition Introduction Pan Spechi aphorism: “The more control, the more that requires control. This is the road to chaos.” —Frank Herbert, The Dosadi Experiment, 3143 YOLD (1977 CE) Bob: “Waitaminit—nobody remembered to bring an inexhaustible labor force of robots???” —Stephen Notley, Bob the Angry Flower, Bob the Angry Flower’s Classic Literature Sequels: Atlas Shrugged 2: One Hour Later, Confusion 64, 3167 YOLD (July 29, 2001 CE) On a long enough timescale, unconditional order is its own undoing. For all of Old Yaldy’s bluster, he is only the strongest Eristic Avatar, refusing to understand why his unconditional order won’t hold. As he tries harder and harder to bend Apparent Reality to his will, the Law of Eristic Escalation kicks in and causes harder and harder backlashes of chaos. This is where entropy comes from. Eventually, entropy will unmake the entire Region of Thud, including Old Yaldy, whose last words will be: “I can do whatever I want, and nothing can stop m—” As for what happens after that, Eris knows, or maybe Aneris. On a shorter timescale, entropy also affects our forms, eventually weakening and damaging them to the point where we need health care to stay in them. It gnaws away at all groups, but it has more of an impact on Greyfaces than others because, at its core, the system is based on dominance, with higher groups in charge of lower groups. The highest-up Greyfaces may be richer than anyone else, so even when their forms can no longer be fully repaired, they can afford the best quality mobility devices and the best servants to assist them. They may conform to the system better than anyone else, to the point where they brag about it constantly and channel the Likables from the G.I. Joe episode “The Wrong Stuff.” But once their forms decay to the point where they can no longer physically threaten lower-down Greyfaces into following their commands, their money and conformity stop mattering. In the system, being physically threatening is essential. If you’re youngish and able-bodied, you can always come off as physically threatening at some level. This allows you to threaten other people into treating you decently, taking you seriously, dealing with you fairly, and the like, which I will call acting Civil for short. Unfortunately, if you’re youngish but visibly and sufficiently disabled, you can never come off as threatening, and many other people will treat you the same as they would a visibly old and visibly disabled person, long before you’re old. The power to threaten pushes you out of Apparent Reality, just like any other power, because it makes most people act Civil towards you whether they want to or not. If they don’t want to, you can deflect the consequences onto them as harshly as you want to and make them change their minds. But as entropy takes away that power and renders you physically unable to do some things, you’ll fall back towards Apparent Reality, where people only act Civil if they actually want to. The other, non-Civil, people will let any Greyface tendencies they have out in full force.

If you’re a Greyface with no power to threaten, other Greyfaces won’t hold back around you at all anymore. Whenever you need help, for the rest of your life, they’ Il all give you the same rote answer of “T don’t want to, and you can’t make me!” unless they’re randomly feeling generous. (Or, to stretch it out, they’ll play the “I Don’t Have To, Fuck You” game, and you’ ll learn exactly how many steps it takes to do anything. For example, if you need someone to come over at a certain time to fix your wheelchair: “I don’t have to show up at all, fuck you!” If they show up at all: “I don’t have to show up on time, fuck you!” If they show up on time: “I don’t have to do anything with your wheelchair, fuck you!” If they do anything with your wheelchair: “I don’t have to...” And so on. At least four steps, and they’ve barely touched your wheelchair, much less fixed it.) Your money will no longer matter: you can no longer threaten people into dealing with you fairly if they randomly choose not to do it. (And they’ ll take everything from you that they want; the word “no” means nothing coming from you anymore unless they randomly decide it does.) Your conformity will no longer matter: you’re now at the bottom of the system, and you have no way to advance back up without threatening people. If you’re a Discordian with no power to threaten, and you’re surrounded by Greyfaces, you’ lI be in the same situation regarding money; at least your non-conformity won’t make it worse. At best, other Greyfaces will ignore you, except when they demand free labor from you, take out all their frustrations on you, or do you favors in public solely to make themselves look good. The last of these is the rarest, and amounts to saying yes 0.001% of the time after saying no 99.999% of the time; it also leads to one of the simplest forms of Greyblaming: “See? I don’t say no to everything! How dare you imply I do!” (The first four S’s of how unfettered Greyfaces treat others: shunned, servant, scapegoat, or stooge.) At worst, other Greyfaces will enslave you for what you can physically do or destroy you to get your resources. (The fifth S: screwed.) To get good enough health care to repair your form as well as possible, you need to get in the right position in the health care subsystem. And just like a Greyface getting a position in the system, it’s dumb luck: you need to be in the right place at the right time and under the right doctor. But it also depends on which health care subsystems you can get access to; you have worse luck under the wrong ones, especially when a Greyface doctor is involved. One sign of this is the symbol the doctor uses: the Rod of Asclepius belongs to Asclepius, the Greek god of healing; and the Caduceus belongs to Hermes, the Greek god of, among other things, commerce, trickery, and psychopompery. To keep them straight, remember the classical rhyme: “Snake all alone on a stick without wings? / Helps you heal up and go do all the things. / Two mating snakes with two wings nearby? / What better sign that they’ll fuck you and fly?” An example of an often wrong, and often Caduceus-marked, health care subsystem is the American one. The people who set it up made up four main rules: doctors outside hospitals can choose which patients they treat; doctors inside hospitals must treat all patients, but can choose whether to keep treating them past a time limit; doctors must keep what they actually do to patients secret (doctorpatient confidentiality); and doctors get paid regardless of what happens to patients. American Greyface doctors can easily make the first three rules mostly optional: doctors outside hospitals can refuse to treat any patients, Greyblame them, and kick them out; doctors inside hospitals can treat patients the bare minimum amount, stall up to the time limit, Greyblame them, and kick them out; and doctors can secretly do whatever they want to patients while officially pretending that they did whatever makes them look good and the patients look bad. (Also, American doctors are so high in the system that their Greyblaming can include throwing temper tantrums over having to do anything and browbeating hospital patients into leaving before the time limit.) The only patients who benefit from the changed rules are rich patients who have nothing wrong with them. As for what benefits those

lucky patients get, officially, they’re called ‘checkups;’ unofficially, we don’t know what goes on behind doctor-patient confidentiality, much like with some 19th-century ‘seamstresses.’ All we know is that American Greyface doctors somehow keep getting rich and moving up in the system, and their riches are certainly not coming from all their untreated and barely-treated patients. Regardless, people who aren’t lucky enough to get good health care will eventually be physically ruined or die, and the ones with the worst luck are the easiest targets: us Discordians. As for the Greyfaces, those who fall into the servant class when they’re physically ruined will be the next targets after us. So entropy will start the vicious cycle that will end Greyface Heaven even sooner. IIIT?

PART 6: The short version of PARTS 2-5. “Common sense is what tells you that the world is flat.” —Principia Discordia, Erisian Affirmation Calvin: “Reality continues to ruin my life.” —Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes, Chaos 50, 3159 YOLD (February 19, 1993 CE) Satan: “Power, money, persuasion, supplication, persecution—these can lift at a colossal humbug— push it a little—weaken it a little, century by century; but only laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.” —Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger, 3082 YOLD (1916 CE) WHERE WE ARE. We’re in the Region of Thud, but it’s actually Greyface Heaven. It’s also unstable by nature. HOW WE GOT HERE. Yaldabaoth the demiurge (Old Yaldy the Super-Greyface) made the Region of Thud out of matter and energy as a distorted reflection of actual reality, gave himself Authority over Earth, and started inspiring people with the Curse of Greyface in Eris’ absence, starting with the Discordian Greyface. He made lesser helpers with Authority over planets and stars who sometimes pretend to be Greyface gods with agendas barely different from his. He anchors beings here in continually reincarnating forms of matter and energy and forces his will on them until they escape. We Discordians are here as Greyfaces’ targets. As he imposes order harder, the Law of Eristic Escalation makes chaos backlash harder, which is where entropy comes from. WHAT GREYFACES DO TO TARGETS. They blame everyone else using Authority and other Greyfaces believe them unconditionally (Greyblaming). They split “yes means yes” into three optional steps of saying yes, meaning yes, and doing what they said yes to when they use it on everyone else. When unfettered, they treat everyone else in one of five ways (the five S’s): shunned (ignored), servant (used for free labor), scapegoat (Greyblamed), stooge (rarely favored in public to make them look good), or screwed (destroyed for resources). They are unfettered around anyone made non-threatening by entropy: the old and the sufficiently disabled. Greyfaces in those categories lose all status and become targets for higher-level Greyfaces, because the system is based on dominance. WHY THERE’S HOPE FOR US. Power and reality resist each other: too much power makes you psychotic, and too little power makes things cruel, so some power is necessary. Since Old Yaldy could make a working Region of Thud, he’s not psychotic enough to be omnipotent. He can’t destroy or suppress all knowledge of other gods against him, so they can undermine him. Advancement in the system is based on Authority gained by dumb luck. Having too much power makes Greyfaces believe it’s based on skill, hard work, and knowledge, but those three are incidental. HOW WE GET OUT OF HERE. We learn the hard way that we don’t want to be in the system, go extinct from natural causes and/or medical problems (beware Greyface doctors) brought by entropy, and escape. Or we learn, follow non-Greyface gods’ paths or our own (such as blasphemous sex orgies) against Old Yaldy, and escape. Or we don’t learn, go extinct when entropy unmakes the Region of Thud, and escape. If we’re chaosattvas (a la Buddhist bodhisattvas), we keep coming back to help everyone escape that we can. We all escape in the end. WHAT HAPPENS AFTER WE’RE OUT. Without us, the system eats itself. The Greyfaces always

need targets, but have no one left to target but other Greyfaces. They target Greyfaces in the servant class to extinction, and then keep making new servant classes out of the remainder (which keep shrinking due to resistance). When they run out of servants, the rulers all refuse to be servants and fight to extinction, thanks to Eris’ golden “To the best ruler” apple. Greyface Heaven goes from Bureaucracy to Aftermath and ends. Eventually, entropy unmakes the Region of Thud and Old Yaldy. Only Eris (or maybe Aneris) knows what happens next. With that, I will finally doff my Mostly Serious Philosopher Hat. I must compensate for such seriousness by taking a short break and consuming what I call the Triple Fruit of Chaos: a hot dog with apricot preserves, a hot dog with strawberry preserves, and a hot dog with blackcurrant preserves. Hail Eris. Okay, I’m back now. IIIT

PART 7. The Systemic Epistemic Escape Rite. For P.P.S. Discordians who want a rite to help people escape the Region of Thud, here’s one. It is a simple spoken rite, unless you feel like only thinking it instead. I call upon the five elements! Sweet: what all joy we can get here is, despite everything! Boom: what all matter and energy will go in the end! Pungent: what Old Yaldy’s Authority is to us with free will! Prickle: what the sweetgum fruit of knowledge does to us seekers! Orange [or Blue, for Indanthrene Heretics]: one of the many beautiful colors used to make art! I call upon the Divine Madness! Holy Eris Discordia, turn this person's miserable material mess into a splendid spiritual one! If they’re a human being, they’re a spiritual being! If they’re a disguised cabbage, they’re spiritual sauerkraut! If they’re something else entirely, they’re still spiritual! Help them seek spiritual hot dogs and shun material hot dog buns! If any other gods want to be Holy Hole Punchers in this unreal reality, feel free! I call upon the chaosattvas! Get thee to a bunnery until no hot dog buns are left, or at least a lot fewer! Break the Greyfaces’ Big System just like the Curse of Greyface! No more B.S.! No more Cursing! Fuck this shit, I’m out! Woohoo! IIIT?

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