Paranoia is for the strong!

Everything is Under Control: Conspiracies, Cults & Cover-Ups – Robert Anton Wilson, Miriam Joan Hill (1988)

My man Robert Anton Wilson never disappoints!  His books have blown my mind countless times and altered how I perceive my reality tunnel, all to my benefit.  Robert Anton Wilson (RAW), due to his exposure to so much of the fringe, has compiled a vast storehouse of information on conspiracies, perceived conspiracies, and the people involved in them.  With this book, he has created an encyclopedic collection of most of the important names, places, and events dealt with by “conspiratologists.” 

The listings are alphabetical and nearly every one provides links to further online reading about the subject.  Everything is covered, from the far-right (“The Federal Reserve is run by communists!”), to the far-left (“The Federal Reserve is run by fascists!”), and from ridiculously implausible ideas (“Jesus was an alien from Orion and the Opus Dei organization keeps this a secret”) to actual real-life conspiracies that came to light (The P2 conspiracy where the Vatican, the CIA, and the MAFIA were all hand in hand creating many dozens of fake banks worldwide and laundering cocaine money, or the Iran/Contra conspiracy where the CIA was buying cocaine with guns and selling the cocaine in the USA to buy more guns, in an effort to undermine the elected government of Nicaragua).  The overall effect either leaves you doubting everything you hear or open to anything you may hear.  Either way it is a good change from the norm!

"They" were out to get Hunter S. Thompson too....

There are many people these days that dismiss anything called a “conspiracy” with a shrug, as if the very term “conspiracy” means fanciful or make-believe.  This is part of the ruse!!!  Conspiracies are very real and take place every day all around us.  If they were not real why does every government in the world have laws against conspiracy, and top secret intelligence offices to combat conspiracy?  Only the truly deluded and stupid dismiss outright the idea that conspiracies exist.  The world is full of unscrupulous people, all with specific agendas, and all with the desire to avoid the eye of the government or the police.  It happens every single day, especially IN the government, as organizations like the CIA do not have to report what they do to anyone, and purposefully maintain shields and ruses to deflect attention away from their actual activities.  Those that get too close to uncovering the truth are “exposed” as quacks believing in conspiracy theories, and the idiots who like to live their lives thinking as little as possible automatically dismiss them.  Like RAW quotes in this book, “Just because you’re paranoid does not mean they are not out to get you.”

(To read this book, click here: http://endthelie.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Everything-Is-Under-Control-Conspiracies-Cults-and-Cover-ups-0062734172.pdf )

Hail Eris!

Principia Discordia: or, How I Found the Goddess and What I Did to Her When I Found Her – Malaclypse the Younger, Lord Omar Khayyum Ravenhurst (1965)

            HAIL ERIS!  May the Golden Apple of Discord fall upon your enemies’ feet and not yours!  Everyone reading this sentence is hereby ordained as a Discordian Pope.  As a Pope, you are entitled to the following privileges:

1.    To invoke infallibility at any time, including retroactively

2.    To completely rework the structure of the Erisian Church

3.    To baptize, bury, and marry (with the permission of the deceased in the latter two cases)

4.    To excommunicate yourself and others

5.    To de-excommunicate yourself and others

6.    To re-excommunicate yourself and others.

7.    To de-re-excommunicate (no backsies) yourself and others

8.    To perform all rites and functions deemed to be improper to a Pope of Discordia.

There you have it folks.  If that is not enough for you then you are the problem, fnord.

“In conclusion, there is no conclusion.  Things go on as they always have, getting weirder all the time” – Robert Anton Wilson

The above quote is from RAW’s introduction to the Principia Discordia.  All Hail Discordia!

            I first read this book, this greatest of all books ever written or conceived, when I was a student at the University of Houston.  It made me think and laugh, and opened my eyes to the fnords all around us.  Re-reading this, I find it even funnier and more full of wisdom than ever!  Hail Eris!  May the sacred Chao not forsake you from her milky teat.

The Sacred Chao

 

            I have always loved the absurd.  I love the irrational as well as the rational.  I love it when the twisted strands of thought form knots of pure intellectual joy!  The Principia Discordia is chock full of these things and more.  We are all very lucky to exist in a world where Eris rules all, and the gods fear her.

            As a Discordian Pope, I have started several failed religions: The Church of Letterman, The Church of the AlmightyMario, The New Atheist Church, and more.  They failed for the same reason all religions eventually fail.  They were all based on bullshit.  Discordianism, however, is providing you bullshit based on reality!  They have succeeded where others have failed!  Hail Eris!

(This book can be read online here: http://www.principiadiscordia.com/book/1.php )