Dichotomies:
order vs. disorder
strife vs. harmony
agreement vs. disagreement
straight vs. stoned
analog vs. digital
Discordianism’s patron goddess eris (roman name discordia) is associated linguistically with discord [in
the dictionary: 1. A) Lack of agreement among
persons, groups, or things. B) Tension or strife resulting from a lack of
agreement; dissension. 2. A confused or harsh sound or mingling of sounds. 3.
Music.
An inharmonious combination of simultaneously sounded tones;
a dissonance]. The opposite of discord would be, according to this
definition, agreement and harmony. Discordianism
rejects agreement in the name of freedom. One should be acutely wary of any
so-called “discordian” who expects you to agree about
some arcane “discordian point of view.” The discordian point of view does not exist, by definition. “It
is my firm belief that it is a mistake to hold firm beliefs.
Some psychedelic thinkers have fun with the Analog/Digital
dichotomy. The philosopher Brozark 1 once explained
the difference between analog and digital in terms of continuous or
discontinuous variation. An analog dial is continuously variable. You don’t
turn the dial to exactly 93.5, you turn it to some
nebulous location between 93 and 94. A ditigal dial
is discontinuously variable, you always turn it to a pinned down location. 1.1 or 2.3 or 11.37. Numbers like pi are beloved by discordians because they cannot be represented digitally,
unless by rounding off to a certain decimal place. Some heads say that
mushrooms are more “analog” because they are natural and organic, while LSD is
more “digital” because it is synthetic.
(philosophy homework: did Aristotle believe that the universe was analog or digital? What about Heraclitus?)
Andrew Weil’s book The Natural Mind makes a distinction between “stoned” and “straight” (sober) thinking. He makes it clear that stoned and straight thinking is not necessarily depended on the presence or absence of drug use. Plenty of people who never take drugs do plenty of “stoned” thinking and plenty of drug users approach the substances from “square thinking” points of view.
“The desire to alter consciousness is a normal drive analogous to hunger or the sexual drive. Note that I do not say ‘desire to alter consciousness by means of chemical agents.’ Drugs are merely one means of satisfying this drive.” The Principia Discordia seems to be generally in favor of altered states of consciousness, urging readers to consult their pineal glands and joking that "tis an ill wind that blows no minds."
Timothy Leary laid out “two commandments for the molecular age: 1: Thou shalt not alter the consciousness of thy fellow man 2. Thou shalt not prevent the fellow man from altering his consciousness.” (Politics of Ecstasy p. 95) This is a perfect model for a “discordant” society: nobody has to agree about states of consciousness, so long as nobody interferes with the consciousness of another. Some discordians (especially those attracted to the more esoteric ELF side of the spectrum) observe respect for the sanctity of other’s individuality and decisions regarding one’s state of consciousness. The Cult of Ecstasy has a saying, “some sleepers rest better that way” and don’t go running around shoving hard-to-swallow “truths of illumination” down peoples’ throats. Others (such as the activist Legion of Dynamic Discord) feel the responsibility to pull malkavian or masonic style pranks in order to shock folks into “waking up”. The idea is that the right kind of prank can serve an ecstatic function as in Henri Bergson’s theory of comedy: correcting the rigid habits that lead to an absurd/comic “something mechanical encrusted onto something living.” The reality-busting pranks of the LDD are supposed to break up constrictive “black iron prison” type habits and set the faeries free.
There are similarly different approaches to psychedelic evangelism. Some, like Timothy Leary, John Lennon, Hunter S, Thompson, and the discordian-influence(d) Robert Anton Wilson have publicly admitted taking absurd amounts of LSD. Drugs are associated with a high degree of enthusiasm, often heated to a fever pitch. William Burroughs, one of the early erudite/academic experts in drug self-experimentation, coined such astonishing aphorisms as “word/image is virus” and “exterminate all rational thought.” Terence Mckenna described what somebody calls the "monster ayahuasca trip" and admitted that his approach is "faustian" and "obsessed." Mckenna refused to be intimidated by the utterly "astonishing" states of consciousness he experienced under DMT and Mushrooms.
in terms of discordian values these figures have brought a great deal of eristic energy to bear on the apparently ordered structures of societal harmony. The fact that millions of people have taken the psychedelic drugs and reported more or less positive experiences with them has led to a great deal of discord in terms of difference of agreement between vast numbers of people as to the relevance, utility, and safety of psychedelic experimentation. The “psychedelic lifestyle” is another vast question entirely…
Not all
psychedelic people are shocking, “balls to the wall” type legionnaires in some
evangelical army. Many prefer a more calm,
contemplative, peaceful trip. Alan Watts brought Taoist and Zen Buddhist ideas
to the West and to the Psychedelic discourse. He certainly presented a more mellow figure in contrast to the shining eyed
psychedelic priest-visionaries such as Leary. Aldous
Huxley advocated a sort of psychedelic elitism. He understood the value of the
drugs in terms of ecstatic breaking up of patterns and freeing the “doors of
perception,” but felt that that kind of power should be kept in the hands of a
sort of combination priestly/technical elite. His two utopian/distopian science fiction novels beg a discordian
reading. “Brave New World” is a dystopian society
because there are drugs (soma) but there are no discordians.
All of society is shook up by an uneducated savage who represents discord
because he has not made any of the agreements of the society. “
The term Psychedelic has no etymological connection to discord, but it certainly has caused a great deal of strife and disagreement in modern society. Timothy Leary admitted that the psychedelic drugs do indeed cause psychosis and irrational behavior—in people who have not taken them!