[Robert Anton Wilson]

Discordianism is a modern, Chaos-based religion founded in either 1958 or 1959.

The foundational document of Discordianism is the Principia Discordia written by Malaclypse The Younger (an alias of Greg Hill). This book contains many references to an earlier source, The Honest Book of Truth (HBT). From the quotations, the HBT seems to be arranged like the Bible, consisting of verses grouped into chapters grouped into books grouped into the HBT itself. The Principia includes (on page 00041) a large portion of (or possibly all of) a chapter of "The Book of Explanations" which recounts how the HBT was revealed to Lord Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst (believed by many to be Kerry Thornley). It may be worth noting that the tale of the discovery of the HBT contains many similarities to the tale of the discovery of the Book of Mormon, and that Thornley had been a Mormon. It also includes (on page 00030) part of the next chapter, telling how the HBT was taken by a garbage collector, who refused to return it.

 

Although most religions revere the principles of harmony and order in the Universe, Discordianism can be interpreted as a recognition that disharmony and chaos are equally valid aspects of reality. The Principia Discordia often hints that Discordianism was founded as a dialectic antithesis to more popular religions based on order, although the rhetoric throughout the book describes chaos as a much more underlying impulse of the universe. This may have been done with the intention of merely "balancing out" the creative forces of order and disorder, but the focus is certainly on the more disorderly aspects of the world

[Robert Anton Wilson]

Oh... and I just checked my copy... There are appendicies in The Illuminatus! Trilogy and one of them tells us more about the Law of Fives and considers some of the numerology of Discordianism, and even raises the question of what would happen to the Law of Fives if everyone had six fingers on each hand.

 

And in a really wierd coincidence that will freak Michelle out... the Appendicies in this book are not numbered or lettered but given names. The discussion about the Law of Fives is in Appendix Beth

 

And, I have no idea how to spell Appendicies... am I getting it right?

 

Oh, and I must stop starting paragraphs with "oh" and "and"

 

:shock: and this is paragraph number 5 in this reply!

[Robert Anton Wilson]

fnord. Ok this gets complicated. Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea wrote a very odd series of books called "The Illuminatus! Trilogy" which were inspired by an earlier work by Greg Hill (aka Malaclypse The Younger) and Kerry Thornley (aka Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst) called the "Principia Discordia". All these authors and many of their works are based on the principles of Discordianism which has been described as both an elaborate joke disguised as a religion, and as a religion disguised as an elaborate joke. I think that the idea that Robert Anton Wilson was interested in 23 stems from the Principia...fnord

 

The Law of Fives

 

The Law of Fives is one of the oldest Erisian Mysterees. It was first revealed to Good Lord Omar and is one of the great contributions to come from The Hidden Temple of The Happy Jesus.

 

POEE subscribes to the Law of Fives of Omar's sect. And POEE also recognizes the holy 23 (2+3=5) that is incorporated by Episkopos Dr. Mordecai Malignatus, KNS, into his Discordian sect, The Ancient Illuminated Seers of Bavaria.

 

The Law of Fives states simply that: ALL THINGS HAPPEN IN FIVES, OR ARE DIVISIBLE BY OR ARE MULTIPLES OF FIVE, OR ARE SOMEHOW DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY APPROPRIATE TO 5.

 

The Law of Fives is never wrong.

 

In the Erisian Archives is an old memo from Omar to Mal-2: "I find the Law of Fives to be more and more manifest the harder I look."

 

N.B. Do not ask me what fnord means.

 

fnord

[Harry Potter - New book (May contain spoilers)]

Well I am gonna go with the more controversial option that...

 

a) Dumbledore is not dead

and

Snape is not a bad guy

 

Want to know why... take a look at http://www.dumbledoreisnotdead.com/introduction.html

[Audiobooks?]

I love Audiobooks!

 

I find them very useful at night when I want to rest my eyes but not sleep and also in the car when I am travelling long distances!

 

I have a HUGE collection as well including all the Harry Potters, all the Terry Pratchetts, loads of Tolkien and Star Wars novels and stacks of misc other bits.

 

The only problem with audiobooks is that they tend to come on about 10CDs so thank god for the MP3 format that can shrink hours of book down onto a single disc for the car or portable MP3 player.