ScotWeb Article 1

Remembering Walter Wakelin Phydeaux Speaks!

January 25, 2000

Deadlines creep up so quickly, don't they?

I have spent the better part of the last week or so doing a major upgrade on my other webpage, with particular attention paid to my online Book of Shadows. I hope you can find the time to poke around a bit and let me know if I succeeded in getting everything working, and if the content is something to poke around a bit more in. Because of my monomaniacal work on this project, this article may be a bit of a ramble, but I hope you enjoy reading it anyhow. Feedback will be appreciated. This weekend is Imbolc (or Oimelc, or Candlemas, if you prefer). We witches will be working ourselves all night to make sure the Sun realizes that it is supposed to return in the morning, and keep getting stronger through the coming days. This is a celebration of the sure end of Winter, when we can hope to see life returning soon to our fields (or houseplants) -- but it also forewarns of the worst weather of the year in most places. So light up those candles and keep them going, if only for the promise of warmth!

It is a time to put your roots out into the world, hoping for more growth soon. I hope to be paid back from a loan I made some months ago, so that I can donate most of it to yet another cause. I don't have much money, in fact I live on Disability payments, but I find that the more room I make in my budget for giving to others, the more room I have in my budget. OK, so I don't have that fancy new computer I "need", but my needs are being met and I have more and more friends every year.

Remember "Perfect Love and Perfect Trust"? Well, trust is a hard thing to give, in or out of Circle, but this is the time of year to trust almost blindly. It is hard to grow when you're hibernating, and it's time to come out now, if only to try on your new snowshoes. No matter whether you stick your neck out to trust people or not, you're going to get burned sometimes, so you might as well stick it out. Some turtles find that they can only move with their neck extended; I believe it the same in humans.

Oh, what do I know? I'm only a Saggittarian, and probably could not do otherwise if I was being well-paid. Take this in stride as you read my comments: we Sagges seem to be able to get away with more in the world than some others. Still, if you are ready for Spring, it won't just get sprung on you.

Religion is a joke. I mean that in a totally positive way -- if you can't laugh about your religion, you need to lighten up. I enjoy laughing about my religion, especiallly when the joke reveals the "T"ruth of the matter (see below). In that vein, I will end my article with an excerpt from Principia Discordia. Enjoy.

PRINCIPIA DISCORDIA
The Magnum Opiate of Malaclypse the Younger
(excerpts) ALL RITES REVERSED (K) REPRINT WHAT YOU LIKE

Dedicated to the Prettiest One

POEE is one manifestation of the DISCORDIAN SOCIETY about which you will learn more and understand less.

We are a tribe of philosophers, theologians, magicians, scientists, artists, clowns, and similar maniacs who are intrigued with ERIS GODDESS OF CONFUSION and with Her Doings.

"There are trivial truths and there are great truths. The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false. The opposite of a great truth is also true" --Neils Bohr.

...

POEE (Pronounced "POEE") is an acronym for the PARATHEO-ANAMETA-MYSTIKHOOD OF ERIS ESOTERIC. The first part can be taken to mean "equivalent deity, reversing beyond-mystique". We are not really esoteric, it's just that nobody pays much attention to us. MY HIGH REVERENCE MALACLYPSE THE YOUNGER, AB, DD, KSC, is the High Priest of POEE, and POEE is grounded his episkopotic revelations of The Goddess. The POEE HEAD TEMPLE is the Joshua Norton Cabal of The Discordian Society, which is located in Mal-2's pineal gland and can be found by temporaly and spatially locating the rest of Mal-2. POEE has no treasury, no by-laws, no articles, no guides save Mal-2's pineal gland, and has only one scruple -- which Mal-2 keeps on his key chain. POEE has not registered, incorporated, or otherwise chartered with the State, and so the State does not recognize POEE or POEE Ordinations, which is only fair, because POEE does not recognise the State.

...

The Hell Law says that Hell is reserved exclusively for them that believe in it. Further, the lowest Rung in Hell is reserved for them that believe in it on the supposition that they'll go there if they don't. -- HBT; The Gospel According to Fred, 3:1

CONVENTIONAL CHAOS: GREYFACE - In the year 1166 B.C., a malcontented hunchbrain by the name of Greyface, got it into his head that the universe was as humorless as he, and he began to teach that play was sinful because it contradicted the ways of Serious Order. "Look at all that order about you," he said. And from that, he deluded honest men to believe that reality was a straightjacket affair and not the happy romance as men had known it.

It is not presently understood why men were so gullible at that particular time, for absolutely no one thought to observe all the DISORDER around them and conclude just the opposite. But anyway, Greyface and his followers took the game of playing at life more seriously than they took life itself and were known even to destroy other living beings whose ways of life differed from their own.

The unfortunate result of this is that mankind has since been suffering from a psychological and spiritual imbalance. Imbalance causes frustration, and frustration causes fear. And fear makes a bad trip. Man has been on a bad trip for a long time now.

It is called THE CURSE OF GREYFACE.

HERE FOLLOWS SOME PSYCHO-METAPHYSICS. If you are not hot for philosophy, best just skip it.

The Aneristic Principle is that of APPARENT ORDER; the Erisitic Principle is that of APPARENT DISORDER. Both order and disorder are man made CONCEPTS and are artificial divisions of PURE CHAOS, which is a level deeper than is the level of distinction making.

With our concept making apparatus called "mind" we look at reality through the ideas-about-reality which our cultures give us. The ideas-about-reality are mistakenly labeled "reality" and unenlightened people are forever perplexed by the fact that other people, especially other cultures, see "reality" differently. It is only the ideas-about-reality which differ. Real (capital-T True) reality is a level deeper than is the level of concept.

We look through the world through windows on which have been drawn grids (concepts). Different philosophies use different grids. A culture is a group of people with rather similar grids. Through a window we view chaos, and relate it to the points on our grid, and thereby understand it. The ORDER is in the GRID. That is the Aneristic Principle.

Western philosophy is traditionally concerned with contrasting one grid with another grid, and amending grids in hopes of finding a perfect one that will account for all reality and will, hence, (say unenlightened westerners) be True. This is illusory; it is what we Erisians call the ANERISTIC ILLUSION. Some grids can be more useful than others, some more beautiful than others, some more pleasant than others, etc., but none can be more True than any other.

DISORDER is simply unrelated information viewed through some particular grid. But, like "relation", no-relation is a concept. Male, like female, is an idea about sex. To say that male-ness is "absence of female-ness", or vice versa, is a matter of definition and metaphysically arbitrary. The artificial concept of no-relation is the ERISTIC PRINCIPLE.

The belief that "order is true" and disorder is false or somehow wrong, is the Aneristic Illusion. To say the same of disorder, is the ERISTIC ILLUSION.

The point is that (little-t) truth is a matter of definition relative to the grid one is using at the moment, and that (capital-T) Truth, metaphysical reality, is irrelevant to grids entirely. Pick a grid, and through it some chaos appears ordered and some appears disordered. Pick another grid, and the same chaos will appear differently ordered and disordered.

Reality is the ultimate Rorschach.

THE LAST WORD

The foregoing document was revealed to Mal-2 by the Goddess Herself through many consultations with Her within his Pineal Gland. It is guaranteed to be the Word of Goddess. However, it is only fair to state that Goddess doesn't always say the same thing to each listener, and that other Episkoposes are sometimes told quite different things in their Revelations, which are also the Word of Goddess. Consequently, if you prefer a Discordian Sect other than POEE, then none of these Truths are binding, and it is a rotten shame that you have read all the way down to the very last word.

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The above article, not including the excerpt from Principia Discordia, is copyright ©2000, 2004 by Mordewis ap Llys and Gerald L. "Moss" Bliss, who are the same person. My Book of Shadows is not currently displayed on http://mosshippohaven.info; copies may be made available upon request.