Discordian Eristocracy
What would a major world religion be without a ponderous hierarchy of
pretentious titles to confuse, awe and madden the people with?
Reasonable, that's what. And we won't stand for that kind of
non-nonsense around here. Therefore, The Church of
Pentaversal
Discord (a phrase just coined, but applied retroactively so that it predates
time) has put together a suitably ridiculous Chutes and Ladders-type hierarchy
of Who May Do What to Whom. (There are those who would suggest that this
has already been done adequately in the
POEE Disorganizational Matrix,
but as a member of a progressive belaboring union, I am unlawfully bound to
suggest that such people get outta my face before I call for a
walk-all-over and a picketting [which, in this context, very much resembles a
staking {vampire-style}.])
At the bottom in this house of cards are, of course, the popes. It should be
noted that every man, woman, child and platypus, living, dead or otherwise, is
an honest-to-Goddess pope of
Discordia,
and thus infallible (you should go get your
Pope Card).
You may think that this causes all sorts of trouble when popes disagree (and
you'd be right; you're a pope, after all), but you'd be wrong (I'm a
pope too, you see). Actually, when popes disagree, it's a Wonderful Thing®,
because thereby is the Divine Humour of Eris brought to full fruition. By
believing every sort of contradictory thing (individually and as a group),
popes make these things True and Manifest (as opposed to True and Unmanifest),
and thus bear forth the Great Joke. Consider this quote from the Holey
Scripture, the
Principia Discordia:
-
- Malaclypse the Younger: Everything is true.
- Greater Poop: Even false things?
- Mal2: Even false things are true.
- Greater Poop: How can that be?
- Mal2: I don't know, man, I didn't do it.
Next up on the totem pole are the
POEE
(Paratheo-anametamystikhood Of Eris Esoteric [pronounced ``poee'']
chaplins, who
have been ordained by reading Sacred Text (like this, for instance.
Congratulations). Still higher than them are the POEE priests, ordained by
Mal2 himself.
The pinnacles (``for pointy like unto a picket fence is the structure of the
Church of Pentaversal Discord'') of Discordianism are the Episkopossum (whose
titles are, after all, capitalized). They are the ones whose visions of Eris
transcend what Is, forcing them to create something which Is Not but Will
Be If
You Just Relax and Wait for a Second (jeez, you're pushy). They
create
their own Cabals (from the Hebrew ``Kaballah,'' or ``collection of
absurdities for
the unenlightened to take seriously''), often with nifty names.
Of course, since you're a pope, you can decide that you, personally, are at the
head of the Pentaversal Church and that chaplins are much more
enlightened than priests (since they've gone to all the trouble of reading
Sacred Text and ordaining themselves, while priests were ordained by
someone else), and therefore all of this is a steaming heap of dung (even
though it's True), and you'd be right (but mistaken).
Hail Eris.