Discordianism (recreation) /dis-kor'di-*n-ism/ The veneration of Eris, also known as Discordia; widely popular among hackers. Discordianism was popularised by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson's novel "Illuminatus!" as a sort of self-subverting Dada-Zen for Westerners - it should on no account be taken seriously but is far more serious than most jokes. Consider, for example, the Fifth Commandment of the Pentabarf, from "Principia Discordia": "A Discordian is Prohibited of Believing What he Reads." Discordianism is usually connected with an elaborate conspiracy theory/joke involving millennia-long warfare between the anarcho-surrealist partisans of Eris and a malevolent, authoritarian secret society called the Illuminati.
See Religion, Church of the SubGenius, and ha ha only serious. [Jargon File] Last updated: 1997-04-12
