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Tuesday, April 9, 2019

Do You Have a Moment to Discuss Our Lady of Discord?









GP: Is Eris true?
M2: Everything is true.
GP: Even false things?

M2: Even false things are true.

GP: How can that be?

M2: I don't know man, I didn't do it.

The above is an excerpt from the Principia Discordia, being part of a dialogue between the Greater Poop and Malaclypse the Younger. It is something that is always in my subconscious like a crouching cat ready to pounce - at first glance, it seems like a purposely absurd contradictory statement that exists simply for the sake of a laugh. On the other hand it has a sort of koan effect of subliminal profundity. At its heart, the Erisian mysteries of Discordianism seem always to ride the tension between a serious philosophical dilemma and a bit of a put-on; for my own part, I find applying this approach to some of the more bizarre and baffling stories I come across in my ever-growing library of Weird Books to be the healthiest way to proceed. 

What constitutes Weird? Well, it's a broad umbrella for me. With this website I hope to explore a lot of the subjects that have interested me all my life - there's UFOs, of course, and Cryptozoology. There's ghosts and interdimensional beings. And with those come the hoaxes, the wildly exaggerated tales, the frauds and hucksters and liars. And all of it is interesting - the umbrella of the Weird expands as you learn more about each particular case and subject when you include the fakes and their motives, the fictional properties that influence reality and vice versa, conspiracy theories and official stories - it goes on and on. Most remotely sane people with an interest in the Weird would focus, perhaps, on one of these things, or compare two of them, but it seems as an amateur researcher I'm something of a Jack of All Anomalies. All of it together certainly makes one's head spin, and that confusion is made familiar and comfortable when viewed through a Discordian lens. Hail Eris!

One of my favorite lines from the Principia Discordia is :
When in doubt, fuck it!
When not in doubt, get in doubt!
One should seek to always be in doubt, I think. But I can't be sure about that... 

At the very least, I feel that a sense of humor is very necessary in all areas of life, but particularly in dealing with the Fortean / paranormal / unexplained / inexplicable / your nomenclature of choice for the Weird. Taking yourself too seriously is among the highest of crimes, and when confronted with something like the Simonton Alien Pancake affair or Gef the Mongoose the ability to laugh only works to your benefit. This is not meant to denigrate professed serious researchers of anomalous phenomena - I have a huge respect for a great many serious people. It also shouldn't suggest that I'm insincere in my love for the subject matter. I do my best to present material as it has been presented to me - fact-checked inasmuch as is possible in the Post Truth Era - and my conclusions, if I have any at all, are hopefully intelligible through my idiosyncrasy.  
So with that I invite any potential readers out there to get a little weird with me and have a laugh or two, even if it's at my expense! More to come...

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