Principia Discordia

From LSWiki

(Difference between revisions)

Current revision

Description

a looseleaf paper book.

The writing is in Anglic, and reads:
   Principia Discordia

A small book of looseleaf paper, looking likely to fly apart at any moment.  The worn-edged outer cover bears a title.
It is closed.  It is closed.  You appraise it at seventy-three gold.  
It looks about a quarter of a dimin long, one and four fifths dimins wide, and two and seven twentieths dimins tall.  It
weighs about forty-three hundredths of a dekan.

The commands 'open <item>', 'close <item>', and 'turn page [in <item>] [to <number>]' may be used with it.  Keeping the
looseleaf paper book costs six keep points.  The looseleaf paper book was created by Chaos, who wishes to credit Robert
Anton Wilson and Kerry Thornley as inspiring this work; the source code was last updated Tue Mar 15 02:49:19 2016.  The
material paper was created by Lost Souls; the source code was last updated Tue Mar 15 02:18:43 2016.

Spoiler warning: information below includes details, such as solutions to puzzles or quest procedures, that you may prefer to discover on your own.

[edit]

Text

                            PRINCIPIA DISCORDIA
                                  *  or  *
                            How I Found Goddess
                           And What I Did To Her
                              When I Found Her

                THE MAGNUM OPIATE OF MALACLYPSE THE YOUNGER

                            Wherein Is Explained
                    Absolutely Everything Worth Knowing
                         About Absolutely Anything


                                Published By:
                            LOOMPANICS UNLIMITED
                                PO BOX 1197
                          Port Townsend, WA 98368

Transcribed to 1's and 0's by Dru'el the Chaotic, 
                             WPI Discordian Society
                             Cabal of the Unemployed

Edited and 5th edition introduction added by Selvarv, 
                                            The Keeper of Rig
                                            Hall of Flyting

[4th edition introduction:] 


                                INTRODUCTION

        You hold in your hands one the Great Books of our century fnord.

        Some Great Books are recognized at once with a fusilade of critical
huzzahs and gonfolons, like Joyce's ULYSSES.  Others appear almost furtively
and are only discovered 50 years later, like MOBY DICK or Mendel's great
essay on genetics.  The PRINCIPIA DISCORDIA entered our space-time continuum
almost as unobtrusively as a cat-burglar creeping over a windowsill.

        In 1968, virtually nobody had heard of this wonderful book.  In
1970, hundreds of people coast to coast were talking about it and asking the

identity of the mysterious author, Malaclypse the Younger.  Rumors swept
across the continent, from New York to Los Angeles, from Seattle to St.
Joe.  Malaclypse was actually Alan Watts, one heard.  No, said another 
legend -- the PRINCIPIA was actually the work of the Sufi Order.  A third, 
very intriguing myth held that Malaclypse was a pen-name for Richard M. 
Nixon, who had allegedly composed the PRINCIPIA during a few moments of 
lucidity.  I enjoyed each of these yarns and did my part to help spread 
them. I was also careful never to contradict the occasional rumors that I 
had actually written the whole thing myself during an acid trip.

        The legendry, the mystery, the cult grew slowly.  By the mid-1970's,
thousands of people, some as far off as Hong Kong and Australia, were
talking about the PRINCIPIA, and since the original was out of print by
then, xerox copies were beginning to circulate here and there.

        When the ILLUMINATUS trilogy appeared in 1975, my co-author, Bob
Shea, and I both received hundreds of letters from people intrigued by the
quotes from the PRINCIPIA with which we had decorated the heads of several
chapters.  Many, who had already heard of the PRINCIPIA or seen copies,
asked if Shea and I had written it, or if we had copies available.  Others
wrote to ask if it were real, or just something we had invented the way
H.P. Lovecraft invented the NECRONOMICON.  We answered according to our

moods, sometimes telling the truth, sometimes spreading the most Godawful
lies and myths we could devise fnord.

        Why not?  We felt that this book was a true Classic (literatus
immortalis) and, since the alleged intelligentsia had not yet discovered it, 
the best way to keep its legend alive was to encourage the mythology and the 
controversy about it.  Increasingly, people wrote to ask me if Timothy Leary 
had written it, and I almost always told them he had, except on Fridays when 
I am more whimsical, in which case I told them it had been transmitted by a 
canine intelligence -- vast, cool, and unsympathic -- from the Dog Star, 
Sirius.
       
        Now, at last, the truth can be told.
       
       Actually, the PRINCIPIA is the work of a time-travelling 
anthropologist from the 23rd Century.  He is currently passing among us as a 
computer specialist, bon vivant and philosopher named Gregory Hill.  He has 
also translated several volumes of Etruscan erotic poetry, under another 
pen-name, and in the 18th Century was the mysterious Man in Black who gave 
Jefferson the design for the Great Seal of the United States.
       
       I have it on good authority that he is one of the most accomplished

time-travelers in the galaxy and has visited Earth many times in the past,
using such cover-identities as Zeno of Elias, Emperor Norton, Count 
Cagliostro, Guilliame of Aquaitaine, etc.  Whenever I question him about 
this, he grows very evasive and attempts to persuade me that he is actually 
just another 20th Century Earthman and that all my ideas about his extra-
terrrestrial and extratemporal origin and delusions.  Hah!  I am not that 
easily deceived.  After all, a time-travelling anthropologist would say just 
that, so that he could observe us without his presense causing cultureshock.

        I understand that he has consented to write an Afterward to this 
edition.  He'll probably contradict everything I've told you, but don't 
believe a word he says fnord. He is a master of the deadpan put-on, the 
plausible satire, the philosophical leg-pull and all the branches of 
guerilla ontology.
       
        For full benefit to the Head, this book should be read in 
conjunction with THE ILLUMINOIDS by Neal Wilgus (Sun Press, Albuquerque, NM) 
and ZEN WITHOUT ZEN MASTERS by Camden Benares (And/Or Press, Berkeley, 
California).  "We are operating on many levels here", as Ken Kesey used to 
say.
       
        In conclusion, there is no conclusion.  Things go on as they always