by His Most Pompous Holiness, Elezar the Apostate
The second law of thermodynamics states, in so many words, that all fires burn their available reserves of fuel and die; and the universe is afire. The Wiccan Rede states the same thing in these words: “The Sun is but a Mortal Light Surrounded by Immortal Night.” And in these words: “Ashes to Ashes and Dust to Dust; If Born You Were, then Die You Must.”
“But those are physical laws, laws that apply exclusively to the material plane,” Michael argued with pathetic determination against Zoey’s resolute obstinance.
“Then you only need to show me one of these other mythical planes you claim to exist, just one,” Zoey retorted, “and good luck with that, hot shot!”
“Look inside your mind, for god’s sake!” Michael argued impatiently, with as little hope of success. “The mind has no physical location. It’s thoughts have no size, shape, or substance. Clearly the mind exists but it exists in a place outside of physical space.”
“But it clearly does not, doctor strange; it exists right here in my brain, and my thoughts are visible in simple EEGs,” Zoey argued back. “There’s no need for spooks and haints, snake oil man; science is capable of painting a complete picture of our human existence without gods or ghosts or gospel bullshit.”
Michael turned to Freaky Freddie for support. “How do I get through to her, Freak?” he asked. But Freddie only typed away with more rapid and rabid focus on her computer, for it was not such an argument as she cared or dared to step into. “Busy here, Mike,” she mumbled.
Then he looked at me, speaking my name with a plaintive whisper, “Elezar?” I knew one or the other of these two would invite me into this dispute sooner or later, get that wisdom-of-age vote on their ballot. Happens all the time. But let me offer an opinion of my own in a discussion without such an invite and its “what does that old fool know?”
“I tell you,” I said as I paused for consideration of the question. “I think it remains an issue to which neither science nor philosophy have the least damned notion of an answer yet.” Michael started to speak, but I shushed him. “You two can spend the night and all day tomorrow debating this and not know a toad’s tongue more than the world already doesn’t know; except, you might understand each other a bit better. Maybe its worth it.” I went back to my reading; Zoey and Michael returned to their argu… er, discussion.
It was an election year, in fact a presidential election year, and there was so much fun to be had for Discordiani like ourselves, especially since the campaigns had become computerized. There was “Count the Lies”, “Show and Tell”, “Screw the Speech”, “Picture This!”, and my favorite “Inside Out”. As the weeks and months of the year rolled by, we had all gotten involved in one game or another; most politicians are a scandal waiting to happen, and we feel beholden to aid them to that end.
This year was unlike previous years. One entire party had crumbled into disarray and a cultish dependence on a Mule who had sucked all the power from the dying party and made himself their master. The Mule wasn’t a politician; he was a power-mad psychotic narcissist. Of course, this deviance looks so much like a politician that he was welcomed with jealousy and admiration into his party, where all his adversaries either flipped 180s into devoted allies or quit politics altogether. You readers of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Series will recall the Mule from his original trilogy of that series. And the gentleman to whom I refer is certainly a champion Ass. You readers of the Christian Mythology will also recognize the Beast from the book of Revelations, another fictional character come to vivid life in the person of this deranged party leader to whom so many cultish Christians bow to kiss Ass. So who says, literature has no value?
So, Freaky and Zoey have been working on a “Screw the Speech” game with the Mule’s campaign, jacking in on his teleprompter with ‘adjusted’ speeches that encourage his tendency to veer off track into fantasy land. This provides his audience and attending journalists with more humour in a time when we all need something to laugh about. And the Ass is so easy and willing. Any time you hear His Orangeness leave his derogatory hate speech and start talking about Obama bin Laden or the Biden crime family hiring hit men to take him out, well that’s him, not us, but Freaky and Zoey mighta give him a little nudge onto that back street. Any time you hear the Ass telling his mob not to vote for him, well that’s us too. He’s receiving ‘secret phone calls’ from Tzar Putin assuring him that they’ll change all the Harris votes to Trump votes (the ruse of Freaky and Zoey again), and he’s sure that Putey wouldn’t lie to him. Putin recently got so pissed at his big mouth flying off about election interference that he released a number of American prisoners to Biden just to embarrass the loose-mouthed fool. You Go, Freaky and Zoey!
Michael from Mountains (he was born in Aspen, CO) and Holy Mary MoG (Mother of God) are both working on local Nashville campaigns. Mary decries, “For verily I say unto thee that where a man’s shit falleth, there also shall he voteth.” (She’s big on Biblical quotations, due to her several years as a Nun before her excommunication.) These two have both joined local megachurches that subtly and surreptitiously lead their members to vote en masse for favorite politicians who kindly reimburse the churches with services above and beyond, all in the name of God and country. Michael has noted the propensity of the minister in chief at one super church to visit with members of his flock when not behind the pulpit. He’s attached a tracer and a remote transmitter to the pastor’s coat while it hung on a coat rack. It’s amazing how tiny these devices have become, and easily purchased on line! Three different sheep in the pastor’s flock happen to be working on three different local campaigns and two others of them are candidates for office. How blessed are they! If God be for us, then who shall be against us?
Mary has had similar experience at the other local church. Three candidates in fact have strong and generous campaign reps at both churches. One party in particular seems to have found these golden geese megachurches to be quite a reliable source of dependable votes, with church buses to get them there and back on voting day. Our bookie, Barnaby, has done some investigating into both churches and their pastors. One pastor has just placed his ‘generously endowed tithes’ into his family bank account, obviously an amateur who doesn’t know how to conceal his underground income in separate bank accounts. The other, Reverend Doyle Patterson of the Temple of Light, has shown much greater expertise at receiving and concealing God’s gracious charity to himself and his family, who otherwise might be forced to get by on his pastorship of $80,000 a year. The Good Reverend it seems is also a Dominionist who attends a regional council of similar theocrats, The Seraphentine Brotherhood, in Atlanta quarterly. Barnaby said she has been unable to crack the security of the Brotherhood’s financial and administrative records, so she has called on Hiram the Hacker to assist her.
If either or both of these megachurches turns out to have a Dominionist or Christian Nationalist connection, I will probably become involved in following the multiple insidious trails; crushing the Christian Illuminati is a hobby of mine. If the damned churches and ministers would all just follow the teachings attributed to Jesus in the KJV Bible, they would be too compassionate to dispute, but these sinister ministers just have to get political, just have to serve two masters, just have to drag their whole damned flock to hell with them. I am Elezar the Apostate because my church abandoned compassion to rule the state, not to render unto Caesar, but to become Caesar. I will have none of it.
Be it as it may, we are having much fun at the Nashville Temple of Eris Discordiana—a small former Assembly of God church building in Old Hickory sold to us cheap by it’s dying old minister who couldn’t pay the church rent and his hospital bills too. We helped the sweet old man pay his bills until the day he died. The Temple has a large empty chapel, six small basement rooms, and a bit of dirt basement. Our itinerant congregation includes the twenty Discordiani herein listed, about two-thirds of whom live in the church.
The Nashville Discordiani
Devotees at the Nashville Temple of Eris Discordiana
39701 ♦ Barnaby Bartleby
F35, a Native American graduate with honours from UND in Business Management who dropped out of business after three years. She is our bookie, and occasional bookkeeper /accountant. She loves hiking, camping, outdoors, herbalism, stones, nudism, animals, animal movies, Wakan Tanka, and Holly Polly Hexenwick.
39702 ♦ Elezar the Apostate
Samm Dickens M75, the old man, a mystic of the Argentine Path, witch, Taoist, janitor, & deviant; has a gentle eye and a barbed tongue. The Resident Priest at the Nashville Temple of Eris Discordiana.
39703 ♦ Freaky Freddie (The Friar of Wire)
Fredericka Friersen M→F28, electrician, mechanic, quantum physician with a Masters from MIT in Particle Physics. Her Doctorate pursuit was ended by a prank that went horribly wrong and put her and three other students out of school and into jail for three years. She still doesn’t understand how their prank burned out the electrical wiring in four of the school’s major labs. But she’s working on it. Her father was an electrical engineer and her mother works at Intel; some of that rubbed off on her.
39704 ♦ Freek the Geek
Jeffrey Holland M32, a black American electronics wiz who loves to play with voltage and has a shockwave afro to prove it; good with wiring and component electronics hardware. Plays a number of percussion instruments and drums. He has an old Lab Retriever named Semper Fido, calls him Semp, whom he has taught to turn off power switches.
39705 ♦ Gnarly O’Marley
M34, Irish musician & composer, he plays guitar, mandolin, dobro, bass, fiddle, cello, piano, harpsichord, and Hammond organ. He likes to make huge sandwiches on footlong rolls. He and Sting are an active couple.
39706 ♦ Hildebrand (Hildie)
F22, a German National illegal alien with a slight drinking problem (like most Germans?) and a degree in 19th Century Philosophy; a Discordian on a spiritual quest to find “something that doesn’t exist”, thus far without success. She attended graduate school at Yale for one year before dropping out and burning her green card. She and Zoey are close friends.
39707 ♦ Hiram the Hacker
Hiram Weiser M32, a gifted Jewish computer geek who is very good and imagines that he might be even better; doesn’t talk a lot, has a stuttering issue inherited from three tours in Iraq. Born in Hopeless, Texas, whose population of 1570 includes three Jewish families, he has a very cute and clever little ferret named Quincy.
39708 ♦ Holly Polly Hexenwick
Holly Anne Hanover F39, a bisexual Irish witch, psychic, naturalist, camper/hiker. She and Barnaby are gal pals. They are both political activists, very much involved in women’s and LGBTQ rights and other social justice causes.
39709 ♦ Holy Mary MoG (Mother of God)
Mary McAdams F48, our nurse/pharmacist, herbalist, alchemist, & former nun prior to her excommunication for undisclosed reasons. A biker mom with tatoos on every limb, she carries three “purses”; one for Peter, one for Paul, and one for She who made us all. We know that purse #2 includes a small sledge hammer and a Magnum, among other tools with which she is quite adept.
39710 ♦ Humpty Dumpster
Vincent Pollack M37, eats a lot, loves southern soul food and creole, speaks in complex philosophical and academic parlance; a religious studies professor in the humanities department at Vanderbilt University.
39711 ♦ Michael from Mountains
Michael Bentley M38, actor, mime, musician, philosopher, writer/journalist. He works as an actor in various local theater productions because he’s a very good comedic actor and because he’s a swooner, a face and body so handsome that he draws a hefty female audience. He’s also written and published three very successful existential satires, attracting a national audience. He’s from Aspen, Colorado.
39712 ♦ Olly-Olly Oxenfrey
Oliver Davinfield M18, thief, pick-pocket, grade school dropout, zoner. His parents were both killed in a single-engine plane crash that he amazingly survived at the age of 9. He lived with an aunt in North Carolina until his 15th birthday, when he dropped out of school and ran away to Nashville. He proved spectacularly adept at stealing and picking pockets. He lives in a basement room at the Temple when he is not menacing Nashville tourists.
39713 ♦ Prancer the Vixen
Sven Erroldsen M20, Finnish actor, impersonator, computer hacker, drag queen. He loves 1940’s high fashion which he replicates himself. An able seamstress, he has sold some of his dresses at substantial prices and has a devoted clientele. He’s also a popular local comedic and Shakespearean actor.
39714 ♦ Scat the Cat
Galispenthia F4 Cat, thief, spy, procurer. A chubby orange British Shorthair tabby with remarkable abilities to move about unseen and obtain needed items from places unknown. I’m not entirely sure she is of this world. She belongs to no-one, seems to understand every word spoken to her whether she chooses to obey or ignore, and is pretty much just one of the gang.
39715 ♦ Sting
F29, Scottish national, illegal alien; she’s our “chief procurer”—we do not ask, she does not tell —she plays poker professionally, does card tricks, and is very good at Tarot readings; she plays the Irish uilleann pipes which she prefers to the Scottish pipes and has a calico kitten (F0.7) named Hooters. She and Gnarley are close friends.
39716 ♦ Tiregulus IV (The Tirolean Emperor)
M51, an Austrian emigre from Innsbruck, Austria, who identifies as the Emperor of the Tirol. There being none among us who dispute this, it is generally accepted as true. According to His Imperial Highness, or Ti as we call him, the imperial family has been Discordian for 117 generations, dating back to Alcibiades the Lesser in 269 BCE whose ship ran aground in the region while searching for the source of the Aegean.
39717 ♦ Witchhazel
M21, Sting’s “assistant procurer”, he is a gay mix dresser who sings with a beautiful and melancholy Irish tenor voice, plays acoustic guitar and Irish harp, and has a Siamese cat named Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. He’s an astronomer/astrologer who studies lunar topology.
39718 ♦ Yllianna Willowraven
F29, a Russian emigre at age four, she belonged to two BTW wiccan covens, a druid grove, an eclectic witch coven and three other Pagan groups we won’t even mention before giving up and going solitary. She’s new to the gang, but suspects that we need her feminine leadership—and has not yet been attacked by a single female member of the gang, mostly I think because she has a black cat familiar spirit named Artemis who invites neither approach nor affection, although Sting sometimes bravely cuddles her.
39719 ♦ Zaster the Master (of Disaster)
M27, an abandoned yahoo group site whose sad and deserted spirit Elezar and the gang magickly animated and embodied in the recently vacated body of a young leukemia patient (but moving right along…); he loves classical music and has a strong interest in shamanism and primitive religions.
39720 ♦ Zoey Zietgiest
F21; hard-nosed materialist & atheist; impeccable hacker supreme. She’s an honours student at Belmont Baptist University where she majors in Neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence. She is currently working on an AI system based in animal instinct and human emotions, on the theory that intelligence develops from these more primitive functions through natural process.
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The writer was born with moonlight in his heart and is dedicated to her service. He is a pantheistic neoPagan mystic, the coordinator of Crows Nest, the Global CAW Cybernest, and an editor of Green Egg Magazine–by which magazine he was first introduced into the neoPagan community in 1972. He is also an Elder of the Essynian Witchcraft Tradition that he founded in 2021, and he is also the Most High Swami-Pajami at the Nashville Temple of Eris Discordiana & Towing Service…If You Need a Tow, Come Rain or Come Snow, We’re on the Go, And We Won’t be Slow!