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.
(1997-04-12)