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THE SACRED CHAO

                                                                  MUST

THE SACRED CHAO (pronounced "the sacred cow") is the key to
illumination.  Devised by the Apostle Hung Mung in ancient China, it
was modified and popularized by the Taoists and is sometimes called
the YIN-YANG.  The Sacred Chao is not the yin-yang of the Taoists.  It
is the HODGE-PODGE of the Erisians.  And, instead of a Podge spot on
the Hodge side, it has a PENTAGON which symbolizes the ANERISTIC
PRINCIPLE, and instead of a Hodge spot on the Podge side, it depicts
the GOLDEN APPLE OF DISCORDIA to symbolize the ERISTIC PRINCIPLE.

    The Sacred Chao symbolizes absolutely everything anyone need every
know about absolutely anything, and more!  It even symbolizes
everything not worth knowing, depicted by the empty space surrounding
the Hodge-Podge.


HERE FOLLOWS SOME PSYCHO-METAPHYSICS.

If you are not hot for philosophy, best just skip it.

    The Aneristic Principle is that of APPARENT ORDER; the Eristic
Principle is that of APPARENT DISORDER.  Both order and disorder are
man-made *concepts* and are artificial divisions of PURE CHAOS, which
is a level deeper than is the level of distinction-making.

    With our concept-making apparatus called *mind* we look at reality
through the ideas-about-reality which our cultures give us.  The
ideas-about-reality are mistakenly labeled "reality" and unenlightened
people are forever perplexed by the fact that other people, especially
other cultures, see "reality" differently.  It is only the ideas-
about-reality which differ.  Real (capital-T True) reality is a level
deeper than is the level of concept.

    We look at the world through windows on which have been drawn
grids (*concepts*).  Different philosophies use different grids.  A
culture is a group of people with rather similar grids.  Through a
window we view chaos, and relate it to the points on our grid, and
thereby understand it.  The ORDER is in the GRID.  That is the
Aneristic Principle.

[Illustration:  a menagerie of Sacred Chaos overlap each other, as
if to approach the reader]

    Western philosophy is traditionally concerned with contrasting one
grid with another grid, and amending grids in hopes of finding a
perfect one that will account for all reality and will, hence, (say
unenlightened Westerners) be True.  This is illusory; it is what we
Erisians call the ANERISTIC ILLUSION.  Some grids can be more useful
than others, some more beautiful than others, some more pleasant than
others, etc., but none can be more True than any other.

    DISORDER is simply unrelated information viewed through some
particular grid.  But, like "relation," no-relation is a concept. 
Male, like female, is an idea about sex.  To say that maleness is
"abscence of femaleness," or vice versa, is a matter of definition and
metaphysically arbitrary.  The artificial concept of no-relation is
the ERISTIC PRINCIPLE.

    The belief that "order is true" and disorder is false or somehow
wrong, is the Aneristic Illusion.  To say the same of disorder, is the
ERISTIC ILLUSION.

    The point is that (little-t) truth is a matter of definition
relative to the grid one is using at the moment, and that (capital-T)
Truth, metaphysical reality, is irrelevant to grids entirely.  Pick a
grid, and through it some chaos appears ordered and some appears
disordered.  Pick another grid, and the same chaos will appear
differently ordered and disordered.

    Reality is the original Rorschach.

Verily!  So much for all of that.

The Words of the Foolish and those of the Wise          [Illustration:
Are not far apart in Discordian Eyes.                    a hand points
                  HBT; The Book of Advice, 2:1       to the next page]