Coincidance - Principia Discordia

194 COINCIDANCE
How valuable is an ordination from the ULC? Well, marriages performed
by ULC clergymen are recognized in all states, and many ULC "graduates"
have gone on to create their own churches or sects; in most respects, under
American law, a ULC minister is as legitimate as any other minister, or
priest, or rabbi, or guru. The one chancey area is that of tax-exemption. De
jure, the courts have not yet ruled on the matter; de facto, the tax bureau tries
to collect only when the circumstances are such that the ordination seems to
them nothing else but a dodge to avoid taxes. This happened a few years ago
when all the farmers in one part of New York State were ordained en masse;
the tax officials regarded this as a blatant swindle—and a bad example to
boot—and attacked the bank accounts of the individuals involved. ULC
clergy persons clearly engaged in promulgating some religion—any religion—
are generally allowed the same tax exemption as less eccentric churchpeople.
Rev. Hensley tells every enquirer that he wants the government to try to
tax him. He plans to file a counter-suit for discrimination, and demand that
the government either start taxing other churches also, or else leave him
and his ordainees alone, including those New York farmers. He has been
saying this for at least 15 years now, but the tax bureau leaves him strictly at
peace.
But I think he will be remembered as the man who opened the floodgate
and made relatively absolute religious freedom absolutely absolute. He
showed the more imaginative and unruly elements how to get into the
religion game for the sheer hell of it.
Ronald Reagan Meets Mahatma Gandhi
The Reformed Druids of North America (RDNA) began in 1957 at a small
college, and was, at first only a joke. The instigators were free-thinking
students, mostly Irish-American, who resented the rule requiring church
attendance once a week. As a protest and as a send-up, they announced that
they were Druids and that groves were their churches. The RDNA
originally repaired to these wooded sanctuaries only to drink Irish Mist and
exchange Gaelic lessons; soon, however, an official ritual was written, and
then rewritten several times as various members advanced in the study of
Gaelic language and history. Branches of the new Druidism, called "groves,"
soon appeared at other universities; leaders, called Archdruids, became
proficient in Gaelic and acquired ordinations from good old Rev. Hensley,
making them legal clergymen. Some Archdruids have gone on to become
serious Gaelic scholars, such as P.E. Isaac Bonewits, author of a widely read
occult/anthropology text, Real Magic, and the first man to acquire a degree in
shamanism from the University of California
But because the RDNA had started as a prank, it still retains a certain fey