Coincidance - Principia Discordia

COINCIDANCE 195
quality. Irish Mist is still used abundantly in all ceremonies; the Archdruids
have not only allowed, but encouraged, heresy—on the principle that the
more people think about religious issues, the better; and only one dogma is
promulgated by all, or nearly all, groves, namely "Nature Is Good."
The first heresy to branch off from the RDNA was the Chasidic Druids
of North America or CDNA, founded by the above-mentioned P.E. Isaac
Bonewits. Chasidic Druidism combines Jewish (Chasidic) mystical practises
with Druid nature-worship, cheerfully borrows whatever it likes from any
other religion in the world (something American Unitarians also do, by the
way) and uses the toast "Next year in Stonehenge" in place of the traditional
Jewish toast, "Next year in Jerusalem."
The RNADNA-—Reformed Non-Aristotelian Druids of North America,
but the initials were also calculated to indicate RNA and DNA, the two
organic molecules that make life possible—combines Druidism with the
non-Aristotelian logic of the Polish-American mathematician and philosopher,
Count Alfred Korzybski. Members obey certain linguistic taboos—which
Korzbyski called "matters of semantic hygiene"—and will not use the word
"is" for instance because that implies certitude and Korzybski believed
post-Einstein people should speak relativistically. Thus, the Druid dogma,
"Nature is good" has been rephrased as "Nature seems good." RNADNA
people also will never say something like "Beethoven is better than Mozart"
but only "Beethoven seems better than Mozart, to me, at this stage of my
musical education." They also avoid "all," because that implies omniscience;
this preserves them from racism, sexism and dogmatism, since the worst
they can say about any group of humans or animals would be "Some
members of that group seem offensive, to me, at this stage of my
education." Aside from these rules, RNADNA groves go out in the woods
like RDNA groves, drink Irish Mist, and commune with what other Druids
call "Nature" and the RNADNA calls "the non-verbal level."
A third heresy, Druid Witchcraft, has amalgamated with the wiccan or
witchcraft revival, started in the 1930s by an eccentric Englishman living on
the Isle of Man and named Gerald Gardner. A good deal of humbug and
something of a genuine visionary, Gardner claimed wicca was the oldest
religion in Europe, had driven underground by Christian persecution, and
had been taught to him by surviving members of a circle that has survived
since the Old Stone Age—every bit of which is doubted by every serious
scholar who has studied the evidence. Gardner also claimed to be an
anthropologist, but was at most a clever and imaginative amateur in that
field. In essence, Gardner's home-made witchcraft worships a female rather
than a male divinity, prefers (like the Druids) to hold rituals in woodsy places