Coincidance - Principia Discordia

198 COINCIDANCE
the first sip, you must cry out with intense fervour, "GOD, I needed that!"If
this is performed religiously every morning, Javacrucians say, you will face
all life's challenges with a clear mind and a tranquil spirit.
SFMB—the Society of Fred Mertz, Boddhisattva—was founded by the
Finnish-American poet, Antero Alii, and holds that all wisdom is contained in
the seemingly inane remarks of Fred Mertz, a minor character of the "I Love
Lucy" TV show. By watching "Lucy" reruns continually and meditating on
the apparently banal things Fred says—e.g., "I don't know what's going on
around here" or "I don't understand women at all"—this sect claims you will
find the same Enlightenment as in contemplating Zen Buddhist koans such
as "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" And just as in Zen, where
students are often required to meditate on monosyllables such as "Mu" (no),
the SFMB sect would have you meditate on even such Mertziana as "Huh?"
or "Awww!" until you sense what Joyce would call the epiphany in even the
most trivial.
The Church of Satan, with headquarters in San Francisco (of course) and
branches in many US cities and a few chapters in Europe, was founded by a
circus roustabout named Anton Szandor Lavey. It has a Satanic Bible, written
by Lavey (and dedicated to W.C. Fields and P.T. Barnum), claims to invoke
Lucifer, Beelzebub, Ashtoreth and a million or so other demons, and
delights in scaring the blue hell out of pious Christians. Despite its diabolism,
this Church has had no legal hassles—except briefly, when neighbors
complained that Lavey's pet lion was roaring at night and keeping them
awake—and members limit themselves to blasphemy, cursing their
enemies, and ritual expressions of forbidden negative feelings (much like
many another California encounter-group, in fact). None of them have ever
been arrested for serious crimes. I even suspect they themselves started the
rumor that they are financed by the Procter & Gamble soap empire; they
are quite unscrupulous Send Up artists.
The Campus Crusade for Cthulhu generally appears on the scene at any
university where the Campus Crusade for Christ is well entrenched, and is
mostly devoted to annoying the former. The Cthulhu-ists worship a
monster who originally appeared in the pulp horror fiction of H.P.
Lovecraft. For a long time, I thought this particular sect would never
advance beyond parody and satire, but lately the Church of Satan has
incorporated Cthulhu into its pantheon along with all the other demons.
The Campus Crusade for Christ has bumper stickers which members
flaunt on their automobiles declaring "I Found It." The Cthulhu-ists have
their own bumper stickers saying "It Found Me"—and the Church of All
Worlds now has one saying "Thou Art It."