Dupes of Non-Physical

... Discordianism, SubGenius (tm), and Chthulu Cults

http://www.chaosmatrix.org/library/chao ... phile.html

[... As noted elsewhere, not a great example of the then-23-year-old author's intellectual rigor but it still compares favorably to Apuleius as an example of initiatic memoir - much less interesting for its breathless affirmations of "le bon chao" than for its curated impressions of the era surrounding the Netscape IPO and the collapse of the performative ascii net....]

Conclusion of thesis:

[PRELUDE

The audience is taking the stage. In many social environments the audience, once relegated to passivity, now has a strong voice and autonomy. This is due to a number of advancements in technology, acceptance of novel forms of organization, and a irreverence for hierarchies. The audience has already usurped previous traditional roles. The audience has taken the stage in Karaoke bars. It acts out roles during screenings of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." And the audience puts on its own shows in parking lots before the band Phish (and at one time, the Grateful Dead) go on stage.

The Discordians, SubGenii and Cthulhuvians are no exception. These irreligions were once grouped with other audience cults under Stark and Bainbridge's model. Now they thrive as neophiles: active participants in the construction of the sacred. Much of this dynamic behavior can be linked to the Internet, and more particularly, the World Wide Web and interactive newsgroups. These advancements in technology facilitate ease of communication between audience members, erasing passivity and encouraging autonomy.

The Internet has provided a social space for Discordians, SubGenii and Cthulhuvians. There, on the computer interface, thousands of programmers and users alike can engage in modes of communication and the exchange of information unheard of ten years ago. Web pages and newsgroups are the medium for the message. In the case of these groups, the message is chaos, and this message reflects the discordant world of cyberspace that members thrive on day to day.

The audience cult has not disappeared, but the existence of these three groups (and the reasons they exist) warrants a sibling term. That term is neophilic irreligions: parodies of traditional religious groups composed of individuals who hold novelty, discord and unholy equality among all members in the highest.

With this research I have attempted to establish the Discordians, SubGenii and Cthulhuvians as worthy of study. I have shown that the Web has allowed these localized groups to foster growth on a global scale. I have elucidated their beliefs, and attempted to grasp members' concepts of commitment, ultimate meaning and conflict with the surrounding environment.

Like any research, this work is a prelude to future endeavors. These groups have hardly been touched by academic fields, and sociology is no exception. I offer some suggestions for further research: a socio-historical analysis of the groups, a look at the groups through the lens of deviance theory, further elucidation on "inversion rituals" (including the mysterious idea of "ha ha only serious")," more contrasting and comparing of other interactive audiences, a demographical study (both on and offline), a cultural study of cyberspace and the construction of sacred space by the members of these groups, and finally, more work on the irreligions using social chaos theory.

Each of these ventures will reap new rewards and cast an investigative light on the esoteric, post-modern and elusive groups that have been studied here. Whether they will ever be fully understood is up to the neophiles involved; following their trail may simply lead to more chaos...but GOOD chaos.]


Bob Dobbs

From alt.slack:

[On Dec 27, 12:17 pm, gl...@panix.com (Robert Scott Martin) wrote:
> In article <421eb5c3-2694-4322-912e-9af2f62d9...@i25g2000prd.googlegroups.com>,
>
> purple  <pur...@tellurian.com> wrote:
> >Not one mention of Wyndham Lewis or Marshall McLuhan.
>
> >PLONK!!
>
> Heh. Exactly. There are a few moments where OP could easily have inserted
> a throwaway Marshall McLoo cameo, but he seems to have been too lost in
> recounting his own "neophilic" adventures to recognize them.
>
> As for the BLAST, they don't teach him here.
>
> At this rate I might sponsor a contest for rewriting it in order to
> de-plonk, as it were. Entries should use only 1995-era resources of course
> and, if possible, reconstructions of the ascii mindset: Bill Clinton on
> the throne, Norman O. Brown still alive, the Dow industrials at 5,000,
> anything above 2400 baud is impressive, ye X-Files and Babylon 5 just
> ramping up in the paranoid style.
>
> "The hallmark of the failed occultist is an unwillingness -- or lack of
> ability -- to wade through incredible amounts of apparent trash in the
> hopes of receiving just a little worthwhile information."]

My response on alt.slack:

[De-plonked!

http://deanvaladezclassroomwithoutwalls ... n-Excerpts

One example from MM:

{Everybody at a football game is nobody simply by virtue of the fact of their deep involvement in an experience simultaneously shared by many others. In such a situation, the most famous person in the world becomes a nobody. This is a structural fact, and when considered in relation to our wired planet, where everybody is involved in everybody’s experience, this is the overwhelming backlash of reduction to nonentity – the creation of mass man. The mass man is not the vulgar or the stupid or the unthinking man, but anybody and everybody who experiences the electric situation of instant information.
Electronic man is no abstraction, but rather the existing individual in a simultaneous culture. Having had his private individuality erased anonymously, he is paranoiac and much inclined to violence, for violence is a quest for identity, seeking to discover, “Who am I?” and “What are my limits?”}

- Speech at the Conference on Management Information Systems, 1971]


Bob Dobbs

Sometimes Bob you pleasantly surprise me. RE: above 1st great intro then .... 2nd Bingo

Thank You,

Scott