This section retells the Ancient Greek Myth of the Golden Apple. The marginalia is particularly interesting.

John Kenneth Galbraith

The page begins with a quote from John Kenneth Galbraith, a left leaning economist, ambassador to India, and economic advisor to several presidents. The quote expresses frustration with government in general. They’re doing so poorly at Vietnam, can you really expect them to handle something relatively simple like an education budget?

Acapulco Gold?

There is historic disagreement concerning whether this apple was of metallic gold or acapulco.

Many Discordians hold the Golden Apple as a symbol of human desire. Stories about the Apple illustrate how the best laid plans can be upset by humans acting like humans, trying to chase the apple. And of course, Greg Hill can’t resist throwing in a pot reference.

King Kong Died For Your Sins

There are a few references in the Principia to the King Kong Kabal,  which we know includes Josh the Dill, and Ho Chi Zen (another pen name for Kerry Thornley). The King Kong Kabal’s writings have been lost to the ages (or at least, I’ve never been able to find any). My hypothesis is that they regarded King Kong as a messianic martyr, a latecomer savior who wields his animal nature like a weapon. He desperately tries to overcome western capitalist imperialism (by climbing the Empire State building) and answers only to his inner desires (ie by Fae Wrae). It is precisely this allegiance to his animal desires that gets him gunned down.

The marginalia “Ho Chi Zen is King Cong” is a pun. The name Ho Chi Zen is a reference to Ho Chi Minh, a Vietnamese Marxist-Leninist revolutionary. To call him “King Cong” evokes him as the leader of the Viet Cong, who died defending his country against western imperialism.

The Book of Uterus, Ch3

Tucked away on the bottom of page 00018 is a snippet from the Book of Uterus:

5. An Age of Confusion, or an Ancient Age, is
one in which History As We Know It begins to
unfold, in which Whatever Is Coming emerges
in Corporal Form, more or less, and such times are
Ages of Balanced Unbalance, or Unbalanced
Balance.
6. An Age of Bureaucracy is an Imperial Age in
which Things Mature, in which Confusion becomes
entrenched and during which Balanced Balance,
or Stagnation, is attained.
7. An Age of Disorder or an Aftermath is an
Apocalyptic Period of Transition back to Chaos
through the Screen of Oblivion into which the
Age passeth, finally. These are Ages of
Unbalanced Unbalance.

This establishes some details about the Five Seasons of the Discordian calendar. It tells us that we’re not talking about a literal calendar year, but a unit of human civilization.

Like evenly weighted scales that tip back and forth until they are in balance, we go through periods of order, and periods of disorder. Perfect balance is not actually desirable, that is stagnation. The Discordians seek to propel us forward into the next season, wherever that might be. Today, we’re living in a period where order and seriousness is dominant, and so the Discordian’s role is to add some disorder and humor to the palette. If we were living in a period of shirtless screaming hysterical anarchy, the Discordian’s job would be to build bridges and governments.

The Law of Fives touches on two things: the mystical significance of the number five, and  Confirmation Bias.

Many Discordians go through a questing phase where they make a note whenever they encounter the numbers 5 or 23. Those numbers are interpreted as a sign of Eris’ presence. On a long enough timeline, this will pretty much drive you insane. One constantly asks oneself: Is that just a coincidence, or is the universe trying to communicate something to me at this moment? Meditation on this question can lead to Robert Anton Wilson’s Chapel Perilous, or the Thelemic Abyss, where one faces the demon Chornonzon. The Law of 5s meditation is also sometimes compared with a moment of Kabbalistic enlightenment, where one experiences God by overwhelming oneself with life’s synchronicities and coincidences.

Confirmation Bias is our tendency to focus on data which confirms or supports our existing beliefs, and discount data which doesn’t fit.

Robert Anton Wilson posits that our brain contains a “thinker” and a “prover”, which do different jobs. The Thinker comes up with a conclusion, and then the Prover comes up with evidence and reasoning to support that conclusion. So we don’t come to a conclusion based on sound reasoning, it actually happens the other way around — the reasoning is a post-hoc justification for what we really want to say. In short, “What the thinker thinks, the prover proves.”

The Illuminatus Trilogy elaborates on the Law of Fives in Appendix Beth:

“Here’s your latest revelation from the A:.A:..” He reached into his pocket and took out a photo of a female infant with six fingers on each hand. “Got this from a doctor friend at Johns Hopkins.”

Joe looked at it and said, “So?”

“If we all looked like her, there’d be a Law of Sixes.”

Joe stared at him. “You mean, after all the evidence I collected, the Law of Fives is an Illuminati put-on? You’ve been letting me delude myself?”

“Not at all.” Hagbard was most earnest. “The Law of Fives is perfectly true. Everybody from the JAMs to the Dealy Lama agrees on that. But you have to understand it more deeply now, Joe. Correctly formulated, the Law is: All phenomena are directly or indirectly related to the number five, and this relationship can always be demonstrated, given enough ingenuity on the part of the demonstrator.” The evil grin flashed. “That’s the very model of what a true scientific law must always be: a statement about how the human mind relates to the cosmos. We can never make a statement about the cosmos itself— but only about how our senses (or our instruments) detect it, and about how our codes and languages symbolize it. That’s the key to the Einstein-Heisenberg revolution in physics, and to the Buddha’s revolution in psychology much earlier.”

“But,” Joe protested, “everything fits the Law. The harder I looked, the more things there were that fit.”

“Exactly,” said Hagbard. “Think about that. If you need quick transportation to Panama,” he added, heading for the door, “call Gold and Appel Transfers and leave a message.”