KLF: Chaos Magic Music Money

by J.M.R. Higgs

the light of Wilson's comments, I started to wonder if there was such a thing as a story that no-one knows they are in - least of all the main characters. Could a complete narrative develop by itself with no-one guiding it or steering it? You would instinctively think not, yet whenever I thought about the KLF story and Cauty and Drummond’s confusion about their actions, I couldn’t shake the idea that there was nobody involved who could hear the story that was being told.

Researchers have studied this drift of memory into error in great detail, and found it to be an undeniable fact of our lives – even if most people refuse to accept it about their own memories. This drift has been found to be so precise and predictable that it can be plotted on a graph, known as the Ebbinghaus curve of forgetting. What happens is that witnesses slowly absorb events into their own narrative, losing the loose ends and unexplained incidents and making sense of what they can with respect to their own lives and prejudices. We all do this. Indeed, if modern neuroscience is correct, it is something that we do far more than we think. The role of the ego, it appears, is less like a President or a Prime Minister deciding on a course of action, and more like their spin doctor, explaining the action afterwards in the best possible light. We rationalise the actions of our unconscious minds and present them as an entirely correct, politically consistent course of action regardless of what it was or how uninvolved we are in the decision.

Hill also told Thornley that the Ancient Greeks were an exception to this rule, for they had a Goddess of Chaos. Her name was Eris, which meant 'strife' and which is translated as 'Discordia' in Latin. Clearly, if anyone wanted to worship a deity who was genuinely active in this world, then Eris was the only credible option. All that was needed was for someone to create a religion around Her which, naturally, they decided to do. They called it Discordianism.

One such innovation was Hill and Thornley's invention of the concept of 'catmas.' Catmas are similar to dogmas, but they are considerably less rigid. Normal religions consider dogmas to be absolute, unquestionable truths. Discordians consider catmas to be absolute, unquestionable truths, for now at least. This is an approach that echoes the philosophy of the American writer Charles Fort, who in 1932 wrote that, “I conceive of nothing, in religion, science or philosophy, that is more than the proper thing to wear, for a while.” Discordians understand that every catma may one day be discarded on the grounds that it is nonsense. Until that day comes, however, it should be accepted and respected. Some Discordians may even genuinely believe catmas on occasions, should the mood take them, but this is certainly not compulsory.

Most religions include strict dietary rules. Jews are forbidden to eat pork. Catholics should fast from meat on Fridays. Certain sects of Buddhists and Sikhs are vegetarian and Hindus cannot eat any part of a cow. In the same spirit, Discordians are forbidden from eating hot dog buns.

Should Discordians ever find a better catma to ridicule religious dietary dogma, then the hot dog rule will no doubt be dropped without ceremony. But until that day, Discordians keep the 'no hot dog buns' catma – not because it is true, but because it is powerful.

Still, the idea that an ancient rabbit spirit from Western Europe was communicating with him had a certain appeal, and now Wilson thought about it, it seemed just as plausible as the other explanations he had. Indeed, it offered something that the aliens and bards and philosophers lacked. There was absolutely no danger that he might take the idea literally.

As Wilson saw it, we all need models in order to deal with the world around us. We need models that fit the existing facts and which have some ability to predict what will happen next. This is what all the best ideologies, religions and philosophies offer us. What we shouldn't do is confuse these models with the real world, for the map is not the territory and the menu is not the meal. Once this is understood, the need to fight to protect the 'truth' of the model falls away and we are free to use different and contradictory models as circumstances change. So it was that as Robert Anton Wilson's consciousness kept producing strange and dazzling feats of awareness, Wilson comforted himself with the idea that a giant invisible European rabbit spirit was currently intent on trying to tell him something, and by and large he felt much better about the whole thing.