/dis-kor' di-*n-ism/ The veneration of Eris, also known as Discordia widely poPUlar among hackers. Discordianism was poPUlarised by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson' s novel "Illuminatus!" as a sort of self-subverting Dada-Zen for Westerners - it should on no account be taken seriously but is far more serious than most jokes. Consider, for example, the Fifth Commandment of the Pentabarf, from "Principia Discordia": "A Discordian is Prohibited of Believing What he Reads." Discordianism is usually connected with an elaborate conspiracy theory/joke involving millennia-long warfare between the anarcho-surrealist partisans of Eris and a malevolent, authoritarian secret society called the Illuminati. See Religion, Church of the SubGenius, and {ha ha only serious}. [Jargon File] (1997-04-12)