Discordianism, Balanced
Paganism, Taoism and many others
combine, MUTATE, and evolve into
A Wondrous New Creature. 1
CHAAM'DAY'VOH-MAIK!!!
(EVOLUTION!!!)
© 2003 Tristan A. Arts
Please note: The Temple of Shao’Kehn has no dogma, only ideas we can either use or not use to better our Selves and, by that, humanity.
And like all good things, we evolve with time; and so some of this in here is obsolete... I have yet to go through it and figure out what exactly fits that description.
Table of Contents
Kohraig-kez
(Wholeness)
Kriiah Shihbahn (Your Self)
The Doi’ahshk Inner Path (D.I.P.)
Spwiióhk
The Angry Eyes
The Shoikinistic Rede
The Philosophy of "Her Knife"
The Yahgahn Way
Thii'pah'twai'ii'kursh ("I have remembered My
Divinity.")
What is Discordianism? (For the uninformed)
A
story about the philosophy of Kohraig-kez.
In the beginning,
there was Chaos. Then, crawling from the Chaos, was Order. The two lived apart
from each other quite nicely for a long time, each denying that they contained
any element of the other, but each lacked something. For both Chaos and Order
were beginning to stagnate without the other, falling into Entropy. Both felt
this pain, but resisted it, especially when some of the Ordered Deities tried to
Order the Chaos.
Then one day, a Goddess named Ahndahn, who was a proponent
of Order, tried to bring Order to the Chaos. She was stronger than the others,
and this frightened Chaos, which fought back. But Chaos being what it was could
not fight Order, and Order being what it was could not fight Chaos. So Chaos
formed itself into a more Ordered form to fight Order. This became Shao'Kehn.
She burst from the flames of Chaos, Her eyes burning hot with an anger powerful
enough to destroy universes with a glare. She screamed out chaotic, unorganized
threats at Ahndahn. And Ahndahn, being unable to mentally deal with this whole
situation, began to scream incoherent threats at Shao'Kehn.
The two Deities duked it out, each becoming more like the
other in attempts to defeat the other. For Shao'Kehn used very well-organized
tactics of fighting, and mixed with Her chaotic nature, was able to defend
Herself quite well. And Ahndahn, learning the value of randomness, newness,
creativity, spontaneity, and other such Chaotic tactics, also defended Herself
very well as well. In fact, they fought so well, that over time they eventually
realized neither would win. Their fighting lost its fierce edge, and became
more like the competitive games people play. Over time, they grew to like each
other so much that they became friends, then eventually they fell in love with
each other. They became so attached to each other that neither could exist
without the other.
But what is most important about this story, is that they
worked together to improve each other and their Selves. It was that which led
them to discover that, as Order and Chaos, they had never really been apart.
The philosophy of this story is that Order and Chaos had
always been a part of the same Whole. When Order "crawled from the
Chaos" and lived apart from Chaos, that was the Whole turning Chaos into
Its' “Shadow Self.” (All aspects of one’s Self that one has been
taught to deny, which may be useful such as locked-up creativity.)
Only by acknowledging its Shadow and re-incorporating that into its sense of
Self was the Whole able to re-become Whole. It is a parable teaching us that we
cannot deny our Dark Side, our Shadow Self. We must embrace all aspects of our
Self to be whole. This philosophy is known as kohraig-kez, the Temple Of
Shao'Kehn (TOS'K) word for "wholeness."
The Shoikinistic Philosophy, being a Balanced Spirituality, is an internal
path. It is seeking within to shed light on our Shadow Self, then accepting
that those aspects are part of our Self, embracing and loving (as a mother her
child) these long-denied aspects of Self.
The Shadow Self is not always composed of 'negative'
aspects. Positive aspects such as creativity, spontaneity, artistic talents,
and other such skills people often admire can be Shadow Aspects. The Shadow is
composed of any and all aspects about yourself that you deny about yourself,
and often they are hidden. The homophobe has such a violent reaction to
homosexuals and "faggots" because he has denied and repressed his
sensitivity. For example, he might have cried as a child over the loss of a pet
or maybe a sad movie, and his father told him in a not-so-nice way that real
men don't cry. Or perhaps he played with a doll, and was told that only
"queers" play with dolls. It's just an example, but even the smallest
thing, if it caused shame from ones family, friends, or peers, could cause a
person to push some aspect of their Self into the Shadow. This is NOT healthy.
To be healthy and happy, we must be whole. It is a painful process, facing
one's Shadow and becoming whole, but we MUST do it. It is like the story above
says: if you are not whole, you will fall into Entropy. Entropy is stagnation,
death, living hell. Most people today walk around with parts of their soul
atrophied, and then they wonder why there's so much "evil" abound. The
Shadow only becomes dangerous when it is denied, for it WILL be heard if you
don't pay attention to it. Physics teaches that when water is
boiling (or freezing) and increasing in pressure inside a sealed-closed
container, it will explode. The same is true with the Shadow. Repression
breeds obsession.
The Girl With No
Shadow---A Shoikinistic Fable (this is a link)
The Wholly Shao
Kriiah
Shihbahn ("Your
Self")
The Shoikinistic Oath
You must join the Temple of Shao’Kehn to
read this Oath, but it is not binding dogma. The Temple has no dogma, after
all. The things on this page are just ideas we’re using to help ourselves for
now.
Shao'Kehn says to all
People, "You are Divine.
You are God/Goddess/Deity on Earth. But don't let it get too much to your head,
for I'm speaking to ALL people. And actually, all of Life is Divine. It's just that
people (not just humans *Shoikin points to the stars*) are closer to
re-membering their Divinity. (i.e., consciously knowing it again).
"So take Your birthday off as a religious Holy-Day!
Work hard to fully real-ize Your conscious Divinity! Rise above the herd
mentality! Just don't be an arse, is all."
This revelation surprised and confused Us at first.
(Which we should've expected, following a Balanced Goddess). So We looked up
the key phrases and found that She was preaching “Conversations With God” by
Neale Donald Walsch to Us. So We called Her to maybe alleviate Our confusion.
(Silly Us). What follows is what started the whole Discordianism thing, and
Shoikinism's Balanced Side:
"Goddess, are You God?"
"Depends on your definition of God. If you mean God
as in the God of the Christians, then no, I am not Him. If, however, you mean
God as in The Divine as in a simpler word than Deity or The Divine, then I am
if you want Me to be. If you don’t want Me to be The Divine, then don’t. No one
can prove what is True anyway, so why bother trying?"
"Uh... so Truth should be gotten from many
different sources?"
"Find Truth wherever You darn well want to find it,
in as large or small chunks as You please. Remember these words above all
others: ‘The only One True Path is the one that leads to your heart.’”
"But You said that there's something that's True!
That there IS Ultimate Truth!"
"Yes, I said that. But it is subjective. When
anyone looks at it, they never see the same thing as others. Often, they
themselves never see the same thing twice."
"Uh..."
"Welcome to the glories of Discordianism, My
Children. If You can't learn to think without boxes, lines, or even objects,
then You're doomed to be a cabbage forever. THINK, DARNIT!!! Now here, read
these books," She said as She threw a nifty-looking black book at Us
called "Conversations With God” by Neale Donald Walsch, the Tao Te Ching,
and several others. We had to carry them stacked so high we could barely see,
but when we got home we read all these books, and the world hasn't been the
same since. And that may be a good thing, but we haven't had the time to figure
out if it is or not. But quite clearly, a new Aeon was born. We think so,
anyway.
This is why I recommend that people teach their
children more than they themselves know. It's also why We have the concepts
we have in Our philosophy.
The Doi’ahshk Inner Path (D.I.P.)
The Doi’ahshk Inner Path
(D.I.P.) is what We Shoikinists call Balanced Spirituality, since Doi’ahshk is
one of our words for “balance” and because Balanced Spirituality is the act of
going within and facing Your “Dark Side,” and becoming Whole by accepting and
embracing all of Your Self, no matter how scary it may be.
We even have a slogan for it: "Only dips don't
take the D.I.P." A little harsh, yes, but We like how it sounds and
it’s not really intended to offend, just to sound neat. The D.I.P is about
Balance, because too much emphasis on just Darkness or just Light, just
Chaos or just Order, just Life or just Death can bring about imbalance.
Which is why some of the pages on this site are done with white backgrounds.
(And also because white on black hurts the eyes after a while.)
Spwiióhk = Demon of Entropy and "pet" of Shao'Kehn (Shoikin). (Note that Shoikinistic Demons are not real entities, just memes.)
Entropy began as a formless being that threatened existance, so Ahndahn and
Shao'Kehn worked together to first try to defeat it. When they could not, they
gave It form. It could leave Its form if It wanted to, but they made a deal
with It. If It would stay in Its form, It would have all the Life It could eat,
over time. They explained to It that if It ate all of Life in one feeding, all
would be nothingness, and It would be alone again. So it consented. Spwiióhk
helps give Life a reason to live, as well.
Spwiióhk has some shape-changing abilities, but
they are limited. It gets these powers by the maggots that live inside it providing
this shape-changing service. They symbolize the closeness between Entropy and
Life. Spwiióhk's heart hangs by a "thread" from the empty
abdominal area. This symbolizes Life's closeness to Death.
The large mouth represents Its ability to feed a lot. It
eats Life, and shits Death. This Death is left behind for Life to feed from.
All of Life is close to Death. This is symbolized not only
by the heart, but by the bloody horns and teeth, and by the torn throat.
The best symbolism is the eyes: Together, they (from left
to right) are Health, Sickness or Injury, and Death. This represents that even
healthy lifeforms can die suddenly. The Third Eye is stabbed through as a
warning against loss of sensitivity (of any kind) as well as a warning against
sickness and injury. The dead eye is an empty socket, and so represents
darkness, mystery, death, blindness, The Void, Nothingness---but it also
symbolizes ESP, since Spwiióhk can see out of that eye despite it being
a dead eye.
Being composed of many beings, Spwiióhk shows us
none are safe from It. (Sometimes It appears with a human arm and/or hand as
well). The Horned Arch of Shoikin on Its arm shows that It is Shoikin's
"pet." And of course, the axe in Its head represents murder.
Don't ask me what the worm-like rings on the back of Its
neck are, because I honestly don't know.
When Shao'Kehn first came out of The Chaos, She was VERY
angry, and challenged Ahndahn (the source of Her fury) to a duel. They fought
and fought, neither winning, then fell in love with each other. Now they work
together to keep the Universe balanced. The "Angry Eyes" picture on
this site is an attempt to display the image of Shoikin's Flaming Eyes coming
out of the fires of Chaos, representing a challenge to the site visitor,
challenging them to get past their fear and see the strong, better Self they
can form by doing so. (And to scare off Fundies.)
"Trust your instincts throughout life,
Do not cause intentional strife,
Be ever cautious of where your tread,
And, when threatened, be a force to dread.
Seek within You both Darkness and Light,
And trust in Your ability to face Your Inner Night."
---The Shoikinistic Rede
This is the Shoikinistic
Rede. (Yes, it's modified from the one on the splash page, but the idea is the
same.)More specific than the Wiccan Rede, but also far more open. Is it ethics?
Yes and no. It is good advice for how to get along in the world, how to look
out for numero uno without being an egotistical little punk, without
misbehaving towards loved ones, and/or trampling the rights of others. We are
ALL Divine, We need to act that way. If you treated everyone in the world as a
God or Goddess in the making, how likely would you be to hurt them? Not very, I
should think.
Let us explore the Shoikinistic Rede, shall we:
Trust your instincts throughout life,
You have instincts for a reason. The only
problem is, how to separate instinct from reason? Good question, and the answer
is not the same for all people. Also, when to use reason? Thoughts can disguise
themselves as feelings, and vice versa. It is difficult to find the right
balance. I will not tell You how to do this, it is something all must discover
for Their Selves.
Do not cause intentional strife,
Do not trample on the rights of others. This has
a Self-ish reason as well: trample on the rights of
others, and they will do the same to you. Treat others as You wish to be treated. Unless of course they treat You like poo, in which case You’re
well within your rights to give them what they gave out. But don't stoop to
their level! You must remain the more mature person, for You know that You are,
and a war of words is far more satisfying than a traditional conflict. If We all treated everyone else well, there would be no war,
hatred, crime, and so on. It would be a better world for Us all. I have faith
that it will some day be a reality.
Be ever cautious of where your tread,
Protect Your environment as well as The
Environment. Also, be careful of Your effects upon Your surroundings, including
people. Similar to the second line.
And, when threatened, be a force to
dread.
This line allows for (and encourages)
Self-Defense. Self-Defense from dangers both physical and mental is paramount.
Defend Your Self and loved ones above all others. This doesn't exclude heroism
towards strangers (since instincts often cause heroism {it’s good for the
species}), but it just means that You need to protect Your Self and those you
love first. This line alone could breed all KINDS of debate, I'm sure, but
that’s the whole point of Shoikinism—debate and evolution.
Seek within You both Darkness and Light,
To be Whole, one must be BOTH Dark and Light.
Takes black ink on white paper (or vise versa) to see writing. :-) No matter
what the Alpha and Omega we speak of, don’t value one above the other. Be the
quintessential fence-sitter, for that is the balanced path.
And trust in Your ability to face Your
Inner Night.
Trust in Your ability to walk the Doi’ahshk
Inner Path. (See above)
(Her
Knife being symbolic for Your Power.)
A
Shoikinistic Discordian Prayer
Lady, lend Me Your
Knife so I may cut a path for Myself through the dense, fertile lands of the
mind that too many people ignore to their own detriment.
Lady, lend Me Your Knife so I can protect myself the
small minds who try to make Me conform (or kill me in the attempt) to their
"norms."
Lady, lend Me Your Knife so I may extricate the rot of
society from my soul, the bad ideas paraded around as good ideas.
Lady, lend Me Your Knife so I may be Myself in a sea of
conformists who pretend to be individualists.
Lady, lend Me Your Knife so I can cut the ropes of thought
that enslave people to evil, outdated, greedy, useless, and abusive
institutions.
Lady, lend Me Your Knife so I may defend the
misunderstood (unless They choose to defend Themselves).
Lady, lend Me Your Knife so I may prepare mental feasts
for the intellectually hungry, and to save the intellectually starving.
Lady, lend Me Your Knife so I can cut away the
tediousness in My life and make Tediousness Stew to feed to My pet Groggles.
Lady, lend Me Your Knife so I can use it toward the
betterment of poor, primitive-minded Humanity (Myself included). And---what's
that? I'VE HAD IT IN MY HAND ALL ALONG??? We ALL have Your Knife? (What a scary
thought!)
What more need be said about Her Knife? I
think this poem says it all---that the concept of Her Knife is the concept of
Her Power, which is Our Knife and Our Power, and always has been. We have the
Power, We ALWAYS have had the Power, and NO ONE can take that away against
our Will. It's just that too many people think Themselves powerless, when
They are in fact as powerful as Us, but just don't realize it. They've
convinced Themselves of Their powerlessness (or relegated Their Power to God or
some other force) that They are only pushing Themselves down. EVERYONE uses
Their Power whether They realize it or not. The question is, will You use
Your Power consciously or un-consciously---will You be asleep like 95% of the
others, or will You wake up?
This was written before I was a Balanced Pagan, but it's still
[kinda] good. *shrugs* My whole path has been an ever-evolving mass of ideas,
so there's not really much of anything that *can't* be fit in with Shoikinism.
It is The Yahgahn Way...
...to be cautious in treacherous situations.
...to be respectful of others, since you would want others to be respectful to
you.
...to be kind and generous when there is a need.
...to protect your fellow person, even if the cost is your life (unless the
loss of your life puts theirs in jeopardy).
[note=the one just above could very well be tied in with "treat others the way you want to be treated. You would want to be rescued, so if You can do something to rescue another, You should. Of course, it's still Your call, but heros get lots of praise, good for the Self Esteem. And I said earlier that Shoikinism does not exclude heroism.]
...to always co-operate. [non-cooperation
causes bad feelings that could lead to violence]
...to settle conflicts between people without violence.
...to be reluctant to hurt that which would harm you, but to use force if
necessary.
...to kill only as a last resort, and only for Self-Defense.
...to [consciously] harm other beings only for food or for self-defense.
...to only harm animals in self-defense (The Yahgahn are vegetarians, often
vegans). [optional, as I (Pope Fay) am a
vegetarian. Though, ironically, I eat seafood, eggs, and dairy products still.
So I ain't a vegan.]
...to tell the truth. [unless a lie is absolutely necessary,
like lying to defend Your Self]
...to be trust-worthy.
...to never hate another person, for hate is counter-productive. [pity,
severely dislike, resent, or avoid them, but never hate. :-) ]
...to punish those who jeopardize the survival of the whole. [this
"Yahgahn Way" is the ethical code of the Trelli, an extremely social
species of people I made up for a story]
...to try to get all members of society to contribute positively to the group's
survival. [good advice for any culture I think,
as long as there's no restrictions to what good things people can do]
...to never let individuality be repressed except where it conflicts with the
survival and/or individuality and/or rights of any others in the group. [get
help for the insane, in other words]
...to accept the beliefs of others as long as those beliefs do not conflict
with the survival of the group. [again with the insane]
...to walk away if a conflict is beginning between you and another person.
Conflict must not be allowed to form. [conflict bordering on
violence, at least]
...to assume that a person is at least a little trust-worthy unless proved
otherwise. [be cautious with this one]
...to be silent about your beliefs, unless asked about them. [don't
evangelize, in other words. Web sites about your beliefs don't count]
...to simply explain your beliefs, never to force them upon another.
...to respect nature, and love it. [we are a part OF
nature, so this makes sense]
...to always be cautious of how you affect the world, and aim to make a
positive difference. ["Be ever cautious of where You
tread..."]
...to never allow injustice to exist.
...to correct misbehavior instead of simply punishing it.
...to Understand, Accept, and Love. [again with "treat
others as You..."]
Thii'pah'twai'ii'kursh
"I have remembered My Divinity."
I
once explored the Temple of Set (TOS) site (which is where I
got the idea for the name "The Temple of Shao'Kehn" {TOS'K}), and
while I was there, I found an article about Xeper (pronounced
"Khefer"), meaning, "I have come into being." The TOS being
a sect of Balanced Paganism, it was an offshoot of the philosophy of becoming a
God being the pinnacle of Human capability. But I didn't quite believe it the
way it was, because I already believed that We're already Deities in Our
own [left]. So I came up with the concept of Thii'pah'twai'ii'kursh
(pronounced thee paw tway ee kursh), derived from the Trelli/Shoikinistic words
"Thiin" (I), Pah'Twai'Ah (Divine), and Kursh (again). So Thii'pah'twai'ii'kursh
approximately means "I have remembered My Divinity."
I have decided
to put the Shoikinistic Discordian scriptures back up, but I feel I must warn
people that if you are offended by people poking fun at religion, you should
not read these Discordian scriptures. Do remember, though, that Discordians
poke fun at ALL religions, even their own, because no one should take
themselves too seriously. So don’t get too offended by that, please. R
rated scripture links go to the “warning: proceed only if 18 or older” page.
Here they are:
What Once
Was Coloured, a Shoikinistic Discordian fable
Links:
http://www.principiadiscordia.com
- The original Discordian (not Shoikinistic Discordian) scripture!
Also, you can do
a search for Discordianism on search engines.
Disclaimer:
1. If You are offended by any page on this site, I do NOT
want to hear about it. Hate mail will be ignored. If You are offended by
anything You read here, go off and think deeply about WHY it bothers You so. Don't
contact Me unless You want to join My Organization or to praise the site or
offer CONSTRUCTIVE criticism.
2. To Would-Be Shoikinists: You MUST email Me first in order to be considered a
Shoikinist. Why? So I don't start seeing a bunch of nutcases running around
doing shit in Shao'Kehn's name. (Well, there may still be nutcases, but if all
members are registered with Me, then I can denounce those who would be idiots).
SO TO JOIN, EMAIL ME AT fayanora@yahoo.com
with the subject heading, "I want to join the Temple of Shao'Kehn."
THANKS A MILLION.