Operation Mindfuck
Encyclopedia
Operation Mindfuck or OM is an important practice in the Discordian religion. The concept was developed by Kerry Thornley
and Robert Anton Wilson
in 1968 and given its name by Wilson and Robert Shea
in The Illuminatus! Trilogy
. It is most often manifested as a decentralized campaign of civil disobedience
, activism
, art movement
s, especially performance art
and guerrilla art, culture jamming
, graffiti
and other vandalism
, practical joke
s, hoax
es, reality hacking, chaos magic
, words of power, trolling and anything else that is believed to bring about social change through disrupting paradigm
s and thus forcing the victim to question the parameters of one's reality tunnel
.
and exaggeration in regard to discussing the Discordian Society, it is difficult to determine the actual scale of the campaign, be it large or practically non-existent.
In The Illuminatus! Trilogy and its sequels, Operation Mindfuck is epitomized by a protagonist
named Markoff Chaney, an anti-social dwarf
who engages in subtle practical joking, in a deliberate attempt to cause Discord, as a protest against his mistreatment by society. One such joke involves the forging of signs that are signed by "The Mgt." (leading people to believe they're from "The Management
" instead of "the Midget
") that contain absurdities
, and placing the signs in stores and other establishments.
There are several projects involved in Operation Mindfuck (as outlined in Appendix Yod of The Illuminatus! Trilogy). These are:
These may not be the only projects in Operation Mindfuck, as a Discordian is encouraged to go out and create their own projects. They are however considered as useful guidelines, hence their inclusion in Illuminatus!
.
Kerry Thornley
Kerry Wendell Thornley is known as the co-founder of Discordianism, in which context he is usually known as Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst or simply Lord Omar...
and Robert Anton Wilson
Robert Anton Wilson
Robert Anton Wilson , known to friends as "Bob", was an American author and polymath who became at various times a novelist, philosopher, psychologist, essayist, editor, playwright, poet, futurist, civil libertarian and self-described agnostic mystic...
in 1968 and given its name by Wilson and Robert Shea
Robert Shea
Robert Joseph Shea was an American novelist and former journalist best known as co-author with Robert Anton Wilson of the science fantasy trilogy Illuminatus!. It became a cult success and was later turned into a marathon-length stage show put on at the British National Theatre and elsewhere. In...
in The Illuminatus! Trilogy
The Illuminatus! Trilogy
The Illuminatus! Trilogy is a series of three novels written by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson first published in 1975. The trilogy is a satirical, postmodern, science fiction-influenced adventure story; a drug-, sex-, and magick-laden trek through a number of conspiracy theories, both...
. It is most often manifested as a decentralized campaign of civil disobedience
Civil disobedience
Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal to obey certain laws, demands, and commands of a government, or of an occupying international power. Civil disobedience is commonly, though not always, defined as being nonviolent resistance. It is one form of civil resistance...
, activism
Activism
Activism consists of intentional efforts to bring about social, political, economic, or environmental change. Activism can take a wide range of forms from writing letters to newspapers or politicians, political campaigning, economic activism such as boycotts or preferentially patronizing...
, art movement
Art movement
An art movement is a tendency or style in art with a specific common philosophy or goal, followed by a group of artists during a restricted period of time, or, at least, with the heyday of the movement defined within a number of years...
s, especially performance art
Performance art
In art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
and guerrilla art, culture jamming
Culture jamming
Culture jamming, coined in 1984, denotes a tactic used by many anti-consumerist social movements to disrupt or subvert mainstream cultural institutions, including corporate advertising. Guerrilla semiotics and night discourse are sometimes used synonymously with the term culture jamming.Culture...
, graffiti
Graffiti
Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
and other vandalism
Vandalism
Vandalism is the behaviour attributed originally to the Vandals, by the Romans, in respect of culture: ruthless destruction or spoiling of anything beautiful or venerable...
, practical joke
Practical joke
A practical joke is a mischievous trick played on someone, typically causing the victim to experience embarrassment, indignity, or discomfort. Practical jokes differ from confidence tricks in that the victim finds out, or is let in on the joke, rather than being fooled into handing over money or...
s, hoax
Hoax
A hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth. It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, or rumors, urban legends, pseudosciences or April Fools' Day events that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes.-Definition:The British...
es, reality hacking, chaos magic
Chaos magic
Chaos magic is a school of the modern magical tradition which emphasizes the pragmatic use of belief systems and the creation of new and unorthodox methods.-General principles:...
, words of power, trolling and anything else that is believed to bring about social change through disrupting paradigm
Paradigm
The word paradigm has been used in science to describe distinct concepts. It comes from Greek "παράδειγμα" , "pattern, example, sample" from the verb "παραδείκνυμι" , "exhibit, represent, expose" and that from "παρά" , "beside, beyond" + "δείκνυμι" , "to show, to point out".The original Greek...
s and thus forcing the victim to question the parameters of one's reality tunnel
Reality tunnel
Reality tunnel is a term coined by Timothy Leary and popularised by Robert Anton Wilson , akin to the idea of representative realism....
.
Purposes
There is a disagreement among Discordians as to whether or not, through OM, they should seek to improve society, topple it or claim that the practice is in fact only for entertainment. Because much of Operation Mindfuck itself involves hyperboleHyperbole
Hyperbole is the use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech. It may be used to evoke strong feelings or to create a strong impression, but is not meant to be taken literally....
and exaggeration in regard to discussing the Discordian Society, it is difficult to determine the actual scale of the campaign, be it large or practically non-existent.
In The Illuminatus! Trilogy and its sequels, Operation Mindfuck is epitomized by a protagonist
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
named Markoff Chaney, an anti-social dwarf
Dwarfism
Dwarfism is short stature resulting from a medical condition. It is sometimes defined as an adult height of less than 4 feet 10 inches , although this definition is problematic because short stature in itself is not a disorder....
who engages in subtle practical joking, in a deliberate attempt to cause Discord, as a protest against his mistreatment by society. One such joke involves the forging of signs that are signed by "The Mgt." (leading people to believe they're from "The Management
Management
Management in all business and organizational activities is the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives using available resources efficiently and effectively...
" instead of "the Midget
Midget
A midget is a short person with relatively average bodily proportions in comparison with other human beings. The term is often improperly used to describe a person with the medical condition dwarfism. The two terms are often used synonymously because both terms originate as words defining small...
") that contain absurdities
Surreal humour
Surreal humour is a form of humour based on violations of causal reasoning with events and behaviours that are logically incongruent. Constructions of surreal humour involve bizarre juxtapositions, non-sequiturs, irrational situations, and/or expressions of nonsense.The humour arises from a...
, and placing the signs in stores and other establishments.
Projects
Current progress in Operation Mindfuck includes:- OMGASM: A decentralized Discordian network which attempts to pool resources in order to complete larger projects. By using web 2.0Web 2.0The term Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that facilitate participatory information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web...
tools to tag projects, Discordians hope to link up with other collaborators who will lend necessary skills to their efforts. OMGASM, which stands for Operation Mindfuck: Golden Apple Seed Missions, was started in early 2008 by the cabal residing at the principiadiscordia.com forums. Any Discordian may label a project a Golden Apple Seed Mission, indicating that other Discordians are welcome to participate and help propagate it. OMGASM has had several successful sub-projects.
There are several projects involved in Operation Mindfuck (as outlined in Appendix Yod of The Illuminatus! Trilogy). These are:
- Project FaceGASM: Project faceGASM was started by the Discordian Pope, Dudeist Llama and Erisian Shaman, Sylvan Aelf one afternoon while contemplating his ultimate vision of a world enraptured in GASM. Project faceGASM seeks to infiltrate the social networking site facebook and proliferate and dessiminate the word GASM, promoting its usage in the common tongue. So that GASM is on the lips, tongues and face, books of everybody possible.
- Project Jake: "Instigated by Harold Lord Randomfactor. Once or twice a year, a public servant who has distinguished himself by more than common imbecility is selected as target for a Jake and all Discordian cabals are alerted." The official being honored receives mail from all the cabals at once on Jake Day. The letters should be printed on the official letterhead of each of the cabals and ask for help in "some complicated political matter that passes all rational understanding."
- Project Eagle: "Day-glo posters have been printed which look like the old Eagle proclamation saying TO THE POLLS YE SONS OF FREEDOM. The new, improved Discordian posters, however, have one slight word change, and say cheerfully BURN THE POLLS YE SONS OF FREEDOM. Like the old ones, they are posted in prominent places on election day."
- Project Pan-Pontification: This project consists of the distribution of "PopePopeThe Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...
cards" claiming every man, woman, and child on Earth as a Pope of Discord. - Project Graffito (and Project Bumpersticker): "Anybody can participate by inventing a particularly Erisian slogan and seeing that it is given wide distribution. Examples: Your Local Police Are Armed and Dangerous; Legalize Free-Enterprise Murder; Why Should Governments Have All the Fun?; Smash the Government Postal Monopoly; If Voting Could Change the System, It Would Be Against the Law; etc."
- Citizens Against Drug Abuse: "This organization possesses elegant letterheads and is engaged in a campaign of encouraging Congressmen to outlaw catnip, a drug which some young people are smoking whenever marijuana is in short supply." The idea behind this is that because the government lost much credibility in its war on marijuana, a campaign to outlaw a "similar, but more comical herb" will result in a complete loss of faith in government.
These may not be the only projects in Operation Mindfuck, as a Discordian is encouraged to go out and create their own projects. They are however considered as useful guidelines, hence their inclusion in Illuminatus!
The Illuminatus! Trilogy
The Illuminatus! Trilogy is a series of three novels written by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson first published in 1975. The trilogy is a satirical, postmodern, science fiction-influenced adventure story; a drug-, sex-, and magick-laden trek through a number of conspiracy theories, both...
.
See also
- DiscordianismDiscordianismDiscordianism is a religion based on the worship of Eris , the Greco-Roman goddess of strife. It was founded circa 1958–1959 after the publication of its holy book the Principia Discordia, written by Malaclypse the Younger and Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst after a series of shared hallucinations at a...
- SurrealismSurrealismSurrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
- FluxusFluxusFluxus—a name taken from a Latin word meaning "to flow"—is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. They have been active in Neo-Dada noise music and visual art as well as literature, urban planning,...
- Culture jammingCulture jammingCulture jamming, coined in 1984, denotes a tactic used by many anti-consumerist social movements to disrupt or subvert mainstream cultural institutions, including corporate advertising. Guerrilla semiotics and night discourse are sometimes used synonymously with the term culture jamming.Culture...
- The Existential Negation Campaign
- Meme hackMeme hackA meme hack is altering a meme to express a point of view not intended or inherent in the original, or even opposite to the original. The meme can be thoughts, concepts, ideas, theories, opinions, beliefs, practices, habits, songs, or icons...
- Netochka NezvanovaNetochka NezvanovaNetochka Nezvanova is the pseudonym used by the author of nato.0+55+3d, a real-time, modular, video and multi-media processing environment. Alternate aliases include "=cw4t7abs", "punktprotokol", "0f0003", "maschinenkunst" , "integer", and "antiorp"...
- Cacophony SocietyCacophony SocietyThe Cacophony Society is “a randomly gathered network of free spirits united in the pursuit of experiences beyond the pale of mainstream society.” It was started in 1986 by surviving members of the now defunct Suicide Club of San Francisco....
- Improv EverywhereImprov EverywhereImprov Everywhere is a comedic performance art group based in New York City, formed in 2001 by Charlie Todd. Its slogan is "We Cause Scenes."The group carries out pranks, which they call "missions", in public places...
- Church of the SubGeniusChurch of the SubGeniusThe Church of the SubGenius is a "parody religion" organization that satirizes religion, conspiracy theories, unidentified flying objects, and popular culture. Originally based in Dallas, Texas, the Church of the SubGenius gained prominence in the 1980s and 1990s and maintains an active presence on...