Five Mimeographed Copies to a Cult Classic

Greg Hill and Kerry Thornley began developing Discordian ideas as teenagers in Whittier, California, in the late 1950s, reportedly after a bowling alley conversation that led them to conclude disorder was as fundamental to reality as order. Hill compiled their jokes, essays and invented liturgy into the Principia Discordia at his print shop job, producing an original run so small that only a handful of copies existed before it began circulating hand to hand and then through underground and countercultural presses in the later 1960s and 1970s.

Unlike almost every other scripture this atlas records, its authors deliberately released it without copyright, marking it Kallisti and inviting readers to copy, alter and republish it, which is why no single authoritative edition exists and later printings vary in content, page order and included material while sharing a recognisable core.