Historia Discordia

Adam Gorightly is a long time Discordian and independent researcher into the movement's own history, not an academic religious studies scholar, and this book was issued by a small press rather than a university press, facts this record states plainly. It is a compiled archive and narrative history of Discordianism's first decades, assembled substantially from the movement's own primary documents, correspondence and interviews with its founders and early participants including Kerry Thornley, material not available in the same depth from any outside academic source. Its insider vantage point makes it strong evidence of Discordianism's own internal history, personalities and disputes, and weaker evidence on questions of outside scholarly classification, where Carole Cusack's academic study is the stronger source. This record has not independently traced outside verification of every claim and anecdote it reports. Use it for Discordianism's detailed internal history; use Cusack's academic study for its scholarly classification among deliberately invented religions.