According to L.A. Rollins in Lucifer's Lexicon a Discordian is one who likes to wear Emperor Norton's old clothes. If anything could be added to that definition, I cannot think what.

As I indicated earlier, my own background is Mormon. Since few are familiar with the off-beat creeds of that unusual sect, Mormonism doesn't land itself to broad satire readily. Yet the temptation is forever with me to swipe such startling rituals as, say, baptism of the dead.

Based on the rule that you cannot enter the Celestial Kingdom unless you name is recorded in Salt Lake City, all who passed away without the benefit - at any time in the past - must, for their own good, be sooner or later baptised. (So strong a conviction is this among the Saints that when my uncle died and left a lot of unpaid bills my Aunt Lena made off with his church records one day while doing volunteer secretarial work, secure in the faith his soul would be locked outside the Pearly Gates until or unless she brought them back.)

But Mormon baptism of the dead is a cop-out because in spite of stressing the importance of complete physical immersion for the living, they dunk the deceased by proxy. A Discordian Church of Ladder Night Saints could open graves for the purpose of submerging skeletons and corpses. Then it could lower them back down before dawn. That would give us an exciting mission which would heighten our commitment by inviting persecution - a function served in the early days of Latter Day Saint Church history by polygamy.

Technically the Mormons practiced only polygyny - one husband with a plurality of wives. Polyandry - one wife with more than one husband - is also a form included by the generic term of polygamy. Discordians are free to practice all varieties of polygamy and polymorphous perversity as well. Marriage is an institution which should adjust itself to the needs of individuals and not the other way around. Any Discordian Episkopos may perform group marriage ceremonies, short-duration marriages, same-sex marriages and, with special permission, straight monogamous weddings.

If Mormonism is out of the mainstream, it still does not rival in that way an obscure Japanese religion called Perfect Liberty. May Goddess damn me if I am putting you on: Perfect Liberty teaches salvation through playing golf (as close to our own theory of salvation through nonsense as anyone else has come). For that reason Perfect Liberty owns many of the regular golf courses that dot the U.S. and Japan.

Personally, I think we Discordians could work out a similar path to liberation via surfing. That sounds like a program that would work for me. Unlike Will Rogers, I cannot honestly say I've never met a man I didn't like. But certainly I have never met a surfer I didn't like.