'Discordians stick apart' The institutional turn within contemporary Discordianism

The death of Robert Anton Wilson in 2007 marked a turning point in the new religious movement known as Discordianism. With Wilson’s death, Discordianism not only lost its principal interpreter and the last of its original spokespersons but also its most popular evangelist. Wilson’s failing health and eventual death fomented a crisis within the religion. Instead of fostering dissolution, though, this crisis catalyzed a major shift in how adherents conceptualize and practice Discordianism. As this chapter will show, the loss of Discordianism’s chief theorist set into motion three projects that collectively reoriented the way in which the religion is constituted in the everyday life of its adherents.