Robert Anton Wilson was an American author, futurist, psychologist, and self-described agnostic mystic. Recognized within Discordianism as an Episkopos, pope and saint, Wilson helped publicize Discordianism through his writings and interviews. In 1999 he described his work as an "attempt to break down conditioned associations, to look at the world in a new way, with many models recognized as models or maps, and no one model elevated to the truth". Wilson's goal was "to try to get people into a state of generalized agnosticism, not agnosticism about God alone but agnosticism about everything."
Chaos magic, also spelled chaos magick, is a modern tradition of magic. Emerging in England in the 1970s as part of the wider neo-pagan and esoteric subculture, it drew heavily from the occult beliefs of artist Austin Osman Spare, expressed several decades earlier. It has been characterised as an invented religion, with some commentators drawing similarities between the movement and Discordianism. Magical organizations within this tradition include the Illuminates of Thanateros and Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth.
A sigil is a type of symbol used in magic. The term usually refers to a pictorial signature of a deity or spirit. In modern usage, especially in the context of chaos magic, a sigil refers to a symbolic representation of the practitioner's desired outcome.
Kenneth Anger was an American underground experimental filmmaker, actor, and writer. Working exclusively in short films, he produced almost 40 works beginning in 1937, nine of which have been grouped together as the "Magick Lantern Cycle". Anger's films variously merge surrealism with homoeroticism and the occult, and have been described as containing "elements of erotica, documentary, psychodrama, and spectacle". He has been called "one of America's first openly gay filmmakers", with several films released before homosexuality was legalized in the U.S. Anger also explored occult themes in many of his films; he was fascinated by the English occultist Aleister Crowley and an adherent of Thelema, the religion Crowley founded.
Lionel Snell is an English writer, magician, and publisher. He has released numerous works on the subjects of magic and philosophy under various pen names, and is most famously known as Ramsey Dukes. He has been described as "an important early contributor to the discussions of occultism in the mid- to late 1970s".
The Symbol of Chaos originates from Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melniboné stories and their dichotomy of Law and Chaos. In them, the Symbol of Chaos comprises eight arrows in a radial pattern.
James Charles Napier Webb was a Scottish historian and biographer. He was born in Edinburgh, and was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge. He is remembered primarily for his books The Harmonious Circle, The Occult Underground, and The Occult Establishment.
An egregore is a concept in Western esotericism of a non-physical entity or thoughtform that arises from the collective thoughts and emotions of a distinct group of individuals.
Michael Anthony Hoffman II is an American author. He has been described as a conspiracy theorist, Holocaust denier and anti-semite.
Gary Joseph Lachman, also known as Gary Valentine, is an American writer and musician. He came to prominence in the mid-1970s as the bass guitarist for rock band Blondie. Since the 1990s, Lachman has written full-time, often about mysticism and occultism. He has written more than 22 books on consciousness, culture, and the western esoteric tradition, written for journals in the US and UK, and lectured on his work in the US and Europe; his books have been translated into more than a dozen languages.
Mitch Horowitz is an American author, publisher, speaker, and television host specializing in occult and esoteric themes. A frequent writer and speaker on religion and metaphysics in print and on television, radio, and online, Horowitz’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Time, and CNN.com, and he has appeared on NPR, CBS News, NBC News, and Vice News. He is the former editor-in-chief of TarcherPerigee and a former vice-president at Penguin Random House. His best-known works are Occult America (2009), The Miracle Club (2018), and Modern Occultism (2023). In 2022, Ferdinando Buscema noted that "Horowitz is among the most articulate and respected voices in the contemporary occulture scene." Horowitz hosts the UFO-themed Discovery/HBO Max television series, Alien Encounters: Fact or Fiction, which the network added to its Wednesday night line-up in June 2024. In July 2024, he joined Elijah Wood's podcast network, SpectreVision Radio, and will be hosting a podcast focused on esoteric and occult topics.
The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia is a geopolitical book by Aleksandr Dugin. Its publication in 1997 was well received in Russia; it has had significant influence within the Russian military, police forces, and foreign policy elites, and has been used as a textbook in the Academy of the General Staff of the Russian military. Powerful Russian political figures subsequently took an interest in Dugin, a Russian political analyst who espouses an ultra-nationalist and neo-fascist ideology based on his idea of neo-Eurasianism, who has developed a close relationship with Russia's Academy of the General Staff.
The Dark Enlightenment, also called the neo-reactionary movement, is an anti-democratic, anti-egalitarian, reactionary philosophical and political movement. The term "Dark Enlightenment" is a reaction to the Age of Enlightenment and apologia for the public view of the "Dark Ages".
The Fourth Political Theory is a book by the Russian philosopher and political analyst Aleksandr Dugin, first published in 2009. In the book, Dugin states that he is claiming the foundations for an entirely new political ideology, the fourth political theory, which integrates and supersedes liberal democracy, Marxism, and fascism. In this theory, the main subject of politics is not individualism, class struggle, or nation, but rather Dasein.
Pepe the Frog is a comic character and Internet meme created by cartoonist Matt Furie. Designed as a green anthropomorphic frog with a humanoid body, Pepe originated in Furie's 2005 comic Boy's Club. The character became an Internet meme when his popularity steadily grew across websites such as Myspace, Gaia Online, and 4chan in 2008. By 2015, he had become one of the most popular memes used on 4chan and Tumblr. Different types of Pepe memes include "Sad Frog", "Smug Frog", "Angry Pepe", "Feels Frog", and "You will never..." Frog. Since 2014, "rare Pepes" have been posted on the "meme market" as if they were trading cards.
The alt-right is a far-right, white nationalist movement. A largely online phenomenon, the alt-right originated in the United States during the late 2000s before increasing in popularity and establishing a presence in other countries during the mid-2010s, and has been declining since 2017. The term is ill-defined and has been used in different ways by academics, journalists, media commentators, and alt-right members themselves.
Anthime Joseph "Tim" Gionet, more commonly known as Baked Alaska, is an American far-right media personality, who gained notoriety through his advocacy on behalf of alt-right and white supremacist ideology. He has also used the alias Tim Treadstone.
Opponents of the alt-right have not reached a consensus on how to deal with it. Some opponents emphasized "calling out" tactics, labelling the alt-right with terms like "racist", "sexist", "homophobic", and "white supremacist" in the belief that doing so would scare people away from it. Many commentators urged journalists not to refer to the alt-right by its chosen name, but rather with terms like "neo-Nazi". There was much discussion within U.S. public discourse as to how to avoid the "normalization" of the alt-right. The activist group Stop Normalizing, which opposes the normalization of terms like alt-right, developed the "Stop Normalizing Alt Right" Chrome extension. The extension went viral shortly after the release of Stop Normalizing's website. The extension changes the term "alt-right" on webpages to "white supremacy". The extension and group were founded by a New York-based advertising and media professional under the pseudonym George Zola.
It Came from Something Awful: How a Toxic Troll Army Accidentally Memed Donald Trump into Office is a 2019 book by Dale Beran, focusing on the intersection of Internet culture, alt-right, and Donald Trump's presidency.
Frogtwitter is a network of loosely-connected pseudonymous X accounts characterized by promoting dissident ideas and policies associated with the far-right that formed around writer and online personality Costin Alamariu.
