| Most Elemental systems
use the four basic physical Elements, Earth Air, Fire and
Water. Earth representing the nurturing maternal, growth, solidity and stability, wisdom. Air Representing fickle change, sometimes knowledge. Fire associated with action, activity, occasionally dominance, the masculine principle. Water is Cool, calmness, passivity, intuition, the feminine principle, occasionally submission. |
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Discordians
however scorn this base physicality and use five mental
elements,each dealing with a broad sphere of feelings. Widdershins
(AntiClockwise) pulls Sweet into BOOM and Prickle over
Orange creating periods of brief but intense happiness
swinging into times of astounded negativity.
That is unless you want to do it differently...
|
The Element of sweet is associated
with the lighter emotrions, happiness, joy, chocolate
and things of that ilk.
Sweet things sometimes occur on their own but more often with
another element along for moral support.
Sweet is a shy Element and often hides from people for years, the
worst is the longer it hides the less confident it gets and that
males it even harder to coax out.
It bears the conceptual number 1 and its colour is a rich
choclatey dark brown.
Sweet faces to the north in the pentagram.
Boom is the sudden and the
unexpected, the strident and "In Yer Face" element.
Boom is the kind of element that makes for a great but exhausting
party, often of the kind where construction work is needed the
morning after.
Boom is alas, short lived, it is not an element whose influence
works for long. Strong, powerful, Vigorous but Brief.
Sweet-Boom is a happy surprise, Prickle-Boom is a nasty shock,
Orange-Boom is shattering Panic.
Boom bears the conceptual number 4 and its colour is the same as
the stars you see when you hit your head.
Pungent is the slow release of
feelings, the sustained emotions or mental states. Almost always
asociated with Sweet or Prickle.
Boom and Pungent work against each other and a balance can be
struck between them with a little care.
Most Horror films exploit Pungent-Prickle, the slow buildup of
suspense, the sustained horror...
Pungent infulences last, they stick around and fade only slowly
if they fade at all.
Pungent-Sweet is a state of hapiness, Pungent-Orange messes with
your mind and Pungent-Prickle is very hurtfull.
Pungent bears the number 7 and the colour of sunrise on a winters
morning.
Prickle carries the unhappy side
of the world on its shoulders, slung carelessly in a backpack
with no thought as to how much anger is mashed into grief or
which pieces of despair get broken off and stick to boredom.
Prickle dosn't give a damn who or what you are, so long as you
can take away some of that heavy load.
The number of Prickle is anything between 11 and 23, its colour
is that of a television tuned to a dead channel.
Orange is the element of confusion, of cognitive dissonance.
Orange is the feeling of the Lobster in the bookcase, the
uncertainty of the left handed torque wrench.
Orange happens to everyone, some people handle it with cool and
calm, shifting Booming Orange into a minor Prickle and simply
allowing the Pungent Orange to exist in a Zen like state. Others
deny it, trying to say that they have No Orange. We know they
lie.
Orange carries any irrational number, (e, pi, 1/3 etc.) and is
the same colour as the other side of
the paper.
Other Stuff
You might think that getting rid of all your Prickle is a good thing. Alas it's not totaly true, the whole elemental flywheel gets thrown out of balance if any one of the elements is out of wack. Thats when you start getting into GreyFace territory, clamp the wheel solid, stop it wobbling, pretend you don't feel the hapiness, deny the surprise. All in the vain hope that everything will be "alright in the end".
Better ways are available.