Greetings, Space Cadets- And welcome to Cosmic Boot Camp!

This is your Discordian Resistance Training Manual that will give

you all the information you need to get through the Psychedelic

Endurance Course we have prepared for you over the next 14

hours.

With over forty acts competing for your attention in four

different rooms you may become disoriented and confused. Do

not fear! By correctly using your Discordian Resistance Training

Manual you will always be exactly where you need to be.

The nature of your training will involve the use and

understanding of magic. It will also involve dancing like a loon.

It will require the tweaking of your reality tunnels so that you

will be better able to control and manipulate your reality in the

future.

You may notice seemingly random synchronicities popping up

over the course of your experience. Do not freak out: this is a

sign that you are doing the right thing! Let the synchronicities

guide you. Then freak out (or in) as appropriate.

Discordian Resistance Facilitators will also be moving among

you, and will be giving out secret missions to selected space

cadets within 840 minutes of this event commencing. Pay

attention! You will have less than 50,400 seconds to complete

any missions you may be given, in addition to preparing yourself

for the Forthcoming Buddhist Apocalypse.

Watch out for the fnords. We will not say this again. Watch out

for the fnords. And embrace the contradictions.

"It's not a war, it's a rescue mission"

Remember to breathe. Things are about to get interesting…

What is Catch 23?

Catch 23 is the next step on from Catch 22. Catch 22 is the

ultimate double bind, the contradiction inherent in modern life.

If it drives you crazy and you want out, then you must be sane.

We’re all contorting ourselves to fit in with an irrational,

neurotic system.

Catch 23 is when you embrace the contradictions and leap

laughing into the void.

If (as poet Ian Gregson has said) Catch 22 represents "the brutal

operation of power" then Catch 23 is the ultimate get-out clause

from underneath.

Catch 23 states that the oppressor cannot triumph, despite

overwhelming odds, because they are always trying to hold back

the tide of history: to stamp down on change, growth and

evolution.

Catch 23 says that the wonderists and the amorphous freak

franchise will always survive and win out, because they are

always evolving, always changing and always creating the future.

We are Catch 23. We are Chaos. We are Eris's Children.

Remember, "The Lady Said It Would Be Okay".

No more either/or thinking! No more binaries! Catch 23 is a

festival in a club. It's a party and an educational experience. It's

interactive theatre, art and games. It's a ritual and a happening.

It's all of us together, cutting through the Gordian knot.

Catch 23 is the Liberation Loophole.

Catch 23 is loving it all and letting it go.

Catch 23 is having nothing to lose.

"Reality is what you can get away with. It's all just a game. A true

initiation never ends… "

FROM RAPTURE TO WONDER

The origins of Wonderism explained

By Cat Vincent

Daisy Campbell gets me into the

best kind of trouble.

It all started when John Higgs

introduced us in 2013, at one of the

London events raising awareness and

funds for the first run of her stage

version of Robert Anton Wilson’s

Cosmic Trigger. She and John had

been talking about performing a public

ritual on Liverpool’s Mathew Street -

home of the Cavern Club, The

Liverpool School of Language, Music,

Dream and Pun, and believed by many

to be the exact point of CJ Jung’s

dream of The Pool of Life - to help

bring synchronicity’s aid to the project.

As Alan Moore’s involvement with the

show was now known, I suggested

adding a magical call out to Alan’s

Scouse gutter-mage and synchronicity

rider John Constantine: the resulting

ritual on 23 February 2014 amassed

over fifty Seekers (and a very

bemused Everton supporter in a

Number 23 shirt), and was

immortalised in Higgs’s introduction to

the new edition of Cosmic Trigger.

Public ritual had only been an

occasional thing in my magical career

at that point: after that Working, it

became a major part of my ongoing

work. That’s what happens when you

fall in with theatricals...

In the four years that followed, Daisy

cheerfully set me some interesting

magical challenges as part of the

ongoing New Discordian Revival. The

lunchtime after the premiere of the

play, at the Find The Others

Confestival on 23 November of that

year, she called out “Is anyone here an

ordained minister of some kind?”

I’ve been a Universal Life Church

priest (the first and best mail-order

church!) for years, so I put my hand

up.

“Right, Cat... can you marry my

partner and I this evening? Seems like

a good time to do it, as all my friends

are here and I can get my mum up

from London for it...”

I had six hours to create a wedding

ceremony from scratch. No pressure.

After a lot of scribbling, a lucky (!)

arrival of a hand-made Eternal

Bouquet courtesy of local powerhouse

Tommy Calderbank and some liberal

thieving from The Princess Bride, I

managed to come up with something

that worked. And, somehow, the crowd

of amazing people at the event made it

into something far more special than

what I’d had in mind.

That became a common theme in the

various magical workings I’ve done for

Daisy and the Tribe of 23 ever since:

Daisy setting me a tricky task; my

ideas and words becoming

transformed, mutated and enhanced

by the strange and wonderful folk who

pulled the Cosmic Trigger into

something far more powerful and

interesting than any one magician

could have managed on their own.

Nonetheless, when Daisy asked me

to perform the closing ritual for 2017’s

London revival of the show, I was

nervous as hell. I was closing the

remarkable month-long series of

overlapping rituals and creative acts

that had paralleled the play, and I was

on the bill with the likes of Adam Curtis

and Alan Moore essentially opening for

me... so, no pressure.

I had a ten minute slot and no idea

what to say.

Well, I had one idea. In a year of

horrible terrorist violence across the

world, from the assassination of Jo

Cox by a Britain First supporter to

attacks by members of the various

People of the Book on civilian targets,

the growth of the 23 Tribe, with its

embracing of differences and pursuit of

actually doing stuff to try and make the

world and its inhabitants better, freer,

stood in stark contrast.

What the 23 Tribe was doing, I

realised, was the opposite of terrorism:

plotting together to make the lives of

others more wonderful. And that was

an idea I had heard before.

The American science fiction writer

Spider Robinson, a post-hippy cynical

optimist best known for his Callahan’s

Bar series, wrote a trilogy in the 1980s

with his wife, dance choreographer

Jeanne Robinson, called Stardance.

Spider & Jeanne at the 1978 WorldCon with

their Hugo Awards for STARDANCE. Photo

byJay Kay Klein.

The first book is about the

establishing of the world’s first zero-

gravity dance troupe, based in a space

station in low Earth orbit. As the series

goes on (the second book has a

familiar title: Starseed), it becomes

clear that the Stardancers are part of

the process by which humanity

becomes a species which can live in

space, in symbiosis with an alien life

form drawn to the performers that can

sustain them in the cold emptiness.

Needless to say, the existing Earthly

powers do not take well to this idea...

and rather than give spoilers as to how

this is resolved, I bid you all to go and

read these excellent books.

In the last of the trilogy, Starmind, the developments in space are accompan- ied by a series of remarkably odd events on Earth, seemingly produced by conspirators in possession of highly advanced nanotechnology. The protagonists, writer Rhea Porter and her husband, composer Rand, are asked about this by the press just before they go into orbit: "Just one more," the flaky-looking rivera from the planetary pool said. "Do you have any comment on the break- ing story about outbreaks of rogue assemblers?" Rand looked startled. "I'm sorry, I've

been too busy packing to monitor

news. Nanoassemblers, you mean?"

The rivera nodded. "There seems to

be growing evidence over the last few

days of random instances of . . . well,

of anarchist nanotechnology, all

around the globe. Spontaneous

healings, spontaneous slum

regenerations- sort of little miracles.

There's no telling how many, since the

tendency is to underreport miracles.

Some say there may be some sort of

… well . . ."

"A conspiracy of rapturists?" Rhea

said, thinking of an old story-idea she

had never gotten around to develop-

ing.

"Rapturists?" the woman from the

New England pool pounced.

"The opposite of a terrorist," Rhea

said. "But what has this got to do with

us?”

The Rapturists' pranks - Discordian

Jakes on a mammoth scale - include

building an exact replica of Stone-

henge a hundred metres away from

the original, overnight. Or, possibly,

they built the replica and swapped it

with the original... and nobody can tell

which is which any more. Honestly? If

our mob had this kind of hardware, it’s

exactly the sort of thing we would do

with it.

Jeanne Robinson sadly died in 2010:

she never got to see the Stardance

performed in space, although if you go

to YouTube and search ‘stardance

zero g’, you can see dancer Kathleen

McDonagh perform briefly in the

ballistic ‘vomit comet’ zero-G

environment, a piece choreographed

by Jeanne as part of a test run for an

unmade Stardance movie. This

wonderful dream has yet to be

fulfilled... but the possibility of it still

haunts me. As does the idea of

Rapturists.

With that in mind, and my continual

love of the fact that ‘conspire’ literally

means ‘to breathe together’, I had my

ritual ready: to share breath with the

whole audience, to declare ourselves

Rapturists and send our intention out

into the world, a creative and lively

opposition to terror, and to help us

Find The Others.

On 22 May 2017ce, the day before

the last performance, Manchester

Arena was attacked by terrorists,

killing 23 people. A brutal synchronicity

adding weight to the need for

terrorism’s opposite to manifest.

It was a good ritual, I think: the

audience embracing what I was getting

at and joining in that shared breath

and screaming FNORD! at the end as

the activating Magic Word. And then

John Higgs took the idea away,

googled Rapturist and found the

word’s other meaning buried in

Christian ranting... and here we are.

Wonderism is, frankly, a better word

for it. But we wouldn’t have it at all

without Spider and Jeanne Robinson,

and their idea of dancing beyond the

constraints of gravity.

May all the Wonderists fly as freely.

Ian 'Cat' Vincent is a Fortean journalist and lifelong practitioner of the weird. A

former professional combat magician and curse-breaker, currently working in the cunning-man paradigm, he has been described by Alan Moore as “one of the few people on the planet I defer to on the subject of magic”. As part of your Discordian Resistance Training, Cat will be presenting an upgraded version of his popular Defence Against The Dark Arts workshop in The White Room at 7pm.

Catch 23- zoning regulations The WonderGround is party

central at Catch 23. This is

the Main Strange, where

we're bringing you the best

bands and the most banging

DJs. There'll also be games

and interventions to watch

out for in this psychedelic

playpen where creative

evolution is the only solution.

The White Room is the hub

for the mind; for magic,

mythology, meaning and

mystery. Throughout Catch

23, The White Room will host

talks, workshops, magic

rituals and theatre- including

two full-length plays-

culminating in a visceral

musical performance from

The Private Sector. After this

there will be a film screening

for those wishing to chill out

in the early hours.

The Swat Box is our TARDIS

stage: bigger on the inside

than on the outside, it's also

the vehicle to transport you

to a wide range of different

times and places. From talks

on Ayahuasca ceremony to

challenging and hilarious

performance art, from live

music to adventurous DJ

sets, the Swat Box is never

the same twice. Expect the

unexpected!

The Cafe Bar will be hosting a

range of spoken word and

acoustic performances, as

well as serving drinks and

light refreshments, naturally.

Some of our favourite artists

can be found performing in

this comfortable and intimate

space.

Chapel Perilous (open 7.15)

is not so much a performance

area as a confessional of

sorts. Come and testify! Tell

us about your darkest,

weirdest and most life-

changing moments; your

transgressions, triumphs and

trials by fire. We're not here

to judge you: we're here to

join you, and help you

through the gates of the

Chapel, where nothing is real

and everything is permitted.

Throughout Catch 23 there

will also be a range of

walkabout performances to

look out for, both inside and

outside of Yellow Arch. From

fortune tellers to puppet

shows, live art to accordion

players, and maybe even an

appearance from Eris

herself…

The WonderGround

3:30 Man Bites Fridge

4.30 Hearing Things

5:30 TBA

6:30 Naked Grace Missionaries

7:30 Cuckoo Clocks

8:00 Imagination Wars

8:45 Giblet

10:00 Kermit & The Super Weird

Sound

11:15 Henge

12:20: Discordian Resistance

Training

12:30 Greg Wilson (DJ)

2:00 Horton Jupiter (DJ)

The White Room

2:00 Dolly Turing (Sound Art)

2:40 Suzi Price (Gong Bath)

3:05 Opening Ritual

3:30 Michelle Olley: Monkeying

Around With Models

4:00 Daisy Campbell:

Psychomagick for Discordians

(And Other Curious Fools)

5:30 Little Pope Peep: An

Introduction To Eris

5:55 Dave Lee: The Militant Mage

6:20 Chris Bateman: The

Hitchhiker's Guide To The Moral

Multiverse

7:00 Cat Vincent: Defence Against

The Dark Arts

8:00 Nikki Wyrd: Eris In Suburbia

(23 Discordian Acts In 23 Minutes)

8:30 John Higgs

9:15 Dolly Turing: Quest)ion)

10:00 Forest Sounds Theatre: The

Church Of Jim

10:45 Jonathan Harris: The

Money Burning Guy

11:30 Lisa Lovebucket presents

Tony Blair Walks On Water

1:15 The Private Sector

2:15 Films: Alan Moore In

Conversation With Youth- Super

Weird Happening, April 01, 2017

(53mins), plus The Renaissance Of

Mathew Street (shorts)

The Swat Box

3:30 Pope Flagdag The Brave:

Cleaning The Mirror (an

Experience of Ayahuasca

Shamanism)

4:30 Verity Spott: You Will Live

Today

5:30 Katy-Anne Bellis: Bellisama &

The Fish Jazz Helter-Skelter

6:30 The Hills Are Alive

8:15 The Peaceful Ones (DJ)

10:00 Quip

11:00 Emily J Electric (DJ)

12:00 Fran Green (DJ)

1:00 Nmesme

2:15 Sanscrypt (DJ)

Cafe Bar

2:15 Open Mic

2:30 Rebecca L Hearne

4:00 The Wonderists

5:15 Paulie C

6:00 Aaltra

7:15 Claudia Egypt: Flora & The

Fountains

8:15 Dorothy's Ghost

9:45 The Buddhist Punk

10:45 Logan & Manley

Please note: all times may vary.

The map is not the territory. If in

doubt, consult your pineal gland.

Signed, The MGT.

The WonderGround Man Bites Fridge: New wave, post-punk funk & roll with a proletariat twist. Hearing Things: 7-piece band playing the music of the Rhys Chatham Guitar Trio; loud electric minimalism. Naked Grace Missionaries: female-fronted acoustic trio delivering songs as sermons from the dark side of (un)popular culture. Cuckoo Clocks: West Coast psychedelia, country-tinged soul and a hint of folk-electronica with a northern, post-industrial urban twist. Imagination Wars: be ready to take part in the ultimate battle between good and evil. Packed lunch optional. Giblet: psychic and psychedelic absurdist future rock.

Kermit & The Super Weird Sound: DJ Josh Ray brings the dub plates; rapper Kermit Leveridge (Black Grape, Ruthless Rap Assassins) brings the verbal flow. Henge: "Cosmic Dross" from these intergalactic psychedelic rave aliens. Put down the weapons of war and colonise space! Greg Wilson: Super Weird Substance, Legend and Hacienda DJ giving credit to the edit. Horton Jupiter: legendary London phonomancer, Puwaba King and Discordian trickster rewiring your synapses through rhythm and sound. Below: Naked Grace Missionaries in action

The White Room Dolly Turing: magical sound art to get you in the zone. Suzi Price: meditational gong bath. Opening ritual: All are encouraged to take part in this ritual to open the pathways into the Catch 23 experience. Monkeying Around With Models (talk): Acclaimed writer/editor Michelle Olley gives a monkey pirate twist to RAW's 8-circuit theory and encourages us all to embrace our inner ape. Psychomagick for Discordians (And Other Curious Fools) (Workshop): Daisy Eris Campbell (Cosmic Trigger, Pigspurt's Daughter) uses Jodorowsky's Psychomagic to help you to fudge your myth, uncover your deepest desires and discover what weird story your life is trying to tell. Introduction to Eris (talk): Notwork 23's Little Pope Peep tells you all you need to know about our beloved chaos goddess. All hail Discordia! Militant Mage: Changing The World With Magic. Magician and writer Dave Lee hosts a seminar/workshop that explores how ethics, action and personal empowerment are all interdependent as we strive to make a better world. Participants will come away with an enriched understanding of what may be possible! The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Moral Multiverse (talk): Grab your towel and set off on a grand adventure through the moral multiverse with award-winning game designer, philosopher, and Discordian Polyfather Chris

Bateman as he invites you to rethink everything you thought you knew about ethics, get beaten up by 8-bit Aristotle, and face the Vogons in the never-ending tragedy of bureaucracy. Babel fish not required. Defence Against The Dark Arts (workshop): Cat Vincent gives you the kit to protect yourself in the magical world. Eris in Suburbia: 23 Discordian Moments in 23 Minutes (talk): Having tattooed the five-fingered hand of Eris on her arm in 1990-something, Nikki Wyrd embarked upon a magical operation whereby she invoked Erisian events into her ordinary life whilst living in a council flat, as a single mother. What happened next was simultaneously totally mundane and beyond imagining; today she attempts to share some of the lessons learned during this process. Making Sense of the 21st Century (talk): John Higgs, author of The KLF: Chaos, Magic and the Band who Burned a Million Pounds, Stranger Than We Can Imagine: Making Sense of the Twentieth Century and Watling Street specialises in finding previously unsuspected narratives, hidden in obscure corners of our history and culture, which can change the way we see the world. Quest) ion) (performance): mixing poetry, sound and movement, Dolly Turing presents a multi-sensual exploration of being and belonging. The Church of Jim (play): Set in an absurd dystopia in which the audience are the newest members of an illicit

cult, Forest Sounds Theatre tell the story of a community coming together to bring hope to a hopeless world. The Church of Jim is a place of salvation. It is immersive theatre meets alternative comedy. It is a party wrapped up in the guise of cult worship. It's a riotous warm cuddle. It is songs of praise on acid. It is not a place of conspiracy, parking fines, and undercover police. It is a place of celebration, exegesis and cake. Will we all survive the evening? Probably yes. Jonathan Harris (talk / ritual): The Money Burning Guy. Tony Blair Walks On Water (play): You are invited to participate in Mo Stodd’s politically-fuelled plummet into self-annihilation as she takes on the impossible task of transforming democracy through universal love and risibly credulous attempts at magical acts. Interlaced with banging tunes, debauchery, and a little bit of Mr Jolly Lives Next Door, TBWOW is Love-bucket's first full-length play, part of a 5-play cycle, The Secret Diary of A Seeker, "loosely based on real events". Starring Francesca Way (Linda Fox), Lee Ravitz (Rainbow George), Larry Sidorczuk (Irving Rappaport), Tom Baker (Matthew Parris), Anwen Fryer (Louise Hodges), Daisy Campbell (Ken Campbell), Lisa Lovebucket (Mo Stodd), and Horton Jupiter (Tory Boy). Roles available on the day include Tripping Man, Mrs Michael Portillo, Howling Laud Hope, Dr Death and The Earl of Burford.

The Private Sector: The UK's favourite Man Band. As dreadful as a moment of clarity, they are traumatic, but necessary. They are psychologic-ally damaged by expensive schooling and there is no alternative. They are part of the problem and not the solution. They are exactly what you deserve.

Bellisama & The Fish Jazz Helter Skelter

The Swat Box Cleaning The Mirror (talk): Notwork 23's own Pope Flagdag The Brave talks about his life-changing experiences of ayahuasca ceremony in Brazil. You Will Live Today (performance): Verity Spott presents physical glitching, care, tenderness, painful laughing, intimacy, edgelordery, sick vaping and gabber. Bellisama & The Fish Jazz Helter

Skelter (performance): Fresh from the waters of the River Mersey, Katy-Anne Bellis brings her new mermaid cabaret to Catch 23. Following the Liverpool Arts Lab's recent invocation of the river goddess Bellisama, Katy-Anne has created a new breed of performance art: a fusion of storytelling, ritual, mythmaking, live music and surreal physical comedy. Expect the

unexpected and journey through oceans of time and space as we honour Bellisama: The goddess of wisdom and healing. The Hills Are Alive: three-piece band mixing the mediums of song, spoken word, conversational poetry, dub, techno, musical theatre, guitar, dance, strobe, projections, fiddle, folk music, recorded soundscapes, film, friendship and dodgy rap. The Peaceful Ones (DJ set): Adventures in sound from the artist formerly known as Pete Woosh. Quip (live music): out-there acid, tough, funky poly-rhythms and catchy hooks played by musician/composer Ben Eyes on a home-made modular synthesiser. Emily J Electric: unique DJ set featuring acoustic and electronic wind instruments, special effects, glitter and intriguing surprises. Fran Green (DJ set): One of Sheffield's most unassuming talents, Fran Green staggeringly eclectic record collection, and a knack for uncovering hidden works of genius which you'll find hard to believe you haven't heard before. Nmesme: live music from electronic artist Daniel W J Mackenzie; drill and bass, creepy ambient vibes and everything in between. Sanscrypt (DJ set): a different kind of musical ecstasy from the What The…? party legend.

The Café Bar Rebecca L Hearne: folk songs about magic and death. The Wonderists: acoustic singer songwriter duo specialising in intricate melody and poetic lyric. Paulie C: gibbering beat poetry. Aaltra (live music): cinematic vignettes and lost soundtracks summoned from rusty drum machines and dusty synthesisers. Flora & The Fountains(storytelling): Claudia Egypt performs Dr Johnson's only fairy story via her own unique form of tabletop theatre.

Dorothy's Ghost: live electro-pop from Jo Sims (Planet 9, The Aloof, Alabama 3). The Buddhist Punk: powerful poetry, humorous and thought-provoking, from one of the core Notwork 23 team. Logan & Manley: live music from Terry Logan and Chris Manley: soulful grooves and a hint of reggae.

Artists and walkabout performers Art, objects, displays and performances from lead designer Myra Stuart, plus creators Matt Smart, Rebecca Hearne, Helen Nicol, Cate Kneale, Jaz Coupland and Larry Sidorczuk. Look out for Discordian accordionist and Cosmic bohemianaut Tom Baker (also in tentacled (dis)guise as HP Lovebox); Kirsty Hall as the magical Death Of Roses; poet, musician and raconteur Roddy McDevitt; veteran of Ken Campbell's original SF Theatre of Liverpool Larry Sidorczuk with his cloud machine and Merkaba (with Myra Stuart). Stuart Faulkner presents The Punch & Jody Show, in which Jody Foster reprises her role as an FBI criminal psychologist working with the renowned seaside serial killer "Mr Punch". Cassandra (fortune teller) is an interactive fortune telling machine inspired by Morgana, the 1970s arcade machine. She will provide unique readings to individual visitors.

Towards The One:

The Art of the Historical

Illuminatus Chronicles

By Bobby Campbell

Artist, writer and comic book publisher Bobby Campbell exhibits his brand new illustrations for the forthcoming Hilaritas Press editions of Robert Anton Wilson's Historical Illuminatus trilogy- The Earth Will Shake, The Widow's Son and Nature's God. Bobby will also be showing his current 'Discordian Saints' series of portraits. Many of the saints featured are also appearing at Catch 23 in the actual flesh! Bobby Campbell is America's sweetheart, a visionary writer, artist and media theorist from parts unknown, USA, Bobby is known primarily for his collaborations with countercultural icons and Discordian saints Robert Anton Wilson, Robert Shea, Timothy Leary, Antero Alli and Douglas Rushkoff. He is also creator and publisher of the Weirdoverse comic book imprint, featuring titles such as Weird Comix, Psychonaut Comix, Agnosis! BUDDHAFART, REJECTED, Days of Future Pastime and the forthcoming psychedelic memoir, LIBER JUNGLE.

A selection of Bobby's comics will be available to view and even buy. We are honoured and delighted to be hosting the only UK date for this RAW Art exhibition at Catch 23.

The Propagation Of Wonder by Max Charles The Notwork 23 Roll Call of Honour We would like to extend a huge thankyou to all of the following for their help and support. Our awesome sound team - Chiv and Scragga - and stage manager volunteer Rodders; fabulous Yellow Arch event manager, Sophie Townsend; Anth Ashton for wonderist projections in the WonderGround; the wonderful Jane Clifford who manages our Notwork email; all our volunteers who helped with set up, pack down, managing door and merchandise stands - Gid, Sam Dobbs, Graham Gavin, Wil Hurst, Andy Little, Eric Kingsbury, Steve Fraser and Tommy Calderbank; Daniel W J Mackenzie for artwork and design; Nik Smith for tireless services to merchandise and printing; Cat Vincent, Dave Lee and Dolly Turing for magical planning; and all of the notworkers for sticking apart on this long strange trip. To find out about the next phase email info@festival23.org.uk, watch the website (festival23.org.uk) and like Festival 23 on Facebook.

Hail eris +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ All hail Discordia ++++++++++++++++++++