Kerry Wendell Thornley
Kerry Wendell Thornley ( born April 17, 1938 † 28 November 1998) is (along with his childhood friend Greg Hill ), in whose context it is usually called Lord Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst, passes as a co-founder of Discordianism to prominence.
Life
Thornley is regarded as the author of a version of the Principia Discordia. Less well known is a series of Zenarchy articles that he wrote for Robert Anton Wilson's Cosmic Trigger under the pseudonym " Ho Chi Zen". Zenarchy is described in the introduction to the collected edition as " the social order which flows from meditation " and as " a non- combative, non- participating, non-political conception of anarchy."
As a Mormon educated, was the frequency with which the adult Kerry changed his belief, of any other serious figure of the counterculture of the 1960s equal. In addition to Discordianism among atheism, anarchism, objectivism, neo-paganism and Buddhism to the themes to which he devoted himself. Thornley believed among other things that he was involved in the MK Ultras LSD soaked assassin conditioning program and that it was the result of a Vril - breeding initiative of the Nazis.
After he was a reservist for some time, Thornley 1958, retired with 20 years ago, shortly after he had completed his first semester at the " University of Southern California" to active duty in the Marines. Around this time, he and Gregory Hill had their first eristic Vision report to have. Thornley served in 1959 at the El Toro Marine Base in Santa Ana ( California ) for a short time in the same unit as Lee Harvey Oswald. He and Oswald were friends who shared a common interest in culture and politics. Whenever the roster brought them together, they discussed topics such as literature and communism, in which Oswald's interest was particularly the latter. Some time after, the paths of the two men separated as a result of reassignment, Thornley learned from a military newspaper that Oswald had defected to the Soviet Union. Kerry wrote eagerly about his observations as a Marine, and Lee served as inspiration for the book. The aspiring author saw Oswald as an allegory of the soldiers in peace time, captured by the totalitarian structure of military life. In later years, Thornley was convinced that Oswald was an intelligence agent, the supporters of the Communists should detect.
At the time he wrote one for his time extraordinarily prophetic, fictional report entitled " The Idle Warriors" about his experiences with the hitherto unknown Oswald and the Marine Corps. The manuscript was completed in February 1962, one year before the Kennedy assassination. Kerry Thornley had written the only book about Lee Harvey Oswald, which was completed before President Kennedy's assassination in 1963. Because of the book contents Thornley was appointed on May 18 Before 1964, the Warren Commission to testify there. A requested by the Commission, a copy of the book that appeared in 1991, was kept in the National Archives and Records Administration ( NARA).
In January 1968, Thornley was from New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, who tried to refute the sole perpetrator theory of the Warren Report, summoned in a criminal trial to him about his relationship with Oswald and his knowledge of other suspects to interrogate. Thornley asked for a repeal of this summons and finally had to appear before the Circuit Court.
Kerry Thornley, who was seriously ill in his final days, died on 28 November 1998 at the age of 60 in Atlanta (Georgia ) after a sudden cardiac arrest. His body was cremated and the ashes scattered over the Pacific Ocean. 23 people attended the Buddhist memorial service the following morning. Before the end of his life Thornley said to have reported that he felt " like a tired child who comes from a very wild circus home ," a reference to a passage from Gregory Hill in the Principia Discordia:
Works
- Thornley, Kerry; Oswald, New Classics House, 1965
- Thornley, Kerry; Zenarchy, Illuminet Press, June 1991 ISBN 0-9626534-1-1
- Thornley, Kerry; The Idle Warriors, Illuminet Press, June 1991 ISBN 0-9626534-0-3
- Malaclypse the Younger ( Greg Hill ); Principia Discordia, or, How I Found Goddess and what I did to Her When I Found Her, 5th Edition, September 1991 Illuminet Press ( Introduction by Kerry Thornley ) ISBN 0-9626534 -2-X