Kerry Wendell Thornley
| Kerry Thornley | |
|---|---|
From Open City, ca. 1970
|
|
| Born |
April 17, 1938 California |
| Died | November 28, 1998 (aged 60) Atlanta |
| Pen name | Lord Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst Ho Chi Zen |
| Alma mater | University of Southern California (no degree) |
| Period | 1950s–1990s |
| Genre | Counterculture |
| Subject | Religion, politics, satire |
| Spouse | Cara Leach (1965-?) |
| Children | Kreg Thornley |
Kerry Wendell Thornley (April 17, 1938 – November 28, 1998) is known as the co-founder (along with childhood friend Greg Hill) of Discordianism, in which context he is usually known as Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst or simply Lord Omar. He and Hill authored the religion's text Principia Discordia, Or, How I Found Goddess, And What I Did To Her When I Found Her. Thornley was also known for his 1962 manuscript, The Idle Warriors, which was based on the activities of his acquaintance, Lee Harvey Oswald, prior to the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Thornley was highly active in the countercultural publishing scene, writing for a number of underground magazines and newspapers, and self-publishing many one-page (or broadsheet) newsletters of his own. One such newsletter called Zenarchy was published in the 1960s under the pen name Ho Chi Zen. "Zenarchy" is described in the introduction of the collected volume as "the social order which springs from meditation", and "A noncombative, nonparticipatory, no-politics approach to anarchy intended to get the serious student thinking."
Raised Mormon, in adulthood Kerry shifted his ideological focus frequently, in rivalry with any serious countercultural figure of the 1960s. Among the subjects he closely scrutinized throughout his life were atheism, anarchism, Objectivism, autarchism (he attended Robert LeFevre's Freedom School), neo-paganism, Kerista,Buddhism, and the memetic inheritor of Discordianism, the Church of the SubGenius.
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