There’s no denying Brighton’s long-time anti-establishment credentials, so it’s a fairly safe bet that an evening celebrating counter-culture heroes is going to spark some interest.

This was certainly the case at Wednesday night’s Catalyst Club event at the Spiegeltent, where three speakers delved into the extraordinary lives of Robert Anton Wilson, Ken Campbell and the KLF, among others.

Author John Higgs introduced dischordianism – “an elaborate joke disguised as a religion, or maybe an elaborate joke disguised as a religion” – in his laconic Liverpudlian drawl, peppering his 23-minute talk with anecdotes about the anarchic duo Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, who rose to international acclaim in the 1990s, and their subsequent attempts to distance themselves from the machinations of the music industry.

Daisy Campbell, daughter of Ken, then touched on her experiences of synchronicity, talking candidly of the “spiritual emergency” which precipitated her arrival at a psychiatric unit ten years ago with a pair of rainbow knickers on her head. Fond quotes from (and impressions of) her late father filled her 23-minute stand-up slot, which ended with a plug for crowd-sourcing to fund a mooted dramatisation of The Illuminatus later this year.

But the biggest cheers were reserved for Jim Waring, “the Pope of Brighton”, whose explanation of the Cult Of Slack, Church Of The Sub-Genius and the phenomenon of Bob Dodds left the audience clearly wanting more.