Closet Witches!

In light of recent classes on the Satanic Scare, I am writing on Rebecca Brown, her works, and her connection. The reason I wanted to single her out in particular was because she may have been one of the wackier writers and "doctors" that arose during the 80's satanism related paranoia.

Brown first rose to prominence when Jack Chick, of Chick tract's fame, the fabulous writer and illustrator of the trashy little Christian comic book pamphlets crazy people hand you on the train, published her book, He Came to Set the Captives Free. This book dealt with Elaine, a woman Brown claims to have helped as a psychiatrist. Brown says Elaine was the bride of Satan. She was "saved" after years of Satanic practices, attempting to infiltrate good Christian churches. The interesting thing about Brown is that she doesn't stop short at claims that Satanism is wild spread. She write about physically fighting demons, werewolves (yes, werewolves!), and other evil beings. One of the funniest details concerns Elaine's occult days. When being trained to become the next High Priestess, Elaine was given a "demon guide," named Man-Chan. This site reviews a recorded interview Jack Chick himself conducted with the women http://www.monsterwax.com/brown.html . The name of the recording is Closet Witches, and it sounds incredible. It's funny to see how much of her information comes more from popular culture than Christian or pagan sources. She spins yarns like horror schlocksters making cheap exploitation.

Today, Brown still spins her wildly entertaining yarns. She has a website with her husband, Daniel Yoder http://www.harvestwarriors.com/. Her later work, Unbroken Curses, cowritten with her husband, Daniel Yoder, claims an evil Kabbalistic past for her new hubby. According to Brown and Yoder, Daniel Yoder was sent to learn Jewish Kabbala at the hands of evil Rabbi's until he was 19. One day, while being kept prisoner of the Satanic Semites, he was bombarded with thousands upon thousands of spiders dumped on him as punishment. Pleading in anguish, a beam of light came and saved him, healing all his spider wounds.

Despite being disproved repeatedly, Brown continues with her beliefs. Jack Chick still believes every word. And I assume that there are probably hundreds of gullible people that eat her tripe and call it pudding.

Other Films of Satanic Interest

I think its probably the 14 year-old me's frustration with being a goofy suburban kid still lingering somewhere inside of me that has kept me so enamored with Satanic and blasphemous imagery in film. I thought now would be a fun time to share some great examples of this that we have not got a chance to look at in this course.

1975's "Alucarda," (Dracula backwards...get it?) directed by Juan Lopez Moctezuma is really an exceptional piece of work which I give my highest recommendations. The plot is a little shakey, but then again, its more about the elaborate visuals and truly over-the-top performances anyway. As best as I can remember, it follows a young woman, Justine, as she joins a convent where she meets and immediately befriends Alucarda, an outsider within the community who is suspected of being a witch and apparently is the child of the Devil himself. The two partake in a Satanic ritual where the two proclaim allegiance to the Devil and then all hell breaks loose. There is a particularly interesting aspect of the narrative which parallels the warmth and goodness of the two women's homoerotic relationship to the cruelty and harsh conviction of the nuns and priests within the convent. The imagery employed by Moctezuma is really its strongest point, however. Examples of this include (but certainly not limited to) a very goat-like gypsy wandering around the convent, grotesque renditions of Christ's crucifixion, and, most memorable, the costume design for the nuns making them appear to wrapped up like mummies and stained with menstrual blood. There is a lot of nudity, screaming, and gore, but somehow it never feels all that gratuitous. There is something very beautiful about how its all pulled off and is definitely worth checking out. Below is a trailer for the film.




We talked briefly about "Haxan" in class, but I still thought it was worth posting a scene from that here. It is the most wonderful depiction I have ever seen of Satanic and Occult themes and it very well may contain some of the most captivating images ever committed to film, if you were to ask for this guy's two cents. For those not familiar, this is a pseudo-documentary about witchcraft and the persecution of witches through time ending with beginning of medical understanding of mental illness. I'll rely on the clip to do the rest.




A more recent film that doesn't deal directly with the occult but does have its share of Satanic imagery and blasphemy is Jan Svankmajer's "Lunacy" (2006). The film follows a young man named Jean, who has violent fantasies stemming from his fear of institutionalization, as he deals with the death of his mother. Preparing for her funeral, he meets the Marquis, based on the Marquis de Sade, and "becoming an unwilling accomplice to de Sade's debauchery" (allmovie). There is one scene in particular that I think makes it an appropriate mention here. The Marquis is driving large nails into a sculpture of Christ while in front of him a group of nuns, whose breasts are exposed, sit with four men as they eat a large chocolate cake, rather sloppily, that is in the shape of the cross. Meanwhile, as Marquis is condemning God as weak and fallible, another nun comes and places a robe over him which bears an inverted cross that appears to have been make up from cutouts out of pornographic magazines. After he is done, animated meats wriggle out from Christ's wounds. Certainly, a far cry from the refined and subtle qualities of Castevette. Nevertheless, this a pretty exciting film that is notable in it being the most blasphemous picture I've seen in a while. The trailer unfortunately, does not really show anything to the extent described above, its still worth a look.

Session 9 and Satanic Ritual Abuse

There is a very underappreciated Brad Anderson film out there that didn't enjoy a wide release but deserves a real historical look. This film doesn't directly deal with the Occult, perse, but this film makes a direct refernce to the hysteria that surrounded the Satanic Ritual Abuse craze of the 1980s (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0261983/). This film follows a group of asbestos removers trying to save the real life Danvers State Mental Hospital from condemnation (http://www.danversstateinsaneasylum.com/home.html). Within the film, the characters are conversing and having lunch outside when one inquires as to why the Mental Hospital was closed down. One of the characters, Mike, claims that it was mostly due to budget cuts, "The Feds call it deinstitutionilization" (Script, Session 9). Mike doesn't stop here however, he claims that a large portion of mental institutions collapsed due to the "Patricia Willard Scandal". I wasn't able to find any concrete information on a person fitting Patrcia Willard's description in the film, so I am left to believe that this case is a hodgepodge of many cases that resulted from the fallout of the Satanic Ritual Abuse hysteria. Mike claims that a young girl, Patricia Willard:

"was committed by her parents, Maniac depression, that sort of thing. But in the 80's this repressed memory therapy took off. The shrinks figured these new techniques would release hidden memories of traumatic events like rape, incest. So Patricia,with the help of her doctors, recalls that when she was ten, her father raped her. But not once, right? No, three times a week. And he didn't just rape her, he came into her room at night wearing a black robe. He drove her to a wooded area where her grandparents and mother were. They wore black robes. When they took them off, orgies ensued. And then they brought out the newborn. She was forced to watch as her mother cut a baby's heart out with a stone dagger. She'd drink the blood, others would eat the flesh. The grandfather and fatherwould fuck her repeatedly--She was forced to have abortions."

After Mike says this, the listeners are completely disgusted and ask him to stop. Mike, however, is not finished with the story. He goes onto say that Patricia was ready to sue her parents, but then all of a sudden--the suit is dropped. The listeners are baffled. The suit is dropped, as it turns out, because, before going to trial, Patricia has a gynecological checkup, where it is determined that she is still a virgin. Mike wraps up his anecdote by saying that this type of thing happened around the country, and with absolutely zero bodies found as a result of supposed SRA, the mental health establishment takes a hard hit by countersuites..."That, and the budget cuts" (http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/s/session-9-script-transcript-caruso.html)

I highly recommend to anyone who hasn't seen this film to do so. The horror is completely psychological, and although it hasn't been widely viewed, it has set the groundwork for subsequent films (like Anderson's La Machinasta and Jose Balaguero's Darkness) and other aspects of media (the picture used above is appropriated into the Occult-centric video game Silent Hill 3) SEE IT! I COMMAND THEE!!!

Fact or Fiction: Scientology and The Occult

The internet has hyped up the "evils" of scientology by its enemies and the tabloids love to use "the occult" in reference to this religion all the time. Scientology is said to be the "study of truth" which I suppose can be related to the word occult meaning knowledge of what is secret or hidden. L. Ron Hubbard is the founder of scientology and he was part of the OTO and studied Aleister Crowley, The Beast. This is a major reason why people dub Scientology a demonic "cult". This religion using a practice called "auditing". The whole purpose of auditing and training is to graduate individuals to a higher state of spiritual existence. Furthermore, Crowley's religion was all about reaching your "higher self". These two ideas are very similar and that is why people "hate" scientology. Since Crowley is linked with 666, people assume he is satanic and the get the idea that scientology is satanic because of its practices and that Hubbard was involved with Crowley.
However, Crowley had been asked about black magic and devil worshipping and he has been quoted as saying "To practice black magic you have to violate every principle of science, decency and intelligence. You must be obsessed with an insane idea of the importance of the petty object of your wretched and selfish desires. I have been accused of being a "black magician". No more foolish statement was ever made about me. I despise the thing to such an extent that I can hardly believe in the existence of people so debased and idiotic as to practice it." I think people see scientology having a relationship around the occult and assume its bad.
I did not know much about scientology before reading about it recently and I can see similarities in Crowley's religion and this one. They both are just about reaching the best spiritual self you can be.
Additonally, I think that people get the word occult and cult confused when they say that scientology has to do with the occult. Yes, some people do correlate the two for reasons such a Hubbards past, but, many people think the religion is actually a CULT which has nothing to do with the occult at all.

http://www.bonafidescientology.org/
Here is a link to you tube. It is a series of videos talking about Scientology as cult. However, the title of the videos is "Scinetology and the occult", just another example of how people misuse the occult in exchange for the word cult.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dztMg-lERLM&feature=related

Harry Potter is the Devil!

Since it's first publication, there has been tons of controversy about whether the Harry Potter series is filled with Satanic worship and evil. This website says "specifically the Harry Potter books include things like human sacrifice, the possession of demon spirits and the sucking of human blood." Parents and Christian groups around the globe have banned it from households and even gotten it removed from libraries on occasion. Many parents say the books are too graphic for children to read. There's too much death and danger and destruction.

This other website states that Harry Potter is a Satanic deception and says it's popularity is due to our "lack of willingness to be obedient to God’s word." The author believes "that the Harry Potter book series is perhaps one of the most potent tools to ever impact children’s lives for Satan." I'd like to know what they think about rap or metal music, and if that brings the Devil out in kids as well.

Personally, I think that's all a load of crap. JK Rowling is a brilliant author who has created a fantastic world and loveable characters. The fact that her books get violent is a testament to the world we live in. I don't understand why fiction for young adults should be all happy go lucky when the world they're about to enter out of middle/high school is rough and hard. The Harry Potter series is full of vivid writing and complicated plots. I think these things enrich a child's mind. Rowling doesn't look to sugarcoat anything in her books and I think kids of all ages appreciate that. The magic in them is not malevolent, it's simply an element of the Harry Potter world, much like terrorism and WMDs are elements of ours. It all depends on perception and intent, much like the good versus evil theme in Harry Potter.

And come on, who wouldn't want to live in that world? I swear to god I'd be on the next plane to London if I could get to Platform 9 3/4.

Say "Oui!" to the Ouija!

In the exorcist Chris is first introduced to Reagan’s mysterious “invisible friend” through the Ouija board Reagan plays with. While the situation that follows is, hopefully, not to common among modern day teenagers, and our childhood the Ouija board has been, and remains a familiar object for children and adults alike. But while our parents may have claimed to be the forerunners of the Ouija revolution its extensive history may surprise you, and your parents.

The origins are actually as debated as much as its effectiveness, some claiming the roots of the Ouija board stemmed from ancient China (the fuji, or a type of planchette writing). Others argue that the origins of the Ouija begin with the Greek philosopher Pythagoras, from the séances he would hold with his sect.

What is relatively concrete in terms of the beginnings is that in the mid 1800s people began to experiment in spirituality and divination. Those who were involved with this spiritual revival sometimes believed in the use of a planchette (a sort of pen and pendulum device) that would conjure up “automatic writing”.

The businessmen Elijah Bond and Charles Kennard had the idea to patent a planchette sold with a board on which the alphabet was printed…and thus, viola, the Ouija. The board went through some business politics in terms of the company and claims of the true inventor, including many imitators but the Ouija has prevailed and exists today under the production of toy-powerhouse Parker Bros.

I found an interesting section on the wikipedia entry on the Ouija that discusses Aleister Crowley’s thoughts and invlovment with the Ouija. (True this is wikipedia but much of it is quotes pulled from letters Crowley wrote to one of his students Frater Achad aka Charles Stansfeld Jones.)

----------

In one letter Crowley told Jones: "Your Ouija board experiment is rather fun. You see how very satisfactory it is, but I believe things improve greatly with practice. I think you should keep to one angel, and make the magical preparations more elaborate."

Over the years, both became so fascinated by the board that they discussed marketing their own design. Their discourse culminated in a letter, dated February 21, 1919, in which Crowley tells Jones, "Re: Ouija Board. I offer you the basis of ten percent of my net profit. You are, if you accept this, responsible for the legal protection of the ideas, and the marketing of the copyright designs. I trust that this may be satisfactory to you. I hope to let you have the material in the course of a week." In March, Crowley wrote to Achad to inform him, "I'll think up another name for Ouija." But their business venture never came to fruition and Crowley's new design, along with his name for the board, has not survived.

Crowley has stated, of the Ouija Board, that, "There is, however, a good way of using this instrument to get what you want, and that is to perform the whole operation in a consecrated circle, so that undesirable aliens cannot interfere with it. You should then employ the proper magical invocation in order to get into your circle just the one spirit you want. It is comparatively easy to do this. A few simple instructions are all that is necessary, and I shall be pleased to give these, free of charge, to any one who cares to apply."

---------

Regardless of it’s scientific or spiritualistic effectiveness, or even its origins the Ouija board is an interesting and entertaining piece of pop-occult. It’s popularity and prevalence also make it a significant icon for the modern occult and certain spiritual communities. Also a great party game! Next time you’re having a party, bring a Ouija and maybe the devil will come and crash. Keep him away from the liquor.

Links:

Witchboard World: http://ouija.witchboards.net/

Ouija board entry on the Paranormality website: http://www.paranormality.com/ouija_board.shtml

Submit/read Ouija board stories: http://psychicfreaks.com/ouija-board-stories/

Buy a board: http://www.boardgames.com/ouijaboard.html

Exorcist: Before the Beginning.

I've been meaning to pick up William Peter Blatty's novel The Exorcist for a long time now. And last week, circumstances finally aligned so that I could take it home and give it a read (finishing on Easter Sunday of all days). Anyway this leads us to the burning question ... is it better than the movie?And while I didn't come to an answer immediately because both pieces are exemplary handlings of the subject matter, the book is indeed the better contender.

Now, before continuing as to the differences in the book that put it above it's cinematic counterpart, I should warn you, gentle reader, that we are entering SPOILER territory so anyone planning to read the book for themselves might want to skip this post.

Go ahead, I'll give you a minute to skip past me.

Anyway, The Exorcist works even better as a book for the same reason that most long novels turned into films are better than their celluloid counterparts. They possess (no pun intended) an innate edge that I like to compare as being similar to the advantage regular sized candy bars have over the miniature ones. Namely, that while both may be the same great product, one comes with a lot more to sink your teeth into. 

For instance, characters like the housekeepers Willie and Karl (would any of you who just saw the movie even know their names?) and detective Kinderman who are little more than bit players in the film all have much more involved roles in the book. Kinderman in particular is given much more to do than awaken Chris to the fact that Reagan killed Burke Dennings, but also deduces this fact for himself and must do a great deal of soul searching as to whether or not to prosecute her for it.

Karl also has an interesting subplot involving his and Willie's daughter who is a heroin addict living in the city. This is something I wish would have found its way into the script because the story's events indirectly lead to the daughter checking herself into rehab and it ties in well with Father Merrin's proclamation that "even from this evil will come some good."

And this brings us to the demon itself and the novel's greatest strength over the film. This is to say that while the film does an excellent job of portraying Pazuzu's (the book leaves no question that this is the possessing entity) vulgar and repulsive attributes such as the swearing and bodily excretions, it fails to ever really display the creature's cunning and that is where the demon's true capacity for terror lies. I'm a big fan of all things horror, to the point where very little actually scares me any more, and while reading this book I was genuinely frightened and not by the head twistings or projectile vomiting but by the sequences like where Father Karras interviews the demon for the first time. In the film this scene is merely an interesting interlude to progress the plot towards the final confrontation. In the book it's an open window into a mind full of so much calculating and malevolent evil that I was actually afraid of it.

But perhaps the most interesting aspect of the novel left out of the film is the relationship between father Merrin and Pazuzu. That's right, relationship. The novel states in no unceartain terms that the demon inhabiting Regan is the same one that Father Merrin faced off against in Africa. This past coonection gives Merrin some added characterization that is missing from the film and also gives the novel's exorcism sequence an edge over its film counterpart because it transforms the clash of wills into a personal one. It is no longer a pair of opposing forces set at odds by allegiance, but a war between individual warriors. 

And aside from the above examples, there are also several  smaller moments in the book ranging from more detailed descriptions of the church desecrations to an added emphasis on Father Karras' childhood that work to make the literary version of The Exorcist an even fuller story than the film version and a very worthwhile read.  And as a final exhibit of both points, I want to leave you all with an abridged excerpt of what is one of my favorite parts in the book that didn't make it into the movie. This is from the "hypnotism" sequence which, in the film, is very short and again only showcases the demon's penchant for vulgarity. Here, it is much longer and leaves you with a taste of what else the demon is capable of:

"I am speaking to the person inside of Reagan now," the psychiatrist said firmly. "If you are there, you too are hypnotized and must answer all my questions." 

A Pause. 

"Come forward and answer." Silence. Then something curious happened: Regan's breath suddenly turned foul. The psychiatrist smelled it from two feet away. He shone the penlight on Regan's face.

Chris stifled a gasp. Her daughter's features were contorting into a malevolent mask: lips pulling tautly into opposite directions, tumefied tongue lolling wolfish from her mouth.

"Are you the person inside Regan?" the psychiatrist asked.

She nodded.

"Who are you?"

"Nowonmai" she answered gutturally.

"That's your name?"

She nodded.

"You're a man?"

She said, "Say"

"If that's a yes, nod your head."

She nodded.

"Where do you come from?"

"Dog."

"You come from a dog?"

"Dogmorfmocion," Regan replied.

The answer seemed to disquiet him and he lowered his eyes in thought. In the smothering stillness, Regan's breathing rasped as from a rotted, putrid bellows. Here. Yet far. Distantly sinister.

Lauren Stratford

Cornerstonemag is this christian based magazine that isn't active anymore but it keeps its archives online. I stumbled upon this really interesting article on Lauren Stratford that explores the truth behind her book Satan's Underground. This article was published in 1990 and the three authors conducted an incredible amount of research and interviews and really thoroughly-in their own words- "chronicle how one woman's gruesome fantasy was twisted into seeming fact." So she was actually born Laurel Rose Willson, and while she was adopted as she claims, she neglects to make any mention of her sister in her book.

Here are some interesting tidbits from the article:
1. After running away from her family when she was in her early twenties, Lauren lived with a woman named Billie Gordon and her family. Mrs. Gordon says that among countless other lies, Lauren once faked blindness for a period of time and when confronted (in sort of a humorous way) admitted that she did it "to obtain sympathy and attention".
2. Lauren's husband from her short-lived marriage admits that she was a virgin when they married- this being in direct contradiction to her claims that she had been sexually abused since childhood, lived as a prostitute and given birth to three children, the first as early as age 14.
3. Lauren's adoptive sister along with several individuals from Lauren's High school adamantly discredit Lauren's claims of teen pregnancy. Her sister also discredits a number of other lies concerning their parents.
4. Someone called "friend three" in the article says this: "Have you read the book Sybil? I didn't read it until I started taking my psychology classes. I realized that most of the stories Laurel had told me about her mom's abuse were taken literally from Sybil."

The article says that Lauren only began mentioning satanism as a part of her story in the mid-eighties, claiming that (around the time she was forced into hardcore prostitution) she had been branded as a love slave and had always worn bangs to cover the branding on her forehead.
Lauren Stratford also claimed to have personal knowledge of the McMartin Preschool ritual child abuse case, found here (which you guys might remember we touched on in class) One of the parents videotaped Lauren's story and showed it to the other parents, but most of them didn't find her credible. One of the parents said "she didn't give concrete, specific, testable details that hadn't already been reported in the news". Lauren also said that she had been in an ongoing lesbian relationship with Virginia McMartin and had been present when the child abuse had been going on. You get the impression from the article that the parents of the McMartin school children really didn't trust Stratford from the beginning and are (quite rightly) enraged at her obvious bid for attention.
A quote from the article:"Parent Leslie Floberg concluded our conversation in an angry outburst. "Put this in your magazine: I feel raped by the so-called Christians who've promoted Lauren Stratford as a victim just like our children."

Here's a bit from the article worth noting.
"The most stunning element of the true Laurel Willson story is that no one even checked out the main details. When we contacted Laurel's mother, sister, brother in law, cousin, church friends--in fact, anyone who would have known Laurel during the books most crucial years--we were chocked to discover that, in nearly every case, we were the first people to have contacted them!"

The kick in the throat is here
This bit is seriously demented and upsetting.

Black Metal

As we learned from watching Oprah, Metal leads to the devil. Its funny, because the statement is just not true and grossly over stated, creating a gigantic unneeded hype and fear in parents. Metallica has no-where near the Satanic influence that its ancestors did, like the Rolling Stones, and never once proclaimed to be more popular than Jesus like the Beatles (well, not publicly).
But Black Metal gets a little different, a little more hardcore. Black Metal frequently includes pagan or occult like lyrics. There's some fighting between whether Thor or Ra are more awesome, but there's a pretty unanimous vote that the Christian God is just not worthy of worship. Some of these bands may focus on factual pantheons, like the frequent use of Norse mythology in their music, while there are many bands that also focus on the creative works of writers like H.P. Lovecraft or J.R.R Tolkien. Their music also has a frequent focus on suicide, mass murder, violence, war, and everything associated with those things. The band names were often colorful to the same effect, like Dimmu-Borgir, Mayhem, and Gorgoroth. And to put on a good show, many of the members of the bands had great stage names like Faust, Necrobutcher, and Fenriz (allusion to Fenrir for those who don't know). Over-all, Black Metal shouts out its pagan / occult / anti-Christian nature to the world.
So I wanted to focus some time on some of the great Black Metal Bands out there, or at least some of the ones I have listened to with an appreciatory smile. First, a Norwegian Black Metal band, Mayhem. If you've ever heard a joke about Norwegian Black Metal, or maybe just Black Metal in its entirety, its probably because of Mayhem. Formed in Norway, in 1984, this band wasn't anything special. Minimum of Double bass pedals: Check. Satanic Lyrics: Check. Lead Singer blowing his head off with a shotgun: Check. Yes, after Mayhem had just removed two members of their band for suicidal tendencies, they brought in a new lead singer, Per Yngve Ohlin, better known simply as "Dead" (thats not a pun). Dead was apparently an interesting character who may have believed that he was actually a demon (some band members claiming he was other-worldly). At the age of 22 (in 1991), Dead slit his wrists and then turned a shotgun to his face and bit down. Before this though, he did write a well felt message on the wall, "Sorry for all the blood." Thanks Dead, your remains will hang from your band members neck. Yes, it did just get creepier. Rumor has it that when his fellow band mates found him dead, there first response was to make a stew out of his brains, and use his skull fragments to adorn their necks, and other bits were shipped to other people they felt worthy of owning valuable fragments, mostly other Norwegian Black Metal people. While some of these rumors were later denied, at the time the band soaked in the publicity. This later got another band member, Euronymos, murdered by another Norwegian Black Metal artist, Varg Vikernes (who strangely sold Dead his ammo).
Yes, Norwegian Black Metal is that hardcore.

For a slightly better band, we now look at Emperor (Black Metal bands love their flash page intros, but apparently don't build the rest of their website) If your ears can withstand the brutal beating it will take by listening to black metal, than it will know that Emperor is actually a talented band. With three members, Samoth, Faust, and one of the few amazing drummers who is also a vocalist, Isahn, this band put out more intellectual albums that dealt on retelling mythology, like "Prometheus: The Discipline of Fire and Demise." Beyond just being better musicians, the band was actually more respectable as humans. While some Black Metal bands were eating the brains of their fellow band mates, burning down Norway's churches, and being convicted of murder, Emperor stood away from it all, and actually condemned some of it. They actually stopped wearing 'corpsepaint,' and giving an over-all feel that Black Metal was simply trying too hard to be noticed. Emperor let their music speak for itself, and when your next door neighbor is listening to Emperor, you'll hear them too.

Another great band is Nile, formed in 1993 in South Carolina. As the name (and webpage if you actually click the links) may insinuate, these guys have an obsession with Egypt. Their lead member, Karl Sanders, is actually an Egyptologist, and this reflects heavily in the music. Much of the lyrical aspect of the music has to do with the Egyptian mythos. There are also many allusions to our good friend, H.P. Lovecraft. If that doesn't hook you, than you'd be well to learn that many of the members of this band are said to be some of the best musicians in their field (well, Death Metal field). The raw talent that it takes to place something 4times faster than every other musician is incredible.

By now though, you may have noticed a slight trend. While these bands all had at a minimum of pagan reference, and at most a band full of incredibly disturbed people...most of these events occurred after the Oprah show. Black Metal, while starting in 1982, was really confined to Scandinavia and parts of the UK. Its not until the beginning of the 1990's that Death Metal (as far as I'm aware of, Death Metal is America's version of Black Metal) shows its face in America. Not even the most gruesome things of Black Metal really show up until the 1990's, such as a series of Church Burnings. America's "Metal" movement at the time was no-where near as dangerous, nor violent, as other going ons in the world.

Necronomicon, where art thou?

Many people have wondered whether or not the Necronomicon is a real or fiction piece of arcane literature, and I'm here to tell you now, no, it isn't. But the Necronomicon has fueled science-fiction, fantasy, and pop culture decades after the infamous book was first mentioned in Lovecraft's 1922 short story (although published in 1924) "The Hound". Much of the origin to the tale of the Necronomicon can be found in David E. Schultz's and S.T. Joshi's An H.P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia. In this book, the authors claim that the inspiration came to create an untouchable arcane text may have come from Robert Chambers' collection of short stories The King in Yellow (Chambers' book of short stories is also said to have heavily influenced Stephen King's Dark Tower series) The tales in this book refers to a largely unprovided text that drives the protagonists of the subsequent tales hopelessly insane. While this seems to be a sound theory, Joshi and Schultz concede that there is evidence that Lovecraft wasn't even aware of Chambers' work until 1927.
The hoax of authenticity continued largely due to Lovecraft's allowance of other authors using Lovecraftian mythology and alleged texts to give breadth to the universe. After Lovecraft's death a book was published with the unimaginative title A History of the Necronomicon which traces the arcane text's origins from its "authorship" by the Mad Arab Abdul Alhazred in 738, to the banning of the Latin and Greek translations by Pope Gregory IX in 1232, to its English translation by real life Elizabethan magician, John Dee.
Further proving the book's lack of authenticity, Lovecraft once wrote in a letter to friends Jim Blish and William Miller, Jr., "if anyone were to try to write the Necronomicon, it would disappoint all those who have shuddered at cryptic references to it" (Joshi & Schultz). But the effect the book has had on popular culture, and cinema especially, is something that is very true. Even films that have no direct link with Lovecraft place themselves squarely in his universe by using the book. As I'm sure we all remember, the Evil Dead series uses the book at great length and is continuously a part of Ash's adventures. Not many people remember that it is the Necronomicon that enables Jason Voorhees to continually cheat his own death as it is implied in Friday the 13th Part 2(the book is seen in Jason's basement in Jason Goes to Hell). These are just a couple of films touched by Lovecraft and his mythos that aren't based on his books, obviousluy there is a wide catalog based specifically on his writings (The Dunwhich Horror, Dagon, Re-Animator). Hopefully this will shed some light on the fake text, but very real effect Lovecraft's Necronomicon has had in Cinema.

Searchers find possible graves at Manson compound

This is kinda class related...

For years, rumors have swirled about other possible Manson family victims -- hitchhikers who visited them at the ranch and were not seen again, runaways who drifted into the camp then fell out of favor... (read more)

hold on to your pentagrams...

Check this out.

Michael Bay's production compnay is in reports to re-make the un-re-makable Rosemary's Baby, as well as classic horror films: Friday the 13th, and Nightmare on Elm Street. Discuss away although i'm pretty sure a resounding "why?" would be heard from the entire class...

Contributors to Modern Paganism

We discussed briefly in class modern paganism and the name Gerald Gardner was brought up. It was said he was contributed to the revival of modern witchcraft. However, when doing some research online I found that a man that lived before Gardner by the name of Charles Leland (1824-1903) wrote about Italian witchcraft and many of his writings are hugely influenced in Gardner's work. Leland's most influential books are Aradia and the Gospel of the Witches. Before Leland, no other books existed that contained material from a with practitioner. Leland was a prolific collector and spent most of his spare time collecting Witch lore and purchasing items of antiquity. One of his most prized possessions was the Black Stone of the Voodoos. It is believed that there are only five or six of these stones, or “conjuring stones” existing in the whole of America. The stones are small black pebbles thought to have originally arrived from Africa during the slave trade, and whoever succeeds in obtaining one would become a Master of Voodoo recognized by all other Voodoo practitioners in America. Leland somehow obtained one and this he exhibited at the Folk-Lore Congress in London during 1891.

I posted the youtube video because it shows some great photos of some of these contributors. I will briefly describe each of them and provide links for you to learn more about each if you are interested.

Gerald Garner: Considered a central figure in the Wiccan revival of the 1950's and 1960's. He developed his own coven called Gardnerian Wicca. To become part of this coven involves initiation and works on a degree system. What happens in the initiation is never shared outside the coven. He worked closely with a woman named Doreen Valiente. she disapproved of him when he went public with his coven after England repealed the last of the witchcraft laws in 1951.

Doreen Valiente: The mother of modern witchcraft. She was the High Priestess of Gardner and co-wrote and edited many of his books. Eventually Doreen left Gardner's coven and started her own, Ned Grove. In her later life, she dedicated her time to public speaking to ensure genuine information about paganism and to counter the many misconceptions about it's religion.

Aleister Crowley: We have discussed a good amount about "The Beast", so I will not go into him here except for providing a few links to information concerning him.

Alex Sanders: king of the Witches. He founded the Alexandrian Tradition of Wicca. He claims his grandmother initiated him into the religion having him learn the rite of witches through the Book of Shadows. After she died, he went through depression and fell into the study of "Abra-Melin" magic.

Raymond Buckland: He has studied the occult and the metaphysical for over forty years and has wrote many books the subjects. He also has been a technical advisor for films that involve these subjects. Buckland was the agent for Gerald Gardner and he was the person that introduced Gardnerian Wicca into America. Seax-Wicca was his own personal tradtion of witchcraft.

Lee + Hammer = Height of Horror Films

He has appeared in over 250 films. He has played villains in blockbuster film franchises such as Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and James Bond. He holds the world record for number of filmed sword fights. He has appeared with Laurence Olivier, and is an Italian aristocrat. He also got famous for doing horror films for the Hammer studios in London. Who is he? He is none other than Christopher Lee.

Christopher Lee has become one of the most successful and prolific actors of our time. The people at Oracle of Bacon counted, and they decided Kevin Bacon isn't the center of Hollywood. Christopher Lee is. Or at least he's number 2, just .00541 points behind Rod Steiger.

Christopher Lee is not only a great actor, he is also probably one of the reasons the Hammer Films in London became as successful as they were. Lee's talent and personal interest in the occult helped to drive the genre, aiding in the creation of some of the great horror films, including The Wicker Man and The Devil Rides Out.

Lee was a bit actor until he got a part in Hammer's first color film, The Curse of Frankenstein, in which he played the monster. Frankenstein was a success, and Lee landed a lead role in another Hammer film, Dracula. This film broke UK box office records, was considered to be the best Hammer film ever, and made Christopher Lee a star. Lee was considered to be one of the finest actors to ever play the role.

Lee was such a big draw for Hammer, that the studio ended up blackmailing the actor to appear in their subsequent Dracula films. According to Lee, the studio would tell him "Think of the people you'll put out of work if you don't do it!" Lee appeared in many films for Hammer in the following years.

Lee himself had a personal interest in the occult, and much of his private library is devoted to occult books. At his insistence, Hammer made two films based on the occult novels of Denis Wheately, including The Devil Rides Out and To The Devil a Daughter. Wheately was so impressed with Devil Rides Out that he gave Lee the rights to all his black magic books.

After To The Devil a Daughter, Lee veered away from the horror genre. Coincidentally, Hammer Films went bankrupt shortly after Lee left horror. It was also around this time that the British horror film itself began to die.

In the end, horror films, particularly British ones, probably owe a debt to Christopher Lee. He is clearly a talented actor. How else does one become the center of the Hollywood universe? It may not be coincidence that the horror film had its heyday while he was around. But it is also clear that Lee owes a debt to the horror film. Without it, he may never have been exposed to the world.

Film Screening Change, Spring Break and Exam

I just can't do it.

I cannot show the truncated version of The Wicker Man when we could have the chance to see a longer version (the extended release version is almost ten minutes longer than the theatrical release version).

However, since I do not have the longer version with me (and I was not aware Media Services only had the theatrical release version), we will postpone that screening until the week after break. Please complete the reading assignment by then. If you have time you might also wish to do a bit of research on the film Don't Look Now which was shown as a double bill with The Wicker Man, or view it if you have the chance. It deals with the paranormal in an interesting way that is certainly relevant to the course, and is a beautiful film besides.

Tomorrow, instead, we will watch Roger Corman's Masque of the Red Death. (Nice little blurb on this here; also see the linked article at right on the Black Lagoon website, which has some excellent short reviews of various occult films.)

During the week of March 25-27, we will watch The Omen. That should get us caught up with everything. We can watch some made-for-TV film clips as time allows.

Also: would you all rather have a take-home exam to be finished by the time you return from break? Or an in-class exam the week we return from break? If enough people weigh in before class tomorrow, I will see what I can do. The difference: for a take-home exam, you can use your readings and notes and have more time; it is sort of like writing four short essays. The in-class exam would require two short essays and a number of short-answer responses.

Dungeons and Dragons

Gary Gygax, the co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons (DnD), has passed away at the age of 69, as detailed in this article. Due to that reason I want to take a small moment to remember a great American past time. Not baseball, but the other one, the one under the bleachers practiced by the kids who didn't make the baseball team: Dungeons and Dragons.

For those who do not know what Dungeons and Dragons is, it is the first published Role Playing Game (RPG) in 1974. An RPG is a game where the players takes on the "Role" of another character, generally in a fantastic setting in which the player is now a hero. DnD in the most generic world (Greyhawk) is similar to a medieval Europe, except with a multitude of mythological beasts such as trolls and dragons which the players would interact with (generally fight and kill). Players would create their own characters, choosing things such as their races, (your basics, Human, dwarf, or elf) and class, such as Warrior or Wizard, with a multitude of rules that centered around the rolls of die. And not just your normal 6 sided dice, but everything from 4sides to 20sides (even 100 sided dice).
Dungeons and Dragons quickly caught on, spawning many other copy-cat games, like the similarly named Tunnels and Trolls. Dungeons and Dragons has itself taken many forms, quickly splitting into Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (ADnD). It is currently owned by Wizards of the Coast, who are working on a 4th edition of the game. Dungeons and Dragons is often cited as the basis of almost any and all Roleplaying Games that we have now. Yes, you closet World of Warcraft players out there, DnD is the forefather of your game (actually...thats a lie. WoW has to thank Battletech more for spawning Warhammer...but still DnD is very important and the main forefather of all MMoRPGs).

Now, to connect this to the occult and end in giving you some fun reading material...the various worlds and realms of Dungeons and Dragons also included entirely new pantheons of gods. Some of these pantheons resembled or took directly from multitudes of pagan gods, or were entirely new constructs, but almost never did they circle around a singular Christian God.
So in the '80's, with the fear of everything occult in nature, DnD was also definitely picked on. Many believed that Dungeons and Dragons was actually being used to help corrupt our youth, a process to select specific individuals to be initiated. The very pagan notions of DnD wasn't helped when a few cases of teen suicide occurred by kids who were known to have played DnD. Obviously, the kids committed suicide because of the game and not due to the fact they were alienated and showed signs of chemical imbalances before hand...it was the game (oh yeah, and any kid who listens to Metallica practices SRA). The evils of DnD were all detailed in Christian pamphlets, such as this one by Jack Chick. No seriously, read it...propaganda at its best, detailing both how DnD leads to suicide and FORCES you to become an evil Satan worshiping heathen that ends in a cry for burning all Witches with bible quotes to boot.

The stigma from this hung heavy for quite awhile. Luckily, since the 2000's quite a few various big names have openly, and with pride, admitted to be huge DnD players. One of these notablye characters is Joss Whedon, who referenced DnD multiple times in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Xander, Giles, and Andrew play it). The antithesis of the assumed DnD player may be the most vocal though; Vin Diesel, who has multiple rants about his love for the game (the first two block quotes are about DnD), and had a laugh riot with Conan O'brien about it. So finally, after 30 years, its okay to say "I play a roleplaying game, and enjoy it."
I know a few of you do. So take this moment to also say "Thank you Gary Gygax. Without you I wouldn't be playing WoW or Final Fantasy."

The Mysterious Bohemian Grove

I don't know if any of you are familiar with Alex Jones, the famous conspiracy theorist, but he has some interesting (true? who knows...) things to say about the Bohemian Grove and the all-male occult practices that go on there. The Bohemian Grove is a campground in Monte Rio, CA and it belongs to a private men's club out of San Francisco called the Bohemian Club. Every year this club hosts a three week camp out and important men from all over the globe attend.

Some quick background, the Bohemian Grove was established shortly after the club's inception in 1872, so it's obviously been around a while. Though the powerful men who attend are urged to leave outside issues "at the door," the Grove is famous for deals that were done during the camp out--even the Manhattan Project was planned in September of 1942. The wait list for the club is 15-20 years with fees of over $25,000. They say that all that takes place inside the grove is entertainment, such as plays where the women are played by men in drag, but for all it's high class secrecy many believe that occult rituals take place. In this picture above you can see Regan and Nixon in the Grove, so to say men such as our country's leader are playing with the occult, well, that's mighty interesting in my opinion. There are reports of men in black and red robes sacrificing something to a huge owl statue, or something like that.

Alex Jones brings these theories to a new level. He infiltrated the grove during a camp out in July 2000 and filmed what he saw. This Article, while maybe not a credible source, has some really interesting things to say about what he found. He confirms that there is a stone owl statue and the ritual takes place praising the owl god Moloch. Jones says he saw a body wrapped up tightly, which begged for mercy and was burned. Apparently Jones caught all of this on video tape and a series on the Bohemian Grove aired in the UK. I haven't seen any of it but I'd be really interested to know if any of this is true or if George Bush is hanging out there sacrificing people.

The Wicker Man

This website devoted to The Wicker Man is an excellent resource, which includes a PDF copy of the infamous and oft-cited 1977 article on the film from Cinefantastique magazine.

There is a great deal of information on the 'Net devoted to this film. Some of the best examples are:

The various versions of The Wicker Man

Nuada, The Wicker Man Journal

Gary Carpenter's "The Wicker Man - Settling the Score"

Something Wicker This Way Comes", an article by critic Mark Kermode

A collection of writings and press from Compulsion Online

and

The Yahoogroups discussion list

michael bay makes gold out of corn doodie

we were ALL forced to sit through rosemary's baby (the WHOLE THING!) so we all know what a piece of garbage it is. this is why i was so excited today when i found out that michael bay, savior of cinema, was going to remake it into something watchable. i only assume it's gonna kick a lot of ass because the creative genius behind transformers and bad boys 2 has never made anything that wasn't worthwhile, so why should his take on even a horrible and BORING movie like rosemary's baby be any different?

shocktillyoudrop.com has reported that bay's production company, platinum dunes, is in talks with paramount for the remake rights of the stinker (http://www.shocktillyoudrop.com/news/topnews.php?id=5008). platinum dunes also did remakes of the snoozefests texas chainsaw massacre, the amityville horror, and the hitcher, so we know they do good things. bay is also (thank god!) doing a remake of the birds. my mom tried to get me to watch that once and there's like, no music or gore or anything! the first hour of the movie was, like, some crappy love story, too. the birds weren't even made by computers! they, like, didn't have computers back then, or something, i don't know. but, yeah, they were so fake looking.

you have to hand it to michael bay. it takes a lot of talent to take movies as mind bogglingly dull as the texas chainsaw massacre and make it as fucking cool and bloody and fast and crazy as that new one. it'll be interesting to see how he makes rosemary's baby good, b/c like, nothing happens in that movie. NOTHING! like, we don't get to see any devil worshippers stabbing people in the eyes and eating their guts or some shit. it's just that dumb broad walking around reading books and walking around and shit. at the end of the movie, like, you don't even get to see the devil baby! we wait the whole damn movie to see some crazy devil baby and all we get is some queer jap dude with a camera! that's fuckin' gay, dude. i mean, i guess the movie had some tits, but still, that was like, one minute out of like a three hour movie.

i hope they cast jessica biel as rosemary. she's hot and has way better tits than that maya farrow chick.

here's my dvd review of transformers.

Rock and Roll and the occult, just friends or something more?

First of all, I don't know if any of you have ever actually tried to find an examination of rock and roll and the occult that DOESN'T reach the conclusion that the Beatles want you to rape and murder in the name Satan, but let me tell you that it is by no means an easy task.

However, after wading through several pages worth of people trying to convince me that Satanists, the British military, and record companies were all banding together to wage a war on judeo-christian values, I finally managed to come upon what I think is a pretty unbiased and informative paper on the topic.

Firstly, did you know that when people say rock and roll can trace its' roots back to African tribal music it's actually more specifically tracing its' roots back to the kind of music played to honor various tribal and voodoo gods? So in short, rock and roll actually owes its' very beginnings to the occult.

However, after that admittedly impressive first introduction the otherworldy influence took a mulligan from the rock scene as men like Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley came into prominence (though while the devil himself may have been on break, the perennial party poopers on the right were always keen to try and bring old scratch back into the picture.) but came back again in the sixties with your friend and mine Aleister Crowley making an appearance on the cover of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album.

However, it wasn't until the seventies that the "Rock 'n' Roll= Satan" train really started to get rolling. The first major (and public) link between the two forces came with the alliance of Kenneth Anger and Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones, an  interest in the occult that was fostered in the stones by self proclaimed spell caster named Anita Pallenberg  and carried over into songs like "Sympathy for the Devil."

And for those not content with a history lesson, the paper goes on to advance a variety of reasons as to why popular musicians seem so eager to incorporate occult themes into their work. And while he advances a variety of theories that are all at least partially correct, I personally think the theory that it is merely a reflection and reaction to society of the time that carries the most weight. 

As was stated earlier, the first really overt link between the occult and rock came in the seventies, a period in time when Occult films like "The Omen" and "The Exorcist" were gaining particular prominence. This trend continued in the eighties where more "extreme" bands with occult influenced  like Iron Maiden could be considered comprable in style to more graphic occult films like "House by the Cemetery" or "The Evil Dead." 

When considered in this context, it seems fair to say that when one wants to consider the link between the occult and rock 'n' roll, one should really look no further than the societal context of the piece in reference to its' time of release because that very arguably seems to be the most decisive factor. And now that this opinion has been advanced over the internet, I'm sure even the staunchest opponents of the occult and rock 'n' roll will be sure to give it a read and lay down their arms so we can move on into a new age of peaceful coexistence.

....But, you know, I'm sure we gotta give it a few days to sink in.