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.)

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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."

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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.