13 Days of Halloween: Satanism

The Nine Satanic Sins

Yep, some people are going to have problems with this post. Sorry. I'm not a satanist, and honestly, I don't know much about it outside of the Hollywood version. In my interesting halloweeny info search, I stumbled across the Nine Satanic Sins, and I just had to post about them.

Anton LaVey is the founder of the Church of Satan in America, which seems to be predominantly concerned with the elevation of the individual's wants and desires specifically in regards to materialism.

On a bookish note, LaVey's satanistic tradition is largely rooted in the realm of the literary. The principles of his religion are based in the works of Ayn Rand, Friedrich Nietzsche, Alastair Crowley, H.L. Mencken, and Jack London (at least according to two reasonably credible websites). LaVey himself wrote four separate books: The Satanic Bible, The Satanic Rituals, Satan Speaks, The Devil's Notebook, and The Compleat Witch, or What To Do When Virtue Fails.

In 1987, LaVey published the Nine Satanic Sins. They are as follows:

Stupidity
Pretentiousness
Solipsism
Self-Defeat
Herd Conformity
Lack of Perspective
Forgetfulness of Past Orthodoxies
Counterproductive Pride
Lack of Aesthetics

Okay, is it just me or are those kind of right on? I mean, I can totally get behind these being sins, things to avoid. And here I thought sins in satanistic religions would be things like: being nice to others, helping old people across the street, and not eating small children. Forgive me satanists, I have pegged you all wrong. But no, I still don't want to sign up.

13 Days of Halloween: Whuhdjamacallit

Real Scary

The following are beings that actually exist, but they must be the foundation of many a supernatural legend. Featured below are the Saiga Antelope, Aye Aye, Star-Nosed Mole, Angora Rabbit, Coconut Crab, and Chinese Giant Salamander.



For entry into the contest, tell me what supernatural legend (real or made-up) is based on one of these creatures!

13 Days of Halloween: Reading Scary

Books to Read for Halloween

Here are six stories that I think are Halloween-approved. These aren't my favorite, the scariest, the creepiest, or the best; they are just solid reads of a darker tone. I tried doing a top five list, but I ended up with about 34 books before I realized I couldn't actually rank books. Hence, I randomly selected from the list.

What do you think are the best reads (or just good ones) for Halloween?

13 Days of Halloween: Be Buggered Blackguard!

Curses

The use of words, specifically poetry aka "spells", to benefit or harm oneself or someone else is not to be taken lightly. Nor should it be considered something from the past. Even today, we whisper little prayers for good luck or little curses for the shrieking neighbor woman to take a long walk off a short cliff (or at least lose her voice for a week or so).

Today, we rarely believe in the viability of our soft utterings, but in the past curses were taken very seriously and often touted as the cause of a bad harvest, miscarriage, disease, and even the fall of Rome. The following are mainly Celtic curses (I'm Irish, what can I say).

• May every day be wet for ye
• May onions grow from your navel
• May a little child be named after you (they only gave children the names of the already dead)
• May you die and be reincarnated as a candelabrum, to hang by day and burn by night
• May your sword become as dull as your wit, your shield as thin as your deeds and your armor as dented as your brain appears to be
• May the cat eat you and the devil eat the cat

Sadly today we fall back on curses with little ingenuity or wit. For us, the big curse is:

Go to Hell

For entrance to win a bookish giveaway, come up with an original curse!

13 Days of Halloween: Why Oh Why Women?

5 Costumes Women Need to Stop Wearing
AKA...Please Get Some New Ideas Now

I don't necessarily have a problem with sexy, but overdone, oversexualized, youth-based, service-based sexy kind of disgusts me. It's so cliched and really sets women back.

My question: What is a sexy but unique and more "feminist" Halloween costume?

13 Days of Halloween: Just Run Away

Things That Shouldn't Kill You, But Do

#3 Real but UnAlive Things Plants, dolls, your office chair: these are things that aren't supposed to have a brain. And yet these things seem intent on killing us! Plants are supposed to be not-all-the-way-alive, stationary, and benign. Unfortunately, there are a few plants who would much rather eat you. In Little Shop of Horrors and The Ruins, giant plants eat humans whole. Oh, there are the Killer Tomatoes too. Nothing should be more wondrously innocent than dolls. Unfortunately, the little buggers just won't stay inanimate. Chucky of course is the most popular of the doll killers. But we also have Sheridan Le Fanu's little blood-sucking-monkey-shape-shifter thing. #2 Dreams This one is just wrong. Dreams should not, no-way-no-how, be able to kill you. Sudden Unexpected Nocturnal Death Syndrome (SUNDS) is about the loopiest thing I've ever heard of. A literal death from dreaming, SUNDS seems particularly popular among Hmong immigrants to the United States. Over 100 Southeast Asian immigrants have died from SUNDS since 1977. The Asian belief is that the cause is a "nightmare" in the sense that a being visits you in the night and kills you. Next up, we have people who believe that these people are dying from their dreams. Finally we have the rest of us who are choosing to ignore the occurrences because it just really freaks us out! #1 Not Peeing Yep, it's true. If you hold it too long, your bladder will explode, releasing your toxic urine into your body and in effect, poisoning you. Nuff said.

13 Days of Halloween: Death Omens

Death Omens

A portent of doom, death omens are indicators that someone is about to die. Here's a quick look at signs you are about to die......

The Grim, a large black dog that may or may not have glowing freaky eyes, is a sure sign you are going to die. Then again, if seeing the Grim doesn't kill you, there's always the possibility that seeing a raven will do the trick. If both of those fail, well lucky lucky you, you will have no chance against the Grim Reaper, who, if seeing him doesn't foretell your death, will still be able to track you down and take you out with that wicked, wicked scythe of his. Seeing a ghost is also a death omen, but not just any old ghost will do. The ghost has to be the image of a person still alive...at least for the moment. Another image associated event is the falling picture. If a picture of someone falls off your wall, that person is headed for certain death in the near future. And it's possible that person will see a stopped clock before biting the big one. The Irish believe that hearing the cry of a banshee, which I'm guessing looks like this is an indicator of impending death.

Do you know of any death omens?

13 Days of Halloween: Exorcisms

Exorcisms

Demonic possession captured my heart early in life after watching The Exorcist at much too young an age. I still get the heebeejeebies thinking about that little girl. Anyway, the belief in demonic possession and the ritual of exorcism dates back to pre-history.

Jesus was quite the prolific exorcist, banishing demons from various people as a way to cure their "sickness", and on one memorable occasion, he caused a thousand demons to inhabit the body of a pig. Poor pig. What did the pig do, I ask? But that's beside the point. The belief in demonic possession and the necessity of exorcists did not diminish quickly (if at all).

Mental illnesses have not always been as known, as popular, or as discussed as they are today, and in the past, possession by demons gave people an explanation for aberrant behavior. Little Jilly wants to smear dog dung on her forehead to feed the bad people that live in her head? Ah, she must be possessed by a demon. Grumpy old Billy says he saw two trees doing the tango last night? Demon. Silly Suzie told you that washing your body at least twice a week will help keep you from getting sick? Demon...er, wait that one's hygiene...but at the time, they would probably have thought Demon.

Even today, exorcisms still take place. One of the most recent exorcisms took place in New Zealand in October 2007. A young woman, Janet Moses, underwent a Maori exorcism, called a Makutu, resulting in her death by drowning. The exorcism was carried out by over 9 members of her mother's family, who later underwent trial and were convicted, although not incarcerated.

Today, of course, we have a play on the myth: the Ghost in the Machine. Instead of humans being possessed by demons, our technology is bearing the burden. Our cell phones can be used by the "Other Side" to foretell our death, give us nefarious instructions, or just flat out kill us. Ghosts and demons live within our computers ready to stream nasty images at us, oddly juxtaposed violent scenes to make us lose our minds. I wonder if a priest would come to my house to exorcise the demon in my computer?
What I'm looking for from you guys are the names of books you've read that reference demonic possession, exorcisms, or exorcists. If you know of any, let me know, and you will be entered to win a free book or a collection of bookmarks!

13 Days of Halloween: Lycanthropes

Better than Christmas, Easter, birthdays (even mine), and Valentine's Day combined together, Halloween is my favorite time of year. To celebrate, I'm offering 13 Days of Halloween: 13 posts over 13 days that relate to the scariest, silliest, most supernatural holiday ever - with bookish significance. Without further ado, the first of thirteen.

Werewolves

The myth of the shapeshifter has been a part of human culture since before the age of writing. Possibly stemming from ancient beliefs in part-human-part-animal gods, shapeshifters offer humans the opportunity to identify, even if only in imagination, with our more animalistic tendencies. The werewolf is the most popular of the shapeshifters. Lycanthropy, greek for wolf and man, is the proper term for the phenomena.

In Metamorphosis, Ovid tells of an ancient king, Lycaon, who tested the gods by mixing human flesh in with the animal offering. When the gods discovered his treachery, they turned him into a wolf. They kept his human mind conscious though, so he would have to live with the knowledge of his cannibalism.

The legend of the werewolf was furthered by the Norse who would cover themselves in bear or wolf skin before battle and who were rumored to be particularly ruthless fighters. Called "Berserkers", this group of men believed that the donning of animal hide called forth the animal in the human, perhaps giving them an excuse or a motivation for the violence to come.


Even the seemingly innocent werewolf stories, such as Little Red Riding Hood and Three Little Pigs maintain the cannibalistic or at least the voracious carnivore tendencies of the werewolf as well as the human thinking ability. And of course we started adding even more sexy to the situation - which is disturbing but oh so hot...

Today the myth of the werewolf - especially the sexy werewolf - stands out in Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series which features the werewolf as a cultural phenomena within a native American tribe who were defenders against the evil of vampires.


Werewolves are also featured in the Sookie Stackhouse series and J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series which feature both good and evil werewolves. This dichotomy flourishes within the werewolf myth; they fall relatively equally on either side of the good v. evil battle, falling into a few categories:

1. Good men who are forced to succumb to evil by the mandated full-moon shift to werewolf.
2. Voluntary shifters who use their supernatural abilities to fight vampires, witches, and other agents of evil.
3. Mostly wolfish beings who desire to make a more permanent shift to werewolf.

For a bit of fun and a chance to win a free book or a set of bookmarks:

Name one werewolf not mentioned here and tell me which category he/she falls into - or if it falls into a new category, let me know!