Making sense of current events?
Having been raised on a steady diet of horror movies, courtesy of Chiller Theatre and Jiffy Pop, sitting hunched under a scratchy afghan, it seemed that the valuable lessons that could be gleaned from them might, in a twisted logic, act as a preparatory class for the perils to be faced in adulthood.
Avoid anything mutated by atom bombs, or anyone who has had a worm living in their brain, or those who breach the boundaries of science or morality. Certainly you wouldn’t have them head up an agency responsible for citizens’ health. Hollywood would not have taken such a script with this as having legs. I suppose this is one way to distinguish reality from fiction.
Here we are, moving into the autumn season, (hopefully) prepping for a tumultuous turn of the tides. It would be nice if there was a superfluity of secluded cottages at the edge of the woods, maintained by wise practitioners of the old ways who would offer us solace or a ritual or talisman with which we might persevere under current circumstances. At this point, we might do best to seek out the one where Hansel and Gretel sought refuge. I would suspect that my odds might be better there than surviving here.
Or we might want to hide in the pumpkin patch with Linus, waiting for a desired appearance. The Great Pumpkin shan’t provide us with the tools to deal with these consistent assaults on respectable norms of behavior that we are currently living through. Though he is an orange one whom I might favor, providing candy and presents to good boys and girls, rather than the one bringing cheap gilding.
If you prefer, we seem to have been dropped into a version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Let’s play dress-up and get masked up so that we can spend our time violating the Constitution and individual freedoms. That should really increase the sale of children’s Halloween costumes, particularly ones that revolve around policemen and the military. Maybe Johnny and Janie will choose the junta costume for trick-or-treating.
Perhaps all the above are good to consider as a comfort and as an instruction. I think that the logical explanation is that we are simply facing demonic possession writ large. Within the body of ceremonial magic texts, dominion over the Americas is allotted to the demon Astaroth; they might be considered to be gender fluid, having started out as Astarte/Inanna and other Semitic powers. They can insinuate their control through the usual sorts of promises of fame and riches as demonic presences are likely to offer, particularly appealing to one’s inclination to sloth and vanity. Astaroth’s presence can also be detected by the manifestation of stinking breath.
I often thought that the rank and file of demonic forces could have been an impetus for the construction of John Carpenter’s They Live (though the basic story comes from the short story Eight O’Clock in the Morning) in that humans succumb to their offer of success and wealth. (Of course in both cases there is no resolution of the infestation!)
This can lead an inquiring mind to a last literary cautionary tale, that of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death.
The party to end all parties, held during the outbreak of a plague by a nobleman in his newly appointed ballrooms, to which he has invited his friends and acolytes to revel in their luck and wealth — which is brought low by the ultimate leveler of humanity.
This too will pass. Have a blessed Halloween.
