"For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble."
MacBeth, act IV scene 1, 1623
William Shakespeare
Kimberly Daniels wrote about Halloween Candy for Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network web site where it drew the attention and ridicule from sources across the Internet, including the Huffington Post and MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann.
Daniels personifies that brand of religion that amounts to Christian superstition. It links to the crazy that is epitomized by extreme fundamentalists. It holds little similarity to what most people think of as conventional religious faith or spirituality, and holds more in common with Grimm's Fairy Tales, seances by adolescents at slumber parties, and ghost stories told at camp in the dark in the woods around a camp fire before going to sleep in a tent, (shining a flashlight up your nose, optional).
Daniels' version of Halloween is as different from real Wicca and modern Paganism as the fictional highly commercialized figure of a red-suited, white bearded fat old man with flying reindeer we think of as Santa Clause differs from the Biblical account of the birth of Christ at Christmas.
Daniels has made a career out preaching a religion of fear at seminars. She prattles on about sex with Demons, time released curses oozing malice like cold tablets release medicine, and trick or treat candy prayed over by witches to curse it. When I was a child I toured a local Pearson's candy factory on an elementary school field trip, a place where they make salted nut rolls, nut goodies, mint patties. I sure don't remember any witches on the tour.
I feel qualified to address Ms. Daniels stupidity passing as faith, because I am a Minnesotan. I live in the fly-over land that is home to crazy fundamentalist Christian zealots like Michele Bachmann. Bachmann during her earliest forays into politics, served on a charter school board of directors position, where she tried to prevent the showing of the Disney movie Aladdin because it promoted magic and paganism, while trying to insert teaching Creationism and Christianity into the curriculum. Bachmann when she first ventured into state politics, is alleged to have brought in a group of other crazies to the chamber of the state legislature while her fellow legislators were away from their seats, to pray over the desks of those legislators who did not agree with her extreme views, in order to change their minds. Apparently that made more sense to her than using reason and critical thinking for persuasion.
Bachmann and her co-religionists represents that view of religion that sees prayer as manipulating God to take their side, viewing prayer as if it were equivalent of the witches scene from Shakespeare's play Mac Beth. "Double double, toil and trouble, Fire burn and Cauldron bubble," right through the Eye of Newt, and other creepy recipe ingredients.
It is one thing for Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in his poem Kubla Khan, to create with his words the mental image "A savage place! as holy and enchanted /As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted/By woman wailing for her demon-lover!" but quite another to believe it is real. Religion peddlers like Ms. Daniels assert that having a jack-o-lantern at Halloween is a means of access for demons into your life. She asserts that Dracula and presumably other vampires, mummies and werewolves, and witches on brooms are real, that people on Halloween can be tricked into having sex with Demons instead of people, and that there is sacrificing of babies, followed by drinking their blood. I've actually attended a few pagan Samhain events; people drank Coke and Diet Coke, Mountain Dew and other soft drinks, a few drank beer. No one sacrificed babies or any other living thing, and no one drank blood. (And in case you are wondering, NO, it was not something done as research for this.)
When I read the article Ms. Daniels wrote, which is all over the Internet despite being taken down by the Robertson web site, I couldn't avoid the thought that the best explanation for this nonsense was that Daniels had wandered around a Hallmark store or maybe a costume shop while high out of her mind on some kind of hallucinogenic, like a bad trip on LSD, and this was the result. If so, she must trip a lot, because this is not a purely seasonal message from Daniels. She's bat crazy year round, and even crazier people pay good money to listen to her. It is perhaps not so surprising that Daniels embraced an extreme form of religion, as she came to her ideas about religion after having been a prostitute and a drug addict. What is surprising is that Daniels appears to have degrees in Criminal Justice studies, and more recently in Christian education. So apparently her ideas have been given validation by others; she is not unique in her odd notions, which explains how she came to have her words on Robertson's CBN web site.
I like to read things that are too obscure to interest other people. I read Congressional Bills, Court filings, Orders, and decisions, science papers, obscure literature and poetry, philosophy, and historic documents. I'm one of the few people I know who has actually read the Malleus Malificarum, more commonly known as the Hammer of Witches, the 15th century witch hunting manual. Daniels really should be looking to the classics; she just has no sense of the richness of tradition. Daniels is a light weight; you won't find any silliness about haunted candy corn in the classic old texts.
I can't help but wonder if Daniels gets her ideas from watching reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the spin off series, Angel, that are still showing in syndication; or maybe the Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi marathons on the movie channels; or perhaps from the panels at science fiction conventions. I'd bet some serious coin that someone with a wicked sense of mischief and a decent familiarity with H. P. Lovecraft could persuade Daniels to preach a sermon or two at one of her seminars against the evils of Cthulu. Fiction and fact are so nebulous to crazies like Daniels, the troublesome notion that Cthulu is fictional would likely be completely unimportant.
Of course, the serious side to this silliness is that people like Daniels and the right wing extremists to whom she appeals like to pander to fear and ignorance. They want to create paranoia about people who might find their spirituality in pagan nature worship, or ethnicity based practices, or alternative traditions by equating it to the the most hateful ideas possible.
You know what is really scary? That people like Daniels, and those who pay to listen to her, and those who feature her on their web sites --------they take her and people like her absolutely seriously. They are convinced that they, and only they, have the right idea, and that they have to either persuade us or force the rest of us to do and to see things their way. They have to save the rest of the world from being different from them and the one true, right way.
The RIGHT way, not in the sense of right that means correct; RIGHT in the sense of the political and religious spectrum. Now THAT'S SCARY!
Happy Halloween, Samhain, All Hallow's, Feast of the Departed, whatever name you give to the date.
the Text that Daniels' briefly had posted on CBN:
During Halloween, time-released curses are always loosed. A time-released curse is a period that has been set aside to release demonic activity and to ensnare souls in great measure ... During this period demons are assigned against those who participate in the rituals and festivities. These demons are automatically drawn to the fetishes that open doors for them to come into the lives of human beings. For example, most of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches.
I do not buy candy during the Halloween season. Curses are sent through the tricks and treats of the innocent whether they get it by going door to door or by purchasing it from the local grocery store.The demons cannot tell the difference.
Even the colors of Halloween (orange, brown and dark red) are dedicated. These colors are connected to the fall equinox, which is around the 20th or 21st of September each year and is sometimes called"Mabon." During this season witches are celebrating the changing of the seasons from summer to fall. They give praise to the gods for the demonic harvest. They pray to the gods of the elements (air, fire, water and earth).
Mother earth is highly celebrated during the fall demonic harvest. Witches praise mother earth by bringing her fruits, nuts and herbs. Demons are loosed during these acts of worship. When nice church folk lay out their pumpkins on the church lawn, fill their baskets with nuts and herbs, and fire up their bonfires, the demons get busy. They have no respect for the church grounds. They respect only the sacrifice and do not care if it comes from believers or non-believers.
Halloween is much more than a holiday filled with fun and tricks or treats. It is a time for the gathering of evil that masquerades behind the fictitious characters of Dracula, werewolves, mummies and witches on brooms. The truth is that these demons that have been presented as scary cartoons actually exist. I have prayed for witches who are addicted to drinking blood and howling at the moon.
While the lukewarm and ignorant think of these customs as "just harmless fun," the vortexes of hell are releasing new assignments against souls. Witches take pride in laughing at the ignorance of natural men (those who ignore the spirit realm).
Decorating buildings with Halloween scenes, dressing up for parties, going door-to-door for candy, standing around bonfires and highlighting pumpkin patches are all acts rooted in entertaining familiar spirits. All these activities are demonic and have occult roots.
The word "occult" means "secret." The danger of Halloween is not in the scary things we see but in the secret, wicked, cruel activities that go on behind the scenes.
These activities include:
Sex with demons
Orgies between animals and humans
Animal and human sacrifices
Sacrificing babies to shed innocent blood
Rape and molestation of adults, children and babies
Revel nights
Conjuring of demons and casting of spells
Release of "time-released" curses against the innocent and the ignorant.
She is truly over the edge. The early Christian church put its important holidays near the pagan holidays so that people could convert to Christianity and still have some of their more important celebrations at about the same time of the year. All Saint's Day was put near the harvest festival and it just stood to reason that the day before the festival for saints the evil spirits would be more powerful, so people dressed in costumes so as not to be recognized by them. I don't recall where the trick or treat part came in. Now there are some sick people out there who do abuse animals on Halloween, if you have a black cat keep it in the house, but are they making a sacrafice to demons or are they just cruel to animals and does it even matter if it is your cat they kill.And seriously this woman needs to read her Bible a bit more, I have never seen anything about people going to hell because they ate cursed candy.
ReplyDeleteWouldn't you just LOVE to find out how this woman came to be so very certain that the demons can't tell the difference between candy from the store and candy acquired from trick or treating?
ReplyDeleteI'd like to be a fly on the wall for that explanation.
Or maybe a bat.
Tuck wrote:"All Saint's Day was put near the harvest festival and it just stood to reason that the day before the festival for saints the evil spirits would be more powerful, so people dressed in costumes so as not to be recognized by them."
ReplyDeleteIn a variety of old religions, like the Celtic pre-Christians, this time of year represented their ritual memorial services honoring and remembering the dead, especially those who had died in the previous year. It encompassed beliefs in the afterlife world being more accessible to communication between the living and the dead. This was also more of an end of the old year / start of the new year festival as well; not every calendar begins their year at the same time.
All Saints was somewhat more like 'counter-programming' to that than specifically a harvest festival.
Someone expressed to me the rather wicked thought of offering this woman some candy at around Christmas time and then after she's eaten it, telling her its left over from Halloween. The look on her face would be priceless. That mischief aside, this person is another example of the extremists of the Christian faith that do more damage than they even imagine.
ReplyDeleteMany on the Christian right are good, decent people. They often get lumped in with lunatics such as this, however, because often their leaders don't denounce this type of behaviour and let the world know that this is not what their particular denomination or church believes. The rest of the world is then left wondering..."is it possible that they all believe this?"
There are a variety of harvest and/or memorial holidays around the end of October/first of November. They were common in all of Europe and most of the Mediterranean region. While the customs for celebration of these festivals varied, they involved pagan practices which the early church fathers found questionable. Its not surprising that All Saint's Day was placed where it is. While the term "alternative programming" wasn't a vocabulary of the early church, the concept was not new to them, as many other Christian celebrations and holidays are also closely associated with pagan holidays as well. This specifically includes Christmas, as there is no reference in any literature to determine at what time of the year Christ was born. There is some evidence, for instance, that the date was chosen as it was the date for a Roman holiday known as Dies natalis solis invicti or Birthday of the unconquered sun. This also closely corresponds to the winter equinox.
You might be interested ToE in the astronomy presentation by my old professor. Professor Kaufmanis, from the U of MN, on the astronomy of the appearance of the star that is mentioned in the biblical accounts, the one that was followed by the wise men, for the determination of a date for Christmas.
ReplyDeleteI was fortunate first to be taken to one of his presentations by a seminarian who was teaching my Sunday School class, who also gave us extensive study in comparison of the abrahamic religions, including various 'flavors' of Christianity. And then I had Kaufmanis for one of his final classes before he retired. HIs final class of that term he received a standing ovation; I wish more professors were as good at linking these items of interest.
Yeah, I suppose I've already mentioned that I'm a sciences geek...
I took a trip to Israel about 10 yrs ago and our guide was a Palestinian Christian who taught high school history. The alternative programming goes both ways. In the very early years right after the death of Christ the Romans would watch the places the early Christians gathered and build a pagan temple there to take away one of their holy places. Once the Roman Empire became Christian they went back and found the old temples and built a church on top of them. So most of the churches in the Holy Land might not be on the exact spot in Bethleham, for instance, where Christ was born but they are in the spot that the Christians who were around when he was alive thought it happened, and we know about this because of the pagan temples.
ReplyDelete