I tend not to keep Hallowe'en as a special day for ritual (I prefer Walpurgisnacht and the Winter Solstice) perhaps the reasons I don't hold a ritual on Hallowe'en are:

1) the same reasons Christians downplay Christmas - too commercial

2) the same reason serious drinkers stay in on New Year's - too many amateurs about.

Instead I enjoyed a quite meal with friends of a like mind.  However, on both sides of the Atlantic, Christians were getting their panties in a bunch about what I might be doing.

 Here's a sample of the less mad:-

THIS IS EXTREMELY SERIOUS.
Minutes ago I spoke with friend Dr. Norman G. Marvin,M.D. and he is so concerned at what he has learnedabout Barack Obama?s familyin Kenya that he is calling a special prayer meeting in his home to prayagainst the witchcraft curses attempted by them against John McCain and SarahPalin?ÿPRAY TODAY AND CONTINUALLY THAT ALL SUCH CURSES BE BROKEN AND SATAN?SPLAN FOR AMERICA BE DEFEATED?
Bree Keyton, a young woman evangelist who had justtraveled to Kenya and visited Obama?s home village and what she found out abouthis relations with his tribal people was chilling. And his ?cousin? Odinga wasdreadful.ÿShe said the witches, warlocks and those involved in satanism and theoccult get up daily at 3 a.m. to release curses against McCain and Palin so B.Hussein Obama is elected...
Bree Keyton went and visited Obama?s tribal people andshe found out Obama is 75% Arabÿ and his family are Muslims. Odinga is strilltrying to become the President of Kenya. If he does, he will make a lawforbidding all public preaching and institute Sharia Law. Bree K. said Odingahas made a pact with satan.

 

Halloween Today:

Halloween is an old thing, it?s been around for thousandsof years, but despite it's crude, disgusting, and evil history, has it improved? Is it still Satan?s holiday? My answer to that is ?yes?. Because even though we live in the computer and wireless age, and everything is quick and easy, and the Word of God is being spread faster than ever, and religious rituals involving immoral deeds is found upon by even non-Christians, the acts and spirit of Halloween remains the same. This included sexual rituals and human sacrifices. There are young women who are 'chosen' to bare the child who will be offered to the spirits on Halloween night every year. There are babies born to die in satanic rituals and acts. There are women who are raped in the woods on Halloween night for some satanic rituals. This stuff is real, and as Christians, I don't think we should turn a blind eye to it. We need to wake up,and see what we are celebrating every year.

"There is another religious group which is equally serious about its Halloween celebrations: the Satanists. Halloween to them is amore sinister and direct celebration of death and Satan; they celebrate [it] as one of his two highest holy days. At Halloween the sacrifices of some of these satanic cults are unspeakably vicious and brutal" (Like Lambs To TheSlaughter, Johanna Michaelsen, 1989, p.190).
This includes a series of six weeks of rituals including the slaughter of a small animal like a bird or cat, progressing through each week with a larger animal such as a goat, and then the murder of a small infant or child until the final night where they ritually murder not only another child but also an adult female (Ibid, p. 192).

 

Those who oppose Christ are known to organize on Halloween to observe Satanic rituals, to cast spells, to oppose churches and families, to perform sacrilegious acts, and to even offer blood sacrifices to Satan. Last year, Newscasters in numerous cities warned their viewers to guard their animals on Halloween night. Dogs and cats are thought to be the most often sacrificed animals on Halloween, and many S. P. C. A. centers will not allow black cats to be adopted until after Halloween. In rural communities, it is not uncommon for farmers to awake to find the mutilated remains of their farm animals (cows, calves, chickens, even horses) that were ritualistically slaughtered in Satanic sacrifices. The practices that accompany such sacrificial rites are almost too revolting to believe-the drinking of animal(or human) blood and urine, the digestion of entrails and organs, orgiasticrituals, substance abuse, and something becoming more frighteningly common across the U.S.-human sacrifice. The 700 CLUB interviewed several people last Halloween (several of which were teenagers) who actually participated in or witnessed human sacrifices while involved in Satanism. No one scoffs at such stories anymore, as police departments around the country have had to scurry to develop a whole new field of investigation dealing with the gruesome reality of Satanic sacrifices.

Even the thought of this 'Holiday' is sickening to me. I really do hate it. And the fact that some love and celebrate it, it saddens me. Now I know you're thinking, What do you have against my kid dressing up like a Transformer and getting some candy?? But so much more goes on than that. In Pagan religions, this is the most central day for them. The worst sacrifices go down today. Animals will die today. Innocent children will die today. Bad things will happen.

 

OK, enough nonsense.

Some of the more outrageous claims (not included in the above) as to what might happen on Oct 31 are clearly the work of people with mental illnesses who believe that the world is run by a secreat cabal ofSatanic owl-worshippers (it's not - yet).

Most are clearly written by people who have no idea of Satanism beyond the 'Michelle Remembers' scare stories that were circulated inthe 1980s and 90s. Monitoring this activity through Google shows that the same stories are being cut and pasted from Christian blog to Christian blog, with no other fact checking other than it has already appeared on a Christian website.

Apparently, when talking about Satanists, the 9th Commandment (not bearing false witness and other kinds of fibbing) does not apply.  At least I hope so, I wouldn't like to think of all those devout Christians being thrown into the lake of fire on a technicality.

We worship Satan and liberally indulge in the seven deadly sins - is that really not enough material there for them without making things up?

Part of the what fuels these unwholesome Christian delusions (other than wishful thinking) is their failure to understand that Satanism - or indeed any other religion - is not just an upside-downy version of Christianity.

They grovel to Jehoval for favours or forgiveness and they assume that we grovel before Satan in the same manner.  Christianity is obsessed with the idea ofsacrifice, either on the grand scale of the crucifixion or the martyrdom of the saints, or on the more mundane scale of giving up earthly pleasure - fasting at Lent, abstaining from sex and other carnal joys, in exchange for a better life in the next world.  And make no mistake about it, self interest is at the heart of all these little sacrifices - Christians seek to buy eternal life by bribing God.

It never seems to occur to them (perhaps because it never could) that we do not need to sacrifice anything to Satan to get what we want:  we take only what we are entitled to and what we have the right to seize from life.

American cities, on the whole tend to be very different from those of Europ: one of the main ways in which they differ is that in manyAmerican cities, the town centre has become a vapid, empty financial hub of banks and other institutions, with the funkier, more human aspect of the city having moved a long time ago to the outer periphery.  Phoenix, AZ is a good example, having virtually nothing of interest to the casual visitor in its centre, but having a fine choice of microbreweries, shopping and other interests in the outlying neighbourhoods (Scottsdale being my favourite).

It has been greatly interesting to recently visit two American cities where there are many things to intererst Opus Diaboli and which, unlike many US cities, are are easy to get around on foot.

Philadelphia, the city of Brotherly Love, might seeman odd choice, but scratch the surface and there are a wealth of attractions for the seekers of the unusual.

The Rodin Museum on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway features the largest number of Rodin sculptures outside of France, including the impressive Gates of Hell, a massive double door in bronze that features the torments of the damned in lividly imagined detail.  

 

This can be enjoyed for free in the grounds of the museum – an excellent place to enjoy a brown-bag lunch on a nice day in autumn.  However, for a very few dollars you cango inside and enjoy other pieces such as Woman in the Hand of the Devil and Hand Rising from the Grave.

   

A short bus ride away from the downtown area takes you to a slightly downbeat residential area. Nestling incongrously with the shabby modern buildings is the last standing house that Edgar Allan Poe lived in at Philadelphia.

 

Statue of The Raven outside the Poe House

The house is now a museum and is currently being refurbished for the coming Poe bicentennial, so there is little to see other than the house itself and that has had nearly all of its original decorations and fixtures removed.  Like Poe himself, the museum is something of a mystery.  Admission is free, although you can make a donation.

Across town on the East side is the Mutter Museum which, like Amsterdam’s Vrolik Museum, is a medical exhibit of birth defects and abnormalities.  The museum costs $14 to enter, but allow a good two hours to view it, there is an awful lot to see.  Exhibits include a death cast of the original Siamese Twins, wax reconstructions of syphillis chancres and a tumour removed from John Wilkes Booth, Abraham Lincoln’s assassin.  However, where the Vrolik Museum is simply a clinical array of specimens, the Mutter Museum takes pains to ensure that its exhibits retain their human story, which makes the display all the more poignant.

 

The Devil in New York

From Philadelphia’s 30^th Street station, New York City is just under two hours away by train, so on one of the last sunny days of September, I found myself walking out of Penn Street Station and heading for Broadway.

The Strand bookshop’s stacks of roughly-built bookshelves will be familiar to you for the many times it has been used as a movie location, and you can enjoy a happy hour of wandering the aisle (the occult and philosophy sections can be found in the basement). I found a discounted copy of the rare Devil Worship in France by AE Waite and went off to celebrate with a bagel at Eisenberg’s.

On Sundays New York can become one enormous street market, and at one stall a charming lady sells me a $5 bag of incense. On Colombus, the wholestreet is given over to Colombus day celebrations and I find a scrying crystal on a Chinese antique stall.

Colombus intersects with 72^nd Street, and the pedestrian can walk a short way to its corner with Central Park, there, impossibly grand, is the Dakota building. Many go to take pictures outside its imposing main gate because John Lennon lived there (he was shot outside); but for Opus Diaboli, it is a place of pilgrimage, not only for its New York Gothic splendour, but also because it was the location for the shooting of Rosemary’s Baby.

    

Those following the news in Britain today were treated to no less than three stories showing the depths of depravity which 50 years of the Welfare State has created.

These are the stories:

1.  A mother, who won the distinction of being the first woman to be jailed in the UK for not sending her daughter to school, appeared as a witness in a court case because she had been slashed with a knife for not paying a £10 (US$15) drug debt (she is self-confessed drug dealer).

2.  A woman has appeared in court charged with kidnapping her own daughter.  It is alleged that following a high-profile case of a child that was abducted in Portugal, that this family decided to make their daughter 'disappear' in order to get some of the fame and money the McCann's case had attracted.

3.  A woman said to be in the 'lowest 1% of intelligence' has been convicted of not informing the authorities when her partner abused their child.  The abuse ended when her partner broke the infant's back across his knee like a twig.

These three stories on one day would offend the sensibilities of the most callous and jaded Satanist, but what was particularly shocking about these stories were the faces that glowered out at you from the pages.

Greasy, lank hair scraped back off the face in what has come to be known as the 'council house facelift'. Mean, feral, eyes glinting bleakly out from the sallow complexions associated with a poor diet and lifetime of drink, drugs, and squalor.  

This is what 50 years of compassion and welfare has done to the British people.  It has created a vicious and dangerous underclass, so morally lost that pretending your daughter has been abducted is just another way to get money, where people will get slashed or shot for $15, or where a child is a toy to be broken and thrown away.

When man loses his dignity, he falls lower than the animals. 

I've not named the people involved in this case, but these are their photographs.  I will not even go to trouble of defining which of these faces is responsible for which crime - they all blend into one face, one open sore on humanity.

  

Spotted on sale in the Cambridge branch of Oxfam - postcards with the message:

"What is the crime of the bank robber compared with the crime of those that own the banks?"

                                                                
Another sign that Oxfam, following its publication of a 'Manifesto' demanding a 'massive' redistribution of wealth, is becoming increasingly strident in its revolutionary rhetoric, now supporting the idea (as Anarchists did at the turn of the last century) of redistribution of wealth held in banks... at the point of a gun.

Philosopher (and professor at the European Graduate School) Slavoj Zizek, despite being  a Marxist, wins not only quote of the week, but also a place in the Opus Diaboli 'Man of the Year' contest for his remarkably frank comments to the Guardian:


Q: What is the worst job you've done?
A: "Teaching. I hate students, they are (as all people) mostly stupid and boring. "

Magical library may vanish

Britain's largest collection on the supernatural may be broken up and sold

A remarkable collection of rare and ancient volumes on the arts of magic and summoning ghosts could be broken up and sold off due to a funding crisis.

 
This story from the Independent is a tragedy- the library, which is held by a London University may be sold off because the university has had its funding slashed.  This collection of books is a national treasure and should be kept as one collection.

However, around the country, arts and education programmes are being cut.  Why?  So that the Labour government can try and out-spend China ( the world's second largest economy) in its planning for the 2012 Olympics.  Parts of north London are already being turned into ugly concrete warrens in preparation for the two week games - structures which will become dangerous ghettoes within days of the 2012 closing ceremonies.
Similar Stalinist grandstanding took place when New Labour showered millions of pounds on a giant, and enormously disappointing tent to mark the Millennium.

Gordon Brown is unlikely to still be Prime Minister at Christmas, let alone 2012, but should he earn the wrath of the occult community by letting this priceless library be split up, losing his job might be the least of his worries.

Leaving aside the point that there would be blood up the walls if a white Republican, rather than Democrat of mixed race had said what Obama did about young black men's chances of a job outside of playing basketball, what Obama did say needed to be said: and it is not just a message for young black people.

I recall scores of young white men from my own generation at the age of 15 and 16, sometimes only weeks away from leaving school, when asked what they wanted to do, replied "Footballer" (rather, they grunted "F'Baw-er").  Never mind they weren't good enough to play for the school team, had never had a trial for a pro team, that they smoked more than a pack a day and got out of breath running for a bus -all they had ever wanted to be was "F'Baw-er".
Their fathers encouraged the conceit, and sports teachers had not helped by behaving as if playing games with balls was something important.  They wanted to be either a "F'Baw-er" or nothing, and nothing is what most of them have become.

Every child with ability should be encouraged, but there is a wickedness in encouraging children from poor neighbourhoods to think that the easy money of professional sport is a way out of poverty for any but a tiny, tiny handful. But this is what many schools do by encouraging young people to devote precious class time playing pointless games.  Often there is a Principal or sports coach whose passion for football, basketball, rugby, whatever, is so overweening, that young people's futures are allowed to suffer. Obama also mentioned rapping as a similar delusion among young people, and the obsession with the wealth and lifestyles of celebrities has a role in the something-for-nothing beliefs of a lot of young people.  And when the football team doesn't sign them, or the recording contract doesn't materialise... there are always drugs - with a much more realistic proposition for getting rich quick.

A few home truths about sport and young people.

1) It does NOT prepare you for the world of work. Sure people work in teams, but as INDIVIDUALS, only in the world of the military do people need the mindless group mentality promoted by team sports.

2) The kinds of pointless competitiveness sport encourages in young men is damaging to society. Ever been cut up on the freeway by someone who just couldn't bear to be the person in the car behind?  The roots of this aggression are in education systems which promote that achievement is getting in front of someone else - not overcoming one's inner limitations.  Anton Lavey rightly called sport a 'justification for contentiousness'

3) considering professional athlete's tendencies to make headlines for taking drugs, domestic violence and sexual assault, are these overpaid, intellectual underachievers really the kind of role models that schools should be encouraging your children to emulate?

While children don't seem to walk or cycle to school anymore, there is a strong case to make them more active.
However, to prepare them for adult life, the mental toughness required for self-directed weight training and Calisthenics are much more likely to give them the skills they need to push themselves to their limits alone in the world of work than kicking a ball about with their friends.

David Sylvian (former Japan front man):

"I started wearing make-up and dyeing my hair when I was about 14 or 15. It wasn't the done thing at school. I was naive enough to think that the other kids would side with me against the authorities. But I was wrong - they beat me up instead ... When people don't understand what's going on they treat you with violence."

 “it is clearer than ever that the only way to end the gross inequalities that have condemned more than a billion people to linger in poverty is through a massive redistribution of power, assets and opportunities."

 Using your skill and judgement, try and decide which manifesto this aspiration came from, was it:

a)       The Communist Manifesto

b)      The New Labour Manifesto

c)       The Anarchist Manifesto

 However, you chose, you were wrong, that quote come from the ten-year ‘manifesto’ of the international aid charity Oxfam

http://www.oxfam.org.uk:80/applications/blogs/pressoffice/2008/06/new_deal_needed_to_stop_age_of.html

The charity has taken an overtly political stance in favour of a massive programme of socialist redistribution which will take money from countries which it describes as ‘rich’ and haemorrhage that money at the corrupt and useless governments of Africa and Asia.

A recent report for the AAP (Africa Progress Panel) by Tony Blair, who as Prime Minister of England pledged to ‘Heal the scar that is Africa’, has reluctantly admitted that African states  have largely done nothing to meet their commitments for aid as agreed in the Gleneagles summit in 2005.  His solution?  Throw more money at the problem, his report calls for more aid, more food shipments and more irresponsible borrowing to be written off.

http://www.africaprogresspanel.org/pdf/Africa's%20Development%20-%20Promises%20and%20Prospects.pdf

Blair’s old partner in crime, current British PM Gordon Brown lost no time in announcing that the UK’s contribution to the bottomless pit of African Aid is going to increase to £4.6 Billion a year – money taken from UK taxpayers and which is badly needed to repair the roads, improve infrastructure and improve its ailing National Health Service and education systems.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2129312.stm

http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/documents/international_issues/international_development/development_aid_budget.cfm

The UN has also pledged to increase its aid spending to US$50 Billion a year – let’s spell that out with the respect it deserves, $50,000,000,000. And all without the slightest evidence that African governments are making any effort to help themselves (i.e. encourage trade, crack down on corruption, create stable democracies).

So who are the AAP anyway?  Apart from discredited politicians such as Tony Blair, this self-appointed watchdog contains such economic luminaries as has-been pop singer and wallet-botherer Bob Geldof and the former president of Nigeria – surely the most corrupt country on the planet. Not content with the billions that are shed on the continent by the West with no palpable effect, they have cooked up a scheme for governments to directly impose ‘Africa’ taxes on its citizens.  Proposals include:

• Currency transaction taxes
• Global environmental taxes
• Air travel taxes
• Freight transport taxes

(Source Guardian Weekly, June 20-26 2008, p1)

This chimes uncannily with both the Oxfam Manifesto and Gordon Brown’s own dour Calvinist form of Christianity, which would see most of people’s wages taken from them by the state, and an allowance paid back to them through ‘credits’.

The insidious belief behind all of this thinking is that despite working hard, our wealth is somehow unearned and that others have an equal claim on it; that despite the blood spilt to preserve democracy in the 20th century, the way we live in the West is the result of luck and circumstance. Worst of all is the increasing assumption that people have no right to choose how to spend the wealth they create with their own labour. The Oxfam ‘Redistribution Manifesto’ is just another symptom of a disturbing trend towards removing people’s right to do what they want with their own money.

Once charities asked for donations, now it appears that they feel entitled to short-circuit the idea of voluntary giving and put their hands in your pockets directly and ‘tax’ you, with both the government and the full sanction of law behind them.