Sacred Texts  Index  Previous  Next 

sacred-texts |  Web | Powered by Google


Internet Book of Shadows, (Various Authors), [1999], at sacred-texts.com


 
 
           The following article appeared in Web of Wyrd #8.
                                   Leave it out Leviticus 
                                          by Aries
 
           You know, I'm not too sure that it's safe for me to be associating
           with you guys all things considered: "We have allowed the legalising
           of abominations like witchcraft, homosexuality and abortion." And to
           think I was fooled into believing that you were mostly harmless except
           for an interesting approach to sing-songs 'round the camp-fire and a
           strong attachment to strange jewellry. But no, my immortal soul is
           apparently in grave danger from "demonic powers behind the evils that
           we have allowed into our land." Oh how could I have been so blind?
           Woe, woe and thrice woe!
 
           I paid a visit to my friendly neighbourhood xtian bookshop ("We give a
           Bible message to everyone who comes into the shop") and came away with
           a bunch of one page factsheets warning me about the dangers that dwell
           in the world, and wait to entrap me in mind, body and spirit, and well
           warned I am. For instance: "Hallowe'en is the night when the spirits
           of the dead and demons visit the earth. That is why people dress up
           as witches and other frightening things." If these leaflets are
           typical of the modern xtian's world view, then there is much to be
           afraid of. The first two quotes come from, "An Introduction to Inter-
           cession and Spiritual Warfare", where the believer is exalted to,
           "stand in all the armour of God and wrestle in prayer." It may be just
           a coincidence but I kept thinking of Reichian Body Armour and the
           joyless life its possession entails.
 
           In "Hallowe'en" we are warned against Hallowe'en parties and encour-
           aged, "to find a wholesome alternative and to warn others of the
           demonic background of what is too often seen as just a harmless bit of
           fun." Having been raised a Puritan, I'm well aware of the dangers in
           harmless bits of fun, like Playing Cards. Were you aware that, "The
           first deck of playing cards was invented in 1392 for King Charles of
           France who incidentally was insane." Oh well, say no more; anything
           done for a loony must be suspect. The Puritans called cards "The
           Devil's Picture Book", and that's all that we need to know after being
           told of "The Brothel Game", where people talk dirty with each other
           using a secret code in the cards, and how the Holy Family are blasph-
           emed in hideous jest; we are then asked if we could then "go on
           playing with a sinful pack of cards?" But, I ask myself, how can 52
           pieces of printed card be sinful? How do we measure sinfulness? What
           does it look like? What's its weight? Colour? You get my drift?
 
                                                                             2263
 
           However, this is nit-picking in the face of faith, especially when,
           "Witches and those closely associated with the occult use cards to
           trick and delude men and women into vice, error, deceipt, and finally
           into Hell." And that brings us back to Hallowe'en, doesn't it? By
           convincing our kiddies that this blasphemous Pagan ritual is harmless
           fun, you evil witches trick them into dressing up as witches and lure
           them thuswise into sin and perdition: "dressing as a witch you could
           open the way to being involved later with the real thing... Many young
           people have already been deceived in this way to their cost." I must
           admit that I'd always assumed that it was commercial exploitation by
           the business world that has added Hallowe'en to the list of religious
           festivals that are prostituted in the name of consumerism, and thus
           enter the public realm. Maybe Satan is a businessman? Why not? It
           seems imperative that the xtian sees the hand of Satan everywhere;
           "The attraction in witchcraft is the power that it offers even though
           this is from Satan." But how is this conclusion arrived at?
 
           Well, we know for a start that, "A witch is something that is hateful
           to God." and we know that God feels this way because He tells us so in
           Leviticus 20:6. Now, applying the logic of "who isn't for me is
           against me", we arrive at the situation where if God gets the hump
           with someone, they are automatically against him. Remember, there is
           no third way with Jahweh. By all accounts Satan is some else who's had
           a falling out with God, and this means that, "Since a real Christian
           is someone 'Born Again in the Spirit of God' (1 Peter 1:3-4, John
           1:13), Satan is his enemy, and so are witches and all their activit-
           ies." It boils down to saying, "All my enemies are ganging up on me in
           a conspiracy", which may turn out to be an existential definition of
           paranoid delusion.
 
           You may, or may not, be pleased to know that witches are not alone in
           being hateful to God. In fact, I ran out of money before God ran out
           of people to hate. Spiritualism really rubs God up the wrong way, and
           again we have this on the authority of Leviticus 20:6; but probably
           worse in the eyes of the xtian is the possibility that "If there is no
           judgement then what sort of God do we worship who would consign us to
           have to live in the presence of tyrants and murderers like Hitler,
           Stalin, Herod and the like on the other side?" The problem that we
           have here is our belief in the mythic Just World, where goodness is
           rewarded and badness punished. And if things don't work out that way,
           if St Augustine has Vlad the Impaler as a next door neighbour in the
           hereafter, then the rhetorical basis of xtianity would appear to
           crumble. The argument that if you are good (ie, do as I tell you) you
           will go to heaven, and if you are bad (ie, don't do as I tell you) you
           will go to Hell, no longer has any validity. It could be argued that
           this Just World belief underlies much of modern society which seems
           to be coming increasingly under threat as the arbitrary nature of
           reality becomes apparent.
 
           Needless to say, Satan is behind all aspects of spiritualism. Satan,
           the guy who "knows the Bible better than many Christians", and who
           sees to it that, "we remain in spiritual darkness". Spiritualism is
           hopelessly in error in its attempts to communicate with the dear
           departed; such things are forbidden by God and yet again we can thank
           Leviticus 20:6 for this information. As for those shades who are 'all
           very happy here', "Demons can impersonate the dead". Why should they
           bother? Simple, it's all, "to keep man as he is, and lure him into a
           false sense of security before destroying him." And as for those
           healings, "What of the healings that occur in Spiritualist meetings?
           Those who have experienced them will admit that they do not always
 
                                                                             2264
 
           last." And to round it all up we have them "trapped by the spawn of
           Satan's scam", those who have been deeply into Spiritualism have found
           it almost impossible to leave, such is its hold. People trying to do
           so have experienced attacks upon their lives."
 
           The "Freemason" tract struck me as a master piece of subtlety. Satan
           is not directly implicated in this underground cult, although the odd
           dark hint is let slip when voicing concern that some xtians, "are
           practising Masons, who do not seem to understand the true nature of
           Freemasonry. Light cannot have fellowship with darkness." Masons are
           roundly attacked for their secrecy, their lack of "total allegiance
           and dependence" on Jesus, their vain presumption that they can achieve
           anything worthwhile in this world without cutting God in on the
           action. Worst of all is the hideous, blasphemous horror behind the
           secret of the Great Architect of the Universe, JAHBULON; that sacril-
           igious inversion of the Holy Trinity, where JAH=Jehovah, BUL=Baal, and
           ON=Osiris. But I always thought that the guy lurking behind burning
           shrubbery and bossing Moses about went by the name of Jehovah, the God
           of the Hebrews?
 
           Never mind that. With "The New Age of Aquarius" we are on firmer
           ground, with no need for pussy-footing around. "Christians who know
           their Bibles will recognise the New Age as only the old deception by
           Satan, who tempted Adam and Eve... Adam and Eve disobeyed God and let
           in a new age of evil in which Satan could invade their lives on
           earth." Apparently the New Age of Aquarius was kept a secret until
           1975 when it was formally announced. The Theosophical Society gets
           implicated here, but exactly how is left a little vague. Clearly this
           is because, "The New Age has no visible head or organisation (although
           the Illuminati are probably behind it.) It is a network of Godless
           ideas such as humanism, pacifism, interfaith religion, feminism,
           abortion, holistic health, homeopathy, acupuncture, yoga and witch-
           craft." Goddam! I just knew that foul Illuminati had to be behind
           anything so Godless. (Ref my "The Aquarian Conspiracy Revealed",
           Children of Sekhmet Vol 3 No 2). Having said all that, it's claimed
           that the aim of the New Age is to unify the world under the Lord
           Maitreya, and centralising world food stocks and finance, "in a credit
           system, allocating a personal number to everyone." Those who know
           their Bible (or who watched Omen III) will know that Revelation 13
           tells of the Anti-Christ who gives his followers a mark (serial
           number?) which entitles them alone to buy or sell, and coincidentally,
           "New Agers consider the number 666 to be spiritually very powerful."
 
           In case you haven't completely gotten the picture yet, we'll put it a
           little more clearly: "The Bible description of the time of the An-
           ti-Christ and his one world government is beginning to be realised in
           our lifetime, and it fits the New Age closely." Whilst the good xtian
           is born again through the power of Christ and with a little help from
           a Priest, "New Agers are expected to be re-birthed and receive Lucif-
           eric initiation, by their own efforts." In order to combat this
           Satanic deception the good xtian is urged to be vigilant for New Age
           terms like: networking; holistic; planetary vision; and finding one's
           higher self.
 
           But enough. I don't think I can take much more of this hate and
           horror. When I entered that xtian bookshop I also deliberately entered
           the xtian reality tunnel, and have ended up feeling like Marvin (the
           Paranoid Android) who wonders how anyone can live in anything so
           small. He was referring to Arthur Dent's brain; I refer to the xtian
 
                                                                             2265
 
           reality tunnel, which appears to me to be rather dark and narrow. To
           be a good xtian I would have to see Satan everywhere; world peace,
           inter-faith harmony, the good life; anything that threatens to bring
           happiness is sinful. As a xtian I would be expected to suffer, to
           sacrifice, to struggle constantly, to accept heavier and heavier
           burdens, to accept calamities as a test of my faith, to give unthin-
           king obedience, to never once rejoice in the world as it is, never
           count my blessings, and always, always see myself as fallen and
           sinful. And after all this, to accept that I may not get rewarded in
           this life, but have to wait for a putative afterlife for the just
           rewards for all that I have given up. As mentioned above, this belief
           in a Just World is a core construct of Christianity, and apart from
           all that suffering, the only other pleasure of the xtian is gloating
           over the fact that their opponents will, "have to face God's judgement
           in the hereafter." Spiritualism of course, "is a dangerous deception
           from Satan, from which it is extremely difficult to escape. Its end is
           destruction." As for the little deluded dupes of the New Age, all
           their efforts are in vain, because, "Even if the New Age does achieve
           a measure of success, its work will all be destroyed by fire at the
           end of the world." As for the witches who get their power to harm
           others direct from Satan on Hallowe'en, eventually they, "are them-
           selves destroyed by the one who gives them this power." Everyone comes
           to a sticky end, and the xtian caught in a web of guilt, fear and
           passive sadism, gets a real kick out of knowing that.
 
           Leviticus, who gets referred to as an authority on what God does and
           doesn't like, is 27 chapters of commandments, and shows the basis of
           many of our current social attitudes; women are of lower value than
           men; bodily functions that describe women are unclean, ie, child-bear-
           ing and menstruation, although to be fair, the emission of semen does
           make a man unclean for the rest of the day. Coitus, according to God,
           is for procreation only, in much the same way it is for the beasts of
           the field. After all, coitus with a woman who is menstruating can only
           be for the reason of enjoyment, which as far as procreation matters
           are concerned is a waste of semen. Needless to say, our concept of
           "sin" comes from the "crime" of wasting semen. Be that as it may, most
           interesting of all is Leviticus 16, where description of the scapegoat
           is given, and how "all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites
           - all their sins" are put on the head of the goat, who is sent out
           into the desert to die for their sins. Much like the later scapegoat,
           Jesu Christos. Of all the curious details in Leviticus, the one that
           the xtians took to their hearts is that of the scapegoat, and there
           seems to be no sign of a let-up.
 
                                                                             2266
 


Next: Being The Green Book Of Song