Sacred Texts Index Previous Next
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