The We Hunted the Mammoth Halloween Special takes a look at the small army of professional ex-witches, ex-warlocks, and ex-Satanists who have declared war on the supposedly demonic holiday of Halloween.
To these former pagans and Satanists who have now become Christian fundamentalists, Halloween isn’t about costumes and candy. It’s really about human sacrifice, animal sacrifice, and the stench of “demonic” incense. And those who celebrate this dark holiday are basically putting out a welcome mat for demons.
If you were a fan of the “satanic panic” of the 80s and 90s, you’ll love this new war on Halloween led by people without a sense of humor or a connection to reality.
Mega LOLz, as they used to say.
I have been to pagan rituals/weddings, and they’re lovely. Much more uplifting than a lot of fundie Xtian ones. No DOOOOOMMM involved.
One year I was at a Scottish Celtic
HalloweenSamhain party where I knew no one (there was an open invite on a mailing list). At some point, we formed a circle and went around saying the names of a dead ancestor and a few words about them (I used grandma). Then everyone would murmur the name and make a toast with a small drink of whatever beverage they had. Warm fuzzies. Then I struck up a conversation with one of the other women who’d mentioned her grandma in similar terms and she introduced me to more people.No demons or chanting involved. Just a lot of people in tartan. Maybe that scared the devils away. The only sacrificed animals were the ones who’d been turned into potluck dishes. And the cookies were amazing.
I do know a lot of former Christians who’ve become Wiccan or whatever, to get away from all the hectoring and threatening. Particularly Mormons for some reason.
I’m old enough to have lived through the Satanic Panic as a full grown married person and I shook my head at it the whole time. When I was a young’un in the 60s and 70s, there wasn’t this crap. Everyone (except the JWs) threw on a costume and trick or treated, and there were costume parties in school. Halloween was pure secular fun, and the worst that would happen is getting a tummy ache and sugar buzz. Mom hosted the school parties in a spectacular witch costume and mildly scary mask. My classmates loved it. Then we watched the Great Pumpkin and traded candy the next day in school.
I live about a block from an elementary school, and on Halloween or the school day closest to it, I like to watch the kids parade around the parking lot at lunch. The kindergarteners are so CUTE. Missed it this year.
@ gss ex-noob
Some years back I was at my favourite stone circle. This one:
https://cornishancientsites.com/ancient-sites/boscawen-un-stone-circle/
I was a bit surprised when a couple of other people turned up; usually I have it to myself. But hey, the more the merrier. But pretty soon there were a couple of hundred people there. Turned out a couple of witches were getting married there.
I was in a bit of a dilemma. I didn’t want to gatecrash, but I didn’t want to look like I didn’t approve. As it happens they were really nice and asked me to stay. As I’m quite tall I even got asked to take a part in the ceremony swinging some noise maker thing over everyone’s heads. I wasn’t particularly good at it so there were a few near decapitations, but everyone was cool.
Then afterwards we all ended up in the pub. What a lovely surprise day.
One of the witches is famous for being the first one to claim tax relief on cauldrons.
https://metro.co.uk/2022/03/20/britains-first-official-witch-claims-expenses-on-spells-and-potions-16309274/
I also got into a fight with an Obby Oss when she nicked my hat.
https://postimg.cc/LnfxHVnx
@Alan: Bullroarer, or one of those tube things?
@ gss ex-noob
It was like a small rugby ball on the end of a long piece of rope. It sounded a bit like an A-10 Warthog. It was easy enough to get going. You just swung it round and let the string out. But somewhat harder to land. Like an A-10 Warthog.
@ David
Another brilliant video. You are really settling into your style. Sorry to hear about your woes in getting it uploaded; but that’s all part of the process. Soon you’ll be banging these out in your sleep.
May I suggest that you do just bang a few interim ones out; without worrying too much about the editing? Your long form vids are great. But they do require a lot of effort. it’s a rather weird thing about YouTube though that there’s no such thing as a ‘bad’ video. Well, unless you start going on about how great autobahns were. But there’s no downside to just uploading content. You can actually do your learning and finding your rhythm in public. But regular uploading, of anything, helps you get to the magical 4,000 hours. And you can revisit topics every few months without it hurting the viewership. So if you’re not happy with a video, you can just re-do it again later.
Every time Dave comes out with one of these, I have a hard time convincing myself it’s real. I mean logically it must be, as he has done extensive research. But it just seems so silly. I just have a hard time taking “Halloween is about human sacrifice. Trust me. I’m a witch. Give me money.” seriously.
And, once again, the people ranting about this forget that “Hallowe’en” is short for “All Hallows’ Eve”, which is the day before “All Saints’ Day”. It actually is a Christian holiday. (Though granted a lot of the people complaining are the sorts who probably don’t consider Catholics as ‘real’ Christians either, though the insistence on that has declined a lot lately as the hardline conservative Catholics have been useful political allies.) It’s just that, like Christmas and Easter, it’s absorbed a lot of other iconography along the way.
As you said, the whole ‘ex-Satanist selling their redemption story to adoring crowds’ thing dates back at least to Mike Warnke in the heights of the original Satanic Panic in the 1980s. And just as then, it’s a combination of grifters getting attention by selling their stories and crowds of people who absolutely want to believe that their political opponents are literally working for the forces of evil so they can feel better about their own failures because they’re at least better than that.
What, no election night open thread?
@Alan: I agree it’d be fun (for us) if David did the occasional short video and then fleshed it out later.
@Jenora Feuer:
As you said, the whole ‘ex-Satanist selling their redemption story to adoring crowds’ thing dates back at least to Mike Warnke in the heights of the original Satanic Panic in the 1980s. And just as then, it’s a combination of grifters getting attention by selling their stories and crowds of people who absolutely want to believe that their political opponents are literally working for the forces of evil so they can feel better about their own failures because they’re at least better than that.
Hoo boy—I remember that turkey. Warnke used to have a following in the Upper Midwest, and claimed to have been the High Priest of a Satanic coven in Dayton, Ohio; I was invited to one of his gigs by some Evangelical neighbors. He had a standup comedy routine brazenly pilfered from Bill Cosby’s and George Carlin’s cleaner material—from which he’d abruptly Mood Whiplash into horror stories about Satanic Ritual Abuse, piling on the virgins abducted for broodmare duty, dope-addled orgies, and sacrificial babies, and then pass the collection plate and preside over the altar call.
Back in the Eighties, when Rich Buhler had a high-quality radio talk show (the only bright sopt 1i the flood of local Christianese AM radio), he often said that he could tell when October 1st came around because all the “full moon calls” regarding “The Devil’s Holiday(TM)” would start coming out of nowhere.
And he could tell when November 1st came around because all the full moon calls about The Devil’s Holiday would end like flicking off a light switch and the ones about “The War on CHRISTmas” would begin.
Another survivor of The Satanic Panic here.
I was into D&D, nuff said.
Thank you Mike Warnke, You Total Fraud.
And I have an anecdote about Mike Warnke from my writing partner, a burned-out country preacher in rural PA:
Another church in his area had Warnke as a special guest preacher (and paid $$$ for him) knowing the guy was a Fraud. (This was years after Cornerstone exposed him.)
The other preacher-man’s justification?
“BUT A LOT OF SOULS WILL BE SAVED!”
KNOWING THE GUY WAS A FRAUD!
My writing partner has had nothing to do with that preacher or his church since.
I was born in 1968; I remember ‘Dark Dungeons’ among other Chick Tracts showing up in high school. (Mostly to laugh at them; my high school was technically Anglican at one point in time, but was rather officially secular by the time I went there.) And I remember ‘Mazes and Monsters’ on TV (which was really more ‘why you should be careful about getting people with certain mental problems involved’ than ‘D&D is dangerous’, even if they tried to pitch it as the latter).
And to a large extent one of the most interesting things about Warnke and his takedown was that:
After having my head thoroughly messed up by a high-control Christian Fellowship (TM) in the mid-Seventies (discovering Dungeons & Dragons was what pulled me out of it), I became very skeptical about the whole Satanic Conspiracy thing, with or without the End of the World tie-in.
Tip: When a group names itself “Ex-fill in the blanks for Christ”, (a common nomenclature during the original Satanic Panic), that by itself is a Big Red Flag.
A week or two ago, I read an online comment on another blog. Commenter was Jewish and said he was horrified when he read Christian sources (I can guess which ones) teaching the Second Coming of Christ as all DEATH and DESTRUCTION, FEAR and TERROR. That in Judaism the Coming of Messiah is a thing of Hope, that the world will be put right as originally intended (“Olam-ha-ba”).
American Christianity needs an infusion of Jewish attitudes to restore balance.