Exorcism Extravaganza!

(The following first appeared in the March 2023 issue of Paranormality Magazine.)

 The word “Exorcism” brings to mind familiar images largely borne out of pop culture and horror movies. Films such as “The Exorcist” and, more recently, “The Conjuring” franchise, inform the popular conception of the ritual. The common depiction of exorcism in movies follow a similar track; a victim of demonic possession, often through dabblings in occult material, becomes taken over by an unseen force which then has to be cast out by a priest. William Peter Blatty, in writing “The Exorcist”, based his story on the real-life account of a boy known as “Roland Doe” in the late 1940s. The popularity of the movie helped to promote a growing idea within ghost hunting and paranormal circles about the prevalence of demons and conversely, the necessity of piety and Christian values. Father Malachi Martin and Ed and Lorraine Warren were instrumental in popularizing these concepts, strains of which can be felt to this day in paranormal television programming. Self-styled “Demonologists”, in the tradition of Ed Warren, can be found taunting spirits on the airwaves to largely agnostic audiences, titillated at the prospect of good conquering evil. 

Far from the fun and games of jump-scares in the cinema, or sensationalized demon-hunting in TV programming, this strain of thought has damaging effects that are sadly more human than paranormal. There is always a danger that mental illness can be exploited or built upon by introducing ideas about supernatural influence. Exorcists working within religious organizations, such as the Catholic Church, are required to rule this out before proceeding with a ritual. Medical experts should always be consulted and on hand for such events, and sadly, there have been deaths and lasting trauma in cases where these protocols weren’t followed.

Unseen malevolent forces, and methods of banishing them, appear in the traditions of cultures all over the world. It seems that humanity has always needed some manner of defense against these outside forces, although various cultures have had a more nuanced view than the dualistic moralism that characterizes the modern cadre of Devil Hunters. A comprehensive survey of varied cultural, religious, and magical beliefs about demons and what to do with them would be quite the undertaking- even within the modern, Christian-based concept of exorcism, quite a variety of cases that don’t fit the Hollywood mold can be found. Often wacky, but ever-interesting, these expectation-defying examples of modern exorcism probably won’t be hitting the theaters any time soon.

The aforementioned Ed and Lorraine Warren bring us our first out-of-the-ordinary exorcism case; that of a Werewolf. Conventional logic would have us believe that a silver bullet is the only tool that can help defeat such a monster, but in this case it was the intervention of the Warrens’ friend Father Robert McKenna. While visiting the United Kingdom, Ed and Lorraine caught wind of the story of Bill Ramsey, the Southend Werewolf. Ramsey was a blue collar, average man with a wife and kids. He worked several jobs at a time, always concerned about providing for his family. He was well-liked by his coworkers and in his community; that is, at least, until his werewolf tendencies were revealed. 

He had twice tried to seek help at an emergency room at the onset of one of his “spells”, and on both occasions he rampaged through nurses, orderlies, and other patients. He was said to have growled and moaned in inhuman ways, his hands curled to simulate claws as he struck out and bit anyone who came too close. After a similar attack on a local police precinct, he was admitted to a mental health facility and kept under observation. His werewolfism was treated as a delusion by the doctors, and a dangerous one at that. Though no physical transformation was reported during these spells, witnesses claimed he possessed superhuman strength and an uncanny animalistic rage.

In meeting the Warrens, he told a tale of being a young boy and feeling a “chill” while out playing in the backyard of his childhood home. It was the first time that he had lost control, and by his account his parents watched in horror as he ferociously ripped a fence post out of the ground and proceeded to bite at the wire, thrashing at the fence like a panicked animal. Ed Warren immediately identified this as the moment “the spirit of a wolf” entered young Bill Ramsey. He also insisted that the only person who could help was just an ocean away at Our Lady of the Rosary Church, in Connecticut.

Father McKenna was sedeprivationist, whose ministry was an offshoot of the main Catholic Church. These traditionalist Catholics disavowed the primacy of the Pope in the wake of changes made in Vatican II. He was altogether willing to help Bill with his werewolf problems, as such traditionalist Catholics tend toward fostering belief in demonic forces as a means of driving people back to church, and to the old ways of doing things. The overseas voyage to his church was sponsored by the British paper The People, in exchange for exclusive rights to the story. The exorcism itself proved to be fairly anticlimactic. The entire affair was videotaped, and the “wolf spirit” did try to resist the efforts of McKenna. Ultimately, Bill was a changed man, and credited this to the ritual. Presumably he’s had no bouts of werewolf rampage since then, at least none that have made the news… 

While exorcising a werewolf is novel, it still very much falls in line with the idea of a person possessed by an evil spirit- and, as we all know, possession is 9/10 of the law. But what about larger scale exorcisms, not just of people but of places?

The 1990s had a few such stories in the national news. In 1998, an exorcist named Baron Deacon tried, and reportedly failed, to drive out “the dragons and serpents” from the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. While it’s unclear what specific effect Deacon had hoped to achieve during his exorcism on the steps of the Capitol Building, it nonetheless garnered attention in newspapers around the country. Another such public ritual, and a much sillier one, occurred earlier in the decade and was led by Father Guido Sarducci. Sarducci was a character developed by comedian Don Novello, who first appeared in episodes of Saturday Night Live. Boston radio personality Charles Laquiderra invited Sarducci to lead the faithful among the Red Sox fans in an exorcism of Fenway Park, their stadium. The idea behind this was to rid the team of the Curse of the Bambino- a superstition among sports fans that Boston had been magically barred from a World Series win after Babe Ruth had left the team for New York in the 1920s. Sarducci’s exorcism involved the releasing of balloons, sprinkling of water, women in short skirts, and liberally applied “noogies” to “shake out the bad spirits”. While amusing, the aforementioned Curse did not cease until 12 years after the exorcism- so it’s unclear whether Sarducci’s efforts could be credited.

While the exorcism of a branch of the Federal Government or of a baseball franchise may seem like a tall order, there is one man whose exploits in banishing make those attempts seem like child’s play. Enter the Reverend Doctor Donald Omand- the man who Exorcised the Bermuda Triangle.

Donald Omand was the son of a minister, and also claimed to have inherited his “feyness” or second-sight from his mother’s side of the family. He credited his innate psychical abilities, this feyness, for his successes in exorcism. To his mind, no amount of training or knowledge could make an exorcist- one must be born with these attributes, and the faith and knowledge would come later. While these magical beliefs may seem at odds with Christian ideas, Omand would say that these are gifts granted by God, and that employing them in his name would then be necessary. 

He studied theology in Germany in the 1930s, while working as a reporter to earn money. This led to him interviewing Hitler multiple times, and also set him on the path of international renown as an exorcist. While in Germany, he was advising on a religious movie being filmed in a studio near another film which featured circus performers. The circus folk saw Omand in his clerical attire and asked him to join their troop as a circus minister. Traveling circuses are perpetual outsiders wherever they go, and many are religious or at least superstitious. The tradition of having a dedicated minister for weddings, baptisms, and other religious ceremonies is not an uncommon one, and it was a role Omand was happy to fulfill. It was in the circus, in southern Germany, when he performed his first exorcism. 

The strong man had been acting strangely. Usually a jovial man, and friendly to children, he became foul and vulgar, and would scare kids away when they came near. Later he would describe the change coming over him after encountering an odd, menacing group of people outside of a church- the leader of which, he believed, had cursed him. During a performance of the lion tamer, the strong man got a crazed look in his eyes and grabbed hold of the bars to the cage where the tamer was directing his lions. The big cats in the show were like pets to the tamer, and the lions in this case were particularly affectionate; but now as the strong man grinned at the edge of the ring they became agitated. Suddenly, the strong man passed out and the lions attacked, mauling and killing the lion tamer. It was surmised that whatever foul force had possessed the strong man was now in the beasts.

Omand had to enter the lion’s den in order to exorcise the possessed felines. For a first attempt at exorcism, this was pretty extreme, but he later recounted a serene feeling coming over him and giving him faith that he would be protected in his endeavor. He was apparently successful, and the lions became tame once again. 

Omand is perhaps best known in Fortean circles for having performed an exorcism of Loch Ness, as recounted in F. W. Holiday’s posthumous book The Goblin Universe. While the exorcism of lake monsters may seem absurd, it’s worth noting that the earliest recorded mention of a monster near the loch comes from an account of St. Columba driving back a serpent in the River Ness, in 565 A.D. Dr. Omand was careful to note that he was not trying to exorcise the Loch Ness Monster, necessarily, but to remove its “evil influence” over the minds of men. Nessie may have been the ghost of a prehistoric beast, he suggested, and ghosts aren’t necessarily harmful. This way of thinking informed other similar exorcisms he performed at the Arctic Circle and at a fjord in Sweden. His method at Loch Ness involved several ceremonies at points along the shore, which would form a cross when pinned on a map, and finally a ceremony on a small boat in the center of the loch. Nessie has still been seen in the years since this event, but Omand was satisfied that the evil aura of the area had been dispersed.

His most audacious exorcism was yet to come- that of the Bermuda Triangle. The area off the coast of Florida had a notorious reputation for disappearances of all kinds, such as that of Flight 19. Omand theorized that a history of trauma in that area as enslaved people were brought to the New World in centuries past had created a vector of evil influence for that part of the sea. In an unfortunate and problematic turn, he suggested in an interview that perhaps a “witch doctor” had been cast overboard from such a ship, and cursed the sea with his dying breath. His exorcism of the Triangle followed a similar plan to that of Loch Ness, with rituals being performed at key areas on shore and at sea. While it’s unclear whether this worked, it’s worth noting that no one ever seems to talk about ships going missing in the Bermuda Triangle anymore.

These wilder tales of exorcism show that there’s much more to the tradition, even in modern times, than we’re led to believe by Hollywood productions or television shows. It also shows the persistent need in humanity to have ritual, to have authorities to which one can appeal in order to address unknown and terrifying maladies. Whether the ritual is silly, as in the case of Guido Sarducci at Fenway Park, hardly matters- the intent and communal engagement in working toward a goal still has power. It also goes to show that there are myriad motivations for pursuing this work, and for seeking such supernatural assistance. Perhaps for some, the simplified “good versus evil” model brings comfort, while others like Omand have a more nuanced and accepting view of otherworldly forces. Whatever the case, perhaps it's high time we had a lake monster exorcism movie!

-----------------------------------------------------------------

The exploits of Rev Dr Omand were a lot of fun to read about and write up in an article- but due to word count restrictions and my compulsive need to pack as much into an article as possible, I wasn't able to get into all of it. Look out for my (at the time of this writing) upcoming appearance on Conspirinormal where I'll be getting into more stories, such as Omand vs a Vampire and Omand vs a Dangerous Intersection!

Fishin' for the Truth - a Brief Dip into Fiction. Or is it?

 

For all intents and purposes, the following story is a work of fiction- but I have it on good authority from the Extradimensional Narrator that such things do in fact happen all the time...

    It was on the 23rd of some month or another that Roger had set himself down beside a lake for an afternoon of fishing. It had to have been one of the warmer months, naturally, if Roger were to be found outdoors; he had blood pressure issues that made the cold difficult to shake, and would avoid it at all costs. Of course, I know which month it was. I know what time it was, and even which song was playing on the radio when he parked his car at the road near the lake; but if there's one thing that omniscience has taught me, its precisely how much of a drag it is to know all the details. The reader will have to accept the one missing piece of datum, and be consoled by the superfluous bit about his blood pressure. You'll thank me later.

    All that aside, the precise month of the forthcoming tale is neither here, nor there. The "here" of this story is beside a lake, a fishing rod cast into it, and Roger in a shabby lawn chair on the 23rd. The "there" is below the murky depths, way out in the lake, where the Arcane Secrets of the Cosmos sit and feel pretty clever for their penchant for remaining elusive. Roger yawned, growing impatient, as though he too were waiting for this story to start. It was a quiet day, the kind where every soft breeze begs for thoughtful introspect. A dull man by nature, Roger wasn't well-equipped for the task of self-evaluation. Most forms of thought were outside the scope of his habits, but he was also very susceptible to suggestion. And so, since the breeze begged it, he had himself a think.

    He sat and thought. The same breeze that had just a moment ago sent his cranial gears ticking now amused itself with creating ripples on the glassy surface of the lake while the bobber on Roger's fishing line did the very thing its name implies that it would do. Every ripple from the bobbing ball of plastic seemed to radiate a new thought, trigger a distant memory, or spark a minor epiphany in his mind. The breeze tickled the hairs on his neck and he was flushed with the electric warming of ecstatic calm. He became sad in a way that he couldn't account for, when suddenly he heard a watery noise.

    He looked and saw his submerged bobber return to the surface, and grabbed onto the reel as it sunk below the water again. He stood up and reeled, yanking at the line, when it hit him.

    It could have been that the sudden movement had cracked his back, resulting in a small reservoir of lysergic acid escaping from his spine and belly-flopping into his bloodstream- which itself was a result of the time that a government spook had dosed his tea back in his college years for the purposes of some vague mind control experiment. It could also have had to do with the fact that at that very moment, an alternate reality had superimposed itself on Roger's familiar one, and he was experiencing the tug-of-war between worlds as cosmic entropy began its stabilization process. It could also have been that Roger had fallen asleep and all of this was only happening in a dream- but that's not as likely, that's too much of a cliche even for me.

    What is certain is that for that moment, as he reeled and pulled furiously at the fish that stubbornly defied capture, Roger saw everything. The whole of Reality- all that has been, is, will be; in every part of the galaxy, and everywhere in the universe, in all possible universes- and even in a few of the impossible ones.

    It would seem that a little bit of thinking can go a long way.

    The images and the knowledge, the facts and intimate details, the wide scope along with the minutiae, all rolled upon one another in an avalanche of NOW. He pulled, he reeled, he clenched his teeth with his eyes so wide they looked as though they would pop. The Grand Picture started to take on a meaningful shape. Roger was just about to become privy to all the Divine Secrets of Reality. Poor bastard.

    Luckily for him, the line snapped, sending him tumbling backwards in a pratfall maneuver that would have made Oliver Hardy proud.* He pulled himself up using his chair for balance, looking disheveled and exhausted, and 100% the old Roger again.

    "Damn." he said, looking out over the lake. It was the one that got away.

*The reader will be happy to know that Oliver Hardy had a similar experience whilst working with an elephant, and he did glimpse Roger's pratfall, and was, in fact, proud.

Full of Hot Air- Ruminations on UFOs and those Numinous Balloons

 At the time I sat down to write this, news and social media had been all abuzz about a Chinese spy balloon seen floating across the country. It was, eventually, shot down. I was surprised to see just how many people on social media had become national security experts overnight, as it seemed everyone had ideas about what should be done. I'll admit that I don't know anything about spy balloons, or why on earth such low-tech espionage would be necessary in today's technological age- but the particular interest among the Disclosure set, and those on hashtag UFO Twitter, got me thinking about the symbolic nature of balloons and, more specifically, this symbolism in relation to the topic of UFOs. 

I was unable to finish writing this post the first time, and now, a week later, as I sit to complete it more objects have been shot down from both the U.S. and Canada...

My good friend, the right honorable Most Reverend StarDoG pointed out on Facebook:

You have to chortle at so many of those who are forever telling people that "People are losing their shit over a weather balloon and there's nothing strange here, please move on", currently, totally losing their shit over an actual weather balloon..

-Steve Mills, author of the blog post You're Just Like a Little Child Chasing a Balloon into the Sunset

The irony related to balloons runs deep in UFOlogy. "Weather balloon" is one of the classic hand-waving dismissals of UFO reports since the 1940s, alongside the planet Venus, misidentification of birds or known crafts, and Swamp Gas. Weather balloons and UFOs are inextricably linked, and as I intend to persuade you through my ramblings here, the symbol of all balloons hints at something existentially unsettling and as hard to capture through words as clouds are in one's hand. 

Back in 2020, a "leaked government photo" of a UFO, taken from inside a jet, was revealed to be remarkably similar in size and shape to that of a party balloon featuring DC Comics' Dark Knight, Batman. At the time, I found this profoundly amusing, and perhaps an indicator of the Cosmic Trickster at play. I had often felt that the extreme camps of those who engage with the Phenomenon, as it were, were exemplified by the Disclosure Set/TTSA mob, and fans of the documentary series Hellier. This dichotomy is often expressed as the "nuts and bolts" camp vs those open to a panoply of interpretations, bordering on the mystical and visionary. In cryptozoology, it might be the "flesh and blood" camp vs those open to supernatural answers for why we see Bigfoot and other beasties. In the interest of disclosure, although it's probably entirely obvious, I fall into the latter camp. The caveat is, I don't think either extreme at the exclusion of all evidence to contradict it is healthy. While I think chasing capital "D" Disclosure is a fool's errand, I also think there is a very real danger of missing the forest for the synchronici-trees.

A major part of Hellier, for those who haven't seen it, involves a blue star balloon that served as a synchronicity during the course of the investigation more than once. The balloon in question has become as emblematic of the Hellier goblin-hunt as the goblins themselves. In this sense, it seems amazingly on-brand for Trickster phenomena that the other extreme, who likely would not respond well to the language of high strangeness, to be taken in by a blue Batman balloon. 

In Tim Burton's 1989 movie Batman, balloons appear in the form of a dastardly plot perpetrated by the Joker. As he is throwing money out the people of Gotham, the floats above him are loaded with toxic gas that he hopes to unleash on the unsuspecting public. Of course he is foiled by the Caped Crusader, who flies in in his Batwing, towing the balloons to a safe distance from the city. This heroic act is mirrored later in the 2012 movie The Dark Knight Rises, in which Batman has to (we're led to believe) sacrifice himself in bringing a bomb out into the sea to save the city. 

The clown imagery and invitation to collect money in the scene, along with the hidden horror of the plot to poison Gotham, within a balloon, get at this odd symbolic quality of the unassuming and seemingly friendly object. A balloon might not be what it seems; is it a message from the cosmos, a whimsical decoration, a UFO, or a parade float filled with poison? Already, we can see that pinning down a straightforward meaning here is as evasive as the string of a free-floating balloon that has just left your grasp...Another relevant sinister clown / balloon connection is worth mentioning here- a single red balloon has also been a symbol of the character Pennywise in Stephen King's It.

The shape-shifting entity, most often portraying itself as a clown, is revealed to be (spoiler alert) a giant spider from either space or another dimension. The balloon sometimes acts as a harbinger of his appearances, or as a way to lure victims to their doom.

During World War II, balloons coming from Asia were a major concern for the United States, particularly along the Pacific Coast. Japan had released balloons loaded with incendiary devices, as a means of attacking the U.S. mainland. Balloons were also used during the war to distribute pamphlets of propaganda across enemy lines, or as a means of communication. All the while, phenomena such as "foo fighters" and ghost rockets were reported by airmen. After the war, the flying saucer age began with the publicity around the Kenneth Arnold sighting- but before the war, there were reports of mystery airships. Dirigibles, essentially piloted balloons, were reported throughout the country. 

These mysterious airships seemed to be just ahead of where commonly accepted technology would take us, but as zeppelins came into use they seemed less mystifying. They might have enjoyed greater use as a means of travel, had it not been for the widely publicized Hindenburg disaster in 1937. The words of the reporter covering the disaster - "Oh, the humanity!" have become ingrained and meme-ifed into public consciousness to this day. Public trust in airships dropped quickly following the crash.

The Hindenburg crash was featured as the cover art for Led Zeppelin's self-titled debut album, related to a joke spurred by the suggestion of a line-up of musicians in a band- that it would go over like "a lead balloon", or a "lead zeppelin". 

Years later, Pink Floyd would cause UFO reports of a sort with a botched album cover photo shoot. For their 1977 album Animals, the plan was to get a shot of a balloon shaped like an enormous pig floating above the Battersea Power Station. The pig balloon was custom made by a German company called Ballon Fabrik, who had previously constructed zeppelins. For the first attempt at getting a good photo, they had hired a marksman to shoot down the balloon if it became untethered. The second day, they failed to bring one, and it floated away...

The balloon eventually landed in a farmer's field, and he was reportedly furious that it had frightened his cows. Here we can see not only the UFO and balloon symbols merged together in one event, but also cows, which in popular media are often portrayed as victims of abduction. Beyond that, the likelihood of ever getting a straight answer with UFOs is so slight, it would seem that "when pigs fly" would be a reasonable expectation on when we'll have it figured out. On another, weirder level, Pink Floyd got their start playing at the UFO Club in London- which was managed by the co-founder of IT magazine Joe Boyd, who helped finance the recording of the band's first singles... right around the same time a newspaper article made the rounds in the U.S. about a police officer named Dale Spaur, who had taken to using the code name "Floyd" for a flying saucer he saw multiple times.

The imagery of a pig was part of the thematic lyrical structure of the Animals album- Roger Waters was drawing from Orwell's Animal Farm, a critique of Communism, but turning it on its head as a critique of capitalist, commercial society. He would later expand on the Orwellian themes in the later album The Wall, which was more inspired by the book 1984. 

In 1984, Nena's song 99 Luftballons was released in an English-language version to capitalize on the success of the original song in Europe. American audiences preferred the original German version over the translated 99 Red Balloons. Nena would express disapproval at the the translated version, as it seems the meaning gets lost in translation. The basic premise is that 99 balloons, tied together, are let go and float into a neighboring airspace and mistaken for UFOs. This leads to jets being scrambled, and using firepower, which builds up to a cataclysmic war that destroys the world. The anti-war song concludes with the discovery of a single balloon in the rubble, and the line "I think of you and let it go". 

The song was inspired in part by balloons let go during a concert in 1982, causing Nena's guitarist to wonder what would happen if they floated over the Berlin Wall. Also cited as inspiration for the lyrics was an apparent prank using balloons to hoax a UFO in Las Vegas, by students in 1973. It seems that there were several such hoaxes that year:

Balloons and hoaxing seem to go together well. In 2009, a flying saucer shaped balloon made the news when it was reported that there was a child trapped inside. The "Balloon Boy" hoax was characterized as a ploy for publicity and attention from the couple who launched the balloon, Richard and Mayumi Heene. To this day, they and their son who they originally claimed was in the balloon maintain that it was not a hoax, but a mistake. Another example of a balloon based saucer hoax occurred in 1989, when rich guy with too much time on his hands Richard Branson spooked motorists in the U.K.:

Sometimes, though, balloons are just a means of adventure, whimsy, and fantasy. Take for an example the sky journey of Kent Couch in 2008. The 48-year-old owner of a gas station rigged up a bunch of balloons to a lawn chair and spent 9 hours aloft, covering a distance of 235 miles from his starting point in Oregon. Using a BB gun to take out balloons and lower himself when necessary, he landed safely in Idaho. "I think most guys look up in the sky and wish they could ride on a cloud.", Couch said in an interview.

As I type this all out, it does seem eerily likely that tensions are mounting around balloons from across the Pacific. I certainly hope nothing like the 99 Luftballons scenario plays out, and I would hope that we can all move toward a more adventurous and whimsical view of balloons like that shown by Kent Couch, or as utilized in the Pixar movie Up. We do seem to be living in an increasingly crazy world, a place where alien craft making an undeniable appearance seems more likely; but on a scarier note, with a recent pandemic, climate and weather changes, and political tensions high all around, it's easy to feel like we're on the precipice of a great change. What that change is, and whether good or bad, is as hard to determine as the motives of a balloon drifting across the pacific ocean. This brings me to one final balloon image culled from pop culture- the balloon to take us home. And if you've made it this far through my ramblings, I really can't thank you enough.

At the end of The Wizard of Oz, the all-powerful Wizard has a solution for Dorothy. The plan to bring her and Toto back to Kansas involves getting into a hot-air balloon, but at the last moment, as the balloon is taking off, Toto jumps out. Dorothy has to go running after him, as her only hope for getting home appears to drift off above the Emerald City. It's then that she learns the power to bring her back was with her the whole time; and maybe that's the lesson with balloons. Maybe, perhaps, as Nena sang, we should think of each other and let it go. Maybe chasing balloons equates with madness, and certainly there's danger in it. Maybe I'm crazy for ruminating so long on the topic, and bringing up such far-flung images to illustrate the nebulousness that is UFOlogy. I'm sure it could be argued that I am, indeed, full of hot air, high on my own supply... but like many other guys, I just want to know what it's like to ride a cloud.

A Halloween Treat - Destiny of the Wolf

 

As a Halloween treat this year, I decided to write a story! 

Being a big Bela Lugosi fan, it always kind of bummed me out that his character in The Wolf Man (1941) got so little screen time. After all, he was the original werewolf- and a fortune-telling werewolf at that!

So one night while cooking dinner I dreamed up an origin story for his character, Bela the Fortune Teller. I made a short little booklet and generated illustrations using Dall-E2 AI, and incorporated some werewolf lore culled from Montague Summers' The Werewolf. I had some weirdness and synchronicity happen along the way, which I talked about on my recent appearance on Creative Weirdos with Todd Purse.

Since I told the story to Todd on Creative Weirdos, I thought I'd share this AI image here-
I asked Dall-E to generate a man in black clothes wearing a black hat on a forest path with two wolves, and out of the four one of them spontaneously also included a little hobgoblin... https://t.co/ewo9O6iOJ2 pic.twitter.com/lKmzofzB2t

— AP Strange, Friend to Goblins Everywhere (@AProdigiosus) October 23, 2022

Without further delay, you can read the story HERE!

Writing the story has been a spooky and fun process for me, and I hope you enjoy reading it! Happy Halloween to all my fellow weirdos out there, and remember to trust in the Donut!

Bad Movies For Bad People Vol. I

Bad Movies For Bad People

This past April, I lost my best friend Jeff Siegrist. Jeff was many things to many people, as I elucidated in my tribute to him that the local paper, Worcester Magazine, was kind enough to publish. This will serve as a further tribute to him; Jeff and I were both collectors of strange things, but possibly his biggest passion was for movies. A cinephile of the highest order, he specialized in the extremely weird outsider films, the B-movies, pornography, art films, and the like, but was also grounded in the classics of the medium. He saw beauty in all of it. Sometimes for fun he would publish a list of 100 movies he happened to be thinking of that day. It occurred to me that a fitting tribute to his memory would be to share just some of the films he loved, because he took great joy in introducing people to these cultural oddities.

Included as well will be some commentary from our mutual friend Andy Dupont, with whom Jeff used to review movies on YouTube along with Erin 'Riles' Reilly. 

Without further ado...

Plan 9 From Outer Space (1957, Ed Wood)

The quintessential oddball movie, it is often described as the worst movie of all time. Jeff was more charitable though, and would say "people who say that haven't seen the other bad movies that are out there. Plan 9 is funny, and fun to watch. You can't say that about a lot of legitimately bad movies." Andy says of the movie "we watched this every few years and it always had something new and hilarious for us to find." I would add that it's notable as Bela Lugosi's final film, and that Vampira and Tor Johnson are probably my favorite movie zombies of all time. 

Jeff's fascination with Ed Wood, Plan 9's writer and director, extended through his entire filmography. I would be remiss in not mentioning Glen or Glenda? and Bride of the Monster but further, Wood's whole life story and trajectory as an artist were inspirational to Jeff. He once had me watch Orgy of the Dead, a film "based on a novel by Edward D. Wood" that featured the Amazing Criswell, bloated and flushed, watching a parade of women perform suggestive dances partially nude. We laughed through the whole thing; the very idea that this had ever been a novel was absurd, and poor Criswell looking as though he needed to get drunk before filming any of his scenes.   

Blood Feast (1963, Herschell Gordon Lewis)

"Have you ever had... An Egyptian Feast?" This line from the movie, delivered by the devilish caterer Fuad Ramses, became a running joke between Jeff and his friends. "We said this one line from the movie a billion times" said Andy, and it was funny every time. Another great line from the film is the detective who says "looks like it's going to be another one of those long, hard ones..."

The premise for this movie is simply that a caterer, the aforementioned Fuad Ramses, tricks a customer into ordering an Egyptian Feast - a ritual human sacrifice to the goddess Ishtar. In order to get the human parts needed, he must go on a psychopathic killing spree. This movie was a pioneer of the subgenre of horror known as "splatter", and its gore and vulgarity drew the ire of critics at the time. Herschell Gordon Lewis became known as "The Godfather of Gore", and much like Ed Wood Jeff endeavored to watch all of his films, which ranged from blood-soaked schlock to nudie-cutie films. 

The World's Greatest Sinner (1962, Timothy Carey)

Timothy Carey was an incredibly odd and larger than life character, and naturally Jeff admired the heck out of him. As a character actor he appeared in films like Kubrick's Paths of Glory and The Killing, and later in the Monkees' psychedelic romp Head. Jeff loved telling me stories about the wild and unpredictable Carey; how he turned down a role in The Godfather, about his propensity for pulling guns on people he worked with, or how he let loose his attack dogs on John Cassavetes. 

The World's Greatest Sinner is Carey's twisted idea of a masterpiece. He wrote, directed, and starred in a tale about an insurance salesman who one day decides that he is, in fact, God. He is tempted into such ideas by a serpent Devil character, who only appears briefly but is voiced by Paul Frees of Rocky and Bullwinkle fame. Carey's character, now calling himself God Hilliard, starts spreading the word by way of some of the most awkward rock and roll you've ever witnessed. He goes into politics, seduces old ladies, alienates his family, and in the end has a showdown with God. That's right, it ends with a fight of God vs God... and God wins. 

Notable also is the theme song written by a young Frank Zappa, well before the Mothers of Invention had recorded anything. Knowing that I was a huge Zappa fan, Jeff introduced me to this movie early on. That's the way he was; he would always try to cater his weird selections to those he'd be viewing with. 

Jeff would often reference the movies he loved in his own work, and The World's Greatest Sinner was no exception. Pictured above is one of his many self-published poetry chapbooks, with a scene from the movie and credited in the title to Allen Smithee. For readers who don't know, that's the false name directors use when they are refusing credit for a film, usually due to its quality... or lack thereof.

Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky (1993, Lam Nai-Choi)

An early 90s Hong Kong action movie loosely based on a Japanese manga, this one is ridiculous in its improbable death scenes executed by the title character, a super-human fighting machine. Full of "mindless slaughter and mayhem", Andy says "We loved a good action movie that would be a complete affront to our senses. Crazy gore and fight scenes." Riki is an inmate at a prison for having killed a gangster, and the movie centers around multiple attempts on his life inside the prison. He never fails, however, to destroy his opponents with such methods as strangling them using their own intestinal tract. 

The English dubbing is poor, the action is insane, and the camp factor is high. It's easy to see why Jeff, along with other cult movie aficionados, appreciated it. If you think you can stomach it, look it up!

The Godmonster of Indian Flats (1973, Fredric Hobbs)

                                   

I'm throwing this one into the mix because I don't think Jeff and I ever laughed harder at a movie monster. The inexplicably named Godmonster is easily the least threatening creature I've seen in a film. The monster is essentially a very large, bipedal sheep with deformities on its arms causing one to be too short, and the other to hang limply at its side. The monster mainly causes havoc by lumbering around and being weird looking. There is a tangled up trainwreck of several plots going on, but to be honest I only remember laughing at the weird beastie. This film was shown to me during a time of intersecting interests between myself and Jeff, when he began watching classic cryptozoological documentaries such as The Legend of Bigfoot. It was always nice when he'd venture over to my side of the weird a bit, and we could talk Bigfoot, UFOs, or the Occult. We also had a shared interest in the films made by the The Unarius Academy, the UFO cult run by Ruth 'Uriel' Norman. The aesthetic of the flying saucers in those movies was just the perfect bridge between Jeff's love of ham-fisted outsider cinema with heart, and my fanciful love of the wyrd and wonderful flights of fancy that these saucers can take us on.

If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do? (1971, Ron Ormond)

Christian propaganda at its most extreme, and inept, this collaboration between born-again filmmaker Ron Ormond and Baptist minister Estus Pirkle was based on a sermon given by the latter. It illustrates in grisly detail the threat of Communism and where America is headed if we all don't get right with God. Pirkle and Ormond seemed to think that excessive scenes of kids and families getting mowed down by godless commies would be the best way of converting agnostic and atheist Americans who may have been flirting with Communist ideology. Being a member of the Satanic Temple himself, Jeff was endlessly amused by Pirkle's sermonizing and Ormond's cinematic depictions. Ormond was previously notable for having worked with contactee Reinhold O. Schmidt, making a movie based on his experiences with German-speaking aliens called Edge of Tomorrow. The Saucer Life Podcast has a great episode about this and Schmidt's other exploits. From what I understand, Ormond was nearly killed later and became a devout Christian, considering his survival to be miraculous. This led to the several films he made with Pirkle, of which If Footmen Tire You... is the best known.

Jeff so loved this cultural oddity that he would return to it periodically, laughing at it each time. He also used the evil commie from the movie as his avatar frequently over the years. That scene is particularly hilarious- the nefarious communist gives the children candy, then has them ask Jesus for candy. You see? You put your faith in Christ and he gives you no candy!

There are so many more movies to talk about, and I will be following this post up in the future periodically with further selections from Jeff's curated collection. I covered some of the big ones here, and I would be remiss if I didn't mention the films of Kenneth Anger, Alejandro Jodorowski, and David Lynch - Those were among Jeff's favorites, and I don't know that I could do them justice here. Suffice to say, the first time I saw Eraserhead it was because Jeff let me borrow his copy... shortly after I found out that I was going to be a father. So, thanks for that, Jeff, where ever you are...

In Heaven, everything is fine...

Who - Or What--- Is "Outreach"?

 A brief post, while I'm thinking about it...

You see, an informant that I'm not at liberty to disclose the name of alerted me to the existence of an "Ultrascout" group ostensibly employed by the Illuminati called Outreach. Of course this peaked my interest, and I made sure my aluminum foil hat was snugly fitted to my head as I intently listened to his story. I ingested multiple grains of salt as he went on. 

I'm not too big on conspiracy theories these days, and my interest in the Illuminati is mostly based on my devout Discordianism. So, thinking I was learning about an offshoot of Operation Mindfuck of which I was previously unaware, I was all ears... but for this particular story, there seemed to be no connection to the principal Discordians I was aware of. Moreover, my informant made me sit up a bit as his recounting of what he knew seemed to genuinely disturb him. If this was a put on, he was doing a fine job as an actor.

Even more disquieting was the fact that every time I'd think "perhaps I'll look into this Outreach organization some more, or put something on my blog about it" my mind would suddenly go blank and I'd get hungry. Only later would I realize that I had intended to research the mysterious group but now found myself in a position where it was really inconvenient. All that I knew, all that I had questions about, would suddenly come back into focus the moment I was leaving for work, or about to go to bed. It was as though someone- or something- was making me forget!

As such I'm hesitant to even publish a blog about it now, but I'm eager to find out if anyone else has heard of these so-called Ultrascouts of the Illuminati. From what I understand, they're responsible for all the menial task the shadowy initiates of Secret Societies don't have time for, and possibly may have gone rogue due to in-fighting within the ranks. I'm even told this group has its origins with Yarmouth druidry in the 1660s, or even earlier in England. Around that time I also became aware of a book which purports to show for the first time pictorial evidence of a cult at Stonehenge who, it seems, were able to conjure UFOs! I'm not sure these things are connected, but it's enough to make one paranoid. In my years on this planet, my paranoia has served me well.

Most astonishing of all, my anonymous informant was able to produce merit badges from the mystery scouts that he had smuggled out somehow. Among these were badges for Hypnotism, Crop Circle Making, Tulpamancy, Flocculation (a term I'm not familiar with and am afraid to look up), and Staring Out the Window. These have the humorous hallmarks of a Discordian prank, but also, if they are serious, the implications are more than a bit unnerving. And further, they seemed to be aged and tattered- they certainly weren't just printed or produced for the sake of a gag. Who would go to those lengths just to mess with me?

I am feeling my eyelids droop as I type now, and will conclude the post before something happens. In addition to my memory issues, I've been suffering odd power outages and weird charges to my cable / internet bill. I suspect some "scout" has been mucking about with my utilities...

If anyone has info on any of this, or suggestions on how to prevent the "memory wipe" effects I've been dealing with, please let me know! 

Yours in the Weird and Hail Eris!

-AP Strange

Elvis by the Numbers or: The King and the Tower of Death

 It's been 45 years since Elvis left the building one final time. August 16, 1977, Elvis Aaron Presley was found dead in the bathroom of his home, Graceland. For millions of fans around the world, this was a dark and life-changing event indeed. One writer named Gail Brewer-Giorgio, who wasn't necessarily a big fan of the King of Rock and Roll, was so moved by the effect that the death of the idol had that she wrote a fictional story that coincidentally mirrored many of the events in Elvis's life. This set in motion the events that led her to write her book Is Elvis Alive? which, along with several other books and groups of dedicated fans led to the belief that the King had merely faked his death. But we're not here to talk about that so much; I would refer you to my appearance on Conspirinormal for that. Today we're talking about the numbers.

"50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong" is a phrase that has stuck in my mind since I heard it as a kid in TV commercials that advertised Elvis box sets while I watched reruns of 60s sitcoms. One can get philosophical about such a statement- does majority opinion really determine actual quality? Or, one can nitpick the numbers to determine how they were generated in the first place. I'm doing neither here, but rather using it to illustrate the importance of numbers on our common perception of people and things. If the box office sales for the 2022 Elvis movie are any indication, the numbers suggest an enduring interest in the King. According to Brewer-Giorgio, Elvis was very concerned with the numbers indeed.

She claims in her book that Elvis had been turned on to the occult science of Numerology by his hair dresser, Larry Geller. He had given the King a copy of Cheiro's Book of Numbers, which, she says, he was so enamored with that he always kept it with him and based his big decisions around dates that the numbers showed to be auspicious for whatever it was that he planned. Naturally, when I learned about this I had to get my own copy of Cheiro's book. 

The above mentioned books in front of my Velvet Elvis. Unfortunately, my copy of Is Elvis Alive? does not have the cassette tape.

Reading Cheiro's Book of Numbers it becomes apparent why it would have struck a particular chord with Elvis, as the author makes specific mention of his birth number. Born January 8, 1935, not only was he saddled with the "peculiar influence" of the number 8 as his birth number, Cheiro also indicates that those born between the 21st of December and the 26th of January are 8s born under the House of Saturn (Positive) which intensifies these peculiar vibrations. These influences make for a particularly fatalistic role of those bearing the birth number to play; they often feel isolated and misunderstood throughout their lives, have intense natures and great passion, and usually will either succeed in the most dramatic ways or fail spectacularly in life. In most cases, Cheiro recommends decisions be made on days that align with your birth number, but in the case of 8s born in January, particularly when they have other 8s and 4s in their chart, it's best to avoid them. He returns to this very specific date range several times throughout the book, and to Elvis it must have seemed that Cheiro was talking directly to him. It's worth mentioning here as well that David Bowie shared Elvis's birthday... make of that what you will. 

Since you can't change what day you were born, Cheiro recommends changing your name if you'd like to change your lucky numbers. Letters can be converted to numbers and added up, and it's possible to affect your fate by calculating a name with the number you wish to have. Much was made of Elvis's birth name being different than the one on his grave marker in Brewer-Giorgio's book, and true-believers have sometimes pointed to the difference in the spelling of his middle name (Aron to Aaron) as a clue that he had not died after all. It seems possible that he changed the spelling of his middle name, which by some accounts occurred around the time Geller introduced him to Numerology, in order to change his lucky numbers. If this indeed is the case, it would have been right before Elvis's big comeback at the end of the 60s. This is a bit odd though, because to Cheiro the name you're most known by is the one that's really important; having your middle name change from a 6 to a 7 shouldn't mean much if nobody calls you by that name. Instead, ELVIS = 18, which reduces to 9 (1+8), as does PRESLEY (27, 2+7=9), and if you add the first and last names you get 45 and then 9 again. 

This brings us back to the date of August 16th. Much speculation about the significance of that date in Is Elvis Alive? is aimed at proving that had Elvis wanted to fake his death, then that would have been the date he would choose to help him succeed. Brewer-Giorgio says that Elvis often expressed that he thought he would die at the same age his mother did (42) and on the same day, August 14th. Through a bunch of playing around with numbers, she determines that although he would have preferred to use August 14th as a date to fake his death, the cosmic influence of that day would not have worked, and that he invariably would have chosen the 16th instead. Having no mastery over Numerology myself, but having read Cheiro's book, I'm not sure her accounting adds up. But let's take a look at what Cheiro wrote about the number 16:

16. This number has a most peculiar occult symbolism. It is pictured by "a Tower Struck by Lightning from which a man is falling with a Crown on his head." It is also called "the Shattered Citadel". 

It gives warning of some strange fatality awaiting one, also danger of accidents and defeat of one's plans. If it appears as a "compound" number relating to the future, it si a warning sign that should be carefully noted and plans made in advance in the endeavour to avert its fatalistic tendency.

So, probably not a great day to plan a cunning deceit like faking one's own death then...

What's striking here though is that Cheiro uses the Tarot's Major Arcana to illustrate the meanings behind the numbers. He is of course referring here to The Tower, numbered 16 in the deck. The image of lightning, which calls to mind Elvis's custom "TCB" symbol, striking a Tower and causing the fall of a crowned figure really is evocative. The simplest meaning of this card in the Tarot is Chaos, but the more nuanced read of it is the clearing away of the old to encourage new growth. As my friend, author and Tarot reader Kiki Dombrowski commented when I shared this on Twitter - "I wonder if we could say that a fairly decent interpretation of the Tower card is 'taking care of business!'"

     Oddly enough, had the date been aligned with Gladys Presley's death date of August 14th, the card that would have been Temperance. As Cheiro explains, it's a number of "movement, combination of people and things... This number is fortunate for dealings with money, speculation, and changes in business..." He adds that there is an element of risk and that caution should be employed when planning for this day.

Now we can get into how odd August 16th is as a death date. The image of a fallen monarch isn't exclusive to the King of Rock and Roll, because just a few years after he was born another King had died on that same day. 

Robert Johnson, sometimes referred to as the King of the Delta Blues Singers, died by poisoning on August 16, 1938, at the age of 27. It can here be noted that 27 reduces to 9, and we again see 9 as significant. Further, Johnson was also in the 8 club, his birth date being May 8, 1911. His early demise makes him perhaps the founding member of the so-called "27 Club" - the odd grouping of musicians who left us at that age. This list includes Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim "The Lizard King" Morrison, and in more recent decades Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse. 

Much of Johnson's life story is mixed up in legends told about him, including the idea that he met the Devil at the Crossroads in order to sell his soul for his guitar playing ability. This story is likely apocryphal, and it's likely that Robert had been confused with another bluesman called Tommie Johnson, for whom that claim had often been made. Still, Robert had songs like "Me and the Devil Blues" which probably didn't help discourage the idea. It's worth noting that the card immediately preceding the Tower in the Major Arcana is The Devil, and Cheiro says of 15 that people born under 4 or 8 can be unscrupulous in employing it. It has an association with "good talkers", musical and artistic gifts, and charisma. So it seems that a bargain with the Devil isn't off the table, in this sense.

Another musical monarch, the Queen of Soul, also died on August 16th. Aretha Franklin was born March 25, 1942, making her birth number a 7 ultimately. 25 is, according to Cheiro, indicative not so much of luck but of strength and benefits through hard work and trials early on. Passing on at age 76, she is the longest-lived of the crowned heads who fell on the 16th. It is odd that this pattern holds up so well, and what it ultimately means is really just a matter of perspective, just as the opinion of 50,000,000 Elvis fans is. 

A few non-musical entries can also be added to this list - Babe Ruth, sometimes called "The King of Swing", the "Sultan of Swat", etc, died August 16th 1948. One could say that numbers were significant with the Great Bambino, as his was the first player number to be retired in his honor. The number 3 was his when he played for the New York Yankees, and it originally signified his place at bat in the line-up. Prior to that, when he played for the Red Sox, players didn't have numbers. His leaving the Sox led to what was called The Curse of the Bambino, an 86 year period during which time Boston never won a world series.

Finally, Bela Lugosi also died on August 16, in 1953. Though not labelled a king of anything, he was pigeon-holed into horror roles after his depiction of Count Dracula. Toward the end of his life, he costarred with the Amazing Criswell in several Ed Wood movies. Criswell's actual name was Jeron Criswell King, and his birthday was August 18th. Close, but no cigar, to the dates already mentioned, but too fun not to include especially since he had the surname 'King'. The 18th of August, 1999 was also when he predicted that the end of the world would occur, after the planet became enveloped inside a "black rainbow". Cheery, that.

On a final and more personal note, August 16th was the birthday of my best friend Jeff Siegrist, who passed away earlier this year. Worcester Magazine was kind enough to publish my tribute to him, and it occurs to me writing this now that I referenced Elvis in that tribute. I also made reference to Jeff's gold jacket, and in finding images for this post the album cover that came up features the King in a gold suit. It's bittersweet, these synchronicities, and although I sometimes worry that I get too granular and go on too long about these things, over all it seems sometimes like reality rhymes with itself quite often. There are systems at work and underlying structures which can only be peripherally perceived; like numbers, they can be played with, made to support the messages we want to hear. My hope is to inspire the reader to consider these odd coincidences and decide for themselves what they mean. I truly hope you take away something useful from this.

That's all for now... and Thank you, thank you very much for reading!