It’s always interesting living and working in Salem (although I don’t live there anymore technically). We’ve all become used to the witches and how they’re treated as mainstream. We’re told that Wicca is just another religion, nothing sinister or unusual. Paganism is a religion of peace, we’re told. And so, in the spirit of tolerance and diversity, we’re supposed to accept them. (I wonder if there will be a witch at the next Assisi peace meeting.)
Now that witchcraft is humdrum, how can we push the envelope further? How about vampirism?On Halloween, a group of witches will be holding a vampires’ masquerade ball in Salem. The posters advertising it went up around town. They depict a scantily clad woman with her neck and chest covered in blood and advertise that flogging and a “burlesque” show will be featured. The organizers of the event claim that there is a thriving subculture of 1,000 vampires between Salem and Boston and that a key part of the festivities is the connection between blood and sex.
Vampires, folks. In case you weren’t aware, there are people who believe themselves to be or at least pretend to be vampires. They don’t go biting people on the neck, but they obtain human blood and consume it. Some of them wear fake fangs, while some go whole hog and have their own teeth surgically altered.
I don’t know. This sounds more stupid than anything else to me (a reversal of the Mark Shea motto… Being stupid makes you sin.)
I know lots of people who got pierced and tattooed in an effort to come across as more interesting, and the more bizarre they made themselves look, the more dull I thought them to be. Because obviously they have to go to extremes to look like there’s anything there.
It’s the old childish “Look at me! Look at me!”
It’s not a lifestyle. It’s an act. People are doing this just to try to shock. I’m not shocked, I’m disgusted. And again, my first reaction is “Stupid.”
Where oh where are they getting the blood? The American Red Cross can’t even guarantee you won’t get some disease from a transfusion but at least they try to screen it. People who live that lifestyle aren’t the safest bet – I guess that’s part of the allure – risk.
the local Unitarians in Stamford have a significant number of “Wiccans” in their congregation. Fortunately, when the Cornerstone Church of God people take over the Church in the PM, they blast out the demons with that great gospel music!
and check out the recent goth girl dell commercial…
Fwiw, we used to have a Goth boy attending the T-Mass in Boston. He was quite devout.
When this thing we call civilization finally collapses (we’re on the way to that in slow motion), your mind will be boggled at the variety of evils people can come up with.
In third world countries they know this. They are jealous of our *magic* for success and if they manage to destroy/dilute/bastardize our culture, they will be shocked because it will look even more like *magic* in retrospect when it is gone, even from us. If they dress us down somehow and get to the bottom of us, they will be able to see nothing but the Christian us, whom they hate. It will confound them.
Only a few of us will still carry what it is—the so called *magic*—-Christians. Because Christianity and the culture it fosters is the *magic* which isn’t magic at all, but the good that comes from God. Our legacy from the Catholic church and Charlemagne.
When the hate fades, and the despair builds, we will be back, just like the first time—IF the world is still here.