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?

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          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

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          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

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          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.

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