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Alyson Dunlop's Blog

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Alyson Dunlop's Blog

Tag Archives: God

Scapegoating “Satanic” Sex Cults in the Sixties and Seventies

17 Friday May 2013

Posted by Alyson Dunlop Shanes in Uncategorized

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Aleister Crowley, astrology, atheist, Baphomet, Beelzebub, Beltaine, Beltane, Black Death, Brighid, Britt Ekland, Christopher Lee, City of the Dead, cults, Dennis Wheatley, Dogmas and Rituals of High Magic, dragons, Druids, Edward Woodward, Eliphas Levi, Emily Johnson, esoteric, fertility, Gallic Wars, Gerald Gardner, God, Goddess, Great Plague, Greek, Green Man, healing, Helen Duncan, heterosexual, homosexual, Horror, hypnosis, Imbolc, Jane York, Julius Caesar, Kafka, Knight's Templar, Lucifer, Magi, magic, Malleus Maleficarum, masturbation, May Day, Mendes, Mia Farrow, monotheist, Nods to the Old Gods, occult, pagan, Peaches Geldof, persecution, Persian priests, phallic, polytheist, power, reincarnation, Religion, Rome, Rosemary's Baby, Satan, satanic, scapegoat, Sex, sexually repressed, skyclad, snakes, spiritualist church, Spring Equinox, standing stones, Summer Isle, Summer Solstice, superstition, symbolism, The Devil Rides Out, The Goat of Mendes, The Great Beast 666, The May Pole, The Wicker Man, The Woman Who Came Back, Thelema, Venus, Victorian, Willow, witchcraft, Witchcraft Act, wizard, zodiac

Horror stories have always represented the fears of society, in exactly the same way as religious belief often mirrors the secular world. For example, superstitions changed during the outbreak of the Great Plague, when people began to blame the unexplained deaths on human sin and witchcraft (Malleus Maleficarum Part 1, Q XV)

Human beings have always had a bit of a negative obsession about the Other in society. Time and again we have scapegoated anyone who is different. Since ancient times, we’ve ridiculed and persecuted anyone who does not have the same beliefs as ourselves. The truth is, we are all very similar in all the ways that matter. We are all made up of the same stuff.

Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs,
dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with
the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject
to the same diseases, heal’d by the same means,
warm’d and cool’d by the same winter and summer
as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?
If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us,
do we not die?
(The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare)

We often give different names for the same things that we each call truth, but decry another for using unusual terminology to describe. It doesn’t take much scratching of the surface to reveal that we are often talking about the same thing. The ancient Greeks coined the phrase ‘magic’ from the Magi, the Persian priests, whose customs were too strange for the Greeks to understand were holy in nature.

I hear Peaches Geldof has joined a sex cult. Shock, horror! She is now a believer in Thelema, the religion founded by occultist Aleister Crowley, who practised sex magic, with apparent “secret sexual techniques for masturbation, heterosexual and homosexual sex” (Guardian, author anonymous). Well…there’s only so much you can do, but I’m guessing we have to take into account the time that Aleister Crowley was practising his esoteric knowledge. This would have been right, slap bang, in the middle of sexually repressed Victorian times. Thank goodness we’ve evolved our notions of sexuality and what constitutes “perverse”.

Aleister Crowley died in 1947, with a reputation as The Great Beast 666, a name he positively lapped up. In 1944, a few years before his death, Helen Duncan, a psychic, was prosecuted and imprisoned under the 1735 Witchcraft Act for revealing wartime secrets. Six months later, in September 1944, Jane York (72) was also prosecuted under the same Act and in December of that year Emily Johnson of Redhill Spiritualist Church was given a severe warning by police. They told her she would be prosecuted if she did not stop her “activities”. The Act actually strove to stamp out the belief in witchcraft amongst the educated in society, but it was possible to prosecute people for pretending to “exercise or use any kind of witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment, or conjuration, or undertake to tell fortunes”.

Woman Who Came Back

Click picture to view

The prosecutions sparked off the creative minds in America, and the following year John H Kafka came up with the story for The Woman Who Came Back (1945). The unfortunate heroine, Lorna, finds herself the scapegoat of the townspeople and is accused of witchcraft for everything that goes wrong. It doesn’t help matters that a coincidental meeting and accident has caused Lorna to suspect they could well be right. Thankfully by the end no one believes in witchcraft. Phew!

By 1951, the Witchcraft Act was repealed and replaced by the Fraudulent Mediums Act, and the previously “underground” Craft of Wicca began to flourish, led by Gerald Gardner. Of course, ignorance breeds fear and, as I have mentioned, fear breeds the practice of scapegoating. By the 1960s movies on the subject of the occult began to get filmed, particularly anything to do with covens and Satanic devil-worshippers. A second wave of witchhunts began, this time within horror movies. City of the Dead (1960) with Christopher Lee paved the way for the paranoia about anything to do with witchcraft. In 1968, two very popular films in the genre were screened: Dennis Wheatley’s The Devil Rides Out and Rosemary’s Baby. Five years later, in 1973 The Wicker Man was filmed. Many more followed, but these are the main ones that set witchcraft and paganism against Christian morality and ethics, at least in the minds of the Christian audience.

Click picture to view

Click picture to view

The City of the Dead, starring Christopher Lee, is about a student who goes to a small town to find out information about witchcraft for her studies. Little does she realise that the townspeople are all evil devil-worshipping witches, who make lots of sacrifices, especially around about the time of Candlemas. Candlemas is a Christian festival for a start. It is the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin. However, in the pagan religion it is the festival of Imbolc, and marks the beginning of spring. It is associated with the virgin goddess, Brighid. We can clearly see here a distinct similarity between the purified virgin and the virgin goddess.

Nods to the Old Gods

Click picture to read preview

Lucifer is also mentioned in this film, and has long been synonymous with the Devil and his many other names: Satan, Beelzebub etc. In Nods to the Old Gods I have explained briefly that Lucifer’s name means “light bearer”, and that it was the name given to the dawn appearance of the planet Venus, which heralds daylight. Early Luciferians – devotees of the god Lucifer – worshipped dragons and snakes, as well as the sun. In more advanced ancient civilisations, dragons and snakes were not perceived as evil. In fact, they were often associated with power and healing.

Click on picture to view

Click on picture to view “The Devil Rides Out”

The opening sequence to The Devil Rides Out is full of imagery usually associated with magic, Satanism and astrology. Set to the background music, which is horrific and scary, it seems we are to imagine all these images are too. The zodiac signs are used in this sequence, and then again at the end, on the sacrificial altar of the devil worshippers. Also, in the opening sequence we are introduced to Baphomet, who will later appear on the floor of the observatory and again at the orgiastic party. He is a goat-headed being, referred to as “The Goat of Mendes” by Christopher Lee. The reality is that most modern scholars now agree “Baphomet” is a corruption of “Muhammad”. Baphomet was the name of the idol the Knight’s Templars were accused of worshipping in the 14th century. It is thought that during their occupation of the Outremer, they had begun to incorporate Islamic ideas into their belief system. This, the Inquisition of course declared to be heretical.

In the 19th century, Baphomet became more associated with the occult (the name occult means “hidden”, as in “hidden knowledge”). In 1854, Eliphas Lévi published Dogmas and Rituals of High Magic in which he drew his image of Baphomet. This image is the best-known picture of Baphomet (see below).

Baphomet by Eliphas Lévi

Baphomet by Eliphas Lévi

Lévi considered his Baphomet to be a depiction of the absolute in symbolic form:

The goat on the frontispiece carries the sign of the pentagram on the forehead, with one point at the top, a symbol of light, his two hands forming the sign of occultism, the one pointing up to the white moon of Chesed, the other pointing down to the black one of Geburah. This sign expresses the perfect harmony of mercy with justice. His one arm is female, the other male like the ones of the androgyne of Khunrath, the attributes of which we had to unite with those of our goat because he is one and the same symbol. The flame of intelligence shining between his horns is the magic light of the universal balance, the image of the soul elevated above matter, as the flame, whilst being tied to matter, shines above it. The beast’s head expresses the horror of the sinner, whose materially acting, solely responsible part has to bear the punishment exclusively; because the soul is insensitive according to its nature and can only suffer when it materializes. The rod standing instead of genitals symbolizes eternal life, the body covered with scales the water, the semi-circle above it the atmosphere, the feathers following above the volatile. Humanity is represented by the two breasts and the androgyne arms of this sphinx of the occult sciences.

The appearance of Basphomet in The Devil Rides Out is referred to as The Goat of Mendes, a name which Lévi also used to describe Baphomet. Herodotus described the god of Mendes (in Egypt) as having a goat’s face and legs, and that male goats were held in high regard by the Mendesians. E A Wallis Budge writes:

At several places in the Delta, e.g. Hermopolis, Lycopolis, and Mendes, the god Pan and a goat were worshipped; Strabo, quoting (xvii. 1, 19) …The Mendisians, according to this last writer, paid reverence to all goats, and more to the males than to the females, and particularly to one he-goat, on the death of which public mourning is observed throughout the whole Mendesian district; they call both Pan and the goat Mendes, and both were worshipped as gods of generation and fecundity. Diodorus (i. 88) compares the cult of the goat of Mendes with that of Priapus, and groups the god with the Pans and the Satyrs. The goat referred to by all these writers is the famous Mendean Ram, or Ram of Mendes, the cult of which was, according to Manetho, established by Kakau, the king of the IInd dynasty.

Lévi’s Baphomet became an important figure within Aleister Crowley’s mystical system of Thelema. For Crowley, The Devil is the God of any people that one personally dislikes. Baphomet represents life, love, light and liberty.

There are a couple of interesting points about The Devil Rides Out, particularly the character of Duc de Richleau (Lee), who has knowledge of esoteric scriptures which he has taken the time to memorise. Like the bad guy, Mocata, Richleau also has the ability to use both hypnosis and magic, which he utilises to defeat the powers of darkness. Furthermore, as Mocata raises the angel of death, Richleau manages to raise the dead, bringing Tanith into the body of his niece and commanding her to do his will. He even manages to re-write history and turn back time with his magic. Although not explicit in the film, Richleau, to all intents and purposes, is a most powerful wizard who has the knowledge and ability to use the highest of magic.

Cleverly, and most importantly, however, is the fact that the makers of the film have also brainwashed the audience into believing exactly what they want them to believe with the imagery they use….

Click photo to watch "Rosemary's Baby"

Click photo to watch “Rosemary’s Baby”

The same year, Rosemary’s Baby also hit cinemas. The heroine, Rosemary (Mia Farrow), becomes pregnant after having a weird lucid dream in which she imagines herself to copulate with the Devil. Controlled by her doctor and eccentric neighbour, Minnie, Rosemary becomes more and more isolated from all her friends. The climax, as Roman tells her, is that Satan is her son’s father.

In Nods to the Old Gods, I explain that Ha-Satan is usually translated as “adversary” (i.e. of God). In Arabic the term Shaitan means “astray” or “distant”. In the Quran, after Iblis refuses to bow to Adam with the rest of the angels, he becomes known as Shaitan, meaning “enemy”, “evil”, “rebel”, “devil”. In the Baha’i faith, however, Satan is not regarded as an independent evil power, but signifies the lower nature of human beings i.e. the evil ego within us. In conjunction with what we know of his relationship to Pan (the goat-headed fertility god of the ancient Greeks), it would seem that Satan also represents inner sexual instincts. In Rosemary’s Baby he is the sexual force used to impregnate her with the child of the Devil. The ultimate challenge for Rosemary is whether or not her maternal instinct will be powerful enough to overcome the revulsion she feels towards a child whose father is Satan.

Click photo to view "The Wicker Man"

Click photo to view “The Wicker Man”

In 1973, The Wicker Man gave an impression of pagan religions which has been hard to get rid of. Edward Woodward plays a cop who goes off to Summer Isle to investigate the disappearance of a little girl, Rowan Morrison. What he encounters are the uncooperative inhabitants of the island who seem intent on thwarting the policeman’s investigation.

He stays at the Green Man’s Inn, where he meets more of the weird townsfolk who proceed to sing a rather raunchy song to the landlord’s daughter, Willow (Britt Ekland), which perturbs the prudish Christian Sergeant Howie. He is further angered and unsettled by seeing couples having sex in a field outside, and a naked woman crying over the grave of her (presumably) dead husband.

The naked Willow sings a Siren’s song to try to entice the sexually suppressed and sweating virgin, Howie. However, he is engaged to another and believes sex before marriage to be wrong. He manages to withstand her charms, but more sex and frivolity are to follow. The following day is May Day Eve, and begins with boys dancing round a Maypole. He overhears the local school teacher explaining that the Maypole symbolises the penis, “venerated in religions such as ours as the generative force in nature” to which Howie makes it clear he is absolutely disgusted. Howie interprets the beliefs and teachings as “degeneracy, indecency, corruption and filth”. On discovering Rowan’s name in the school register, the teacher is forced to explain to Howie that when a person dies the belief of the Summer Isle inhabitants is that they return to nature: to air, to fire, to trees, to water, to animals. She explains that the children find it easier to understand reincarnations rather than resurrection.

Further investigations lead Howie to the residence of Lord Summerisle. On the way, he witnesses a strange ritual with naked women dancing round the fire within a circle of standing stones. Howie argues that the people of the island are practising false religion and false biology by believing in reproduction without intercourse. Lord Summerisle responds that Jesus himself was born of a virgin and a ghost. One belief is no less ridiculous than the other.

As Howie gets more and more angry, Lord Summerisle and the other residents seem to become more and more pleasant and happy. Throughout the film we hear about the sun god, the goddess of the field, the idea of sacrifice in order to gain a good harvest, John Barleycorn (the life of the fields) and the salmon of knowledge. The climax is a virgin sacrifice burned within the confines of a giant wicker man.

Is this what we pagans get up to? Well, no, not quite. Neo-paganism is based on the Old Religions and the practices depicted in the film are either twisted versions of the truth or complete nonsense in the modern age. It is true that the May Pole is a phallic symbol. In many ancient cultures, such as Rome, the penis was venerated as a potent fertility symbol and it wouldn’t have been unusual to see phallic symbols above doors, for example. It is only in modern times that our Christianised culture has forbidden us to worship such things.

The May Pole

The May Pole

Beltaine is an important date in the pagan calendar. It is on 30th April, the eve before May Day until May Day Night, and it is associated with sex and fertility. It is between the Spring Equinox (21st March) and the Summer Solstice (21st June), and it marks the beginning of summer. It was originally a Gaelic festival when symbolic fire rituals were performed to protect the cattle and people, and to encourage crops to grow. Flowers were displayed, and young girls washed their face in the May Day dew. A custom which sometimes still carries on to this day! I remember doing this when I was a young girl.

Nowadays, we generally don’t have much opportunity or requirement for driving cattle between two bonfires for cleansing and protection. We might wish for crops or plants to grow, though, and some pagan rituals might request that the Goddess of the Grain makes our land fertile. Pagans are very individual. Some might take a walk in nature, enjoying the changing seasons and lighting a candle, perhaps saying a prayer, performing a small ritual to mark the occasion or take a trip to Edinburgh to watch the Beltane Fire Festival. Some pagans choose Beltaine to marry, or consummate a relationship, because of its association with love and fertility. A few do carry out rituals naked or ‘skyclad’, but not all. In fact, not many. Most rituals are done robed. However, skyclad rituals are not frowned upon. The pagan ethic tends to be “each to their own”.

Beltane Fire Festival, Edinburgh

Beltane Fire Festival, Edinburgh

We don’t all believe in reincarnation, although some do. Paganism is so varied and there is no dogma to insist that you believe one thing over another. In fact, you can be pagan and a monotheist (one god), polytheist (many gods) or atheist (no god(s)). Paganism allows you to revere nature, and be of a scientific disposition at the same time, but for those who wish to believe in a god they can. This might seem strange, but we once did all live in harmony, with communities deciding which gods they would worship. Just because someone worshipped one god, did not necessarily mean they did not believe in the existence of the other gods. It seems to me that this system makes for a more harmonious existence amongst the cultures of the world. If we could all accept that we each have our own very different perspective of the world, we might at last live in harmony. Live and let live, as the saying goes!

As for the Wicker Man, there is only one account which alleges it was used by the Druids for human sacrifice. This was written by Julius Caesar in his Commentary on the Gallic War. The Druids may have used ritual sacrifice as a means of executing criminals, but whether they used a giant wicker man to do so is highly debateable. Nowadays, no humans are ever sacrificed, and animal sacrifice is frowned upon by the majority of pagan and magical communities and practitioners. Furthermore, most pagans do not believe in the Christian devil, as he is a later invention and stems from many of the early pagan gods who were misunderstood and, therefore, demonised as time went on. However, there are some people who practise both Christian and pagan religion, celebrating both Christian and pagan feast days. This is probably very similar to how it would have been in the early Celtic Christian world, when we learned to live side by side and more in harmony with each other. What went wrong?

If you think scapegoating doesn’t happen nowadays, you are very wrong. Children are named as witches, ostracised and attacked in parts of Africa, blamed for bringing bad luck to their villages. Just as alarming, is the fact that we don’t have to look much further than our own backyard to find that in British society the sick, disabled and immigrants are having the finger of blame pointed in their direction for all the ills of our desperate economic situation. Like in horror films depicting ancient gods as demonic, the public are often not aware of the level of brainwashing they are receiving, whilst innocent people suffer and die. Suicides have risen in the UK, as the poor find themselves more and more in debt, whilst the tax-avoiding rich are become richer. If you don’t see something very wrong with that, then you have indeed been brainwashed; and you are taking part in the age old practise of scapegoating.

Until next week, I hope we all see the light.

Your friend, A.D.

REFERENCES

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/shortcuts/2013/apr/15/peaches-geldof-aleister-crowley-sex-cult-oto

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/jan/24/comment.comment3 by Vanessa Chambers 24/1/2007

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Wicca

http://altreligion.about.com/od/symbols/a/baphomet.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baphomet

http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/mm/mm01_15a.htm

VIDEOS

http://viooz.co/movies/1721-rosemarys-baby-1968.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJXl_gckMiU&wide=1

http://nobuffer.info/pl.php?url=19EE7B1849C4169D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kw9H6jDrVE

http://viooz.co/movies/1683-the-wicker-man-1973.html

OTHER FILMS

http://www.imdb.com/list/zti3t-aeJME/

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Werewolves: Narrative and Symbolism in Film and Literature

29 Friday Mar 2013

Posted by Alyson Dunlop Shanes in Uncategorized

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Tags

allegory, anarchy, Berserkers, bitten, classics, criminal, curse, delinquency, Devil, film, folk lore, folktales, forest, full moon, fury, God, hallucinogens, Herodotus, hooliganism, hypertrichosis, infection, literature, Luna, Lupa, lycanthrope, lycanthropy, Madness, menstruation, metamorphosis, Norse, Ovid, Pausanius, pentagram, Petronius, Pliny the Elder, pornography, prostitute, psychiatric illness, puberty, scratched, sexual, symbolism, transformation, tranvestitism, Viking, Virgil, werecats, werejaguars, werelions, weretigers, werewolves, witches

werewolf

By Sergey Kalinen

Werewolves!  Where does one start?!  These supernatural creatures have as vast and varied a history as vampires, probably even more so.  Early tales of transformation from man to wolf, can be read in the classical literature of Herodotus, Pausanius, Ovid, Virgil, Pliny the Elder and Petronius.

Depending on which part of the world you live in, the curse of the werewolf is either given by God or the Devil. Also, depending on which part of the world you live in, humans may metamorphose into any number of creatures.  In Europe, and subsequently Canada via Viking migration, America via European migration, Haiti via French migration etc, wolves are the most likely     were-animal.  Were-cats are also mentioned in the texts.  In Europe they are mostly associated with witches, whereas in Africa and Asia they are mostly associated with big cats – weretigers and werelions.  Werejaguars are also mentioned in the Americas.  In Thailand, there are even folk tales of werecrocodiles!

There seems to generally be a big difference between werewolves of film and werewolves of literature.  For example, in film werewolves are most often infected or cursed from being bitten or scratched by another werewolf.  In literature, they are cursed through a pact with the Devil, parentage or because they have a psychiatric illness (lycanthropy); also, in literature, religious symbols are usually no protection whereas, for example, a pentagram was used in the film An American Werewolf in London.  Traditionally used as a symbol for protection, it is often misunderstood to mean something Satanic.  In later (20th century) literature, the silver bullet was added as a means of killing a werewolf.  Prior to that, wolfsbane and exorcism were often tried on people believed to be lycanthropes.

From the original texts to current visual storytelling, it should by now be obvious that werewolves represent many varied things, and I’m not going to get too arsy about the differences because as I see it, most stories evolve and metamorphose themselves in the process.  Plus, films have to be written by someone before being put on the screen….

It has been suggested that rabies is one origin of werewolf beliefs.  It’s a great hypothesis, and there are several aspects of infection and symptom that would suggest this theory is correct.  Even though being bitten and infected was a later addition, and not present in origin myths and legends, the infection does curse the victim to a state of madness and is also often associated with canines.

Another possibility for the origins of the werewolf legends lies with the medical condition hypertrichosis.  This condition is caused by a genetic mutation of chromosomes, as well as various diseases such as cancer and anorexia.  In the most severe cases, the face and body are covered in thick hair, giving a very animalistic appearance.  In days gone by, people who suffered from this condition often ended up in circus shows, labelled with such names as “Wolf Man”.

Thirdly, The Berserkers, were Viking warriors described in Old Norse literature who dressed in wolf and bear skins.  They were said to enter an almost uncontrollable, trance-like fury, thought by some historians to be induced by drugs.  In one saga, they are described as being “tasters of blood”.  Their fit of madness is described here:

This fury, which was called berserkergang, occurred not only in the heat of battle, but also during laborious work. Men who were thus seized performed things which otherwise seemed impossible for human power. This condition is said to have begun with shivering, chattering of the teeth, and chill in the body, and then the face swelled and changed its colour. With this was connected a great hot-headedness, which at last gave over into a great rage, under which they howled as wild animals, bit the edge of their shields, and cut down everything they met without discriminating between friend or foe. When this condition ceased, a great dulling of the mind and feebleness followed, which could last for one or several days.(1)

This is interesting, in that not only do the Berserkers transform in the same way as werewolves do, but they are also weak when the effects wear off, in the same way that werewolves appear to be weak when they transform back to their human form.  The state of going ‘berserk’ is explored in Finding Delphi, when one of the protagonists is forced to confront his past and the guilt that remains with him because of his actions.  The effects of a hallucinogen experienced by him and other protagonists in the story, cause him to shapeshift into various animals, including a wolf.

The werewolf, in storytelling, has to be some part of the human being – a part of us which is deep-rooted and potentially accessible.  In some cases, it could be madness, and we have the full moon symbolism to thank for the association with the lunatic.  The word luna is Latin for moon and the goddess of the moon.  It is also, incidentally, the alchemical name for silver!  The full moon has long been associated with psychiatric illness.  It has never been proven to be anything more than a mythical link, although there is no accounting for the effect belief has on a subject.  In American Werewolf in London, the unfortunate David Kessler suffers psychologically through nightmares and supposed hallucinations, after straying off the path onto the moors, disregarding the full moon and being attacked by a werewolf which kills his friend, Jack, and turns David into a werewolf.  His reign of terror throughout the streets of London seems to be linked to delinquency and hooliganism, with some transvestism, anarchy and porn thrown in for comic effect.   In this case, the werewolf is the parts of an eighties society that London was either uncomfortable with or did not take very seriously, possibly both.  Certainly it represents the ‘Other’ in that society.

As well as furious, strange and criminal behaviour, the werewolf represents our most base instincts; our untamed wildness.  It represents the animal side of our nature.  It is really what is going on, or what we have the potential for, underneath our civilised exterior.  Of course, this includes our sexual nature which seems to have been demonised some couple of thousand years ago….  In very ancient times, the wolf was associated with prostitution, and this is one theory for the background story of the wolf that raised Romulus and Remus, the founding brothers of Rome – that is, that Lupa may in fact have been a prostitute.

Folk tales, such as Little Red Riding Hood, are full of amazing allegory, warning unsuspecting adolescent girls of the dangers of not sticking to “the path”.  In the original fairytale there is a clear distinction between the safety of the village and the dangers of the forest.  The tale is symbolic of an innocent female victim being lured by a dangerous male criminal from a place of safety to a place of isolation.  Charles Perrault, writer of the earliest version (1697) explicitly explained the meaning of the story at the end:

From this story one learns that children, especially young lasses, pretty, courteous and well-bred, do very wrong to listen to strangers, And it is not an unheard thing if the Wolf is thereby provided with his dinner. I say Wolf, for all wolves are not of the same sort; there is one kind with an amenable disposition – neither noisy, nor hateful, nor angry, but tame, obliging and gentle, following the young maids in the streets, even into their homes. Alas! Who does not know that these gentle wolves are of all such creatures the most dangerous!

There is no doubt in my mind that Little Red Riding Hood is a warning to pubescent girls on the awakening of sexual maturity, the red cloak symbolising the blood of menstruation; the wolf, therefore, a sexual predator.

The literary tale was beautifully brought to life in Company of Wolves, which was an absolute dream for the discerning symbologist (yes, I know it’s a made up title – please don’t write in!).  Unlike the fairytale the charismatic wolf is first encountered as a Prince Charming, later metamorphosing into a wolf.  Throughout the story there are several transformations from human to wolf, introduced through other folk tales within the story.  The main point, according to the old-fashioned thinking of her grandmother’s generation, is for Rosaleen (Red Riding Hood) to be wary of wandering off the path (of righteousness) as there are wicked men ready to take advantage of her.  However, Rosaleen’s mother has a different attitude.  Nowadays it’s okay to run off with the man (or werewolf!) you love.

I leave you with one of my favourite quotes, and the moral of the story, from Charles Perrault’s Little Red Riding Hood:

Little girls, this seems to say,
Never stop upon your way,
Never trust a stranger-friend;
No one knows how it will end.
As you’re pretty so be wise;
Wolves may lurk in every guise.
Handsome they may be, and kind,
Gay, and charming – never mind!
Now, as then, ‘tis simple truth –
Sweetest tongue has sharpest tooth!

Until next week, stick to the path and beware the moon!  Your friend,  A.D.

Footnotes

(1)    Fabing, Howard D. (1956) On Going Berserk: A Neurochemical Inquiry in Scientific Monthly 83 [Nov.] 234.

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