“My life on earth was suddenly brought to a close; and as I departed from the world, I moved rapidly in the direction prompted by my ruling desires. I inwardly desired to be courted, honored, admired—to receive universal adulation, and to be free to follow the perverted inclinations of my proud, rebellious, and pleasure loving heart—a state of existence where all should be pleasure without restraint—where each should be free to obey the promptings of every passion, and where every indulgence should be permitted to the soul, where prayers and religious instructions should find no place—where the Sabbath should not be known—where no rebuke of sin should ever fall—where existence should be spent in gay and festive sports, with no superior and restraining power to molest or interfere. With these desires I entered the spirit world, and passed to the condition adapted to my inward state. I rushed in haste to the enjoyment of the glittering scenes which you now behold. I was welcomed as you have not been, for at once I was recognized as a fit associate by those who here abide. They do not welcome you, for they discern in you an interior desire, adverse to the ruling passions which here prevail.”
Sounds of mingled import—bursts of laughter—utterances of revelry, of gay sport and witty ridicule, and polished sarcasm, and obscene allusions and terrible curses broke upon my ear. These again were intermixed with impure solicitations and backbitings, and hollow compliments, and feigned congratulations, and all in one sparkling brilliancy, agitated the pained, bewildered sense.
As I advanced, I walked as upon scorpions, and trod as amid living embers. The trees that seemed to wave about me were fiery exhalations, and their blossoms the sparklings and the burnings of unremitting flames. Each object I approached by contact created agony.
Realm of Illusion
The phosphorescent glare that surrounded the various objects burned the eye that looked upon them. The fruitage burned the hand that plucked and the lips that received it. The gathered flowers had emitted a burning exhalation, whose fetid and noisome odor, inhaled in the nostrils, caused excruciating pain. The fiery atoms of the atmosphere burned as they were wafted by me. The air and the blast that moved it, alike were burdened with the very elements of disappointment and wretchedness.
Upon turning to see if I could discover a single drop’ of water to allay the fierce and intolerable thirst; fountains appeared, and rivulets flowed amid the herbage, and lay in calm and placid pools. Soon, however, I discovered that these corresponded with the former illusions, and the drops of spray from the sparkling fountains fell like drops of molten lead upon the shrinking form. The flowing rivulets were like the molten river of metallic fire that streams from a furnace seven times heated; and the deep still pools were as the white and waveless silver in some glowing crucible, when every atom is burning with a fierce, intolerable glow.
A Lost Spirit Speaks
When in solemn contemplation of these fearful scenes, a spirit approached me whom I had known on earth. This being appeared externally far more brilliant than when in the body. The form, the countenance, the eyes, the hands, appeared endued with a metallic lustre that varied with every motion and every thought. Accosting me the spirit said:
“Marietta, we are again met. You see me a disembodied spirit, in that abode where those who inwardly deny the Savior find their habitation when their mortal day has ended. Strange emotions agitate your bosom. Thus I felt, looked, wondered, and moved in sad and bewildered anxiety in the hour when my being here discovered the theatre of its present existence. But I experienced that which you have never yet realized in the interior principles of mind. Strange and incontrollable are the emotions causing me to relate that inward sorrow which this brilliant exterior would, if it were possible, conceal.”
And now, dearly departed connectees, as the autumnal shades deepen and the hallowed memories of the haunted past surge and rise from the depths of smiling despair, I present to you further pearls of eternal wisdom to set in your swiftly-corroding crowns of ephemeral earthly joy as you prepare body and soul forAll Hallows Even.
Here are some favorite passages from Scenes From Beyond the Grave
first published in 1865 by Marietta Davis.
I will be sharing these rare jewels with you in a series of posts over the next few days.
Get your Holy Ghost on.
Suddenly a sable veil of nether night appeared to ascend, pervading, and encompassing my being. My inner doubt seemed wrought into a cloud that shut out the upper glory, and the spirit of denial plunged me into the vortex of a deeper gloom. I fell as one precipitated from some dizzy height. The embodiment of darkness opened to receive me. The moving shadow of a more desolate abyss arose like clouds in dense masses of tempestuous gloom; and as I descended, the ever-accumulating weight of darkness pressed more fearfully upon me. At length a nether plain that seemed boundless was imaged upon my sight, which, at a little distance, appeared to be covered with the sparkling semblance of vegetation. Luminous appearances, like waving trees, with resplendent foliage, and flowers and fruits of crystal and of gold, were visible in every direction.
Spirits of the Lost
Multitudes of spirits appeared beneath the umbrage, and luminous mantles were folded about rapidly moving form. Some wore crowns upon their heads; others tiaras; and others decorations of which I knew not the name, but which appeared to be wrought of clusters of jewels, wreaths of golden coin, and cloth of gold and silver tissue. Others, wore towering helmets; and others circlets filled with gistening and waving plumes. A pale phosphorescence was emitted by every object, and all appeared a splendid masquerade. The apparel worn by these busy myriads corresponded with the ornaments of the head; hence every variety of sumptuous apparel was displayed upon their forms. Kings and queens appeared arrayed in the gorgeous robes of coronation. Groups of nobility of both sexes, also decorated with all the varieties of adornment displayed in the pageantry of kingly courts. Dense multitudes were visible in costume, proper to the highly cultivated nations; and as they passed by, I discovered similar groups composed of less civilized tribes, attired in barbaric ornaments of every form. While some appeared clothed in the habiliments of the present day, others were in ancient attire; but every class of spirits manifested, in the midst of variety of mode, a uniformity of external pride, pomp, and rapidly moving and dazzling luster.
Today some reflections on All Hallows Even AKA Halloween AKA Reformation Day along with poetry by Siouxsie and the Banshees.
I also present to you my brand-new global graphics® line of festive Mark-of-the-Beast skulls for the season. (They may be purchased as a set or separately for 30 shekels each).
October 31st is a night to celebrate —to celebrate Absolute Truth. It is a night to clearly grasp the sinister magnitude of the predicament fallen humanity is in. We are a species terrorized by death every day – not only on the last night of October. Yet, since we are conditioned to fear and repress the reality of mortality in our sick culture, it gathers subliminal intensity only to surface in a collective psychosis and hypoglycemic spending orgy every Halloween. Consumer marketing strategies enhance and augment, in a soulless way, this national delirium. Our vulgar seasonal spectacle is now made in China.
I have noted, in my few years of this earthly pilgrimage, a distressing degeneration of Halloween from what it was in my childhood. I recall less commercial pressure to consume – whether nutritionally worthless [pre-diabetic even] sugary treats or morbid costumes and plastic props with murderous connotations. Halloween was less of an unrepentant death-trip then, it was less graphically gruesome. I remember my mother helping me turn my childish costume fantasies into reality: I was a robot, I was a bat, I was the Mummy ( I wear my memories like a shroud…) trailing Egyptian linen many autumn moons past. There was more child-friendly fantasy when I was growing up. The culture had not yet begun to harden into a crassly consumerist rigor mortis yet – or maybe I didn’t notice that part of it so much. Am I just idealizing a vanished past? Possibly, yes… but the push to turn Halloween into a cannibalistic slasher-film is a real phenomenon and also a discernible symptom.
Strange that it is most pronounced in the decadent industrialized Western Democracies where the majority live quite comfortably. Poorer nations that live in closer proximity to death seem to glamorize it far less, it seems to me.
I for one am disgusted with the spectacle of Halloween in the USA. But I hold a grudging respect for what looks like a passing victory for death and the grave every year on the last gasp of October. How do I personally war against the dumbing- down/bloodying-up of Halloween here in the Land of the supposedly Free? Like all other grouchy sensible old men, I rail to my family about how it used to be. I give out treats that won’t worsen the pre-diabetic tendencies of the nation’s children. I compliment all the Princesses, Animals, Witches, Robots, Fairies, Superheros and Star Wars defenders on their costumes. I ignore the obnoxious older kids who look like Freddy Kruger or worse. I sometimes slip a gospel tract into the child’s bag. (Yeah, that was me – go ahead, get mad…)
In honor of my three patron saints, St. Martin Luther,St. John Calvin and St. JohnKnox (all recently canonized by His Holiness Pope Ratzinger), I want to proclaim the ongoing triumph of the Reformation. October 31, “Reformation Day“, is a national day of celebration in Germany, Slovenia, Chile, and Scandinavia – and it should be here in the US of A as well. It is a day to thank God for the liberation of His Word from hieratic pomp and empty ritual. It is a night to clothe yourself in liberty and consider the fall of nations along with the fall of the leaves. It is a night to see the light of unstoppable Truth glowing in the eyes of every Jack-O-Lantern you behold. It is a night to comprehend the shining of Christ’s victory in the face of the marshaled powers of the grave. The wages of sin is death (the bitter) but the gift of God is eternal life (the sweet).
Halloween by Siouxsie and the Banshees:
The night is still, and the frost it bites my face I wear my silence like a mask and murmur like a ghost…
“Trick or Treat – Trick or Treat” The bitter and the sweet
The carefree days are distant now I wear my memories like a shroud I try to speak but words collapse, echoing, echoing….
“Trick or Treat – Trick or Treat” The bitter and the sweet
I wander though your sadness Gazing at you with scorpion eyes Halloween……Halloween
A sweet reminder in the ice-blue nursery Of a childish murder – of hidden luster, and she cries:
“Trick or Treat – Trick or Treat” The bitter and the sweet
I wander through your sadness Gazing at you with scorpion eyes Halloween, Halloween
CONNECT/HOOK 