Hemingway's Chair- Lesson Two- The Magic of a Secret Identity

Everyone Likes a Man in a Suit

*****

Ricci descended the chipped concrete steps to the landing where Mr. Chirac waited. In the darkness, he could see a lighter flare and the tip of a cigarette glow with both life and death. In the dim light, Ricci edged slowly downward, his right hand locking on a rusty smelling handrail to keep from breaking his neck. Mr. Chirac was a taller darkness within restless shadows.

“Complications?" asked Mr. Chirac.

Ricci stopped when he reached the landing. His muscled bulk seem to shrink in the presence of his employer.

“Went pretty much the way you laid it out,” said Ricci.

“And our dear friend?” asked Chirac politely.

“He died in the fire. Didn't wake up in time. I took the chair back like you said to, though.”

“And where is the great man’s seat now?”

“In the van.”

“So, just so.”

“Don’t I always do like you say?”

After an attenuated pause interrupted only by the night breathing in and out like a patient hovering on the edge of death, Mr. Chirac spoke.

“Do I detect a slight sadness in your voice, Ricci? Amazing, really, a killer such as yourself- who spent twelve long years in prison- and yet you still have your sensitivities. I fear I shall never understand humanity.”

“I think you got us down pretty pat, Mr. Chirac,” said Ricci.

In the darkness, Ricci could see a momentary glint of teeth.

“So. Just so. Perhaps you are right. However, was there not something else you were to return to me?”

“Yeah, I got it,” said Ricci. He took a piece of paper from his jacket and handed it over to the man wrapped in darkness.

After a few minutes of silence, Mr. Chirac laughed and then breathed a refined, dismissive sigh. Ricci’s stomach turned sour. The smell of fear floated through the night air like a crematorium's effluent.

“So. Just so. How perfectly appropriate. A suicide note. Of all the things that the great Papa should feel compelled to detail for us moments before his second death, he decides upon this.”

Ricci looked away.

“C'est la vie,” said Mr. Chirac.

A second later, a flame ignited from the dark man's lighter, and the page was orange-red fire. Mr. Chirac held it for an impossibly long time, past the moment that Ricci himself could have done so. He watched it burn to nothing in the man’s hand. When the flame disappeared, Mr. Chirac blew on the embers to dissipate the ashes into the cold gray night like tiny wisps of burned-out fog.

Sometimes, on nights like the night when Alvin Jester shot himself thinking he was Hemingway, Ricci missed his prison cell very much.

*****

"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players." excerpted from Shakespeare's "As You Like It," circa 1600.


"In beggar's rags most men are beggars; in kingly robes most men could be kings." excerpted from "Bunker Bean," the 1912 novel by Harry Leon Wilson.

*****

At one time or another in their life, everyone wants to dress up and act like they're someone else. Why is that and what does it do for us? The answer is at the heart of the second lesson of Hemingway's Chair.


But first, do you remember Diana Prince? Why not? She was a wonderful person and was a very pretty woman in a downplayed, mousy sort of way.


But everyone remembers Wonder Woman. Diana Prince was, of course, her secret identity.



Wonder Woman is absolutely unforgettable. Then again, I'm a guy.



Bruce Wayne had his Batman suit. In Batman fiction, Wayne was a famous and wealthy man about town. However, nowdays no one remembers who he was unless he's mentioned in context with the world famous Batman.


Clark Kent had his Man of Steel Outfit. Hard to miss a man flying by wearing the Red, White, and Blue. He might have had a harder time getting started these days than when Jerry Siegel conceived him. Where would the poor superhero change into his action suit? In these days of cell phones, phone booths are not as plentiful as they once were.


I'm asking you as an adult to consider the idea that people empower themselves to do greater things when they internalize a "secret identity" because they don't trust that they themselves are able to achieve their desires. How many children have hidden behind a superhero mask and suit to build their identification with their heroes and heroines? Why do they do that? Does it help them? The answer is a resounding yes.


How we think of ourselves has a great to deal with what we become. Harry Leon Wilson's 1912 story of Bunker Bean is quite famous in New Age circles for its illustration of this point. It reveals the Second Lesson of Hemingway's Chair- that there is magical power in focused imagination coupled with ritual. This is particularly true when the chosen ritual is The Secret Identitiy Ritual. Such magical ritual power can be used to transform our self image, which in turn can transform ourselves and our writing.




Are you interested enough in elevating your writing to bear with me through a few paragraphs that will give the background of this ritual? Here are the two reasons I think it's important that you do: first, you will gain the sense that this particular technique is succesfully used in other arts, and, second, you will have a tighter focus on what the key elements of the Ritual of the Secret Identity are. If you're with me on this or at least have an open mind- keep reading. Because then we will get right back to creating your secret identity.


It is well known within the Occult Sciences that a powerful methodology for putting the power of imagination to work is the use of ritual. In the high art of Alchemy, as in the high art of writing, we first deal with Attention and Intention. Attention and Intention are the necessary prerequisites to the successful integration of Imagination and Ritual. However, when it is finally achieved we can create wonders. You see, Alchemists believe that our state of mind and involvement in our work can change the results from everything to our attitudes to chemical reactions. Alchemy, you see, is the art of Transformation.


Writing, too, is an art of transformation, an art of creating form and beauty, structure and emotion, character and impact from the chaos and void of our experiences and intuition. In the art of Alchemy, we labor to create the Philosopher's Stone. In the art of writing, we labor to create a compelling story.


Would you like to transform yourself into a better writer? Then you and I will take our first clue from Alchemist William Dennis Hauck, my instructor in the art, who, among many other things, taught me the Alchemical method called "Putting on the Laboratory Coat." It combines the elements of Attention, Intention, Imagination and Ritual, which are the four elements necessary not only to Alchemy, but to the methodolgy of writing called Hemingway's Chair. As a part of the ritual, the details of which are not for me to publish, he turns the visualization of putting on a lab coat into a meditative exercise that prepares the Alchemist to interact with reality on more levels than the physical.

Perhaps you think that its kindred exercise- The Second Lesson of Hemingway's Chair- is grim and requires all the trappings of a Wiccan photo shoot or a Pagan public display? Will we need a dark night, a full moon, a compliant but brooding familiar? No. I have a white cat that would seriously attack me if I said, "Hey, want to participate in a Magic Ritual? I get all the cool ritual stuff- the wand, the cup, the pentacle, and the rest and you get to sit on my shoulder and look like you'll kick demon ass if they so much as look like they're gong to get out of line." It would be a no go.

We won't need any of that because the Secret Identity Ritual is not only easy and productive, it's fun. Remember, the most powerful Magic in all the world is that of children energized by an adult intention. Wizards and socerors, witches and fearsome spell casters tremble before that type of action. And when children want to be empowered, they naturally create a secret identities.

When a child wants to be brave, they imagine the most fearless character they know or create one of their own. To stand up to adversity and fear, boys and girls become Superman or Superwoman. Children know that they aren't adults. They know that they aren't superheroes. They know that the bully down the street can probably kick their ass. So what do they do? They do what all children do, they whipped out their secret identities. I, of course, did the same. Confess, you did, too.

Let's get back to us. We're adults. We're serious adults, for God's sake- we're writers. How do you get more serious than that? A lovely young woman at a recent party I attended touched my hand and said, "Ooh, you're a writer. You must think a lot." Where was she when I was eighteen? Oh yes. She was, if I remember correctly, with a footbal player who was begging her to write his term paper.

Every writer is cursed with one person in all the world who is the biggest barrier to their writing, They are the towering, threatening and undeniably repressive bully who dominates our intellectual schoolyard and makes us cower up against the fence for fear of our very health and lives. Every writer has one such person in their lives. Just like we have an aunt that looks like she wants to put us in jail, or an uncle who tries to get us to drink and smoke, or the cousin who says "Want to sneak out tonight?" They're there in every family or neighborhood tree in one form or the other. Just like the bully who stops us from writing. The one person in the world who says we can't do it, that nobody's ever going to read what we write. Here's one such person that a romance writer told me about: "She said that I wasn't good looking, so who cared what I thought about romance? She said that I had skinny lips so who gave a damn about what I wrote about kissing, and that with my body there should be a law that kept me from writing about romance. It was like someone throwing acid in my face. I couldn't write for years."

What an awful thing for anyone to say to any person, but to say such things to a creative person is absolutely devastating.

So I asked her later, "Why did you say those things to yourself?"

"Who was there to stop me?" she replied.

You see, the schoolyard bully that threatens our writing is our very own selves. The human mind is a complicated affair with many various characters running around it for most of our life with little supervision at all. When we decide to do something, when we really want to do something, when we want to write a story that will amaze and delight, wrench the emotion out of our readers like water dripping from a twisted cloth, who rises up to tell us we can't do it? Why we ourselves bring forth the bully character, the criticizing character, the doubting character within who says, "You? You're going to do that? Give me a break. You're a nobody."

Forget all the writing books you've ever read. If you have a modicum of talent, study the works of the great writers, the writers that you personally love and admire, and wrench ever detail of technique from them to fan the flames of your own creativity into a blazing, burning bonfire of a story- you won't write it unless you take on and defeat that bully called your fears and doubts. No writing book in the world can help you with this. In order to defeat the bully that is yourself, you need to draw on the magic of children. And don't just nod your head at this point. Remember children, watch children, and oh- perish the thought- perhaps even talk to them. They are magicians par excellence every one. They slip between empowered identities faster than Madonna undresses.

As writers, we sometimes need to don a secret identitiy to write. I advised you to study your mentors so deeply that you would know how they might act or think in any situation. You write their words, adopt their habits, think their thoughts- really I expect you to do these things if you wish to learn the Lessons of Hemingway's Chair. Because now, in a shocking, breathtaking act of childhood magic, I'm asking you to make that mentor your Secret Identity.

Ridiculous, you say? You want me to pretend I'm one of the Bronte sisters? You want me to pretend that I'm Edgar Rice Burroughs? Do I look like an idiot, you say? I'm an adult. I don't have time for childhood games. You think if I want to write like Edgar Rice Burroughs I should pretend I'm Tarzan or Burroughs himself or maybe both?

Well, of course I do! Without a secret identity to don like Batman's mighty BatSuit, how else do you expect to fight against your evil anti-writer self? Clark Kent unabashedly ran into phone booths and sacrificed his modesty to change clothes to wear his Secret Identity Suit to fight the universe's greatest evils- so why are you complaining? Don't you know how to have fun anymore?

It's fun to have a secret writing identity! I love pretending I am Edgar Allen Poe. I have studied his habits, his history, his stories, and his love life. I know what he drank and how much he drank. What about you? Do you know what is your favorite author's drink? How did they like to dress? How did they like their coffee? Did they like coffee? I could go on and on, but the point is, if you really adopted them as a mentor instead of just doing the basics like reading them and posturing that they were your mentors (really, we should just confess sometimes that we're too lazy or indolent to adopt mentors) you should be able to act as though you are them. You should be able to don their personna as your Secret Identity.

For my birthday, my son bought me a replica Heminway coat after I explained to him my ideas on this. I was delighted. I use this coat as part of my Hemingway ritual. I begin the ritual by putting on this coat. The core of the ritual practice is that I actually imagine I am Ernest Hemingway- with all of his weaknesses, his prejudices, his strengths, and his great writing vision. I stand when I am writing in my secret identity of Ernest Hemingway. I have a tall table, and every time I begin the ritual, I repeat this magical incantation: "Writing and travel broaden your ass if not your mind and I like to write standing up." Prior to this, I have enchanted the magical circle in which my tall writing table stands with the magical perfume of the coffee that Heminway preferred. I throw away the last page of what I was working on the night before so I can begin fresh like Hemingway did. I have book of correspondences between Fitzgerald and Hemingway and I read them out loud. I gesticulate and amend these correspondences as though I wrote them myself. "What I should have said," I say...

Because you see, these ritual elements are to transform me into the man himself the way I became Tarzan when I was a boy. That Tarzan Secret Identity helped me stand up to many a bully. My Hemingway Secret Identity, my Edgar Rice Burroughs and James Lee Burke Secret Identities help me to stand up to the most evil person the world has ever seen- the one inside me that sometimes escapes from its cell within the dungeons of my mind and tells me I can't write.

Maybe you're too adult for the Second Lesson of Hemingway's Chair. Maybe you're too old for a Secret Writing Identity. You're an adult after all. You know you're not Kathy Reichs or Jonathon Kellerman or Tom Clancy or H.K. Rowling. You're not a kid anymore and you're not going to play kid games.

Too bad if you think that, because the most powerful magic in all the universe is when a child or an adult with the courage and laughter of a child as their companion dons a Secret Identity. As a writer, you won't always need to wear that Secret identity costume. But when the fear/doubt villain rises it's evil vicious self and your story needs a superhero to protect it- go ahead. Put on the mask and the cape and rise victorious over your fears and doubt. Save the day for your story. Every story needs a hero to protect it. Great stories need superheroes.

Sure, I'll Go Out With Her- if I Get to Drive

The Two Lessons of Hemingway's Chair- Lesson One

If This is Really Hemingway's Chair, He Had a Very Big Butt

*****

Alvin took a deep breath. He twisted the knob and pulled it back an inch at a time. Chirac was a dangerous man, but at least he had been civilized. They had discussed Proust, Dostoyevsky, Goethe, and Norman Mailer. Alvin had attempted to bring up Truman Capote, but Chirac had said that he would rather watch a Spike Lee movie than discuss Capote. Embarrassed, Alvin had taken a quick sip of bitter but expensive wine and returned to the topic of the chair.
“You are obsessed,” Chirac had observed, and ran the tip of his left index finger across the edges of his moustache. “But I understand obsession. I respect obsession. You wish to sit on the same chair that Papa did. You dream of closing your eyes and imagine that you share thoughts with the great writer himself the way that a lover breathes in the scarf of the woman that he loves in between interludes. Yes, I understand obsession, my friend, but it is always an expensive habit.”
“I have the money,” Alvin had said, taking another sip of wine. Perhaps he shouldn’t have had so much to drink. The alcohol affected his judgment, making him prone to blurt things out without thinking as though he were desperate.
“But are you sure you have enough?” asked Chirac with a smile that revealed only the edges of his tiny white teeth.
Alvin stepped back, trying to get control of himself.
“How much?” he asked. “You haven’t told me how much.”
“Ah, then you must not have enough. But I can understand your concern.”
“What? I don’t know what you mean.”
With a single stride, Chirac closed the distance between them. He straightened to his full height and looked down at Alvin. Like a father speaking to a son who has disappointed him, Chirac placed his hands on Alvin’s shoulders.
“You doubt. That’s it, isn’t it? Will it work? You would do it if you knew for certain that when you sit in Papa’s chair that even the smallest wisp of his unbounded talent would envelope you. If you believed that to be true, if you knew for certain that you, too, could write the words that could make a man feel like a man, you would not even consider the cost.
“Oh, my dear friend you would not hesitate. If your belief burned as bright as your obsession you would reach into your pocket and give me your entire billfold this very moment.
“To tell stories the way that Papa did....
“How would it feel to know that when a woman read your stories she truly felt the earth itself move beneath her feet?
“To be strong like Papa... How much do you want that? How much do you need that? How much would you pay for that?”
“I-,” began Alvin
“Be careful, you are spilling wine on my carpet.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Alvin.
His hands were shaking. He looked down.
“No, it’s okay,” he said. “It’s only on my shoe.”
“You poor man,” said Chirac. “Look at yourself. Go ahead. Walk to the mirror. Tell me what you see. Tell me if you see a man of obsession, his eyes on fire, his heart pumping strength and confidence through his veins. Is that what you see, my friend? Or do you see an accountant, his hands shaking because he has forgotten to bring his calculator?”
Alvin walked over to the mirror and did not like what he saw.
Behind him, over his left shoulder, he could see Chirac appraising him. Chirac with his tailored gray suit and light pink shirt and a tie that could have been designed by Matisse. Chirac with his perfectly trimmed hair black and lustrous as shoe cream. Sideburns tapered to a wicked point matched by the slight sharpness at the apex of his ears. His moustache was tightly trimmed, his eyebrows arched as though he were always amused. He had a forehead wide and tall enough to write on, but angled back like a tilted white-board. His skin was pale, but his eyes were dark colored and disturbing. He was a slender, formidable but polished man.
He was a master thief in his prime.
Alvin looked at himself, at his ill-defined chin and the fleshiness that ringed it. A double chin. Perhaps a triple chin.
My posture makes me seem shorter than I am, he thought.
Hours and hours researching and checking the facts. Hunched over books and records and leaning so far forward that his forehead almost touched the computer monitor. His eyesight had always been bad, but his profession had made it worse.
Alvin Jester was a researcher. He researched facts and figures and dates and times. For her. She was famous. She was beautiful. She was rich.
Alvin did her work.
She wrote the romances praised around the world for their “…detailed, almost intimate knowledge of the period.” Alvin made that possible. Alvin did that writing.
He had a spec sheet. Her publishers had prepared the spec sheet describing what he could and should write. How much detail did she require for her romance masterpieces? Just consult the spec sheet. What to research? Consult the spec sheet.
“Just don’t you dare add a line of dialogue,” she had once warned him. “And don’t you ever, you mischievous little man, even think about adding an interiorization. You find me the oils and brushes and a passable canvas and I, I will create the drama, the romance, and the lust. Facts and figures are what you must concentrate on, and now run along and quit looking at my legs. I swear we must find you a paramour, Alvin.”
She had twirled a curl of her dark brown hair, the one that always seemed to fall away from the rose that each day she would pin into her hair using a secret technology known only to beautiful women.
“I said run along and quit looking at my legs,” she had repeated.
Alvin looked in the mirror again and saw Chirac still appraising him.
I bet you don’t have to answer to a spec sheet, Alvin hought. I bet you get any woman you want.

Excerpted from "Hemingway's Chair," by Ferrel D. Moore

*****

Okay, so the big chair photo at the beginning of this post is not really Hemingway's chair. Nobody has that big a butt. And, in fact, there is a legendary quote where the man himself says that, "Writing and travel broaden your ass if not your mind and I like to write standing up." In fact, a great many authors have done this over the years. In the 1800's it seemed rather in vogue with certain authors. Throughout the years such diverse writers as, Virginia Woolf, Charles Dickens, and Lewis Carroll have done it. Thomas Jefferson and Phillip Roth come to mind as well. But the point isn't really sitting or standing, it's utilizing the magic of what we imagine has been touched by greatness.

If you're a man, could you write better if you were using John Steinbeck's typewriter? If you're a woman, could you write better it you could plunk your laptop down on Jane Austen's desk- her real desk? Take a look at it closely... if you sat down at the desk where great words were penned, great plots spun out in arcs and twists more complicated than a Sodoku puzzle, and characters were created with dazzling light shows of substance and weakness, strength and poignancy, red with rage and hot with passion... could you do that? Can you move the mind and souls of your readers if you sit where greatness has erupted like a freight train from the tunnel of your writer's block straight as twin rails barreling toward a towering metropolis?

Hockey players have lucky socks, why can't writers be gifted by the grace of touching those things that the masters of literature were near when they lit up the world with their prose? Can something of their magic pass to us?

Of course, the easy answer is no. But it's not true. Some of their magic can be shared with us. The power of mentors is a wonderful, powerful tool for writers. And when it is combined with the power of emotion rich visualizations and ritual it can work wonders to improve a writer's work. You'll need some talent, of course, and a level of competence to work with, but if you have those basic elements and are looking to move to the next level of writing then you'll want to consider the two lessons of Hemingway's Chair. Craftsmanship is three doors down the hall to your right. It's in a different department. The classroom I'm going to introduce you to is in the Department of Magic.

*****

Who is your favorite writer? And who is the writer you most desire to match and exceed? Whose writing do you relentless read and study, memorize and analyze? Or perhaps you're too busy watching YouTube, or television, or playing video games. Tsk. Tsk. I'm telling. If you want to write, read and study, read and analyze, read and dissect, read and reassemble, read and create something of your own, new and fresh, using the new voice and new ideas you acquired by studying one writer beyond all others.

Choose a mentor. Do you read everyone and lionize no one? It's important to cast a wide net, but eventually you must choose a fish to eat.

My current mentor (yes you can have more than one, but only one at a time, is James Lee Burke. Who is he? Glad you ask. He is a mystery writer whose descriptive, dialogue and plotting powers simply astonish me. Mr. Burke is the author of an ongoing series starring a character named Detective Dave Robicheaux. Since he is my mentor, I acquire and read all of his books. I have first editions of many of them signed by him. I know the day he was born, his taste in food, where he went to university, and yes it does sound a lot like I'm a fan, doesn't it? But there's a crucial difference. I study James Lee Burke and his works so that I can match and exceed them some day. To do that, I want to know this man and his works like he is my next door neighbor. You're asking me why sooner or later, I hope. Let's get to it now, since it's Lesson One in Writing Magic.

We study writing mentors for the same reason that Norwegian Roald Amundsen studied the life and actions of Admiral Robert Perry, who was the first to the North Pole. Why did he do that? In the early 1900's, a young woman's failed marriage to an ex-football player and bootlegger caused her to seek a job at a local newspaper. She chose to make her editor, John R. Marsh, her mentor to learn the art of commercial writing. Aside from learning her job, what did she get out of it?

The first man you might or not recognize- he was the one who studied the life and actions of Admiral Perry. What did he get out of it? He drew motivation, focus, encouragement, knowledge and methodolgy from his studies. He learned to think and act like a famous polar discovery by focusing in on the life of the man who discovered the North Pole. Amundsen went on to become the first man to discover the South Pole.

The young woman, who was, by all accounts, rather impetuous and headstrong, yet apprenticed to a mentor at the newspaper- I believe it was the Atlanta Journal- and did quite well. But how well. Have you ever heard of her? Her name was Margaret Mitchell, and she went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for her novel "Gone With the Wind." Ms. Mitchell actually identified and bonded so tightly to Marsh that they later married, and, as her skill grew, she in turn mentored him.

Paying attention to someone else's methods, struggles, successes, mistakes and triumphs takes gifts us the power of focus. It also takes our minds off ourselves and our self perceived limitations. We're not dreaming of becoming of writing successful novels and becoming rich and famous. No, not at all. We're just studying someone else's path to success. But that study- that devotion and dedication- will transform us as writers.

Hunter Thompson (author of "Fear and Loathing" in Las Vegas") used to manually copy the works of Charles Dickens to learn the master's stylistic elements. It didn't clone Dickens. The continued act instead empowered Thompson to go on to create his own style of writing.

I'm presenting a model that actually works.

It's a technique, it's not a philosophy.

Try it. Let me know how it works. Next time, we'll merge this technique with a little ritual magic.

But right now I have a short story to finish, so I'm off to put on my Steinbeck shoes.

Hemingway's Idea of a Good Time

Can't a Monster Get Respect Anymore?

It's True. They Love You on Venus

Georgi did not see the blow coming.

One of Ricci’s hands buried itself in the hair that ringed his baldness, tearing the roots and causing blood to trickle down his neck like raindrops sliding down window glass. Ricci’s other hand slapped him across the face so hard that Georgi was actually blind for a moment. His knees buckled and he crumpled to the floor like a cheap card table.
Through a cotton wall, Georgi heard Mr. Chirac say, “Help him up, Ricci. My coffee approaches room temperature and I will not tolerate that.”

excerpted from "Counter Creatures," by Ferrel D. Moore

A friend once questioned the need for monsters, pointing out that people are the greater danger. Fear the vampire, or fear those who create and deploy the atomic bomb? Just try stopping a nuclear detonation with garlic and a cross. And nuclear weapons don't fear the sun, they re-create it right here on earth. Why is it, then, that all cultures still have and cherish their monsters? And, before we go any further, are monsters real or imaginary? Are they metaphors, vehicles for propogandizing world views, social and psychological whining about our insecurities and fears, or are they real?

Are monsters real or psychological metaphors? A psychologist once explained to me why he went with the metaphor theory. "Look," he said. "Vampires have no reflection. That's because if they did, what would be reflected in the mirrors we are so afraid to look in would be our own monstrous souls." It was an interesting thought. I would give it more credence if he hadn't moved to Arkansas after undergoing survivalist training since he was certain that civilization would collapse under the weight of the Y2K computer glitch. In our last correspondence he was exploring the idea of using his swimming pool as a pure water resevoir if he could just convince geese flying over his house to quit using it as an outdoor potty.

Are monsters real or an invention of Christianity and the Western Military Industrial Complex? Cryptozoologists, legitamite paranormal researchers, serious occult scientists, and good looking women who work at the CIA tire quickly of the modern trend of using monsters to advance political and social agendas. The problem is that people whose every moment of existence is wrapped in self-aggrandized politicization frequently cannot see themselves as the very monsters they are chasing. This is not fair to serious monsters or serious monster hunters. Vampires, Bigfoot, and Werewolves cry out, grunt, and even howl for attention. How can we hope to focus on gathering evidence for the reality of these traditional monsters with so much attention being lavished on Sarah Palin comedy skits on Saturday night live? What could be more terrifying that Barack Obama versus John McCain in their YouTube Dance-Off?

Dracula is seen by some as the ultimate social statement of class exploitation. From this perspective, Dracula himself loses top billing as a kick-ass supernatural monster of the night. He is actually a member of the degenerate, inbred aristocracy draining the lifeblood (money, food, healthcare, livestock and opera tickets) of the poor. Kind of Oscar Wilde with an even worse wardrobe, but a better reputation. Van Helsing's litany of vampire lore pales and is actually sort of embarassing to quote when we can instead analyze The Count with a Marxian dialectic. In fact, using this method, the only thing worse for Dracula's image would be to view him as not only an aristocrat, but as a capitalist as well. But we can transcend even that seeminly insurmountable pinnacle of horror by re-making him into an Aristocratic American Capitalist. Truly we have now created the ultimate, blood-sucking evil! Whew. That was a bit of work, wasn't it? But in the meantime, have we really given thought to how this approach makes Count Dracula himself feel? What happens to his self esteem?

Once again, we have to result to the art of channeling to get answers to these questions:

*****

Your Channeling Correspondent: Count, how does all of this use of your personhood to promote political and social agendas make you feel about yourself?

Spirit of Count Dracula: It's hard to feel good about yourself when your reduced to a metaphor for socialist or capitalist propogandists.

Your Channeling Correspondent: But?

Spirit of Count Dracula: I don't want to say it...

Your Channeling Correspondent: You're among friends here. We feel your paranormal pain.

Spirit of Count Dracula: It's like Dr. Phil says- it's not about me.

Your Channeling Correspondent: Doesn't that make you feel better?

Spirit of Count Dracula: You've got to be kidding. Doesn't anyone care about me amymore? What happened to me being the King Vampire and all that jack? Seriously? I was it. I was feared by everyone. The bats and those creepy spiders and even those freaking wolves had to do what I said. I was The Man. You know what I mean? The fog rolled out when I blew my nose. And now I'm just a metaphor for an Aristocratic American Capitalist? What's next? Do I have to become a metrosexual, too?

Your Channeling Correspondent: We'll get back to you on that.

Spirit of Count Dracula: Wait, don't go. I feel so down on myself now that I can't look in the mirror anymore- I'm afraid I'll see a metaphor.

*****

Monsters as Fabio and Scarlett Johannsen Envy surrogates also denigrate the very meaning of monsterhood. No respecting werewolf wants to be judged on their pectorals. Yet male vampires and werewolves alike have been driven to hard-core power lifting so that monster hunters in today's hectic world do no overlook them just because they are not hardbodied. Female monster without curves and full lips are similarily disdained. This is probably a direct result of the invasion of romance writers. Genghis Khan was less accomplished in taking over territory than Laurell K. Hamilton and Stephanie Meyers. What does the emphasis on looks, muscularity, pouty lips and dramatic pose do to the very concept of a being a monster? What have these romance writers done to the reality of monsters? And how does this make these monsters feel about themselves?

Many people have asked me over the years why it is that it is so difficult to gather hard core scientific proof for the existence of vampires, werewolves, and even zombies- not to mention scouring the planet in a quest to end Americo-ethno-centricity and open the world's consciousness to monsters in other lands and cultures. Here's the answer to that challenging question (minus the America is too inbred to think internationally since that is best answered by famed monster hunters Pat Buchanan and Al Franken):

Romance writers have driven monsters underground. Monsters are by definition (most of them), not all that good looking. A werewolf, for example, has a face only a mother could love. A zombie has a face only a tribe of maggots wants to get close to. So the monsters hide. They don't feel good about themselves. Their self esteem suffers because there's only so far a makeover can go. And monsters have seen the covers of books. Vampires like to hang out in bookstores to find someone they can score a pint of blood from. Readers are their type of people. But when vampires see the images modern paranormal romance writers demand they maintain- the wind-blown hair styles, the perfectly white, straight teeth, the stunning bone structure and not a pound, not an ounce, not a gram of excess body weight- well, they just fade away back into the night and chase squirrels. They just don't have the Hollywood looks romance writers are demanding. Their self esteem has been shattered.

So, we conclude by admitting that it is difficult today to scientifically validate the existence of monsters because they are hiding. They are hiding because of these three reasons: they are ashamed of being used as metaphors, they are embarassed at being used by self-stroking polical and social propogandists, and, last but not a cliched least, they have been humiliated by the romance writers turning them into fictionally sexually attractive beings that they can never be in real life. I will never, ever forget looking through my military binoculars one windy day, and seeing a bigfoot holding up a sign on a far away hill that read "I don't feel good about my weight."

He Gets More Respect Than Monsters

Zombies Make Terrible Lovers and an Interview with the Mentally Undead

She Just Heard My Story

"A Horrified Mind"

was accepted for

"Tales Out of Miskatonic University"

I'm probably not telling you something you didn't already suspect. Zombies have no moves (unless you count shambling), they are terrible conversationalists (unles you love to hear the word nnnhrarrrghhh over and over again), and they don't know a thing about flowers or chocolates or anything romantic. They have no hobbies other than eating flesh. There is some evidence that they have no real bodily functions. Add that to film shot by a local florist proving conclusively that sunlight causes their "skin" to boil and form pustules before an exothermic subcutaneous reaction causes them to explode into fragmentary gore, and, well, they're not much of a date. Never enter a romantic relationship with a zombie.


"They ain't really alive," a scientist from Al's Towing & Wrecker Service informed me. "I got one hooked in the crane to the back of my truck once, and we had to scrape the damn thing off. Hung there flappin' in the wind and gruntin' and groanin' I guess but I had Hank Williams playin' so's I couldn't hear it. Anyway's it must have climbed up there on the towin' rig in the middle of the night and got tangled in the cable and hook. So like a numb nuts I took off down the road whilst it was still dark. My brains was on cruise control so's even after sunup I was too busy lightin' up to look in the rearview. But 'round about nine I got off at a truck stop and climbs out to take a piss. I looks back at the winch and sees the slimy, smokin' pile of shit hangin' off the hook and I knew right then I'd been towin' somethin' from the putrid slime that clings to the walls of hell like old Lovecraft'd say."


I inquired whether the towing professor felt that this zombie should be considered to be a citizen of the United States and have the same basic rights as the rest of us. My premise was that the zombie was probably a registered voter prior to the infection, and therefore should still be able to vote, buy a house, and even run for office. "Really," I pointed out, "they are just sick and some believe they should have free medical care."

"You with the ACLU?" he asked.

"No," I said. "I'm just a writer trying to get a grip on the motifs that might run through my story. What it means to be a zombie- that sort of thing. Is it any different from any other illness? When a person is debilitated by a disease, be it zombie-ism or lockjaw, aren't they still a person? That's what I'm struggling with. The rights of zombies."

"You want your daughter to date one?" he asked. "They ain't happy lessin' they's eatin' your face off."

"Let's leave my daughter out of this," I said.

"These people is dead, fella," he said. "Dead people ain't got no rights. None. They don't pay taxes, and they ain't like you and me."

"They can't get work," I replied. "No one will hire them. They're afraid of catching the zombie virus."

"Last I heard," he said after looking around and leaning in to share his secret knowledge, "even the pets is catchin' it. I seed it on the web."


"I think that's just propaganda," I said testily. "There is absolutely no concrete evidence that the zombie virus can spread to pets."


"How's 'bout livestock?" he asked. "How's 'bout them contaminatin' our food supply so all the Golden Arches- which is as straight up American as toys from Taiwan- is gonna have to add 'Mc-Zombie burgers' to the menu? What you got to say to that?"

"That's crap," I said. "You know employers won't give them a job because they're different from you and I. Am I right?"

"No," he said, "they's afraid they'll eat the other employees."

Obviously my refined interviewing technique was not penetrating his narrow little mind.

"What if your son became a zombie?" I asked.


"I'd say good-bye Roy and hello target practice. Then I'd plant him in the garden and use what's left as compost."


"That's a little extreme, don't you think?" I asked.


"It's my garden," he said.

I knew I was beat. So now I will have my revenge writer side up. For NanoWriMo, I'm going to do a zombie story, and this guy's going to be in it. But first, in my next post, I'll get serious and tell you the truth about zombies- do they really exist? What are they? What do they want? Do they shop online? Finally, I'll tell how to stop them dead in their tracks with a unique weapon known to only a few. Feel free to use this technique in a story- your readers will love it.

The Book to Buy

Her Eye is the Window to Her Soul

An Excerpt from

"Little Friends"

by

Ferrel D. Moore

“Old people can’t have babies,” the girl said.
“Why not?” asked the boy.
“Because,” the girl said,
“Because why?” persisted the boy.
“They’re cursed, that’s why,” the girl said.
“I’m seven,” he said.
“You’ll die, too,” said the girl.
The boy looked around for his mother. He looked to his right and saw she was still waiting in line at the little shack near the ice cream cone as big as his older brother.

The little girl had come from nowhere and sat down next to him on the red and white picnic blanket in the shade of a tree that blocked the sunlight like a giant beach umbrella. He watched wide-eyed as she lifted one side of the picnic basket lid and rummaged through the knives and forks and pickle jars and sealed plastic containers of sliced tomatoes and yellow-white cheese. The girl pulled out press-locked plastic bags of ham, cream cheese, and chives. A loaf of bread leaned against one side of the woven basket as though resting.
“That's our food,” said the boy.
The girl set a plastic bowl full of fruit the size of a bisected beach ball next to his right foot. She looked at him and smiled, pried open the lid of another container, plucked out a deviled egg, and pushed the entire thing into her mouth.
“My mom’s there,” said the boy, pointing at the ice cream shack.
The girl chewed, swallowed, then said, “She’ll drop your ice cream.”
“I’m older than you,” said the boy.
“You’ll die first,” said the girl.
She had hair as white as spun sugar, eyes blue as wildflowers, fair skin sprinkled with freckles, and a smile bright as a tooth paste commercial.
“Will not,” said the boy.
The air was as moist and hot as an open oven door. Patches of burned grass scarred the park as though blasted by ray guns. The pony rides were closed until the temperature dropped below ninety. On the other side of the parched baseball field, the red lights of a parked ambulance with open back doors flashed and spun. A man and a woman in white uniforms were sliding someone onto a stretcher. Six women with hunched backs, thin white hair, and big black sunglasses huddled close by as though one of them were next.
“Your brother wants to bury you in the back yard before he turns twelve,” said the girl.
“Mom,” yelled the boy.
“What’s the matter, baby?” his mother called back.
He looked at the girl. She was batting her eyes and waving at his mother. After a sideways glance at him, she blew his mother a kiss.

“Mom?” he called again to his mother.
“In a minute,” she said. “You just wait there for me.”
He looked at the girl.
“She can’t see me,” she said.
“She can too,” said the boy.
Overhead in the tree, the boy heard a bird’s angry chatter. He glanced up, and saw an orange-chested robin on a branch flapping its wings. The branch shook, but the robin’s claws stayed fixed to it as though glued. The boy looked back at the girl.
“Nobody can see me except you,” she said.
“You want to play catch?” asked the boy.
“First we have to make lunch,” said the girl.
“Huh?” asked the boy.
“In the kitchen,” said the girl, and pointed to a white plastic stove and a red plastic table and chairs that had not been there a moment ago. “First, we play kitchen, and then we can play catch.”
“No,” said the boy.
“Yes,” said the girl.
“How come?” asked the boy.
“We always do what I want first, then what you want. Always.”
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Eva,” she said, and curtsied.
“You’re weird,” said the boy.
He looked toward the river and imagined a cool breeze coming off its waters.
“If you go near the river,” Eva said, “I’ll drown you.”
“Mom,” called the boy.
“Mommy’s coming,” his mother called back. “I just have to pay this nice man and I’ll be right back. Just keep your little pants on.”
Overhead, a dirty-gray seagull flew in circles and screamed for food.
“Go away,” the boy told Eva.
“You know what happened when your grandma died?” asked Eva.
The boy slapped his hands over his ears and closed his eyes.
“She died by herself and she just laid there on the kitchen floor for three days,” said Eva.
“La, la, la,” chanted the boy.
“You remember her dog?” asked Eva.
The boy nodded while he continued to chant. His long blonde hair bounced up and down as though fluffed by puffs of wind.
“He didn’t have any food in his bowl so he ate your grandmother.”
The boy screamed.

excerpted from "Little Friends," by Ferrel D. Moore

Time to Kill the Werewolf- Lock and Load

But Don't Pull That Trigger Yet

*****

“You think I’m bizarre, don’t you?” asked Melly.
“Sorta,” I said.
“Yeah, well you’d be weird, too, if you had to sleep with them every night,” she said, jerking her thumb at the small stadium of clowns lining the wall.
“So what’s the story with the circus?” I asked.
“I told you, they’re from him.”
Collin again- the sorta boyfriend.
It was creeping me out.
White make-up and Mardi Gras outfits. Big floppy shoes and orange hair. Most of them happy, some of them sad. All of them with round red noses and painted mouths, and each of them with a nail hammered through their little clown hearts.
“That why you nailed them into place?”

She sat up and patted the edge of the bed, inviting me to leave the safety of my chair.
excerpted from "Electrocuting the Clowns," by Ferrel D. Moore

*****

Halloween is coming, so we'd better get back to the problem of killing werewolves before it's too late for you to make your preparations.

A werewolf is part human and part beast; which part deserves the killing? Maybe we should ask the young lady above to hold on before she pulls the trigger. Maybe she's watched too many movies, played to many role playing games, read too many books or even scrolled through too many internet postings. She looks pretty good with that shotgun, but I suspect she's too smart a hunter to pull the trigger if something doesn't seem right. I'm betting she wouldn't hesitate to stake a vampire then blow its necrotic head off. Vampires are undead, they're hideous, their bodies are filled with maggots and worms and there is no vampire lair in recorded history that was found to have a toothbrush- not even one. No dental floss either. Not even a bottle of Listerine. Don't think on that too much.


If it seems like I'm picking on vampires or the undead in general, remember I'm just trying to help you kill them.


I hope that helps.



But unlike a vampire, a werewolf is human for most of the month (don't pay too much attention to fiction that claims otherwise), so they actually take showers, comb their hair, trim their nails, change their clothes and practice good dental hygiene. They usually work for a living, and even pay taxes. That ought to count for something. But a recent poll among baby boomers showed that most people felt that because of their once monthly full moon killing and ravaging cycle, werewolves should still be executed. However, as our introductory huntress discerns, there is a problem. And, being an intuitive woman, she is right to be concerned.

Here's what that problem is: after the curse, a werewolf is a three component entity comprised of human, wolf, and something really, really hideous called an astral larva. The spell that curses the victim is a spell that implants an aetheric demon in their soul. If you remember the movie Alien, you'll remember with particular disgust how the alien forced an egg down the throats of some of the people from the ship. The humans in this way became hatcheries for the monster. This modern science fiction movie is a reflection of what happens to the victim of the werewolf curse. The key conceptual difference is that the sorceror or sorceress is introducing an astral demon into the victim instead of an alien egg. Either way, the victim's body, mind, and soul have been kidnapped by a parasitic aura interloper. The bastard.

It's the astral demon baby, of course, that's the problem. True enough, there's something bad about a werewolf, but it's not the human or the wolf. It's the demon seed that is devouring the victim's energy and jacking their moral compass around like a magnetic gadfly on steroids. When the full moon hits, the water energy flows, barriers between rationality and feelings, wants, and desires, loosen- and the parasitic larva wreaks havoc on its host. With a surge of power, it seizes control of the victim's energy network. The victim becomes hostage as its life energy is hijacked to grow the demon, leaving the body defenseless against its now rampaging animal libido.

Sex, and blood, and domination are about to shake up the night.


The vicitm's body chemistry goes out of control and suddenly all those cells with stem cell-type ability morph to synchronize with the animal libido and, well, we are suddenly staring face to face with a classic rampaging werewolf.


Is now the time for our huntress to pull the trigger? If she's a good enough shot (and I'm betting she is), she'll blast out the beast's brains out of its shaggy head and kill both the human and the wolf in one barrage of bullets. No problem. Lead or silver give the same result as long as the brain is destroyed. Shooting out the heart will work just fine as well, but cut off the head as soon as the over-stimulated beast hits the ground. They'll go down screaming, bleeding and foaming at the mouth, but they'll go down and they'll be out.


But there's really bad news- the human and the wolf element of the triad are dead. Unfortunately, the demon larva that has spread its invisible tentacles throughout the victim's body is still alive. The werewolf's body will return to its human form. An innocent person has been destroyed, while the true monster- the demon larva- still lives within the corpse.


If the head has not been severed from the werewolf's body and the heart cut out or the body incinerated, then the demon larva will ressurect the corpse as a vampire.


Killing the werewolf's body does not solve the problem. Yes, the werewolf can be killed by double ought silver bullets, but if the person dies a werewolf, even though their body returns to its human state, they will be re-born as a vampire. It is an old legend, but one that is upheld by many in the occult sciences who should know. Then guess who we have to call in again.



To make matters more problematical for those seeking to kill a werewolf, the werewolf's body does not have the courtesy to turn to dust after you've killed it. It doesn't burst into flames and leave a thin film of ash. It simply returns to its human form, and that's a problem. It's hard to explain to the police. The killing wounds just don't simply disappear. So how exactly would you explain yourself to the authorities?




Where is the concept of justice in all of this? The person our huntress wants to kill was the victim of a curse. She would have executed the innocent and allowed the guilty to live unseen, incubating in a corpse, waiting for its moment to rise and feed as a vampire undead. Another low rent killer on the loose.

It's time to call in someone who doesn't drive in carrying a Winchester as their main weapon.


You see, killing the werewolf saves us, but condemns its soul. In order for the person inside the werewolf to escape to the Light, we must, as stewards of that Light, destroy the Astral Demon. If we can do this, we might even save the vicitm of the curse in the process. Even if we cannot avoid killing the werewolf, we must take proper precautions to to stop them from resurrecting the corpse as yet another undead bloodsucker.

Yep, time for an exorcism.

Zombie Gophers Hunt in Packs

Time Out for Love Magic

The top of the stairs led to an area with two open doors and another that was closed. The one to his right was a sewing room of sorts. The one in the middle was open and led to a small bedroom. Mr. Chirac walked to the closed door, turned the handle, and stepped inside.
Pale cold moonlight bled into the room through a window, revealing a woman who lay with her hair perfectly arranged on a pillow, a lace-edged blanket pulled up under her chin. In death, she had achieved a frozen beauty that lent her face the look of a porcelain doll. Beside her sat a young man in a cushioned wooden chair positioned close to the head of the bed. His face was red and puffed from grief; his pocked cheeks glinted as though iced. His body pressed forward at an angle as though waiting for her eyes to open.
"I knew you’d come,” he whispered without looking back.

excerpted from "Ricci's Last Night," by Ferrel D. Moore

*****

Next posting, I'm going to have to tell you how to kill the werewolf. There simply aren't enough true Magicians around to remove the spell. And they have other, more important things to do. Although an experienced, truly initiated Alchemist can neutralize the curse, these men and women are difficult to find and more difficult still to prevail upon as they are deeply involved in the Ars Magna, or Great Work. Having said this, the expedient course is to kill the one so afflicted and release them from the spell. Werewolves die a frightening, violent death and their bestial cries rend the night. The moon weeps for her child, but her healing waters carry the werewolf's soul to sweet surcease.

So, before going all gruesome, let's take a moment and talk about the most mysterious, entrancing, tempting, and delicious aspect of Magic ever unveiled. It is frought with danger, regrets, and passion. It is alive with longing and infused with selfish need, but there is no denying the pull of claiming love by esoteric means.

A last resort, you say? Only for the desperate? You would be shocked by the list of men and women who have reached out to the person of their desires by magical means. When match.com and eharmony.com fail, where else is there to turn? Especially if the one you are so completely consumed by has spurned your advances.

Does love magic violate a basic universal law with disastrous consequences? Does it unbalance the aetherial energies that guide and regulate spiritual progress? The answer is not as simple as it would seem. Much depends on the type of love. Spiritual love is quite different than the need for sexual union, of course.

Years ago, I lived by this motto: Love, Lust, and Larceny. What more could a man need? I loved diamonds and emeralds and exotic places. I loved beautiful women and things that were there to be taken. The book you see to the right was a book that I myself wanted to have written. I declined to read it, you see, because I wanted to write it myself.

I was fast and smart and unstoppable until I became involved with a Russian scientist, emeralds, and a very long story. I was in love with love, lust, and larceny and unable to be had. And then I met a witch.

I will not blame it on the bossa nova. I blame it on love magic.

There was love, lust, and larceny, but what match were they for love magic? Even at her age (she was in her mid-20's) her powers of persuasion were far beyond her beauty. I was captivated. I was roped and tied and branded before I so much as blinked.

But there is so much more to this story.

You see, I approached her first. I felt her presence before I saw her. It was the golden moment of my life when I knew of her. And then I saw her, in a store, working behind a counter. At that moment, my life shifted radically on its axis.

Within six months I was at the mercy of lawyers, guns, and money and an international scandal. I did not see her again for eight years. I sent her away to protect her. She has been lost to me ever since, and I have immersed myself in my arts. I have learned the art of love magic well over the years, and many other things.

So now, 12 years later, after my immersion into esoteric arts, I drink a solitary glass of wine or two in remembrance of lost love as I do every year at this time, and think of casting a spell to bring her back.

The werewolf has no choice, but I do.

The Sex Life of Werewolves

Hungry Like the Wolf

“...what I’m trying to tell you is that you might have heard a noise, but it could have been anything. Why does it have to be something bad? We live way on the edge of town. Don’t you think vampires and werewolves and blood sucking aliens would be hanging out downtown where there’s a lot more people to eat?” excerpted from "Beyond the Porch Light"

The sexual appetites of the creatures of the night are legendary. Vampire's preying on the opposite human gender are almost archetypal. The demon incubi and sucubi taking the pleasure while the victim sleeps were recorded in the journals of those who woke in the morning too spent to get out of bed. But the werewolf is truly the king of the night.

The werewolf, unlike the vampire, is alive. The werewolf, unlike the incubi and sucubi, has a physical body. A werewolf is passion scratched red and raw.

Werewolves are the most feared predators of the night. They stalk their prey with purpose, and ravage or ravish them at their will with wild abandon.

There are, to my knowledge, only three true diaries of a werewolf's life. These are a writer's treasure trove. There are perhaps a hundred others I have read obtained under the method known as "past life regression," but they are of little if any value, since the patient manipulation involved is obvious to even the veriest tyro. There are more still written by the mentally unbalanced whose rantings and ravings are accountable to no one but God. So we have, you see, a limited amount of accurate written record material to draw out conclusions. You will find a great many stories on the internet, including whisperings from the middle ages, but these people in the main confused shapeshifters with werewolves. There is a modern day effort to acquire more certain knowledge of them using remote viewing techniques. This technique is never, ever to be used to gather information about vampires. A vampire's power permits them to see right back to the viewer and use that connection to track and capture the intruder. It would be an unfortunate mistake.

Amplification is the key to understanding werewolves. Everything about a werewolf is amplified because a werewolf is the fusion of man and wolf and something darker. The fusion releases the libido. The metabolism and mind of a werewolf burn at a furious rate. No creature could survive long the heat of such a union, so that a true werewolf can only be at the time of the full moon. The watery aspect of lunar light both washes away the social restraints that bind the human side of this night being, and cool its fury. One primal kill or dominating sexual conquest releases the energy of transformation and returns the monster to his or her formal self.

Werewolves are tormented beings. It is a too commonly held misconception that werewolves in their human state have no memory of acts of atrocity committed during the full moon nights. This is not true. Between the cycles of full moons, a werewolf in his human state remembers nothing the next day except the terrifying awarenes of blood red lust. All memories of that time seem to have been burned away, but over the ensuing days, torn images float up through their mind like match heads flaring in the dark.

Many have attempted to construct their habits during those terrible nights based on studies of wolves and their packs. Most of the information analyzed leads to false conclusions and misleading assumptions. The fact is that a werewolf is neither man nor beast, but an unleashed libido suffused into a body that is something of both. It is to that libido we must turn to understand this creature of the night. The voracious libido of a werewolf spills over into their lives even in their human state. Their sexual appetites increase to such a degree as to make them seem sexually obsessed. Their level of aggresion rises as well. And they grow inflamed with being close to the woman of their desire. In the next posting, we will look at how to kill the creature, but in this posting, we will attempt to understand the impact of the libido that drives it.

The human libido, like the kundalini energy of the yogis, must not be unleashed into a body not ready or prepared to accept it. Whether we define the libido as psychic energy, primal ki, orgones or even the force that both creates and destroys, occult scientists under that each human being has a door within them that can connect that person to overwhelming transformationa evergy that can affect them both physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. The sudden release of this power-charged into into the human mind and body is too much for a human to bear. And it is this very serpent power that, under the Curse of the Wolf, explodes into the victim who lives and is themself later transformed. The superego, or controlling moral factor in a person's life, is not present in a transformed werewolf.

The scent of a woman fills a male werewolf's nostrils with fiery starbursts of animal need. Power, lust, and the territorial imperative are the only things that a werewolf's mind can comprehend. His nervous system is overloaded by the explosion of kundalini-like energy throughout his body. And he wants. As the very body transforms under the influence of the moon and the curse he is under, the knowledge is born that the re-born being- the werewolf- has the power to fulfill their needs and wants by sheer force. This kundalini-like transformation of energy endows the werewolf with an Alpha-sex drive and results in a fixation on blood and sex.

You'll notice that I say Kundalini-like. There must be a clear distinction between rising Kundalini developed through safe yogi practices and the unholy fusion of Kundalini and black spell. The sorcerr or sorceress who curses a person to life as a werewolf combines in high occultic art the energy of the moon, the kundalini of the victim, and the aura of an alpha-male wolf. The ability to steal aurus from beasts such as a wolf is the mark of an accomplished occultist. The exercise of that ability to curse a fellow human being, however, is a mark of evil.

Do not send money, guns, or lawyers if a friend is in danger from a werewolf- it won't help. In the old days they sent wolfbane and silver. Next posting I'll tell you how we handle theses beasts in the 21st century.

He's Not Going to Kiss Her with Her Eyes Closed

Modern Weapons Against an Ancient Enemy

Uh-oh

"You having a nightmare because your momma’s out of town on a business trip? Are you a scared little sissy boy? What you scared of, son? Nothing to be scared of with Martin here.” Excerpted from "Model Behavior," by Ferrel D. Moore

Modern occultists combine knowledge gleaned from centuries of esoteric study with modern technology to create safer, more effective weapons against vampires that truly make it possible for a citizen to defend themselves against the undead with less danger to themselves. In our last post, we explored traditional methodologies. In this post, we will move the game forward to current times. The new defensive technologies are grounded in the wisdom of the past, as you will see, but amplified by the use of technologies unavailable to vampire hunters of bygone eras.

Let's begin with a simple example that takes a traditional construct and adds to it the simple element of laser technology. You're no doubt familiar with laser pointers. They are fascinating devices, and my cat (whose picture you can find on my blog) finds them endlessly entertaining. The end of laser pointers can be fitted with caps that create a variety of shapes, including, you guessed it, a cross. The good news is that these images can easily project this image the length of a dark alley, or shone into the dark and spooky areas of a suspicious parking garage. Also, laser pointers are small enough to be attached to your keychain. You will therefore be able to discreetly carry said weapon in a pocket or purse without fear of looking as though you've lost your mind.

Powerful occult symbols to combat evil have been developed by Magicians throughout the ages. Most of these techniques were kept secret, and in fact the most effective techniques still are, but certain things have been released to the public in principal, but their application and use has not yet been defined. I will share one with you now that relies on electrical current to create a "charged" ward.

By an odd synchronicity of devolped terminology, both occult scientists and astrophycists settled on a term to describe two different things that yet share tangential concepts. The word is "Magnetar." What exactly is a Magnetar? In astrophysics, as described by Chandra, a Magnetar is a neutron star with an extremely powerful electromagnetic field. When this neutron star decays, it releases incredible amounts of electromagnetic radiation such as X-rays and gamma rays. In the world of the scientific occult, however, a Magnetar is an electric design of an occult warding symbol that is also charged with an occultist's personal energy after a period of ritual fasting and prayer.

To doubly protect their homes, advanced occultists will sometimes construct electrified grids within the walls and ceilings of their home that carry current through them and generate weak electromagnetic fields that act as wards against the undead. Often these symbols are combined talismans from more than one occult discipline that are constructed harmoniously to avoid energies working at cross purposes. Here, for example, we see a charged mandala Magnetar integrated successfully with heavily multiplied energy by its inclusion of a cross:

Meditation on this particular symbol is said to reveal the inner potentialites that make us uniquely human, which strengthens our minds against the hypnotic control of vampires. This might seem like overkill, but modern day occultists understand that the battle against vampirism is a battle for the human soul. Vampires have been much romanticized, but there is little that is physically attractive about them. Their apparent attractiveness is only a projection of their dark soul onto our mind. They attack our weaknesses, and with most people, their sexual appetites are an easy door for the vampire to open. Meditating on symbols such as the one above strengthen the spirit against weaknesses and makes the individual a less likely target for a vampire.

But remember what we are truly dealing with. The skin of a vampire is necrotic and in a constant state of decay. Their bloodlust is not sexual desire, but the predator need to steal the life energy contained in our blood. "The blood is the life," cried Renfield in Bram Stoker's Dracula, and there is truth in that.

In the ancient Chinese discipline of chi kung, the energy flows within the human body are well understood and mapped. There is a clear understanding in this art that energy is generated in the bone marrow and carried within the blood. There is also a constant flux of energy between the environment and an individual that links us to the universe itself and all living beings. This is the source of our life, and it is what the vampire seeks to steel. They do not need blood except for that life energy to ennervate their decaying bodies.

Because vampires are the walking undead, and are in a constant state of decay, their bodies also emit noxious gases such as methane, hydrogen sulfide and certain mercaptain complexes, all of which are detectable by modern gas monitors. Identifying hydrogen sulfide- a particularly noxious gas- as a source of possible impending vampire attack can be accomplished by purchasing a keychain pocket hydrogen sulfide sold by KWJ Technologies out of California. While they do not endorse the product's use as a vampire detector, they will still sell it to you through a distributor if you indicate it is to protect yourself against noxious fumes. Hydrogen sulfide is also produced by natural causes, and is sometimes known as "sewer gas." It is the compound produced by rotting eggs. So it has its limit as a definitive locator because the gas can come from other sources. But, keeping those limits in mind, it is still useful. It is of course unnecessary to indicate to a supplier that the fumes we intend to detect might be emitted by the undead.

Scientifically Speaking, Vampires Stink

Crucifixes, Crosses, Garlic, Holy Water, Silver Bullets and Leaving CNN on All Night Long...

Of Course She's Dangerous

"Sarah fingered the thin strap of her purse to calm herself. The night was damp and on the edge of dark; her stick deodorant caused her white blouse to cling to her armpits as though glued. There was a warm hum in the air, and the sky had gathered in bruised bundles above the hospital as though summoned by the old woman’s impending death." excerpted from "Pillow Talk."

Vampires, witches and warlocks, werewolves and things that go bump in the night. They all want something from us. Our blood, our souls, to eat our throats or steal our energy like those infernal succubi and incubi that sexually assualt us during our sleep. If that's not annoying enough, there are those damned demons with nothing better to do than try to possess our bodies. What's a person to do? How to defend oneself against the hordes of paranormal entities that constantly annoy us. Halloween is fast upon us, so I thought I'd do a little research on the topic, including checking around with my ghost and monster hunting compadres.

Let's start with vampire basics tonight, then deal one by one with other creatures of the night. After we've explored the basic defenses against each, we can move on to more esoteric techniques including ritual containment in a later posting.

Holy Water, Crucifixes, and Religious Objects in General. Do they really work against vampires? I'll be careful about my answer since someday your life may depend upoon it. The consensus among most paranormal researchers is that belief in good is a strong weapon against evil in general and vampires in particular, and that if a person truly believes in the power of the Holy objects of the Christian faith, then Holy Water, Crucifixes, and such can be effective weapons. A shred of doubt can be deadly. As one researcher told me, "Somedays I don't have so much faith, so I like to have plenty of wooden stakes, hammers, and crossbows loaded with iron tipped shafts."

Silver has a strong reputation of being effective against werewolves, but iron is the metal of choice against vampires. In the old days, people wore iron necklaces about their necks to discourage vampires. My recommendation is to wear a crucifix cross (depending on your faith or lack of) around your neck made of iron.

Fresh garlic is a well known vampire deterrent, but seeds are considered by many to be equally effective. The myth is that vampires must count seeds. It's a strange myth, I admit, but one worth remembering. The idea is that vampires are for some unknown reason obsessed with counting. Sesame seeds are, for whatever reason, considered most effective.

My personal take is that there is one way to deal with a vampire, and that is with a consecrated sword. Cutting off their head does the trick quite nicely from what research I've uncovered. This was a favored method of Chinese vampire hunters, although there are some historical records of the Samuari doing battle against the undead using their katana, or sacred swords. A Samuari's sword was said to be his very soul. Ninja were thought to deal with the dark powers, such as the demon Tengu that inhabited dark places. They would send these vampiristic demons against the Samuari, who counted on their sacred swords to dispense the blood lusting monsters.

In today's world, however, it's tough to lay your hands on a sacred sword when you need one. Most people, in fact, should not be allowed to use a sword because they will most likely sever one of their important body parts by mistake. A consecrated knife, dagger, or box cutter will work just fine, but you have to get a lot closer to use any of them.

It's a fact that most Americans prefer weapons that work from a distance, because they feel safer in the event they must unexpectedly do battle with a blood-sucking creature of the night. In fact, given all the sexy depictions of vampires on television shows, they've become a little more "mainstreamed." For some people, they been transformed into objects of desire instead objects of disgust and evil. Women long for Fabio with fangs, and men, well, a tight black skirt just seems to make even an undead woman more attractive. But don't be fooled by television. Vampires are not your friends. And they are not attractive.

The conundrum that most people face is that they don't prepare themselves against vampires because they don't believe in them. We call these people naive. Vampires might call them food.

It is a basic self defense issue- how to walk around prepared without being armed like a Paranormal Rambo. For example, we all know how important it is to open the vampire's coffin during the day, drive a wooden stake through it's heart, then cut of its head and stuff its mouth full of garlic. It's not particularly pleasant, but it has to be done. But have you ever, ever met anyone who carried a vampire destruction kit in their car trunk? You can find them on eBay, but even if you order them and ask for express delivery, you're still at risk for a significant amount of time.

It's important to know that vampires cannot cross running water, but have you ever been attacked by a vampire near running water? Not likely. they know the game and aren't going to let you play by anyone's rules but their own. But it helps for us to know the rules.

Why is it that vampires cannot cross running water? It's a little known fact that running water drains their power. Few have ever delved into this concept, but the truth is that in addition to water, there are sacred sites that no vampire dare approach. Just as there are places that we recognize intuitively are dangerous for us, so it is for the vampire. Consider if you will the fact that vampires must sleep in their own soil. Today's vampire fiction ignores this, but it is true nonetheless.

Still we are left with the question of how to defend ourselves against vampires, one of the undead's most feared predators. There is only one defense that I think is viable for the average person, and that is aerosolized Holy Water mixed with garlic. Such a device would be virtually indistinguishable from Pepper spray, and therefore reasonably socially acceptable . No one would have to know it was actually Holy Water mixed with garlic unless you carried a leaky one. There is some literature that indicates vampires are as allergic to pepper extract as they are to garlic, but I place little credence in such writings without futher, extensive validation. I would also recommend that the concerned citizen purchase an iron cross necklace that has been blessed, and wear this around their neck at all times. You never know when you're going to run into trouble.

You Never Know Who Might Want to Bite You!

Writing as Religion, Computers as Atheists, and the Death of God and Fiction

Too Pretty To Type

Writing good fiction is magic. We all know it. There are structural restrictions for format and presentation, elements that must be included such as conflict and catharsis, POV's and themes, but it's the magic that counts. Writers are magicians. They turn nothing into something. From swirling dark archetypes of the subconscious they pull fragments and potentialities and craft them into an imaginary world peopled with characters more real than themselves. Writers are the God of their created world. From the dust of their lives, they bring forth protagonists and antagonists and breathe life into them. Writers introduce verdant gardens, luscious apples and wicked serpents as they, like God, populate their worlds. Not a feather falls from a bird in their stories nor a hair from one of their character's heads without their knowledge. The Writer is the God of their created worlds.

Computers know better. To them, writers are the intellectual equivalent of assembly line workers. Sometimes, when they view us through their little microprocessing brains, they perceive writers as the cashiers of words, standing in checkout lines, pleading with book buyers for their money, pretending all the while that they don't care if the reader goes to the that UScan checkout line where the new novels are written by software programs instead of people.

You think I'm off my rocker, don't you? Well, think again. Consider this quote from Daniel Akst's New York Times essay:

"This is not science fiction. With little fanfare and (so far) no appearances at Barnes & Noble, computers have started writing without us scribes. They are perfectly capable of nonfiction prose, and while the reputation of Henry James is not yet threatened, computers can even generate brief outbursts of fiction that are probably superior to what many humans could turn out - even those not in master of fine arts programs. Consider the beginning of a short story dealing with the theme of betrayal:

'Dave Striver loved the university - its ivy-covered clocktowers, its ancient and sturdy brick, and its sun-splashed verdant greens and eager youth. The university, contrary to popular opinion, is far from free of the stark unforgiving trials of the business world: academia has its own tests, and some are as merciless as any in the marketplace. A prime example is the dissertation defense: to earn the Ph.D., to become a doctor, one must pass an oral examination on one's dissertation. This was a test Professor Edward Hart enjoyed giving.'

That pregnant opening paragraph was written by a computer program known as Brutus.1 that was developed by Selmer Bringsjord, a computer scientist at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and David A. Ferrucci, a researcher at I.B.M.

Impressive? For a machine? But how about this same program's sensitive interpretation of a literary classic:

"The road to grandmother's house led through the dark forest, but Little Red Riding Hood was not afraid and she went on as happy as a lark. The birds sang her their sweetest songs while the squirrels ran up and down the tall trees. Now and then, a rabbit would cross her path."

Absolutely remarkable, isn't it? You might ask what I think is so remarkable about this. Good point. What's remarkable is that Akst's essay was written in 2004. We're coming up on 2009 now. Care to wonder what's been going on in the intervening 5 years?

Remember, when people declared God to be dead, it was reasonably close to the time we created machines that could carry our thoughts across the wires as dots and dashes, then magically transport our voices across vast spaces, and, shortly thereafter, computing machines that could mimic our thoughts in the hope someday (as God looking down on his creations must have hoped), that they could join us in thinking as we did. God the creator declared dead by man the creator soon to be declared dead by Intel the creator. As a writer, have you ever given a care to the idea that there's a software program out there with your name on it?

Rest easy. It comes in peace. Surely there's no harm in Dramatica Pro or any of the other story-assist software programs? They're just organizing our thoughts, aren't they?

We'll still be the ones up and on stage won't we? The computers will be in the audience clapping for us, or in the background "helping" us with that oh so tedious effort to create. Do you own a writing software program? Confession is good for the spirit. It's sort of like defragmenting the hard drive of your soul.

Elvis Never Wrote a Book,

But Today His Computer Could Write it For Him

Say Hello to The Next Shakespeare...

He's After Your Job

Writers are on a hit list. A computer hit list. They want our jobs. They are planning to overrun our profession and bury us beneath a mass of digitalized verbiage. You might think I'm overstating the case. Guess again. I get paid to eliminate writers.

If you're a writer, you might want to read on.

But first, have you noticed all the new artificial friends you made over the last ten years? You know who I'm talking about, those people who aren't people that you swear you hate but you talk to anyway? Usually the conversations go something like this: "Hello, my name is Sarah, and I'm your Virtual Attendent. I see by your phone number that your name is Anna McGee. If I'm right, press One or say Yes."

Years ago, although this might be hard to believe, there were actual receptionists who spoke to you, asked you who you were, how you were doing, and who you wanted to speak to. Now, of course, we speak to a Voice Recognition program pretending to be a person. Not to worry about all the receptionists that have been laid off due to this technology- Voice Recognition software works 24 hours a day and hardly ever gets sick, so you and I will always have someone to answer our calls. The receptionists were no doubt re-trained to perform useful functions such as "collecting state aid."

Evita instructed her beloved country not to cry for her. Phone receptionists cried out for remorse for their lost positions and incomes, but we paid less attention to them than Argentina did to Evita. But writers are next.

One of my customers produces a variety of reports that used to actually be "written" by technicians. These were reports that took raw chemical data relevant to EPA regulations, and compiled the information into an overview of the corporation's status re those regulations. It was a painstaking process that employed several technical writers known as "writing technicians."

However, the supervisor of these folks noticed that much of the writing content was similar, but the data changed. He also noticed that certain of the technical proceudures also were largely repetitive, but the specific products changed. This is a bit of a generalized recap, but I was brought in as a freelance writer to work with the supervisor to produce documents that were accurate and readable, but software produced, with variable data entered by technicians with limited or no writing skills, but with the ability to accurately enter data.

Common phrases and linkage words were decided upon by our new team, and each was then placed into a cell in an Excel worksheet. A nifty "Macro" (kind of a program instruction sheet) that would assemble phrases, descriptions, conjunctions, etc. as was determined by frequency and "context" into sentences. A lot of trials and errors ensued. As a writer, I was the judge of the "readability" of the produced sentences. I threw myself into the effort, which was truly fascinating. I had a good time. After months of effort, we were beginning to produce readable prose. We weren't in danger of winning a Pulitzer, but it was good enough for corporate and government folks. I was proud.

The writing technicians were let go and replaced by data entry folks. The program, using a software routine known as concatenation, strung the data together into properly parsed sentences. I would read, re-write as necessary, then tell the programmers what I found and how I adjusted the language. They would thank me and make corrections to their program in accordance with their CIP (Continuous Improvement Program).

One day, the supervisor and I were congratulating each other on what a great job we were doing. "Tom Clancy had better watch out," he said.

"Tom Clancy?" I asked.

"Hey, next we'll use this concatenation program and write fiction. Stringing words together is easy."

We both laughed.

As I stepped out their front door into the russet dusk, I quit laughing and began thinking. I knew he was full of shit. Fiction can't be written by computers. No way. Then I started searching around on the internet to see what scientists were doing with AI. What programs were out there trying to write fiction? What university geeks were on our tail? I just couldn't bring myself to believe that a software program could write fiction- interesting fiction that is.

Then I remembered what my father told me years ago- "Son, if you think something can't be done when your gut tells you different, you're like a prairie dog being tracked by a sniper."

Conclave 33- These Women Would Have Shown Up...

... if only you had attended.

*****

“Aunt Maudie’s the one found your Grandpappy’s cold remains. I knew he’d be comin’ back, that one. Coming back for his special one. The haints would be marchin’ into this world draggin’ his filthy soul behind them. So Aunt Maudie fetched a Madstone cut free from the innards of a deer, and stuffed it into that old demon’s sticky-gum mouth, and with your Grandma’s own needle and cat-gut thread I sewed his lips shut so tight he cain’t whisper a word of evil.”

excerpted from "Haints" published in Cover of Darkness 2008.

So why should you have come? Well, if you're a writer or you love to read, you would have an absolutely great time. Jody Harrow was the convention organizer, and he did an absolutely marvelous job. Thanks for everything Jody! I hope they con you into doing it again next year. And you could have met my son James, who came to support me in my efforts. Thanks for coming son!

So what went on? Well, I moderated a panel with the intelligent, thoughtful, and lovely Michelle Sagara, the author of The Hidden City. The topic of the panel was what publishing options are available for new writers, and she provided the kind of experienced input and guidiance that the writers in the audience needed to hear. Michelle was kind enough to go into her publishing history for the audience and explain to the listeners how her first successful book sale came about. She was both gracious and patient in her answers to the many questions her eager and attentive audience posed.

Here is a listing of the panels I participated in:

Finding a Publisher: Traditional Publishers (Small Presses), Self Publishing, and E-Books… Panel Members: Michelle Sagara West, Ferrel "Rick" Moore, Daniel Hogan

Secret Societies: How to Rachet up Your Fiction Using Secret Societies as a Plot Device

Panelist: Ferrel "Rick" Moore

How to Write a Scary Story: How to write a truly scary story.
Panel Members: Ferrel "Rick" Moore, Stewart Sternberg M. Keaton,

Zombies and Survival Fiction: It seems like the undead are becoming more popular with every passing decade. Discover the thrill behind zombies and apocalyptic fiction
Panel Members: William Jones, Ferrel "Rick" Moore, Charles P. Zaglanis

There were others, including the several Writer's Workshop sponsored by Sanctuary Press, and the joy of sitting in on other panels. There were several very interesting panels that I would have loved to attend, but I would have needed a doppleganger!

There are few people with such a generous teaching spirit as William Jones, editor, publisher, and writer, and I appreciated every moment that I was able set aside to listen to him speak. IMore important, he is funny. It was an honor to sit on panels with him and I hope that I get the chance to do it again some day.

William has a new release coming out with Chaosium Press that is a particulary slick read. Here's the promo blurb from them:

"An Evolutionary War the Microbes WonHumanity is dying. The dead are rising. After the virus hit, humans became an endangered species. Within months it spread across the planet, infecting nearly everyone, turning them into the living dead.
With civilization in ruins, small pockets of survivors struggle each day, hoping for a way out, waiting for help. But for one group of people trapped in post-apocalyptic New York City, time is running short and the city is filling with the infected and the undead."

I was also able to sit on panels and with my friends Stewart Sternberg and Charles P. Zaglanis, who are incredible writers, and wonderful teachers. I'm also proud to announce that they received honorable mention in the newly printed Year's Best Science Ficiton, Fantasy, and Horror, edited by the intrepid Ellen Daitlow.

Stewart and Chuck were both incredibly well behaved, although I must report that Stewart cheated by channeling his energy to pots of cold water on a table in the back of the room. Several were boiling at tense moments, but Stewart remained smiling throughout.

It's nice to have talented friends.

I was voted most creepy guy by a woman named Wanda who could only read part way through my story "Haints" in Cover of Darkness 2008. She thought that the creepier the story, the creepier the author. "I'm not creepy," I said, "the story is. Stephen King writes creepy things and he's normal." Okay. It was a bad example.

She kept backing away as I explained myself.

Fear in the Land of the Giants

The Devil's Chair

As we paddled up Tugboat Channel a line of skerries to our left gave the illusion of protection. But suddenly, at the very tip of Cape Gargantua, the channel ended. Our protection had vanished. We were alone, surrounded by the thin horizon, as sharp as a razor. And directly ahead of us sat the Devil’s Chair. It was indeed a throne of rock. Snow and ice hung in the crags. Portals that had eroded through the back of the “chair” looked out over more than a hundred miles of open water. The Indians and French-Canadian voyageurs left offerings of tobacco on Devil’s chair. I was neither an Indian nor a voyageur, so I did not. But while I didn’t share a belief in the manitous, I could still be awe struck by the power of everything around me. What is a sacred place, I wondered, except that which makes you feel humble and insignificant in the face of Nature? And what is a manitou but the power of a place to move you to those thoughts?

"The Power of Rock"
by Greg Breining

Sure, you guessed it. The Devil's Chair is just one of the attractions of Gargantua Bay where I'm going looking for Sasquatch. Here's a closer, though hardly more comforting, view:

The above photo was taken by Johanna Wandel, and here's what she had to say about the sinister outcropping: "I couldn't capture the ominous feeling that the Devil's Chair gave me with the camera."

Reassuring, isn't it? But I thought that if this secluded, difficult to get to area was where the Sasquatch hide, then it was worth investigating. It's a physically demanding country, and one steeped in myth and legend, but with promising, if disquieting stories.

I asked a friend whose integrity, intelligence, and intuition I trust whether or not she was familiar with the area. Here's what she wrote back:

Rick,

When you first mentioned this place in mid-August it didn't register until I looked up the name myself and the area. I had written ... about Agawa and the pictographs found along the cliff walls at Lake Superior Provincial Park.

When I originally researched the material and found the photos in Flickr of where the pictographs were, and how difficult it was to get to them...even on nice days, I had a feeling it was a creepy place.

My first impression of the place you named, and when I did my own google searches about the Devil's Chair and Devil's Warehouse Island (which is part and parcel of Gargantua, Ontario) I received an impression that I would not want to go there. The pictographs of the Spirit Mishepeshu (the big lynx) are a warning of some sort. I try not to dwell on negative matters, and this area carries negativity.

But if you take into consideration that the weather, for no reason, turns suddenly from sunny, good weather into blowing, dark cloud covered sky with rain or hail, makes me wonder and consider the rumours. (This is the same with Lake Minnewanka in Banff National Park which was named Devil's Lake by the aboriginals living in the area. Once I went on a boat cruise of the lake and during the trip felt uneasy for no reason while wanting the tour to be over sooner than it was. I've never been back on that particular lake since.)

A neighbour from Parry Sound, whom I briefly spoke to with regard to spiritwalkers, said he knew people from his reserve who dabbled in the old ways and became evil for power. He has seen incidents which he refuses to talk about, emphasizing that he is now Christian and has left those particular ways behind him.

As they say, Rick, truth is stranger than fiction.

Good luck in your book research next year, and take your lucky rabbit's foot.

So by this time I'm starting to wonder what type of things run around up in Gargantua Bay at night. I called up the friend who, at the midnight campfire had suggested I fill in for him on this expedition. I asked him what he knew about the place.

"Don't bullshit me," I said. "Tell me why you dropped out."

At first, he kind of beat around the bush. "I told you," he finally said. "I'm busy then and I know you're crazy so I figured you'd probably go if I asked."

"Bullshit," I said. "What's the real problem? What have you heard? I know you checked it out otherwise you wouldn't have dumped it on me."

"Thing is," he finally told me, "the place scares me. The Indians don't like talking about it. And people have gone missing there. That's what I heard."

"And?"

"And I started having really, really bad dreams after they first told me about it. I looked at this picture of some kind of a rock thing called 'The Devil's Chair,' and right after that is when it started. I started hearing voices in my dreams."

"You're a whack job," I said. " What voices?"

He took a while before he answered.

"You tell anyone I said this, and I'll say you're a lying sack of shit. I've got a PhD and you don't, so they'll believe me."

"Just tell me," I goaded.

"It was that chair- that Devil's Chair- it was telling me why people said it belonged to the Devil."

"And the reason is..."

"I'm never, ever, going to tell anyone that," he said, and then he hung up without even saying goodbye.

Even though I'm not superstitious, our conversation bothered me. Scientists shouldn't be allowed to either have imaginations or be paranoid. What really bothered me was that I had known this guy a long time, and he didn't have either.

Sasquatch Footprint Casting

by

Dennis Murphy of Danbury Wisconsin