Apparently the folks at Hershey and Mars candy companies have changed their hiring practices because, according to wingnut minister Kimberly Daniels, during the Halloween season, "most of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches… Curses are sent through the tricks and treats of the innocent whether they get it by going door to door or by purchasing it from the local grocery store. The demons cannot tell the difference.”
Stupid demons. The lesson is simple. Buy a Snickers, burn in hell. See how easy it is?
Daniels goes on... “The gods of harvest that the witches worship during their fall festivals are the Corn King and the Harvest Lord. The devil is too stupid to understand that Jesus is the Lord of the Harvest 365 days a year.”
Actually, Daniels seems to be suggesting a stupid Jesus because there is no harvest 365 days a year. Of course, he was a carpenter, not a farmer.
In Daniel’s universe, demons are assigned to people who participate in the pagan rites of Halloween and you’re guilty of Satan worship even if you don’t know that you’re worshipping Satan. Just go through the motions or use occult knickknacks at a party and you've joined the legions of the Damned. By this logic, buying a Christmas tree (a pagan symbol of life surviving the winter) or telling yout kids about the Easter Bunny (a pagan symbol of fertility) will send you unwittingly to hell. Apparently, this holiday stuff is a bit of a minefield. Maybe we should stick with Flag Day or National Gorilla Suit Day.
Of course, as anyone who’s watched the History Channel (or can read) ought to know, Halloween has nothing to do with Satan. Halloween emerged from the harvest rituals pagan cultures of central Europe during the late Middle Ages, wherein the locals would dress up in scary costumes to frighten away the demons of winter. Daniels and her ilk conveniently forget that Satan is a biblical character—and pagans didn’t read the Bible. Actually, most of them didn’t read at all. But for the medieval Church, any ritual not approved by the pope was, by default, a festival for the devil.
Neither are witches brides of Satan, as the torches and pitchforks crowd insists. (Amazing how they know what non-believers believe better than the non-believers do.) Witches entered the picture because local shaman healers, often older women who knew every herb and folk cure imaginable, would treat the sick not only with elixirs to heal the body, but with incantations to heal the soul. Once again, any spiritual rite that didn’t include Jesus was ipso facto a love letter to Lucifer.
The Church didn’t indulge in such practices, of course. They restricted themselves rituals like the Eucharist—worshipping a dead man by occasionally snacking on him. Ah, but don’t accuse them of unwittingly participating in cannibalism. You see, Christians are free to mangle the meaning of everyone else’s rituals but nobody can mangle the meaning of theirs. I know that's not fair, but neither is us taking the rap for Eve eating that apple 6,000 years ago. God never said achieving salvation was fair.
Daniels goes on to link all things occult with Halloween—“occult” meaning “secret.” She notes that the real dangers of Halloween are not the public displays of paganism so much as the “secret, wicked, cruel activities that go on behind the scenes.” She then lists them:
1. Sex with demons. (Apparently this is a big problem in her neighborhood. On the bright side, because good Christians oppose contraception, the demons probably use condoms.)
2. Orgies between animals and humans. (She really needs to get new friends. Exactly where are these soirées taking place?)
3. Animal and human sacrifices. (A lot of these on the police blotters, are there?)
4. Sacrificing babies to shed innocent blood. (Whose babies? Can she name one?)
5. Rape and molestations of adults, children and babies. (Last time I checked, it wasn’t necessary to live near Satanists to have this problem. Living by a cathedral has been known to work just as well.)
6. Revel nights. (Kind of vague. Do these include the Prom?)
7. Conjuring of demons and casting of spells. (Really? Has there been an uptick in ER admissions due to spell-casting? Maybe a lot of the guys Daniels know are toads.)
8. Release of “time-release” curses against the innocent and the ignorant. (I believe the Pfizer people may soon have a pill for this.)
Daniels’ finally expresses concern about séances and necromancy—communication with the dead. I’m sure she communicated this to Jesus right away.
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