Wallnau's witches

I've noticed a tendency amongst some people that is a little bit like what would happen if the sunk-cost fallacy had an unholy bastard child with confirmation bias.  It occurs when someone has put so much of their time, effort, money, and emotional energy into something that when it's proven wrong, they simply can't accept it -- and start casting around for explanations, however ridiculous or far-fetched, to account for it.

It will come as no surprise to anyone who watched Tuesday's presidential candidates' debate that I'm talking about the supporters of Donald Trump.  A friend of mine commented that prior performances by Trump had set the bar so low that all he had to do in order to win the debate was not shit his pants while in front of the camera, and he couldn't even manage that much.  Kamala Harris -- who was a lawyer, and is a skilled orator who knows how to use her opponents' weaknesses against them -- kept baiting Trump over and over, and Trump couldn't help himself.  He took the bait every damn time, with the result that his side of the debate was an incoherent rant about everything from "the kind of numbers I'm talking about, because child care is child care" (direct quote, that) to his having the best rallies in the history of politics to Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio eating people's cats and dogs for dinner.

Confronted with their beloved candidate doing what can only be called a complete face-plant in front of millions of viewers, the MAGA types had to figure out how Mr. Stable Genius came across as a barely comprehensible, probably demented nutjob who couldn't stick to the script long enough to answer a single question.  I've already seen one Trump supporter claiming that the only reason Harris did so well is that she was being fed answers through an earpiece.  (Was Trump wearing an earpiece that sucked answers out of his brain?)  Another, following the "Declare victory and go home" strategy, simply said that Trump won the debate and that was that.  But no one has come up with an explanation as creative -- and by "creative," I mean "absolutely batshit crazy" -- as Pastor Lance Wallnau.

Regular readers of Skeptophilia will undoubtedly be familiar with Wallnau's name, because he's been something of a frequent flier here.  Amongst his more "creative" ideas in the past:

• the January 6 rioters were there at the Capitol to "pick up trash."
• all of Trump's enemies would be struck down by God in May of 2024.  (It's currently September.  We're still waiting.)
• back in 2020, he declared that God would cure Rush Limbaugh's cancer and save his life.  (Despite this, Limbaugh died in February of 2021.)
• Wallnau "took authority" over Hurricane Maria in 2017, and ordered it in the name of Jesus to miss Puerto Rico.  (It didn't.)
• angels "dusted his face with gold flakes" because he loves Trump so much.
• the Nazis who marched in Charlottesville, Virginia (resulting in one person's death) were "paid actors" because white supremacists don't exist.

Now, Wallnau is responding to Trump's catastrophically bad performance Tuesday night -- apparently even the good pastor can't stretch the truth enough to pretend Trump was brilliant -- by saying that he flopped because he was under an evil spell cast by the moderators, who are actually witches.  Here's the quote in toto because otherwise you'll think I'm making this up:

When I say "witchcraft" I am talking about what happened tonight. Occult-empowered deception, manipulation and domination.  That’s what ABC pulled off as moderators, and Kamala’s script handlers set up the kill box.  One-sided questions and fact checking sealed the box.  Witchcraft.  It’s not over yet, but something supernatural needs to disrupt this counterfeit momentum because the same public that voted in Obama is voting again and her deception is advancing.

I dunno, Lance, every clip I've heard from Trump's rallies sounds like incoherent babbling, too, so what are you saying?  The "occult-empowered witches" are following him around?

Of course, Wallnau probably would answer that with a resounding "yes, of course they are."  And the more troubling part about this is not that Wallnau is a wacko crank spouting nonsense -- which, after all, is what wacko cranks do -- but that he's listened to, and taken seriously by, thousands of people.

Look, I get how hard it is to admit you were wrong, especially when you've invested a lot of your heart into something or someone.  But this goes beyond conservative versus liberal.  I know a good many people who lean right, and that's just fine; we might disagree on various issues, but those things we can discuss.

But how anyone at this point can look at that incoherent, babbling blowhard and think he's fit to run a country is absolutely beyond comprehension.

Wallnau apparently does, though, to the extent that he's blaming Tuesday night's fiasco on witchcraft.  Couldn't possibly be because he hitched his wagon to someone who was incompetent from the outset, but has since then demonstrated a level of fitness that includes publicly sucking up to dictators like Viktor Orbán and Vladimir Putin, and claiming that he can levy taxes on foreign countries, that there are states where it is legal to "execute babies after birth," and that white people are being denied the COVID vaccine because of their race.  It's so bad that Wikipedia actually has a page called "False or Misleading Statements by Donald Trump," which -- counting only the ones in public record that have been adequately fact-checked -- number in the tens of thousands.  Donnel Stern, writing in the journal Psychoanalytic Dialogues in 2019, said, "We expect politicians to stretch the truth.  But Trump is a whole different animal...  He lies as policy, and will say anything to satisfy his supporters or himself."

So.  Yeah.  I'm probably doomed to disappointment in thinking that this might change anyone's mind, but hell, hope springs eternal and all that kinda stuff.  You never know, though.  Maybe Wallnau's witches are on to something.  I could try casting a few spells and seeing if it moves the poll numbers a notch.

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Duppy freestyle

Life isn't always smooth sailing, for me or for anyone else, but I'm thankful that I've never had to deal with a "duppy."

If you don't know what a duppy is, well, neither did I before yesterday.  Turns out it's a malevolent spirit of Jamaican origin.  After doing a bit of research, I found that the name comes from the Ga language of Ghana, where adope means "a spirit that appears in the shape of a dwarf."  In the tradition of Obeah -- a West Indian folk religion, originally of West African origin -- humans are born with two souls, a good one and a bad one.  When you die, your good soul goes to heaven to be judged, and the bad one stays in your coffin for three days, at which point it dies.  But if in those three days proper precautions aren't taken, the bad soul will escape and become a duppy, and go around causing problems.

The problem is, I couldn't find anywhere that told me what the proper precautions were.  So that's unfortunate.  I mean, they shouldn't be coy about this stuff, or we'll have the bad souls of Grandma Bertha and Great-Uncle Edmund and everyone else wandering about making people's lives miserable.

And heaven knows we wouldn't want that.

Woodcut of an "Obeah Man" from the journal Folk-Lore: A Quarterly Review of Myth, Tradition, Institution & Custom, volume 4. 1893.  Published in London by the Folk-lore Society.  [Image is in the Public Domain]

There are other kinds of duppies, though, as if one kind weren't enough.  There's one called the "Rolling Calf," which is a calf that rolls (thus the name) because its body is completely wrapped up with chains.  How that helps it roll I'm not sure, but you can see how that would make other sorts of movement pretty much out of the question.  There's also the "Three-Footed Horse" (once again, self-explanatory), and "Old Higue," a vampiric spirit that looks like a sweet little old lady by day, and a loathsome bloodsucking hag at night.

I think this might well explain the personality of my seventh-grade English teacher.  There always did seem to be something kind of cunning behind her smile.

The reason all this comes up is an article that appeared in The Jamaica Star a couple of weeks ago about an elderly husband and wife in St. Andrew, Jamaica, who say they're being tormented by a duppy.  The author of the article, Simone Morgan Lindo, seems to take the whole thing seriously, and quotes the old lady, Eulalee Mills, extensively.  Here's what Mills had to say.  (Note: the newspaper quoted her in Jamaican patois; I'm merely copying it here.  I say that so I don't have to write [sic] every other word.)

I was in my room and I had some things on my microwave and I just see the dem fly off.  I took them up back and pack them up but as me turn and a go in the next room, me hear the same tings dem drop off again...  The next day everything start fling from my chest of drawers and tings just start throw from all over the room.  Everything up in the air, all me medication and me blood pressure machine deh all over the place and tings just start 'lick' me inna me back and all over mi body.  Me and me husband stand up in our room and all things from the kitchen a sail come in come lick we.

So that's pretty scary.  Her husband Milford, though, was not about to let some disembodied spirit throw around their belongings.

As soon as me rebuke the 'spirit' and stepped out the room, it start act up back again and start sail tings...  I know dem spirits deh can't trouble me, enuh, because me is one of God's bad man, so me a go continue rebuke them.  The rest a people dem in the house no have the spiritual power to fight dem, but me nah stop until me house get calm back.

Which is pretty damn brave.  I know I'm a skeptic and all, but I have to say, if I was sitting in my house minding my own business and my blood pressure medication suddenly started flying through the air, rebuking would kind of be the last thing I would think of.  I think my more likely response would be to piss my pants and then have a stroke.  Because I may be a rationalist, but I'm also a big fat coward.

Interestingly, the Mills' neighbors aren't quite so certain Milford Mills is on the right side of things.  One neighbor, who didn't want to be named, said that Mills was a practitioner of Obeah who was just getting what he deserved.  Another said that (s)he had seen a female spirit walking in the Mills' yard at night, and it was the ghost of a woman with whom Milford Mills had an illicit relationship.

I hope the whole thing settles down soon, not only so Eulalee and Milford get the calm they want, but because bad stuff happens when superstitious people are feeling threatened.  If the neighbors start thinking Milford and his wife are a danger to the safety of the community, they might take matters into their own hands.  Just last year, it was reported that a bunch of homeless children in Uige, Angola were tortured -- and some were killed -- because the locals had become convinced they were witches.  That sort of thing appears to be fairly common in the world, which I find appalling.

But so far, no one's bothered the Mills, and there were no more recent reports of their belongings being thrown about.  So that's all good.  As for me, if there are duppies around here, I'd be much obliged if they'd stay out of my house.  My housekeeping skills are already such that they could be summed up by the statement, "There appears to have been a struggle."  The last thing I need is a ghost adding to the chaos.

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This week's Skeptophilia book recommendation is from one of my favorite thinkers -- Irish science historian James Burke.  Burke has made several documentaries, including Connections, The Day the Universe Changed, and After the Warming -- the last-mentioned an absolutely prescient investigation into climate change that came out in 1991 and predicted damn near everything that would happen, climate-wise, in the twenty-seven years since then.

I'm going to go back to Burke's first really popular book, the one that was the genesis of the TV series of the same name -- Connections.  In this book, he looks at how one invention, one happenstance occurrence, one accidental discovery, leads to another, and finally results in something earthshattering.  (One of my favorites is how the technology of hand-weaving led to the invention of the computer.)  It's simply great fun to watch how Burke's mind works -- each of his little filigrees is only a few pages long, but you'll learn some fascinating ins and outs of history as he takes you on these journeys.  It's an absolutely delightful read.

[If you purchase the book from Amazon using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to supporting Skeptophilia!]

Educating your way out of superstition

One of the trends I find the most discouraging is the increase in superstition and religious fanaticism in other parts of the world.

Not that we don't have it here in the United States, mind you.  But I like to tell myself that it's on the wane, whether that's wishful thinking or not.  In a lot of places, however, it's undeniable that violent religious mania is on the rise, and I'm not just thinking about Muslim extremists in the Middle East.  Equally worrying is the explosion in religious-motivated violence in west and central Africa, where the Christians and the Muslims seem to be trying to outdo each other in who can cause the most havoc.

We have Boko Haram in Nigeria and Chad, a Muslim extremist sect specializing in capturing young girls and selling them into what amounts to slavery.  Because that's evidently not spreading misery around effectively enough, Nigerian Christians are also being encouraged by religious leaders to seek out, harass, and kill "witches" -- some of them mere children.

The same sort of thing has been reported from Tanzania, Ghana, Kenya, Gambia, Uganda, and elsewhere -- and those are only the cases that made the news.  Hundreds, possibly thousands, of similar cases undoubtedly never get reported.

So it was with tremendous pleasure that I found out that there is an orphanage in Uganda that was founded specifically to combat such practices -- where orphaned children are not only given care, they are raised to respect reason and logic over fear and superstition.

Called BiZoHa, the orphanage is in Kasese District in southwestern Uganda.  It was an outgrowth of the Kasese United Humanist Association, led by humanist leader Bwambale Robert Musubaho, who has spent his whole adult life fighting the zealotry that is commonplace in his country.  "I’m so concerned with how there is massive indoctrination and dogmatism and a brainwashing of the minds of children in orphanages," Musubaho said in an interview with Inverse.  "My goal here is offer an alternative, so that when these children grow up they are in the position to think freely, to be critical of everything.  One of the reasons I was motivated to open this orphanage was to send a message to the people of Muhokya and the world that we people of non-belief also care about the well being of others, especially children."

Which is about as refreshing a message as any I can imagine.  My experience is that if you can train children to use reason to understand the universe, they are set up to approach their whole lives that way.

It hasn't been easy.  Uganda is a staunchly religious country where there is a presumption of religiosity.  Musubaho considers himself an atheist, a stance that most Ugandans cannot even imagine.  "The religious conservatives continue to wonder how one can live without a belief in a god," he said.  "I am not shy when telling them who I am as a person, and I am always proud to call myself a non-believer.  This has given me a platform to tell them that you don’t have to believe in a god or gods to be a good person."

Which, I have found, is an uphill battle even in a country where there isn't an automatic assumption that you belong to a religion.  "How can you be a moral person?" is one of the most common questions I'm asked when people find out I'm an atheist.

As if the only thing restraining people from stealing, raping, and murdering is being under threat from a deity.  Myself, I hope you're refraining from murdering me not solely on that basis.

So as always, the important thing is mutual understanding, and Musubaho is approaching the whole thing the right way.  I strongly urge you, if you are able to afford it, to contribute to BiZoHa.  This is a place where your contributions can make a direct difference for children, and foster a humanist message in a country that is in sore need of it.

And their message is spot-on.  Right in their mission statement are the words, "Rely on Reason, Logic, and Science to understand the universe and to solve life’s problems."  Which is a standard that should be followed everywhere.

Equally poignant is the sign at the entrance to BiZoHa that reads:  "Education is the Progressive Discovery of Our Own Ignorance."

Opening the floodgates

I was discussing with a friend a couple of days ago the devastating floods that have hit Texas, caused by an aberrant weather pattern that is showing no signs of going away any time soon.

"Given that there are so many climate change deniers in Texas," my friend asked, "what do you think they'll blame it on?"

"Oh, I dunno," I responded.  "Probably gay people and President Obama, I'd guess."

You know, there are times I'd rather not be right.

Flooding in Houston [image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

Just yesterday, a woman who called into Bryan Fischer's American Family Association-sponsored radio talk show Focal Point had the following to say:

If God is judging Texas, it’s because of the witchcraft and sodomy that we’ve allowed to run rampant...  [T]he places that are underwater [are] are overrun with witchcraft and sodomy.  If you go into those areas, you can just see it...  Houston has a whole area that is like Sodom and Gomorrah.  It even has a sodomite mayor.

What I'm wondering is how god could design a flood that would only hit witches and gay people.  I mean, it's not like there's any way to stop flood waters from wiping out pretty much anyone in their path, so unless god in his Infinite Wisdom and Mysterious Ways induced all of the sodomites and witchcraft practitioners to build their houses on low ground, he's pretty much smiting everyone at the moment.

It brings up the rather amusing mental image of god at a a giant computer that has a map with flashing red lights every time someone has the wrong kind of sex, and a pull-down menu for different kinds of natural disasters that can be unleashed.  "What?  Fellatio in Tulsa, Oklahoma?  THIS CALLS FOR A TORNADO."

But you'll be relieved to know that there's not just sex and witchcraft behind the floods, there's also the looming, sinister, evil, all-powerful figure of...

... Barack Obama.

Why would President Obama send floods to Texas, you might ask?  Is it just because Texas is conservative?  Because if that's it, he should be flooding most of the southeastern United States.  There has to be more to it, right?

Of course, right.  Obama is flooding Texas because they caught on to what he was doing regarding Jade Helm 15.

For those of you who have not been keeping up with the latest conspiracy theories, Jade Helm 15 is a set of military maneuvers taking place in Texas that were a front for a government takeover of the state that was so top-secret that the Army announced what they were intending to do three months early.  That's how sneaky these guys are.  "I have an idea!  Let's confuse and confound them by telling them all our plans!  They'll be so baffled by this ploy that when we follow through with them, they'll be caught completely unawares!"

So apparently Obama got mad that the Texans were on to his cunning plot, and weren't just cooperating and letting him and his thugs declare martial law and herd everyone into FEMA Death Camps conveniently disguised as WalMarts.  He got so mad, in fact, that he used his super-powerful weather weapons to teach Texas a lesson.  Says writer Susan Duclos:

As I'm looking through breakingnews [sic] headlines, and seeing the continuous references to the extreme weather so concentrated over TX, and coupled with the continuous chemtrailing that happens throughout the US, I can't help but think that what is going on right now as part of the Jade Helm "exercize" [sic], could not actually be the domestic roll out of weather warfare on an agressive [sic] scale. We know they can control the weather to at least some degree. We know that the chemtrailing over CA and in the Pacific moddifies [sic] the jet stream to both keep CA dry and to force that precipitation east towards TX and other southern states.  We know that Jade Helm is "pretending" that TX is a hostile enemy that must be engaged.  The millitary is already rolling out across the state as part of this "drill".  Why then, is it not reasonable to assume that as part of this "mock civil war drill" that they would not practice using the tools that they have in their arsenal?

Let me just recommend, Ms. Duclos, that you not only use your computer's function called "spell check," that you consult a dictionary and look up the definition of the word "reasonable."

So there you have it: this isn't a weather event, it's either a punishment by god for gay sex and witchcraft, or it's the result of a weather weapon wielded by Barack "Professor Evil" Obama.  Myself, I just hope that the rains stop, because there's been enough devastation and death already.  And also so that these loons will shut up and go back to their previous hobby, which is probably pulling on the straps of their straitjackets with their teeth.

Your days are numbered

Most people have heard of the placebo effect.  The name comes from the Latin word meaning "I will please," and refers to the phenomenon that people who are given an ineffective medication after being told that it will ameliorate their symptoms often find that the symptoms do, indeed, abate.  The mechanism is still not well elucidated -- it has been suggested that some of the effect might be caused by the brain producing "endogenous opioids" when a placebo is administered, causing decreased sensations of pain, feelings of well-being, and sounder sleep.  But the fact is, we still don't fully understand it.

Less well-known, but equally well-documented, is the nocebo effect.  "Nocebo" means "I will harm" in Latin, and it is more or less the placebo effect turned on its head.  If a person is told that something will cause pain, or bring him/her to harm, it sometimes does -- even if there's no rational reason why it would.  Individuals who believe in voodoo curses, for example, sometimes show actual medically detectable symptoms, even though such curses are merely empty superstition.  Nevertheless, if you believe in them, you might feel their effects.

Naturally, this further bolsters the superstition itself, which ramps up the anxiety and fear, which makes the nocebo more likely to happen the next time, and so round and round it goes.  And this seems to be what is happening right now in Uganda -- a bizarre phenomenon called "numbers disease."

In "numbers disease," an affected individual suddenly notices a raised pattern on his/her skin that looks like a number.  The number that appears, it is said, represents the number of days the person has left.  Once the number shows up, the individual begins to sicken, and when the allotted time is up, the person dies.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

Dr. Thomas Lutalo, of the Ugandan Ministry of Health, says that he is seeing a rapid increase in the incidence of the "disease," and has suggested that much of the hysteria might be due to relatively harmless skin infections like ringworm that worsen because of improper skin care.  Ringworm rashes are often irregular, meaning that if you're looking for a pattern (e.g. a number) you're likely to find one, especially given that any number will do.  Then, the superstition that gave rise to the "disease" lends itself to superstitious "cures" that often make some easily-treatable disease become more serious.

The worst part is that this one-superstition-leads-to-another thing is generating an upswing in the belief in witchcraft, and is giving local religious leaders another tool for converting the fearful.  "Unfortunately, some Pentecostal pastors are already using the fear of the strange disease as a beacon for luring more followers to their worship centres with promises of a 'cure,'" said Dr. Harriet Birabwa, a psychiatrist at a hospital in the city of Butabika.  "It is a myth that needs to be dispelled immediately as very many people are dying because of harboring such baseless beliefs."

Which is all well and good to say, but as we've seen over and over, superstitions are awfully difficult to combat.  In my Critical Thinking class, I ask, "How many are you are superstitious?", and usually about half the class will cheerfully raise their hands -- despite the fact that it's hard to see how self-identifying as "superstitious" could be a good thing.  This generates a discussion about what they're superstitious about and why, and how we come to such conclusions despite there being little evidence for their veracity.  Fortunately, most of the superstitions I hear about in class are minor silliness -- on the level of a lucky keychain, a special pen to take tests with, or making sure that they put their left shoe on first because otherwise it'd be "bad luck."

But the whole superstitious mindset is counterfactual and irrational, and that in and of itself makes it worth fighting.  Why subscribe to a worldview within which sinister forces, over which you have no control, are capriciously doling out good and bad fortune, and for which (more importantly) there is no evidence whatsoever?  As we're seeing in Uganda, superstition is sometimes not as harmless as it seems, and can lead to fear, anxiety, physical harm, and allowing yourself to be manipulated by the unscrupulous.

So call to mind any superstitions you might fall prey to, and think about whether it might not be time to reconsider them.  Maybe it's time that irrationality's days are numbered... not yours.

Naked dead guy money pants

Writing a blog like this one, the usual gist of which is that people believe bizarre things, means that I get the oddest emails sometimes.

Like yesterday, when I got a one-line email, to wit:

Once worn, the scrotum of the necropants would never empty of coins so long as the original coin remains.

That was it.  No explanation.  So I responded, understandably:

... what?

And in short order received the response:

You heard me.

So I was mystified.  Was this some kind of code?  If I responded, "The doberman barks at midnight," would I be allowed into the Sanctum Sanctorum of some secret society?  Or was the person who sent the email simply loony?  I finally decided on the direct approach, and responded:

Yes, I did, and am no closer to having the slightest idea of what you are talking about.

At this point, the emailer decided to stop playing coy, and sent me a link to a page of the website The Cult of Weird called "Macabre Icelandic Traditions: Necropants."  On the website we are told that "necropants" are a bizarre, and probably illegal, way to make money through black magic:

The Strandagaldur Museum of Icelandic Sorcery & Witchcraft in Holmavik tells the story of seventeen people burned at the stake in the 17th century for occult practices. The museum’s claim to fame is an exhibit showcasing the macabre legend of Necropants, or nábrók... 

According to legend, necropants could produce an endless flow of coins if done correctly.

To begin with, one would need to get permission from a living man to use his skin upon his death. After burial, the sorcerer would then have to dig up the body and skin it in one piece from the waist down. A coin stolen from a poor widow must then be placed in the scrotum, along with a magic sign called nábrókarstafur scrawled on paper.

Once worn, the scrotum of the necropants would never empty of coins so long as the original coin remains.

The website has a photograph of some (presumably real) necropants, or at least a fairly convincing facsimile thereof, which I would have posted here except for the fact that it looks basically like the lower half of a naked guy and I don't want to offend anyone.  So if you want to see it for some reason (and I may need several months of therapy after having looked at it myself), you can just go to the original website and take a look.

Of course, what this makes me wonder is two things: (1) how did anyone ever come up with this idea?  (2) And once they tried it, and it didn't work, how on earth did the tradition continue?  You'd think that once you'd gone to all of that trouble, and no gold coins dropped from the dead guy's naughty bits, you'd sort of go, "Well, there's another great idea that didn't work.  What a bunch of goobers we are," and go back to herding sheep, or whatever the hell they did for a living in 17th century Iceland.

But no.  Apparently enough people thought that this was a good idea that it somehow became a common practice, or at least sufficiently widespread to merit a bunch of people getting burned at the stake, and later, a display in a museum.  The whole thing leaves me a little flabbergasted, frankly.

But the person who originally emailed me actually had an interesting point (other than grossing me out completely) -- which was that a lot of these magic spells and so on have similar characteristics to the claims people now circulate on the internet.  "But before we had the internet you had to come up with something that people would actually repeat, for it to get around," he said, with regard to the Naked Dead Guy Money Pants.  "So it had to be something either too vague in its effects to be sure whether it was working, or too much trouble for people to actually do, as in this case."

Which explains it, I guess.  Me, I'm still a little perplexed at how someone could come up with the idea in the first place.  But when you think about it, it's not really that much weirder than (for example) Scientology.

Maybe back in 17th century Iceland, some guy made a bet with another guy in a bar that he could convince people that they could make money skinning corpses.  It's as good an explanation as any, and hey -- it worked for L. Ron Hubbard.

Weekend wrap-up

It's been a busy week,  here at Worldwide Wacko Watch.  I and my investigative team (made up of my two highly-trained dogs, Doolin and Grendel) have dug up some wonderful stories that will hopefully not make you lose complete faith in the intelligence of the human race.

First, from Indonesia, we have word that there is a law being drafted that will make black magic illegal.  Not only will casting spells and harming someone be punishable by jail time, even claiming to be able to do so will be considered a criminal offense.  Khatibul Umam Wiranu, an MP from the Democrat Party, believes that these measures are necessary to protect the populace from evil magicians.  But, he cautions, any charges of witchcraft filed should be "based on fact finding, not [just] on someone's statement."

Well, that should at least make it less likely anyone's going to be arrested.

Other proposed changes to the penal code include increasing jail time for such crimes as having sex with someone you're not married to.

The best part?  Proponents of the new laws are calling this a push to "modernize" Indonesia's out-of-date criminal code, which was last revised in 1918.  Because worrying about who's getting laid by whom, and claiming that the creepy-looking old lady down the street is a witch, is so 21st century.


Go a few hundred miles north into China, and we find our second story, which is a "beauty treatment" called "huǒ liáo" that involves setting your face on fire.  [Source]

I thought that mooshing charcoal paste and nightingale poop extract on your skin was the dumbest beauty treatment I'd ever heard, but this one takes the prize.  Huǒ liáo consists of soaking a towel in alcohol and a "secret elixir," and the practitioner putting it on your face or other "problem area" and then setting it ablaze.  The practitioner is supposed to quickly smother the fire with another towel.  Don't believe me?  Here's a picture of someone having the treatment:

Nope, I see nothing at all that could possibly go wrong with that.

When asked about the treatment, a doctor who specializes in "natural cures," Dr. Jacob Teitelbaum, said, "While alcohol will help carry whatever is in the elixir into the body, it's not really necessary to light it on fire.  However, one explanation is that extreme heat triggers an adrenaline response which can shift your body's chemistry, improving some symptoms like indigestion and slow metabolism."

You know, if I want an adrenaline rush, I'll just go ziplining or ride a roller coaster.  Anyone who needs to set his/her face on fire in order to get an "adrenaline response" has other problems besides dull skin.


Next, we have a story in from Spain that someone has discovered a carving in some stonework in a cathedral that dates from the 12th century that depicts...

... an astronaut.

The carving, which apparently shows a guy in an Apollo-program-style space suit, is on the Cathedral of Salamanca.  Want to take a look?  Here you go:

 

 Of course, this has given multiple orgasms to the whole "ancient astronauts" crew, the ones who think that Chariots of the Gods is Holy Writ, who think the pyramids were built by aliens, and so on.  The only problem is, the cathedral was renovated in 1992, and this stonework was clearly added then by an artist with a sense of humor.  In fact, Snopes.com has a page on this claim, and they even found an article in a Portuguese newspaper that described the figure:

The renovation of the Cathedral of Salamanca in 1992 integrated modern and contemporary motifs, including a carved figure of an astronaut.  The use of this motif was in the tradition of cathedral builders and restorers including contemporary motifs among older ones as a way of signing their works.  The person responsible for the restoration, Jeronimo Garcia, chose an astronaut as the symbol of the twentieth century.

Well, that sounds pretty unequivocal, doesn't it?  Unfortunately, this hasn't convinced anyone except the people who were already skeptical, and all it's done is hooked up the Ancient Astronauts crew with the Conspiracy Theories crew, and now we have claims that the Spanish (and/or Portuguese) governments are covering up the evidence of ancient alien invasion, for god alone knows what reason.


In any case, this brings us to our last story, which is about a petition that is currently out there to save planet Earth from an extraterrestrial attack.  How, exactly, signing a petition is going to help, I don't know.  Maybe when the aliens get here, and are on the verge of blowing us to smithereens with their laser cannons, we can shout, "No!  You can't do that!  WE HAVE A PETITION!"  Maybe the idea is that if enough people sign it, governments will for god's sake do something, such as to deploy a protective shield around the Earth in the fashion of the historical documentary Men in Black III.  I dunno.

In any case, the petition has currently garnered a whole fourteen signatures.  They're shooting for 100,000.  You can sign if you want to.  Me, I probably won't.  My general feeling is that any species that modernizes laws by outlawing witchcraft and premarital sex, and considers setting your face on fire a beauty treatment, deserves everything it gets.

Faith, exorcism, and fraud

Following right on the heels of yesterday's post about sex with demons, today we have a story out of Ontario that a man has been charged with "pretending to practice witchcraft."  [Source]

The online Globe and Mail tells the story of a Mississauga man, Gustavo Valencia Gomez,  who self-publishes a Spanish language newspaper called El Negocia Redondo, wherein he advertised his services as a "healer."  He claimed to have three offices (in Toronto, London [Ontario], and Montreal) where he practiced his healing arts, and he would be happy to help you out... for a fee, of course.

Apparently, one woman came in complaining of various illnesses, and Gomez told her that she and her family were "cursed" and that he would perform rituals that would lift the curse if she would pay him $14,000.  Which she did.

But then the Canadian law enforcement got involved, and the next thing you know, Gomez was under arrest for fraud, false pretenses, and "pretending to practice witchcraft."

All right, so far, so good.  But my question is: what is the difference in the eyes of the law between "pretending" to practice a belief, and actually practicing a belief?

So, here we have Gomez, saying he'll perform rituals for you if you'll pay him.  The rituals are almost certainly useless, and have no basis in fact.  Gomez is arrested for fraud.  On the other hand, check your pharmacy shelves for homeopathic remedies, which are also useless and have no basis in fact.  On yet another hand (I have three hands), consider churches who claim that "god requires you to tithe" and strongly hints that you will be Naughty In God's Sight, and that god might well Smite You With His Mighty Fist, if you don't, yet another nonsensical claim that has no basis in fact.

Consider also sites like this one, wherein Reverend Cotton Marcus of the Church of St. Mark's has provided a handy questionnaire which will tell you what (if any demon) is possessing you.  Naturally, I had to take the test, and I know you will be as eager to find out my results as I was, so here they are:

You may be afflicted with a demon known as MIITAKK.
Miitakk is the demon of complacence and slothfulness – many initially afflicted with this demon stop making an effort in any aspect of their lives. Without exorcism or care of any kind those possessed by Miitakk will suffer from bedsores, atrophy of the limbs and other ailments of the immobile. Signs: often those possessed by Miitakk take on a nearly catatonic state, and it is difficult to get them to respond. However, if the afflicted is prodded too much, they can suddenly become violent. Touching cool water causes those possessed by this demon to feel a burning sensation.

I do get fairly annoyed when I'm prodded, and although I love to swim I hate cold water, which is why I don't tend to go swimming except during summer (next year summer in upstate New York is scheduled from July 21 through August 3, in case you want to plan ahead).  So that much is accurate.  However, I don't have bedsores, my limbs are not atrophied, I have never been catatonic, and I'm actually quite an active person.  So apparently "Miitakk" isn't doing his job very well, and should probably go back to hell and leave me in the hands of a different demon, preferably one that I could sell my soul to in exchange for perpetual youth, good looks, lots of money, and a Jaguar.

This questionnaire also brings up another important question, namely: who the hell names their son "Cotton?"  Did Mr. and Mrs. Marcus look at their newborn baby boy, and say, "I know!  Let's name him after the guy who was responsible for hanging the witches in Salem, Massachusetts!  That'd be an awesome name!"

However, all of that is not why I included the Church of St. Mark's website in this post.  The reason that I bring up this site is that alongside the questionnaire, there are other links you can follow, including "How to avoid demon possession," "A brief history of exorcism," and "Exorcism application form" -- and there is also one called, "Exorcism supplies: BUY NOW.  PROTECT YOURSELF and others from demons."  So, naturally, I had to click it, and I found that the "exorcism supplies" were mainly crucifixes in various sizes and materials, and ran from the economy model ($24) to the deluxe, all the bells-and-whistles model ($106).  So, here's my question:

How is this any different from what Gustavo Gomez was doing?  How can poor Gomez be guilty of fraud, and Reverend Cotton Marcus isn't?  Nor, apparently, are the homeopaths, or mediums, or astrologers, or crystal-energy-chakra people, or any of a hundred other practitioners of woo-woo who make goofy claims, legally.  What, pray, distinguishes between them?  Because of course, all of these people, just like Gomez, swear that their cures will work, if only you'll open your heart and your pocketbook simultaneously -- and none of them have the least basis in fact.

Now, don't misunderstand me; I'm quite sure that the Canadian police are correct, and that Gomez is a fraud.  But once you start calling faith-based, evidence-free claims "fraud," where do you stop? 

Well, I know where I stop, or more accurately, where I don't stop.  But I just wonder if the Canadian law enforcement realizes what a can of worms it's opened.

Potions 101

One of the coolest things about writing Skeptophilia has been the connections I've made with other skeptics.  The friendly comments, and (even better) the suggestions for topics, have been a continual source of cheer for me, far outweighing the outraged rantings of various woo-woos I've offended, not to mention the occasional death threat.

I've recently (and more or less by accident) achieved quite a following amongst some of my current and former students.  I certainly don't believe in proselytizing during class; not only would this be unprofessional and ethically questionable, given that they are a captive audience, I have always preferred keeping my own views about most things out of the scope of my lectures.  It's far better, I've found, to present the facts of the matter, and give students the tools to think critically, and allow them to make up their own minds.  But it was inevitable that a few of them would discover Skeptophilia, and once that happened, the news spread, leading to the formation of what I think of as a sort of junior branch of Worldwide Wacko Watch.

One particularly enthusiastic young man that I only met this year has taken it upon himself to become something of a research assistant, ferreting out crazy stories and loopy websites in his spare time, and sending them to me.  And just yesterday, he found a real winner, that has all of the hallmarks of a truly inspired woo-woo website: (1) a bizarre worldview, (2) no evidence whatsoever, and despite (1) and (2), (3) complete certainty.

So allow me to present for your consideration the Lucky Mojo Free Spells Archive.

The first fun bit about this site is that it's run and maintained by someone named "Cat Yronwode."  Having a background in linguistics, I have deduced that the latter combination of letters is an attempt to spell "Ironwood" in a vaguely medieval fashion, but who the hell knows for sure?  In any case, Ms. Yronwode has requested that the spells contained therein not be copied, because some of them are copyrighted material, and I have honored this, so if you want more details about exactly how to concoct the magic potions described below, you'll have to take a look at the site yourself.  (Who knew that pagans could be so legalistic?  I didn't.  But better to play along with her request than to find myself hexed with, for example, "Confusion Oil #3."  Heaven knows I'm confused enough, most days.)

In any case, what the "Lucky Mojo Free Spells Archive" turns out to be is a set of recipes for magic potions, and instructions in their use.  Thus we have the following:

• "Seven Holy Waters" -- allegedly invented by Marie Laveau, the "Witch Queen of New Orleans."  Contains whiskey, which I've never found to be especially water-like, but given that the word "whiskey" comes from the Irish "uisge beatha," meaning "water of life," we'll just let it slide, because arguing with both the Witch Queen of New Orleans and the entire nation of Ireland seems like a losing proposition.  In any case, it's supposed to bring you peace, and is "very old-fashioned and Catholic."
• Three different recipes for "Money-drawing Oil."
• Two recipes for "Love Bath," one of which is called "Courtesan's Pleasure," and about which I will not say anything further in the interest of keeping this blog PG-13 rated.
• Something called "John the Conqueror Oil."  Made, predictably enough, with "John the Conqueror root."  We are warned to "beware commercial John the Conqueror and High Conquering Oil" because they "rarely have the root in them," especially if it was made in a factory.  This made me ask, in some astonishment, "There are factories for making this stuff?"  Notwithstanding that I'm supportive of anything it takes to keep Detroit solvent, you have to wonder how you could mechanize making magic spells.  Don't you have to be all pagan and ritualistic and druidic and so forth while you're making up potions?  I just can't imagine that you'd get the same results from cooking up your potions in a cauldron in the woods as you would if you made them using electric blenders, pressure cookers, conveyor belts, and so on.  At least one has to hope that the machinery is operated by certified witches.
• "Haitian Lover Oil," "for men only," about which we are told that it is "not to be used as a genital dressing oil."  Okay, we consider ourselves duly warned.
• "Damnation Powder."  Used to hex someone you don't like.  "To be used with extreme caution."   Don't damn anyone lightly, is the general advice, which seems prudent to me.
• And the best one:  "Harvey's Necromantic Floorwash #1."  Just the name of this one almost made me spit coffee all over my computer.  But hey, I guess even necromancers need to scrub the linoleum in their kitchens every once in a while, right?

So anyway, there you have it, a concise formulary for concocting magic spells and potions.  All of which puts me in mind of one of my heroes, depicted below:

If you are, like me, a Looney Tunes fan, you might remember that he got out of this particular fix by chanting such powerful spells as "Abraca-pocus" and "Hocus-cadabra."  It worked, but I bet he'd have defeated his vampire captor even more quickly had he had access to some "Damnation Oil," or even better, "John the Conqueror Root."

End of the week wrap-up

Well, it's Friday, and TGIF, which I am allowed to say even though technically, I don't believe in G.  Be that as it may, we're going to end the work week with three stories we're carefully following here at Skeptophilia's main offices, nestled in the lovely hills of upstate New York.

The first story comes from the nearby state of West Virginia, where a Pentecostal pastor famous for handling poisonous snakes during his sermons as evidence that god was looking over him has died from a bite from a poisonous snake.  (Source)

Pastor Mark Wolford, 44, was a popular preacher on the revival circuit, drawing large crowds to his outdoor services.  Shortly before what was to be his last Hallelujah, Wolford posted on his Facebook page, "I am looking for a great time this Sunday.  It is going to be a homecoming like the old days. Good 'ole raised in the holler or mountain ridge running, Holy Ghost-filled speaking-in-tongues sign believers."

Wolford's trademark was handling live rattlesnakes during his sermons, because of Mark 16:17-18:  "And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover."

"Anybody can do it that believes it," Wolford said, in an interview in The Washington Post in 2011. "Jesus said, 'These signs shall follow them which believe.' This is a sign to show people that God has the power."

Well, I'm thinking that the rattlesnake might have had a say in the matter, too, because at a service last week, he put one of his snakes down, and it bit him on the leg.  Recalling the part about "they shall recover" from the bible passage quoted above, Wolford refused medical treatment, but was taken to a family member's house, where he died shortly afterwards.

Interestingly, Wolford's father, who was also a Pentecostal preacher, died at the age of 39 of snakebite in exactly the same circumstances.

"(H)e died for what he believed in," the younger Wolford said about his father's death in the interview in The Washington Post.  "I know it's real; it is the power of God.  If I didn't do it, if I'd never gotten back involved, it'd be the same as denying the power and saying it was not real."

Mmmm, okay.  We'll just leave that last statement as is, and move on to our next story.


We next have a story from far-away Zimbabwe, where two witches failed at flying their brooms under the radar.  (Source)

In Shackleton compound, a small mining village near Chinhoyi, a ruckus was raised when two women, Rosemary Kamanga and Esnath Madoza, were found dancing around naked after informing a neighbor that they needed some human flesh for a ritual.

The neighbor, Eneresi Mufunga, was awakened at 4 AM from a sound sleep, and got up to investigate.  She found Kamanga and Madoza running about without any clothes on, and (according to the article) "quizzed them on their mission."

I suspect this latter is just a quaint Zimbabwean way of saying, "what the hell is wrong with you two?", or some stronger variant, but in any case Kamanga and Madoza informed them that they were trying to find some human flesh, and wondered if Mufunga might have any she'd be willing to part with.  "It's a subtle, cunning approach," they were heard to say, earlier.  "It might just work!"

Understandably, Mufunga informed them that, as missions go, this one was a non-starter, and proceeded to raise the camp.  A crowd gathered, including the two unsuccessful witches' husbands, who "whisked them away home" where they were later found by the police.  At that point, they had decided to put on clothes, but they did confess to being witches, so they were then whisked away to a different place, namely jail, and charged with breaking Section 98, Chapter 9:23 of the Zimbabwean Criminal Law Code, wherein it is declared that it is illegal to practice witchcraft, caper about naked, and ask your neighbors for some human flesh.


Our last story hails from New Brunswick, where a farmer named Werner Bock has been charged with animal neglect after losing nearly 250 cattle over the past ten years.  (Source)

Police claim that Bock failed to feed the cattle, so they died of the effects of malnutrition.  Bock, on the other hand, says that the cattle were killed by "alien death rays."

"At least 250 head of cattle have died from what we call a death beam," Bock said on a YouTube video posted in May 2011. "Where the atmospheric air is manipulated into a death beam, focused on the noses of the animals."  The animals "breathe in the death beam" and then slowly die.

Veterinarians in the case have said that there are no signs of burns on the cattle, but that Bock might have been a little more successful with his ranching enterprise had he taken the step of providing his livestock with food.  Bock, who intends to be his own legal defense in the case, has already subpoenaed three veterinarians and one police officer to provide evidence.

Besides the general rule of "animals need to be fed," someone might want to explain to Bock about the concept that a subpoena for the defense only works if the people being subpoenaed can actually provide information that supports the accused's claims.  All three veterinarians have stated that they saw no evidence of "death beams," and the police officer, who was supposed to verify Bock's claims of seeing UFOs hovering over the farm, has said that he knows about no such thing.

So Bock might want to reconsider his legal strategy.  And also find a new career that doesn't involve anything that's alive.


And that's our end-of-the-week wrap-up, here at Skeptophilia.  We'll wish you a lovely Friday, and hope that your weekend is pleasant, and free from snakebite, naked witches after your flesh, or alien cow-killing death beams.  Because all three of those could put a damper on things.

Jinn, witches, and bad behavior

A couple of days ago, I speculated that woo-woo beliefs stem primarily from three human psychological causes: (1) wishful thinking, (2) paranoia, and (3) a reluctance to consider alternative, and unpleasant, explanations.  I submit to you that there is a fourth reason -- some woo-woo beliefs give people an excuse for their own bad behavior.

A marginal example of this is the recent upsurge in fraudulent "professional psychics," who bilk people for thousands of dollars to predict futures, give personal advice, and get in touch with deceased family members.  I call this a "marginal" example because I'm pretty sure that the charlatans are aware, deep down, that they are charlatans -- that really, they're just doing convincing magic tricks and swindling the gullible.  As such, it doesn't really qualify as a true belief.  There might be some people who are convinced that they really are psychic, but I suspect that most of those do not include the big money-makers, who go on tours and perform their acts in front of thousands.

I ran into another example of woo-woo-ism used as a justification for antisocial behavior just yesterday, with the story of the young Saudi Arabian guys who went berserk and demolished an abandoned hospital because it was "haunted by jinn."  (Source)

Riyadh's Irqa Hospital, which treated Gulf War combatants twenty years ago, was left empty because of ill-repair and safety issues, and (as is common with abandoned buildings) got a reputation for being haunted.  The haunting, however, was not by the spirits of the dead; no, Irqa Hospital was haunted by jinn, who are malevolent spirits from Middle Eastern mythology, whose presence can tempt people into sinful behavior.

Well.  Evidently a bunch of people never learned the basic concept of "Mythology means it isn't true."  Of course, the fact that the jinn are mentioned several times in the Koran didn't help.  So they decided to take action.  First, an anti-jinn article appeared in the Saudi Gazette recommending the formation of a committee to decide what to do about jinn.  The article ended with the facepalm-inducing statement, "It would be no understatement to say that we are sick and tired of evil sorcerers."

Then, things escalated.  Twitter feeds from Saudi users began to buzz with recommendations that the anti-jinn cadre needed to take matters into their own hands.  And finally, a raid was organized on Irqa Hospital, and hundreds of young men descended on the place, smashing windows, punching holes in walls, and ultimately burning 60% of the building.

So, what did all of this accomplish?  My sources said nothing about hordes of dismayed, defeated jinn retreating in disarray.  My guess as to the number of jinn that were encountered that night is right out of Monty Python's "Camel Spotting" sketch; I'll bet they saw almost... one.  Given the lack of success, in the typical definition of the word, what possible motivation for the raid could these guys possibly have?

Well, it allowed them to do an activity that young men, world-wide, seem to love to do; to get together at night, in large numbers, and smash stuff up.  But unlike most places, where smashing stuff up that doesn't belong to you is considered a relatively antisocial thing to do, here the woo-woo belief system is invoked -- "Hey!  We're not just demolishing random hospitals; we demolished a hospital to save you all from the evil jinn!  You should thank us!"

It's the same sort of tendencies that lead to even worse behavior -- such as the people whose fundamental disdain for their fellow human beings, coupled with an enjoyment of causing suffering, drives them to participate in the persecution of "witches."  (And lest you think that all of that went out of fashion in the 18th century, allow me to point out that a recent news release from the Legal and Human Rights Center stated that 642 people were lynched in Tanzania last year for "practicing witchcraft.")

It's hard to face this dark side of human nature -- and once understood, it is even harder to do something to combat it.  The only thing that can conquer this kind of behavior is education; knowledge is, perhaps, the opposite of fear.  In understanding how the world actually works, we can leave behind superstitious fears and prejudices -- that jinn haunt abandoned buildings, or that people deserve death because they can cast evil spells.  Progress is slow, plodding, incremental, and there is a significant fraction of the world's population that still espouses these sorts of beliefs.  Still, we are progressing.  When you consider that it was not so very long ago that witches were hanged right here in the United States, it gives you some cause for optimism.

Saturday shorts

Here at Worldwide Wacko Watch we're currently following four stories.  Burning the midnight oil, burning the candle at both ends, and burning rubber in pursuit of truth.

And we are pleased to report that a criminal court in Zimbabwe apparently has the same goal, because they have found three prostitutes innocent of witchcraft.  (Source)  The prostitutes had been accused of "aggravated indecent assault" on the prompting of seventeen men, who claimed that they had been forcibly raped by the women.  This by itself seems pretty implausible, but the implausibility crosses a line into the realm of "just plain crazy" when you hear why the men said they were raped:

To collect their semen in order to perform black magic.

It's scary to think that in this day and age that claim would even make it as far as a criminal trial, but at least the women were found innocent.  After all, in some parts of the world, superstition still rules -- there have been other cases of alleged witchcraft, notably in Sudan and Saudi Arabia, where charges of sorcery have resulted in a death sentence.  But in Zimbabwe, wiser heads have prevailed, and the seventeen accusers have to come up with a different excuse to explain to their wives why they were visiting a prostitute, now that "She made me do it in order to steal my semen!" has been ruled out by a court of law.  Rationality triumphs again.


Which is more than I can say for the people at Nepal Airlines, who have fixed a mechanical problem in a troublesome airplane by sacrificing two goats.  (Source)

Apparently, there was a technical issue with one of the airline's Boeing 757s, and after repeatedly attempting to repair it using conventional techniques, someone came up with the novel solution of sacrificing two goats to the Hindu sky god, Akash Bhairab.   The problem, said Raju K. C., a senior airline official, was solved by this approach.

You have to wonder how this was explained to passengers facing delays because of the mechanical trouble.  "We're sorry, but Flight 1488 from Kathmandu to Hong Kong has been delayed.  Please be assured that your flight will board as soon as the captain and flight crew have finished sacrificing a goat on the runway.  We apologize for the inconvenience." 

I don't know about you, but if I heard something like this, I would elect to get from Kathmandu to Hong Kong by some other method, such as walking the entire way.


Next, we have a report that El Chupacabra might have left his desert home and be vacationing in England.  (Source)

Sue Langham, a mother of two from Hale, England, was up early one day last week to catch a train, and saw sitting on her back doorstep a creature "with the head of a fox and a muscly body that was making a noise that sounded like a strangled wolf."

"I was shocked by what I saw," Langham told reporters.  "We sometimes see foxes in the back garden and this was nothing like that." 

Myself, I think this sounds like a clear report of El Chupacabra.  Okay, I know that most of the sightings of that creepy cryptid are from the American Southwest.  I also know that all the reports of El Chupacabra that have resulted in tangible evidence have turned out to be coyotes, foxes, or dogs with mange, but still.  Why couldn't the mysterious bloodsucking fiend make its way to England?  I know that given the number of people with guns in England as compared to, say, Texas, if I were a Terrifying Carnivorous Beast From Hell, I would prefer to take my chances with the Brits.


And this is doubly so now that a senior official with Texas Parks and Wildlife's Law Enforcement Division has publicly stated that it's legal to kill Bigfoot.  (Source)

John Lloyd Scharf, of Cryptomundo, wrote to Parks and Wildlife to ask the question, given the number of recent Sasquatch sightings in the Lone Star State.  He got the following response from L. David Sinclair, the Law Enforcement Division's Chief of Staff:

Mr. Scharf:

The statute that you cite (Section 61.021) refers only to game birds, game animals, fish, marine animals or other aquatic life. Generally speaking, other nongame wildlife is listed in Chapter 67 (nongame and threatened species) and Chapter 68 (nongame endangered species). “Nongame” means those species of vertebrate and invertebrate wildlife indigenous to Texas that are not classified as game animals, game birds, game fish, fur-bearing animals, endangered species, alligators, marine penaeid shrimp, or oysters. The Parks and Wildlife Commission may adopt regulations to allow a person to take, possess, buy, sell, transport, import, export or propagate nongame wildlife. If the Commission does not specifically list an indigenous, nongame species, then the species is considered non-protected nongame wildlife, e.g., coyote, bobcat, mountain lion, cotton-tailed rabbit, etc. A non-protected nongame animal may be hunted on private property with landowner consent by any means, at any time and there is no bag limit or possession limit.

If you have any questions, please contact Assistant Chief Scott Vaca. I have included his e-mail address. I will be out of the office and in Houston on Friday.

Best,

L. David Sinclair
Chief of Staff – Division Director I
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department
Law Enforcement Division
4200 Smith School Road
Austin, TX 78744

So listen up, Bigfoot: you're on notice.  If you go messin' around with anyone in Texas, you're likely to find yourself in a world o' hurt, and the law ain't gonna protect you.  You might just want to get outta Dodge now.  Try England, I hear it's really nice this time of year.  But I don't recommend trying to get there on Nepal Airlines.

The wrath of Pat

Last week, I commented that politics was the only venue where you could make a statement that was demonstrably false, continue to defend it, and not lose your credibility.  It may therefore not be a coincidence that in the job of political commentator, you can make statements that are neither true nor false, but completely insane, and people will keep listening to you.

I'm referring, of course, to Reverend Pat Robertson, who is wildly popular despite being crazy as a bedbug.  And I don't think that people are listening to him for the humor value, either, the way people will sometimes read Ann Coulter just because they can't wait to hear what she's going to blame liberals for next (I have money that eventually she'll find out a way to blame liberals for the Black Death).  With Pat, though, I have a feeling that the people who listen to him mostly agree with what he's saying, which is a scary thing, given that he's said the following:

• The Haitian earthquake was a "blessing from god" because the Haitians had sworn a pact with the devil during the French Revolution.
• Be careful about studying martial arts, because in some martial arts traditions the practitioners "inhale demon spirits" prior to working out.
• Hurricane Katrina was sent by god to "teach a lesson to the American people" because they support laws that allow abortion.
• Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a massive stroke because god was punishing him for his negotiating with the Palestinians.
• We should nuke the US Department of State and send in covert operatives to assassinate Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.

So you have to wonder why we would expect anything he says to make sense, but only after spending a lot more time wondering why anyone listens to someone who seems to have a giant wad of Laffy Taffy where most of us have a brain.

Be that as it may, Pat's latest pronouncements are still making news, and this time he's turned his Roving Rant Machine onto the subject of Halloween.  Halloween is often a sticky subject with evangelicals, who don't like its occult origins.  You'd think, however, that sooner or later they'd relax about it, now that it's turned into little more than a day for kids to wear plastic Buzz Lightyear masks with eyeholes that don't line up, wander around in the dark being followed by parents who would really much rather be home watching television, and collect enough candy to meet the diabetes needs of the nation for another ten years.  All pretty innocent, no?

No.  Christians shouldn't participate in Halloween, Pat says, because "Halloween is Satan's night.  It's the night for the devil."  He goes on to say that, "we (Christians) don't believe in hauntings, we don't believe in ghosts, we don't believe in all that stuff," and then in the same breath follows it up with, "(Halloween) is skeletons, it's like, it's the dead rising."

So, let me get this straight; you don't believe in ghosts, but you do believe in the dead rising?

Of course, it's not the first time that a prominent evangelical has spoken vehemently against Halloween.  Two years ago, Kimberley Daniels of the Christian Broadcasting Network implied that not only was Satan abroad on Halloween, even the candy wasn't safe:

During Halloween, time-released curses are always loosed.  A time-released curse is a period that has been set aside to release demonic activity and to ensnare souls in great measure ... During this period demons are assigned against those who participate in the rituals and festivities.  These demons are automatically drawn to the fetishes that open doors for them to come into the lives of human beings.  For example, most of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches.  I do not buy candy during the Halloween season.  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.

Given the volume of candy sold during October, I wonder how the candy manufacturers manage to curse it all. They must employ thousands of witches, working round the clock, saying satanic prayers like mad over moving conveyor belts. I guess the witches have to pray quickly, or they'll back up the whole process, and end up flinging un-cursed candy about in the manner of Lucille Ball.

In any case, I find it baffling that people listen to these people, and downright astonishing that anyone believes it.  On the other hand, is it really so inconsistent with what the bible actually says?  One thing you have to say for people like Robertson and Daniels: they walk the talk.  The bible is full of stories of people, and sometimes entire cities, who did something naughty in god's eyes and got the crap smitten out of them.  God had no problem with the righteous killing the unrighteous, including unrighteous infants ("Happy the man who takes your babies and smashes them against a rock!" [Psalm 137:9])  Natural disasters were always attributed to "god's will."  Demons and evil spirits were everywhere.

So, honestly, once you decide that the bible is literally true, it's a reasonable result that you'll believe all of this sort of stuff.  Reverend Pat is just the furthest reaches of the logical chain that begins with the assumption, "the bible is god's revealed truth."  It is perhaps the rest of the Christians that have some 'splainin' to do.