Better late than never. So, about a dozen of us found space at a local cantina a couple nights ago to chow down on some good food and talk about how crazy other cultures are. We hit on a few strange things North Americans believe but a couple of the girls each had trips to the East and stories to tell about their experiences in Tibet and Taiwan. We also talked about the sad state of Africa with their child witch hunts and albinos being cut up and sold for their (not so) magical parts. I left when talk turned to chiropractics, but only because I was tired. Apparently Canada has been allowing that body cracking for children and babies but is going to start insisting on some evidence that it’s scientifically useful. They never thought to insist upon evidence based treatment before? Scary thought.

Anyway, the woman who’d been to Tibet suggested an interesting theory to explain how superstitions may have developed. First she mentioned London Zoo’s behavioural click training of Lucifer, an Asiatic lion they have (catalogue number 666):

Sound quality’s poor, but when Lucifer responds to the clicks and sit commands, the actual purpose of the paws up routine is to make sure they’re not getting damaged by paddock life, and allows the trainers to eyeball his overall health, without having to drug the big guy every time they want a good look at him.

Then she mentioned some studies done with pigeons. B.F. Skinner’s operant conditioning experiments were originally designed to see how well rewards could be used to create a desired behaviour.

If the goal is to have a pigeon turn in a circle to the left, a reward is given for any small movement to the left. When the pigeon catches on to that, the reward is given for larger movements to the left, and so on, until the pigeon has turned a complete circle before getting the reward.

That’s also called positive reinforcement. But Skinner didn’t stop there. He also checked what would happen when the reward wasn’t obviously connected to a behaviour, but instead connected to time of day.

In six out of eight cases the resulting responses were so clearly defined that two observers could agree perfectly in counting instances. One bird was conditioned to turn counter-clockwise about the cage, making two or three turns between reinforcements. Another repeatedly thrust its head into one of the upper corners of the cage. A third developed a ‘tossing’ response, as if placing its head beneath an invisible bar and lifting it repeatedly. Two birds developed a pendulum motion of the head and body, in which the head was extended forward and swung from right to left with a sharp movement followed by a somewhat slower return. The body generally followed the movement and a few steps might be taken when it was extensive. Another bird was conditioned to make incomplete pecking or brushing movements directed toward but not touching the floor.

In English: whatever behaviour a bird was engaged in at the time the food appeared (grooming, turning, etc) would be repeated if the bird associated the act with the reward.

So how screwed up do they get when rewards are even more random and not happening in timed intervals? Bird brain chaos. So long as the reward comes soon enough after the act (some birds would do the action 5 times in 15 seconds) the conditioned behaviour gets cemented. If repeated acts don’t net them any food, they stop assuming that behaviour will get them what they want.

Which leads to the idea of superstition in human beings. A book I need to borrow again is Amen, Amen, Amen by Abby Sher. Abby grew up with a serious case of OCD, made worse by the death of loved ones, and began assuming her ritualized behaviours would somehow make a difference for who lived and died. That’s a very extreme case, but superstition works much the same way.

Someone who just sat through a porn movie and then had a tornado rip through the yard might bizarrely assume the porn movie had something to do with it. That seems to be the idea in the head of Tifatul Sembiring, Indonesia’s Minister of Communication and Information Minister. Immoral behaviour causes hurricanes and other natural disasters.

Irony – an information minister spreading misinformation as truth. But how many superstitious locals will take him up on that and actually think what they like to do in their free time is going to bring bad weather to their island? What century are we living in again?

The woman who’d been to Taiwan talked about their superstitions around the number four, since it sounds very similar to their word for death. They’ll build narrow fourth floors into buildings just so people can’t actually use them, but so people living or working on the fifth feel like they’re really on the fifth instead of the fourth with another name. People don’t even want their ID cards to have any 4s in them. Crazy, but true.

And entrepreneurs take real advantage of people and zany beliefs about lucky numbers and other nonsense.

Taiwanese customers indicated they would be just as willing to pay NT$ [New Taiwan dollars] 342.63 (approximately $10) for a pack of eight tennis balls as they were to pay NT$227.10 for a pack of 10. To put that in perspective, consumers who held positive superstitions about the number eight were willing to spend 50 percent more on 25 percent fewer units–all because in Chinese, “eight” sounds like “prosper” and “wealth.”

Well, somebody’s prospering and wealthy, but I doubt it’s the buyer in this case. Sheesh.

Anyway, think about the power of the mind vs the nature of reality today. What are you believing for no provable reason?

Oh My Nonexistent God! It’s the end of the world!

The district’s decree ordered that only selections such as “Winter Wonderland” and “Frosty the Snowman” would be allowed, with a complete ban on tunes about Jesus and even Santa Claus.

Holy crap! Save Santa! How can Santa be taken away from everyone’s secular enjoyment of a gift giving celebration? Santa brings so much joy to all the little kiddies who believe in him! He’s forever putting up with smelly breath and sticky fingers and wet spots on his trousers when he willingly sits for hours in a mall to be there for the children! Oh it’s a travesty!

Bring back “Up on the Rooftop!” This is a major disaster! What on earth will kids do at their schools’ winter concerts if Santa isn’t allowed to be a part of them!? No Santa should mean no reindeer games either, but weirdly enough, the school approved “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” for some reason. Santa is out, but a song that’s all about the Santafied traditions of this festive Giftmas season is allowed? And he’s even named in the song. I smell an even bigger scandal.

The law firm says the school’s ban was specifically aimed at preventing Christmas music, including simple instrumentals without words, during holiday concerts. As WND reported, the district had allowed the performance of traditional Christmas music for more than 60 years but in 2004 suddenly banned it.

The complaint was filed on behalf of Michael Stratechuk and his children in the district. The ban deprived the Stratechuk children the right to receive information and ideas, the suit asserts, an inherent corollary of their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and academic freedom.

Thomas More Law Center attorney Robert Muise indicated the case is not over. Muise said he will ask the Third Circuit to rehear it on both substantive and procedural errors. If denied, the Law Center indicated it will most likely appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

I wonder what that family has against Santa for why the kids of a whole school district are now stuck listening to the songs at home on their own time instead of during a concert intended for everyone, whether they believe in Santa or not. What a thing, and so close to Giftsmas.

They’re stuck singing about winter wonderlands and snow and cold weather, and it’s probably not even snowy or cold there. In the wintertime. Imagine that. And sleigh rides, too, I suppose – even though few kids will ever ride in one. Why are those still sung anyway? Oh right, tradition.

Ah well, whatever. If they want a winter concert without any reference to traditional holiday stuff, so be it. It’s not like they can’t get all that music at home anyway.

To finish, a cute winter poem I wish I wrote.

I made myself a snowball
Just as perfect as could be.
I thought I’d keep it as a pet
And let it sleep with me
I gave it some pajamas
And a pillow for its head.
Then, last night it ran away,
But first . . . .it wet the bed!

It’s been a beef of mine for some time, that the gospels don’t have enough information about Jesus’ early years. This is not quite the fault of the writers, as none of them ever met the man. All they could write about was what people decided to tell them about the man. If it was covered in any other writings back then, they never made it past the cut when it came time to assemble the New Testament as it stands today. Whether or not he had siblings, or a wife or children, and where he might have gone to school, weren’t as as important as creating a mythology around his birth and death that was similar to other gods and therefore an easy tale to pass along as truth of divinity (because all the others were a total sham, you know that right? We’ve got the only true one…).

I’ve heard suggestions that Jesus may have spent time away learning the tenets of Buddhism to bring home to his people, but education via Glastonbury druids is a new one on me. A new film has come out suggesting it’s possible Jesus made it all the way to what is now England. The title of the picture comes from William Blake’s poem Jerusalem.

And Did Those Feet explores the idea that Jesus accompanied his supposed uncle, Joseph of Arimathaea, on a business trip to the tin mines of the South-West.

Whilst there, it is claimed he took the opportunity to further his maths by studying under druids.

Unsurprisingly, the documentary stops short of concluding the visit did take place, noting ‘Jesus’s shoe has not turned up’. However, the makers insist that while the visit is unproven, it is possible.

The theory is that he arrived by sea, following established trading routes, before visiting several places in the West Country.

In the film, Dr Gordon Strachan, a Church of Scotland minister, says it is plausible Jesus came to further his education. The country is thought to have been at the forefront of learning 2,000 years ago, with mathematics particularly strong.

Ted Harrison, the film’s director, said: ‘If somebody was wanting to learn about the spirituality and thinking not just of the Jews but also the classical and Greek world he would have to come to Britain, which was the centre of learning at the time.

And how would a young man, a carpenter’s son, discover that and have the means to seek it out? It’s a nice story, but can’t be proven any more than his rising can, no matter how much money gets thrown toward filmmakers.

But anyway, this is a good reason to put in an Arrogant Worms video – Jesus’ Brother Bob (because you can’t prove there wasn’t one)!

Hemant Mehta at Friendly Atheist linked to this article to poke some fun at the poor writing, as well as the poor arguments. I’ll pick out a couple other pieces:

From all the evidence I’ve seen, read and have heard from talking with atheists, many of them are not even interested in knowing the truth.

This is because we’ve all heard the arguments before and can discount them all as unprovable and unlikely. Your “truth” is a state of mind that suits where you are in life. Atheists are somewhere else, seeking verifiable truths about people, the world, and the universe at large. In some points we’ll find we are in agreement with religious points of view. In others we won’t be.

Given a method for them to honestly seek and find the truth about Christ Jesus the atheists I have encountered could care less and mock and scoff at it.

This is a common boo boo. You mean we couldn’t care less. If we could care less, we would try. Many of us do seek the truth of Christ and find the bible lacks a lot in the way of verifiable fact and history. The whole Christmas miracle thing has bundles of holes, as does the whole resurrection section. Hey, that rhymes! We are not content to pick a gospel at random and believe it without question. Nor will we believe anyone else who believes without question.

To me, their mocking and scoffing seems proof enough to me of their refusal to believe that God exists thus they deny, that God exists and that they freely choose to not even find out the truth for themselves.

I think a comma has been sacrificed for the greater stupidity here. I freely admit that I don’t think any gods exist and I don’t think there is any “fact” that could be tossed my way that would prove otherwise, no matter how true it may seem to the believer.

Many of the atheists I’ve encountered could care less if God truly exists or not because these atheists are only interested in not having any rules to follow and they have focused their attention solely on themselves in their own desires.

How many atheists has this person encountered? I’m getting the feeling that it will never matter how many people we don’t kill, how many laws we don’t break, how many children we don’t molest, how many dollars we raise for charity or how many churches we don’t burn down. People like this will still insist we must be anarchists. I’ll pull a few pieces from the American Atheists Aims and Principles page now.

American Atheists, Inc., is organized

* to stimulate and promote freedom of thought and inquiry concerning religious beliefs, creeds, dogmas, tenets, rituals, and practices;

* to collect and disseminate information, data, and literature on all religions and promote a more thorough understanding of them, their origins, and their histories;

* to encourage the development and public acceptance of a humane ethical system stressing the mutual sympathy, understanding, and interdependence of all people and the corresponding responsibility of each individual in relation to society;

* to develop and propagate a social philosophy in which humankind is central and must itself be the source of strength, progress, and ideals for the well-being and happiness of humanity;

Atheism may be defined as the mental attitude which unreservedly accepts the supremacy of reason and aims at establishing a life-style and ethical outlook verifiable by experience and scientific method, independent of all arbitrary assumptions of authority and creeds.

Not every atheist knows about this group, nor would every atheist want to join it. It’s great to see it exists, though. Many of us agree with these principles and promote them in our own way already, either with blogs, or by joining other groups with similar goals in mind.

They in their denial are overlooking the fact that their main focus in lacking a belief in gods is opening them up to a huge problem in that their primary repudiation is focused against Christ Jesus. Yes, they say that they lack belief in any gods yet to their denial is focused squarely upon on the one true God, Christ Jesus.

I’m pleased to see someone knows how to use a thesaurus. Why say “reject” when you can use “repudiate” instead? Atheists reject all religions and all gods. We say they are unnecessary for living a moral and ethical life and to prove it we live moral and ethical lives without crediting deities for our good fortune or blaming demons for bad luck.

As an atheist, your apathy to not seek and find the absolute truth is a choice you make for yourself and you alone bear burden of on your own. For you to demand evidence from someone of God’s existence is showing just how much you do not want to know nor experience the evidence of God’s existence.

I could use Kirk here again, but I think I’ll just point out that if we’re demanding evidence, it’s because nobody has shown us verifiable evidence of experiences that can prove gods exist. All we get are miraculous marvels delivered by word of mouth, and video footage of clouds or trees or windows or water stains that are vaguely people shaped. Holy Pareidolia, Batman! They’re everywhere! Does this really mean God is everywhere, or is belief so strong in some people that they’ll jump to ridiculous conclusions rather than look for sensible explanations? I’m going out on a very sturdy limb here, and saying it’s the latter.

Again, this is a choice you make to want to honestly know God or not and not my or anyone else’s responsibility to take for you.

And for that, whatever that means, I’m grateful. (I’m also grateful to Live Granades for loving Star Trek enough to LOL my most favourite episode! Thanks and big hearts to you!)

Since Halloween is approaching, it’s probably worthwhile to look at reasons we follow bizarre traditions when celebrating it. What’s the purpose of a Jack O’Lantern besides lighting the steps so little kids don’t fall?

According to That’s Right Nate, it’s all about how the Irish wanted to keep Christianity alive in Ireland.

One of the stories, atheists don’t want you to know is the story of the Jack O’Lantern.

Proving you wrong right now, buddy.

In Ireland, Christians were persecuted for many centuries. One of the reasons that St. Patrick was celebrated for driving the snakes from Ireland is because they used to feed Christian children to the snakes. Christians were kept poor and not allowed to hold jobs. Their possessions were simple, but their faith was mighty.

Patrick is considered a Catholic saint not because stopped real snakes from biting Catholic children, but because he helped Catholicism and Christianity in general spread in Ireland during the early 400s, which allowed priests to take over where Druids left off. As one who went to a school named after the man, you can trust me on this. If you don’t want to trust me, read this instead.

Familiar with the Irish language and culture, Patrick chose to incorporate traditional ritual into his lessons of Christianity instead of attempting to eradicate native Irish beliefs. For instance, he used bonfires to celebrate Easter since the Irish were used to honoring their gods with fire. He also superimposed a sun, a powerful Irish symbol, onto the Christian cross to create what is now called a Celtic cross, so that veneration of the symbol would seem more natural to the Irish. (Although there were a small number of Christians on the island when Patrick arrived, most Irish practiced a nature-based pagan religion. The Irish culture centered around a rich tradition of oral legend and myth. When this is considered, it is no surprise that the story of Patrick’s life became exaggerated over the centuries-spinning exciting tales to remember history has always been a part of the Irish way of life.)

Sun worship, Son worship. Easy peasy. But back to Nate’s “history”:

As the Irish traveled along the countryside at autumn harvest time looking for work picking crops, they were frequently met with signs that said Christians need not apply. Even a non-Christian who hired a Christian to pick his crops faced persecution from the Irish King. The Irish needed a subtle symbol to let others know that they welcomed Christians and that the light of Jesus shined within them. They came up with the idea of taking a pumpkin and carving a smiling face on it. They then placed a candle inside the pumpkin and placed it in the window.

Pumpkins are indigenous to America. When Irish settlers got here, they were pleased to discover they were easier to hollow out for lamps than the turnips (aka swedes) and gourds and beets they used to use back home.

The pagan Irish had Samhain and a belief system ripe with spirits of the dead walking among us some nights. With Patrick and other missionaries adding Christian mythology into their spirit soup, it’s no big surprise that folklore would develop about some of them, like the many stories surrounding Jack and the Devil.

One story (from that turnip link above) goes that Jack was a prankster and a drunk who tricked the Devil into climbing a tree and trapped him up there with crosses. The Devil had to promise he wouldn’t take Jack’s soul before Jack would let him down. So, when Jack dies, and Peter at the gates tells him he was far too rotten to even think of entering heaven, the poor bugger has no where he can go. The Devil finds this hilarious and tosses him an ember from hell and Jack hollows out a turnip to carry it and wanders forever. People follow suit because a lump of coal in a vegetable (candles came later) somehow kept Jack away, but welcomed good souls back.

Another version goes that Jack and the Devil were boozing it up one night and Jack refused to pay up. The Devil turns into a coin, knowing the stingy bastard won’t pay his tab with it, but winds up dropped in the pocket Jack keeps his cross so the Devil is somewhat stuck that way, until he promises not to collect Jack’s soul later. Story ends the same as the first did.

Nate again:

The Irish named this pumpkin Jack of the Light or the Americanized version, “Jack O’ Lantern”. Nowadays, pumpkins are carved into the most grotesque and hideous shapes imaginable and the original meaning of the Jack O’Lantern has been lost. This Halloween if you carve a pumpkin with your children I hope you’ll tell them the story of how the Jack O’Lantern saved Christianity in Ireland–one of the most Christian nations in the world today.

Many Irish names are contractions of “of the” because it’s a holdover from the years of Celtic clans and Gaelic ancestry, by and large. Rob of the Grady clan – Rob O’Grady. Jack of the Lantern Story – Jack O’Lantern. Same deal.

This morning I asked Nate where he found his information and he replied sometime today that it’s out of an old children’s book called Why God Loves the Cactus by a Rev. E.E. Sloan.

I can’t find a reference to it anywhere online so I wonder how old it is, and where Sloan got his information. There seems to be no history I can find that supports any of it. Ten minutes worth of hunting found more than enough to refute every claim provided, yet Nate shills it like it’s God’s honest truth.

Now, this isn’t a flaw only found in the Christian mentality; the “belief without proof” thing seems to be an issue across humanity. Whether it’s of “supernatural” origin, or alternative health care or a bridge for sale, there’s no limit to the zany things people will buy without questioning legitimacy.

Something to work on, dontcha think?

Le Vampire
de Charles Baudelaire

Toi qui, comme un coup de couteau,
Dans mon coeur plaintif es entrée;
Toi qui, forte comme un troupeau
De démons, vins, folle et parée,

De mon esprit humilié
Faire ton lit et ton domaine;
— Infâme à qui je suis lié
Comme le forçat à la chaîne,

Comme au jeu le joueur têtu,
Comme à la bouteille l’ivrogne,
Comme aux vermines la charogne
— Maudite, maudite sois-tu!

J’ai prié le glaive rapide
De conquérir ma liberté,
Et j’ai dit au poison perfide
De secourir ma lâcheté.

Hélas! le poison et le glaive
M’ont pris en dédain et m’ont dit:
«Tu n’es pas digne qu’on t’enlève
À ton esclavage maudit,

Imbécile! — de son empire
Si nos efforts te délivraient,
Tes baisers ressusciteraient
Le cadavre de ton vampire!»

(Pick a translation, any translation)

“I don’t know what to think of this project Minion’s taken on. Is she in need mental aid?” the Stegosaurus wondered. “After last week’s crazy Aussie innkeeper killers, I think I’d rather be deaf than listen to more ham acting. No offense.”

“None could possibly be taken,” Cow replied, feeling pained. “Ham comes from pigs.”

Minion always came home from work with several DVDs and Cow was tired of hearing Stegosaurus grumble about the quality of them. She didn’t like Minion’s taste in entertainment either, but it did no good to complain. And besides, what could they do about it anyway? They were squeaky toys Minion picked up at a Dollar store for goodness’ sake.

“So, what is it this time?” asked Stegasaurus.

“Why do you even ask me?” Cow replied, testily. “You know I can’t read.”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” Stegosaurus said without a hint of sincerity. “You know what I meant. It was a retro oracle question.”

Cow thought about that for a moment, then rolled her eyes. “You mean rhetorical.”

“I mean whatever. What are we in for?”

“I think I remember Minion saying it was a movie about a crazy Austrian castle killer this time,” Cow supplied.

“More Aussie crap?”

Cow let out an exasperated sigh. “Austria and Australia are two different places.”

“You sure?”

“Positive. Now, would you shut up? Minion’s ready to start watching Baron Blood.”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Stegosaurus whispered.

Peter arrives in Austria with the intention of visiting relatives and learning more about his ancestor known as the Bloody Baron. It’s not hard to see parallels to Vlad related tales, but the story actually carries itself well enough to brush that aside.

Get ready to hate the castle renovation woman, Eva, though. If you don’t after the first scream, you will by the 22nd, I assure you. All the running she does in that castle, that torturer’s castle filled with torture implements, and it never once occurs to her to grab something pointy? At least make the effort to save your own damn self once in a while, lady. But anyway…

Peter has a document he found at Granddad’s years ago, written by a witch the Baron later burned. It’s an incantation that has the power to revive him from death, just so he can be killed and revived and killed again and again until he’d suffered a hundred times worse than any of his victims. Peter tells his uncle that he brought it along hoping “to scare up a little family history” — hardy har yar. You will, Peter. You will…

The uncle is skeptical but superstitious enough to be wary of all things witchy though Eva’s game to try reading the incantation (do they not watch these kinds of movies?!) even though it means finding the room where he died. And guess who’s overheard all that occult planning.

Peter’s cousin, Gretchen. What’s her deal, nosy kid, or something far more sinister? Earlier she claimed to have seen the tall gaunt Baron at the castle, but nobody believed her so we’ll have to see if that leads to anything.

In the castle later, Peter chants, fog rises, bells toll, and Eva gets cold feet. Doesn’t matter anyway, next day it doesn’t look like anything actually happened. Peter thinks they were in the wrong room so they try again using a map he has that includes a hidden chamber. The spell works but then the parchment burns in a fire and Eva does a lot more screaming. Please Baron, please kill her off. There’s nothing worse than a woman who can’t keep her head in a crisis…

The newly resurrected creature goes on something of a killing spree, attacking people in and around his castle, like the caretaker, shown in frightful agony here.

What will this mean for the poor wheelchair bound guy who just bought the place at auction? Eva feels compelled to confess to the new owner what they did, then gets another chance to run around unarmed and screaming and Peter gets his chance to run around like a headless chicken, too, while trying to find the room that Eva’s passed out in. She’s an ocean of calm by the time he gets her home so they kiss each other like dreamy lovers and have a nice pointless “you’re all that matters” moment together. Talk about shoehorning. But soon she’s off and running again because that bloody Baron somehow beat her home. She manages to escape to the uncle’s place where she can scream some more.

The uncle’s getting convinced by Eva’s ravings by this point and suggests they involve a clairvoyant he knows who can channel the witch and get answers to their questions. The witch seems content to leave the Baron alive and suffering, though, so that’s a bust. She says they already have a way to kill him but leaves it up to them to figure out. And then the Baron kills the retro oracle since he seems to be after anyone connected to the castle or the curse. Then everyone belatedly realizes that this makes young Gretchen a target, too.

They catch up with her on the way past the castle where she’s just had a brush with the Baron but appears to be fine. They decide it’s high time to warn the new owner again but he laughs off all their dire warnings. Gretchen thinks that he’s the ghost and this leads everyone else to get suspicious of him. He’s new in town and nobody knows where he got the money. (The Baron did hightail it up to his secret room before that auction to see if his box of jewelry was still there…) And Gretchen’s listening in again, that sneaky kid. Another trek to the castle makes them even more sure the Herr is the Baron, especially after he overpowers every one of them and ties the guys up in his fully functional dungeon. Scream scream panic panic, who’s left to save the day?

Apparently it’s the caretaker that the Baron stabbed with an iron maiden earlier in the show. Eva drops an amulet on the dead guy by accident and now the Baron’s writhing in agony and the dead guy is coming back to life, as are all the rest. And it turns out Eva actually knows how to untie knots and winds up rescuing the boys. Will wonders never cease. She’s full of tears and screams again as soon as the boys are free, though, so I guess it was too good to be true. We hear the Baron screaming, too, as the undead torture him with his own devices and the useless “heroes” carry Eva away.

All in all, not a bad picture. I’ll bet the actress who played Eva every day went home hoarse a lot of the time. I’m glad we’ve gotten to a point in film where women aren’t all hysterical idiots. I found myself wishing Ripley or Buffy could pop in and solve their problems. It sure wasn’t looking like they knew how.

So, check back tomorrow night. I’m planning to open…Doctor Blood’s Coffin!

—
edit Oct 29, 2009 – just found a nifty website ClassicHorror.com and Brandt Sponsellor has a nice rundown of this movie.

Can you tell I like poetry? At least, I like some of it. I like everything I write, usually. heh. Here’s one I thought up today while I was supposed to be sticking barcodes on CDs:

They said they’d dedicate the day to Odin
To give their god His due.
And as such, they were beholden
To stay forever true.

But we’ve changed the name to Wednesday
A word as bland as all the others.
So now we’ve lost the message sent
By those forgotten brothers.

Chris French has article in the Guardian about the nature of sleep paralysis and the feelings of utter horror the experience often creates for those afflicted. He mentions Dr Stephan Matthiesen’s new book, The Normality of Altered States of Consciousness but French writes mostly about his study of this strange phenomena and the sufferers.

One of our students, Peter Moore, used to suffer from sleep paralysis on a regular basis. One night, for example, he awoke to find himself unable to move and with a strong feeling of tension across his chest, making it almost impossible to breathe. He could see his bedroom and managed to tilt his head, only to see an evil-looking black cat sitting there hissing at him.

But what was most terrifying about this vision was that the cat’s white skull was inverted and dripping some sort of black goo. By a huge effort of will, he finally managed to break out of his paralysed state with the intention of attacking his visitor, only to find himself delivering a right hook to thin air.

Other people in the study have suffered from the same sleep disturbances. Hallucinations that turn the ordinary into extraordinary monstrous things, the sensation of paralysis, a feeling that one’s body is vibrating, or having difficulty breathing. Another student claimed to have some ability to control the experiences, and some of them could be relatively pleasant with sexual or floating sensations taking the place of hideous creatures wearing dirty laundry. Says Jeremy Deane,

“Common images are bearded, goblin-like demons laughing or whispering sinister speech, a faceless girl (usually covering her face with hair, moving around in bed moaning and feeling my body), hands appearing from the wall and attempting to strangle me. A hung man talking in the corner of the room, and some of the most bizarre experiences may include up to a dozen ‘critter’ entities (think Gremlins movie) laughing and talking about me. The environment tends to feel like a holographic dollhouse, the experience peaks and then the hallucinations mysteriously vanish when I regain control of my body.”

As weird as all that is, sleep researchers have had some luck in figuring out why the brain fucks with us so bad when we’re trying to get some rest.

During the dream cycle of REM sleep, the body is fairly paralyzed anyway, at least in terms of acting out dreams. But some people experience this sensation more lucidly than others, and a few of those wind up hallucinating all kinds of weird shit to explain it. French’s team at the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit has been able to confirm earlier surveys of how common this is – up to 40% of people could suffer from some form of sleep paralysis, and of that bunch, one in 20 might report sightings.

Sufferers can be just as terrified by the experience even if the episode does not involve any ostensibly paranormal content, sometimes experiencing their unwanted intruder as a burglar, a murderer or a rapist. Even sufferers who are well-informed about sleep paralysis and do not experience the more florid symptoms described above still experience intense fear unlike anything they experience in waking life.

And for the people who truly believe demons exist? It must be an experience worthy of The Exorcist. Indeed, many cultures seem to prefer blaming some supernatural element (hags, unbaptized souls, ghosts) to the feeling, rather than swearing at their own brains.

In our study, we are interested not only in the degree to which such high levels of belief affect the tendency to interpret the experience in supernatural terms but also the degree to which pre-existing belief systems can affect the content of the hallucinations themselves. Sleep paralysis offers an almost unique opportunity to study the reciprocal interaction between biology and culture.

It seems likely that the core experience has itself played a role in the development of belief systems relating to the spirit world in many cultures and that those very belief systems, once elaborated upon, are then capable of influencing the hallucinatory content of sleep paralysis episodes in subsequent generations.

Good luck on the work, Professor French. It sounds fascinating and will hopefully provide some people with a measure of relief. And now I’m going to count my lucky stars because this stuff never happens to me!

The dark case compelled her, almost as if she were under a spell. She noticed how the photocopied cover managed to look cheap, yet darkly sinister. She look around discreetly but noticed no eyes upon her, so closed her own and pried open the case. She tried to ignore the tremor in her hands.

When she risked opening her eyes again, her heart skipped a beat! There was nothing on the disc, save the title!

She gasped, barely stopping the case from dropping from her suddenly chilled hands, somehow knowing that the loud clatter of plastic hitting tile would bring trouble her way. She clutched the case to her ample bosom and hurried toward the front desk at the library to check it out. Would they remark upon her odd choice? Call the police to pick up a jittery weirdo? No, nothing! Her card cleared the scanner and the movie was hers! Hers alone! Oh, the shameful delight of a cheezy movie night was hers! Hers at last!

Upon reaching home, she quickly but carefully rescued the disc from its plastic prison. But the disc only knew freedom a moment, as the drawer she placed it upon quietly hissed back into the dark recesses of her computer tower. The play button was only a click away…

Yeah, I was serious about there being nothing but the title on the disc. No inserts included to say what the show’s about, either. IMDB wasn’t even helpful in figuring out just what show it might be. It lists a couple titles between 1960 and 1975 that had once been called the same. One starred Christopher Lee (renamed City of the Dead) and the other known as Eaten Alive starring no one I’ve heard of. So which one was this?

Turns out it’s Christopher Lee’s version from 1960, although calling it Lee’s seems a little strange, since he’s barely in it. But, he already had his Dracula role and the Mummy to his credit, so casting him as a mild-mannered professor/wicked witch was an obvious next step.

It begins with a mob screaming for a witch BBQ in Massachusetts, 1692. After someone begs Lucifer to provide an assist, the movie advances to the present where Christopher Lee leads a class discussion about history, Puritans and witchcraft. One student, Nan, is excited about term papers and a trip to the infamous site of Elizabeth the Witch’s pyre for a little on-the-spot research that her prof has suggested.

Despite a creepy hitchhiker and dire warnings from everyone else to turn back, Nan’s determined to get a room at Raven Inn, where a plaque on the wall marks the very spot Liz the Witch burned. Nan explores and meets a scared Reverend and borrows a history book from the Reverend’s granddaughter, Patricia, then retreats to her room for some study. But, she’s disturbed by music coming from under the floor. When the opportunity presents itself, she opens the trap door under the rug and investigates, Nancy Drew style. Mind you, that Nan never wound up on a stone altar surrounded by a coven with a knife coming right at her…at least, not in any of the books I read.

The knife comes down and the scene cuts to a party three or so weeks later, with a knife stabbing an immaculate white cake through the heart. Cute. Nan’s boyfriend, Bill, and her brother, Richard, are at the party and worried about where she is. They get the police to check out the Inn and Rich checks if the Prof knows anything. We find out Professor Lee knows how to kill birds for sacrifices and doesn’t know how to stop a determined brother from getting to the bottom of a mystery. Patricia also makes a point of stopping by looking for some answers and Lee sends her toward Nan’s boys. Beats me why he was honest with her, but I guess it’s because he was following his proper professor persona at the time.

Pat, Bill and Richard discuss Nan’s disappearance and the Reverend’s beliefs that the devil’s been running the town for 300 years and that the dead walk around once a year (on Candlemas Eve, the night Nan …uhoh).

Everyone takes separate cars to the Inn – Pat because she’s in a hurry to get home and I guess Bill and Rich don’t like to carpool or something. Turned out to be a good thing anyway. Bill gets run off the road by a witchy vision and nearly dies. Rich arrives safe (talked to the right locals, I guess) and finds out through the Reverend that the eternal life ceremony the walking dead need to finish involves killing two innocent girls. Patricia is, of course, next on the list to be captured.

The witches take Pat and the Rev tells the brother how to save her, but Rich also gets captured after he tries to follow them. The gun he mysteriously came up with was unable to kill anyone, least of all the monkish, brooding wizardly Lee.

(Does he not look a little like Nicholas Cage here? Freaky!)

Our unlucky accident victim, Bill, winds up being the day saver, though. After everyone assembles upstairs to slice Patricia’s neck open before the clock’s done striking, Bill stumbles onto set and Rich hollers at him to pull a certain cross out of the dirt. Alas, the witch known as Liz (aka Mrs. Newless) has really good aim and manages to fling the ceremonial blade into Bill’s back, leaving her stuck trying to slice Pat open with a discount Swiss army clone that she borrows from somebody else.

The villains make that fatal mistake of paying too much attention to the bumbling hero and not enough to their victim. There would have been loads of time to crank her neck open with that switchblade but they were totally mesmerized by Bill bleeding all over that giant cross. And they all just stood around while he lifted it up and lit them all on fire like marshmallows getting too close to the flames. Pathetic.

All in all, not a bad movie, I suppose, given when it was filmed and what it may have had for a budget (like not much).

And, in case you thought witch burning was a thing of the past, then I present to you an article from the BBC about events over the summer in Kenya. And it’s not the first time superstition trumped sense, nor the only country it happens in.

Tomorrow night, a new inn, a new danger…Inn of the Damned!