BELIEVING ISN'T SEEING

We’ve been asked on more than one occasion (like, at least two), “Apocryphist, have you ever actually SEEN a demon?” This is a ludicrous question. It’s like asking if you’ve ever seen a proton or a quark. And protons and quarks are, after all, merely physics propaganda, cooked up by scientists to justify the hefty research fees they receive from unsuspecting taxpayers. The true building blocks of matter were discovered by the alchemists of the 16th century in the midst of their quixotic attempts to create gold. Try sniffing that out in the snot-stained index of your average high-school history textbook!

Where were we? Oh yes, demons. So asking if someone has ever SEEN a demon is ludicrous, because demons were not created to appeal to the sense of sight – if you could see them, they’d be way too easy to kill, and that’s bad evolution. It would be like, oh great, there’s a demon in the closet again, call the exterminator. It would be like, we love going camping, except for all these damn demons. It would be like, here’s my pet demon, Otis – he’s housebroken.

If you plan on being a terrifying entity, the first rule is that you should keep out of sight. What’s the use of setting your sights on freezing the blood in the hearts of men when men can catch you picking your noses during an unguarded moment? Sight is the least frightening of human senses. Scary sounds are certainly acceptable – in fact, they’re inevitable. If it weren’t for scary touch, we’d have no incubi or succubi or tarantulas. Scary smells have been appropriated by many of our current society’s chemical treatment plants. And as for scary taste – well, very few people have experienced a truly horrifying flavor and lived to tell the tale, and if they have, their tongues tend to be corroded beyond the ability to speak. Pursue all of these options if your intent is fear, but for Ba’al’s sake, don’t show yourself!

Not that there’s anything supernatural about demons. They’re flesh and blood creatures, distant relatives to the poltergeist, which is itself a rare species of bird, originally native to central Europe, that fly so fast as to render themselves invisible to the naked eye. Obviously if you fly around that fast in someone’s house you’re going to knock crap off the walls and be all-around nuisance. After frightening humans from their nests, these poltergeists settle in and adapt the newly abandoned spaces into their own habitats, giving rise to myths and legends of ghosts and haunted edifices.

Demons move incredibly quickly too, but they’re not really birds anymore – they’re, you know, demons. Their other main divergence from poltergeists is that they don’t endeavor to remain rooted to a single breeding ground; they’re just nigh-invisible peripatetic pains in the ass. Our great early naturalists, such as Hieronymus Bosch and Dante Alighieri, provide some of the most compelling depictions of these misunderstood creatures, and we urge you to pore over their works for an eyeful of real science.

THE SECOND MOST DANGEROUS GAME

It is time for us to lob some words of sympathy at an institution that is dear to our wee, shriveled, walnut-resembling heart. No, we speak not of our Cabal, which, though integral to the concealed workings of the hidden world you are unable to recognize as lying behind your own, exists well beyond the ken of this weblog. Instead, we refer to the International Cryptozoology Museum.

Unlike the so-called “mainstream” scientific institutes that do little more than plash messily in slopping-over vats of semi-liquefied lies, the International Cryptozoology Museum is devoted to the only fauna worth considering: that which we do not readily see. Derived from the Latin prefix “crypto-,” or, “devoted to the art of breaking the secret codes of reality,” the Greek word “zoo,” meaning “zoo,” and the Olde English suffix “-ology,” which roughly translates to “fierce devotion bordering on the eccentric,” “cryptozoology” is a hybrid word, much like the hybrid beasts it studies along with garden variety Bigfeet, Abominable Snowpersons, and Loch Ness Monstroids.

Our first experience with cryptozoology occurred when we were quite young, and strange creatures would wander to our bedside as we attempted in vain to sleep. Childhood is not the province of innocence, but rather of truth – the things that we saw then may remain hidden to most conscious eyes, but their invisibility makes them no less real. It is a perverse comfort to know that roaming the earth somewhere are stink owls, headless dogs, and killer whales that walk like men, and it is cryptozoology that translates this occult knowledge into the truth few people can dare to face without a few stiff drinks ahead of time.

Of course, the Powers That Are don’t look kindly upon this kind of truth-gleaning, and so have conspired through its super-secret assassination task force – the IRS – to shut its doors. The Museum’s proprietress, the lovely Lauren Coleman, is struggling to keep its mighty iron doors – festooned with minotaur skulls – from closing around the bright flames of glory within. We normally don’t take up Causes, but this one is an exception. Please consider donating a guilder or two in order to keep the Museum afloat. Tell them the Apocryphist sent you. Or on second though, no, don’t.

CRUCIFIXIONAL CHARACTER

We’ve stated previously our belief that Jesus Christ was created by Christian priests as a myth to justify their religious hegemony. The ensuing chicken/egg-style question of priority is therefore highly germane for a holiday that has appropriated similar imagery in its stated purpose of selling chocolate to the world. Yes, we’re talking about Easter: Halloween of the Spring.

Personally, we prefer Good Friday: any holiday that celebrates the execution of a nettlesome fantasy is fine by us. But the underpinnings of Easter are more troubling than even we would like to admit. By killing off a fabrication only to resurrect it, the Christians created a scenario in which they expected us to believe about anything, including but not limited to an eternal afterlife based on occult justice; the appearance of holy figures on billboards and foodstuffs; and the self-imposed celibacy of priests.

We walked the streets yesterday, and saw firsthand how unmoved modern humans were by thoughts of resurrection. It was a normal Sunday, all told – despite the occasional inflatable rabbit bouncing in the wind atop a front stoop, there was no wide-eyed rejoicing, no “hosanna”-hurling, no wearing of outlandish bonnets. To our knowledge, no Jews were persecuted. Instead, folks were shopping, eating a strange hybrid of breakfast and lunch, and following other such earthly pursuits. (We didn’t see much else, because we don’t like to be outside for that long.)

Shouldn’t we just let Easter go once and for all? The candy oligarchy will raise holy hell, sure, but aren’t there more interesting things to commemorate? On April 8, 1766, the first fire escape was patented (a wicker basket at the end of a pulley). On April 8, 1946, the League of Nations assembled for the last time. On April 8, 1972, the official nickname of Firth, Michigan was changed from “Outpost of the Mundane” to “America’s Arthritis Capital.” Wouldn’t any of these events make for a more wholesome, invigorating feast than what we saw yesterday? We could keep the basket motif, and instead of bunnies, we could have chocolate diplomats, and gnarled marzipan hands – kids won’t know the difference once they’ve put them in their mouths.

Of course, the Catholic Church has a trick up its sleeve. By changing the date of Easter each year, it spawns a system of stealth attacks on less well-fortified holidays. As soon as a new celebration begins to arise, the Easter behemoth waits until it lands on a Sunday, and BAM! – the poor thing is in tatters. Turn the other cheek indeed.

MANIMAL PLANET

Thomas Edison once said that agriculture was 15% inspiration and 85% perspiration. This equation lines up eerily well with the result of a new scientific experiment, in which scientists at the University of Nevada (the Mystery State) have created a sheep that is 85% sheep and 15% human.

Do you remember The Island of Dr. Moreau, the science-fiction picture in which mafia don Marlon Brando creates an army of animal-human hybrids to fight against a corrupt dockworkers’ union in steamy New Orleans? (There’s even a scene in which he tries to impregnate a cow, using butter as lube.) Well this is like that, only with a smaller budget. We have long predicted out loud to fellow cabal members and telephone sex workers that the Age of Composite Fauna is approaching. From here on out, we should consider it upon us.

Unlike many shrill evangelists of pure humanity, we approach this new era with open arms (or even better, wings; maybe tentacles). Those who have nothing but fear and loathing for extrahuman phenomena (we’re looking at you, H.P. Lovecraft) will simply be left in the dust as those of us with mighty centaur legs gallop ever faster down the highway of progress.

There is some concern that harvesting the organs of these new man-sheep, or “sheeple,” will create so-called “silent viruses” as collateral effects of the mucking-about with newly formed organic entities. This is crapulent thinking. First of all, every virus is silent – have you ever heard a virus pundit pontificate on television, or a virus a cappella group perform on a college campus, or a virus call-girl fake an orgasm? Seriously, shut up. Secondly, the woolly coats of sheep protect them from the cold, and therefore significantly reduce the risk of disease. It’s not like we’re harvesting the organs of maggots or slime-monsters here; sheep are warm, healthy creatures. Why else do we wear wool sweaters in the wintertime? Because they look nice?

Finally, there are the moral questions.

Yup. There they are.

So let us offer a warm embrace to the returning mongrel animals of old: the pegasi, the manticores, the minotaurs, the sphinxes, mermaids, harpies, lamia, lobster apes, mollusk-crustaceans, flagellephants, giraffghan hounds, kangarhinos, birdfish, cogs, dats, wuzzles, platypuses, horsealioninjaardvarkapis and griffins. (But not chimeras. Chimeras are a myth.) Long may them mingle, and intermingle, and extramingle, and like that.