Antiquitopia

So last year to wish all a happy All Hallow's Eve, I posted the earliest reference to a zombie in the world .  So this year I thought I would post on a rather recent poem on my favorite undead creature, the vampire: The Vampire Sudden as a knife you thrust into my sorry heart and strong as a host of demons come, gaudy and libertine, to make in my corrupted mind your bed and bedlam there; --Beast, who bind me to you close as convict to his chains, as gambler to his winning streak, as drunkard to his wine, close as the carrion to its worms-- I curse you!  Be accursed! I begged the sword by one swift stroke to grant me liberty; nor did my cowardice disdain less clear-cut remedies. Poison and steel, as with one voice, contemptuously refused; "You are not worthy to be free of your enslavement, fool! Suppose we saved you, even now, from her supremacy-- your kisses would resuscitate your vampire's waiting corpse!" (Baudelaire, "The Vam...

As everyone begins preparations for the most important religious holiday of the year--Halloween (what else would it be? Yom Kippur? Easter? Diwali? Ramadan?)--I thought I would provide some seasonal cheer for your undead pleasure.  While the jury is still out on whether or not Jesus was a zombie , who did come from the dead and encourage us to drink blood and eat flesh (although drinking blood lends itself to a more vampiric reading), zombies appear to be as old as civilization itself. The earliest reference I know of occurs in Mesopotamian stories of the Descent of Ishtar and, perhaps a bit more well-known, the Epic of Gilgamesh . In the latter, Ishtar threatens: "Father, please give me the Bull of Heaven, and let me strike Gilgamesh down! Let me...Gilgamesh in his dwelling! If you don't give me the Bull of Heaven, I shall strike (?) [                                     ] I sh...

One last post on Halloween, although I fully realize it is now All Saints Day. In my reading this morning, I ran across a passage from Victor Turner, who discusses Halloween in a series of cross-cultural calendrical rituals (as opposed to rites of passage) that emphasize the temporary reversal of roles and the importance of masks in those rites: In Western society, the traces of rites of age- and sex-role reversal persist in such customs as Halloween, when the powers of the structurally inferior are manifested in the liminal dominance of pre-adolescent children. The monstrous masks they often wear in disguise represent mainly chthonic or earth-demonic powers--witches who blast fertility; corpses or skeletons from underground; indigenous peoples, such as Indians; troglodytes, such as dwarves or gnomes; hoboes or anti-authoritarian figures, such as pirates or traditional Western gun fighters. These tiny earth powers, if not propitiated by treats or dainties, will work fantastic and ca...

According to the London Times , the Spanish Catholic Church with the backing of the Vatican has come out completely against the celebration of Halloween. The article quotes an earlier, more lenient position taken by the Vatican as follows: The Vatican appeared previously to take a more lenient position. Father Gabriele Amorth, the Vatican’s chief exorcist, once said: “If English and American children like to dress up as witches and devils on one night of the year, that’s not a problem. If it is just a game, there is no harm.” But the Spanish hierarchy begs to differ. Wearing skeleton suits, dressing up as vampires, witches or goblins or slapping on fake blood is not far removed from communing with the Devil, according to the country’s bishops. However, the bishops, with Vatican backing, have reserved their venom for the millions of parents who allowed their children to celebrate this “pagan” festival. Father Joan María Canals, the director of the Spanish Bishops Conference Committee o...

As all hallow's eve approaches, the NYTimes has an article on the polytheistic background of the highly commercialized holiday (well, aren't all holidays these days?): the autumnal festival of Samhain. Many people probably know that most of our "Christian" holidays rely upon an older calendar of European religious festivals, referred to as "pagan": Certainly, there is nothing new about Paganism per se. From Halloween to May Day to Yuletide, said Prof. Diana L. Eck of Harvard Divinity School, “There’s a way in which all of us, especially in the Christian tradition, follow a religious calendar that is pegged to ancient Pagan festivals.” One might add all of the fertility imagery (rabbits and eggs) in Easter. It was recognized early on by Christian leaders that it would be easier to convert people and keep them in the fold if many of the practices and festivals of the older religions were retained in some form and re-framed in Christian terms--that is why Chr...

Last night's Treehouse of Horror was hilarious, especially, I think, the spoof on Peanuts' Great Pumpkin. In the middle of it, Milhouse expresses his devout faith in creedal form for the "Grand" Pumpkin, who was "crustified under Pontius Pie-plate":

After all this posting about the Bible and Socialism and the election, etc., I almost forgot to wish everyone a Happy Halloween! This is, of course, the most important religious holiday of the year. ;)