This Week Only: The High Lord Exorcist, Sceva and His Seven Sons

    “Come one, come all” shouted the carnival style barker with a pencil thin mustache and a straw boater hat, “Roll up! Roll up for the magical, mystical exorcism show starring the High Lord Exorcist known throughout the Levant and all points east as the Chief Priest, Sceva and his Seven Sons! This week only! See them today because they won’t be here long! Lay down a fin and see the show. Lay down a sawbuck and we’ll let you participate in the show.” Crowds thronged in the narrow Ephesian streets to see the world-famous exorcists. They clamored and shouted, screaming out the name “Sceva! Sceva! Sceva!” over and over again in their enthusiasm and excitement.

    Careful investigation may have revealed that Sceva was not actually related to the priest Zadok, or a member of any of the priestly families and that he had never actually presided over any sacrifice. He may have claimed high rank as a priest of God, but he’d never served in the Temple in Jerusalem. That the seven young men who assisted him in the exorcisms were his sons was also a dubious proposition. They probably weren’t even brothers.

    But the throngs of people screaming out the name “Sceva!” couldn’t care less. They were thrilled by his supernatural performances in the market square and wanted more of them. They came every day to see Sceva and his sons drive out all demons and astral spirits, all the kosmokratores of the heavenly spheres who were responsible for ailments, afflictions and physical maladies of every kind.

    “The magical, mystical exorcism revue is about to begin!” the street-corner barker called out to the passing crowds. The citizens of Ephesus put down their coin, cash on the barrel, to see the show. They came to feel the exhilaration of being in the presence of Kuru demons – the demons responsible for cannibalistic brain disease. They came for the thrill of seeing Astatine spirits, rare and radioactive, spirits who do not want to exist and are usually vaporized by their own heat, a half-life measured in hours. And yet, in that time, they can do significant damage.

    “Step up to witness superhuman marvels beyond belief!” the barker called, and the crowds came to see the show.

    The Lord once, in the primordial past when waters still covered the entirety of the earth, split the sea and smashed the heads of dragons in the waters, those extraordinary, uncanny beasts from the deep, dragons of no taxonomy, no classification, no order, no kingdom except the kingdom of darkness. But the Jews of Ephesus plunked down their coins to watch the itinerant exorcist Sceva and his seven spangled and sequined sons as they displaced demons with a colorful display of vomited gall.

    The Sons of Sceva called for a volunteer from the audience, someone troubled by a demonic presence. And a bandy-legged old man raised his hand. “I am possessed by an unclean spirit,” he said. Then, waving their mystagogic amulets – amulets containing secret inscriptions and sealed with wax – the seven sons of Sceva began the exorcism ritual as their nominal father looked on.

    They spoke in turns, invoking the sacred phrases:

    “I adjure you by the name of the angel Uriel, the power of light, regent of the sun.”
    “I adjure you by the name of the angel Raphael, the power of health, and binder of desert demons.”
    “I adjure you by the name of the angel Raguel, bringer of fire and harmony.”
    “I adjure you by the name of the angel Samael, angel of venom and poison.”
    “I adjure you by the name of the angel Michael, the great prince of heaven.”
    “I adjure you by the name of the angel Gabriel, the power of strength and player of cool jazz.”
    “I adjure you by the name of the angel Phanuel, the face of God, sustainer of hope and health.”

    And then all held their amulets aloft and, with a choreographed little dance shouted in unison, “Gathered together the forces of heaven, numbering seven, archangels forever. Amen!” And the audience cheered.

    Then, after quieting the crowd again, the old man Sceva himself spoke in a ventriloquist voice that seemed to come from everywhere at once:

    “Great is the ineffable name of the Lord, by the God of the Hebrews, by the unerring knowledge of all that exists. I adjure you by the maker of heaven and earth, to smite you with a mighty blow, to destroy you by the angel of his fierce wrath. I cast out every incubus of natural disease. I cast out all anguipede inversions of the sacred name – even if they be embodied as a man with a rooster’s head and snakes for legs. I cast out ravaging angels, Lilith demons, and bastard spirits. Owls and weaving spiders come not here. I cast out polluted blood, corrupted bile - be it yellow or be it black - and all congested phlegm. Your horns are horns of dust. Your stones are soft. Your eyes are weak. The light that shines from the sun will not find you. To condemn you to lowest Hades, to lie in darkness.”

    The seven sons formed a circle around the bandy-legged old man and began their chant.

    “By the name of Jesus of Nazareth and the name of his servant Paul…”

    But this is as far as they got before the demon within the man interrupted in a voice that rattled shingles from the roofs of nearby buildings. “Jesus I recognize, yes. Yes. Jesus I recognize, and Paul I know. Yes. Yes. Paul I know. But you? Who the hell are you lot?”

    The spindly little man leapt to his feet and slashed out with his untrimmed nails – gashing their faces and gouging their eyes. He grabbed the nearest one while swiftly ramming his knee into his groin. He bashed his elbow into the nose of one of the boys. Blood sprayed.

    The sons of Sceva fled the scene screaming, following after their father who’d begun running as soon as the demon began to speak. “I don’t know you!” the demonized man shouted in a voice louder and deeper than possible with human vocal cords. “I don’t know you!” He laughed after them as they ran away with their matching outfits in tatters. “I don’t know you!”

New Truths and New Knowings

    There are new truths and new knowings. There are revelations yet unseen. My imagination is active. My intellect goes forth to create according to what comes to mind. From the remnant of dreams, all the vapors and gasses of the night combined with a line upon line study of the scriptures. I’m putting together the outline and notes that will lead us, point to point, maybe not you would want to go, but to where you need to go - the end of knowing. Follow with me. All will be revealed.

    First, there are some who stand prepared at the gates. Always in readiness. Always in faith. Ethiopian Copts are guarding the Ark of Covenant in an undisclosed location, behind an unmarked door. The guardians have the key. The guardians have the lock.

    Let there be demonic dermatology for the warlock senator from Georgia. The curse of his skin be upon him.

    If you always follow the angel of prophecy, you’ll never be lost. This remains true – though I’ve stumbled occasionally. Usually somewhere in Daniel’s Seventy Weeks. The little horn, the tin horn dictator, shouting in my ear distracted me, but only for a time. Even among the wise rulers, those with understanding, some will stumble. A number of them will be purged. Purified and made clean. Purged and made white. White with fear and bloodless pale. Where is it leading? Follow on.

    Stalin has been spotted on Venus, his visage in the clouds.

    And now we come to the extraterrestrial, inter-dimensional, documentary entities – stepping between the registers of spatial timeslips and their spiritual machines – oft observed flying through our airspace. The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels. Observe the wheels within the spinning wheel. See it spin, high and dreadful above the surface of the earth and full of eyes, lifted up into higher dimensions. Ancient angels identified as aliens in our day, instantly transformed from magic to material by material magic.

    Finally, look closely at the seven resurrections of the American empire - no love and no lie - after years of dispute and negotiations and the successive waves of diplomatic “healing,” it will be destroyed by Christ at his coming. Count the multinational corporations and financial manufacturers that dominate every field, internet and satellite television – they illustrate the need for American independence.

    The whole global system is fractured. It cannot be saved. There is little time left – less than eight hours. Eight hours relative.

Uniformed Pentagon Officials and Witchcraft Lesbians

    There are places underground, deep within the dark caverns of the earth, where evil spirits dwell. A uniformed pentagon official assured me this is true. He stood in my door and told me what it is that he is not allowed to say. No hearth, no home, no love or kindness there in the dark depths. But what did the prophet say, ‘I saw gods ascending from the earth.’ Where exactly do you think they come from

    Meanwhile, men around the world regularly meet for this, and what is it they are come for? To share the bonds of camaraderie and bonhomie. To share a laugh or two. To hone leadership and speaking and socialization skills. But what they invariably discover is the working of discord on the surface of the earth. The spirits of the deep unleashed. They are primarily women who can’t shut their mouths. Witchcraft lesbians who won’t shut their froward mouths. These women, these people, these grotesque people – they are black frauds and white liars. Their heads are full of noise that escapes through their ruby lips. They are at the same time both superiorous and inferiorous. Ladies' night! Who can explain it

    She will do him evil and no good all the days of her life. In her tongue is the law. Her slick, moist tongue. When she opens her mouth, she does so wily, in her tongue is deception. Moaning. Her clothing slips and so do the men. Physical beauty is easy and so is she. The world is unkind. Do not expend your energy on women. They will use your wealth to ruin kings. She gets up early, before the dawn, giving orders to her girls. Awakening strength and spontaneity at the mouth of hell. Her lamp does not go out at night.

    Fine dining, speeches, and a Q&A session designed to stimulate robust and masculine discussion - certain traditions that have no need of feminist spoil. This is not the possible. This is not the possible. This is the promised of God. The whole prophetic event in one picture. Complete

    Severe thunderstorms and tornado warnings here. Already we hear the sirens. We are under warning and under wicked assault. We cannot now say more about the mystery of the rapture or the wickedness of Sodom. There is no time. Rain and hail is falling all around. These are the falling gods of the iron kingdom. Iron and clay commingled and burning as they fall. The lightning flash is the flash of familiar spirits from the depths of the earth.

Exorcism Live, Another Friday, 1987

    I was lying on my bed, listening to music Allison had given me when Dave and Micah showed up. The music had captured me; it was totally unlike the metal I usually listened to. One entire side of the cassette was a song by Brian Eno – thirty minutes of drifting synths. Just drifting. I lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling drifting. Almost floating even.

    I thought about her – Allison. Since the event at the hospital she hadn’t been allowed to drive Beth’s car anymore. She was grounded, but not really in trouble. Her parents – all of our parents – were so relieved that we were safe that they implemented only token punishments for our poor choices. But still, she wasn’t allowed to drive anymore. Not till she actually got her license anyway. We hung out at school more often since the hospital. Walked the halls between classes together. That’s when she’d given me the mix tape.

    “You should expand your experiences,” she said.

    So I was listening to this music of nothing, this melody of air and moonlight through the headphones. I didn’t know how to hear it but there was something profound there.

    And that’s when the guys came in. We were at my place instead of the unfinished attic above Dave’s family’s apartment, but we were at my place almost as often as Dave’s. They kicked open the door and Dave yanked the headphone cable from the stereo. The sustained lilting of the airy melody flowed into the room.

    “What’s this shit?” Dave asked.

    “It’s a mix-tape Allison gave me.” I tossed him the cassette case with her handwritten titles.

    “Brian Eno?” he read. “Never heard of him. Sugar Cubes? Mississippi John Hurt? Carter USM?” he looked up from the list. “Are these songs or bands or what?” He continued reading. “Herman’s Hermits? Herman’s Shitting Hermits? Don’t your parents listen to that crap?”

    Micah pushed the stop and eject button on the cassette player, removed the tape and handed it back to me. He shook his head, “No.”

    Dave pulled out one of my This Corpse Alive albums. We were really into them. I still listen to them. The percussive pounding began immediately:

    Creeping in unnoticed
    The ungodly! The ungodly!
    Creeping from the remotest
    The ungodly! The ungodly!

    “No. Not that one” I objected. I was still feeling the ambient drift of the Eno song and I couldn’t handle the throbbing metal just yet. “Play the next track.” Dave moved the needle and suddenly the distorted guitars and drums were replaced with somber, if somewhat dissonant strings layered with gravel voiced mournful vocals.

    The righteous dies and no one cares
    In these evil days. These evil days.

    That song moves me. Even still. I can’t hear it without trembling a little. But back then, back in 1987 when we were fifteen, we were smart kids doing dumb things. Or dumb kids listening to good music and watching bad movies. That wasn’t the plan for this Friday night though. No. We’d planned that dumbest of teenage pranks – the prank phone call.

    In preparation I’d gone back to the University library and found a copy of Anton LaVey’s Satanic Bible. The librarian at the desk wouldn’t let me check it out though. “Stolen too often,” she told me. So I had to make xerox copies of the pages I wanted. The librarian eyeballed me the entire time to make sure I returned the infamous text before I left.

    Don’t get me wrong though. We weren’t satanists or anything. We just thought all that occult stuff was interesting. We read some of Aleister Crowley’s ceremonial magik, we looked up ancient summoning spells. We tried some of those, but never had any luck with them. And I read some of Anton LaVey’s books. Some called him “The Black Pope,” others called him the “evilest man in the world,” but to me he just sounded like Ayn Rand with pentagrams and black candles. Boring really.

    But armed with these devilish provocations we were going to call Bob Larson’s Talk Back radio program. Larson was one of those televangelists – though he was on the radio, not television in those days. His show was a crack up. Talking to teens about Satanism and ritual Satanic abuse and all that hype. He was a showman, always asking for people to donate money to his ministry and pitching his books and tapes. He was loud. He was abrasive and abusive, often shouting down his guests, telling them to shut up so he could rail against them. His voice was high pitched and pinched, and even more so as he became riled up. We turned off the record player and turned on the radio and tuned in the program just in time to hear the beginning of his show.

    “Good evening, America. Welcome to Talk Back with Bob Larson. I’ll be here for the next hour talking about what’s on my mind and hearing from you about what’s on your mind. Tonight we’re talking about teenage satanists. If you’re a teenager and you’re involved in Satanism or the occult dial me at 1-800-821-TALK. Call me. Maybe you’re into witchcraft. Maybe you’ve been involved in some sort of ritual sacrifice. Maybe you’re a member of a black metal, death metal band. Or maybe you want out. Maybe you want to be set free. Call me.”

    Dave was already dialing and talking to the call screener. Trying to get us in to the show as Bob continued on the radio.

    “Satan promises power. Power over parents. Power over school authorities. And even power over God. Is it a passing phase? Or are these teens committing to the rituals and a lifestyle that will take over and consume them? Do they have the devil in them? Is it Lucifer or Belial, or Leviathan in them? Why are teenagers turning to Satan? Call me. Talk to me. We’ve got a young man from Bloomington, Indiana on the phone.”

    “We’re on! We’re on!” Dave said thrusting the phone at me.

    “So you’re a teenage satanist?” I heard Larson say in the phone earpiece and on the radio and I was momentarily confused. “How long have you been duped by the devil?” Dave thrust the xerox LaVey quotes at me. Micah turned down the volume on the radio a little.

    “Do you kiss the ring of Satan? Hello? Are you there, caller?”

    I suddenly found my voice – not my regular voice, but the mewling, growling voice I used to crack up Dave and Micah as we read Crowley and LaVey. “Gather around me, Oh! Ye death-defiant, and the earth itself shall be thine, to have and to hold!”

    “My, what a lovely singing voice you must have,” Larson quipped. “So you’re a teenage satanist. You’ve obviously read The Satanic Bible…”

    I interrupted his spiel, “Too long the dead hand has been permitted to sterilize living thought. Life is the great indulgence – death, the great abstinence. Therefore, make the most of life, here and now!”

    “Caller, what’s your name? And how old are you?”

    We’d prepared for this. “Call me Liber Samekh,” I said, not dropping the voice. “And my minions, Cernunnos and Draugor are here with me.”

    “Are those your witch names? Your ritual names?”

    “Yes,” I answered and kicked at Micah who was wheezing with laughter on the floor, holding his yarmulke on his head with one hand. 

    “And do you and your minions listen to heavy metal, black or death metal music?”

    “We do. We follow This Corpse Alive. They’re the greatest.” I was getting off track a little. Dave shoved another page in front of me, jabbing his finger at a highlighted quote. I read it, putting all the menace I could into my cracking, teenage voice. “Behold the crucifix; what does it symbolize? Pallid incompetence hanging on a tree.”

    Larson was incensed. “Liber Samekh, Listen to me. Liber Samekh, I won’t allow blasphemy on my show. This is my show. Listen to me! Listen you’re getting into something that you can’t control. You don’t know…”

    I interrupted him again, louder and more forcibly. “Say unto thine own heart, ‘I am mine own redeemer.’”

    “Begone, Satan” Larson started shouting. “I bind and cast you out of this boy. I bind and cast you out of this child. I bind and cast you out in the name of Jesus…”

    He probably went on like that for some time, but we were laughing too hard to hear him. It was dumb and childish, of course. Puerile. But it was fun and funny. We were reading Crowley and LaVey and all that other rot, but we never bought into the “Satanic Panic” of those years. Bob Larson was a carnival barker. Anton LaVey was little more than an egoist. But one thing still stands out from those years – that song by This Corpse Alive still haunts me.

    The righteous dies and no one cares
    these evil days. These evil days.

Rituali de Sangue - Friday, 1987
Twilight at Saint Gerald's - Another Friday, 1987

Twilight at Saint Gerald’s – Another Friday, 1987

    Judas the Hammer brings ruin to many!
    Judas the Hammer will capture the city!

    The growling vocals and throbbing, distorted guitars of This Corpse Alive shook the room. They were our favorite band back in 1987 and we listened to their albums whenever we got together, despite our parents objections to that ‘devil-music’ as they called it. We were at Dave’s place – in the upstairs unused half attic of the apartment – our usual spot. It was me, Dave, and Micah. And Allison

    “I appreciate that you’re here to do this, but aren’t you supposed to be at rehearsal, or something,” I asked, twisting my head to see her. I liked her cinnamon hair. And that her older sister, Beth – a senior while we were freshmen – would sometimes get us some pot. She was there to pierce my ear with a safety pin. My mom was going to be so cheesed.

    “Sit still,” she insisted and squeezed my ear with the ice cube to numb it. “Yeah,” she said. “Stupid Guys and Dolls.” She snorted. “They cast me as one of the Hot Box dancers. But it’s not like I can dance all that well. It’s just ‘cause I have boobs.” Micah, Dave, and I blushed and turned away from her and she laughed at us. I sneaked a look at her chest as she squeezed my ear again. Harder.

    “Hold still,” Allison said. “This is gonna’ hurt.”

    “I thought the ice…” I started to say and then she stabbed the pin through my lobe. I screamed, but it was done.“You’re such a puss,” she said and handed me a towel. “Wipe up the blood.”

    Micah brought me a small hand-held mirror and nodded in approval. “Cool,” he said.

    “Are you guys still into that Satan shit?” Allison asked as I preened in the mirror with my new punk rock jewelry.

    Micah shook his head back and forth, nearly dislodging his yarmulke. Dave laughed and said, “We’re not Satanists, you know. We just thought it’d be cool. Not that it worked or anything.”

    “Do you have anything else planned?” Allison asked as she sat down on the couch next to Micah.

    “We were just going to watch a movie. I think The Brides of Betrayal is on tonight,” I said.

     “So. Just another boring Friday night for the Three Investigators?” Allison said with a slightly sardonic grin. Now I almost regretted telling her about my childhood obsession with those books. Almost. She grinned at me and continued. “But what if I said I know how we can get into the old Saint Gerald of Aurillac hospital.”

    The three of us stared at her as the This Corpse Alive album continued playing on the stereo.

    My heart is bewildered, a dread overwhelms
    The twilight I longed for has become my terror.

    The Saint Gerald of Aurillac hospital had been empty – abandoned since before any of us were born. None of us really knew why. There were stories, of course, each more outlandish than the last: human breeding experiments, Nazi doctors, you know the sort… Weekly World News kind of stuff. It was probably something entirely boring like taxes or insurance but the stories circulated. The city kept it pretty well boarded up so that it didn’t become a hobo camp and there was very little graffiti on the walls. A tall chain link fence cordoned off most of it.

    “Hellfire!” Dave shouted. “Let’s go!”

    “But how are we going to get there?” I asked. “It’s on the other side of town.”

    “I’ve got Beth’s car,” Allison said.

    “But no license, right?”

    “Are you coming or not?” She asked and followed Dave down the stairs. I looked at Micah. He just shrugged and followed along. We piled into Beth’s maroon and rust Ford Escort and Allison drove us across town to the Saint Gerald. Micah offered a cassette for the tape deck, but Allison refused it. “No more of that death metal crap tonight, boys. You’re going to hear some real music.” She played some synthesizer Euro pop. Micah just sulked in the back seat staring out the window.

    The Saint Gerald was boarded up and secure – except for one basement entrance that Allison knew about. The iron stairs down to the door were dangerously sloped and bounced uncertainly as we made our unsteady descent. I felt a wash of vertigo as I stepped down, but it passed. At the bottom she pulled away a band of yellow and black barricade tape and pulled on the door. It opened. Reluctantly, but it opened.

    We were ready to enter but Allison held out her arm. “Should we pray first, or something? For protection?”

    “Yeah,” I agreed. “That’s probably a good idea. Dave, what have you got in the way of protection prayers?”

    He looked sheepish and said, “I don’t know. I guess we could recite the Lord’s Prayer or Psalm Twenty-Three, maybe.”

    Micah held his hands in the air with his fingers spread like Mister Spock and began to pray: “Hashkivenu Adonai, Eloheinu l’shalom v’ha’amideinu shomreinu l’chaim. Ufros aleinu sukkat shlomecha v’takneinu b’eitzah tovah milfanecha v’hoshee’einu l’ma’an sh’mecha. V’hagen b’adeinu v’haseir mei’aleinu oyev, dever, v’cherev, v’ra’av, v’yagon, v’harcheik mimenu avon vafesha. U’v’tzeil kenafecha tastireinu ki el shomreinu umatzileinu atah ki el chanun v’rachum atah. Ushmor tzeiteinu u’vo’einu l’chaim u’l’shalom mei’atah v’ad olam. Baruch atah Adonai, shomer amo Yisrael.”

    “Amen,” we all agreed, though we didn’t know what he’d prayed.

    “Dude, was that from Star Trek?” Dave asked and Allison smacked him on the back of the head.

    “Hold up. Hold up,” Dave said rubbing his skull. “I’ve got something else. I’ve got these.” He pulled out a small wooden box from his jacket. He opened the lid and revealed three communion wafers. “I smuggled these out from Mass when we were getting ready for the summoning ritual.” He looked at Allison. “I didn’t know you’d be with us or I would have gotten more…”

    “Isn’t that blasphemy or something?” she asked.

    “No. We’re doing something dangerous here. We might encounter some evil spirit inside there. We need the holy presence to go with us.”

    “Still seems iffy to me,” I said. But we each took one. For protection.

    “I’ve got something too,” Allison said handing us a piece of chalk. She looked at me and said, “Just like The Three Investigators, right?” She smiled and I melted.

    “So we don’t get lost,” Allison explained and drew an arrow on the wall. She stepped through the door into the darkness and we followed after her.

    Inside it was stuffy and dark but not like a cave. When my family went to the State park caves near here for vacation, they smelled fresh and clean. Living even. Saint Gerald of Aurillac hospital, abandoned for so long, smelled dead. I don’t know how better to say it. Our flashlights did little to illumine the facility. There was little to see. If we expected to find medical equipment and blood stained walls we were disappointed. It was just an empty building. Empty hallways. Empty rooms.

    But there was something, some nervous hesitation, some unexpressed unfamiliar dread. “Aren’t these places full of radon?

    “Radon?” Dave said. “What’s that?”

    “Radioactive gas that seeps up from the ground,” I explained.

    “Radioactive gas? You’re full of crap. You know that right?” Dave said.

    Maybe it wasn’t Radon, but there was something. I felt. We all felt it. And my newly pierced ear was throbbing. I think I saw interdimensional flashing lights. Fairy lights and there was …

    It’s here that I mostly have to end the story.

    I don’t really remember what else happened. We woke up in the hospital – the actual functioning hospital, with doctors and nurses and everything. Our parents were there, sobbing and squeezing us until we were nearly crushed to death. Alternately laughing and crying and shouting at the doctors. It turns out that someone (we never learned who) made an anonymous phone call to 911 reporting a gas leak in the area of The Saint Gerald of Aurillac hospital. Police and Fire Department responded and found the four of us unconscious in the heating system of Saint Gerald’s. They followed our chalk marks, apparently. They flooded the room with fresh clean air and we were revived and taken by ambulance to the hospital.

    I still don’t know how we got into the heating system.

    And, what is more, Saint Gerald’s had been vacant for years, everything shut down. No power, no utilities. No gas. Who made the call? Why was there the smell of gas there? These things we never learned.

Rituali di Sangue - Friday, 1987

Rituali di Sangue – Friday, 1987

    It was long ago in a time of misremembered darkness and we were reading poorly translated thirteenth century Italian blood rituals by candlelight while heavy metal bikini girls writhed in the late night movie on the TV. It was 1987 and I was fifteen.

    “Baptized as we were into these bodies of flesh and death...” We intoned the words – some of which we’d had to pencil ourselves to fill in lacunae in the translation with our best adolescent guess. None of us actually spoke any Italian, but I’d had a semester of French and Micah knew a little Spanish. We thought we could fake it. A flash of hellfire lightning outside the window briefly illuminated the room and we all jumped. I shrieked. Yeah, like a girl, and then laughed.

    “Don’t break the circle, dude!” Dave shouted as Micah flinched. We’d drawn the protective circle on the floor using Morton’s salt filched from Micah’s mom’s kitchen. I burst into another fit of laughter.

    “It’s not working, is it?” I asked. We’d been holding hands around the circle, but now my hands were damp and sweaty. I wiped them on my jean jacket.

    “Don’t break the circle,” Dave insisted again.

    “Come on, man. We’ve been trying to read this book for an hour. It ain’t happening.” I’d found the book, Rituali di Sangue Per l’apparizione Demoniaca, in the special collections section of the college library – a university library card was one of the perks of taking AP classes in high school – so it was my fault we were spending that Friday night with obscure occult performances. I’d convinced the guys to try one of the rituals, but it obviously wasn’t working. Dave, who needed little persuading, wanted to continue.

    “Keep reading.”

    “Micah?” I asked. “What do you think?”

    Micah, who said very little stood up from the floor where we were sitting and turned on the lights and blew out the candles. I laughed again.

    “Fine!” Dave huffed. He went over to the stereo cabinet and pulled out a vinyl album by This Corpse Alive – some black metal band from Australia, I think. He settled the needle at the first track and turned up the volume. Thick guitars and drums filled the room.

    Step by step he staggers to the skull!
    Step by step he staggers to the skull!

    “Help me clean up this salt,” Dave said. “or my mom’s not gonna’ let us hang out up here anymore.” The room was an unused half attic above the apartment where Dave’s family lived. The first floor was their family’s business – his parents were both CPAs.

    I turned the music up a little louder and the three of us started to clean up the candles and salt. “Don’t put away the wine,” Dave said. We’d sneaked a bottle of wine out of his dad’s basement.

    Follow him down, down to the tomb
    drink of his blood, his flesh consume!

    With the ceremonial accouterments swept up, extinguished, and put away we sat down on the couch together. Dave poured us each a bit of wine into plastic cups decorated with Smurfs and Carebears. “What’s on the TV?” Dave asked as he sat and sipped from his cup. Micah pointed the remote at the screen and turned up the volume. Some hapless blonde was running barefoot and braless through the woods, screaming.

    “Same ol’ shit,” Micah muttered. But it didn’t matter. We often spent Friday nights watching the late night horror shows. And we loved it. All those gruesome films with gallons and gallons of bright red blood and screaming beauty queens with bright red lips. We especially loved the badly dubbed European ones.

    Another flash of lightning and an immediate bang of thunder rocked the upstairs room and the electricity went out. “Holy hell,” Dave gasped. “That was close. Sounded like it was right on top of us.”

    We sipped our wine as we waited in the dark for the power to come back on.

    “Should we get the candles back out?” I asked after a minute. Micah, never so loquacious, nodded and got the candles and the lighter back out from the cabinet where he’d put them. Soon the room was aglow again with the soft flickering light of the candles.

    “How long do you think…” I started to say but Micah hushed me with a finger to his lips. We could hear something approaching even over the howling, screaming wind and rain outside. The room suddenly felt heavy and close. Smaller than ever before. Something groaned in the darkness.

    Suddenly the door flung open. We all screamed and grabbed each other.

    “What the hell’s going on up here?” Dave’s mom said “Good grief, boys. It’s just a storm. And where did you get that wine?!

All This Was Done To Fulfill What Had Been Spoken by the Prophet

In the silver shadowed evening I am returning home. It is late. Under the mirror, under the eerie ambiance of flickering fluorescent lights I am losing myself, like any one of the many millions suffering from demonic and unclean spirits. A sense of rushing through a darkened tunnel. Pale face and half again. 

The plastic power of indiscriminate destruction, psychic visions. Pain is pain. Deeper sleep and everything lost through insecure violence. But with a word, one passionate, joyous word and the vibrant sounds of laughter. 

All who were ill, all the nausea, all the lethargy and memory lapses like fat flies buzzing back into the void. All our weaknesses, all our disease - from the crotch, the belly, the spine. We were clinically dead. Spiritually dead. Drowned and fired. Now new light. Now new life.

I Was Possessed by the Devil

 

So it was a nightmare, that moonless night just after we’d moved into the house. Strange things. Demonic things. The sound of children speaking vulgarities in the dark. I remember my mother leaning over the bed as I was rapidly shaking. Shaking harder than before. 

I was possessed by the devil. 

But the words had no context and the sounds had no meaning. You know how people will fabricate stories. Try to understand. Try to appreciate the situation. Can you feel those fine hairs on your arms and the back of your neck rising? Tingling? 

“He’s asleep again.” 

“Again?” 

“Still. He’s still asleep.” 

Despite the vibrations. Despite the noise, I am still asleep. Light is blazing in the rain spattered windows. George Bush and Ronald Reagan are on the television whether we like it or not. Permission was given, that is the first. Second, external spirits will infest the place. Then comes the oppression.

Where is the life I had before? I thought it was there, but I was wrong. It disappeared. It fled into the dark as I was sleeping.

Late at night, even now, I still dream comfortless dreams of something watching. Something is there. Nothing is there. Nothing is there except a voice. Voices telling me to go out and to do. Something is there. Eyes that are not eyes. Voices that are not voices. And my pale face in the dark. A garble of voices, still meaningless. 

Let’s Exorcise the Pentagon

I’d been working at Stella’s bowling alley (12 lanes - 24 hours) for about a year when David George came back. You might remember how he got us both fired from Alvin’s Speedy Lube and Parts after he convince me to help him disinter the body of President Lincoln. He’d gone into hiding after he tried - by his own self, mind you – to dig up the bones of Geronimo. I might not be bright, but I try to not make the same mistake twice. David George though, he gets an idea in his head and he can’t shake it loose till he’s tried, and usually failed. My therapist, Dr. Schnabel, says that’s an “ideomotor response.” Me, I don’t think David George’s an idiot, but he does get some weird ideas from time to time.

Anyway, after the trouble with Geronimo’s bones, David George disappeared for a while. Sheriff Jackson came round a couple of times to ask me if I’d seen him. If I had to guess, I’d say he went back home to Enid, Oklahoma but I didn’t say none of that to the sheriff.

Like I said, I was working at the bowling alley; I’d just finished fixing the pinsetter machine on lane eight. It’s funny: David George always said I wouldn’t know a wrench from a wrestling match, but I was doin’ all right there at the bowling alley. A steady job and regular paycheck and all. I was wiping the grease from my hands when Stella came into the back and said, “Go ahead and take your break, Judge. There’s a fella at the bar looking for you. Just be back in fifteen minutes. Trash needs emptied.”

“Holt,” he said as I sat down next to him. That’s me, by the way. Judge Allen Holt.  It’s my name, not a title. Like that actor guy. “Holt. How’s it hanging?”

“David George!” I said. “Man! I haven’t seen you since…” I looked around. Sherriff Jackson and his deputies bowled there sometimes. “I ain’t see you around since… you know,” I whispered.

“Yeah,” he grinned. “That was a bit of a mess, wasn’t it? But that’s all behind me now,” he said.

“No more trouble?”

“Nope.”

“No more crazy plans?” Maybe I should have known better. He just sat there grinning, and I knew it would be something.

“Listen, Holt,” he said and leaned in real close to me.“You and I both know that whatever trouble we’ve gotten ourselves into, it’s still the black hearted politicians and dead heart stringers that are spreading blindness in the city.”

Now, I didn’t follow this too good. David George is always sayin’ stuff I don’t quite understand. But it ain’t the stuff I don’t understand that gets me in trouble usually. It’s the stuff I do understand – like what he said next.

“What we need to do is perform an exorcism at the Pentagon. If we want to save the country, we have to drive the devils out of the government – starting at the Pentagon.”

“Didn’t someone try that already?” I asked him. “One of them poet types back in the sixties…

“I don’t know anything about that, Holt.”

“Yeah. The poet and Doctor Spock.”

“From Star Trek? Judge Allen Holt, you don’t make no sense sometimes,” David George said. “This ain’t no hippy crap or science fiction garbage. What we’re going to do is perform an honest-to-God exorcism to drive the demons right out of the Pentagon. We’re going to do it, and we’re going to do it right, Holt. Honest-God, a real old school exorcism using one of the Latin texts from the Vatican.”

“But,” I interrupted, “we don’t read Latin. You know I barely read English so good.”

“This does present a problem,” he said, but David George never dwelled long with a problem. “But not an insurmountable one. There are plenty of other reliable texts we could use.”

“Where are we going to find a reliable exorcism ritual, David George?”

“That’s the easiest part of the whole thing, Holt.  My sister has one.”

“Your sister, Rosemary, has a copy of a workable exorcism ritual… in English?”

“Sure,” he grinned. He never stopped grinning when he had an idea. “She took a parapsychology course at the community college last summer.”

Now this is where I should have said no. I know that now. But there are natural fluctuations in all things – in ages and in wages. David George explained that there are unusual magnetic fields caused by strong currents of water near the Pentagon and that the push and flow of tidal adrenaline pools affected the course of national events. He said it was a sort of silent alarm, and that a truly silent alarm is heard by no one. He explained it all to me.  “Like Shakespeare said, ‘it’s easy to mistake a bush for a bear.’”

I don’t know what any of that meant.  But we did get that ritual book from his sister and we did hop a Greyhound bus for Washington D.C. And standing outside the Pentagon in the employee parking lot we did read it.  Out loud and everything.

And this is where you’ll ask me if the Pentagon building began to vibrate and turn orange?  Did evil emissions spiral up into the air in a swirling black vapor of death? Did ill-omened effluvium spill out over the walls? Did the world hear the silence of cancelled screams?

No. There was nothing. Nothing at all.  The security guards drove round to us in a little electric golf cart and told us to leave. So we left. Took the next bus home. Most of David George’s ideas are crazy and get us into trouble. But I couldn’t help hoping that this one would be different. I suppose the fact that we didn’t get arrested this time is different, but still it was disappointing.

Back home, I went to the Catholic church my mom used to drag me to and I asked the Father what it failed. “Father, why didn’t it work? Why couldn’t we drive the demons out of the Pentagon?”

He answered me: “The demons in the gospels responded to Jesus’ commands to be gone because they knew and believed, and what is more, they feared his power. You and your friend failed at the Pentagon because the demons that work inside that building neither know nor fear the power of Christ.”

What Is Out There?

So what is out there? Most of space is empty. Most of space is void. But there is something out there. There must be, or we wouldn’t be so compelled to go there again and again.  What is out there in the dark?

* A few half broken robot puttering around in circles on the surface of Mars, unable to complete their missions because of faulty hardware, unable to stop their peregrinations because of their programming.

* Asteroid mining roughnecks living between Mars and Jupiter – giving up ten years of their lives to drill and plunder space rocks for ice and nickel and iron in return for a substantial payout at the end of their contracted time. The risk is great, however: 37% of those space-miners die before the end of their contract. Their families or designated recipients receive a small, prorated portion of their payment.

* The gateway to hell. Several religious sects believe that the entrance to the infernal realm is found in the Great Red Spot on Jupiter. That anticyclonic storm has been raging continuously since it was first observed in 1830. The noise and roar of the turbulent storm, twice as wide as earth, actually raises the temperature of Jupiter’s atmosphere by 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Hell is hot and loud, drowning out the screams of the damned.

* Dark Matter and White Light, but not in equal proportions.

* Spinning saucer-craft piloted by either little green men bent on medical experiments of the perverse variety – namely the impregnation of God fearing American women, or buxom Venusian women intent on the seduction of virile, red-blooded, American men.

* Surfaces to exploit. There are always surfaces to exploit. There is always profit to be made.

* Ghosts and demons – malicious entities spreading their hatred through signals from television satellites. That’s how they get to us; television is the vector. They deceive our minds, put us into a subconscious hypnosis. These space demons use what is called the “flicker rate” (the flicker fusion threshold), the frequency of intermittent light stimulus to modulate our perception by superimposing subliminal messages on television programs. This is how they destroy our freewill, how they corrupt our minds – like an intergalactic virus, poisonous creatures infecting our spirits from a distance.

* The former President of the United States of America. Having been impeached and discredited, the previous POTUS fled the surface of the Earth and went into hiding in a bunker on the moon. He is plotting there, with a coven of his satanic high priests, to raise an army of demonized Bolsheviks. His plan is to storm the White House and to retake control of the nation.

What’s out there? Weird and dangerous stuff. Stars and wonder, passion and despair. Out there are all the things we fear and all the stories that we deny. Out there are the monsters that hid beneath our beds when we were children. Out there are shadows and dreams. Out there is wealth, or at least the potential for great wealth. Out there, in the depths of space is danger, fire, heaven, hell. Out there is blood and mystery. Space is filled with mystery.

Supernatural Jesus

It occurred to me this afternoon that I have, on various occasions made the argument that Jesus was a:

Short / fat - Redneck - Exorcist.

Apparently I believe that Bobby Singer (from the television show Supernatural) was Jesus. Balls!

Beware of the Demon Stration

  

Beware of the demon Stration. He is a self-propagating egoist, an obnoxious show-off and charlatan. The demon Stration often attacks those in leadership positions, tempting them with confirmation of their own idealized self-portraits. Frequent and incautious use of the first person personal pronoun will summon him.

At That Precise Moment-An Angel

Do you believe in heaven above?

At that precise moment, as determined by  FOCS 1-the continuous cold caesium fountain atomic clock in Switzerland-with an uncertainty of 1 second in 30 million years, though they were nearly 800 km apart, the suicidal prayers of both Sarah and Tobit were heard in the presence of glory. Sarah in Ecbatana (a city with great walls rising in circles, one within another) and Tobit in the fish city, Nineveh, were heard at the same moment.

Do you believe in love?
And in that very same moment as Sarah and Tobit finished their prayers, just as a preternatural wind blew through an open door allowing a cat to escape, just as the light from a distant lighthouse shined down on a black gospel choir, just as scavenger birds began to feast upon a mountain of garbage, the angel Raphael, one of the seven, was standing in position behind the throne of glory and heard their prayers.

Open fire!
Raphael: The prince of shades and Hades, appointed over Tartarus, responsible for departed souls.
Raphael: He who cures diseases and viruses and corporate malfeasances.
Raphael: Who healed Abraham’s painful circumcision and Jacob’s wounded thigh.
Raphael: Who did bind Azazel both hand and foot, and cast him into the darkness by making a hole in the desert which is in Dudael (the Cauldron of God), and did bind him to the rough and jagged rocks, and covered him forever there with darkness that his face might not see the light until the great day of judgment when he shall be cast into fire.

Don’t know what to do

At that precise moment, precise movement. Motion. When all was quiet and not quite in catacombs and crypts, the angel of healing was sent to them; Raphael was dispatched to heal them both: to Tobit to remove the waxy white scales of his persistent and inexplicable blindness, and to Sarah to divorce her from the demon Asmodeus. At that very moment, as confirmed and verified by the master atomic clock ensemble at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., which provides the time standard for the U.S. Department of Defense, Tobit returned from the courtyard into his house and Sarah came down from the upper room (without having hanged herself in a noose) an archangel of heaven was dispatched for healing and relief.

Send me an angel, right now

Sarah Prayed for Death

Then, even at the moment I was praying for death, and for death to come soon, Sarah too was praying and praying for death. Sarah, the daughter, the daughter beloved, the only daughter of Raguel, the friend of God,[i] who lived in Ecbatana of Media–in the Zagros mountains, the summer resort of kings, and the original home of the Bride and the Monster-prayed for a swift and not ignoble death of her own.

Sarah, soaked in the horror sweat of fearful dreams, prayed for an end to the insults and shame.

Every day one of her father’s serving girls, the one nasally voice, the one with a bloody mouth and a biting tongue, mocked her with words and with laughter. “Where is your husband?” the serving girl jeered. “Where is your man?” She jested and laughed.  Hee hee hee tee hee! “Oh” she gasped and covered her mouth with a manicured hand. “He’s dead, isn’t he?” She grinned a toothy wide grin at her mistress and said, “He is dead, and dead, and dead again, and twice that, and again once more. Seven times dead. Seven husbands and seven deaths. Seven wedding vows. Seven body bags.” The serving girl sneered at her lady, “It wasn’t the bloodied napkin to show proof of your virginity the house-stewards brought out from the marriage chamber to display before the gathered crowd, was it?  It was the blood soaked sheets of seven dead husbands. Somehow, it just don’t seem fittin’ for a man to spend his weddin’ night in a coffin.”

So Sarah ran away in tears to continue her prayers for death.

It’s true of course; her husbands (all seven) were dead, killed by the worst of the lost. They were murdered by Asmodeus, one of the shd, the shedu, the shedyim, by Asmodeus, one of the few nameless to be given a name (ranked alongside Lilith, Resheph, Azazel, Belial and Mastemah). They were killed by the demon Asmodeus, a Cambion–born of the unhallowed union of incubus and a desperate daughter of Eve, the demon of 72 crossroads, the prince of forgotten lore, full of burning rage and lust and sulfur fire. He killed them, one by one, before they could duly consummate the marriage, or rock the marriage bed.

And this is why Sarah, the bride of death, prayed for death, why she went upstairs in her father’s house with the coiled cord of unbecoming death in her hands. (There is no clear Biblical prohibition against self-slaughter.) But before she tied the noose, Sarah thought of her father and reconsidered.  She prayed with her hands outstretched toward the open window.

“Blessed are you, God of Mercies.
May your name be blessed, blessed again, and blessed once more.
May all your creatures-from flea to frilled lizard, from wasp to whale, from virus to vulture, from house cat to human-praise you forever.

“What further, wretched wounds are written for me?

“And now I have turned my tear-riven face to you,
command that I be released from the earth,
released from the business of living.
Command that I be released and
I shall be released.

“Now is the noisy one set in a state of tears.
Now trusted rosy rosaries are discarded upon the ground
and, wounded as we are, we want to die.

“Master, I am innocent of defilement
and clear of disgrace,
but I am my father’s only begotten daughter;
he has no other heir.

Already my seven are dead,
cold and ashen beneath the serious moonlight.
I could spit in the eyes of fools,
but why should I go on living?

“My circulation and stomach rebel.
The symptoms abate, but the insults and shame do not.

“So let me die,
Lord let me die;
let me…
But if you are not pleased to take my life,
listen instead to their taunting;
really listen…

---

[i] Not to be confused with Raguel, the Archangel who was condemned by Pope Zachary in AD 754.

Then I Wished to Die

The waxy white scales of my blindness persisted and remained unexplained, the questions unanswered. The only explanation given was the bird droppings, sparrows they told me, but were they charmed to act thusly against me? Were they a curse or a spell against me by some jealous enemy? There are ways to charm the birds of the air as well as the beasts of the field. The necessary elements are easily found and the words of the spell are common enough and simply spoken.  These questions remained unanswered as my eyes remained sightless.

During the whole time of my blindness I was supported by family – first by my nephew, Ahiqar, until he moved away to Elymais (where they spoke an unknown and forgotten language), and then by my wife, Hannah. She made a living for us both, though by the wisdom of that “all-virtuous” ben Sira, there is wrath and impudence, and even great disgrace when a woman supports her husband. She made a living for us with her woman’s work, with her weavings.  She delivered what she made to her employers, but what designs did they employ her to weave? This was another lingering question. What patterns did they commission her to create? What shapes? For curses and hexes may be drawn as well as spoken, and what can be drawn with pen and ink on paper, or with salt on the floor, or paint (and blood) on the wall, can also be written in the weaving of a cloth, a binding magic that is strong and difficult to break. Blind as I was, I could not warn her of these things.

Now it happened on the SEVENTH day of the SEVENTH month- Dystrus, of the Macedonian calendar – she delivered the woven web of her work to her employers; they paid her in full and, as a bonus, gave her a goat for the hearth and the meal.

When she brought it into the house where I was, it began to bleat, loudly and incessantly, and to bounce around the room, knocking into pots and walls, and chairs. Suddenly the room was overwarm. I felt faint. I stumbled and fell to the floor. I KNEW that the goat was no gift, but a satanic operative sent to mock and torment me. A familiar spirit, the goat of AZAZEL, sent back to from the desert with the stink of sin on its horns. In its loud bleating I heard it speak cruel and nasty things. It tapped out blasphemies in code on the floor with its cloven hooves.

“Where did this beast come from?” I shouted. “Return it at once. Return it. Three times I say, Return, lest we be tainted with its evil, defiled by its presence and pestilence. It is stolen, isn’t it? Taken from its rightful place. Return it. Return it, for we have not right to what is not ours.”

“It is not stolen,” she shouted. “Not stolen, but given to me as payment for the cloth that I weave.” But I did not believe her. I was blind and could not see, and I did not believe her. I was ashamed and red in the face, too weak to repel and too blind to resist.

Hannah reared and roared, “What good is your goodness? And what reward do you have for your reputation? Can we eat it? Can we eat the food you’ve given to others? But we can eat this goat.”

And then I wished to die, to be released from the earth and to return to the dust.

Biblical Limericks: Numbskull

Scribes from Jerusalem said, “He’s full
of power from that imp, Beelzebul.”
Said Jesus, “Are you dense?
You are not making sense.
Can Satan purge Satan, you numbskull?”

Mark 3: 22 - 23

Halloween Is Irredeemable - But Christmas Is Okay...

Pat Robertson (and numerous others of his ilk) like to say that Halloween is an evil, demonic holiday to be avoided by Christians. Just look at it's pagan roots, they say.  It's irredeemably corrupt because of druid beginnings and etc...



Yet these same folks (most of them) are quite content to blissfully ignore the pagan roots of many of our beloved Christmas traditions.

Anomalies A – Z: Archons

We were here before you whimpering humans.
While your species was still wetting itself
on the African plains – frightened by the hyena’s bark -
we had already ascended into the heavens.

Now wanderers among the stars
we do and go as we please,
manipulating equations and bending cosmic rays
because this universe belongs to us.

And if we continue to visit this little earth
it is because we are spiritual brothers,
transcendental sisters.
Let us show you how to rise into the radiation.


This is the beginning of my fourth pass through the alphabet with these anomalies.  To read the previous ones...

The Malebranche As Encountered by Doctor Tarrec

The Malebranche (Evil Claws) were first described by that great Master, Durante degli Alighieri.  He wrote of his encounter with these crude and vulgar demons, describing them as a loosely affiliated gang of demons, assigned to guard a lake of burning pitch in hell.  In these modern days a new, greater band of Malebranche has come into existence, and they are no longer restricted to the infernal regions.  The Malebranche are roaming freely about the earth.  They take special pleasure in haunting churches, and afflicting followers of the Christian faith.  They delight in causing as havoc and confusion as they can.

Master Danté said that there were twelve members of the demonic Malebranche clan in his day; today there are many – a great many – more.  What follows is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a complete list of all demonic entities who are part of the current Malebranche. By the Old Ones, no.  There are many hundreds, thousands even that are not named here, and perhaps that many more again whose names are not known, either to me or to any other student of the occult.  It is, however, a list of those entities that I have personally encountered in my studies of the paranormal and chemystical.  I have also included a note or two on each- a physical description, where possible, or an indication of the creatures powers and / or weaknesses. 

Beh’lef Tind – Takes perverse pleasure in frightening people with dystopian visions of the future.  He is a liar and not to be trusted.  However, his visions are very infectious.  It is very difficult to convince those who have seen the visions granted by Beh’lef Tind that they are deceptions.  They even come to crave the fear that he creates in them.

K’hamen – This is a very young devil, and not very potent.  He can become quite mean-spirited when he is dismissed, for he hates to be ignored.

Mardrisc – This is an angry sprit, quick to hurl abusive statements. Very vulgar.  He is also somewhat perverse - a voyeur who enjoys spying into the sexual activities of those he oppresses.  But he is also very vain.  He cannot stand to be mocked. Ultimately he is not a very powerful demon. Make even the smallest resistance to him and he will flee in a flash of sulfur and curses.

Toufik Bennedictus – This unclean spirit will make many declarations of his great power.  He will claim that he has power to perform miracles, but he is a liar.  He also fancies himself to be virtuoso vocalist.  Be warned: his voice has been known to disconcert even the most stalwart opponents.

               

Ysinde – An exploiter and manipulator of children. Very crass.  This vampiric creature devours the young while they are dreaming.  However, he will not be very interested in pursuing if it appears you have no money. 

Yenech’kid- this cadaverous, vulture faced devil is given to much profanity.  His skin is blotchy and translucent, like badly prepared vellum.  Though he is perpetually cross and quick to violence, he has a weak heart.

More Anomalies A – Z: Zamzummim

That too was considered a land of the Rephaim, who used to live there; but the Ammonites called them Zamzummim.  They were a people strong and numerous, and as tall as the Anakim. The Lord destroyed them from before the Ammonites, who drove them out and settled in their place. – Deuteronomy 2: 20 – 21

This land was inhabited by giants
once, long ago, near the beginning,
from Arabella to Aqaba.

Excavators occasionally bring their bones to the surface;
grossly oversized in limb and length,
how they must have towered over the land,

straddling the geological rift
and shaking the earth with their strides.

They were bold and strong.

But that was long ago,
before the waters came
and they were destroyed.

Four hundred and nine thousand all,
drowned, or crushed in the crash of waves
against stone peaks.
Tall as they were, they were not tall enough.

The giants are gone,
but their enfeebled spirits linger -
those few who escaped the chains of Tartarus;
you can hear them buzzing in the heat
of long summer nights,

the last mummers of their dying speech.

This is my third completed pass through the alphabet with these anomalies.  You can read through them all here, if you like.