*********************************************************************
* Downloaded from a local cult's bbs in the "CfC" network 10/24/90. *
* Seems Johanna has no qualms about indoctrinating other people's   *
* children into her cult, which seems hightly immoral and unethical *
* to me, at best. Johanna doesn't seem bothered by the fact that    *
* "Lauren Stratford" has been demonstrated a liar of monsterous     *
* proportions, in very serious need of psychiatric help. The tedious*
* pontifical diatrib that follows is about as accurate as a Batman  *
* comic book; it is presented here just to show you how foolish and *
* gullible people can be.                                 d.rice    *
*********************************************************************

THE SPIRIT OF HALLOWEEN
by Johanna Michaelsen

Last Halloween when the doorbell rang, I was greeted by an adorable
bunch  of  little kids doing their level best to look like gruesome
witches and vampires.  I bent down  as  I  distributed  apples  and
oranges in response to lusty cries of "trick or treat!"

"You kids want to know something?" I asked very softly.

"Yeah!" came the unanimous chorus.

"With the  Lord Jesus there is no trick.  He loves every one of you
very much."

Several little faces beamed up at me through their ghoulish makeup.
"That's neat!" exclaimed one little girl. "Yeah!" chimed in  a  few
others.

"This is Jesus'  night,"  I said.  Why, I'm not really sure.  I was
poignantly aware of the fact that it is a night the devil has  made
a point of claiming for himself.

"No it's not!" snarled a hidden voice. "It's Jason's night!"

A  boy  who  was taller than the rest stepped out from the shadows.
He was wearing the  white  hockey  mask  of  Jason,  the  demented,
ghoulish  killer in the movie Friday The 13th and was brandishing a
very realistic-looking hatchet.  I have to admit that the boy  gave
me  a  start,  but  I stood my ground and dropped a banana into his
bag.

"No, Jason, this is still Jesus' night!"  I repeated.

Jason evidently resented the competition, however,  for  he  ripped
our mailbox right out of the ground and left his banana squished on
the stair.

Most  of  us in the United States have grown up observing Halloween
in one form or another.  From the time we're in preschool  we  make
drawings  or  cutouts  of  sinister black witches - the haggier the
better.  We make paintings of gruesome black  cats  with  gleaming,
evil  orange eyes; we hang up smirking paper skeletons with dancing
limbs; we glue together  ghost  and  bat  mobiles;  and  we  design
demoniacal faces for our pumpkins.

For  several  years  now,  on  thoughtful  kindergarten  teacher in
Southern California has even provided  ghosts  for  her  pupils  to
commune with  at  Halloween.   I spoke with one of the mothers from
that school who told me that her little boy was sent  home  with  a
note  from the teacher informing the parents that their child would
be bringing home a "special friend" the next day.  The child was to
nurture his "friend," name it, feed it and talk to it -  all  as  a
part  of  a special class project that was designed to "develop the
child's imagination."

The next day the little boy came home with a sealed envelope  along
with  explicit  instructions that his parents were NOT to touch it;
only the child was allowed to open the envelope.   Mom  said,  "You
bet!" and  promptly  opened  it up.  Inside was six inches of thick
orange wool string with a knot tied a quarter of the way up to make
a loop  resembling  a  head.    The  mimeographed   "letter"   that
accompanied it read as follows:

 Haunted House
 001 Cemetery Lane
 Spookville

 Dear Customer,
      Thank you  for  your  order.   Your ghost is exactly what you
ordered.  You will find that your ghost is attached  to  an  orange
string.   DO  NOT untie the special knot until you are ready to let
your ghost go.  Your ghost will tell you when it is hungry and what
it prefers to eat.  It will sleep in the air beside  you  all  day.
It  especially  likes  quiet places where there are cobwebs, creaky
boards and corners.
      If you follow the above directions,  you  will  have  a  very
happy ghost.

 Yours Truly,
 Head Ghost

The  mother,  a  Christian,  didn't  cotton  to the idea of her son
taking in a pet ghost, however housebroken.  So she confiscated the
thing and put it in the garage on a shelf until  she  could  decide
what to  do  with it.  The next day his sister was in the garage on
an errand, unaware of the matter of the "ghost string."    Suddenly
she  was  frightened  by the sense of a threatening presence around
her.  She heard the sounds of a  cat  hissing  in  the  corner  and
something like  a  chatty doll mumbling incoherently at her.  Later
that night they threw the "ghost string" into the garbage pail  and
prayed to  bind and remove the entity.  They were never bothered by
the presence again.  This family had no trouble whatever  believing
that  a  spirit had indeed been sent home with their little boy and
that it didn't much  like  having  been  assigned  to  a  Christian
household.

The  Halloween  ghosts  were  given out again last year by the same
teacher.  The mother managed to get hold of  the  envelope,  orange
ghost-carrier and all, and sent it to me.  It is possible of course
that the  teacher  meant nothing sinister by it.  Perhaps to her it
was just a cute exercise in  imagination  for  her  kindergartners.
Nevertheless, in light of the stated intent of many "transpersonal"
educators  to introduce children to spirit guides, I can't help but
be a little curious about any teacher who sends the  children  home
with imaginary friends.

Even  in  the  church, Halloween is a time of spooky fun and games.
Any number of good, solid churches, ever  mindful  of  their  youth
programs,  will  sponsor  haunted houses designed to scare the wits
out of the kids.  In Bakersfield, California,  Youth  for  Christ's
Campus  Life,  Pepsi,  Burger  King  and  a heavy- metal rock radio
station are yearly sponsors of "Scream in the Dark," an event  held
every night  for  about  a  week before Halloween.  At least 20,000
people brave the chilly corridors and dark passages every  year  to
face ghoulish figures, terrifying tunnels and screams in the dark.

A certain Assemblies of God church in Tampa, Florida, got more than
it  bargained  for in that department a couple of years ago when it
borrowed a coffin from a local mortuary  for  use  at  a  Halloween
fund-raiser and found a long-forgotten corpse still in it.

The  Lawndale  Christian  Church  in  Lawndale,  California, offers
discount coupons for "The House."  The  advertisement  reads:  "You
are entering at your own risk.  Young children strongly recommended
NOT to  enter  The House.  Children under 12 must be accompanied by
an adult.   Persons  with  heart  conditions,  health  problems  or
pregnant women are not allowed."

Church-sponsored horror  isn't  a  particularly new phenomenon.  My
husband's Lutheran church in New York always sponsored  a  "Chamber
of Horrors" when he was a boy, complete with fluorescent skeletons,
scary  pop-ups,  peeled grapes to simulate dead eyeballs and a bowl
of cold spaghetti that was supposed to be... well, you know.

Halloween has become a full-fledged national children's  play  day,
but  for  hundreds  of  thousands  fo  people  in the Western world
Halloween is a sacred time, the ancient pagan festival of fire  and
death.

The  origins  and  traditions  of  Halloween  can  be  traced  back
thousands of years to the days  of  the  ancient  Celts  and  their
priests, the Druids.  The eve of October 31 marked the beginning of
the Celtic  New Year.  The Feast of Samhain was a fearsome night, a
dreaded night, a night in which great bonfires were lit  to  Samana
the  Lord  of  Death,  the dark Aryan god who was known as the Grim
Reaper, the leader of the ancestral ghosts.

On this night the spirits of the dead rose up, shivering  with  the
coming  cold  of winter and seeking the warmth and affection of the
homes they once inhabited.    And  even  colder,  darker  creatures
filled the night: evil witches flying through the night, hobgoblins
and  evil pookas that appeared in the form of hideous black horses.
Demons, fairies and ghouls roamed about as the doors of the  burial
sidh-mounds  opened wide, allowing them free access to the world of
living men.    These  loathsome  beings  were  usually  not  in   a
particularly  good mood by the time they arrived, and it was feared
that unless these spirits were appeased and soothed with  offerings
and  gifts  they  would  wreak mischief and vengeance by destroying
crops, killing cattle, turning milk sour and generally making  life
miserable.

So it was that the families offered what was most precious to them:
food  -  a "treat" that they fervently hoped would be sufficient to
offset any "trick" the  ghostly  blackmailers  might  otherwise  be
tempted to inflict.

The ancient Celtic villagers realized, however, that merely feeding
the spirits  might  not  be enough to speed them on their way.  The
ghoulies might decide it would be rude to eat and run, as it  were,
and might  just  be tempted to stick around.  That simply would not
do.  So arose the practice  of  dressing  in  masks  and  costumes;
villagers  disguised themselves as the creatures, mystically taking
on their attributes and  powers.    The  "mummers,"  as  they  were
called,  cavorted from house to house collecting the ancient Celtic
equivalent of protection money, and then romped  the  ghosts  right
out of town.

They  carried  jack-o'-lanterns  to  light  their  way - turnips or
potatoes with fearful demonic faces carved into  them,  which  they
hoped  would  duly  impress,  if  not intimidate, the demons around
them.

As part of their ancient New Year's ritual, massive sacred bonfires
were lit throughout the countryside of Wales, Ireland and France  -
fires  from  which  every house in the village would rekindle their
hearth fires (which had been ritually extinguished, as they were at
the end of every year).  The villagers would gather and dance round
and round the bonfire, whose light and  heat  they  believed  would
help the sun make it through the cold, dark winter.

But  the  great fires served another purpose as well: On this night
unspeakable sacrifices were offered by the  Druid  priests  to  the
Lord of  Death.    In his Commentaries, Julius Caesar speaks of the
great wicker images "in which the Druids were said to  burn  scores
of people alive."

Last   Halloween,  I  watched  a  rerun  of  "Garfield's  Halloween
Adventure."   Garfield,  the  feline  comic  strip  character,   is
thrilled  at the realization that Halloween is a night when he gets
to rake in free candy. "This is the night I was  created  for,"  he
exclaims, with as much enthusiasm as Garfield ever seems to muster.

He  decides  to  sucker poor unsuspecting Odie, an exceedingly dumb
doggie, into going  with  him  so  that  Garfield  can  double  his
personal candy  haul.   Well.... maybe he'll give Odie one piece of
candy for his troubles.

Then suddenly Garfield pauses  in  his  Machiavellian  musings  and
wonders, "Am  I  being  too  greedy?   Should I share my candy with
those less fortunate than I? Am I missing the spirit of Halloween?"

Wouldn't it be nice if that were in fact the spirit of Halloween!

The spirit of Halloween is more accurately discerned in the  horror
movies  and  videos  traditionally released in honor of the season.
Cinematic  thrillers  so  popular  with  teenage  boys  today  like
Halloween, Friday the 13th, Thriller, Faces of Death, Nightmares on
Elm  Street,  and  any  number  of  other  slasher, blood-and-gore,
murder-and-terror flicks  are  truer  to  the  original  spirit  of
Halloween  -  the spirit of murder and death - than is the sight of
Linus sitting all night in his "sincere" pumpkin patch waiting  for
the Great Pumpkin.

Modern  witches  would  vehemently  deny that their celebration has
anything to do with the demonic horrors depicted in such  films  as
Friday the  13th.    To  them, Halloween is one of the four greater
Sabbats held during the year.  Halloween for  them  is  a  time  of
harvest  celebration  - that season in which the Great Goddess goes
to sleep for the long winter months, giving way to the  Horned  God
of  Hunting  and Death, who will rule until her return on the first
of May.  It is a time of ritual, a  time  for  ridding  oneself  of
personal  weaknesses,  a  time for feasting and joyful celebration.
It is also a time for communing with the spirits of the dead.

While the witches spend  the  Halloween  season  tucking  in  their
Goddess  for  her  long  winter  sleep  and  frolicking  in  joyful
communion with the spirits of the dead, there is another  religious
group that is equally serious about its Halloween celebrations: the
"satanists."   Halloween  to  them  is  a  more sinister and direct
celebration of death and "Satan."  Unlike the witches, most of whom
do not even acknowledge the existence of "Satan,"  the  "satanists"
are quite candid about exactly who [they believe] the dread Lord of
Death  happens  to be, and they celebrate Halloween as one of "his"
two highest unholy days.

As  is  the  case  among  witches,   different   denominations   of
"satanists"   have  their  own  peculiar  traditions,  beliefs  and
practices on this night.  For some of them "Satan" is not  a  real,
specific  entity,  but  rather the personification of evil resident
within all men.

Other "satanists" however - "cult"  satanists  -  understand  [sic]
that "Satan"  is  very  real  indeed.    To  them the sacrifices he
demands are not symbolic at all.    They  believe  that  the  blood
sacrifice  of  innocence  that  "Satan"  demands  as  the  ultimate
blasphemy and sign of devotion to  himself  must  be  very  literal
indeed.

At  Halloween  the  sacrifices of some of these "satanic" cults are
unspeakably vicious and brutal.  Lauren Stratford, in her  powerful
and  important  book SATAN'S UNDERGROUND, relates the horror of the
practices of the particular "satanic cult" that victimized her  for
many years.     It  was  their  practice  to  begin  the  Halloween
ceremonies five weeks before the night of Halloween.  In the  fifth
week  the  group performs the "ritual" murder of a tiny infant or a
very young child.  The child is often the  offspring  of  a  female
member  of  the  coven or a victim who has been impregnated for the
purpose of turning her child over for the sacrifice.    Because  of
its  innocence  and  frailty,  a  tiny  child  is  viewed  by these
"satanists" as the perfect sacrifice to their master.   The  infant
is  seen  as  representative of the Christ child, and it is He whom
they are blaspheming.

The night of Halloween another child, as well as an  adult  female,
will be  slaughtered.    Not  all  "satanist" groups participate in
activities of this kind, but some certainly do.

Halloween is thus a day in which virtually everything that god  has
called an  abomination  is  glorified.  Christians have no business
participating in that at any time, much less in the name of fun.

There are any number of creative alternatives that can be  provided
for  children  on  Halloween  without  participating in the ancient
religious traditions of the witches and the satanists.

Parents or churches could hold parties and have kids come as  Bible
heroes.    Some   families   view  the  occasion  as  a  witnessing
opportunity and hand out gospel  tracts  with  the  treats.    Some
churches  are  now sponsoring "Bible houses," which kids go through
to hear different Bible  stories  read  or  acted  out  -  a  godly
alternative to the haunted house.

Christian  parents  can  also  make a difference in the way schools
attended by their children celebrate Halloween.   In  the  fall  of
1987,  The Eagle's Forum reported a story about parents in Colorado
who protested the traditional celebration of Halloween  in  several
public  schools  on  grounds  that  it  is  a "high holy day in the
satanic religion, and as  such  is  an  inappropriate  holiday  for
schoolchildren."   One  mother said that she "would like to see the
same measures applied to the Halloween parties as have  been  taken
with the Christmas parties."

One  thing that Halloween should NOT be for the Christian is a time
of fear.  It should be a time to rejoice in the fact that "the  son
of  God  appeared for this purpose, that He might destroy the works
of the devil" (1 John 3:8, NASB).  Spend  at  least  part  of  this
night worshipping  God  by singing hymns.  Above all, spend time in
prayer and intercession for the children.

Too many of our children have been vulnerable to a spirit  of  fear
and to the occult because we have for so long believed Halloween to
be an  innocent  season  of  fun.    But  Halloween  is  not at all
innocent.  After the repeal of the Witchcraft  Act  in  England  in
1951,  the  witches  and  satanists  experienced a revival which is
currently in full swing.

You might not know too much about witches or "satanists" or Jason or
Freddie  Krueger,  the  killer  in the horror film NIGHTMARE ON ELM
STREET. But I guarantee you that most of your kids do!

---------------------------------

Johanna Michaelsen is concerned about the effect of the  occult  on
children today.    This  article  is taken from her new book titled
LIKE LAMBS TO THE SLAUGHTER, which is published by  Harvest  House.
Other  chapters  in  the  book  look at occultism in the classroom,
yoga, spirit guides, toys and what parents can do.    The  book  is
available at most Christian bookstores.

---------------------------------

Johanna  Michaelsen is the author of The Beautiful Side of Evil and
Like Lambs to the Slaughter. An "expert" on the occult, she lives in
Southern California.

---------------------------------

Reproduced by Computers for Christ #22 (The Light), Silver Springs,
FL, (For electronic distribution only!) with  permission  from  the
following sources:

Charisma  Magazine,  October, 1989, pgs. 46-54, published by Strang
Communications, Altamonte Springs, FL.

Harvest House Publishers, Eugene, OR.

Johanna Michaelsen, Torrance, CA.

Please do not remove these credit  lines  if  you  distribute  this
article.

Thank you!
