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I recently did a post about some synchronicities that centered around the book "John Dies at the End" by David Wong (Jason Pargin). In short, as the Sun and Neptune were forming a conjunction, I read a book that somewhat tied into Kek as Changer and the "demonic hypothesis" (in essence, that demons are at work in the response to the Covid-19 pandemic and mass vaccination campaign). If you aren't following the Open Posts, this will probably seem like paranoid gibberish. Even if you are, this may seem like paranoid gibberish.
It's probably actually paranoid gibberish.
I'll preface this by saying that I don't necessarily "believe" any of this in a literal sense. My early work as a Chaos Magician emphasized that belief is a tool, and that one can believe something when it is advantageous to do so, and then drop that belief if it becomes counterproductive. This is a useful practice in some ways; it becomes easier to drop beliefs that are proven wrong, and holding ideas at arm's length a bit allows one to examine them and accept, reject, or just sit with them without becoming emotionally invested in their truth, or lack thereof.
At any rate, I began to think that maybe certain aspects of the book were pointing me in the direction of the demons actually being involved in the pandemic in some sense. If these beings feed on fear and anguish, they must be eating quite heartily on the banquet of fear, suffering, and hate swirling through the astral plane right now. What role they may have played is still a mystery.
I decided to take the "logical" step of ordering the sequels to John Dies at the End to look for further clues. I also was looking for some lighter reading than the psychology and occult books that have occupied most of my attention for the past couple years; reading for entertainment hasn't been very common since I picked up serious magic study.
If "John Dies" offers a few tantalizing hints at the demonic hypothesis, This Book Is Full of Spiders is a supersized Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese meal with extra greasy demons on the side. It's almost a whop in the head with a 2x4, which actually makes me kind of question my whole premise.
Disappointingly in my view, there were no further references to Kek, and only one brief reference to Korrok from the first book. There was plenty to mull over, though.
In a nutshell, the book is about an outbreak of parasites released by demons that turn people into zombie-like monsters. A town is quarantined, the inhabitants are demonized as being carriers of the disease even when many of them aren't, and the populace is whipped into a fury, demanding the site of the outbreak be bombed into oblivion. The demons work through a shadowy cabal of elite occultists, and a figure I thought was a bit like Fauci was in charge of public relations for the cabal.
This character, Dr. Tennant, wrote a bunch of books on mass hysteria, the madness of crowds, and groupthink. Early in the book, the David Wong character met a lady in Tennant's waiting room who stated that demon possession is happening all over the world all the time, and that it's much easier since most of the souls have left the planet (she mentions the Rapture happened in the 60s). Tennant refers to fear as a contagious disease at one point, which definitely had echoes of current events.
The absence of souls in bodies of the vaxxed has been bandied about a bit on the Open Posts, so the lady's speech in the waiting room was pretty striking.
There was quite a bit more, and reading some of the book was a little uncomfortable in light of the massive trauma the pandemic created, regardless of its connection to the demonic hypothesis, or lack thereof.
In a sense, this book was a ringing endorsement of the demonic hypothesis... but it didn't have the same synchronistic feel while I was reading it. I've started reading "What the Hell Did I Just Read", the third book in the series, and will write another Funky Magic Book Report when I'm done.
Just for the record, I think Pargin would really hate his books being associated with weird occult anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories, but, well, here we are.
It's probably actually paranoid gibberish.
I'll preface this by saying that I don't necessarily "believe" any of this in a literal sense. My early work as a Chaos Magician emphasized that belief is a tool, and that one can believe something when it is advantageous to do so, and then drop that belief if it becomes counterproductive. This is a useful practice in some ways; it becomes easier to drop beliefs that are proven wrong, and holding ideas at arm's length a bit allows one to examine them and accept, reject, or just sit with them without becoming emotionally invested in their truth, or lack thereof.
At any rate, I began to think that maybe certain aspects of the book were pointing me in the direction of the demons actually being involved in the pandemic in some sense. If these beings feed on fear and anguish, they must be eating quite heartily on the banquet of fear, suffering, and hate swirling through the astral plane right now. What role they may have played is still a mystery.
I decided to take the "logical" step of ordering the sequels to John Dies at the End to look for further clues. I also was looking for some lighter reading than the psychology and occult books that have occupied most of my attention for the past couple years; reading for entertainment hasn't been very common since I picked up serious magic study.
If "John Dies" offers a few tantalizing hints at the demonic hypothesis, This Book Is Full of Spiders is a supersized Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese meal with extra greasy demons on the side. It's almost a whop in the head with a 2x4, which actually makes me kind of question my whole premise.
Disappointingly in my view, there were no further references to Kek, and only one brief reference to Korrok from the first book. There was plenty to mull over, though.
In a nutshell, the book is about an outbreak of parasites released by demons that turn people into zombie-like monsters. A town is quarantined, the inhabitants are demonized as being carriers of the disease even when many of them aren't, and the populace is whipped into a fury, demanding the site of the outbreak be bombed into oblivion. The demons work through a shadowy cabal of elite occultists, and a figure I thought was a bit like Fauci was in charge of public relations for the cabal.
This character, Dr. Tennant, wrote a bunch of books on mass hysteria, the madness of crowds, and groupthink. Early in the book, the David Wong character met a lady in Tennant's waiting room who stated that demon possession is happening all over the world all the time, and that it's much easier since most of the souls have left the planet (she mentions the Rapture happened in the 60s). Tennant refers to fear as a contagious disease at one point, which definitely had echoes of current events.
The absence of souls in bodies of the vaxxed has been bandied about a bit on the Open Posts, so the lady's speech in the waiting room was pretty striking.
There was quite a bit more, and reading some of the book was a little uncomfortable in light of the massive trauma the pandemic created, regardless of its connection to the demonic hypothesis, or lack thereof.
In a sense, this book was a ringing endorsement of the demonic hypothesis... but it didn't have the same synchronistic feel while I was reading it. I've started reading "What the Hell Did I Just Read", the third book in the series, and will write another Funky Magic Book Report when I'm done.
Just for the record, I think Pargin would really hate his books being associated with weird occult anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories, but, well, here we are.