Gong!

Al whacked me on the head and the hollow shell of my skull rang like a bell.

Oh, he didn’t whack me in a physical way; the Good Doctor is not a man of violence. He is, rather, a man of thoughts and words. Some of his words are short, most are long. He weaves them together into intricate thought constructs and then releases them into the air or etches them on slices of dead tree. So Al used only words to whack me, and certainly did not intend to do me any damage. The effect was nonetheless quite stunning. After two weeks, I have almost recovered. Writing this and some associated missives have helped.

The first whack was of the spoken kind, and in a way, only offered me the hammer. I then picked it up and whacked myself over the head.

It had been awhile since we had gotten together, so we convened the Spanish Inquisition and Supper Club. My ex wife would be down in the area over the weekend and brought Erin; she would spend late Friday night, all Saturday, and Sunday morning with us. Erin is fond of Al’s son, Paul. Erin is quite a bit older, but they play well together and she reads to him sometimes. So it looked like a bit of good fortune that our get-together fell on Erin’s visit.

We were sitting around the patio table on Al’s deck, discussing something that I don’t remember *1. Somehow, the subject drifted to movies, and Al mentioned The Crucible. If I recall properly, Al said that he had liked the movie. I told him that I had never seen the movie version or even the play. A theater in Orange County had had produced it a couple of years ago, but the address given to me for the theater seemed not to exist. Diana and I drove around for hours, and then finally gave up. I had read the play in High School, however, and purchased a printed copy a couple of years ago.

Al observed that playwright Arthur Miller had run into trouble getting the play produced, and when it was finally done abroad, it was a smash hit. Miller wasn’t there to see it, because he was being persecuted by the U.S. government, part of which involved refusing him a passport. To add insult to injury, when the play reaped standing ovations, the U.S. ambassador stood up and took a bow!

After recounting that bit, Al went on to say that he had heard some of the testimony that Miller gave before the dreaded House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). "One of the things that Miller said sounded suspiciously like ‘More weight!’"

As he said those words, I felt a surge of admiration for the author. I don’t recall whether I sighed or nodded, or what. Al and I were in agreement.

Then Jerry, the Other Good Doctor, spoke up to ask what that phrase meant. It wasn’t intended to be an "in" joke. I believe that anyone who ever read the history, heard the legends, or was exposed to Miller’s slightly compressed version would remember those words. Evidently, Jerry had never heard the story. Obviously, we had to fix that.

So Al looked at me, and I looked at Al. We each offered the other the honor of telling the story. I think that Al is a better storyteller than I am. At the same time, I suspected that Al’s only exposure had been to Miller’s condensed version of the story. Perhaps I could make up for lack of polish with added historical detail.

So, Al offered me the hammer, I took it, and bashed myself in the head.

The Crucible, you see, is about the Witchcraft trials in Salem. The particular part of the tragic story that was germane to our discussion concerned a grumpy old man who had the courage to stand up against the crazed Witch hunters. Giles Corey is one of my heroes. If you hate lies, injustice, and bigotry he is probably one of your heroes too. Can one man, or even a small group, accomplish anything against a foe who has all the advantages? Think of the Zealots at Masada. Think of the Spartans at the narrow pass of Thermopylae. Then think of Giles Corey, whose death probably did more to bring about the end of the Salem Witch hysteria than any other single person, thing, or event.

(For those of you who don’t know the story, I have attached a copy of something that I wrote several years ago about Giles Corey. If you have read the previous missives, you know that I am a Witch, and I take the persecution of any group as a terrible act that is not to be tolerated.)

To my pleasant surprise, I made it through the story only choking up once or twice. But the damage was done. In my mind, the entire history of The Burning Times began to unreel. I gazed into space, as powerful emotions of hate, fear, rage, love, and indignation rippled through me. Just before I lost it, I managed to exert enough control to block the memories and emotions. The whirlpool subsided and died. I focused my eyes again, and grasped for the current topic of conversation, as echoes of the blow that I had taken reverberated through my mind. Nobody was staring at me. For a moment, I felt relief that I hadn’t done anything weird or stupid while reeling under the recent mental assault.

The conversation had moved to other topics, and event followed event. The main course was a cookout. I provided the flame, Jerry used it with great artistry and skill. I actually had quite the great time. Activity followed activity.

Since Al had never seen the anvil firing videotape *2, I had brought it along. We watched it while gnoshing on a delicious berry pie that Al and Judy provided.

After the video, we sat and talked for awhile. Al asked some very insightful questions about the theory and practice of anvil firing, the guys in the hard hats who were doing it, and Western Winter Blast, where it all took place. He also commented on my T-shirt. Erin, Diana, and I had each contrived to wear T-shirts that were generally similar, but specifically different. Erin wore the Anvil Firing shirt. Diana wore the WWB ‘96 shirt. I wore the PGII silver anniversary shirt, and Al had me turn around and stand still while he read off the dates and PGII convention locations. The later ones had names, too *3.

There was something subtly different about Al’s behavior. He seemed more interested in the pyrotechnic side of my life. Perhaps the video had pointed out to him that I was not a solitary nut case, but at the least one of a band of nut cases who took our avocation quite seriously. Maybe it was the fact that everyone in the video had applied safety precautions. Maybe Al was just under a little less stressed than usual. The net effect was that Al was quite mellow that night.

Since I had promised that Al and Judy would not have to do anything as hosts, I spent the tail end of the evening washing dishes. When I was done, Al presented me with a piece of paper. It was, he said, something that he would appreciate my sending out to my readership. (That means you.)

I accepted the letter with a bit of nervousness. Had I done something wrong? Had I put enough words into his mouth that he felt that a rebuttal was necessary? I swallowed my fears, looked Al straight in the eye, and promised him that I would redistribute whatever he had written. Then I read it.

This is what Al had to say:

- - - - -

- - - - -

I read through the letter. It bashed me in the head. Then I read it again and received another bash. Then I tried to summarize what he had written. I didn’t succeed. Instead, I said softly, "Al wants me to review The Hammer." Then I said, a little louder, "Al wants me to review The Hammer."

By then, Diana had noticed that I had been reading a piece of paper. She asked me, "What is it, Sweetie?" I looked at her, still a little stunned, and said "Al wants me to review The Hammer!" She gave me a quizzical look.

I generally react to Malleus Maleficarum with either hoots of humorous derision, righteous indignation, or deep despondency. One or more of those emotions rippled across my face as my mind reeled under a repeat of the assault that I had suffered earlier that evening. "The Malleus Maleficarum", I said, "The Hammer of Witches!" I gave her the letter.

Al had bashed me in the head again, this time through the agency of words engraved on a slice of dead tree. He didn’t know what he had done, but my body pretty much went on auto-pilot, as the thinking part of my brain struggled with both the concept of reviewing Malleus Maleficarum, and the memories, emotions, and pain of The Burning Times. You see, the name translated as The Hammer of Witches or The Witches’ Hammer does not mean that the Witches own the hammer, or even use it themselves. The Hammer is reserved for pounding the Witches. It is a handbook for persecuting Witches; an instruction manual for The Burning Times.

At some point, my body cheerfully agreed that I would review the book, as Al had requested. Another part of me offered Al a copy of that book to read. I have a copy, you know, on my bookshelf. It is filed under "hate literature". The words of the hate mongers and the oppressors have a special place on my bookshelf. They have a special place in my heart, too.

I am sure that more thing happened that night. I am sorry that I can’t remember what they were. I do remember sitting in the forward passenger seat of the Montero, saying "goodbye". I remember starting down the mountain. The rest is a blur.

I retained just a little bit of sanity as we started down the hill. Think of a computer system that has just detected a serious error. The operator sends out a message: "Irrecoverable hard disk error encountered! System shutdown in one minute! Please log off immediately!" That was what my mind did. As I stared into space, I told Diana, "I have to do a lot of ... of ... thinking. Al wants me to ... review The Hammer, and I have ... some serious thinking to do. If ... I seem a little distant or ... uh ... preoccupied over the next couple of days, it ... isn’t your fault. I ... uh ... just have a lot of thinking to do." I think that I heard her thanking me and offering support. But I can’t be sure, because that’s when I lost my tenuous grip on reality.

All of a sudden, I was alone and naked, in the middle of a vast, featureless plain that extended as far as the eye could see. And that wasn’t very far, because I was enshrouded in darkness, impenetrable and thick. I walked, headed in the direction that my feet were pointed. Alone, and without a point of reference, I had no way to go but what seemed to be forward.

Then, I was assaulted with light and sound from one side. I saw a vision from out of The Burning Times, a travesty of hatred and oppression, enacted just off to my left. I didn’t know how lucky I was with that one, until a moment later, a vision assailed me on the right. This one was complete with smells, and the scent of burning flesh would have left me nauseated, were it not for the next scene that transfixed me in horrified fascination, straight in front of me. I saw so many things....

I saw the Romans burning the sacred groves and putting the Druids to the sword. It wasn’t really a religious persecution, mind you, it was political. The Celts were a motley and disorganized bunch. Just about the only thing that they shared was their language and their religion, and Caesar saw the Druids as a force that drove the resistance against the Roman invasion. So, all the Priests and Priestess had to die, as well as anyone who would defend them, or even listen too closely. I blinked, and the scene was gone.

I saw a man in elegant robes sitting down on a piece of rubble outside the scorched remains of a town. He was sipping from a glass of what seemed to be cold water, and he relished it as if it were the finest wine. Two men came up, soldiers, with a look to them that was weary of battle, but sprinkled with pride in triumph. They were arguing in a language that I almost understood. When the reached the man relaxing on the rubble, they both knelt down before him and kissed his hand. The man in the robe nodded to the soldiers and they stood. First one, then the other presented his case to the man in charge. He cut off the second man’s case with a slashing motion of his hand and began to speak in that strange language.

That’s when I realized that it was July 22 of 1209, and I was in the south of France, on the outskirts of the town of Beziers. "NO!", I cried, "Don’t say it!" But I was less than a phantom to them, and the scene proceeded. He waved his cup towards the blackened walls of the village. Suddenly, the surroundings changed. Before me were still three men, but they were all dressed in khaki and had their faces smeared with green and brown paint. One man was seated on a tree stump. He needed a shave even more than the other two. He waved his canteen towards the shacks in the jungle clearing, "The gooks? Kill ‘em all!", he said, "Let God sort them out." The darkness fell again.

A scrap of yellowed parchment blew past me, the only visible thing in a dark world. I reached out and grabbed it. The aged parchment crackled in my hand as I tried to read it. The language was archaic, and the spidery letters hard to read.

As I struggle to read, the brisk wind continued to pull at the parchment, which ripped in my hand, the upper half blowing away. I continued reading.

The wind once again wrestled me for the yellowed scrap of parchment. It started to tear, and then the entire remains of the page crumbled into flakes, then dust. The wind whisked it away into the darkness.

Words fail me. The best that I can say, is that the shocking horror of The Burning Times that I had successfully warded off earlier on the patio came crashing down on me. I quivered, defenseless, as all around me, scenes of horror and villainy were reenacted with such vibrant reality that all of my senses were overloaded. I saw the burnings and tasted the air, heavy with the scent of roasted flesh and singed hair. I heard the gasps as the lucky ones were strangled before the fire reached them. I felt the tortures as my body was wracked with unimaginable pain. I sobbed out loud, and reality returned for a moment, as Diana reached out and grasped my hand. It didn’t last; a more powerful and insistent reality tore me away from the car and returned me to the dark plain and the sinister history reenacted all around me.

My limbs were stretched, to the point of wrenching the very bones from their sockets. I cried out as the torturer turned the wheel some more and the rack pulled from me screams that I had thought exhausted. Somewhere behind me, I heard a Priest chuckle to his scribe, "Write down that his confession was voluntary since we have only applied the first degree of torture."

The scene faded, along with some of the pain. I was once again trudging along that dark plain. I heard some sweet sounds, a bit of Pagan history through music. It was a song by Charlie Murphy, arranged as it appeared on Kenny and Tzipora’a album, and realized that I was singing to myself.

In the cool of the evening they used to gather.
‘Neath stars, in the meadow,
circled near an old oak tree,
at the times appointed
by the seasons of the earth
and the phases of the moon.

I must admit that the song gave me some comfort, and I sang with greater vigor. Meanwhile, my mind was racing ahead, digging the lyrics out of my memory, so that my lips would not stumble when I reached them. Suddenly, I hit the unpleasant part of that song, and stopped singing, the words choking in my throat.

The darkness left. I saw a solidly built blonde man, his hair matted with sweat and hanging down into his eyes. He had a huge mustache, and although he might have carefully groomed it in better times, it too was damp and droopy. The dead were all around, and their number continued to grow amid the dust kicked into the air by the battle. But my attention was riveted by the one-on-one struggle between this Gaul and the Centurion that was playing itself out in the middle of the chaotic engagement. The Roman was sweaty, too. They were both bleeding, but the cuts were not deep, and the blood that flowed from them didn’t so much clot as mix with the sweat and cake up with the dust on their bodies. They had been at this for awhile. The big blond man screamed a challenge in words that I did not understand, but whose meaning was abundantly clear. This Roman was a thruster and responded, with the tip of his sword towards his opponent’s belly. Fast, but not fast enough: the blond man swung his sword in front of him, slapping the shorter Roman weapon aside. As he completed the block, the blond man whipped his weapon around, up, and down in a massive slash. The Centurion made another parry, wishing that he still had a shield. That was his last thought, as the powerful stroke bashed aside his tired defenses and sliced his body in half. He fell with a tired look on his face. The remaining Romans finally killed the wild man and his kin, but at a price, each Gaul took four Romans with him.

It got worse.

My taste buds burned with the tang of cold metal as they thrust the strange contraption down my throat. Fear turned to panic as I felt it expanding. I started to choke, then to vomit. These things became minor distractions, as my attention was captured by the sharp metal edges that the device presented as it ripped my throat apart from the inside.

I was in the crowd outside the cathedral of Notre-Dame, as Jacques de Molay and Geoffrey de Charney were burnt at the stake. I heard de Molay’s last words. I admired his honesty, nodding my head, saying, "Aye. It were a fearsome man."

It also got better.

The room was dark and plainly furnished with two hard wooden chairs and a table across which were scattered several old books, some parchment, and an ink pot. A man sat in the chair nearest the table. He was dressed in a simple robe and had his head shaved in a tonsure. The other occupant of the room was a woman, middle aged, with long tangled black hair. She wasn’t in the chair, but was prostrate on the floor in front of the monk. I knew that they weren’t speaking English, but I understood what the monk was saying. "Please, my child, get up. I am moved by your confession, but to pity. People do not fly through the air and cast curses! It is against the orderly laws of the universe, as created by our kind and loving Father. Nor do they consort with demons, for our gracious Savior and His holy Church keeps the power of evil well in check." As the woman looked up, puzzlement in her brown eyes, the cleric continued, "Perhaps you are ill. Your face is flushed and hair dull. Perhaps you have taken bad air." The man lifted the woman to her feet and led her by the hand towards the door. As the scene crumbled to dust and faded away, I heard the monk continue, "Come with me to our leech. He is a talented and knowledgeable man, for a Jew, and I am quite...."

I heard snatches of music, ancient Pagan songs that had been reworded by Christians. Then I heard Christian songs that had been reworded by Pagans. Then, in a comic twist, I heard songs that were originally Pagan, that had been reworded as Christian songs that had been re-reworded by Pagans.

I was in a crowd, or more accurately, far on the outskirts of the crowd. Microphones and speakers tried to spread the word of what was going on, but I was too far away from even those to hear what was going on. A middle-aged man had brought binoculars, but found himself too short to use them over the crowd. He gave them to a teenager, who climbed onto the roof of a parked car and started a play-by-play report of what was going on. "Good King Christian is giving a speech." Hell, we knew that much. "No, he is reading a proclamation." Ah, that was different. Around me, people speculated on whether or not this was one of the oppressive edicts forced down our throats by the damned Nazis. Perhaps it was just a local bit of puffery. We could always hope. The boy was unable to tell us what was in the proclamation, but we soon found out, as people deeper in the crowd explained to those farther out, who explained to those farther out, and so forth. Henceforth, Jews must wear the yellow star. Amidst murmurs of "that’s not right" and "the Hell they will", somebody told our observer what the King was saying. He nodded enthusiastically, "Yes, yes! He is holding up something now. A yellow star. Made of cloth, I think." The crowd was hushed. "He is reading again, and sweating. No, crying!" Slowly, word rippled outwards through the crowd: we have no choice. A little old lady clutched her net bag of groceries tighter and spit on the ground. "No good will come of this", she muttered. She turned around to go, and the sun flashed off of a tiny golden cross worn on a chain around her neck. Our observer wasn’t done, though. "Wait a minute! The King just pinned the yellow star on his own chest!" The crowd fell into stunned silence. The old lady turned back to the crowd, but she still couldn’t see any better than the rest of us. Suddenly, from scattered spots around the crowd, and then sweeping over the entire throng, the silent perplexity turned into a great cheer, repeated again and again. "Long live the King!" The boy climbed down from the car and returned the binoculars to their owner. As the crowd broke up, the boy ended up near the little old lady. He tugged at her sleeve and asked, "Where can I get one of those star things?" "I can make you one", she replied. Evidently they were neighbors. "I think that I’ll make one for myself, too!"

I saw the Mihna, the 9th century Islamic inquisition, in the process of convincing a man how good it would be to give a public declaration of faith in the Koran.

In another tableau, a woman visited her husband in jail. I heard a voice-over saying "Act four." In an archaic dialect, the woman told her husband a story that I knew well. He listened, frozen between eagerness to hear news of the outside world and horror of the news that he received. He prodded her along with a question or two. The story was brief, and when she finished, he repeated the last sentence. His wife was quiet and matter-of-fact about it, saying, "Aye. It were a fearsome man, Giles Corey." The vision faded out, turning to wispy bits of white fog.

That broke my trance a little and I saw the glare of headlights as an oncoming car came at us from around a bend and then disappeared behind us.

A warrior barreled out of the woods, fire in his eyes, his white hair sticking out all over like the quills of a porcupine. He laughed as he ran across the road, and called to the hounds who followed him. Together, they crashed back into the woods and vanished.

A sentence from a history book floated in front of me:

I remembered being in Cost Plus, buying some odds and ends. I wanted some sandalwood soap, and was pleased to find that they had several brands. One caught my eye, featuring a large swastika on the front. The brand was Swastic, made in India. It made me think of how long that symbol had been loved and revered, until Hitler appropriated it for his own use. I bought that soap, and enjoyed it very much. Years later, Diana would point out that even far removed cultures enjoy that symbol. Navajos would call it "twirling logs".

I saw an old man, walking on a path through a garden. His head was bowed, deep in thought. He must not have been moving fast enough to suit the beefy man on his right, who reached out and dragged the old man forward by the elbow. The man shuffled along a little faster. He slowly shook his bowed head back and forth. That’s when the sunlight grew brighter and brighter. As the scene dissolved in a bright golden light, I thought that I heard a voice, tired and soft, but alive with conviction mutter, "Eppur si muove!" And I started to cry again.

Some of the things that I saw were just plain strange, like a fuzzy ball of red light which hovered in front of me and pulsated as it shrieked:

The fuzzy red ball bounced twice and then rolled away.

The raging fires in my mind subsided a little by the time that we got home. We put Erin to bed and unpacked what needed it and then went to bed.

I didn’t sleep well that night. At first, I only laid on my back, staring into space, seeing the visions again. Diana would hug me, and occasionally brush away my tears. I suppose that I eventually got to sleep somehow.

The days and nights after that are much of a blur for me. I know that I spent time with my wife and child. I know that I went to work and did stuff. That must have entailed driving to and fro, and who knows what else. Certainly not me; it was pretty much a lost week. I slipped in and out of fugues and funks. I got quite angry at times; whimpered and sulked at others. I sang snatches of songs, in my head or out loud. Visions danced before me, some frighteningly solid and others wispy and immaterial. Some were funny, others sad, still others terrifying. Through it all, my memory and imagination labored overtime to immerse me in the full horrors and rare joys of The Burning Times.

Through that time, this letter wrote itself in my mind. In fact, it became clear that I could not write a little about this subject; it would have to be a series of interlocked pieces, none of them short. I felt that I could not write about Al’s request, or answer it, without revealing what his innocent request had caused me to put myself through. Hence, this letter. The story would be unbelievable without knowing the religion that I have chosen and the serious regard in which I hold it. In addition, no matter what effort I expended to review The Hammer from an objective viewpoint, it would be impossible for me to avoid some bias, and coming out of the closet as a Wiccan would be a way to let the reader know that some bias is unavoidable. Hence, the letter about my escapade with the HR folks at work. Just applying the title to myself was bound to raise questions in the mind of many readers. Hence the Q&A about Wicca. The Lammas celebration was a recent event and newsworthy as a description of a field trip; I have written many of those, all a little different. But having come out of the closet and presented the Q&A, I could reveal details that would otherwise have caused puzzlement. Hence the full Lammas story. And somewhere in the fertile brew steeping in my mind, I knew that I had to write about terrorism. Hence the last story in the set, for reasons that I did not originally understand.

By the end of the second week, my rational periods were longer. Diana and I engaged in activities that were more normal for us. Although I still had occasional flashes, I had conquered most of my internal issues.

A week later, it was time to start writing down on paper that which had already written itself. Oh, there was a ton of typing to do, and no little bit of proofreading, correction, and interpolation of the few little details that remained unresolved. When I first wrote this paragraph, I described the last part of the process as "writing down on paper that which had already written itself in my mind." Suddenly, I realized that there were five parts in the interlocked set that made up the story of this subject. Five, as on the points of a pentagram and the Alchemical Elements. I chuckled to myself, then looked at the list of documents and mentally reviewed the topics that were covered. Earth, Air, Water, and Fire. I laughed out loud. The fifth piece puzzled me for a moment, because it was essentially political. Then I realized that my curiosity about ethical terrorists was a manifestation of Spirit. That brought the circle around, and I laughed again and again, for the letters had written themselves, and better than I had even suspected. The Elements are not all that well balanced, but they are all there. So maybe I should change that sentence to "writing down on paper that which had already written itself in my mind, heart, body, blood, and soul." Either way, the story is almost done.

Now it is time to answer the request.

Al, I must ask you for a special favor. I love you and would do nearly anything for you, including reviewing The Hammer. But it would be a difficult and demanding task for me, much more so than it would be for ordinary people. Think of asking an observant Jew who lost his parents in the Holocaust to read Mein Kampf, or perhaps go on an archeological dig at Auschwitz and thoroughly analyze the findings. Please, don’t ask this of me. Not now, anyway.

I understand your curiosity, and would like to satisfy it. I can lend you my copy of The Malleus Maleficarum, and the companion volume, Compendium Maleficarum. You can study them clinically, they will not harm you; neither can be said for me. I can dig up references and small reviews of those books published in other sources. We can discuss the topic over a lubricating and anesthetizing bottle of beer next time we get together. Perhaps these things can satisfy you.

Perhaps I can do a little more for you, Al. You noted a similarity between the review that you wrote on Firearm-Related Violence in California: Incidence and Economic Costs *4 and the review that Sagan wrote on The Malleus Maleficarum. You wondered about what similarities the documents themselves might have.

I can, in this time and place, without damaging my psyche further, make certain general observations that summarize my current opinion on the subject. I can even go to great detail on the gun side right now. I just can’t handle The Burning Times right now.

The short answer is: the books are identical. Or to put it neatly, gun control is exactly like a Witch hunt. Those who savor irony will be especially delighted by the flavor of this one: most modern Witches dislike firearms because they are pacifists and consider guns to be symbols of violence.

There is, you see, a pattern that I have noticed in persecutions. First, comes the warning that there are people amongst us who are different. Then come the claims that those people are unspeakably evil and increasingly dangerous to good people everywhere. Next, we are told that the evil people are too powerful to be dealt with by conventional means; the authorities require special procedures and laws to deal with the immediate threat. Whenever something bad happens, connections, however vague, are discovered or manufactured between the unpleasant event and the suspect group. The story is slanted, the connections are enhanced, and the resulting lies spread far and wide to propagate *5 fear. The stories are repeated, amplified, and augmented with new stories until the common people are whipped up to a frenzy and demand that the authorities solve the crisis. The authorities see that they have a mandate and give themselves the powers that they feel are necessary to deal with the crisis. These powers invariably mean the loss of civil liberties for the common citizen. From that point on, the story is written in blood, both that of the original targets, and that of anybody else who happens to cross the paths of the authorities. Oh, persecutions usually feature some "mob justice", too. But most of the damage is done by the authorities.

Could it possibly be that simple? Read the history of the Moors in Spain. Ask any Jew; Germany was only the most horrific example. Think about the Knights Templar. Read about the Albigensian Crusade. The House Un-American Activities Committee. Salem. The pattern is there. It repeats time after time. It stretches far into the past, a long line of dead bodies, perhaps to the beginning of humanity. It reaches, I fear, far into the future.

Sometimes even the ancient enactments of the pattern continue to weave their webs of misery long after they have been thought consigned to the dustbin of history.

Evil does not die, only evil people, and they are soon replaced.

And here, in the present, the pattern is is being played out again, in the case that you cite, with gun owners as the persecuted. Here are some of the lies, fabricated evidence, false witness, and other attempts to whip the crowd to a frenzy:

If you defend yourself with a gun, you are a criminal. If you defend yourself with anything other than a gun, you lose. If you do not attempt to defend yourself, you are a victim. If you float, you must be a Witch. If you drown, you were innocent. Got that?

I covered a lot of material in the last section, including: suppressed truth, amplified "bad" incidents, ignored "good" incidents, lies, false evidence, false testimony, misinterpretation of statistics, statistics that were skewed to begin with, hypocrisy, gradual collection of power, and abuse of that power. But you may still be unconvinced that gun control fits into the same pattern of persecution as marked The Burning Times. Other people have noticed similar trends, and done excellent jobs of documenting them. Two years ago, there was an article by Alan Bock in the Orange County Register called "Gun Control and Patterns of Genocide". It was a short review of a book called Lethal Laws: ‘Gun Control’ is the Key to Genocide, by Simkin, Zelman, and Rice. The book documents the seven major genocides during this century, their historical and social contexts. It also provides the original texts and English translations of the gun control legislation that enabled the genocides. Together, the victims total about 56 million human beings. Hey, nine million Witches are a raindrop in the ocean, compared to that.

But there is more.

Those are only recent examples on the gun Witch hunt. Other Witch hunts are in progress as we speak.

Target ... militias...

Substitute "America" for "France"; "right wing militias" for "Knights Templar"; and "Bill Clinton" for "Philip the Fair". Add 700 years. Now I quote from Peter Partner’s book, The Murdered Magicians:

Target ... terrorist "conspiracies" ...

Terrorism has been used as a scapegoat to push through two sets of unibus bills. But nobody bothered to mention that terrorism has been on the decline for many years. The statistics sound bad, because of two events: The World Trade Center and Oklahoma City. When you have a very small number of attacks, adding two cases can shoot the percent increase way high up there. Yes, there were quite a few more deaths because of those attacks, too. But that is only because the attackers got lucky. In fact, the terrorists who blew up the World Trade Center were lucky indeed: their operation had been penetrated by the F.B.I., which, for a time, considered a sting operation in which they would be allowed to "bomb" the building with harmless materials substituted for the explosives. For some unknown reason, the F.B.I. never performed the swap despite the warnings and pleas of their undercover man, and the attack went on with live explosives. This information came out during the trial of the terrorists. The media largely ignored it. When Clinton begs the American people for the tools necessary to combat terrorism, does he ever mention that the existing tools are quite sufficient, but the F.B.I. is not? Every drop of blood shed at the World Trade Center cries out that fact.

What was in those anti-terrorism bills? Secret trials; secret testimony; roving wiretaps; paid informants; weakening of Habeus Corpus; violation of Posse Comitatus; taggants; ability to declare any group as "terrorist", subjecting them to special laws. In other words, loss of civil liberties, for the target group and the general citizenry. I have no desire to defend terrorists, but persecuting them in this particular way will harm us all. And the common man, whipped to a frenzy with tales of the terrible terrorists willingly gives the mandate to the government. About a week ago, the L.A. Times released a survey which concluded that Americans were willing to give up civil liberties in order to combat terrorism.

I find that concept repugnant, so much so that words fail me. Let me provide some words from those figures who have said it better than I could:

Target ...

And after the hunts for Witches, gun owners, and terrorists? The next Witch hunt has already started, and the victim is the Internet. Conservatives persecute it because it can be used to distribute "indecent" material. Liberals persecute it because information about weapons can be found there. Recently, a certain Senator’s staff started yet another hunt for "dirt" on the Internet. Here is my reply:

To: Jackie_Cooney@gregg.senate.gov
From: Dennis Griesser
subject: re: your question about bomb plans on the net
date: 8/5/96

Word is rippling across the pyrotechnics community concerning your
question about terrorists gaining bomb information from the 'net.

> While I know that pyrotechnics orginizations are not affiliated with 
> acts of terrorism in any way, I feel that you might be able to help me
> in an inquery that could help prevent future bombings. Specifically, I 
> would like to know if you are aware of any case where a terrorist has 
> used the internet to obtain instructions on how to make a bomb, and then 
> used these instructions to build a bomb and execute his crime. I would 
> appreciate any help that you might be able to provide.
>
> Jackie_Cooney@gregg.senate.gov

Clearly you believe that certain types of information are dangerous in the
wrong hands.

I believe that we share some common ground and concerns. I despise
the terrorists who seek to push their agenda by maiming and
killing innocent people who just happened to be in the wrong place
at the wrong time.

Where you and I disagree is in what we each think can be done to improve
the situation. You propose to strangle knowledge. Such a proposal is
inherently evil. Knowledge is not a bad thing. In fact, it is neither
good nor evil. Knowledge is a raw elemental force that can be _used_
for good or evil.

There are also people who strive to deprive the terrorists of tools and
materials necessary to build weapons. This attempt, too, is doomed to
failure. A determined terrorist can make a bomb out of almost anything,
including urine, willow bark, or bird droppings.

I firmly believe that the key to reducing the mindless violence in our
modern society is not one of technology. It is one of sociology.

I wish you much success in attacking this problem ... some other way.

Target ...

There are plenty of targets, and the pattern of the Witch hunt is alive and well. I only wish that the same could be said for the victims.

Al, in your letter, you said:

Is my alarm appropriate? Only you can judge the conditions that cause you to ring your alarm bell. I don’t tell people what to do. But I do try to inform them, that they are empowered to make better decisions.

You seem quite amenable to that approach; you like to do your own thinking. That’s a good thing. Perhaps that was why, a few months ago, you showed me the book on the Constitution that you had started reading. Had my grousing reached the point that you thought there might be something there worthy of study? And what did you think when it took me less than a minute to verify that the book didn’t touch the Second Amendment, 10% of the Bill of Rights, at all? We didn’t discuss it any further that night, but perhaps we should have. Did you cut some slack for the authors, thinking them a bit careless? Or did you consider the possibility that it was intentional? How close did you come to ringing the alarm bell that night? How close are you now, after all that I have written? How close would you come if you checked a dozen books, and all of them swept the Second Amendment under the rug? I have done exactly this, rummaging over the shelves in book stores. Don’t you think it rather odd, given the frenzied frothings of the gun control crowd, that nobody writing about the Constitution devotes any space to the passage in the supreme law of our land that says everybody should own military weapons?

What could you do? You already listed some excellent things not to do. Blowing up people in Oklahoma City was wrong. (And we really don’t yet know who was responsible for that.) Building a fortress in Montana was indeed silly. (I think that it was more like a farmhouse than a fortress, but I agree that it was silly, no matter what it was.) To that list, I can add: marching around in fatigues and calling yourself a militia is a delusion. (You don’t need fatigues. You are already a member of the unorganized militia, whether you like it or not. It is federal law, and that fact has been suppressed.)

I can recommend this: first, decide where you stand. Do you believe the facts as I have stated them? Perhaps you should study the subject deeper, drinking from a pool of knowledge that does not swirl with my poisoned waters. Only after you are certain where you already stand, can you decide where your travels will take you.

If you should choose to join me on this quest, I’m not sure what we can do either, my friend. We can vote and encourage others to do the same, but I don’t know what else. Perhaps all that we can do is ring the alarm bell, loud and long. And keep watch.

We can stand up against evil and oppression, if only by shining the light to expose it for what it is.

To make things better, or even slow the decay, we must combat a force that is a small but integral part of human nature. That leads me to worry that we will never win. But I can always hope, so I’ll sign this:

Attached: The story of Giles Corey, for those who don’t know it, as I wrote it up for Annette McCluskey, California Teachers' Association.

*1 - Understand that, after getting my head whacked, my memory of that evening is rather spotty. I am trying to reconstruct it, but the story of what went on that night might have more holes in it than my recollections normally do.

*2 - Poor Jerry has been subjected to the thing three times now. He puts up with it well, and even claims to enjoy it. Jerry is a saint, not the least for his cooking.

*3 - This year is "Sky Rockin '96".

*4 - By Marcus Nieto; Roger Dunstan; and Gus A. Koehler. The report was commissioned by California state Assemblyman Louis Caldera.

*5 - The common word "propaganda" comes from the name, "Propaganda", of a committee of cardinals in the Roman Catholic Church charged with overseeing missionary work. The word is a condensation of the Latin name for "The Council For Propagating The Faith".

*6 - To be fair to the unfair Senator, I don't have the transcript in front of me. So the quote may be off by a word or two.

*7 - Kellerman's methodology was this: count the dead bodies in the morgue and find out what percentage of them were gun owners. Can you say "sampling bias"? And then he claims a cause-and-effect relationship between the ownership and the death. I am by no means a statistician, but I sure can smell the bologna in that one!

Thank you for visiting. Your comments are welcome.
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