1988
January 24:
Dean turns nine today. We’re on the move, so he might not finish third grade. He calls himself the New Kid all the time. He’s bee in three schools already this year. Who knows how many more?
April 14:
SALT
Symbol of permanence, incorruptibility. The word “salvation” originates from the use of salt in sealing covenants. Jews in the Temple offered salt, still use it in Sabbath rituals. Leviticus 2:13: “And every oblation of thy meat offering shalt thou season with salt; neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meat offering with all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt.” Lot’s wife turns to salt as a reminder of permanence of errors. In II Kings, Elisha purifies a spring with salt. Jesus coined the phrase “salt of the earth” for apostles, because of their commitment. Salt used in some Catholic consecration rituals. Spilled salt should never be picked up; the bad luck is balanced by throwing salt over the shoulder at the demons who approach because of the spill. Buddhist tradition holds that salt repels all evil spirits. Throw salt over your shoulder before entering your house after attending a funeral; will prevent spirits dinging from the funeral from getting in. Salt used to purify in Shinto and other traditions; Shinto myth says firs landmass, Ongoro Shima, arose when salt separated from a world ocean. Native American tribes in the southwest restricted who could eat salt. Hopi legends about the preciousness of salt held that location of salt deposits —hard to get to, dangerous to work— was a punishment from the warrior Twins.
Practical uses: a line of salt is a barrier no spirit can cross. Mediums use lines to constrain movements of summoned spirits. In Japanese floklore, ghosts are packed in jars full of salt. A double-barrel load of rock salt will dispel the ectoplasmic manifestation of a spirit. When destroying a spirit permanently, salt the remains or focus of the haunting before burning. “The devil loveth no salt in his meat.” Scottish fishermen used to throw salt into the ocean to blind malicious faeries.
In Norse myth, ancestor of the gods was born from a salt lick.
Dark side of salt the earth after a battle so that nothing will grow, no one will live there. Can be reversed to a symbol of barrenness.
Myth among Caribbean slaves that Africans —Igbo, in particular— can fly because they did not eat salt in their native country.
MUST BE ROCK SALT —IODRED SALT IMPURE, WILL NOT WORK.
May 2:
Sammy is five today. Thank God. He almost didn’t make it.
I could blame Dean, but it’s my fault. There’s enough blame to go around. I missed the kill, and I left Dean watching Sam, and he couldn’t pull the trigger when he needed to. I haven’t taught him well enough. If he is weak like that again, my boys will die… but what kind of father am I to put a nine-year-old boy in a situation where he might have to kill to protect his brother?
I’m the kind of father I have to be. I’m the kind of father who teaches his boys that no man or monster can kill their mother and get away with it. I’m the kind of father who shows them that when it comes to family, you go to the ends of the earth to put things right.
We’re in Wisconsin, so we might as well skip over to Blue Earth and check in with Jim. He’ll want to know about this, and maybe it’ll do me good to talk to him.
Reminder: Tell Jim about the Hausa, an African tribe whose witches keep magical stones in their stomachs. They eat their victims’ souls slowly, causing the victim to waste away and die. Also, they can turn into dogs. Another African witch, sukuyadyo or obayito, bind victims magically and drain their blood or life force. Sukuyadyo can change their skins, hiding their real skin under a pot or mortar in their house and taking the appearance of another. Related to skinwalker, also variations of medieval European vampire legends. Obayito transformed into a ball of light to drain life force (will-o’-the-wisp.)
Time for Sammy to learn how to read.
Jiangshi: “Hopping corpse.” Reanimated corpses out of Chinese lore that kill living creatures to feed on spiritus vitae (qi). Possible that they are restricted to roadways, but I’m working from a story Bobby Singer told me here. Never seen one.
May 17:
This would have been our tenth anniversary. Tin.
September 28:
Séance:
On a clean altar cloth, place a small bowl filled with fresh herbs. Around the perimeter of the cloth, place black and white candles, alternating and equal in number. When all of the candles are lit, recite the following:
Amate spiritus obscure, te quaerimus.
Te oramus, nobiscum colloquere, apud nos circita.
At the finish of the incantation, pinch a tiny amount of frankincense, sandalwood, or cinnamon powder over one of the candle flames.
Pythagoras also lead séances in approximately 540 B.C, using something like a Ouija board. Using a wheeled table that moved toward signs set up in a rough circle, Pythagoras and his student Philolaus interpreted the motions as spirit signals.
Here Perimedes and Euylochus held the victims, while I drew my sword and dug the trench a cubit each way. I made a drink-offering to all the dead, first with honey and milk, then with wine, and thirdly with water, and I sprinkled white barley meal over the whole, praying earnestly to the poor feckless ghosts, and promising them that when I got back to Ithaca I would sacrifice a barren heifer for them, the best i had, and would load the pyre with good things. I also particularly promised that Teiresias should have a black sheep to himself, the best in all my flocks. When I had prayed sufficiently to the dead, I cut the throats of the two sheep and let the blood run into the trench, whereon the ghosts came trooping up from Erebus —brides, young bachelors, old men worn out with toil, maids who had been crossed in love, and brave men who had been killed in battle, with in battle, with their armour still smirched with blood; they came from every quarter and flitted round the trench with a strange kind of screaming sound that made me turn pale with fear. When I saw them coming I told the men to be quick and flay the carcasses of the two dead sheep and make burnt offerings of them, and at the same time to repeat prayers to Hades and to Proserpine; but I sat where I was with my sword drawn and would not let the poor feckless ghosts come near the blood till Teireias should have answered my questions.
Katabasis: the voyage to the underworld —Orpheus looking for Eurydice. Adapted to Greek necromancy. A spirit projection of the necromancer would travel to the underworld to speak with the dead.
Katadesmoi: A Greek curse inscribed on a lead tablet (usually). A spirit is summoned and bound to the tablet to make sure the curse is effective. Term also used for the summoning and binding of a spirit to a task. Katadesmoi buried in a cemetery or sacred place to make them more effective.
… souls after death do as yet love their body which they left, as those souls do whose bodies want due burial or have left their bodies by violent death, and as yet wander about their carcasses in a troubled and moist spirit, being, as it were, allured by something that hath an affinity with them…
Necromantic conjuration from Reginald Scot, Discoverie of Witchcraft. Seals of the Earth necessary to bring the spirit.
FIRST fast and praie three daies, and absteie thee from all filthinesse; go to one that is new buried, such a one as killed himselfe or destroied himselfe wilfullie: or else get thee promise of one that shalbe hanged, and let him sweare an oth to thee, after his bodie is dead, that his spirit shall come to thee, and doo thee true service, at thy commandements, in all dales, houres, and minuts. And let no persons see thy doings, but thy fellow. And about eleven a clocke in the night, go to the place where he was buried, and saie with a bold faith & hartie desire, to have the spirit come that thou doost call for, thy fellow having a candle in his left hand, and in his right hand a christall stone, and saie these words following, the maister having a hazell wand in his right hand, and these names of God written thereupon, Tegragrammaton + Adonay + Agla + Craton + Then strike three strokes in the ground, and saie;
Arise N. Arise N. Arise N. I conjure thee spirit N. by the resurrection of our Lord Jesu Christ, that thou doo obey to my words, and come unto me this night verelie and trulie, as thou beleevest to be saved at the daie of judgement. And I will sweare to thee on oth, by the perill of my soule, that if thou wilt come to me, and appeare to me this night, and shew me the fairie Sibylia, that I may talke with hir visible, and she may come before me, as the conjuration leadeth: and in so doing, I will give thee an almesse deed, and praie for thee N. to my Lord God, whereby thou maiest be restored to thy salvation at the resurrection daie, to be received as one of the elect of God, to the everlasting glorie, Amen.
Sibly, necromantic conjuration. At the tomb or grave, after inscribing the protective circle: “By the virtue of the holy resurrection, and the torments of the damned, I conjure and exorcise thee, spirit of N. deceased, to answer my liege demands, being obedient unto these sacred ceremonies, on pain of everlasting torment and distress. Arise, arise, arise, I charge and command thee.”
November 2:
Mary has been dead for five years. We were married for five years. I feel like I’m serving a sentence sometimes, and the only way to get out of this prison is to find whoever or whatever took her away from me.
December 5:
Dean’s teacher called to tell me that he got a subscription to the Weekly World News, and had it delivered to school. How is he paying for it? I could ask him, but he’s already too sharp to give me a straight answer. And I could force him to, but there’s no point. If that makes him feel more at home in his world…
December 27:
A variation, supposed to be for summoning and speaking to angels. But I’ve never met a hunter who believed in angels. Not even the ones who have seen demons.
