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1999

January 1:

Figure I would try to put together a sort of Revenant 101. The lore is all over the place, so probably some experimenting is needed to settle on best tactics. The European sources say revenants, including vampires, may be destroyed by:

Staking. Ash or oak most effective. Rom traditions use hawthorn. Generally stakes are driven into the heart, but sometimes the mouth or stomach. Wooden stakes employed sometimes to destroy the revenant, sometimes to pin it in the coffin. Corpse can be staked through the legs to keep it from getting out. Variation on staking: use metal pins or needles —piercing heart, eyes, or feet. Sharp metal objects buried with corpse keep it in place, often a sickle. Pieces of steel or iron placed in the mouth.

Burning. Corpse suspected of being a dormant revenant exhumed and burned. Sometimes only the heart must be burned. Some traditions burn the body and mix the ashes with water or holy water. Surviving relatives drink the mixture, releasing the curse.

Dismembered or decapitated. Heart cut out, or head severed and placed between the feet. Head sometimes buried in a separate location, or burned. 1892, Mercy Brown, Rhode Island. Father thought she was a vampire, dug her up, burned her heart.

Exorcism. Performed when the body is believed to be possessed instead of revenant.

New world vampires: tunda, soucouyant, patasola, peuchen, cihuateteo (sunlight fatal), asema (becomes ball of light like African obayifo), lobishomen (unleashes women’s sexual drive)

Asia: jiangshi, bhuta, prêt, bramarakshasa, mandurugo/penanggalan (succubus qualities), pontianak/langsuir (died in childbirth like Aztec mocihuaquetzqui), leyak, aswang, manananggal (preys on pregnant women), nukekubi, chural (feet backwards like leszy?) kappa (lives in water, noted for etiquette but drains life force)

Africa: ramanga, adze (changes into firefly), asasabosam, impundulu

Europe: callicantzaros (born between Christmas and Epiphany, can only attack on those days), upis (two hearts), ustrel (born on Saturday, died unbaptized)

Australia: yama-yha-who. Victims gradually transformed into the creature by its feeding on them, or if it ate them whole and then vomited them back up

Akhanavar, Armenian vampire that drains blood through the feet

January 24:

Dean turns twenty today. He’s in Ohio somewhere, hasn’t called in a couple of days. Tracking a possible poltergeist. He’s supposed to call in every night. Mission discipline is critical.

March 21:

Dighton Rock, Massachusetts. Saw it yesterday. Looks like prehistoric version of bathroom graffiti to me, but some of the symbols must mean something. Indian? Theories about Portuguese explorer Miguel Cortereal, 1511?

Other megaliths in New England. The Vikings were here, everyone knows it. What might they have brought? What might they have left behind? Their runes can’t all be hoaxes, and Viking runes were divine, Odin earned them by hanging on his tree.

May 2:

Corpus Hermeticum, “The Secret Sermon on the Mountain.”

Torment the first is this Not-knowing, son; the second one is Grief; the third, Intemperance; the fourth, Concupiscence; the fifth, Unrighteousness; the sixth is Avarice; the seventh, Error; the eighth is Envy; the ninth, Guile; the tenth is Anger; eleventh, Rashness; the twelfth is Malice. These are in number twelve; but under them are many more, my son; and creeping through the prison of the body they force the man that’s placed therein to suffer in his senses.

Sammy is sixteen years old today. God knows he’s got plenty of torments. Now he’s got a driver’s license, too. Doesn’t make much difference. He’s known how to drive since he was nine.

May 17:

This would have been our twenty-first anniversary. Mary, I’ve been doing this for almost sixteen years, and sometimes I feel like I’m not any closer to an answer than I was when I watched the house burn in 1983. What am I doing? I’ve thrown everything away for this, to join an underground tribe of hunters and spend my nights watching exorcisms and killing spirits… and what have I done to the boys? They don’t have friends, not the way I did. I lived in the same town the whole time I was growing up. Now they’re almost grown, and they’ve seen every back road and abandoned farmhouse in the country, but they don’t have roots. We’ve never been back to Lawrence.

Wonder how may exorcisms I’ve seen. Maybe fifty, sixty? How many of them were real demons, and how many were some other kind of prankster spirit? Anything can call itself a demon. I’ve smelled the sulfur, though. I’ve seen the holy water and the Devil’s Traps work. The whole thing might be easier if the demons weren’t so cagey about the Big Guy down there. If they’ve never seen him, and most of them don’t believe he exists, then hey, there’s no fallen angels ruling over Hell. So no angels, period. And then what are demons? And what is Hell? They (creatures that say they’re demons) say it exists.

21: three 7s. The Fool must learn 21 lessons in the Tarot story.

Sixth book of Moses. Seals.

November 2:

Mary has been dead for sixteen years. The century’s ending, by popular reckoning. Wonder what’s waiting on the other side.

Dybbuk. A malicious possessing spirit/soul of someone recently dead. Escaped from or prevented entry into the afterlife (especially in the case of suicide). Derived from the Hebrew word meaning “attachment” —dybbuk, possesses a living person, usually to finish task that it was prevented from performing in life. Drawn to people who have unfulfilled desires to do something, possibly something unethical or wrong is more attractive to the spirit. Possession makes the person more likely to do the things he’s been preventing himself from doing, and dybbuk can be drawn to a person who wants the same things it wanted in life. If the dybbuk is allowed to finish, or helped along its way, it will depart when the goal is accomplished. Dybbuks described in Samuel 18:10 and Book of Kings when Elijah is possessed by a spirit trying to get Saul to start an unjust war.

Jewish exorcism involving Psalm 91 and the blowing of a ram’s horn to shatter the walls surrounding the dybbuk. Commentaries on the psalm emphasize the safety of the righteous man in the face of surprise dangers. Hebrew commentaries suggest that pestilence and destruction are poetic names for demons, one coming by night and the other at noon.

Jinn. From Semitic root meaning hidden. Pre-Islamic Arabian myth said they were the spirits of vanished peoples who brought disease and insanity at night. Also said to be spirits of five who could change shape. Advent of Islam changed their character. Koran says they were created of smokeless fire. Particular varieties may or may not be identified with ordinal directions or elements; ifrit, marid, etc. All can be bound through ritual or if they can be overpowered. In hadith, elements of shape-changing remain, and an ifrit attakcs Muhammad with a firebolt.

1 He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

2 I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in Him will I trust.

3 Surely He shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.

4 He shall cover thee with His feathers, and under His wings shalt thou trust: His truth shall be thy shield and buckler.

5 Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day;

6 nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.

7 A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.

8 Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.

9 Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the Most High, thy habitation;

10 there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.

11 For He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.

12 They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.

13 Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.

14 Because He hath set His love upon me, therefore will I deliver Him: I will set Him on high, because He hath known my name.

15 He shall call upon me, and I will answer Him: I will be with Him in trouble; I will deliver Him, and honor Him.

16 With long life will I satisfy Him, and show Him my salvation.

Koran, sura 72, al-Jinn:

Say (O Muhammad): It is revealed unto me that a company of the Jinn gave ear, and they said: Lo! we have heard a marvellous Koran, which guideth unto righteousness, so we believe in it and we ascribe no partner unto our Lord. And (we believe) that He —exalted be the glory of our Lord!— hath taken neither wife nor son, And that the foolish one among us used to speak concerning Allah an atrocious lie. And lo! we had supposed that humankind and jinn would not speak a lie concerning Allah —and indeed (O Muhammad) individuals of the jinn, so that they increased them in revolt against Alla; And indeed they supposed, even as ye suppose, that Allah would not raise anyone (from the dead). And (the Jinn who had listened to the Koran said): We had sought the heaven but had found it filled with strong warders and meteors. And we used to sit on places (high) therein to listen. But he who listeneth now findeth a flame in wait for him; and we know not whether harm is boded unto all who are in the earth, or whether their Lord intendeth guidance for them. And among us there are righteous folk and among us there are far from that. We are sects having different rules. And we know that we cannot escape from Allah in the earth, nor can we escape by flight. And when we heard the guidance, we believed therein, and whoso believeth in his Lord, he feareth neither loss nor oppression. And there are among us some who have surrendered (to Allah) and there are among us some who are unjust. And whoso hath surrendered to Allah, such have taken the right path purposefully. And as for those who are unjust, they are firewood for hell.

The Letters, or Characters of Saturne.