But what if I told you some Arkaden material was coming to the blog, rather than by PDF? Material with no game rules, but information on the setting nonetheless? Would you be excited?

If you are, don’t worry, this isn’t a tease! It’s a thing I’m actually going to be doing with Arkaden Investigations, an homage to the D&D “Ecology of” articles of yore and Pathfinder’s similar “Monsters Revisited” concept. In Arkaden Investigations, an in-universe dialogue of some sort on the creature at hand, ranging from potentially biased personal diaries to magibiologist manifestos, will provide more information on classic Modern SRD creatures used in the setting as well as the monsters of the Molti Segreti Nascosti Core Rulebook and Supplemental-Cut Creatures. Expect the first installment soon…like, tonight or tomorrow soon.

Sadly, it’s under major renovations in two large areas of the zoo, so it wasn’t really fit for review as a ‘normal’ Animal Attractions post (though one of those from a zoo I visited last year will be happening soon).

It was, however, good for some photos to share. There are plenty more animals I could show, such as colobus monkeys, Galapagos and Aldabra tortoises, Gaboon vipers, double-wattled cassowaries, and emus, but those can wait for another time. For now, enjoy!

A southern screamer (Chauna torquata) taking a drink.

A veritable horde of koi (Cyprinus carpio) gather to suction food from the spillway rocks.

The unusual arboreal Central American mammal known as the tayra (Eira barbara).

A rather chill American crocodile (Crocodylus acutus).

An American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) completely submerged.

A Louisiana black bear (Ursus americanus luteolus) shaking off some water in its pool.

A white-tailed sea eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla).

A male lar gibbon (Hylobates lar) whoops it up.

A lowland anoa (Bubalus depressicornis) slowly getting up from its mid-day nap.

This black crowned crane (Balearica pavonina) is having its food eyed by an enterprising Louisiana native, the fox squirrel (Sciurus niger).

The Madagascar giant hognose snake (Leioheterodon madagascariensis), one of those species I never expected to actually see.

One of two Nile crocodiles (Crocodylus niloticus) on display at the Alexandria Zoo.

What’s the Gist?

While 100 Conspiracies gave the conspiracies themselves, 100 Conspirators gives out the skinny on the people that actually perpetuate these schemes. As with its sister title, this book’s entries are all born out of the ravings of real world conspiracy circles and real world organizations that said conspiracy circles have exacerbated into fictional uber-entities with sinister plans.

What’s the Layout?

As with the other title, 100 Conspirators doesn’t have proper chapters so much as one-page entries for each of the conspiratous organizations/entities. Each entry is divided up into the name and number of the conspirator(s), a general description of the group, a section on their methods and methodology, a list of the conspiracies from 100 Conspiracies the group is likely to perpetuate, three adventure seeds like those in the sister book, and sometimes tips on particular media to look at for more tips on playing the conspirator.

What are the Contents?

Unlike the somewhat helter-skelter nature of the contents of the sister book, the conspiratous organizations in this title are in alphabetical order, from the 1001 Club (conspiracy #1) all the way down to the Zionists (#100). In between, you have all sorts of infamous conspiratous groups such as angels (#5) and demons (#24), environmentalists (#29), Gray aliens (#34), David Icke’s infamous “Invisible Space Lizards” (#43), prescients (#66), Templars (#81), and vampires (#94).

How’s the Execution?

Honestly, I’d have to say that the execution of 100 Conspirators is somewhat weaker than its sibling. While the ideas are again mostly really well thought out and capable of inspiring your own gaming thoughts, it also has more than its fair share of redundant entries. For instance, both the rather specific Anonymous (#8) and the more vague ‘Internet Cabal’ (#41) entries basically fall under the same idea, and entries for sub-organizations of larger organizations can also be found sprinkled throughout. There are also some rather superfluous entries. The most egregious one would have to be the Patriarchy (conspirator #): it only has one listed conspiracy – election fixing, if you were curious –and is written with the pretentious idea that we somehow have reached a post-sexist society, even going so far as to have a “tip” that the author somehow believes this is an extremely implausible conspiratous organization on par with aliens and supernatural entities.

Pros and Cons/Final Thoughts

As with its sister book, let’s cut right to the chase on what to think of this title.

Pros

• The same as its sister book, really.

Cons

• Again, the same cons as its sister book.
• Cases of apparent redundancy and “micro” organizations where more prolific ones could have been inserted.

A little below 100 Conspiracies, the book 100 Conspirators shares many of both the beneficial traits and flaws while managing to fall just a little short of its own sibling. My verdict is a stamp of 7/10.

I’d actually been meaning to do a review of such a title for a while, but the logistics of trying to keep such a review in a roleplaying game context and not stray into just a generic book review was somewhat difficult. I think I’ve finally found a generic (if sometimes somewhat brief) system that works for such reviews, however, so let’s get our tinfoil reading caps out to look at the book 100 Conspiracies from Postmortem Studios.

What’s The Gist?

100 Conspiracies is, as its name rather obviously implies, a book of 100 conspiracies you can use in your own conspiracy-driven, urban fantasy, dark horror, occult, espionage, etc. games. The author has combed pretty much every corner of the credulous world, from paranoid screeds of the religious right and racial supremacy groups to the infamous “truthers” and the offbeat ramblings of David Icke. No real world conspiracy stone is left unturned, no matter how ugly it is, and thus you have a wide variety of conspiracies that may or may not exist in your own game’s world.

What’s the Layout?

The book has no real chapters to speak of, instead having each conspiracy on a single page of the title. On each of these pages, the conspiracy is divided up into several header-bearing sections: the name and conspiracy number, a general overview of the conspiracy, a section on how the conspiracy is implemented, a section on how the conspiracy benefits the individuals plotting it out, a list of possible conspirators that are putting the plan into action taken from a sister book entitled 100 Conspirators (we’ll get to that later), and three different adventure hooks that range from playing the conspiracy straight to wildly subverting it.

What are the Contents?

Well, as I said before, all of the conspiracies in this book are taken from the world around us, and have all been spoken of and dubiously given as fact by at least one person or group at one point in history. The sheer variety of conspiracies is what probably will be the biggest selling point, though. While author James Desborough’s own biases and leanings do shine through the text at moments, he has nevertheless gone whole hog on the range of conspiracies at hand. A very small handful of the conspiracies discussed include 9/11 conspiracies (conspiracy #2 of 100), a living Elvis (conspiracy #25), Holocaust denial (conspiracy #41), crazy conspiracy tales about President Obama (conspiracy #71), a coverup of the real author of Shakespeare’s plays (conspiracy #87), and Matrix-style reality conspiracies (conspiracy #100).

How’s the Execution?

As you can tell by a few of the entries listed above, the author isn’t afraid to tread on sharp-edged ground while writing up examples of the most out there and sometimes bigoted and hateful conspiracy theories that exist. He’s also rather clever about actually figuring out how conspiracies would work out and how to implement them into your game, especially with the adventure hooks. A good example would be conspiracy #65, the New Coke conspiracy (yes, this of all things is one of the ideas that have been thrown around by conspiracy theorists). In the section, Desborough manages to actually make some very frightening adventure hooks, including a new soda flavor being used to smuggle a passivity drug by the conspirators and the idea of multiple corporations working together to have their products become a frightening sedative and carcinogen. Personally, though, I think the supernatural conspiracies such as Bigfoot and kin as the creation or tool of a conspiracy (#11), holes to the underworld (#21), and supernatural energy sources (#72).

How Well Does it Fit?

Now here’s the big question: just what can 100 Conspiracies do for your game? Well, plenty, really. While a large chunk of the conspiracy theories in this title are almost tailor-made for government and techno-conspiracy games such as Spycraft and Paranoia, there’s a little bit of something for everyone. The roleplaying games that will definitely benefit the most are the “kitchen sink” conspiracy settings where the occult, the government, and the alien all intermingle, such as the GURPS setting Black Ops, the Unisystem setting Conspiracy X, or our old system-crossing friend Dark*Matter.

Pros and Cons/Final Thoughts

Now that we’ve looked at the workings of this title, let’s just lay the cards down on the table and look at the boons and banes of this trippy little title.

Pros

• Lots of conspiracies across wide categories.
• Al of the conspiracies are espoused by real world conspiracy theorists, meaning that if you are willing to get your figurative hands dirty you can delve into the realms of madness and find even more game ideas.
• Even if a particular conspiracy is one that you don’t want to be real in your setting, there’s always the chance to use it as a subversion or a smokescreen that conspiracy theorists in the setting speak of while ignoring the real conspiracies.
• Well thought out sections on how a conspiracy could be implemented and how it would benefit the conspirators.

Cons

• Lots of sensitive topics earn this book a trigger warning. If you don’t wan to read about Holocaust denial or racist conspiracy theories surrounding fried chicken, then don’t pick this title up…or at the very least be prepared to skip some of the pages.
• Not a book for you if you actually believe in what the author dubs “paranoid conspiracy theories” as a specific term for the types of conspiracy detailed in this title.
• Also not a book for you if you can’t stomach dry British snark.
• Unless you are willing to do the extra leg work, you more or less really need the companion book 100 Conspirators, which we will be reviewing next time.

So, all in all, what can one say about 100 Conspiracies? Well, for all its steps into uncomfortable and pants-on-head crazy territory in order to bring a wide variety of real world conspiracy theories to your gaming table, you can’t really deny that the book has a cornucopia of different conspiracy subjects and thought put into it. At the same time, the writing style of the book, the contents, and the fact that it is somewhat co-dependent on another system neutral book drags down the score a little bit. It is thus that I believe that 100 Conspiracies solidly deserves an 8/10.

With a relatively recent film – Disney’s John Carter – made out of A Princess of Mars, the first of Edgar Rice Burrough’s old classical Barsoom series, you might say that a review of a Martian roleplaying game with heavy ties to Barsoom might be making an attack of opportunity. You’d be right in saying that, of course, but I’m doing it anyway. It’s time to review Mars: A Roleplaying Game of Planetary Romance (hereafter referred to as MARG, for Mars: A Roleplaying Game), a d20 Modern campaign toolkit created by Adamant Entertainment.

For Barsoom Alvalia!

While the first Barsoom novels are indeed completely public domain, it is worthy of noting that this book is not specifically a Barsoom setting so much as an amalgamation of tropes gathered from the various reflections of the “planetary romance” genre. And what better company to cover such an amalgamation than Adamant Entertainment? After all, planetary romance is a sub-genre in both Victorian and pulp fiction, and Adamant has covered both – Victorian fiction with its Imperial Age series (the bestiary of which I reviewed back in March of 2009; apologies for the primitive nature of those posts compared to my more modern blog entries) and pulp fiction with its Thrilling Tales series (whose omnibus edition I also reviewed, in January of 2009). The Mars of MARG is pretty much the classical interpretation you’d expect, being a dying, arid world with mysterious ancient ruins, distant polar forests, and those ever-present canals. It is ruled by the Red Men, who are the Red Martians of Barsoom right down to being humans-that-are-actually-monotremes-for-some-reason, with the exotic places of the world being divided up amongst other beings born of the red planet. All of these species are detailed in the character creation chapter right after the introduction to MARG’s Mars, so let’s make haste and look at those.

“Red, Green…I’m the Guy With the Ray Gun”

The division of Martians based upon color is very much a Barsoomian homage, and for players this means you have a choice between several disparate cultures. Let’s make a quick rundown of the list of Martian species presented with species traits, shall we?

Red Man: As I said above, the Red Men are direct expies of Barsoom’s Red Martians. They are pretty much the most average of the player species, having no ability score modifiers, bonus feat count and skill point allocation as per humans, and a minor bonus to Fortitude saves against blindness and eye damage. Indeed, the Red Martians are more human than the humans for MARG, as we’ll find out when we cover our favorite Earthlings further down.

Green Man: As with the Red Men and Barsoom’s Red Martians, the Green Men are fairly close to the Green Martians (also known as the Tharks) of Barsoom. Like their Burroughs-crafted forerunners, the Green Men are nomadic barbarians with vaguely insectoid heads and tusks, leathery green skin, and a height that dwarfs humans and Red Martians. The only major difference is that the Green Men don’t have the four arms of the Tharks, though even that could be quickly changed with the Four Arms trait from d20 Future. A Green Man player is pretty much almost always likely to be a melee fighter; while they have a bonus to Intimidate and Survival checks and a positive ability modifier to Strength and Constitution, but suffer an ability modifier penalty to Dexterity and Intelligence and a net penalty to Charisma-based skills other than Intimidate when dealing with species other than their own.

White Ape: Now here we have a detour from Burroughs’ work, to say the least. While the great white apes of Barsoom are feral, four-armed beasts that are the apex predators of their domain, the White Apes of MARG owe more to Planet of the Apes than anything else. Militaristic, expansionist, and brutal, the White Apes have ability score modifiers that produce a bonus to Strength at the cost of Wisdom and Charisma, thick fur that resists the cold, and prehensile feet.

Grey Man: The Grey Men are another entity that owes its existence to a piece of fiction beyond Barsoom – namely, the famous “prophet of science fiction”, H.G. Wells. Gray Men are cephalopods taken from War of the Worlds, even having nightmarish tripod walkers that sweep the lands around the entrances of their subterranean realms. Grey Men are also, for the most part, meant to be an NPC species, being a heartless breed of creatures that do nothing quite as well as they do ethnic purges of their home in the “Grey Wastes” of far Mars. Their single-mindedness and impersonal methodology cause them to suffer plenty of penalties to subjects of physical exertion and interaction, and being of the Aberration creature type doesn’t help their playability either.

Synthe-Man: The synthe-men are vat-grown clones that maintain the canals of Mars. Like the Grey Men, the synthe-men are more of an NPC species for adventures focused around the canals, with penalties to creativity-related tasks, an inability to take ranks in cross-class skills or feats designated as being outside of the portfolio of their assigned task, and a penalty to the ability score least related to their assigned task.

Earthman: Ah, yes, the people of the little blue dot. Earthmen, Earthlings, Terrans, humans, people…whatever you call them, they happen to get to Mars as well. And with bonuses, at that! Humans in MARG actually get a Level Adjustment from being able to attain special abilities on Mars that they don’t have on Earth, from as increased Massive Damage Threshold to “Mighty Thews” (a trait that basically lets you emulate John Carter’s granted Martian abilities).

Classy Martians Performing Feats of Daring-Do

MARG is, as I mentioned, a d20 Modern-based book. This means that characters start with the six d20 Modern base classes of Strong Hero, Fast Hero, Tough Hero, Smart Hero, Dedicated Hero, and Charismatic Hero. Interestingly enough, each of the base classes gets a new talent tree that is MARG-specific, which is always a good thing. The Strong Hero gets the Mighty Leaper talent tree to increase their jumping prowess by leaps and bounds, the Fast Hero has the Acrobatic tree to gain more fancy evasion and movement in combat, the Tough Hero attains various ways to beat the harsh wilderness through the talents of the Survivalist tree, the Smart Hero gets better with Knowledge skills via the Forgotten Lore tree, the Dedicated Hero gets the ability to work better with and even sacrifice themselves for a cause of zealous favor via the Devotion tree, and the Charismatic Hero gets dodging and stunning abilities with the Panache tree. There are also two new starting occupations – Canalier and Tribal, to be specific – but they are straightforward enough that it’s not really worth putting that many words toward them when you can figure out the premise yourself.

As for skills and feats, there are obviously some changes and additions. For instance, the Computer Use skill gains a new use in MARG – namely, the ability to basically forecast some of the future through complex predictions of ancient Martian supercomputers. As for feats, most of them are related to old school swordplay of parrying, dodging, and fancy tricks. My favorite would have to be Sword and Blaster, a feat that allows a character to be adept at wielding a laser radium pistol in one hand and a sword in the other during combat.

Last, but not least, are new advanced classes. Like there would be a campaign toolkit or setting without them. They are all pretty standard archetypes for the genre – the Brute Warrior (your standard raging, grit-through-the-pain barbarian types), Inventor (mad scientists with abilities focused on invention), Noble (aristocrats with Wealth bonuses, entourages, and political clout), Nomad (survivalists), and Sky Corsair (an advanced class with, suprise surprise, abilities related to increasing capability with airships). None of them seem quite overpowered or underpowered, and have their functions within the planetary romance setting of MARG. What is notable about them, however, is something that is also notable about the reprinted base classes: a Defense split. Rather than being a singular statistic, Defense is split up into Dodge Defense and Parry Defense. Dodge Defense is your standard d20-style Dexterity-based Defense, while Parry Defense is based on a character’s Strength score and reflects shoving away attacks to avoid them rather than being more fleet of foot. While I must confess I’d personally suggest such a Defense variation being selected via feat rather than splitting up the system, it seems to work well enough for what it is, and may appeal to those that find standard d20 combat too simplistic.

Things to Hit and Other Things to Hit With

MARG’s equipment section actually begins with a section on armor that adds more new rules variations. You see, armor in MARG has two things that standard d20 Modern armor does not. The first of these is that armor provides Damage Reduction; since I’ve gone over “armor = DR” before, though, I won’t retread my feelings on that matter. What I will note is the other facet of MARG armor: namely, that it limits your maximum Base Attack Bonus. Seriously. It seems to be a rule crafted to enforce a general disdain of armor and thus reinforce the planetary romance genre motif that is often referred to as “swords and sandals”, but I can’t honestly say I’m a huge fan of it. Still, if it’s your cup of tea, feel free to check out the idea. As for weapons, they too have a new rule with the Armor Piercing statistic. A weapon’s Armor Piercing number is added to a character’s Strength modifier, and if the number exceeds the amount of Damage Reduction a piece of armor has, the Damage Reduction is effectively halved against attacks by that weapons – in other words, yet another enforced penalty for armor users. It also has the side-effect of making the Red Martians the most appealing species, as they have both the best Damage Reduction-to-BAB ratio in their armor and access to the high-Armor Piercing ray gun radium firearms.

There are also “weird science” devices, which are basically a technological equivalent of magical item special qualities. Characters with one of the mad science talents of the new Smart Hero talent tree or with levels in the Inventor advanced class get Design Points that they can funnel toward altering weapons or armor with qualities such as nausea induction or holographic fields, or decide to go whole hog and invent a device, weapon, or armor from scratch at the cost of more Design Points than they would expend to simply modify an existing piece of equipment. The chapter segmen that gives us weird science also has notes on “FX” powers; to make a long story short, however, I’ll just say that psionics are somewhat suggested while magic is given a hearty “no, it doesn’t really fit. Don’t think about it. Just trust us. …What, you still want Martian magic? Fine, it’s the work of the Elder Gods, and the evil Gray Martians are the ones that have pacts with them. Good luck, sucker”.

To the Skies!

Ah, yes, airships of Mars. They are quite the popular addition to settings based around pulp interpretations of the red planet, and they are indeed given their own chapter in MARG. Rather than using the existing d20 Modern vehicle rules, though, airships are something quite unique unto themselves. And when I say unique, I really mean it…like, hodgepodge unique. MARG’s airships seem to fuse together a hybrid of vehicle baselines, golem statistics, and d20 Future’s starship rules. This isn’t a bad thing, mind you, it just makes airships rather hard to classify. I’d say they are rather solid on the rules front, even if I think just making them an extension of existing aircraft rules might have made more sense.

Martian Fauna

An item that is last, but not least, worthy of mention is a little bestiary. As you know, bestiaries are an easy way to get to my soft side, and MARG doesn’t disappoint. While there are only six new creatures (none of which are directly drawn from Barsoom), this is made up for by the amount of love and attention each creature is given, as well as a section on old school D&D critters that make good Martian denizens and the best thing of all: a “Marsifier”. The “Marsifier” is a big ol’ segment with tables and special qualities to roll up transformations of a regular d20 Modern creature into a Martian entity, from type changes and movement type alterations to unusual hides and strange powers. There’s even an example given of multiple rolls to transform the standard d20 Modern stats for our favorite friend Tyrannosaurus rex into the mighty ghorvak, a swift, flying, armor-plated, frill-necked terror that hunts the Martian mountains.

Final Thoughts

So, there we have it. Well…most of it, at least, as I didn’t cover certain things such as Martian adventure ideas and other less review-centric things. Still, we’ve now covered the big notes of MARG. Does it do a good job of capturing the planetary romance genre? Yes. Are there good new rules? Yes. Could it be meshed in with other d20 Modern books? Hell yes! Right off the bat, I could think of meshing it with its siblings – melding with the Imperial Age line for more human options in a full-on Barsoom tales experience or possibly a War of the Worlds-style invasion of Victorian England or a fusion with the Thrilling Tales line to create a Flash Gordon-type campaign. The only real sticking points with meshing are the armor and Armor Piercing rules and the altered Defense statistics, but even those can be either ignored entirely or meshed into other d20 Modern titles. Thus, while you may not like all of it, anyone wanting a good Martian sourcebook will find something to love in this title. I give MARG a final score of 9/10.

It turns out that I’m not really good at obligations, especially with my grandmother’s health continuing in a downward spiral from lung cancer to radiation-caused pneumonia-like illness and further. Who would have thought? So yeah, don’t expect me to post any particular thing any particular time, I’ll most likely do as I wish, and maybe this time I’ve learned my lesson on stating I will work on a particular thing for this blog. Still, I do have at least one thing planned out, but I shan’t set a date for it lest I fail to hit that date again.

Anyway, since it’s been so long since my last post, I figured I’d give you at least a little something. As such, here are some photos of aged structures, abandoned locations, and general roadside oddities from my state of Louisiana. Enjoy. Click on the images for a better full-view look.

A vine-etched wall in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

An old plantation-style home in Plaquemine, Louisiana

A rather offbeat house in Gonzales, Louisiana

A centerpiece statue at the Oakley Plantation in St. Francisville, Louisiana

A rusty leveeside corrugated iron shed in Donaldsonville, Louisiana

Vintage vehicles at the Oak Alley Plantation in Vacherie, Louisiana

An abandoned attempt at a water park near Lafayette, Louisiana

With video gaming, other projects besides the Arkadenverse, taking care of my grandmother’s health issues, and my readthrough of Like Lambs to the Slaughter (which will no longer be on a weekly schedule; sorry, I tried to keep myself on a set schedule, but trying to tie myself to one just makes it feel like work), I haven’t exactly made huge leaps and bounds on any Arkadenverse sourcebooks. Still, I wanted to give something, so I thought to those PDFs with a handful of entries, typically 10 to 13, that are put out by various companies. And you know what? I decided to try one myself!

So, for the 12 fey of Christmas, my PDF gives to thee…

*The asrai, a graceful water spirit of the United Kingdom.

*The barbegazi of the Swiss Alps, a strange frosty gnome with massive feet.

*The baobhan sith, a beautiful but deadly vampiric Unseelie fey.

*The changeling, a sickly replacement for people that are “faerie-taken”.

*The rude and crude clurichaun, a relative of the leprechaun that gains power from magical brews.

*The daoine sidhe, haughty remnants of the mighty kingdom of the Tuatha Dé Danann.

*The grindylow, a far-reaching kidnapper found in English waterways.

*The infamous man-eating kelpie of the Scottish lochs.

*The treasure-hungry korred, a brutish and unkempt fey of Celtic lore that guards the wealth and riches of times long past.

*The nain rouge, an impish creature that torments humans during blizzards.

*Unseelie Creature, a template bestowed upon those that are marked with the power of the king of the Unseelie Court himself.

*The urisk, a tiny craftsman fey with a dark side.

So, download Winter Faerieland: 12 Fey of the Northlands to your heart’s content, and if you like the idea of these little “one shot PDFs” to tide between my admittedly very slow release schedule of larger things, feel free to comment on it.

Now that Like Lambs to the Slaughter has dedicated a chapter on “the Humanist Conspiracy” to the supposed evils of education, it’s only fitting that this chapter, “Your Teacher the Occultist?” is less about teaching and more about piling blame on clinical psychology on the rise of the occult.

Before I go into this chapter in earnest, though, I’d like to share a personal story. As some of you reading this know, I suffer from Asperger’s Syndrome, bipolar disorder, and several other mental illnesses. As some more of you know, I was raised in a decidedly fundamentalist family. While my parents eventually sort of came around to the fact that I had a medical condition, that doesn’t mean they completely abandoned the archaic outlook that mental diseases are actually the manifestations of demons (now, it’s just conveniently relegated to “those evil people”, because the “good” ones with mental disease wouldn’t have any demons), or the thought that prayer can make your mental conditions all better if you try hard enough.

This is especially relevant in a friend-of-a-friend story my great uncle once told about a woman who starved herself to death after her marriage began to fall apart. Supposedly, her anorexia nervosa was actually being transferred through a dream catcher that she had in her room, which held “Indian demons”. Yes, really. You may take a moment to facepalm, and any Native Americans in the audience can take another moment to calm down after such a mind-searingly stupid comment about you.

Moment(s) taken? Good. Let’s get to the actual start of this chapter.

“Imagine, if you will, a place where you can learn astrology, Yoga, numerology, the basics of color healing, and ESP; a place where you are led into guided-imagery fantasy trips and visualization techniques that help you contact your higher self and your spirit guide”

-Like Lambs to the Slaughter; Chapter 3, pg. 33

Yeah, that place is called psychotropic substances. Your point?

“No, you have not been reading a sylabbus for a seminar at your local ashram or occult center.”

-Like Lambs to the Slaughter; Chapter 3, pg. 33

Louisiana doesn’t have many local “occult centers”, but it’s not hard to go only a few blocks and bump into yet another Christian church!

“These practices, along with endless variations on the theme, were indeed once relegated to the misty abodes of shamans, Yogis, wizards, witches, magicians, mediums, witch doctors, and other assorted occultists. Today, however, in more ‘enlightened’ times, they have become the raging vogue in public schools in every state and in virtually every community around the country.”

-Like Lambs to the Slaughter; Chapter 3, pg. 33 and 34

I’d have to call bullshit on that. I doubt any red states, or even many blue states, had or have such curriculum in public schools. There are some individuals that are pushing their religious beliefs on the education system, though…they’re called dominionists.

“The news shouldn’t come as any major shock, since those practices have been going on for the last 15 or 20 years now. All the teachers are doing is applying the latest innovations in the field of psychology to their classrooms.”

-Like Lambs to the Slaughter; Chapter 3, pg. 34

…What.

Okay, let’s examine the things you claimed were once “misty abodes”.

Shamans? An insanely large amount of practices. All religious, not psychological.

Yogis? A yoga practicioner, or a monk in a religion seen by the speakers of Urdu (the language that yogi comes from). Religious (though yoga has become secularized somewhat in the USA), not psychological.

Witches, wizards, and magicians? Granny Weatherwax, Harry Dresden, and Penn and Teller. Supernatural story folk and users of sleight of hand, not psychological (except in the last case, I guess).

Mediums? Spirit speakers. Contacted by King Saul in the Bible and con artists and urban fantasy fodder in the modern day, not psychological.

Witch doctors? Herbalists and faith healers. Includes members of your own religion, Michaelsen, and not psychological.

See a pattern here? Yeah…

“Humanists have worked long and hard for over 150 years to insure their domination of the public school system. They see their philosophies as the salvation of the world – the solution to all our social ills.”

-Like Lambs to the Slaughter; Chapter 2., pg. 17

150 years? But I thought America has been a Christian nation since the dawn of time! *Faux shock*

Interestingly enough, if we go to to the exact date of “150 years ago” for the time of this book’s publishing, we’re in 1839. What events do we have that year? Hmmm. A fair amount of educational facilities open, including the first west of the Mississippi. Women get to own property by law for the first time in the United States. The Faraday papers on the nature of electricity are published. Cell theory is developed. Charles Darwin put out his narrative of the Beagle voyage.

…Yeah, I’m noticing a pattern. Interesting how a year that is such a watershed for science and equality is the one Michaelsen points at accusingly as the beginnings of the “humanist conspiracy”.

“For decades now the Humanists have used the classrooms of this country as their personal pulpits and seminaries for the propagation of their atheistic, socialistic beliefs. In the 1960′s especially there was an influx of humanistic programs presented as ‘alternatives’ to the ‘oppressive’ educational system of the day (i.e., reading, writing, and arithmetic are such a bore!).”

-Like Lambs to the Slaughter; Chapter 2., pg. 17

Wow. Atheism, socialism, and scare quotes? We have Religious Jingo BINGO!

Also, yeah, humanists totally hate reading, writing, and arithmetic. That’s why they try to spread education so far, to quell it! …Wait, what?

Oh, but the religious jingoism gets worse (all of the following from pg. 18)!

“As a result, many of our children now know all about how corpses are embalmed, and many have written their own obituaries or suicide notes as class assignments.”

What? When?

“They have pooled their collective ignorance on ‘relevant’ subjects ranging from nuclear war to homosexuality, euthanasia to birth control – all in the name of ‘clarifying’ their values and morals.”

‘Conform! Conform! After all, the next generation are just stupid kids. What would they know about marriage equality, birth control, and the dangerous of nuclear disasters?’

And the humanists are supposed to be the ones harming our youth…

“They’ve learned all about sexuality and pornography in their sex ed. classes.”

Gasp! Our children know what reproductive functions are! It’s the apocalypse!

“They know all about the occult and Witches, werewolves, astrology, Ouija boards, the Great Spirit, and the Mother Goddess.”

Because…humanism is occultist? Yeah, I’m sure Richard Dawkins walks around with a few Ouija boards in his backpack, just in case he might get a strange vibe from the ghost of Charles Darwin on how to fulfill the “conspiracy”.

“They know that to mention the Bible, God, and especially Jesus of Nazareth on a public school campus is to risk being sued by the ACLU.”

Because the ACLU totally never supports Christians (hint: they actually do).

And that’s the chapter! Okay, yes, there are a few more pages, but they’re basically repeating the same points, just slotting in different buzzwords such as “Naziism”, “Soviet Union”, and “Red China”. Since this was back when the Soviet Union existed, and we were at odds with Eastasia China, it’s not surprising to see those words used to invoke the boogeyman of a “humanist conspiracy” taking over the schools from Good Traditional Values Teachers™.

Gag.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Next time, we start chapter 3, “Your Teacher the Occultist?”, wherein more anti-education blather is vomited forth.

“Literally millions of people are involved in a desperate search for spiritual reality, and it seems most of them don’t much care what the source of it is or where they find it just so long as it’s ‘real’. They are sick to death of the dry and empty ritual, the unspeakable hypocrisy, and the suffocating legalism that characterizes so many of our churches today. And yet something deep within them yearns to be filled with the presence of God – not the God of the Bible, whom they have learned to despise and ridicule, but a God more to their own liking and understanding, a God who would just as soon be called ‘Goddess’ or ‘The Universal Energy’, and who promises them unlimited knowledge, power, and even the ultimate fulfillment of personal divinity.”

-Like Lambs to the Slaughter, Chapter 1, pg. 10

Why, the “everyone has a Jesus-shaped hole inside” canard, of course! And on top of that, the canard of “if you aren’t a Real True Christian like our denomination above all others, you must hate God!” Yeah…no, that’s not how it goes. You wanna know how it really goes?

It goes from a childhood of being shovel-fed fundamentalist eschatology to the eventual realization that the boogeymen in the closet and the evil Others are actually just like you. It goes from being treated as a religious affiliation rather than a person but loved for it, to being ostracized once that tribal banner is taken down off its flag pole. It goes from jaw-chattering fright of being left alone without warning due to the thoughts that you might have offended Jesus enough to not be Raptured, to growing up and fighting tooth and nail to attempt to make your mark on the world a more progressive and positive one. It’s not about the deity, Michaelsen, it’s about the people. People like my parents, who I still love in spite of their disdain for my very being. People like my old church of yore, who only recently got around to taking in interracial couples. People like you, who preach hellfire and damnation from children’s fiction as if God is a weak edifice whose ass could be handed to him by Isis and Odin if he doesn’t get enough praise. That is how it goes.

And furthermore, as a fan of researching mythology, including its various deific figures, which goddess are you talking about here? Gaia, the Earth Mother? Pacha Mama, the other Earth Mother? Isis, the bringer of life and magic? Mariaamman, the source of both live-giving rain and death-dealing pestilence? Amaterasu, she who shines from the heavens? Come now, be a bit more specific! Oh, that’s right, they’re all “Others”, so it doesn’t matter much which one you mean, does it?

This becomes especially clear in the next segment of chapter 1. Michaelsen goes on to denigrate “Eastern mysticism” and “the occult” as the Others.

“What was once the squalling infant of the hippie era is growing up fast. The New Age Movement is spreading its roots into every facet of our society. Housewives can’t even get out of their local supermarkets without running the gauntlet of magazines and weekly periodicals heralding the latest information on channelers, psychic healers, gurus, astrologers, etc”

-Like Lambs to the Slaughter, Chapter 1, pg. 11

Okay, so, it’s all the fault of Those Damn Dirty Hippies? The Babylonian astrologers of old, Hindu gurus, occultists of the Victorian era, and plenty of others would disagree with you. What makes this section even more amusing is that Michaelsen manages to get so close to realizing that the “New Age movement” is actually an eclectic holding title for various spiritual movements, only to completely drop the ball with this statement:

“Still, as long as you don’t believe in sin or the basic sin-nature of man, Satan, the virgin birth, the exclusive deity of Christ, heaven or hell, or anything that smacks of Fundamentalist, it’s even okay to be ‘Christian’. The New Age is the ultimate eclectic religion of self.”

-Like Lambs to the Slaughter, Chapter 1, pg. 11

…Okaaaaay. First off, you’re equating Christianity with fundieism. Second, you’re claiming that people that don’t believe in Christ claim to be Christians. Third….no belief in Satan? In “New Age” and occultism? The same occultism that, long ago, drew upon the Ars Goetia and the Dukes and other Rulers of Hell?

Oh, and the whole comments on virgin birth and heaven and hell always being Christian tenets. She must spontaneously combust upon hearing about the Cathars and adoptionist sects.

Leading into the tail part of our first chapter, Michaelsen finally gets into the “seduction of the innocent” portion of the book. And what is the sinister Gay Occult Agenda doing to instill this EBUL FALSITY into our culture (all of the next unlabeled quotes from chapter 1, page 13)?

“Saturday morning cartoons are proving to toddlers that ‘I AM THE POWER!’”

Ahem. That’s “I have the power”.

“They are told that there are ‘good’ sorceresses and Witches and shamans and wizards who have access to untold power”

Yep, they’re taught that now. Just like they were taught by that most evil anti-Christian man of all, J.R.R. Tolkien. Oh wait.

“and that telepathy and telekinesis (and those words are the exact ones used) are normal and useful abilities to cultivate”.

They’re referred to as telepathy and telekinesis because that’s the actual damn terminology. Also, since when have psionic powers been normal in children’s shows? Psions and the like are typically only one member of the Hero Band, villains, or strange Others that exist outside of the main cast.

“In Gifted-and-Talented programs childrens are given projects dealing with Ouijia boards – how to build them and use them, how to read palms, and how to be like ‘amazing Mr. Hughes’, who helps policemen find missing bodies.”

Yes, because my gifted teachers didn’t give us strategy games and science books. They totally gave us novelty pieces of wood with letters on them to fool around with and imagine we could talk to the unquiet dead.

Only they didn’t do that at all.

Furthermore, the hell is with the Amazing Mr. Hughes comment? Is she talking about Howard Hughes? If so, when did seers and ouijia boards get into the picture? Google’s not helping me out on this one. Anyone in the comments who can enlighten me should please do so, as in all of my paranormal studies for my urban fantasy campaign setting you can find up at the top of the page here, I’ve never come across anything about Howard Hughes being a Harry Dresden-esque magical detective. Moving on, though…

“Despite overwhelming documentations of suicides and murders associated with it, Dungeons and Dragons now has a special edition of their ‘game’ especially designs for use in school.”

This section of the chapter had to go there. I’m on this quote like a bulette on a gnome buffet. I know it was the 80s, but really, you brought out the D&D suicide bullshit? That’s not “overwhelmingly documented”, it’s based on flimsy so-so stories equivalent to those blaming video games for school shootings, and has been debunked by far better people than myself.

The chapter ends off with the claim that there is a One World Religion and One World Government coming, and it’s “New Ageism”. Given the stubbornness of Christian nationalists and other fundamentalists of various religions, I somehow doubt we’re getting a One-New-Age-Order from this supposed occult illuminati. This section also has the perfect quote to end on, and one that is a phrase most of you fundy-bloggers have seen before.

“I believe we are living in the end times.”

-Like Lambs to the Slaughter, Chapter 1, pg. 14

End Times indeed. You fear that He-Man Horseman and the plagues of Smurfollyon. Meanwhile, here on the brink of 2012, we’re still doing pretty good on having a world divided by hatred rather than together by love, much less into a singular world government.

Next time, we’ll be entering Chapter 2: The Humanist Conspiracy. Be afraid, be very very afraid (and befuddled).