HO! HO! WHOA!!!: THE BIZARRE ORIGINS OF CHRISTMAS

"BLUE" JIMMY:  CHRISTMAS CELEBRANT

BLIND DOG OZZY:  NEUROTIC CHIHUAHUA

"BLUE" JIMMY:  The pagan origins of Christmas are well established if you dig deep enough.  Almost every single Christmas tradition we have such as gift giving, the Christmas tree and Santa Claus have strange origins in ancient, pre-Christian traditions which are not always so warm and nice and having-eggnog-by-the-Christmas-tree cheerful.

BD OZZY:  Do I still get presents?!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Yeah, why not!  But lets find out where these traditions came from.  Apparently, people in the ancient Western World liked to party and being close to nature, would celebrate the beginning of every season as well as honoring any god or deity associated with that season.  So of course, the Winter solstice was one of those party occasions that the ancients celebrated and with it came many of the Christmas traditions, symbols and objects that we still use today such as the Christmas tree, the yule log, mistletoe, holiday wreaths, gift giving, merry making and a host of other customs which alarm the living s**t out of many Christian people who have spent much time producing articles, books and videos that condemn the pagan origins of this godforsaken holiday.  Such was the fervor of early Christmas celebrants that people sought to pass laws against celebrating Christmas for fear that it was just an excuse to engage in all sorts of un-Christianlike debauchery.

BD OZZY:  Like getting drunk in your underwear and yelling "GO LAKERS!" through your guitar amp pointed at the neighbor's window?

"BLUE" JIMMY:  OK, let's not get into that...

BD OZZY:  And that time with the blow-up doll...

"BLUE" JIMMY:  OK, back to the story.  One of the craziest theories about Christmas I ever heard is the idea that the custom of having a tree and brightly wrapped presents underneath derives from the fact that in the wild, hallucinogenic Amanita Muscaria mushrooms grow underneath pine trees.  These "magic mushrooms" are bright red and white in color and the Siberian shamans who would go out and harvest them would dress in red and white fur-lined robes and put them in sacks and would then deliver them to people by climbing down the smokestack of people's huts since their doors were covered with snow.  People would then hang these mushrooms about their house to dry like decorations and then when they would eat them they would be in a well, festive mood.  Reindeer would also eat these mushrooms out in the wild and would behave in a jolly manner and would have the sensation of flying. 

BD OZZY:  Wait, all this sounds familiar!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  You bet it does!  And then there's the theory that S-A-N-T-A is an anagram of the word S-A-T-A-N.

BD OZZY:  Oh, S**T!!!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Go and do the research, there's a lot more to Christmas than most people think.  But whatever the true origins of Christmas are, it's evolved to the point where most people just see it as a time of year to be good to one another -- and with all the hate in the world these days, I'm all for that, brother.  Happy Holidays, peoples!  Go out and do something good for someone.

BD OZZY:  Amen! 

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Sake's Alive!


BD OZZY:  Wow!  Wow!
bluejames61@hotmail.com

DREAMS OF HELL: THE STRANGE WORKS OF H.P. LOVECRAFT

"BLUE" JIMMY:  LOVECRAFT CRITIC

BLIND DOG OZZY:  NEUROTIC CHIHUAHUA

BD OZZY:  WOOOOOOO!!!  I like how at Halloween time, people like to read scary stories.

"BLUE" JIMMY  Then you pee yourself and go hide under the bed.

BD OZZY:  Wha..?

"BLUE" JIMMY:  And I have to leave the light on for you.

BD OZZY: Not true!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  I remember as a kid I was always disappointed by the "... in the old house a mysterious woman in white was seen floating up the stairway ..." type of silly Victorian ghost stories.

BD OZZY:  You'd read through a phone book thick, old, dusty novel just to find out at the end that a dead woman came back from beyond to visit her heartbroken lover -- sucks!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Then in high school, I discovered books by H.P. Lovecraft and no, they didn't change my life.  I couldn't understand a goddamned thing he was writing about.  My literary knowledge extended only to about Mad Magazine level and my knowledge of The World and The Occult was in its infancy.  But the thing is, I knew that he knew something and that was enough to keep me fascinated.  It wasn't until after college that I realized what an incredible mind Lovecraft possessed -- or maybe it was the other way 'round -- perhaps his mind possessed him.  From the biographies that I've read, Lovecraft was not a particularly religious or spiritual or mystical man.  He didn't belong to any cult or brotherhood or secret society.  Yet his bizarre stories which were mostly published in pulp horror magazines such as Weird Tales display a view of the world and the universe far removed from the people of his time.  The idea that there lie on this planet, undiscovered ancient civilizations far older than anything recorded by written history, the idea that humans have had contact with alien beings from other planets, the idea that there are other dimensions unseen by the denizens of our own, the idea that the earth was ruled by other things other than humans and the idea that humans are small and insignificant beings in a cruel and evil universe are concepts that must've thoroughly f***ed with the minds of gentle readers of his time. 

BD OZZY:  Some writers on esoteric subjects have alleged that Lovecraft had access to forbidden documents or secret libraries and others have said that he was using his subconscious mind to tap into other realms to bring back these hellish visions which he would then write about -- damn!

"BLUE"  JIMMY:  Whatever the case may be, it's safe to say that he was in a "different" state of mind when he wrote stories like "The Call of Cthulhu"  and "At The Mountains of Madness"  as well as other twisted tales that reveal the influence of Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Machen and Lord Dunsany but were taken to nightmarish new heights.  His poem "Night Gaunts" was said to have been influenced by night terrors he suffered as a child:  "...With obscene clutch that titillates and stings, Snatching me off on monstrous voyagings To grey worlds hidden deep in nightmare's well..."  Nightmare's well indeed!

BD OZZY:  HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Sake's Alive!

BD OZZY Wow!  Wow!

MAGIC OF THE MIND

"BLUE" JIMMY:  STUDENT OF OCCULT SCIENCE

BLIND DOG OZZY:  NEUROTIC CHIHUAHUA

BD OZZY:  We went to the movies the other night and we saw a trailer that scared the f*** out of me!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  It was for a new film called "The Possession" which of course, is one of many films released in recent years which deals with the subject of demonic possession.   "The Exorcism of Emily Rose," "The Last Exorcism" and "The Devil Inside" being some of the more popular ones that deal with this topic.

BD OZZY:  The worst toda madre scary film of all time though, was "The Exorcist."  Tell William Peter Blatty he owes me 30 years of sleep!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  You were just a puppy.  But the one constant throughout all these films and in real life cases of demonic possession is that all rational scientific and medical jive has to be eliminated before it can be considered a real possession by The Church.  Even hometown country preachers are getting hip to this.  All it takes is for some big mouth to suggest that The Devil is at work and some mentally unhinged person will start twisting their head backwards and spouting blasphemies in Latin.  

BD OZZY:  This brings us to our topic -- the incredible power of the mind!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  I was reading through Anthony Robbins bestselling self-improvement book entitled, "Awaken the Giant Within" and in chapter 4 page 77 I came across a story which hit close to home because I was indirectly involved in it.  The story recounts an incident of mass hysteria which took place at East Los Angeles College in the 1980's which demonstrates the incredible Power of Suggestion.  I was a staff writer and Chief of Photography on the college newspaper and I had sent a photographer to take shots of the school's Friday night football game.  He came back the following Monday with the most bizarre photos of people being carried out of the stadium on stretchers writhing in agony.  What happened was that one person got violently ill from something or other and some genius suggested that it was food or drink from the concession stand  that had caused the illness.  Instantly, hoards of people started fainting, vomiting and had horrible stomach pains and paramedics had to attend to a whole lot of "poisonings." The Health Department investigated and tested all foods and drinks and found no contaminants and miraculously, everyone recovered from their symptoms  -- Power of Suggestion is a b****!

BD OZZY:  Some people have learned to use the power of their mind to such a degree that it seems like sinister forces are at work.

"BLUE" JIMMY:  One such cat is mentalist Marc Salem author of "The Six Keys to Unlock and Empower Your Mind" whose public demonstrations of mind power will convince you that he has indeed, sold his soul to The Devil.  He makes no claims of paranormal ability and says that all he is doing is using his highly developed mental abilities.

BD OZZY:  On one radio broadcast, he advised that it is important to develop your powers of observation and to demonstrate, he asked the listening audience if they knew what is directly on the middle and back of a one dollar bill -- something we've all had in our hands hundreds of times.  Many people thought it was the mysterious, Freemason pyramid with the eyeball on top which is the subject of endless conspiracy theories.  No, he revealed, it is simply the word "one" written in large letters.  The pyramid is off to the side.  I kicked myself too.  After much conversation, he then told the host and listeners to draw any geometric shape they wished inside of another geometric shape and he would do the same.  I was determined to draw something incredibly complex like a hexagon inside of an octagon but for some reason all I could think of was to draw a triangle inside of a circle.  He then told the host to take the first caller and ask them what shapes they had drawn.  The first caller was a woman who said she had drawn a triangle inside of a circle.  The host also revealed that he had drawn a triangle inside of a circle.  Marc Salem then showed the host that he had drawn a triangle inside of a circle.

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Did he read everyone's minds all across the world? ( this syndicated broadcast  was worldwide).  I am not one to let a mystery lie, so I used my own beer-soaked brain cells to figure this one out.  It took awhile, but I figured out how he blew our minds with this apparent bit of sorcery.  The most logical explanation was that he had somehow "planted" the image of a triangle inside of a circle in our heads.  Then I remembered that several minutes earlier he asked people to remember what is on the middle and back of a one dollar bill and most smartasses thought it was the mysterious Freemason pyramid with the eyeball at the top -- a triangle inside of a circle!  He hardwired this image into our brains and that's all we could think of.  What else could someone plant into our heads without us knowing it?

BD OZZY:  If you want to go further into this territory, you got to read "Sleights of Mind: What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals About Our Everyday Deceptions" by Stephen L. Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde.

"BLUE" JIMMY:  This book, written by two neuroscientists who also have an interest in stage magic, is a fascinating journey into the world of magic and magicians and seeks to explain the exact neurological processes that stage magicians exploit to blow our minds and make us see what we couldn't possibly be seeing.  And yes, the book is full of spoiler alerts and tells exactly how many impossible feats of conjuring are done.  The only thing more mindblowing than the way these acts of visual wizardry are done is the thought that these secrets have been passed down through the ages by magicians centuries before modern science was able to explain them -- where did this knowledge come from?

BD OZZY:  And who has used this knowledge for maximum gain -- Advertisers?  News Organizations?  The Government?  The Church?

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Dude!  The mind is truly an incredible entity and it would be sheer arrogance to think we got it all figured out.  And like a pie plate hanging from a telephone wire and someone calling it a UFO, we have to make sure that cases of paranormal ability are not just someone being a whole lot smarter than you.

BD OZZY:   I bet I can read your mind right now.

"BLUE" JIMMY :  What am I thinking right now?

BD OZZY:  You're thinking can i read your mind right now.

"BLUE" JIMMY:  A**hole!  Check out the photo of me in Sedona, Arizona in classic Baphomet pose, absorbing pure energy!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Sake's Alive!

BD OZZY:  Wow! Wow!

THE "OLD HAG" SYNDROME: SLEEP DISORDER OR PSYCHIC VAMPIRES?

"BLUE" JIMMY: PARANORMAL INVESTIGATOR

BLIND DOG OZZY:  NEUROTIC CHIHUAHUA

"BLUE" JIMMY: On Monday night's (July 23) episode of George Noory's Coast to Coast AM radio show the featured guest was a man by the name of Tobias Mc Griff who probably has one of the best jobs in the world, man.  He runs a company called Blue Orb Tours which is basically tours of dark, eerie and haunted places in Savannah, Georgia which has long been known to be one of the most haunted places is America.  His tours have names like The Zombies tour and The City of The Dead tour and he actually serves as the tour guide.  He also has a radio show called Savannah Paranormal on WTKS 1290 (in Savannah) which addresses all manner of subjects regarding The Unexplained.

BD OZZY:  My favorite part of the show was when he started talking about The "Old Hag" Syndrome.

"BLUE" JIMMY:  The "Old Hag" syndrome is a phenomenon that people since ancient times have experienced in every part of the world.  The basic trip is that you wake up feeling a crushing pressure on your chest and the sensation of someone or something sitting on top of you and breathing in your face.  Then you start seeing weird s**t all up in your room and maybe even sounds or voices.

BD OZZY:  !!!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  And the worst part is, your body is completely paralyzed!

BD OZZY:  Damn! I've had that happen to me!  

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Brother, that's 'cause all Chihuahuas have sleep apnea.

BD OZZY:  Wha-?

"BLUE " JIMMY:  Which brings me to our next subject.  Doctors and scientists have tried to explain away the phenomenon by saying that it is a sleep disorder commonly referred to as sleep paralysis which occurs when your mind is awake but your voluntary muscle movements are shut down, giving you the sensation that something has put a spell on you.

BD OZZY:  (Singing) "I Put A Spell On You!" 

"BLUE" JIMMY:  They also say that the weird s**t you see and hear is due to hypnagogic or hypnopompic experiences.  One occurs while you are partly awake and entering a state of sleep and the other occurs while you are partly asleep and starting to wake up.  I forget which is which, look it up, man.  The pressure you feel on your chest is supposedly attributed to the panic you are feeling from the attack or difficulty breathing.  All very well and good.  But I've had this experience  and if you've ever had it, you are very aware that it is not a dream and there is the powerful sensation that there is something in the room with you and that it is trying to draw something from your body while you can't move.

BD OZZY:  Quit drinking that cheap malt liquor before bed time.

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Experts in the occult say that when a person kicks the bucket, they remain in this earthly dimension for about one day and then they must pass into another plane of existence.  If they are afraid to pass over into that plane for whatever reason, they may try to remain in this dimension by drawing life energy from a living being when they are in a vulnerable state; sleep being one of those states.  They also say that a living person practicing black magic may target you and take this psychic energy from you without you knowing it thus, the term psychic vampire.  This would explain why people say they feel drained after the attack. 

BD OZZY:  Holy S***!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  All I know is that the attacks became less severe and almost comical when I stopped fearing them and did not panic when they happened -- like whatever is sucking the energy out of you feeds on your fear.

BD OZZY:  So you're saying that you believe the occult explanation and not the medical explanation?

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Well, let's put it this way, I would forget all about the superstitious hoodoo swamp woman mumbo jumbo and encourage people to just go ahead and take the medical cure -- if there was one...

BD OZZY:  "Don't Fear The Reaper!"

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Sake's Alive!

BD OZZY:  Wow! Wow!

BOOKS ... WHAT'S THAT?

"BLUE" JIMMY: OCCULT RESEARCHER

BLIND DOG OZZY:  NEUROTIC CHIHUAHUA

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Books are essential when you're doing any kind of research.  

BD OZZY:  People these days rely on the Internet and ebooks for all their information but wait and see --  when the Internet shuts down and all your online information disappears, you'll be sitting forlorn, fingering your useless electronic devices while the Old Ones are extracting ageless wisdom from well-worn but timeless pages of learning.

"BLUE" JIMMY: Dude!

BD OZZY:  What did we get at the library this week?


"BLUE" JIMMY:  Some good stuff!  For fans of Dan Brown and The Da Vinci Code, you'll be glad to know that there are other authors who do their history homework and write in similar scholarly fashion.  Steve Berry's "The Alexandria Link" is an international adventure which deals with the lost Library of Alexandria and the unsavory Men of Greed who pursue its contents.  Javier Sierra goes even further into esoteric territory with "The Lost Angel" a tale of humanity's efforts to communicate with the divine and the fascinating historical and scientific mysteries that have to be unraveled in the process, wrapped in a delicious, page-turning adventure.  Umberto Eco's "Foucault's Pendulum" is a masterpiece of storytelling in which we bear witness to Eco's encyclopedic knowledge of The Templars, secret societies and occult history.  To be honest, I read this book all the way through twice and I still have no idea what it's about.  But the incredible amount of knowledge that went into this work is a tribute to one of fiction's most erudite and educated authors.  I feel like I took a college course after reading this book.


BD OZZY:  Talk about educated,  Zecharia Sitchin's "The End of Days: Armageddon and Prophecies of the Return" was on the used book sale shelf and was worth a read.  Sitchin, whose ability to read ancient Sumerian tablets puts him in a league of his own, attempts to reveal the origins of humanity, civilization and the whole ball of s**t in one book.  An unabashed, obsessed fanatic, Sitchens's books are scholarly, meticulously researched and utterly unreadable as a stack of municipal zoning ordinances.  But hey, he laid the groundwork for more sexy authors like Graham Hancock and David Icke.


"BLUE" JIMMY:  Paper rocks man, nothing like having a good solid book in your hands!


BD OZZY:  Amen!


"BLUE" JIMMY:  Sakes Alive!

BD OZZY:  Wow! Wow!