As another Halloween approaches, the memory leads me to ponder this annual festival of all that is ghoulish and ghostly. Is it all harmless fun or, in our increasingly secular age, are we in danger of dabbling with dark forces beyond our understanding? In the early 1980s when I was a young Anglican priest I [...]
Evil is real. It is unjust and is totally against our nature. Just as the creepiness of Halloween tries to claim all of October, evil tries to creep beyond its bounds, but it is crushed by the dawn of All Saints, under the banner of Christ. Whether you prefer the RSV translation “I will make [...]
There is too much despair in the world. Yet Christ bids us be of good cheer, for he says that he has “overcome the world.” Because he has won the war, we can be confident in fighting the battle of our lives so that we and those we love can find salvation. This Lenten season [...]
Beneath the politics, the power plays, and the sibling rivalry, darker currents are running in Shakespeare's plays. In showing these dark forces murmuring below the surface, was Shakespeare also hinting at the rumors of occult dabblings in the Tudor and Jacobean courts? Imaginative Conservative contributor Joseph Pearce has produced, with Ignatius Press, a series of [...]
There is a world of difference between the dark arts and the art of darkness. Truth be told, there is more than a world of difference; there is a hell of a difference and a hell of a distance. It is the difference and the distance between heaven and hell. The dark arts are evil [...]
My heart breaks for Tolkien's Denethor, whose life ended unnecessarily, as bitterness, anger, and hopelessness in the face of evil consumed him. Let our prayer be that, even as we observe the darkness at the doorstep of Western Civilization, we imaginative conservatives stand at our posts and look to the Heavenly Father as our protector. [...]
Although we are halflings, we cannot remain halflings. We must either grow towards the wholeness of holiness or we must shrivel into the wreckage that Pride will make of our lives. Doing nothing is the sin of omission which leads to decay. We can either be Ring-bearers or Ring-wearers. We can either take up our [...]
I urge good men everywhere to read "The Woman Who was Poor" by Léon Bloy, a master of the art of darkness, which shows the ugliness of sin and illustrates its destructive consequences. His novel is indeed a masterpiece of the genre. It is said that all is necessary for the triumph of evil is [...]
If you’re looking for something for yourself or to give your nineteen-year-old to read, Siobhan Nash-Marshall's "George" is for you. Yes, this St. George does indeed face a dragon—rather, the Dragon—but only after undergoing a discovery of faith that is simultaneously a discovery of the philosophical lies and half-truths that have wreathed the world in [...]
The case of Naomi Wolf is a sign of our sinister times. We do not know whether she will develop her faith and embrace Church teachings. Such conversions are best left in the hands of God, Whose ways are mysterious and inscrutable. However, her desperate plea for help against the principalities and powers of darkness [...]
Most of Jeffrey Epstein’s so-called “philanthropy” was directed to the financing and promotion of transhumanism. At the prideful heart of this movement is a disdain for all that is authentically human and a sordid desire to replace human frailty with superhuman or transhuman strength. The sordid life of Jeffrey Epstein serves to highlight the decadence [...]
The end of the world is nigh. It is this ultimate reality which should animate and motivate us. The devil might be able to hang us before he hangs himself, but he can’t deprive us of the resurrection which will separate us from his clutches forever. Give the devil enough rope and he’ll hang himself. [...]
The ancient myth-makers knew beneath the glittering palaces of worldly power there were bullish beasts like the Minotaur lurking in the labyrinth. Likewise, beneath our surface palace there is a cavern, a cellar, a dark and bewildering labyrinth. Each of us has his own Minotaur—the fearsome blend of the man and the beast in us. [...]
‘You may say this to Théoden son of Thengel: open war lies before him, with Sauron or against him. None may live now as they have lived, and few shall keep what they call their own. —J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings ‘Ware, ‘ware! in the watches of the night; for the devil reigns in darkness while [...]