Hail to all you sagacious beings who celebrate the Earth’s successive seasons! Here, in the Northern Hemisphere, Fall’s arrival brings cooler evenings, with the promise of bountiful harvests to come. The impending touch of frost should, ere long, ignite leaves to blaze with vivid colors. Those in the Southern Hemisphere rejoice in the triumph of Spring’s active growth over Winter’s dormancy. They may savor Nature as it rises from stasis, surging forth with renewed vigor.
Satanists find it fulfilling to luxuriate in a vital, carnal existence, embracing the majestic cycles of our precious, fragile island in the abyss of space. Our awareness invokes humbling respect as we attain understanding of our beautiful and dreadful Earth. Our human societies writhe in self-generated turmoil, yet, may we each find health, sanity, and satisfaction as the new season dawns!
Ray Bradbury’s 1962 novel Something Wicked This Way Comes is a striking evocation of an October carnival arriving in a small town whose performers are beings who feast upon human misery and unfulfilled desires. Jack Clayton directed a fine film based on this work, starring a youthful Jonathan Pryce, which was originally scored by Georges Delarue. But, with weeks to go before the planned opening, his music was rejected and a young James Horner stepped in to quickly craft a most evocative score. The book, film, and music are all worthy of your attention for they explore the human condition with discerning perceptivity. The moods conjured by all three explore those autumnal shadows which ignite delighted frissons of fun fear that are so seasonally apt. Here is a link to that powerful score—Horner often references music that he finds evocative (the opening of the Battle on the Ice scene from Prokofiev’s score for Alexander Nevsky is a notable nod for the savvy film score connoisseur).
In the Haunted Hudson Valley, The Witchcraft District is flourishing, and those who live here, as well as those who identify with our eternal sense of The October Country, find All Hallows’ Eve to be always in their minds and hearts. The spectral breezes impel the tumbling leaves to swirl through the lengthening, chill nights. Soon, Samhain will sweep us up in its dark mysteries—as always, we Children of the Night can hardly wait!
—Magus Peter H. Gilmore