----Bob "PoorBob" Sushko

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----SAMHAIN (Halloween) Le Grande Sabbat
Day of the Dead, Shadow Feast, All Hallows Eve, Old Hallowmas, All Souls Day, Last Harvest-


The origin of Halloween comes from an old Celtic belief system known today as Wicca.Halloween is the Wiccan New Year called Samhain (pronounced Sow-in, Sah-vin, or Sahm-hayn) and is the celebration of impending darkness after the light and marks the end of the third and final harvest.

The living and the dead merged on this day in order to maintain peace between the two worlds and many of our Halloween traditions have stemmed from this. The Medieval Catholic Church changed it's holyday All Saints Day to All Hallow's Eve in an attempt to appease and control a still very pagan oriented congregation.

Costumes and masks were worn outside in order to confuse and mislead the Dead Souls that wandered that night. Druid priests of Muck Olla went to farms to beg for food and money for their houses of worship and if the farmers refused, barns would be burned and animals would dissappear. These incidents were believed to be caused by the god 'Muck' which now has come to mean trouble and chaos. This eventually lead to our Trick or Treat tradition.

The most common error, is that Halloween is celebrated to honour the Celtic God of the Dead, Samhain. The Celts had no such God. The word "Samhain" more likely came from "samhuinn", which is the Gaelic word for "summer's end". A fitting name, since that is precisely what this holiday is celebrating. Part of the mythology of the holiday is that the God dies at Samhain, and the Goddess mourns Him until His rebirth at Yule. It is Her mourning that brings about the shorter, cold days of winter. After His birth at Yule, the days begin to get longer again.

Medieval Christians feared cats, for reasons as yet unclear, and especially feared the black ones who could sneak "invisibly" around at night. It's ironic that they feared cats so much that they killed tens of thousands of them, leaving their granaries open to rats and mice, no doubt causing much food to be wasted, and leaving Europe as a whole open to the Black Plague, which was carried by the fleas on those rats and mice. Unfortunately, the millions of human deaths caused by the Black Plague were later blamed on the Gothic (Satanic) Witches the Church invented, then murdered. Cats, as "evil" animals, became associated with the "evil" witches.

BUT OF COURSE WE ALL LOVE A GOOD

ZOMBIE

Oh yeah, the Zombi are the living dead ! A corpse that a Zobop (evil Vodou priest) raises from it's tomb and becomes an eternal slave to the Zobop. Recognized by their absent-minded manner, their extinguished, almost glassy eyes, and above all by the nasal twang in their voices, a trait they share with the Gede. So, just how does one become a Zombi ?

Well, first you must absorb some Zombi Powder, of which there is no antidote:

Bouga toad (Bufo marinus) which excretes psychedelic oils from it's back

Sea snake

Ground Millipede & tarantula

Mix with Tcha- Tcha seeds (Albizzia occidentale) which will cause pulmonary swelling

Consign seeds

Pomme Cajou leaves

Bresillet leaves (last three from the poison ivy family)

All of this is ground into powder, placed in a jar and buried for two days.

Afterwards when dug up:

Add DieffenbachiDiodon holacanthusa seguine ('dumbcane' which contains oxalate needles that act like ground glass)

Skin of the White tree-frog

And oh yes......

Four species of the deadly Puffer fish which contain Tetrodotoxin (Sphoeroides testudineus, Sphoeroides spengleri, Diodon hystrix and Diodon holacantus)

Final mixture is ground human skull

Of course my personal favorite is:
1 oz. pineapple juice
Lime juice
Orange juice
1 tsp. powdered sugar
1/2 oz. Apricot brandy
2 1/2 oz. white rum
1 oz. dark rum
1 oz. passion fruit juice
add cracked ice & blend, strain into frosted glass. Decorate with pineapple & cherry. Carefully float 1/2 oz. of 151 proof rum on top...... trust me, you'll be a ZOMBIE in no time !!!

Peace,
PoorBob