I'll make it back home today, but not in time to put the weekly watch together – it takes a week of collecting. I'm looking forward to gathering stories and entering the election fray. Not long till Halloween nor the election – both are scary! Next week IT”S BACK.....

Speaking of scary. How about the fear of paganism. I found the following fears of Halloween on a so called christian site:

Horrifying Costumes
People would also take burning wisps from the bonfire and wave them around to frighten the many evil spirits roaming the earth; in case the burning wisp alone would not work, revelers clothed themselves in the most hideous and terrifying costumes. These people believed that, if you dressed in a terrifying costume and went trooping around with the spirits all night, they would think you were one of them and would leave you alone.

Huge Bonfires
Satan's obsession with fire has produced human obsession with building huge bonfires. As we stated earlier, these bonfires were practical, in that they provided the means by which the priests sacrificed the human and animal sacrifices so crucial to Halloween.

Divinations
Samhain (Halloween) was also the time to engage the Devil's assistance in divining the future. Questions concerning marriage, luck, health, and the time of one's death were most popular subjects of divination. In Scotland, young people assembled for games and pulled shoots out of the ground to ascertain which of them would marry during the coming year, and in what order the marriages should occur.

Snap Apple Night - Apples have long been a token of love and fertility.
At Halloween parties, people bobbed for apples in tubs of water. If a boy came up with an apple between his teeth, he was assured of the love of his girl. The Snap Apple game was one in which the boys delighted. Each boy, in his turn, would spring up to attempt to bite an apple that was being twirled on the end of a stick; the first boy to succeed would be the first to marry.

Apple seeds were also used to tell fortunes. Peeling an apple in one long piece was supposed to tell a young girl about her future. The girl would swing the apple peal three times around her head, then throw it over her left shoulder. If the peeling fell unbroken, the girl would examine the shape into which it fell to see if she could ascertain the initials of her future husband!

Witch's Familiar Spirits
Owls, bats, cats and toads are an essential part of Halloween, and for a very good reason: they are known as "the witch's familiars". A divining familiar was the species of animal whose shape Satan would assume to aid the witch in divining the future. A witch would closely watch the animal's movements - whether slow or fast - and she would see the direction in which the animal moved and the kinds of sounds it made, in order to foretell the length of life and/or an impending illness. Other "familiar spirit" shapes include hens, geese, small dogs, rats, butterflies, wasps crickets, and snails. Witches considered these creatures to be demon-possessed and controlled. If you look closely at most Halloween decorations, you will see these animals, but now you know they represent demon possessed creatures!

Jack-O-Lantern and Trick-or-Treat - Various names for Jack-O-Lantern were 'Lantern Men', 'Hob-O-Langer', and "Will-O-The-Wisp". The 'Lantern Men' got their name from pale eerie lights that appeared over bogs and marshes in England. These ghostly lights, which bobbed along like a lantern in someone's hand, were called 'Corpse Candles'. Candles were said to be signals from the souls of men lost at sea.

Celts often hollowed out a turnip and carved a grotesque face on it to fool demons. They carried such lanterns to light their way in the dark and to ward off evil spirits ... While the turnip continues to be popular in Europe today, the pumpkin has replaced it in America. 'Jack' is a nickname for 'John', which is a common slang word meaning 'man'. Jack-O-Lanterns literally means 'man with a lantern'.

Druid Trick-or-Treat
The Druids originated the practice of hollowing out the Jack-O-Lanterns and filling them with human fat. Whenever a raiding party came to a home to demand of the husband that someone inside be surrendered as a human sacrifice, they would light a Jack-O-Lantern filled with human fat; if the husband relented and provided one of his loved ones as a sacrifice, the Druid party would leave Jack-O-Lantern on the porch. This lantern would be tell the other raiding parties and the demonic host that this party had surrendered a human for sacrifice and that the remaining people inside were to be left alone. Guaranteeing that no one else in the house would be killed that night was the "Treat".

If the husband refused to surrender one of his loved ones, a "Trick" would be placed upon the house. The members of the raiding party would draw a large hexagram using human blood on the front door; they got the blood for the hexagram from a dead body they dragged around with them using a cabletow. The demonic host would be attracted to this hexagram and would invade the house, causing one or more of the inhabitants to either go insane or die. This is the true origin of "Trick-or-Treat" and the Jack-O-Lantern. Do you really want to take your kids "Trick-or-Treating"?

Forbidden Practices Specially Associated With Halloween - God lists Satanic practices that He absolutely forbids, on the pain of death! Every one of them is uniquely associated with Halloween!

1. Enchantment - Act of influencing by charms and incantation using the practice of magical arts.
2. Witchcraft - Dealing with demonic spirits, using their prescribed methods, commonly called rituals and the "magick arts". The Bible forbids it, as in Galatians 5:19-20. Today, thanks to "Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings, witchcraft is skyrocketing in popularity. TV shows that depict witches are "Bewitched" and "Buffy The Vampire Slayer", to just mention a couple. Go to a video store sometime and walk down the "Horror" aisle, where you will see the popularity of Witchcraft in America today.
3. Sorcery - Use of power gained from the prescribed rituals demanded by the demonic host. Once the witch or wizard performs the particular ritual correctly, the demonic host is required to provide the power to accomplish that action desired by the witch.
4. Divination - Fortune telling and seeing into the future. God wants us to trust in Him and His power, and not worry about tomorrow. Satan, on the other hand, loves to get people consumed by the idea that they can know what lies ahead of them.
5. Wizardry - The art or practices of a wizard, sorcery. A wizard or witch is one skilled in the magick arts, a sorcerer.
6. Necromancy - Communication with the dead. Specifically, conjuring up the spirits of the dead for purposes of magically revealing the future or influencing the course of events.
7. Charm - The practice of putting a spell on someone in order to change or control their mind and/or behavior. Wizards love to get their enemies "one-on-one" because they can "charm" them through the use of ritual done before the meeting, and by the demonic host residing within him. When dealing with a powerful member of the Illuminati, do not attempt to meet with him, nor place any confidence in the testimony of people who have met with him. A "charm" ritual is easily performed and results in the leader exuding confidence, character, and sincerity they most assuredly do not possess.
8. Stargazing or Astrology - Divination of the supposed influence of the stars and other heavenly bodies upon human lives and the affairs of nations. Occultists literally order their lives according to Astrology and numerics.
9. Soothsaying - foretelling events and prophesying through a spirit other than the Holy Spirit.
10. Prognostication - To foretell from signs and symptoms, also prophesying without the Holy Spirit.
11. Magic - Tapping into the power of the demonic realm through the use of prescribed ritual so that the action carried out is accomplished through demonic power.

All these activities are uniquely associated with the activities and traditions of Halloween!

Christians have no business participating in Halloween. To do so is to act against a great number of Scriptures in which God uses the strongest possible language to forbid it. In fact, in most instances, God decreed that people practicing these activities be put to death! Yet, we see many churches having Halloween parties in which many of these pagan practices are followed! Stop listening to people giving you "empty excuses and groundless arguments for these sins", for if you go ahead and participate in this most evil holiday, God shall surely not look away.

One final note on Halloween: if you have been paying attention, you will know that these practices form the heart and soul of the Harry Potter novels and movies. Harry Potter is a wizard, and he comes from a family of witches and wizards. His entire existence within these novels revolves around the Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft, where Harry and his friends learn all of these 11 forbidden practices.

I hope you've all had a good start to the month. This should be my last Saturday Evening post for awhile. I hope they have been of some interest.

How about visiting some tombs before Halloween? After those mythical fears earlier in the Post, I find pagan tombs cleansing. These are all 5000 years or older and are wrapped in myth and legend. Most contain passages which align with equinox or solstice, sunrise or sunset. I found them all to be power spots...

Knoth tomb and its passage

Newgrange and its passage

Loughcrew tombs and a passage

Tombs at Carrowkeel

Passage entrance

Ringed portal tomb at Carrowmore with Maeve's tomb atop Knocknarae in the background

And finally Maeve's cairn, the largest unexcavated neolithic tomb in Europe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medb

I love ancient sites, and these are some of the best I've ever visited. Silly fears of pagans vanish when you open your eyes to power of these places and the energy and effort of their construction...

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”

― Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad/Roughing It

but there's no place like home (2 min)
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yl9hMSWi9IQ]

So this is the last time I'll ask you to supply me with the news (for awhile). Actually that's why I participate here - you folks do a great job of winnowing the news. How about one more round. What happened that is important this week?

All the best to all of you!