Friday, June 4, 2010

Fascination with Imagery


I have been fascinated with the imagery of Evil for as long as I can remember. I remember when I was young, I would read the bible solely to learn more about the legends surrounding Hell, The Dragon(or Devil, if you will), The Antichrist, The Whore of Babylon, and the false prophet. Nothing else in that book interested me.
The exploits of men such as Aleister Crowley and Eliphas Levi have also caught my attention. I'm also moved by the mythologies surrounding many ancient cultures, who all have their own version of what they consider Evil. Ancient Egypt, for example, had a wicked God named Set. Everything I can find out about him, I do. The Greeks had the Goddess Hecate (one of my favorites!)and I don't know how many Gods of Evil the Romans had. In Persian Zoroastrianism, their embodiment of iniquity is called Ahriman.
These gods were the epitome of wrongdoing in the ancient world and I've noticed that they carry with themselves the same characteristics that human beings possess, all of them. The Vampire, in it's original state as a pure Hellion, is also fascinating. Before being romanticized by Hollywood, it was nothing less than a life-draining demon. And it's interesting to note that the movie 'Dracula' was actually inspired by two people of Eastern European descent. One was Vlad Tepes, also known as Vlad the Impaler. And the other was Elizabeth Bathory, the blood countess.

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