Thursday, April 17, 2014

A to Z of Witches. O

O is for Occult Panic and Obeah

I picked Obeah for a very snarky reason.  It goes back to this terrible Christian video "Turmoil in the Toybox" based on the book of the same name.  It was your typical 80s Satanic Panic nonsense that talked about how evil Dungeons & Dragons and cartoons are for kids.
The host, Gary Greenwald,  and his guest, Phil Philips, think the devil is hiding in every toybox.

You can watch it and have a laugh like I did.  The jumps in logic are insane.

Turmoil in the Toybox
Part 1 - Introduction.  With Scooby Doo and the 13 Ghosts.
Part 2 - He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. "He-Man is more powerful than Jesus!"
Part 3 - They talk about evil vs. evil...or so they think.  Again, everything they mention is wrong.
Part 4 - Commercials. I seriously doubt either of these guys have even had a class in Child Psychology.
Part 5 - ThunderCats. Evil or gateway drug to Furries?
Part 6 - Next Episode.  Ken and Barbie. But at 3:30 we get Dungeons & Dragons!
Part 7 - Insectars are featured in the Book of Revelations! Vader looks like Odin! Obi witchcraft!
Part 8 - Violence and the Occult influence of G.I. Joe and Smurfs. Though they won't say they are evil.
Part 9 - Care Bears. Littles and My Little Pony. Rainbow Brite is also evil. Voltoron and Transformers.
Part 10 - More Voltron and Transformers. Buy Gary's stuff!

I love how they pretty much get every detail wrong.

Of course in the 80s I loved all this stuff and if it looked evil I wanted it in my games.  Coming off of the 70s Occult Revival I always felt Witches needed to be a part of the game.  Was there some snarkiness on my part? Of course there was.  If you read my Atheism blog, The Freedom of Nonbelief, you know that this was the same time I was "coming out" as an Atheist.  So if I got to piss off some uptight Christians, all the better!

Of course what does this have to do with "O"?
Well Part 7 discusses, briefly, "Obi Witchcraft". Where witches chant Obi-Obi-Obi all the time.
Pure nonsense and like everything else in this they are as so far off base that they are not even in the same ballpark.

But there is Obeah.
Obeah is a folk tradition that is similar in origin to voodoo.
In my 3rd Edition book, Liber Mysterium, I described it as a form of the voodoo tradition.

I will talk abit more about this when I discuss Voodoo later one, but representing Obeah in a game is not as easy as first seems.  Though if the recent Pirates of the Caribbean movies are any indication, then I could combine bits of Obeah with the archetype of the Sea Witch to create something that could be rather fun.

I have a witch, Sycorax, that is a prototype of this sort of witchcraft.  She is something of a witch, a little bit of a hag and lives on an island.  Yes, she does have a monstrous son named Caliban.  You can do worse than imitating the Bard.

There is something here I think. Something that could be cool.  So I supposed in a way I should thank those two idiots for putting me on the path to getting my Sea Witch figured out.



Supernatural AtoZ

8 comments:

Sophie Duncan said...

OMG - I only got 5 mins into the first part and I wanted to throw something through the screen! Scooby Doo - seriously?!
Sophie
Sophie's Thoughts & Fumbles - A to Z Ghosts
Fantasy Boys XXX - A to Z Drabblerotic

Trey said...

I saw this on G+ the other day. With a historical remove, it's humor potential is amazing. If we were still in the era where this sort of stuff had wide currency, I think it would just make me angry.

Tasha Duncan-Drake said...

I don't feel like being apoplectic in anger at the moment, so I haven't touched the links at the moment :). It's that sort of idiocy that gives Christianity a bad name. Care Bears - they seriously thought Care Bears were evil? The clue is in the name!!!
Tasha
Tasha's Thinkings - AtoZ (Vampires)
FB3X - AtoZ (Erotic Drabbles)

Sara C. Snider said...

What? Care Bears evil? Don't trust anything that spreads around love and good cheer, I guess. I'm bookmarking this page so I can watch those when I have the time. Could be entertaining. :P

Mina Burrows said...

Never heard of Obeah.

He-Man...."I am Power!" Hmm...no mention of Skeletor though. LOL!

J Lenni Dorner said...

Thunder thunder thunder thunder cats...
~ I <3 Snarf 4ever. ~

The first time I heard about such "anti" stuff was in college. Eric, one of my fellow honor students, did a report on it. My mind was blown that people made such a leap from clearly fictional characters to every historical event possible. (And so, someone wrote a tale about a flying horse, and the Roman Empire collapsed. Umm... yeah, okay.)

Stopping by from the #atozchallenge !
@JLenniDorner

Catch My Words said...

Yes! Scooby Doo, My Little Pony, and especially the Harry Potter Series should all be banned. Oh, and of course Sesame Street is immoral. I'll be sure to kick these out of the toy box and go to Heaven. Wait a minute. I'm already damned to Hell for not being a Christian. Good. I can go back to enjoying these. Whew!

http://joycelansky.blogspot.com

PT Dilloway said...

Nice to know all my toys were Satanic. Lol