Dar Angel Comes to Town...again #01

Witches and wizards never die. They are here now and are here to stay. ...And so isn't Satan.

Founded in 1623 with a population of about 41,000, as taken by the 2010 census, Salem, Massachusetts is a city in Essex County of about eighteen square miles. Nearly all the homes are more than one hundred years old and there are many houses that are more than two hundred years old and older. Filled with mystery that's continually whispered and exaggerated in rumor, by every definition of the description, Salem is an enchanted town. For those amateurs interested in the occult, witchcraft, or in the Prince of Darkness, this is the place to come to live out your supernatural fantasy. The absolute mecca for witches, warlocks, wizards, sorcerers, ghosts, ghouls, and demons, Salem is the place to go if you want to explore the occult and/or scare yourself silly with things that are real, imagined, and/or unexplained.

Right on the water's edge of the Atlantic Ocean, with dozens of restaurants, bars, taverns, and gift shops, a great place to meander, wander, and stroll about, there's plenty to do in Salem. Whether looking for a book, an article of clothing, a souvenir, or if searching for that special, one-of-a-kind curse, potion, talisman, or magical crystal adornment, you'll find it in Salem, probably with a made in China sticker on the underside of it. With police cars adorned with witches' logos, Salem's public elementary school is referred to as Witchcraft Heights. The high school team is known as The Witches. Gallows Hill, the site of many public hangings of unjustly accused witches and wizards, a place where few residents even know its existence and/or its exact location, is now a playing field. Condemn to death with not much more than circumstantial evidence and heresy by the testimony of a nosy neighbor or a resident in the community who had a grudge, few of those accused witches and wizards who were condemned to death were actually witches or wizards.

"God rest their souls. Amen."

Yet, even scarier than Salem, Massachusetts is Danvers, Massachusetts, a town five miles northwest of Salem in Essex County. Danvers is now deemed the creepiest town in America and was once better known as Salem Village, the actually location of Gallows Hill and the place where 13 accused witches and 6 wizards were hanged. There's no record of the accused witches and wizards who never made it to trial and who died in prison, were drowned, beaten to death, stoned to death, and/or stripped naked and sexually assaulted before being burned at the stake. A wild place filled with sexual frustration, pointed finger accusations, and entire community condemnation, there was a lot of that happening in Salem during the 17th century. Seemingly by its dark history and with only the bad things being remembered, none of what happened there then were any good, especially if you were accused of practicing witchcraft, black magic, or sorcery and accused of being a witch or a wizard.

Just for the record, below are the names of 13 women and 6 men who were not only accused as being witches or wizards but also were tried, convicted, condemned to death, and hanged by the neck on Gallows Hill in Salem, Massachusetts. Since that time, with the changes in boundaries, Salem, Massachusetts is now part of Danvers, Massachusetts, Gallows Hill is in Danvers instead of Salem. The names of those accused witches and wizards are in the order of their deaths, as follows: Bridget Bishop, Rebecca Nurse, Sarah Good, Susannah Martin, Elizabeth Howe, Sarah Wildes, George Burroughs, Martha Carrier, John Willard, George Jacobs, Sr., John Proctor, Martha Corey, Mary Eastey, Anne Pudeator, Alice Parker, Mary Parker, Wilmott Redd, Margaret Scott, and Samuel Wardwell. Within weeks of one another, from June to September, pretty horrific, the above list of accused witches and wizards were hanged in 1692.

Once part of Salem, Danvers is home to the Creepiest City in America route. There you'll find the site of the horrifically haunted, more than 134-year-old Danvers State Hospital, also known as the Danvers State Insane Asylum. The mega monstrous buildings were demolished in 2012 but the eeriness, sounds, and sightings of ghosts still continues on the grounds and the attached cemetery where unclaimed bodies were buried without markers. Investigated by them twice, this place of tortured misery, along with their accompanying cemetery, was deemed as one of the most haunted locations in America by the paranormal ghost chasers and ghost debunkers, Ghosthunters or TAPS, The Atlantic Paranormal Society. Located on a remote 178 acre lot, with all that went on behind those locked doors and barred windows, if this place wasn't the summer vacation house of the Devil than I don't know where else that would be. Then again, further along in the story, I do list a few other places where the Devil may have found solace in residence while vacationing from Hell.

Also along the Creepiest City in America route is the Salem Village Parsonage site. The archaeological remains of Salem Village established in 1692 sits across from the Salem Meeting House Church. At the Salem Village Parsonage site you'll find the Salem Witch Trial Memorial, and the crumbled remains of Salem Meeting house, the place of the accusations, examinations, and trials. Further along the Creepiest City in America route is Rebecca Nurse's homestead, an accused witch, the assuredly haunted Endicott Cemetery, and Bridget Bishop's homestead, another accused witch.

More recently, November 14, 2011, along this same route, Stephen Anastasi stabbed his father to death after believing that aliens were out to get him. There are lots of murders in America but what makes this murder noteworthy is where it happened, along the Creepiest City in America route. Perhaps there was something in the air or in the water that night that made him murder his father while believing that his father was an alien. Yet, what if Mr. Anastasi mistook a witch for an alien? Dating back more than 320 years, with him now living in the same neighborhood, he was flanked by two accused witches after all. If you ask me, quoting the late, great, Flip Wilson, it was the Devil who made him do it.

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Trust me. Even if you're a non-believer in the occult, in all things mysteriously unexplainable, and in the dead that have suddenly and inexplicably come alive again to walk among us, after visiting Salem and/or Danvers, Massachusetts, you will be a believer in the supernatural by the time you leave. Not only is Satan alive and well but also his band of witches, warlocks, wizards, and sorcerers are alive and well too. Living among us now, they are all here to stay. Yet, oddly enough, with some residents of Salem walking around dressed for Halloween all year long and celebrating the month long Haunted Happening each October with great enthusiasm, nothing in Salem appears strange or out of the ordinary. With so many residents dressed as if trick or treat is every day, perhaps the Devil likes visiting Salem because he's able to inconspicuously walk around unnoticed. Whenever the Devil is accompanied by all or any of his entourage of witches, warlocks, wizards, ghosts, ghouls, and/or demons, the residents of Salem would think him just an ordinary man with lots of strangely peculiar friends.

Perhaps because Salem was so haunted and electrified with paranormal activity was the inexplicable reason why the Devil loved visiting Salem, Massachusetts. As if there was an electrical current that surged from Salem to Danvers, Massachusetts and through Satan and back, the air and the water in Salem was seemingly and mysteriously filled with supernatural and mystical activity. Unless you are numb or resistant to feeling such things, you'd know what I mean if you visited there. Perhaps the reason why Satan loved Salem was because he recovered so very many lost souls here when those dying sailors from shipwrecks were lost at sea. Inherently he knew that whenever and whenever he visited, he'd never leave empty handed. With payback his motivation, perhaps because of the ascendants of those evil residents who deemed and determined on hanging wrongly or rightly accused witches and wizards, was why the Devil found comfort here.

In the same way that people were unable to tell a witch from a human back then, it's obvious that the people who live here now can't tell a witch from someone Halloween costumed as a witch. The witches of today, not wanting to call attention to themselves, look like everyone else, only better, more beautiful, more powerful, more influential, and much wealthier. Seemingly with the occult part of Salem's history and with Salem immersed in witchcraft, as if Salem was his home away from Hell, the Devil held a special fondness for Salem. Even though Satan's visits were twenty-five years apart, a blink of an eye in infinity, seemingly in spirit if not in physical form, never leaving, he was here all the time. For those who wanted him and for those who needed him, they just had to conjure him up and summon him by closing their eyes, concentrating on his image, and uttering his name three times.

"Satan... Satan... Satan..."

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Ideally and idyllically situated, a seaport town on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, Satan seemed to like this place, especially at night and especially during a full moon. If you were to stand on the pier that overlooked the Atlantic Ocean and remained very silently still, especially at night and especially during a full moon, you could hear the screams for help of all those lost at sea over the centuries.

"Satan... Satan... Satan."

Small enough to traverse the town by bike, by car, or by broom, the town was personally private, even with all of its tourists who disappeared as soon as the sun went down and/or the warm weather season ended. Northeast of Boston and southwest and equidistant from Gloucester as it is to Boston, another old shipping and whaling port, Salem held as many stories as it held secrets. The perfect backdrop for a scary movie, yet, for some unknown reason, few movies were made in Salem. Maybe the Devil didn't want his favorite place despoiled by Hollywood. With him rubbing elbows with the tourists while innocuously walking around town while protected by his entourage of witches, wizards, warlocks, and sorcerers, maybe the Devil wanted to keep Salem all to himself.

Featured in Arthur Miller's play, the Crucible in 1953, Salem had been left alone for twenty-six years when sorcerer Stephen King wrote Salem's Lot in 1979. Not very far from Salem, shot in Ipswich and Marblehead, as well as other places, The Witches of Eastwick was made in 1987. Then thirteen years later, Hocus Pocus, starring Bette Midler and Sarah Jessica Parker, was made in Salem in 1992. Finally, twenty-one years after Hocus Pocus, in 2013, The Lords of Salem, was made.

In the Lords of Salem, Heidi, a radio DJ, receives a record, a gift from the Lords. The sounds hidden within the grooves trigger flashbacks of Salem's violet past. Thinking she was going mad, Heidi didn't know that the Lords have returned for revenge on the inhabitants of Salem Massachusetts. Not a very good movie, yet if only viewers knew that the movie was based more in reality than in fantasy, it may have received better reviews.

With its narrow streets and impossible parking, perhaps because Salem was so very congested with tourists, wanna-be witches, psychics, those sensitive to paranormal activities, and the like, is perhaps the reason why Hollywood would rather shoot their film elsewhere. Yet, Hollywood made plenty of films in the North End of Boston, an area that is just as congested and that had even narrower streets than Salem. My take is that the Devil, being that he had to deal with and make deals with celebrities on a daily basis, didn't like the holier than thou Hollywood types converging on his vacation spot, his home away from Hell. Forbidding them from Salem, somehow he put the kibosh on movies being made in Salem before the deals were made, the agreements were signed, and the talent was hired.

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Back in the 17th century, immersed within their Puritanical society, encased in rumored suspicion and obvious superstition, it was easy to charge someone with heresy and accuse them of being a witch or a wizard. Before part of Salem became Danvers, this is where accused witches were beaten and sexually abused for being too beautiful. Perhaps having more to do with redheaded Irish women and men being Catholic than being English protestant, this is where accused witches and wizards were stoned to death for merely having red hair. This is where accused witches were hung for being too promiscuous after they were force to have sex by volunteering to submit to men raping them and sodomizing them. Unable to hold their tongues, for being too outspoken, and deemed too evil and too violent, this is where those accused witches and wizards who dared to resist and who fought back were burned at the stake for not conforming to the others.

Men did this to women. They were the evil ones and not the accused witches. How dare they? Stripping them naked and having their wicked sexual way with them first, it was men who condemned them to death and it was the jealous wives of these men who went along with their men for the dishonor, the disappointment, the shame, and the humiliation of all women.

If they didn't go along with their men, their husbands could accuse them of being a witch too. How dare they? These were religious people who were good, God fearing, simple, and kind folk. What kind of people were they really to turn against a woman just because she was too beautiful, had red hair, forcibly submitted herself to being raped and sodomized, were too outspoken, and dared to fight back when brutally, emotionally, physically, and sexually attacked? It wasn't right. It wasn't fair. If any were deemed the evil ones, it was those residents who murdered accused witches and wizards who were evil.

"Kill the bitch! She's a witch! She has red hair and she told me to go fuck myself when I stripped her naked and forced her to have sex with me. Definitely, she's a witch!"

With most of the population ignorant, uneducated, illiterate, and unenlightened, black magic, witchcraft, and the accusation of being a witch or a wizard was a capital crime punishable by death back then. The accusers didn't need any proof or real evidence to accuse a woman of being a witch or a man of being a wizard. All they needed was to dislike her or him enough or to covet her or his possessions and/or property enough for those in power to accuse them, try them, convict them, sentence them, and put them to death. A real tragedy to be able to sway an entire community against one person with public hysteria, especially when that person is innocent of any crime, all anyone needed to say was that this one or that one was a witch or a wizard. Shunning them at first, the community would look at them with a jaundice eye before spitting on them, calling them names, physically assaulting, and sexually abusing them, before finally taking them before the judge to be condemned to death.

Yet, even after more than three hundred years has passed, are we to believe that those witches who really practiced witchcraft and wizards who practiced black magic are all dead? The witches and wizards who gave their allegiance to the Devil and who were accused of being a witch or a wizard, and convicted and sentence to death for being a witch or a wizard, may not be dead? Just an illusion or a black magic trick, maybe they never hung the real witches and wizards. Maybe those witches and wizards escaped in the night under the cover of darkness. Maybe those Salem witches and wizards are still alive and are still here walking among us even to this day.

Yet, even if the witches and wizards are dead, in the way that God has the power to return someone back to life, are we to assume that the Devil does not possess the power to return someone back to life too? To think that the Devil isn't as powerful as God or at least as powerful as any of his angels would be a stupid assumption and a major underestimation of Satan's power on our part to make. Don't you think? Maybe as their just rewards for being accused, tried, convicted, sentenced, condemned to death, and executed, the Devil made a special deal with those murdered witches and wizards for them to return to life as powerful, rich, and influential women and men in the future.

Further, perhaps it was up to the witches and wizards when they wanted to return to life or perhaps it was dependent upon the Devil and his personal needs whenever the witches and wizards would return to his service whenever deemed necessary. Just because we think these witches and wizards are dead, doesn't necessarily mean that they are dead. They may not be dead. They may be alive, well, and walking among us. What do you think?

* * * * *

Maybe those real witches and wizards, not just accused witches and wizards, who were supposedly burned at the stake or hung by the neck still walk among us today. Think about that premise for a moment. What if that statement is true? What if there are witches and wizards walking around us now that we think are human women and men but who are witches and wizards? I can see a lot of guys shaking their head in agreement of the above statement while thinking of their wives, their ex-wives, and/or their mother-in-laws. With these modern age women unaccompanied by their black cats, not riding their brooms, or wearing black clothes, what if witches are here and we don't even know they're witches? Think about that for a moment.

If you lived back in colonial times, which woman would you be jealous over enough to accuse her of being a witch and practicing witchcraft? Which man would you hate enough to accuse him of being a wizard and practicing sorcery? Would it be the woman that you coveted her body or would it be the man that you coveted his land or house? Would it be the woman that you coveted because of her beauty, her body, her intelligence, and her spirit? Would it be the woman that you wanted but who didn't want you? Now insanely jealous, would it be the woman that you accused of being a witch and practicing witchcraft because she took up with another man?

Who would you point out as being a witch today for her success, her beauty, her poise, and her confidence? Certainly any woman so successful, beautiful, poised, and confident must be a witch. Right? Certainly with all of the pills, drugs, potions, and magic elixirs, witches no longer have to be flat chested, big nosed, and ugly with unmanageable stringy hair. Witches today can be beautiful and sexy. Certainly, it would take witches practicing witchcraft for them not to look their age while maintaining their beauty and their sexuality. Think about that. Do you know such women?

Which man alive today would you point to with great certainty that he was a wizard practicing sorcery? Any man so successful, so handsome, so poised, and so confident must be a wizard and use sorcery to get what he wants. Right? He must use sorcery and black magic spells and secret potions to change our perception of him enough to fool us to believe that he's just as human as we are. Right? With all the pills, drugs, potions, and magic elixirs, wizards can still maintain their good looks, have lots of hair, and still have a cock as hard as it was when they were a much younger man. Do you know such men?

To be continued...