Saturday, December 24, 2011

Esoterica: Mormon Theory of Bigfoot -- Return of the Jedi -- Condemned on the Noose

Mormon theory of Bigfoot traces monster to Garden of Eden

Is the crypto creature known as Bigfoot really a religious icon doomed to walk the Earth for his sins? What could possibly doom one man to such a hell?

What if I told you that man was Cain. He who killed Able. Son to Adam and Eve. Maybe you’ve heard of him?

This theory comes according to a 2008 paper by then-Mormon Mentality blogger Matt Bowman. He bases his theory on a 1835 letter describing a meeting between David Patten and Cain.

Patten described the encounter thusly:

“He said he was a very miserable creature, that he had earnestly sought death during his sojourn upon the earth, but that he could not die, and his mission was to destroy the souls of men. I rebuked him in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

This is further corroborated by a 1919 manuscript which included a reference to an attack by a hairy, talking humanoid described as Cain.

As far as Bigfoot lore goes, this theory provides an out for at least one major hole. Bigfoot would be an immortal creature and not a new species which would explain why he’s so elusive. It’s far more of a challenge to catch one man than a thriving, natural animal bloodline. Syracuse.com

Bigfoot: the Garden Yeti Statue

Searching for Sasquatch: Crackpots, Eggheads, and Cryptozoology (Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology)

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Return of the Jedi

A shocking discovery about the religious beliefs of Czechs was made in a census held in March this year. Over 15,000 people, the size of a small town, registered themselves as Jedi Knights, a faith from the Star Wars movies. This is certainly not being dismissed as nominal by the Statistical Office.

Of the rest of the Czech population, it is interesting to note that while 1,083,899 said they were Roman Catholics, 707,649 said they didn’t believe in God. Also, 5 million people just didn’t have anything to say. They left the column empty. In Prague, the capital city, 3,977 Jedi Knights were registered, which is 0.31% of the city’s population. It is perplexing as to why this option was included in the census for in the first place. Stanislav Drapal, deputy head of the statistical office, says that they included it despite a fierce debate over whether it’s serious or not. It’s not up to the statisticians to decide whether or not it’s a real religion, is what he feels.

In the Star Wars series, Jedi Knights are the guardians of peace for the interplanetary Galactic Republic. They are known for having enhanced mind power. This enables them to harness ‘The Force’ which in turn allows them to influence people and objects. The moral code followed by the Jedi has always been quite popular with fans. But popular enough to list as an actual religion? Well, yes, considering we already have a popular Jedi Academy, the idea that many people would choose Jedi as their faith doesn’t seem that far-fetched.

The Jedi Path: A Manual for Students of the Force [Vault Edition]

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Condemned on the Noose

Ralph Sutherland, who, early in the last century, occupied a stone house a mile from Leeds, in the Catskills, was a man of morose and violent disposition, whose servant, a Scotch girl, was virtually a slave, inasmuch as she was bound to work for him without pay until she had refunded to him her passage-money to this country. Becoming weary of bondage and of the tempers of her master, the girl ran away. The man set off in a raging chase, and she had not gone far before Sutherland overtook her, tied her by the wrists to his horse's tail, and began the homeward journey. Afterward, he swore that the girl stumbled against the horse's legs, so frightening the animal that it rushed off madly, pitching him out of the saddle and dashing the servant to death on rocks and trees; yet, knowing how ugly-tempered he could be, his neighbors were better inclined to believe that he had driven the horse into a gallop, intending to drag the girl for a short distance, as a punishment, and to rein up before he had done serious mischief. On this supposition he was arrested, tried, and sentenced to die on the scaffold.

The tricks of circumstantial evidence, together with pleas advanced by influential relatives of the prisoner, induced the court to delay sentence until the culprit should be ninety-nine years old, but it was ordered that, while released on his own recognizance, in the interim, he should keep a hangman's noose about his neck and show himself before the judges in Catskill once every year, to prove that he wore his badge of infamy and kept his crime in mind. This sentence he obeyed, and there were people living recently who claimed to remember him as he went about with a silken cord knotted at his throat. He was always alone, he seldom spoke, his rough, imperious manner had departed. Only when children asked him what the rope was for were his lips seen to quiver, and then he would hurry away. After dark his house was avoided, for gossips said that a shrieking woman passed it nightly, tied at the tail of a giant horse with fiery eyes and smoking nostrils; that a skeleton in a winding sheet had been found there; that a curious thing, somewhat like a woman, had been known to sit on his garden wall, with lights shining from her finger-tips, uttering unearthly laughter; and that domestic animals reproached the man by groaning and howling beneath his windows.

These beliefs he knew, yet he neither grieved, nor scorned, nor answered when he was told of them. Years sped on. Every year deepened his reserve and loneliness, and some began to whisper that he would take his own way out of the world, though others answered that men who were born to be hanged would never be drowned; but a new republic was created; new laws were made; new judges sat to minister them; so, on Ralph Sutherland's ninety-ninth birthday anniversary, there were none who would accuse him or execute sentence. He lived yet another year, dying in 1801. But was it from habit, or was it in self-punishment and remorse, that he never took off the cord? for, when he drew his last breath, though it was in his own house, his throat was still encircled by the hangman's rope.

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