Driving off toward what I humorously call the old family seat, I passed a number of churches, and even saw a group of Jehovah Witnesses who'd set up a stand at a rest-stop. Seeing these religious institutions and noticing one, a presbyterian advertisement, a cross emblazoned with a simple design of orange flames, my first connection was to the Holy Spirit and Pentecost, but the next logical connection, perhaps to the burning bush, was interrupted as thoughts of other burning crosses crossed my mind like a shadow. As this dark pall passed, it brought in its wake reflections of a certain, infernal pattern.
The flaming cross was just a recent and perhaps merely local perversion to be classed with the inverted cross, the pentagram, the All Seeing Eye, and the "as above so below." Each in and of themselves were symbols of Christian truth that had been inverted. The flaming cross which, perhaps predominately, alluded to eternal life and resurrection had become a symbol of murder. What alluded to the mending of the divisions brought about at Babel was raised to enforce them. The pentagram, like the inverted cross, merely took a holy symbol of God's throne and redrew it upside down. Both Saints and Satan held up one hand and lowered another, both Christians and diabolists might say, "As above so below," while meaning precisely the opposite sentiments. One means "…thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," while the other "I shall make a heaven of Hell." One wishes for Heaven to condescend to Earth, while the other for Earth to descend into Hell.
I myself love a good, healthy fright, and often overlook the shallow symbolism used in horror stories, but it sometimes bothers me how insensible the pattern is. It is done, seemingly, by mere routine, without really appreciating that the original apprehension came from the twisting of something good into something evil, the attempt to undermine the holy by making it unholy. The reason these symbols ought to frighten us is forgotten. This abuse can be quite effective in storytelling, but it is an easy trick—easily done, easily overdone, and, to put the nail in its own coffin, easily copied, made common, and trite.
A final point might suffice. The All Seeing Eye was once a symbol of God's omniscience. Yet, consulting the vague associations in my own mind regarding it, I find 1984, occult organizations, and shadow governments. The inversion is not immediately obvious, but it is there. God's omniscience may be an ordinate cause for fear. The near omniscience of a machine, the distributive awareness of a massive state, is also good fodder for a well crafted nightmare. But the difference comes like something vague in the distance. The all seeing state speaks first of the comfort it will give, against terrorists, malcontents, poverty, and ends in the fear that you are surrounded by informers. The omniscience of God begins in fear, in the sudden, frightful realization that nothing about you, not even your inner life nor even what might be called your subconscious mind, can be hidden, and yet it ends, not in the fear of exposition but the freedom found in it, not in the dread of being found out, but in the relief of being let out.
- Have you used this inversion technique in your writing? Has it worked?
- Can these polluted symbols still be used in the original, earnest way?
- Do you agree with the Tolkien maxim that Evil cannot create?
