“That is essential to keep in mind. Evil is defined by the environment, by the culture. The Mongols slew hundreds of thousands of people and considered that to be a good thing. Might makes right was their way of life. Modern Islamic fundamentalists consider the killing of innocents to be religiously justified in their Holy War. Are the manifestations that they create evil? The Aztecs ritually sacrificed thousands of human beings at a time, many of them volunteers for torture and ritual murder. Was that evil?” She looked around at the group and shrugged.
“By our modern lights, by our Faith, the answer is: yes. These actions are evil and the entities that support, encourage and revel in them are evil. Our patrons use us to battle those entities upon this plane. They use us to save souls from the clutches of their enemies and our souls are offered to them in return. However, that is what you have to grasp. The essential battle is for souls, for power. Our enemies have a desire to seize souls, through whatever means is available to them. Our patrons also desire to bring souls into their area of control and wish to prevent their enemies from securing them.
“It is without doubt that at one time many modern demons were gods who were worshipped and sacrificed to within a positive societal context. However, over the years most of them have been displaced by more positive gods, including most especially Yaweh and the White God, and the sacrifices once given to them have dwindled. From the perspective of anyone in this room, this can only be regarded in a positive light; the religions of Baal, of Kali, of Tzetzacoatl were abominations and their surviving acolytes are monsters. But demons and the bloody gods still continue to struggle to capture the souls of the innocent and they come to us in a variety of guises. And using physical sensory cues to identify them is what this class is about. Later, the use of secondary senses, related to your god-bond, will be covered.”
They were issued four books that, as Sharice put it, were simply primers on the subject, and then Sharice ran through a list of the more common entities they might encounter. Vampires and werewolves Barbara had heard of but some of the most common entities derived from faiths she had never heard of. Many of the demons and devils of Christianity were traced, as individuals or classes, back to Zoroastrianism and even to Babylon.
Most of the class seemed to consider the information extremely elementary but Barbara was entirely out of her depth. She had never really been interested in the occult and suddenly finding it central to her life was beyond odd. But she persevered, taking copious notes and flipping through pages in The Golden Bough and The Masks of God, trying to keep up.
By the end of the class she was sure she’d never be able to identify even the simplest manifestation and her head was swimming with names like “selkie” and “bunyip” and “daevas,” of which there seemed to be legions.
When the class was over she looked at her schedule and sighed. Next was “The Touch of God: Introductory Channeling.” She’d faced what she now recognized as “an intermediate godling” and channeled heavily to fight it. But right now all she wished was that she was back home, getting lunch ready for the kids.
She stood up, clutching her books, and stepped to the front to talk to Sharice.
The instructor finished talking to a mousey woman who nodded at Barb as she walked out and Barbara confronted the witch.
“You seemed to have left out Allah,” she said, quizzically.
Sharice paused and then shrugged.
“Allah is as much on the side of light as The White God,” Sharice said, frowning. “However, the current cultural expression by the majority of the active members of Islam is highly negative and in many cases involves interaction with negative intermediaries. Those who are using the name of Allah for their activities range from dupes to those who know very well the entities are enemies of their God. However… just as there are very few Protestant Christians among our ranks, there are very few members of Islam. Some day, perhaps, Islamics will adjust their culture and quit making pacts with the daevas and djinn. But, until then, I can’t in good conscience put the religion of Islam fully on the side of Light.”
“Are you sure that Allah is… I guess ‘on our side’ would be the way to put it?” Barb asked, diffidently.
“Oh, no question,” Sharice said, cautiously. “The fact is… it’s very hard to separate Yaweh, the White God and Allah as entities.” She looked at the expression on the woman’s face and nearly laughed. “Yep, all this horror is, in fact, being done in the name of the White God, whether they realize it or not. Trust me on this one. You’ll find out for sure some day. There is, as far as anyone can tell, not a shred of difference between the three entities. All the Children of the Book worship the same God. The One God if you will. And that One God is mightily pissed at the ‘fundamentalists’ from what we’ve been able to glean.”
“I see,” Barbara said, unhappily.
“If it makes you feel any better,” Sharice said, “from what we’ve got from history, there are various periods in each of the three major religions of the One God where the adherents, in fact, fell out of favor. The religious wars in Europe, the period in Israel when Jesus appeared, the crusades. All of them had the One God pissed. But…” She paused and frowned. “For some reason direct action on His part has become… almost impossible. The why of that has been a bone of contention in the Foundation for some time. Now all that He can do is work through his earthly supporters,” she finished, waving at Barb. “But when He does, he has a mass of power like none other.”
“I guess I can accept that,” Barbara said. “It doesn’t change my approach to Him. He is still the God that sent His only begotten Son to die for our sins.”
“Hold that thought,” Sharice said, seriously. “Faith is our armor. You’ll learn much here and some of it may shake that faith. Don’t let it. You have felt the power of God. That is beyond faith, beyond reason. Know that what you believe, how you act, is what your God is looking for in a believer. Dedicate your soul fully to Him and you will be armored against any evil. But know, too, that we all follow our own paths to Him. Each person’s path is unique to that person.”
“That takes some getting used to,” Barbara admitted. “My faith tells me that the only path to heaven is through the saving grace of Our Lord Jesus. That where two or more are gathered in His name, that there he resides.”
“How many names are there for God?” Sharice said, smiling. “When we Wiccans gather in our circle, we call upon the One. Is that some separate entity? Or is it, in fact, another face of the One God? Are four or more gathered in His name?” She nodded at the thoughtful expression on Barb’s face and then gestured at the door. “You have more classes to tax your mind and soul. Go to them. Learn. So that the next time you are called to God’s work you will be better prepared in knowledge. Let the spirit be your own.”
She had arrived on Monday and through the week she attended class after class on every conceivable subject. Some of them, like “Sexual Magic,” made her squirm. Others were so esoteric that she wasn’t sure what connection they might have to her Calling. But, as the week stretched out, the schedule lightened up. She read the various tracts that had been given to her and then dove into the Foundation’s library for more advanced reading. She found that researching the occult was fun in and of itself. And she began to see what Janea had meant by it being a lifetime study.