Category: Edge of the flock

Now a word from the creator GERRY LEE

In this scene, Debby Peterson meets George Ito in a used bookstore. George is a student of the occult, and is into demonology, ancient religions, and necromancy. It’s always struck me as odd that libraries and bookstores tend to group religion books near the occult. The fact that they group living religions with dead ones like mythologies from ages ago says something about the mindset of the organizers, but oh well.

This scene draws in part from a real-life experience I had in my younger days as an occultist. I was on the bus reading a book on classical witchcraft when a pretty nurse got on at the hospital stop. She asked what I was reading, and started a conversation about how she and her boyfriend used to be into the occult, then went on to give me her testimony as a Christian. How that annoyed me at the time!

George’s chapter is about the nature of God. Many people hazily believe in some kind of supernatural dimension to life, but it’s shaped by our upbringing and experiences. George has had a very hard life, and imagines that God is an angry, fickle, and tyrannical being, like his real father. So he rebels and starts seeking answers in the dark side of the supernatural.

He is also a bit of a cynic. While he desperately wants to find meaning and power in the occult, he has a conceited disdain for most occult traditions, knowing full well how much of it is easily proven to be fraudulent, illogical, or just an opportunistic grab for money. That is why he is amusing himself making fun of the books on the bookstore shelves.