7 things @ 9 o’clock (Halloween)

1. Marc Herman: “Evangelical ‘Hell Houses’ Still a Thing This Year, Now With Additional Creepiness.” The Colorado church selling the $299 how-to kit has added a “Gay Wedding” scene to go along with all the old favorites of sex, drugs, rock and roll, and abortion (more about that bit later). New Destiny Christian Center also claims that “75,000 people have toured houses created with their mail-order kit, and a third of those have become religious converts or rededicated themselves to their faith.”

That’s an old racket. Fill the pews with born-again Christians and preach about Hell until they’re so scared they’ll “rededicate themselves” just to be safe. Then count all those rededications as converts and declare yourself to be a statistically successful “evangelist” — even though you’ve never had a single person in your audience who hadn’t already been born-again several times over. Old — like, they were already making sarcastic jokes about this in the 1800s.

2. Here’s Vincent Price reading “The Raven,” by Edgar Allen Poe:

That’s from Open Culture, which also offers renditions by Christopher Walken and Christopher Lee.

3. From The Forward: “Terrifying Top 10 (Jewish) Songs for Halloween.” Includes some classics from the likes of Chaim Witz, Jeffrey Hyman, Peter Greenbaum, Lewis Allan Rabinowitz and, um, Warren Zevon.

4. Jadis at rest:

Let them have it, then. Let the children have the whole sorry lot of it, and may fortune attend them. Run a country with four principle executives, no established means of collecting tax revenues, no standing army, no police, no public services, talking Animal separatists, a rebellion on the Ettinsmoor border, no major exports, and no established trade with the wealthiest country in the known universe due to ridiculous racial prejudice. Let them re-establish the terms of our non-aggression treaty with the Merpeople. See if I care. I hope they do. I hope the little brats all speak fluent Mermish and find mutually acceptable terms of agreement.

5. “For some reason, the idea of a multistate road trip to TP an entire house seems far less illogical than it did ten minutes ago.” That’s from Doktor Zoom’s “Derp Roundup: Special All Hallow’s Eve Edition” at Wonkette.

6. Damian Thompson introduces us to the latest Mike Warnke wanna-be, William J. Schnoebelen, who claims to be a “former witch high priest now saved by Jesus.” Thompson notes, “funny how ex-Satanists always insist that they were senior devil-worshippers, not just part of the demonic rank and file.”

Thompson also points us to something called demonbusters.com, run by some folks who seem quite exercised about exorcism. “Everyone has demons,” they warn. “No exceptions.” But they also offer this bit of practical advice:

BOYCE and BOICE are two demons that interfere with any electronic equipment, i.e., phone, computer, printer, automobile, etc. If something malfunctions, command these two demons to leave your equipment, in the name of Jesus. We get many emails saying this worked. If it does not work, demons are not causing the problem.

So if exorcising Boyce and Boice doesn’t work, you should try turning it off and turning it back on. Then check the connections.

7. “Who likes Halloween candy?”