And a bit of synchronicity for myself; if you read the comments left at his blog, you’ll where he mentions listening to the interiview with Tim Binnall and the “Paranormal Pastor,” who warns against getting too obsessed about the darker side of esoterica. I was just again thinking about that today; I’ve had an idea for some months now about a project — maybe a blog, site, or a book, not sure where I wanted to go — about the “dark side” of one aspect of Forteana. Then thought better of it. I have enough going on and there’s enough dark side stuff on its own to occupy any student of high strangeness.

Pazuzu was said to be invoked in amulets which combat the powers of the malicious goddess, and hated rival, Lamashtu, who was believed to cause harm to mother and child during childbirth. Although Pazuzu is, himself, an evil spirit, he drives away other evil spirits, thus protecting humans against plagues and misfortunes. ~ (Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pazuzu)

Lamashtu bears a resemblance to the deity Lilith.

I don’t remember if Andrew Colvin mentions Pazuzu in Mothman Photographer’s II, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he had. I’ll ask him at his forum on Yahoo: Mothmans_photographer.

Pazuzu reminded of Mothman in some ways. I wonder if both Pazuzu and Lamashtu aren’t depicted somewhat simplistically here; (as Lilith often is) (for that matter, so is Mothman at times.)

llk36, who left the comment also mentions that Pazuzu was depicted in The Exorcist. I’ve seen that movie a couple of times; vaguely recall that winged statue and the shot of the bright red yellow light; it was over 30 years since I’ve seen the movie. I guess I completely missed or forget this part:

Pazuzu first appeared in William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist in 1971.[1] The novel is about a young girl, Regan MacNeil, possessed by a demon. The demon is later revealed to be Pazuzu, the demon whose statue was found in northern Iraq by Father Merrin.

I just assumed it was the plain ol’ devil Devil, lol. All the same I suppose.
Here’s why I remember that shot of the statue and light:

Two years after the novel was published, Pazuzu debuted on the silver screen in The Exorcist. The film was adapted from Blatty’s novel, who wrote the screenplay for the film himself. In the beginning of the film, Father Merrin seeks Pazuzu in Iraq, where he finds a ruined statue of the demon.

More from Wikipedia:

Pazuzu is also a figure in Dungeons and Dragons: In the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game, Pazuzu is a powerful demon prince, called the Prince of the Lower Aerial Kingdoms. He rules the skies above all layers of the Abyss. He is sometimes known as Pazrael or Pazuzeus.

Well, after surfing images and info on Pazuzu, I’m feeling a bit creeped out and unwholesome. And I don’t get a “mothman hit” from it, although there are some parallels.

One last thing; according to llk36, Walt Disney died the same day of the first reported Mothman sighting, which was Dec 15 1966. I don’t know why that would be relevant, except, that it just does, being Disney, as well as Mothman being a messenger of death. It also seems to me Colvin mentions this in Mothman’s Photographer II but that’s something else I’ll have to ask.

It was created by Mothman author Donnie Sergent who wrote Mothman: The Facts Behind the Legend. Here’s a bit from their blurb on the group:

This online community was created, is produced and owned by author Donnie Sergent Jr, with day to day activity ran by Annual Mothman Festival Co-organizer John Frick. Brief information about the author: Point Pleasant, WV resident, Featured on Unsolved Mysteries television show, Creator of MothmanLives.com, Author of Mothman: The Facts Behind the Legend (book and CD-ROM), Co-Founder of the Annual Mothman Festival in Point Pleasant, WV.

http://www.andycolvin.com/wordpress/

Mothramanics:

I will be a guest tomorrow, Wed., on the new and improved “live call-
in” version of Beyond the Grassy Knoll, which is starting to soar
with heavy hitting guests from the superspectrum. I have no idea what
we are going to talk about, which should make it interesting. Starts
at noon PST…

Below is a photo of some “Mothman” leaf masks by a guy I am writing a
book with, the amazing Bruce Bickford, who once did claymation for
Frank Zappa.

Rewards,

Andy

A few years ago, I was moderator of several Yahoo groups. This was before blogging took off. I was either moderator of, or co-moderator of, various Yahoo groups, almost all of them having to do with UFOs, the paranormal, etc. Some of these groups are still going, even though I’ve pretty much forgotten all about them. I rarely check in with them or post. (I’ve set up some automatic postings via my blogs; whenever I post on my blog (s) it goes to the Yahoo group.) I have no idea what’s going on with those groups; some of them have other moderators, but there doesn’t seem to be much discussin going on. The exception is FPA or Fortean Phenomena Again, which was created by “Patouchlie Troll” (she’s NOT a troll in that sense of the word) or “PT” as she’s known. That one is still going pretty well, and I, along with several others, co-moderate although I haven’t been over there either in a long time.

Well, a few years ago, I received an e-mail from someone who had started a Mothman group on Yahoo. The group was small and nothing was happening. He wanted to turn it over to someone who would keep it going, and he thought of me.

What was interesting was that I didn’t know this person. I didn’t recognize his name from any of the groups. Yet he emailed me for some reason.

His group — I wish to hell I could remember! — was called something like The Dark Side of Mothman. I don’t think that was it exactly, but the gist of it was, a dark take on it all, including the psy ops mind control aspect. The approach was on the clinical/technical side; electronics and spy machines and frequencies and things. . .(In fact, I just checked and saw that the category the group is in is in the technical category! Guess I never noticed that before.)

I didn’t know anything about Mothman at the time, except from reading Keel’s books, but I was interested. So I said “sure” and took it over. I joked at the time that “Somehow I feel as if I’m an experiment in some one’s mind control game” and the whole thing struck me as odd. I renamed the group to MIBS and Mothman.

The group is still up there on Yahoo, but very little is happening. Just automatic posts from myself and the co-moderator “cryptid hunter.”