The Whole Haunted World #16

Digging into the Witch of Endor, and a few Halloween treats

I hope wherever you are that you’re starting to see some signs of spring. Here in Southern California (where we just had a week of rain), things are blooming and sprouting like crazy.

And yet here I am thinking about…Halloween! (Well, DUH.) For some reason, there’ve been a lot of Halloween things popping up on my radar lately, so I thought it would be fun to share some of these with you.

Spooky Swap Meet 2024

• My friends at Cryptocurium have a fantastic side-venture called The Order of the Thinned Veil, now accepting members for its 9th year. You can join at various levels, but they all come with fantastic original artwork by Jason McKittrick and Sam Heimer (two of my favorite Halloween artists), and you’ll also get a brief history of masks by me.

• My pal Miranda has moved her fabulous Spooky Little Halloween off social media and onto a free level of her Patreon. Did I say “free”? (But you should consider joining at a paid level, because her content is beyond fabulous.)

• Mark Ledenbach’s annual Halloween collectibles auction is closing tonight. This is probably THE auction for Halloween collectors, so be prepared for both incredible material and high values (I bid on a few things every year but I’m not made of money so I rarely win anything).

• Halloweencostumes.com just unveiled a bunch of new animatronic figures for 2025. Please join me in giggling at “Hopps the Dismembered Zombie.”

• Tickets are now on sale for both the Spooky Swap Meet and Midsummer Scream, two of my favorite events of the year.

The Great Biblical Ghost Story: Saul and the Witch of Endor (Part 1)

“Saul and the Witch of Endor” by Benjamin West

Christianity changed everything in the western world.

That, of course, is an obvious statement, so let’s narrow it and confine our discussion to just ghosts. What does the Bible say about ghosts, and how did they evolve from the earlier Greek and Roman notions?