Traditionally we start each episode with a drink, though we wanted to go more or less straight to Drew this time. But you might want to try out the Hellraiser Cocktail, a red and black layered shot  with black sambuca, melon, and strawberry. Though the entirely unrelated cocktail at right is from Food and Wine’s article on halloween cocktails.

From the “pointless asides” category, though, Jacob would like to mention the Tankobon Anime Goetia book, a pocket-sized volume of Manga-styled goetic demons, and likely an actual grimoire. The pictures are all cute, and while it’s a little odd to see the entire collection of the Goetics done as Anime girls, this may be reasonable gender parity considering how often demons are given the “gender neutral male” pronoun. Anyway, Buer, at right, is the cutest depiction ever of Mr. Leggy. 

Digressive movie reference #1: The Killer Condom (the rubber that rubs you out).

Digressive movie reference #2: Weird Science. Digressive movie reference #3, Sing 2, involves a hedgehog singing to an elephant, but isn’t worth a link, not really.

Replica of the Frankinator, one of the central metaphors of not only Hellraiser, but the later  and largely forgotten “Harry Potter” spinoff series. Image from Yourprops.com. Leviathan, slightly more visually detailed image from the comic series, below.

A Brief Aside on the Qliphoth…

In some of the rabbinical writings on the Kabbalah, which likely run from 1400 onward, the concept of the “qliphoth” starts to develop. This is, sort of kind of, the opposite of teh Sefirot, the Tree of Life. The word means something like “shells,” “peels,” or “husks,” and sometimes is something akin to a protective wrapping around creation itself. But being further away from the divine heart of creation, they took on a darker, corrupt aspect as well…spiritual obstacles to holiness and something that needs to be cleansed and redeemed. Anyway, it’s a complex bundle of ideas. But in these modern times, demonic realms and powers have been overlayed on top of the angelic and divine mapping of the tree of life, giving it predominantly a darker interpretation, at least in popular occultism. 

Read up on the Ebay history of the Dybbuk Box and its pop-culture neolegendry on Wiki…

Digressive movie reference #4: Heavy Metal