While I started this month a little slow, I've attempted to make up for it now that my semester is over.

Because I personally have to deal with confusions between different terms relating to magic, I've started making glossary entries for them.  First up: witchcraft and ceremonial magic.

Also a discussion on conspiracy theories and how you can identify them from legit theories. Finally, I've added another entry to the geometric shapes gallery: the hexagram. It includes discussions of both the Star of David and the unicursal hexagram.

Three new articles have been added so far this month.  Look out for more before year's end.

Satanic Infernal Names of European Origin, which continues my study of names provided by Anton LaVey in his list of Satanic Infernal Names.

An Introduction to Spiritualism, a religion centered upon gaining knowledge from the spirits of the dead.

Lucifer of the Luciferians, which describes Lucifer in the words of two practicing Luciferians.

The last couple of weeks have seen the addition of two new articles.  First, Satanic Infernal Names of Middle Eastern Origin, part of the LaVeyan Infernal Names series.

Second is an article on the use of Gender in Western Occultism. Identifying various qualities, elements, and so forth as being either masculine or feminine in nature is a basic approach to understanding the nature of the world.

That is the question Ritch Duncan, author of The Werewolf's Guide to Life had to recently ask himself.  The book was found in the apartment of two women accused of stabbing a man 300 times in what reports kept describing as a Satanic sex ritual.  The book was seized as evidence, and as the story started being repeated throughout the blogosphere (and mainstream news) the book kept featuring more and more prominently in the stories.

I saw the story when it first broke, but I said nothing because there were  few details being released to the press about the actual events and because I wasn't familiar with the book.  While I suspected this was yet another case of connecting dots that didn't need connecting, I had no evidence.

And then, today, I find this article from Ritch Duncan himself, in which he not only describes his book as a work of fiction (that is, it is meant to be read as entertainment about imaginary creatures, not as a real world instruction manual for anyone), but also that the book is found in the humor section of bookstores.  Moreover, even if a reader did take it seriously, the book is full of advice on how to avoid hurting other people.

I have no idea if these two women thought they were werewolves.  If they did, and they thought this was an actual guide to being one, that might support an insanity defense.  But it's just as possible that this book just happens to be a book these two women enjoyed reading, just as other people enjoy reading.  Most likely it had nothing to do with why these women allegedly thought stabbing a man 300 times would be fun.