The Halloween Files (Part VII): A Theological Bestiary

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As part of my ongoing reflections on Halloween, I had intended to write a theological bestiary--that is, a study of the various monsters that turn up at Halloween--werewolves, vampires, phantoms and the like--with a detailed discussion of their theological significance as projections of our deepest fears and repulsions.  But Halloween's only two sleeps away and I've got to get working on my costume: who's got the time?

And besides, psychologist/theologian Richard Beck has already done a fascinating and thorough job of this over at his blog, Experimental Theology. It was actually discovering his work on the theology of monsters a year or so ago that inspired this Halloween series; so, as a tribute, and to avoid re-inventing the wheel I thought I'd post a link instead. 

Start here: Omens & Warnings.  And whatever else you do, don't miss this one:  Monsters and Heroes; but do it when you've got the time for some leisurely, reflective reading.  I shared some of Beck's ideas at the dinner table with the kids a few weeks ago.  My son's assessment: "Mind equals blown."

There is so much that is rich and thought provoking in this series, but what I would like to draw attention to here is Richard Beck's over-arching theory that monsters are a social defense mechanism--a form of "othering" by which we culturally "deal with" our own junk.  In Beck's words:

The theological richness of monsters comes from the fact that monsters allow us to reflect upon notions of otherness, alienness, strangeness, and alterity. More specifically, monsters ask us to confront and analyze our fears of the Other to determine if those fears are misdirected.

To review, many of things feared in monsters are aspects of the self. As Richard Kearney writes in his book Strangers, Gods and Monsters: Ideas of Otherness monsters remind us that the "ego is never wholly sovereign...Each monster narrative recalls that the self is never secure in itself." Monsters are "tokens of fracture within the human psyche."

Feeling this fracture, we've noted how we project the transgressive aspects of the self onto the Other. Kearney writes that "we often project onto others those unconscious fears from which we recoil in ourselves." We handle our own evil by attempting "to repudiate it by projecting it exclusively onto outsiders." This creates "the polarization between Us and Them" resulting in the Monster/Hero duality we discussed in a prior post, a duality where I am Good and the Other is Bad. Kearney summarizes, "all too often, humans have [allowed] paranoid delusions to serve the purpose of making sense of our confused emotions by externalizing them into black-and-white scenarios."

I'll leave you with that little piece of Halloween toffee to chew on for today; but let me add this:  Richard Beck suggests that monster narratives are a way of dealing with the collective discomfort we feel about "the other" in our midst.   "They" disturb "us" because in their difference they point out our own brokenness-- the evil within, so to speak.  So we make "them" unclean, outcast, untouchable, and by this act of demonization we try to convince ourselves that we are, in fact, whole.

If he's right, then I guess it wouldn't hurt to remember that in his ministry among the poor, the outcast, the unclean, the demonized, Jesus stood with the monsters.

And if he's right, it would mean that this Halloween night, when the doorbell rings and the neighbour kid stands there in his rubber devil mask asking for a treat, that's actually opportunity knocking.  It's an opportunity to be reminded that "the monster," in fact, is us.