Real Wrath of God Type Stuff
Ghostbusters is considered a classic film that broke the mold between special effects films and comedy in a big way. There are enough stacks of essays, think pieces, and theses to recall the Philadelphia mass turbulence of 1947. There’s nothing I can say about the film that hasn’t been said. So why write about it at all? Because it’s another piece of pop culture that helped saved my life.
Dr. Peter Venkman: This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.
Mayor: What do you mean, “biblical”?
Dr Ray Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath-of-God type stuff.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Exactly.
Dr Ray Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies. Rivers and seas boiling.
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness. Earthquakes, volcanoes…
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together — mass hysteria
The apocalypse was an everyday part of my life growing up in an Evangelical household. That kind of conversation was had time and time again by the adults around me. As a child, I knew a few things, I wouldn’t make it to adulthood before the Rapture and/or Tribulation and that ghosts (read: demons) were real.
The evangelical community does not coddle their children in their belief in the demonic world. We are assured from a tender age that the devil is real, he will test and tempt you, and sometimes he would send his demonic hordes to torment you. After revealing this terrifying reality to you they would assure you that you were protected as long as you had faith in God. I was taught that sin, perhaps not even your own , could open doors to hell that would allow demonic entities into your home. I was taught how to “cast out” and bind these demons. I knew how to anoint a threshold with oil. I knew the questions to ask a supernatural entity to determine whether they were an angel or a demon. I also knew if I wasn’t vigilant in my faith and remember my weaponry that demonic entities can and would hurt me. This was my reality.
Suffice it to say, telling a kid to just stare a hell beast down and shout “I bind you in the name of Jesus” did little to calm my fears. Between the knowledge of a coming doomsday, the reality of demons out to get me, and the daily stories told by my elders to reinforce the belief in both, I spent most of my childhood in a constant state of mild terror. The adults believed this was simply a reality I had to face. That’s the nefarious danger of spiritual abuse. It instills fear and shame within a child by a community of adults who absolutely believe they are doing it to save your mortal soul.
There didn’t seem to be a consistent logic to what media I was and was not allowed to watch and play as a child. For whatever reason, Ghostbusters was allowed and it burned up the VCR quite a bit. I could quote the entire film backward and forward as a kid, even the parts I shouldn’t. Everything about the film was perfect in my eyes. I grew up in a poor household so I only had a couple of Ghostbusters toys including a Stay Puft Marshmallow man action figure I still have sitting in my office at home. It’s a totem that reminds me of what I survived.
Ghostbusters was such an important film to me as a child because it acknowledged what I already knew at the time: Demons were real and they were out to make humanity suffer. However, it presented a novel idea to me. If demons were real and could effect change on the physical plane of existence, then humans could sure as hell effect change on them without muttering “I bind you in the name of Jesus” until you fell asleep despite your fear of the weird shadow in the corner.
Watching the Ghostbusters battle increasingly more powerful ghosts and overcoming each one, right up to and including a version of the devil,empowered me in a way I didn’t think was possible. Yes, even if you do accidentally invite evil into your city by thinking about roasting marshmallows, science and ingenuity could save the day. Of course I could separate fantasy from reality and while I knew proton packs didn’t really exist, the cat was out of the bag for me intellectually.
This knowledge didn’t magically cure my fear of demons and the end of days. I spent years, into the early stages of adulthood conquering that fear. However, it did serve as a life preserver. It was a spark that kindled an interest in science. It assured me that there was no monster that was too powerful to be defeated by human beings working together.
The irony of all this is that Ghostbusters was just one of many things that I held onto to stay afloat in a sea of spiritual abuse. My mother was an avid Sci Fi reader and I was also exposed to many books with far different ideas about the future of humanity. I was awash in a sea of spiritual abuse clinging to a crate of humanist propaganda. If only my mother knew things may have gone very differently for me.
Call it fate, call it luck, call it karma, I believe everything happens for a reason. I believe I was destined to overcome the shackles of spiritual abuse and embrace a reality with much more hope for the future, if we work together.
So watch Ghostbusters when you get a chance. It may mean one thing to me and something else to you, but it’s another example of escapism reminding us that human beings can overcome impossible odds if we work together.
Resist.
