Aliens!

“When I see your heavens, the works of your fingers, the moon and stars that you set in place – What is man that you are mindful of him, and a son of man that you care for him?” – Psalm 8:4-5

Extraterrestrials have been a staple of our pop culture, urban legend, and serious scientific inquiry just about since the early 20th century and the advent of Wellsian fantasy. There is something about these little green men from another world that capture our imagination and conscience. Aliens in fiction can be a way to view the human race from a radically different angle, or be a conduit for a specific aspect of human behavior. Moreover, they can act as members of a completely foreign world through elaborate science-fiction that acts to a similar end as fantasy. Some of our most iconic fictional characters are beings from other planets. Think of E.T., the Iron Giant, or Superman and what they teach us about life on earth. Extraterrestrials in literature and film always astound us and make us rethink crucial aspects of our nature.

However, the existence of intelligent life beyond earth is a legitimate topic of discussion that’s worth looking into in the years ahead as we continue to peer into the stars for answers about our universe. Plus, it’s simply one of those topics that is fun to speculate about. I’ve always enjoyed the idea of humans interacting with beings like us in some ways but radically different in others – That’s part of the reason science fiction and comic books fascinate me. That beings said, it’s always a bit annoying when I hear certain Christians, and even some Catholics say things like “Nah, there’s no aliens. Because, you know, the Bible.” A simplification, I know, but it does describe a Protestant creationist worldview common in the United States that has leaked into the Catholic Church without a whole lot of concern. It is concerning, though, mainly because it adds fuel to the fire of new atheism, which is always claiming that Christians are anti-science and not curious about anything. Arguments against God become a lot easier to make when you can say, “There is no God, because… dinosaurs.” (I’ve mentioned briefly here before the Simon Pegg and Nick Frost movie Paul which operates basically on the same premise with an alien and a caricatured fundamentalist antagonist.)

The problem with creationism is that it actually sets limits on God’s creation, rather than affirming that the truths of science cannot contradict the truths of revelation and letting scientists genuinely inquire about the created world. That’s why the Church is not opposed to belief in the evolution of the natural world through natural selection and even of the evolution of the human body – though it maintains that the first humans were granted rational souls. Just so, there is no reason, from a Catholic perspective, to outright deny the existence of other organic, intelligent beings with rational souls out in the vastness of the universe. If one was to express doubt at their existence, it would have to be on scientific rather than theological grounds. To express doubt of extraterrestrial life because of the “Goldilocks Zone” and what not is understandable, but to reject the possibility because it doesn’t fit into a narrow theological worldview is a grand presumption.

On the other hand, a genuinely Catholic view of revelation does not encourage its believers to treat the Bible like a science text-book and give in to the false premises of fundamentalism. In the words of very famous Renaissance Catholic named Galileo: “The Scriptures tell us how to go to Heaven, not how the Heavens go.” No doubt Galileo had more of a Catholic mind than his persecutors.

Okay, rant over.

With all that said, it bears pointing out that certain beliefs surrounding aliens are indeed contrary to the Faith in that they can be used as a cop-out for materialism. I’ll call this set of beliefs “alienolatry” – mostly because I like to make up words.  Alienolatry is the whole system that seeks to explain away everything religious or mythological in human history a being done by aliens. Pyramids? Aliens. Gods and goddesses of myth? Aliens. Biblical prophecy? Aliens. Jesus Christ? Definitely an alien! ( I mean, that goes without saying) The problem with this line of thinking that it ends up becoming just as silly as creationism. Instead of cutting out the realities of the natural world, it strips out the soul of human life and replaces it with an idolatry of beings that might be “more evolved” than we. As Catholics, we do not worship God as “a being” but as “being itself”. That means that if aliens did come to earth tomorrow, they would be neither deserving of worship nor even the veneration given to the saints.

The real error of alienolatry lies in connecting the existence of other corporeal beings with religious mania that wipes out the truths of revelation. Now, it’s true that if extraterrestrial beings do exist, they could possess technology, mental faculties, or abilities that make them far superior to we humans. However, they’d still be, like us “a little less than an angel” (Ps. 8:6) with rational souls and fleshy bodies. I don’t know enough about abduction stories and conspiracy theories to make a venture about alien activity already involved in human history. However, if we do come face to face some day with extraterrestrial life whom we can understand and wish to understand us, it will be a great day for both worlds. There may be blood and curses as there always are when cultures meet, but there might come a day when we can sit down and talk about the things that matter – Goodness, Truth and Beauty. You know, the universal things – all in a very big universe.

On Vampires – or, Evil Sucks

Humans have a habit of making monsters. Whether it’s a fire-breathing dragon, a one-eyed giant, or a green guy with bolts going through his neck, we just love to make up more and more things that go bump in the night. It could be that this urge originates with an instinctual fear from the days our species had to contend with wild animals and the elements. It could equally be an actual subtle awareness of the diabolical, or even a sort of exorcism of our own demons buried within our fallen human nature. I would venture to say it’s a mix of all three. Whatever the reason, monsters are an enduring part of our creative consciousness from the Greek myths to modern day horror flicks.

That being said, I would say one of the most persistent and popular monster myths of the modern world has to be the vampire. Though blood-suckers are certainly present in many ancient cultures, we typically think of the vampire as we know it as a more recent invention. We can trace its origins back to penny dreadful stories of “Varney the Vampire” and of course Bram Stoker’s landmark horror masterpiece Dracula. In these early tales of gore, vampires were creatures of the night, half-demons who sucked the life out of innocent people and had access to a vast array of supernatural powers – flight, hypnotism, super-strength, transformation, and of course seduction.

Oh, but those days have long passed. Vampires, like many classic monsters, have largely been tamed and humanized. Twilight is by far the biggest culprit of this – turning a race of undead monsters into quasi-romantic, sympathetic creatures who sparkle in the sunlight. Another example would be the recent film Dracula Untold – though not “tame” by any means by my understanding the film whitewashes the sadistic character of Vlad Tepes and turns him into a bad guy worth rooting for. Another more obscure work in that line would be I, Dracula, where the famous count gives his own side of the story.

All this amounts to a disturbing trend to me – the tendency to downplay the role of evil beings and characters in literature and pop culture. There is always a desire to look at “the other side of the story” as seen with Disney’s recent hit Maleficent. The good guys are really bad and the bad guys are really good. Oh, but nothing is really “good” or “bad”. Asserting so would be ridiculous. It’s best to not pick a side – but we’d like you to think that all the evildoers are really just misunderstood. It’s Sympathy for the Devil to the max (capitalized out of respect to the Stones of course) – and something that ultimately makes for lame storytelling.

That’s because – well, let’s be honest. There is evil in the world. There is selfishness and greed and exploitation and a dozen other things that stem from our fallen nature. We need representations of that evil in art so that it can be conquered by art’s means. It goes back to G.K. Chesterton’s defense of fairy tales: “Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.” I don’t think it’s too off-base to see this trend of turning the monsters into heroes as literary rivers rushing into the sea of relativism where nobody stands for anything – where there isn’t any good or evil only different point of views.

That is part of the reason why the original Dracula by Bram Stoker holds an almost counter-cultural place in the literary and film milieu of today. In that tale, the titular antagonist is the epitome of evil. He wants nothing but to suck the life out of human beings, create more images of himself, and ultimately take over the world.

The language of the tale is very clear, presenting a character who acts as a sort of anti-Christ. By that I mean he takes blood and deprives others of physical life as opposed to giving blood and granting others Divine life. This, after all, is the essential function of the vampire’s mythos. They are selfishness in pale flesh – feeding upon others for their own benefit and seeking immortality through their own means.

A vampire’s selfish nature also contributes to another trait which the classical image of vampirism puts forth: their role as seducer and an image of eroticism gone bad. This theme has been played up particularly in modern incarnations of vampire mythos. The spectacularly chilling opening to the 1998 movie Blade starring Wesley Snipes.(You can watch the whole intro here) In the scene, a rather gullible guy is led into a nightclub (suspiciously located in the back of a slaughterhouse mind you – that alone should be a red flag but no matter) by a sexy woman. Once inside the nightclub, the guy gets caught up in the wild excitement and loud music. However, he comes to his senses as the party goers grow colder and colder. This feeling comes to a climax when blood begins pouring from the sprinkler systems and everyone in the club goes wild. It’s one of the best modern interpretations of vampires that sticks with their evil origin, plus it’s a great intro to a badass Marvel character.

In comic books themselves, one of the best handling of vampires I have read comes from a Spectre comic from DC – in fact the first one I picked up. (The Spectre Vol 3 #34 by Ostrander and Ridgway to be precise) In that story, the Spectre, aka Jim Corrigan, tracks down a group of vampires who turn out to be Hollywood executives. In one of the most clever pseudo-satires I’ve read in comics, the vampires reveal that they have been using their positions of power in the culture to change their species’ image. As one vampire notes: “Vampires used to be a symbol of evil and depravity. Now we’re seen as tragic, romantic, sexy figures. We free people from the bondage of sexual repression. It’s been an effective strategy.” Now, I’m not one to blame Hollywood for everything from gun violence to spilling my coffee, but I think this take by Spectre writer John Ostrander was spot on. The comic pulls off this in a way that is both darkly satirical while maintaining the fact that these really are terrifying creatures. After all, they do viciously attack several people in the first few pages – one of which is an infant (reminiscent to one of the more chilling scenes in Dracula). The comic also pins down the pride of the vampires in the character of Cruz, a recently-turned actor who is on a spree of turning others into vampires – much to dismay of the council. He explains himself by saying how because he no longer can work in films or plays (since he cannot be photographed or rehearse during the day) he sees spreading his vampirism as part of his creative process. “So I create more of myself. Isn’t that part of the creative urge, after all – to make little copies of ourselves?” The Spectre later describes Cruz as “a monster of the ego” – a monster which we all are too capable of creating. Vampirism revolves around the idea of making oneself immortal at the expense of others. We all have this kind of ambition lurking in the corners of our souls. We’d cheat death if we could, even if someone else had to pay for it.

All well and good, but why am I on about this? We can trace that back to the two founding principles of this blog – namely my Catholicism and my nerdiness. What that means in practical terms is that my nerdy side is concerned with literary and cultural phenomena for their own sake, whereupon my Catholic side swoops in and takes note of the moral, spiritual, and philosophical undertones of said phenomena. The vampire craze is no different. To me, the importance of the vampire in literature is to present a force for evil in a physical way. Vampirism is essentially anti-Christian (that is, opposed to the redemptive work of Christ) in that it seeks to corrupt that which is good and conduct a parasitic existence. They drink the blood from their victims until they either die or turn into a monster like them. In that vein, vampires can be interpreted as administers of an anti-Eucharistic feast . By that I mean it shares residual similarities with the Christian celebration but is used with the opposite intent. As mentioned above, Christ gives blood to give life, whereas vampires take blood to take or corrupt life. This makes them formidable supernatural creatures – walking Black Masses if you will. It also explains that how the modern vampire in its Stokerian roots is repelled by crucifixes, holy water, and most significantly – consecrated hosts. Part of the reason that we have trouble treating vampires in this fashion is that it makes blatant reference to the supernatural. Even more aggravating, it uses specifically Catholic-Orthodox imagery and symbols to defeat the vampire, making it not only a tale of good versus evil but of Church versus evil. Though none of the characters in Dracula claim any communion with Rome or the Eastern churches, they all use sacraments and sacramentals as weapons because well, they work. (No, garlic is not even a natural sacrament but you get the idea)

In short, the wider culture’s flirtation with vampirism seems to betrays its tendency to gravitate towards that which the vampire represents: selfishness, unbridled eroticism, and rejection of Christ and the Church. That being said, these are not faults we can totally project upon the culture. Reflecting on my own experience, I can think of plenty of times where I fell into pride, lust, or blasphemy. In that way, the vampire’s allure is something every one of us must struggle with. For example, the tempting realm of pornography, from a Christian perspective, is perfectly vampiric in that it promises pleasure but drains your spiritual life. Cut-throat ambition in business, politics or even the arts is vampiric as you climb a ladder to recognition and success by stepping on other people. We all have ways of falling under the figurative vampire’s spell.

From a cultural standpoint, my intention here isn’t to say that Hotel Transylvania is the devil or The Munsters represents the breakdown of American morals. I’ll leave that to those who think Harry Potter is the anti-Christ. My point is merely this: sometimes it is best for monsters to be monsters. It gives us something to set up as a mirror to our own dark desires and sins which ultimately leave us empty. The diabolical, like the Divine, must have it’s own iconography – so that we can recognize and destroy it when we meet it in the world and in our own souls. Vampires are myths – and like all myths, they reveal essential truths about human nature. We must be careful not to alter that source of revelation.