DeGraw makes her case in her ebook Why Christians Shouldn’t Celebrate Halloween, heavily promoted by Charisma magazine, containing what DeGraw describes as nine “teachings” about Halloween based on the assumption that “[t]he demonic realm is alive and active”. Though people often recognize that “evil forces” drive actions like mass shootings, laments DeGraw, for some reason “when it comes to the pagan celebration of Halloween, we somehow do not see it as having the same demonic and evil impact as those other tragedies”. Part of the motivation for writing the book, seems accordingly to have been to try to sort out the mystery of how people could miss the obvious similarities between trick-and-treting and mass shootings when they’re virtually identical. “The effects of Halloween and human sacrifices are just as real. However, authorities – and the news media – simply don’t report them.” Did you see how elegantly she just threw “human sacrifices” into that sentence?
Meanwhile, Christians who see the holiday as harmless fun are “co-laboring with the works of darkness” and essentially supporting occult practices like having sex with demons and sacrificing babies to drink their blood. (Yes, the connection to QAnon is pretty direct.) Accordingly, DeGraw urges Christians to be on the “counteroffensive” against the “demonic realm”, which is conjuring up “curses, spells, vexes and other evil practices” in October to “destroy Christians, uproot prophetic destinies and come against the plans of God.” The most important step these fellow travelers could take is to repent for their past participation in Halloween the same way they’d repent for “pornography, masturbation, rape, stealing, or vulgar language.” “Why is Halloween any different?” It’s instructive to consider what types of ideas and assumptions you need to make to think that that is a good question.
Diagnosis: Dingbat insane, of course, and though we haven’t tried to trace DeGraw’s subsequent development, we wouldn’t be surprised if they led to the darkest corners of QAnon. Fortunately it’s hard to conceive of her rantings as having much impact on anything.
Hat-tip: Peter Montgomery @ rightwingwatch