Happy Halloween!
Have a fun, safe and sane holiday!
Today, I have an author event in Port Orchard, Washington. This is the next town over from me here in Bremerton. I prepared something to say…but as it turned out, it's going to be just an author signing. Still, I wasn't sure at first, so I prepared something to say just in case I was asked to...Deity, Dogma, and Misperception in Death of Heaven
When I wrote *Death of Heaven* in 2012, my intention — other than simply to entertain — was to explore how we as human beings misunderstand reality. This is something that goes back to my university degree in psychology, concentrating in phenomenology.
How, when we encounter something beyond our understanding, we invent stories about it. We build beliefs, and from those beliefs we construct entire systems — religions, moral codes, even ideas of good and evil — all to make sense of what we’ve seen or felt, even when we don’t truly understand it.
To very poorly paraphrase what someone once said:
“Given enough time, humans will turn almost anything into a religion.”
Thus, Longevity + Repetition = Institutionalization, or Religion.
In 1769 Voltaire said:
“If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.”
Hanif Abdurraqib (said more recently):
“With enough repetition, anything can become a religion.”
Terry Pratchett, in Small Gods more or less said:
“If enough people believe, you can be god of anything,” i.e., belief over time/in numbers begets religion.
Eric Hoffer, American moral and social philosopher best known for his book The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements published in 1951, is often cited when discussing how long-lived movements harden into institutions:
“Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”
Finally, the great Doug Adams of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy fame:
“I am fascinated by religion. (That’s a completely different thing from believing in it!) … What is it? What does it represent? Why have we invented it? How does it keep going? What will become of it?”
He also said:
“Religion doesn’t seem to work like that; it has certain ideas at the heart of it which we call sacred or holy or whatever … really what it means is ‘Here is an idea or notion that you’re not allowed to say anything bad about; you’re just not.’ Why not? Because you’re not!”
For millennia, we humans believed the heavens revolved around us. That misperception wasn’t just an error — it became the organizing myth of civilization. From it grew:
-astronomy and mathematics (as early cultures tried to predict divine “movements” of the stars),
-architecture and art (temples and cathedrals aligned with celestial bodies),
-philosophy and theology (Aristotle, Ptolemy, Aquinas), and
-a moral worldview placing humanity at the center of creation.
Leaving that belief was painful. We murdered people over questioning it.
Every time humanity sheds an old illusion, it feels like dying a little. We fought to keep the Earth at the center of the universe; we silenced people for saying otherwise. But the truth didn’t care. It just waited. And that’s the same struggle my characters face in Death of Heaven — when reality refuses to match belief, but rather than belief fighting back...reality wins. And it’s horrifying.
This book wasn’t about denying religion, it wasn’t an attempt to destroy religion, rather it simply tries to point out just how often we misperceive reality.
That’s what *Death of Heaven* is really about. It’s horror, yes — to be sure, it’s adult horror, but not just in the sense of monsters or the supernatural.
It’s about the horror of realizing how fragile our understanding of existence might be... while reality is attacking us and allowing us no time to assimilate the new paradigm of reality.
The story follows people who experience things far beyond what they or anyone, can comprehend, and rather than accept the unknown, they interpret it through the only framework they have through their lived experiences: belief.
They assign meaning. They have to. And so they create gods out of confusion and terror, as humans have always done.
To me, that’s what’s fascinating — and frightening. We think of dogma as something ancient or religious, but it’s actually a very human reflex. We do it constantly, even today: we fill in the blanks when reality doesn’t make sense.
Both to our benefit and detriment.
The universe, in its enormity, doesn’t explain itself — and that silence is intolerable to us. We are pattern recognizers and so we assign the most obvious pattern to what we do not understand.
So we name it. We worship it. We fear it. We give it purpose, even when that purpose may never have existed.
In *Death of Heaven*, that instinct to explain — to create meaning — becomes both the source of our strength and the root of our tragedy. Because if our gods and our certainties are born from misunderstanding, then what happens when the truth finally arrives and refuses to fit those stories? What happens when heaven dies — not in the sky, but inside us, in the collapse of our own convictions?
So while I wrote it as a piece of speculative horror, it’s really an exploration of perception. Of how much of our reality is shaped by the stories we tell ourselves to survive. And maybe, just maybe, what we call divinity — or evil — isn’t divine or evil at all, but simply the way the universe looks when we see it through human eyes.
But what might happen in the sequel to the book? Once the entire world cannot deny that reality is not what we believed? Many will continue on. Some will not be able to and perhaps mass suicides will ensue. But many will not be able to deny what they had just lived through and will have to reinvent their perceived universe.
That’s the world I wanted to explore — not to deny belief, but to question how belief begins.
How much of what we hold sacred comes from something real, and how much from our own inability to accept what’s truly unknown? For me, that’s where both the horror and the wonder live — in that fragile space between what we think we know and what reality might actually be.
So, we can talk about that. You don’t need to have read the book — I’m more interested in people’s thoughts.
What do *you* think heaven is — or perhaps more appropriately...what happens when we realize it isn’t what we thought, and never was?
2024 New York City Big Book Award Winner for Horror
Cover art by Marvin Hayes
When I wrote *Death of Heaven* in 2012, my intention — other than simply to entertain — was to explore how we as human beings misunderstand reality. This is something that goes back to my university degree in psychology, concentrating in phenomenology.
How, when we encounter something beyond our understanding, we invent stories about it. We build beliefs, and from those beliefs we construct entire systems — religions, moral codes, even ideas of good and evil — all to make sense of what we’ve seen or felt, even when we don’t truly understand it.
To very poorly paraphrase what someone once said:
“Given enough time, humans will turn almost anything into a religion.”
Thus, Longevity + Repetition = Institutionalization, or Religion.
In 1769 Voltaire said:
“If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.”
Hanif Abdurraqib (said more recently):
“With enough repetition, anything can become a religion.”
Terry Pratchett, in Small Gods more or less said:
“If enough people believe, you can be god of anything,” i.e., belief over time/in numbers begets religion.
Eric Hoffer, American moral and social philosopher best known for his book The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements published in 1951, is often cited when discussing how long-lived movements harden into institutions:
“Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”
Finally, the great Doug Adams of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy fame:
“I am fascinated by religion. (That’s a completely different thing from believing in it!) … What is it? What does it represent? Why have we invented it? How does it keep going? What will become of it?”
He also said:
“Religion doesn’t seem to work like that; it has certain ideas at the heart of it which we call sacred or holy or whatever … really what it means is ‘Here is an idea or notion that you’re not allowed to say anything bad about; you’re just not.’ Why not? Because you’re not!”
For millennia, we humans believed the heavens revolved around us. That misperception wasn’t just an error — it became the organizing myth of civilization. From it grew:
-astronomy and mathematics (as early cultures tried to predict divine “movements” of the stars),
-architecture and art (temples and cathedrals aligned with celestial bodies),
-philosophy and theology (Aristotle, Ptolemy, Aquinas), and
-a moral worldview placing humanity at the center of creation.
Leaving that belief was painful. We murdered people over questioning it.
Every time humanity sheds an old illusion, it feels like dying a little. We fought to keep the Earth at the center of the universe; we silenced people for saying otherwise. But the truth didn’t care. It just waited. And that’s the same struggle my characters face in Death of Heaven — when reality refuses to match belief, but rather than belief fighting back...reality wins. And it’s horrifying.
This book wasn’t about denying religion, it wasn’t an attempt to destroy religion, rather it simply tries to point out just how often we misperceive reality.
That’s what *Death of Heaven* is really about. It’s horror, yes — to be sure, it’s adult horror, but not just in the sense of monsters or the supernatural.
It’s about the horror of realizing how fragile our understanding of existence might be... while reality is attacking us and allowing us no time to assimilate the new paradigm of reality.
The story follows people who experience things far beyond what they or anyone, can comprehend, and rather than accept the unknown, they interpret it through the only framework they have through their lived experiences: belief.
They assign meaning. They have to. And so they create gods out of confusion and terror, as humans have always done.
To me, that’s what’s fascinating — and frightening. We think of dogma as something ancient or religious, but it’s actually a very human reflex. We do it constantly, even today: we fill in the blanks when reality doesn’t make sense.
Both to our benefit and detriment.
The universe, in its enormity, doesn’t explain itself — and that silence is intolerable to us. We are pattern recognizers and so we assign the most obvious pattern to what we do not understand.
So we name it. We worship it. We fear it. We give it purpose, even when that purpose may never have existed.
In *Death of Heaven*, that instinct to explain — to create meaning — becomes both the source of our strength and the root of our tragedy. Because if our gods and our certainties are born from misunderstanding, then what happens when the truth finally arrives and refuses to fit those stories? What happens when heaven dies — not in the sky, but inside us, in the collapse of our own convictions?
So while I wrote it as a piece of speculative horror, it’s really an exploration of perception. Of how much of our reality is shaped by the stories we tell ourselves to survive. And maybe, just maybe, what we call divinity — or evil — isn’t divine or evil at all, but simply the way the universe looks when we see it through human eyes.
But what might happen in the sequel to the book? Once the entire world cannot deny that reality is not what we believed? Many will continue on. Some will not be able to and perhaps mass suicides will ensue. But many will not be able to deny what they had just lived through and will have to reinvent their perceived universe.
That’s the world I wanted to explore — not to deny belief, but to question how belief begins.
How much of what we hold sacred comes from something real, and how much from our own inability to accept what’s truly unknown? For me, that’s where both the horror and the wonder live — in that fragile space between what we think we know and what reality might actually be.
So, we can talk about that. You don’t need to have read the book — I’m more interested in people’s thoughts.
What do *you* think heaven is — or perhaps more appropriately...what happens when we realize it isn’t what we thought, and never was?
So there it is…Have a great and safe Halloween!
One more comment...
Happy Halloween, Creatures of the Night! 🩸
The veil’s thin, the moon’s high, and somewhere a chainsaw just revved for its final time.
Tonight isn’t about candy...It’s about carnage, creativity, and the macabre stories that keep our hearts pounding long after the lights go out.
Not just the terror of anticipation, or the horror of the moment—
but the lingering echo of tales gone dark and disturbing.
The kind that crawl back into your mind when the night’s gone quiet.
The kind that makes you check the lock… twice. 🔪
Whether you’re covered in fake blood or hiding behind your screen watching your favorite final fight back, remember: horror isn’t just a genre but a lifestyle. When you hear that click in the distant dark while reading, while watching...it's not real, remember, it's not real... just keep reading, just keep watching.
Stay twisted, my friends, stay safe...but if you hear that knock after midnight…
Well... maybe just don’t answer. 👀
Cheers! Sláinte! Na zdravie!
The veil’s thin, the moon’s high, and somewhere a chainsaw just revved for its final time.
Tonight isn’t about candy...It’s about carnage, creativity, and the macabre stories that keep our hearts pounding long after the lights go out.
Not just the terror of anticipation, or the horror of the moment—
but the lingering echo of tales gone dark and disturbing.
The kind that crawl back into your mind when the night’s gone quiet.
The kind that makes you check the lock… twice. 🔪
Whether you’re covered in fake blood or hiding behind your screen watching your favorite final fight back, remember: horror isn’t just a genre but a lifestyle. When you hear that click in the distant dark while reading, while watching...it's not real, remember, it's not real... just keep reading, just keep watching.
Stay twisted, my friends, stay safe...but if you hear that knock after midnight…
Well... maybe just don’t answer. 👀
Cheers! Sláinte! Na zdravie!
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