Spirit Beings – OmegaBooks

Another Inspiration For The Prodigal Band Trilogy as Well as The Murder Rule—Stephen King’s ‘The Stand’ Novel and Video Series

I am nearly finished with Part Two of The Murder Rule and wondering how I will begin Part Three, which could be the final part of this novel…or not. Hopefully, Part Two will finish by the end of August and Part Three will begin in September.

I have already covered various spiritual and other inspirations for my The Prodigal Band Trilogy and its spin-off, The Murder Rule: Bible scripture and parables, occult and New Age beliefs, rock music, popular culture, occult symbols and rituals, good vs. evil, and more. The articles listed in the menu item Links to All Snippet Posts provide coverage of this topic.

However, I need to point out one more popular culture item not mentioned because this novel, which became a four-part-mini-series that I watched over VHS tape in the mid-90s, definitely helped inspire my trilogy—Stephen King’s The Stand. I am bringing this up now because I recently watched a ‘fan edit’ of this video series on YouTube here, in which nearly the entire series is included (a few parts were left out that likely don’t matter anyway). While watching this nearly six-hour video, I saw parts of it that I remember helped inspire the trilogy, especially the first novel, Battle of the Band. If you’ve never seen the series (even if you read the novel, which I have not), I recommend you watch the whole video, in whole or in parts. (Note: there were changes made in the video series such that there are differences between the novel and the video series.)

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Proof That My New Novel, The Murder Rule, is Derived from My Prodigal Band Trilogy, Episode One

In Part One of a three-or-four-or more part new novel that will likely be titled The Murder Rule is featured the ‘suicide,’ which is actually a murder, of a minor character within the first trilogy novel, Battle of the Band, a rocker and friend of the prodigal band, named Denny Spradlin, front man of another Brit band called Wolfin. As with some of the prodigal band members, he is also a drug addict but is trying to end that addiction and find some meaning in his real non-celebrity life. He is also trying to leave behind the evil agenda within the music industry he knows he helped bring about.

In order to claim The Murder Rule is derived or ‘spun-off’ from The Prodigal Band Trilogy, parts of the trilogy had to come into focus while writing the manuscript for the new novel. In a couple of days, I managed to write two whole chapters that feature both the narrator or Battle of the Band as well as The Prophesied Band, pop culture pundit Jay Elliot, and the narrator of The Prodigal Band as well as The Murder Rule, pop culture pundit Lloyd Denholm. Lloyd, a Brit, moved to the fictitious California coastal city called Richmont, where Elliot also lived, so that the two could work on a pop culture magazine project about the history of rock music into the 90s and 2000s. But the topic of Spradlin’s demise kept cropping up in conversations between the two, due to the fact that various other rock stars of that time had also died or nearly died, rockers Elliot knew because these rockers tended to confide in him. Due to what Elliot had been told by some members of the prodigal band Sound Unltd and others, both came to the conclusion that murder, not suicide, caused Denny Spradlin’s death.

Two or more snippets from Part One of The Murder Rule will be featured in the coming weeks; right now, I will post a snippet from Part One of The Murder Rule to begin this series. I will not list the Chapter this comes from since I might change the arrangement of chapters and manuscript prior to publication later. And a reminder: The Murder Rule is copyright by Deborah Lagarde and will be registered with the Library of Congress when officially published, hopefully, this year.

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Random Trilogy Snippets, Part Four: The Biggest Battle is Spiritual (Part Four)

Welcome to the fourth The Prodigal Band Trilogy snippet post dealing with spiritual battles between the forces of good vs. evil, and between good or evil forces and the characters, notably the band members. This post isn’t really a spiritual ‘battle,’ though this action, where the Tooters, angels of ‘the Almighty,’ speak directly to each member of the prodigal band Sound Unltd—simultaneously—brings about a battle of sorts later! And what these angels speak is each band member’s ‘mission of God’ that the ‘witch’ of the Hovels, at the behest of the Tooters, informed the band about at a recent meeting, which took place across from the Tooters statue in Victoria Park in the band’s home city of Walltown, early June, 2000.

For she had already instructed the band leader Jack as well as drummer Tom that the band must perform at the upcoming Walltown Music and Trade Festival that would take place July 15-16, as headliners. In other words, the band had roughly six weeks to get the festival set-ups ready for hundreds of thousands of festival goers, including setting up bleachers on either side of the park as well as large video screens and television and recording crews—and the band would pay the entire costs of the festival, and would perform for free!

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Random Trilogy Snippets, Part Four: The Biggest Battle is Spiritual (Part Two)

To heck with waiting until next week to post this ‘spiritual battle’ part two, The Prodigal Band Trilogy, snippet post. While looking through the novel for snippets relating to spiritual battles between spirit entities or between the band characters and these entities, I found a long snippet that shows why one spiritual side or the other cannot always carry out their assigned task of winning over the people (real or fictional) the spirits are supposed to win over. In other words, there are spiritual battles among the group of people themselves, which hamper the spirit forces’ tasks. In the entire trilogy, it just might be the best example of this spiritual ‘tug-of-war’ among the band characters. All of them—singer Erik, drummer Tom, guitarist-band leader Jack, guitarist-producer Mick, bassist Keith, and keyboard-synthist Bryan—are featured. The long snippet is within Chapter Eight of Battle of the Band.

Having just completed a special ‘World Unity Day’ concert in San Antonio, Texas, the two main song composers, Erik (lyrics) and Jack (music) fall asleep in a limo headed to Houston for another gig as well as an appointment at a recording studio to track a new song. While asleep, the satanic character Corion’s minions called the Demons (Gold, Silver, Bronze) ‘give’ the two a new song, not only to be recorded, but to ‘seal the band’s oath’ to the evil as part of the band’s ‘pact’ with Corion explained early in this first novel of the trilogy. Later that morning the song is recorded, but questions arise as to the origin of the song, a song which has an historical context for both the good and evil sides. The song is called “Song of the Demons” (and I will not post the lyric words in this snippet). Eventually, the six discuss the ‘why’ of being ‘given’ a song ‘of demons’ when one of them brings up a previous event as the band several years before began their nationwide contest-winning tour, when Jack ‘prayed’ for success. Then drummer Tom, the ‘channeler’ of spirits within his entourage of new agers, arranges to channel the spirits to find out the truth of this situation. Also mentioned in the snippet are the Tooters, the good angels opposing Corion and his Demons.

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Snippets of The Prodigal Band Trilogy: Historical Context, Part Two—William of Normandy Invades Britain, and Genealogy

As with the Roman invasion of Britain under Emperor Claudius in 43 AD, the Norman invasion of Britain in 1066 AD has little context within The Prodigal Band Trilogy, except for one thing: a major spiritual character, Morwenna, aka ‘the witch of the Hovels,’ would not have had the influence she had on the prodigal band had this invasion not taken place, and had this invasion not been aided by an aristocratic family that somewhat aided the forces of William the Conqueror.

It is weird with aristocrats…throughout history, various aristocratic families have had a tendency to aid the enemies of their countrymen and that would include fellow aristocrats. But when power is to be had, aristocrats often turn against their fellows in order to gain power: Julius Caesar vs. Brutus; Tutors vs. Stuarts; the Hundred Years War between opposing yet related royal families of France and England; the Biblical split up of Israel into Israel vs. Judah, Spanish vs. Austrian Habsburgs, and many more. But the rivalry between Duke William of Normandy and England’s King Harold, as both are closely related, is somewhat complicated, which led to the Norman invasion aided by Norsemen and other English rival aristocrat families where timing was key. From the Wikipedia page on the Norman Conquest:

“The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of Normans, Bretons, Flemish, and men from other French provinces, all led by the Duke of Normandy later styled William the Conqueror.

William’s claim to the English throne derived from his familial relationship with the childless Anglo-Saxon king Edward the Confessor, who may have encouraged William’s hopes for the throne. Edward died in January 1066 and was succeeded by his brother-in-law Harold Godwinson. The Norwegian king Harald Hardrada invaded northern England in September 1066 and was victorious at the Battle of Fulford, but Godwinson’s army defeated and killed Hardrada at the Battle of Stamford Bridge on 25 September. Within days, William landed in southern England. Harold marched south to oppose him, leaving a significant portion of his army in the north. Harold’s army confronted William’s invaders on 14 October at the Battle of Hastings; William’s force defeated Harold, who was killed in the engagement.”

So Vikings invaded northern England around the time Normans did? Hmmmm… Yet, if one has watched the History Channel TV series Vikings, it might make sense. It turns out William of Normandy is directly descended from Normandy’s first ruler, Rollo, a Viking (and brother to the TV show’s main character, Ragnar Lothbrok), who, after trying to conquer France in Paris, wound up marrying the Carolingian King Charles’s daughter (and supposedly converting to Christianity) and was given Normandy to rule over in 911 AD. (Note: the Carolingians are descended from Charlemagne, who took over France in 800 AD, crowned by the pope of that time.)

“In 911, the Carolingian French ruler Charles the Simple allowed a group of Vikings under their leader Rollo to settle in Normandy as part of the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte. In exchange for the land, the Norsemen under Rollo were expected to provide protection along the coast against further Viking invaders. Their settlement proved successful, and the Vikings in the region became known as the “Northmen” from which “Normandy” and “Normans” are derived. The Normans quickly adopted the indigenous culture as they became assimilated by the French, renouncing paganism and converting to Christianity. They adopted the langue d’oïl of their new home and added features from their own Norse language, transforming it into the Norman language. They intermarried with the local population and used the territory granted to them as a base to extend the frontiers of the duchy westward, annexing territory including the Bessin, the Cotentin Peninsula and Avranches.”

So, is it possible these Viking invaders against King Harold invaded to aid in the cause of Rollo’s (I’m speculating here) great-great grandson, William? Hmmmm…. It was Rollo, then son William I, grandson Richard I, then sister of great-grandson Richard II (Edward the Confessor), then Harold, whom William considered illegitimate as he was promised the throne. And why does a Viking invasion have any context within the trilogy? For one thing, the mother of singer Erik is Norwegian—from what would turn out to be a family that had roots in the Norman invasion, as a snippet will tell later in this post.

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Snippets of The Prodigal Band Trilogy: Biblical References Series, Episode Two—Gnawing of “Bones Forever.”

I had originally called this post “Episode One.” Sorry about that, it is Episode Two.

The previous Biblical Reference post here about “weeping and gnashing of teeth” was used to point out that the evil satanic character Corion would mete out retribution onto those he commanded if they did not carry out his will. But Corion never says anything about ‘gnashing’ of teeth on the bones of those wayward minions—he uses the term “gnaw” and “gnawing.” While both ‘gnashing’ and ‘gnawing’ mean pretty much the same thing—teeth scraping on bones or whatever—I used the term ‘gnaw’ because it is more commonly used. Everyone knows about the gnawing of rodents on wood, on nuts, on gardens, on leftover food such as dog or cat food; gnawing is why rodents have those sharp fanged front teeth that they have.

There are only two references to ‘gnaw’ or ‘gnawing’ used in the Bible; I learned this by using Strong’s Concordance, which defines both in a similar way as it defines ‘gnashing,’ which is only found in the New Testament referring to Christ’s “weeping and gnashing of teeth” quotes in Matthew and Luke Gospel verses. But both ‘gnaw’ in Zephaniah 3:3 and ‘gnawing’ in Revelation 16:10 make the same connotations, except that while in Zephaniah the ‘gnaw’ is on bone, in Revelation the ‘gnawing’ is on the tongue ‘for pain.’ Zephaniah’s ‘gnaw’ on bone refers to evil leaders within Jerusalem that “are evening wolves; they gnaw not the bones till the morrow.” (KJV) One could compare the evil Corion to these evil leaders in Jerusalem. So one could say that Corion’s ‘gnaw on bones forever’ has the same connotation as Zephaniah’s use of the word. However, in Revelation 16:10, the gnawing is on the “tongues for pain” and the ones doing the ‘gnawing on their tongues for pain’ are likely those who refused to repent of their deeds in the Revelation time-frame, which could mean either Corion’s minions had their tongues gnawed on by Corion or the evil minions gnawed on their own tongues. In The Prodigal Band Trilogy, the connotation is that Corion or his Demons did the ‘gnawing,’ but not one tongues, but bones. Forever.

The term ‘gnaw on bones forever’ is used several times in all three novels that make up the trilogy, and all refer to Corion’s gnawing on bones of either wayward minions or on the forces of Good, such as the angels called The Tooters who work for The Creator, God.

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Snippets of The Prodigal Band Trilogy: Mystery

There is plenty of mystery within this trilogy, but it is not mystery in terms of crime (as with Sherlock Holmes), suspense, or science fiction, but spiritual mystery. However, the following snippets that follow a specific event highlighted by revelations from the spirit being for Good known as the ‘witch of the Hovels’ do incorporate crime and suspense themes. All of these snippets are found within the second book of the trilogy, The Prophesied Band.

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