Scooby Doo was one of the greatest TV programmes ever – from the point of view of teaching kids about the supernatural. If only more adult programmes could be like it!

Every episode followed a similar pattern, like this:

The gang would find some “evidence” of ghosts, ghouls, spirits at work, usually terrorising the locals in some way, whether it was in a creepy mansion, a circus or a theatre.

The gang were usually genuinely scared by the prospect of bumping into these phantoms.  The locals were always convinced that the ghosts were, actually, ghosts.

Eventually, of course, those meddling kids would meet the spooks face to face; there would be a fight, a chase, and then our hero Scooby would save the day.  The ghost was invariably unmasked as the local “good guy” who wasn’t really so good after all – someone respectable who was trying to get their hands on the loot.

So why do I think this was good stuff?  Simply because Scooby Doo was one of the few programmes to unmask the supernatural for what it is: a mixture of ignorance, deceit, popular tradition, hysteria, and fear of investigating, facing up to the unknown.  Hollywood in particular, relies so much on the supernatural for its storylines.  To my mind, any plot that requires this unexplainable mystery to carry it along – is a WEAK plot.  It may be entertaining, but it is weak. 

For untold thousands of years, mankind lived in great ignorance.  His knowledge came to him through stories passed down, generation to generation.  Explanations for natural phenomena were usually related to Personal Causes.  In other words, they would give a god or a demon the credit for making something happen.  People didn’t understand rain, so they thought there must be a rain-god.  They didn’t know how seeds grew, so there must be fertility gods.  They couldn’t understand why an arrow carried on moving after it left a bow – so there had to be a god who pushed it through the air! People actually believed these stories, because they were taught them by their elders and there was no science around to contradict them.

They believed blood was Life.  Not just something necessary for animal life, but Life itself.  They thought you could make the ground more fertile by spilling blood on it.  They thought they could become stronger by washing in the blood of sacrificed animals.  Today, we know that blood is just a liquid that circulates around the body, carrying oxygen and nutrients.  We have detailed understanding of how it evolved.  But in the Iron Age, people still thought that spilling blood could appease the gods, make the gods happy and bring better fortune to the people.

These primitive superstitions – and brutal murders – lie behind Christianity.  After all, the tidiest definition of Christianity is this: It is a Middle-Eastern, Iron Age Cult of Human Sacrifice. Next time you take your little child to a nativity play, so sweet, charming and safe, remember that it is a Cult of Human Sacrifice, with unoriginal ideas about love bolted on to it.  That’s all.

The gang in Scooby Doo were afraid, but they courageously investigated and took on such myths.  They unveiled the simple truths behind each one.  And they freed the locals from oppression.

As science progressed, we began to understand natural phenomena, one after another.  Religious superstitions have been retreating ever since, as each myth was unmasked.   It was always the same; the religious would scoff and talk their nonsense, until the evidence became overpowering. Then they would simply shrug and say “Oh, of course we accept that.”  And they would move on to the next myth.  Today, there are very few myths left for the religious to hide behind.  In a way, that is sad, because this kind of Myth is nice and comforting.  It is fun.  But it is more important to know truth than to know false stories. 

The “god of the gaps”, the god who can only lurk like a cockroach where there are gaps in our knowledge, is shrinking fast.  We may have fond memories of him – but he has few places to hide now.  He’s been exposed too many times by “those meddling scientists”.

Geoff Mather 2007

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