Introducing The Black Gaslight
The Society of the Black Gaslight was formed in 2005. The message of the Black Gaslight is the same as the message of the moon as opposed to the sun. The moon shines at night with reflected sunlight. It is the dark light.
Do you consider the night time to be 'bad' and the daytime to be 'good'? Are things only good whilst the sun shines and bad when it goes in? What about all the nocturnal animals that come out at night? What about all the 'party animals', people that go out at night to clubs and pubs? What about all the night workers who do a variety of important jobs in our towns and cities and take over at night from their day time counterparts? Think about all the songs that have been written about moonlight being romantic. Have you ever heard of a song about romantic sunlight? The world turns on its axis and gets a balance of light and darkness. It is dark in space. Yet we are constantly told that only light and sunshine are good. Light workers presumably only live in perpetual sunlight and denounce the darkness, which is after all, just a part of nature.
Anything with the work 'bene' in it, which is Latin for 'good' such as benefit, benevolence, etc. all have 'good' meanings, whereas anything with the word 'mal' in it which is French for evil means 'bad' malicious, malevolence, etc. However, there is a certain substance which many people eat for breakfast, containing sun ripened oranges or lemons and it is called 'Marmalade'!
Marmalade allegedly was first made for the last Scottish queen, in the 16th Century, Mary, Queen of Scots, who spent a lot of time in France. It was invented for her as a sort of 'get well food' and was originally called Marie Malade which translates to 'Mary's illness' or 'for Mary who is ill'. Therefore, marmalade is a citrus based breakfast food containing the word 'mal' meaning evil yet actually made to do someone some good and containing sun loving fruits! So it really isn't safe to generalise too strongly.
On the other hand, those who live on government benefits may get state handouts but how do they pay for it? Being in receipt of benefit brings its own stigma and the 'benefit' is subsistence money only so being on these benefits could therefore be an unpleasant and humiliating experience. Is the word 'unemployment benefit' a positive word to you?
What the Society of the Black Gaslight is saying, is don't be too quick to judge a book by its cover - so called good is not always as good as it seems and so called bad is not always as bad as it seems, it's not possible to label everything. Enjoy your daytime but enjoy your nightlife equally. Carpe Diem and Carpe Noctum; don't knock the night or the darkness.
Below follows a list of night creatures, some of which may also be seen by day as well. If you want to identify with your very own night creature, write the names on different pieces of card and make a night creature oracle.
Female emperor moth, rattlesnake, nightjar, fennec fox, bat, elephant hawk moth, owl, oil birds, red wings, kiwi, aardvark, pangolin, armadillo, cats, foxes, hyenas, lemurs, lorises, ghost crabs, lantern fish, slugs, snails, glow worms, fireflies, flashlight fish, gerbils, hamsters, bushbabies, scorpions, horned viper, red eyed tree frog and hippos, badgers, swallow-tailed gull, raccoon, wood mice.
