MAKE: Online has a fantastic and creative archive of Do-It-Yourself Halloween projects, costumes, decorations and more at http://blog.makezine.com/archive/halloween/ . To discover even more projects and possibilities, use the SEARCH feature at the top of the page.

In what we plan to be a series of images that subvert and mutate religious imagery and iconography, The Cult of the Great Pumpkin is pleased to roll out the Halloween Pentagram.

For decades religious zealots have accused Halloween of being a satanic holiday, which is, quite simply, ignorant – easily disproven with the most basic research. Halloween predates Christianity, and therefore predates the idea of Satan. Read a book, crazy people.

The Halloween Pentagram takes a classic supposedly-satanic image (the pentagram is also not satanic, but that’s another post for another time) and changes the symbology to an all-Halloween them. In it you’ll find:

• THE PUMPKIN
• THE WITCH
• THE DEAD
• THE MOON
• THE CAT

More on these icons will follow. The goat head? It’s just there to tweak the noses of religious zealots who’ll take this WAY too seriously!

For now, enjoy, and you can get the Halloween Pentagram on a t-shirt in our store.

For the Twitter haters and the uninitiated, many Twitter users participate in Follow Friday, in which users post links to the Twitter users they like and/or think you should follow. This is a great way to find interesting Twitter users, but also a great way to find new websites. The Cult found these thanks to #FF today:

http://www.halloween-halloween.de/

http://www.etsy.com/shop/dreadfuldesigns

http://theshadowfarm.blogspot.com/

http://pumpkinroad.com/home/

http://www.countdowntohalloween.com/

If you’re on Twitter, be sure to add http://twitter.com/PumpkinCult!

The Cult of the Great Pumpkin Zazzle store has been revamped, with a bunch of new products and cards featuring the Halloween art of Chad Savage. Check it out here!

Sometimes, it’s the simplest ideas that are the best. In this case, PumpkinFlesh.com lets you upload a photo to their website, and converts that photo to a stencil which you can then carve on a pumpkin.

That’s it, but what more do you want?

From now until February 10th, you can get the Cult of the Great Pumpkin Hallontines Day Cards for 30% Off by using the Coupon Code ZAZZLEVDAY10

See a larger preview of the cards | Go to the products page

Help us spread The Word of The Gourd, folks – use the little SHARE / SAVE bar below to post a link to these cards on the website, page or profile of your choice!

Magical Musical Halloween 1983: William Shatner Reads “The Raven”

Thanks to Ed Dexter for this one!

Christopher Walken Reads “The Raven”, with illustrations by Gustave Dore

John “Gomez Addams” Astin Performs “The Raven” as Edgar Allan Poe

Vincent Price Reads Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven”

This remains one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen on YouTube, period. If you like it, you can get the MP3 HERE.

I know it’s a couple years old, but for anybody that hasn’t seen/heard it, it’s a must-view/listen.

Kristen Lawrence is a Halloween-lovin’ organist/composer/singer.  Like many people, she is thoroughly enchanted by the Halloween season and month of October, and since the organ is the instrument blood-related to Halloween, writing Halloween music came as a big, “Well, of course you need to write Halloween music.”

The Halloween Carols are a collection she has written for the purpose of celebrating Halloween and Autumn. They are each based on a bit of Halloween history and lore, and fall somewhere between traditional Celtic music, the high gothic musical drama of a Hammer horror film and your favorite spooky Halloween music from when you were a kid.  To date, she has over 60 carols written and is recording and releasing them in batches of 13.