The Boogeyman

 

“I remember you.”

 

The Bump In The Night

 

Der Butzemann, el Hombre del Saco, le Tate Duende, el Cuco.

 

The Boogeyman

 

Oh yes, he’s very real. 

 

When the first child imagined what death was like, he is who they imagined. He’s been around ever since, creeping through shadows, hiding in closets, lurking under beds, and always being close enough to hear you breathe.

 

Children are his favorite prey because children feel things with all their heart. Their fear is raw and pure and it nourishes him.

 

Do you remember him? He remembers you. He never forgets anything.

 

You were so young back then. So small. So weak.

Think back. Think hard. You saw him once, even if you don’t remember him. Everyone has seen him at least once. Maybe he was something you thought was a clump of clothes in the corner of your bedroom. Maybe he was what you thought was a cat moving outside.

 

You told yourself he was just a shadow, just a noise. But he scared you, didn’t he? He scared you and he tasted your fear.

 

Your fear was delicious.

 

Did you think you outgrew him?

 

Of course you would think that. You’re an adult now. You don’t jump at shadows. You aren’t afraid of him.

 

And he knows that.

 

But oh, he knows something else.

 

Adults are afraid of so much more than children. The intensity of fear decreases, but the range increases. Adults know more, and so have more to fear.

 

Adults are also afraid for more than themselves. They’re afraid of what could happen to people who trust them and depend on them.

 

Like children.

 

Are they safe right now as you read this?

 

Are you with the children right now? Your children?

 

Is he?

 

See? He can still make you afraid.

 

Everyone fears the Boogeyman.

 

Custodian Of The Labyrinth

 

People that feel that Daedalus might have a point about running people through his Labyrinth to improve them usually stop defending him when they learn the Boogeyman works for him as one of the Labyrinth’s Custodians. 

 

Daedalus claims he has the Boogeyman on a tight leash, that he can control and even reform the monster, that he needs him to be the goad to drive his captives through the Labyrinth. He claims that the Labyrinth is to help the Boogeyman as it helps the captives. He is running the Labyrinth with them, and one day it will make him a better person.

 

Most people would prefer it if he turned the Boogeyman over to Gehvurah to be imprisoned in a place where he can’t hurt people.

 

Scientifically speaking, the Boogeyman is a very old and very powerful thoughtform, though as you read you’ll see how that definition is complicated.

 

Boogeyman is highly intelligent for a thoughtform. Most thoughtforms are only about as intelligent as a cat. They’re animals of the Astral and live by impulse. They can’t rationalize or converse. You can’t hold a conversation with Donald Swift’s parents nor Dr. Bell’s Mad Mary. The Boogeyman is different. The Boogeyman is smart, and he leverages that to his advantage as often as he can. 

 

He’s also abnormally powerful. Everyone has seen the boogeyman. He has exerted a steady pressure against the human noosphere that causes him to appear in visions to the young and the sensitive. Even while imprisoned in the Labyrinth he continues to exert this psychic pressure. This pressure has been exert so long and so persistently against the noosphere that astralogists believe that complications would arise if the Boogeyman’s influence was ever completely excised. The human mind has adapted and evolved to deal with the Boogeyman, and removing his influence would be to remove a piece of man’s collective psyche.

 

Face-to-face against the Boogeyman, he can bring all this power to bear down upon you. Dare you stand against one older than the human race, who has seen us rise and fall like the tides, who has harvested us like crops?

 

When you see the Boogeyman, you’ll recognize him–but you won’t recognize him as the Boogeyman. You’ll see him as something else, someone else.

 

Did anyone hurt you when you were little? Did anyone betray you? That’s who he’ll look like. Were you ever worried about someone when you were little? Did dad go off to war? Did mom get sick? He’ll look like them. Have you ever had to hold a beloved pet as it breathed its last, as the needle went in? He can look like that to.

 

Fear of all kinds feeds him, but it’s the “golden fear” he’s after, the fear of a child. He finds that a delicacy. He’s after the golden fear like a junkie after his fix. If you’re an adult, he’ll try to bring it out of you. He’ll go deep into your memories and alter reality to bring those memories to life. What was the worst moment of your childhood, the moment where you were most lost, most confused, most in fear?

 

Think of it now, because that’s what he’s going to bring against you–and then he’ll make it worse.

 

He wants to scare you to death. That’s his goal. He wants to force you to produce so much adrenaline, to get your heart to pump so fast, that you die. Far too many children have perished this way throughout the aeons.They vanish from their homes and their bodies turn up later in the wilderness.

 

Mothers would tell their children to stay far away from the forests and the rivers, never realizing that they were taken right out of their bedrooms.

 

It is important to stay calm against the Boogeyman. The “confidence drug” mask isn’t recommended for most supervillain encounters, but it is here. Exert as much control over your mental and biological processes as you can. Personal serenity is the key to defeating the Boogeyman 

 

Mad Mary and other fear-based thoughtforms can still hurt you if you aren’t afraid of her. The Boogeyman can’t. He’s consumed so much fear over his several aeons of existence that he’s not really a thoughtform anymore. He’s something else, something wholly unique to him. In a very real sense, the Boogeyman is fear. He is composed of it. He generates it. He does not need to consume fear to maintain coherency like Mad Mary, he only does so because of a vestigial urge which makes the act of doing so pleasurable. If someone is afraid of him, he exists in their heart and he has power over them. If someone isn’t afraid of him, he is disconnected and powerless. So don’t be afraid of him, and you win.

 

But of course, that’s easy to say, hard to do.