The mystical, metaphysical mentor Gurdjieff warned his disciples about becoming ‘food for the moon,’ always a danger this dark time of year, when psychic vampires’ thirst and totalitarian bosses crave to crush us all into cogs. Don’t let it happen! Don the disguises of great thinkers, performers, and artists and strike a blow for the evolved spirit! 

Thus, your PsychoPEDIA Halloween Costume, based on an Astrology chart constructed by a Gurdjieff disciple, is meant to provoke others out of their waking dreams. Spook the fiends around you with scary heroes of evolutionary ideas and creativity. (Genders of all characters are interchangeable...):

Aries (March 21 - April 19): Elton John and Mary Pickford
As a child of the Ram you are given to almost-innocent blunt social confidence, so from the realm of celebrities I would suggest either Elton John (b. March 25), a terribly underrated performer whose persona is easy to emulate; or the exquisitely sensual Mary Pickford (b. April 9), whose existential malaise was only matched by her sparkling elfin charm. The Elton period I suggest most would be ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,’ with a strange beige pantsuit and those flamboyant sunglasses. Or, just go as someone from this album itself, which has been more influential on rock songwriters than many care to admit. Characters to choose from include: the ill-fated young lesbian Alice of “All The Girls Love Alice,” or the “punk” Danny Bailey in the ballad about his death. As for Mary Pickford, just do your hair perfectly and slump elegantly into your own feather bed and swallow a gallon of gin as you make real-life horror movies about Hollywood manipulation in your own mind.

Taurus (April 20 - May 20): Vi Subversa
Vi Subversa (b. April 23) was the lead singer of British punk band Poison Girls. She had already had two children in punk bands (Fatal Microbes and Rubella Ballet) when punk rock crackled through the UK, and so she started her own band with Crass members and some others. This costume is based on the idea of an elderly, overweight, very cool older woman dressing like a pagan punk priestess willing to strike fear into the hearts of sexists everywhere. (Black leather jacket, new wave skirt, etc., as long as you’re over 60.)

Gemini (May 21 - June 20): Joan of Arc
You may have to be young to pull this off -- very young, as she was probably a teenager when she was torched for defying church and state -- but if you have the right bobbed haircut and can act like God is screaming in your ear, you can probably pull off Jeanne d’Arc (b. May 23). This is a historically important costume, as she was technically burned alive for wearing men’s clothes. Joan is a brilliant example for young women to take on the world, even if they don’t feel very girly and wrestle with taking their meds.

Cancer (June 21 - July 22): Albert Brooks
Casual fans and audiences often think of brilliantly conceptual comedian and filmmaker Albert Brooks as a nervous, self-loathing Everyman; but this is a hoax perpetrated with the same zeal as Andy Kaufman performing as Elvis. The great thing about this costume is that it can be any schlubby office or Yuppie casual-wear, because it is all in the mind.  You have a wide array of button-down dress shirts and black t-shirts and slacks to pick from (look to films like “Modern Romance” or “Looking For Comedy In The Muslim World” for inspiration). To play your part, start complaining about something, say, the taste of the punch at the party, say something you know you shouldn’t about what is probably in it, apologize profusely for being so obnoxious, then cut everyone around you down with sarcasm as you spill the punch all over someone else.  It’s like virulent comedy jazz, built on one or two notes.

Leo (July 23 - August 22): Robert Mitchum
I would recommend for the frugal yet dapper Leo to dress up as Robert Mitchum in the movie “Night Of The Hunter.” Mitchum (August 6) was an eternal tough guy with a cool spirit. All you need is a dark ‘50s-style suit and a black Magic Marker to write ‘love’ and ‘hate’ on your knuckles. Better study that swanky black DA though to get the hair just right. (Though a fearsome presence, Mitchum is known at the end of his life for defending Boy George, saying something like, ‘I dig that dame!’)

Virgo (August 23 - September 22): William the Fat Bastard
William I of England (September 1) was Duke of Normandy from 1035 to 1087, and King of England from 1066 to 1087. He’s cool because he was a fierce military fellow even though he was really fat -- so fat in fact that when he died, during his funeral service on a really hot day his corpse exploded from infections, destroying the casket and splashing pus and blood all over the poor mourners.

Libra (September 23 - October 22): Arthur Rimbaud
With sadistic but spiritual, homoerotic and hallucinogenic poet Arthur Rimbaud (October 10) you have many roles throughout his life -- the Art For Art’s Sake period dandy of his punk rock youth in crushed velvet and a bottle of absinthe, or the fatigued Marxian revolutionary of the time he may have spent at the Paris Commune (1871), or the mad monk of his later years when he wore black, shorn his hair, and recanted his decadent past. Try them all in one night! 

Scorpio (October 23 - November 21): Elizabeth Bathory
This is for all you wicked, strong women out there who have always wanted to rule the world and are tired of dressing up as a dominatrix for All Hallow’s Eve. Elizabeth Bathory (birth date in dispute, I’m going with November 3, in the 1500s) was a Hungarian countess who lived in Slovakia. She was a mean bitch who ruled the land with an iron fist and was said to bathe in the blood of virgins. While this is not evolutionary, doesn’t that sound cool for Halloween? And come on, this was Eastern Europe in the middle ages.

Sagittarius (November 22 - December 21): Blackbeard
Yes, I am aware that pirates are becoming passé, but Blackbeard (November 22) was an exceptional swashbuckler. His torment of all God-fearing sailors on the Caribbean Sea -- even his own, as it is rumored he burned up an entire ship of his subordinates to teach the rest of his crew not to cross him -- is matched only by his unusual attire, specifically the burning hemp coals tied into the dreadlock beard he proudly wore. The large boils on his body and his bisexuality are as well known as the fact that he had thirteen wives. (If you have thirteen female friends willing to dress up as Blackbeard’s wives, then it’s a pirate party!) If you go out in the evening as this salty, sexy bastard, bring plenty of rum and weed from Jamaica and put some English military man’s head on a stick. 

Capricorn (December 22 - January 19): Jesus H. Christ
Pretty easy costume, with the beard and Birkenstocks, and you get to turn over the tables with the candy on them (“Not in my Father’s temple, you thieves!”), while drinking a whole lot of wine and hanging out with hookers and “tax collectors” (lawyers, these days?). Jesus (December 25, duh) lived off groovy women in the tribe, pissed off all the authority figures in the entire region he lived in, and died at 33 before he could look like a Rolling Stone. Extra points for believable stigmata; double extra points for being actually named Jesus.

Aquarius (January 20 - February 18): Simone Weil
The French poet and mystic Simone Weil (February 3) was no doubt the mother of inspiration for Patti Smith, if she had been known to sleep with Keith Richards. Trust me, no one will figure out your disguise as this anorexic theologian who fought in the Spanish Civil War and fought conversion to organized religion her entire life, unless you’re willing to drop a lot of weight and set fire to SUVs owned by fascists on your block.

Pisces (February 19 - March 20) Elizabeth Barrett Browning
This is the 19th century babe (March 6) who wrote, “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways” for her fellow poet and husband Robert. They had a deeply passionate romance, which ended tragically but still in loving embrace. Just repeat that poem, hold a rose, get all dolled up Elizabethan-style with some stylish fellow poet you’ve been snuggling with lately, and snog a lot together at the Halloween bash, making everyone else around you ill. Speaking of being sick, she was very ill from what they called the White Death (now known as TB) so carry a handkerchief and cough a lot.

~Chris Estey