Prithee listen, thou kindly Stanford College Republicans, and heed my request for your counsel. I have initiated magicks most foule that — shouldst they continue undisturbed — will seize upon some lost soul from the aether and bind it, helpless at my hands, to a husk of flesh and fluid which I have crafted anew for the very purpose of satisfying that age-olde question: can I, a witch of no mean prowess and intellect, create life from naught? And then consider the age-older question: wouldst such a ritual, if aborted at its very last moment —condemning that soul to un-life for all eternity, after taunting it with an existence just beyond its grasp — would that constitute murder?

I hath consulted the ancient texts, the varied learnings of great alchemists and sorcerers from Times Before (thanks to Green Library’s section on Diabolism and Devilries), and I exerted every effort to ready the grounds on which the ritual should take place. The earth must be properly desecrated, of course, a summoning circle sewn with vile incantations and seasoned with toddlers’ tears. But alas! In the end, ‘tis not a magickal question that confounds me, but a moral one.

So I have come to you, the hallowed Stanford College Republicans — those men said to be wise on such matters — for I wish to know which path would prove less accursed: to let loose upon the world a shambling blasphemy (a pox on that humanity which God so loves), or to slay it before it’s even birthed?

And perhaps there is one final piece of information which may prove informative to your deliberations: though the soul I captured was chosen at random, my ominous auguries have divined its nature, and confirmed that nature to be of the liberal varietal. Yea, ‘tis true — those cretins who decry the Old Ways and demand “universal healthcare” without even bothering to pursue immortality. Perhaps to deny such a soul its life wouldst not be murder at all?