Category Archives: occult

The Wicker Man Enigma documentary

July 26th, 2013 | Posted in horror, occult, Paganism

With all of the controversy and discussion of late over The Conjuring and its depiction of Paganism in horror, I stumbled upon this documentary looking at the classic The Wicker Man that artfully and frightfully explored this same topic years ago. Enjoy The Wicker Man Enigma.

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Critical Considerations of “The Conjuring’s” Ed and Lorraine Warren

July 25th, 2013 | Posted in Bill Ellis, demonic, demonology, Ed and Lorraine Warren, occult, paranormal, Satan

As mentioned in a previous post, The Conjuring has generated a lot of discussion and controversy. One area that has received a lot of attention is its depiction of evil witches and the “darkness of witchcraft” in connection Christian conceptions of Satan and demonology. You can read my previous post, a guest essay by a […]

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Black Death Podcast: Peg Aloi, Medieval Horror, and Religious Dialogue

June 13th, 2011 | Posted in Christianity, horror, occult, Paganism, podcast, Wicca, Witchcraft

  TheoFantastique Podcast 2.2 for 2011 is now available. In this edition my special guest is Peg Aloi, a religion scholar and film critic and who maintains her own blog at The Witching Hour, who engages me about the film Black Death directed by Christopher Smith. In this interview and dialogue, Peg and I discuss […]

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Donald Tyson: The Dream World of H. P. Lovecraft

March 21st, 2011 | Posted in H. P. Lovecraft, horror, hyper-real spiritualities (or fiction-based), occult, occulture, Western esotericism

H.P. Lovecraft is one of the most influential writers on contemporary horror. As such, he has been the focus of a number of biographies, including H. P. Lovecraft: A Life by S. T. Joshi (Necronomicon press, 1996), and the documentary Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown, directed by Frank Woodward. More recently, a new biography has […]

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Carrol L. Fry – Cinema of the Occult: New Age, Satanism, Wicca, and Spiritualism in Film

May 4th, 2009 | Posted in demonic, demonology, devil in film, ghost, Harry Potter, horror, occult, Othering, Satan, Satanism, Western esotericism, Wicca, Witchcraft

Various aspects of the occult, or as it is more commonly referred to today in academic circles, Western esotericism, have long been facets that have informed storytelling and fear in horror films. A recent book by Carrol Fry touches on this topic, titled Cinema of the Occult: New Age, Satanism, Wicca and Spiritualism in Film (Rosemont […]

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Peg Aloi: Cinema and the Occult Revival

December 3rd, 2007 | Posted in cinema, counter-culture, occult, occulture, Paganism, Wicca, Witchcraft

This post brings together a number of areas of interest for me, including the increasing interest in fantasy with the counterculture of the 1960s, the connection between fantasy and Neo-Paganism, and the expression of elements related to Paganism and esotericism in film. We will explore issues related to these facets courtesy of an interview with […]

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Metaphysical Media and a Typology of Media Portraits of the Witch

October 9th, 2007 | Posted in horror, occult, Western esotericism, Wicca, Witchcraft

As readers may recall, I have been interested in the intersection between various expressions of so-called alternative spiritualities, such as Western esotericism, Neo-Paganism, and Wicca, with popular culture and the media. Of particular interest is how film and television has depicted Paganism, and more specifically, the figure of the Witch. Helen Berger was very helpful […]

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Jason Winslade Interview: Esotericism and Witchcraft in Entertainment and Commodification

August 2nd, 2007 | Posted in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, occult, occulture, Western esotericism, Wicca, Witchcraft

Jason Winslade will receive his Ph.D. in Performance Studies from Northwestern University this December. He currently is an adjunct professor at DePaul University, where he teaches interdisciplinary courses on occultism and culture, rites of passage, Irish myth and politics, comics, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Since 1993, he has been an active practitioner and initiate […]

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Occult-Tinged Fiction Revisited

June 14th, 2007 | Posted in fantasy, occult, science fiction, television

A friend and colleague of mine who is a reader of this blog sent me an email recently with some thoughts in response to my last post on “Occult-Tinged Television.” Since my friend sent this email to me privately in that he is working out his thoughts on this topic, I won’t mention his name, […]

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“Occult-Tinged” Television Programming

June 12th, 2007 | Posted in occult, occulture

At the end of May The Wild Hunt Blog included an interesting post on the large number of “occult-tinged” television programs that were the focus of an article in The New York Times. Wildhunt discusses some of these programs: Among the new supernaturally themed shows premiering is “Moonlight” a vampire-themed romantic detective series on CBS, […]

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