The Dunwich Horror

I have found a couple of worthwhile bits of writing on this film online.

Here, the author gives it a rather unenthusiastic review, but it does contain a good synopsis.

This author rates it slightly higher, and there are some nice piccies...

And lastly, this guy seems to have a genuine interest in Lovecraft which colors his review nicely.

Enjoy! And please read them for next week, bwa ha ha....

Abortion and the Occult

This website is primarily a pro-life organization's platform, but the occult angle discussed is simply fascinating.

Though it may be tempting to dismiss the writing as emotionally manipulative and devoid of factual information or evidence, what may be more interesting is the analysis of why and how this article would in fact convince people of its "truths."

(Image: "Baby Satan" from Wikiality.com. See also "How to Make Your Own Satanic Baby")

Interesting article on the OTO

This article from an Australian newspaper portrays an intriguing situation in which a website described alleged atrocities committed by an OTO group, including SRA-tinged accusations of murdering and eating children.

When OTO members challenged the allegations and asked to have them removed, the website creators refused and now face jail time for their slanderous communique.

Many news stories in recent weeks suggest we are on the verge of a vast "satanic panic" resurgence...thoughts?

(Image from Eyes Wide Shut)

A Short Post On How Crazy We All Are

(posted by Professor Peg for Billy Chew)



"It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise, than for a man to hear the song of fools."
- Ecclesiastes 7:5 (New King James Bible)
(used as a warning by many very literal Christians as a warning against Pop Music)

"This the land of the free! Why, if I say anything that displeases them, the free mob will Iynch me, and that's my freedom. Free? Why, I have never been in any country where the individual has such an abject fear of his fellow countrymen. Because, as I say, they are free to Iynch the moment he shows he is not one of them."
-D.H. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature

This songwas written by Charles Manson during his brief stay with Dennis Wilson. This was obviously performed before the killing of Tate and company (1968 - just one short year, though). Although he had probably already killed.

Makes me think of that "National Treasure" exhibit put up in Washington by Condi Rice recently. Set up no doubt to debunk all the pop-theories revolving around the Nicholas Cage movie. Seems a little silly, but maybe the Catholic Church, or most churches in general, would have benefitted from doing just the same a few years ago with The Da Vinci Code, and Holy Blood, Holy Grail before that.

Americans - and maybe just human beings in general - seem obsessed with finding hidden meanings directly in front of us. Satan as a kind of "purloined letter." Charles Manson did write a Beach Boys song before disappearing off into the desert. Maybe all this paranoia's not without justification. Or maybe we're all just paranoid and stupid (see: D.H. Lawrence quote above).

Take for example, The Kingsmen's "Louie Louie", here.

Not exactly a "purloined devil", but definitely "purloined obsenity" (whatever that means). Just a side-note, the F-word does actually show up in the original Louie Louie when the drummer messes up and yells it. If you listen, you can hear it. That's as vulgar as it gets.

But it's not just vulgarity. There's "Paul is Dead", too. Perhaps after the deaths of MLK, JFK, RFK, Malcolm X, Brian Jones, Van Morrison, Mama Cass, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin, it was only logical that a Beatle would die, too. And the world couldn't wrap its head around the fact that things were fine. So, the Beatles became a "purloined death" - ghosts on vinyl - a kind of code system explaining not only what happened to Paul, but perhaps what the Hell was going on in the world.

Suddenly, all these disparate images in Kenneth Anger don't seem so odd (let's face it, we all think they're at least ODD). We may not be the Elite, mythologically- and Crowley-read scholars he wants us to be, but we are indeed at least attempting to read into systems of symbols we're familiar with. Album art, Pop Music Lyrics. Film, too.

Just look down a ways at the Poltergeist and Exorcist business. Rosemary's Baby, too. "Cannibal Holocaust" in another way, too. A controversial, Italian exploitation film directed by Ruggero Deodato released in 1980 about (duh) cannibals. It was shot much like The Blair Witch Project in that it was about a documentary-gone wrong. Blair Witch actually blatantly stole from it.

Anyways, as Wikipedia explains:

"After premiering in Italy, the film was seized by the local Magistrate and Deodato was arrested for obscenity. He was later accused of making a snuff film based on circulating rumors that the film's actors were slain for the camera. Though Deodato would be cleared of these charges, the film was banned in Italy, the UK, Australia, and several other countries for graphic gore, sexual violence, and for the genuine slayings of six animals featured in the film. While many nations have revoked the ban, it is still banned to this day in other countries around the world."

So what do "Louie, Louie", The Da Vinci Code, National Treasure, "Paul Is Dead," Holy Blood, Holy Grail, and Cannibal Holocaust have in common? I have no idea. But I will say that we seem to enjoy reading into all these things. They're all pieces of art/consumption that we've "read into", that supposedly have more to them than meets the eye, if you can read it right. Seems occult to me.

But why do we treat them as such? They're all obviously nothing more than what they are (innocuous objects of consumption). That's a question I can't possibly answer. But it's something I've been wondering about. So I thought I'd maybe let y'all in and maybe y'all could wonder, too and maybe help me out.

http://www.factnet.org/Scientology/hollywoodsatancult.html

http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Evils%20in%20America/Rock-n-Roll/led_zeppelin.htm

http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Evils%20in%20America/Rock-n-Roll/imagine.htm

http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Evils%20in%20America/devils_music.htm

Class cancelled today Thursday Feb 21; please read!

Students: I am out sick today.

We had been planning to watch The Dunwich Horror (if it comes in on time). We should be able to get caught up on screenings in the next couple of weeks.

For Tuesday, along with your essay that is due, please write a one-page (250 word) response to the chapter assigned for this week from the reading packet "Sucking in the Seventies"; focus on the author's comparison between trends in British horror films in the Seventies and American horror films in the Seventies.

You can email these responses to me at amberapple at gmail dot com, or hand it in with your essays next Tuesday.

First Blog Post deadline: last Thursday!

Three students have yet to post to the blog. Only one has contacted me regarding any problems, so I assume the other two simply did not bother to complete the assignment. This means your first grade of four (which together count for 20% of your total grade for the course) is an F.

The deadlines for the remaining three blog posts are included in your schedule handout.

Exorcisms on the rise?

This post over at the The Wild Hunt Blog looks at a couple of recent articles concerning the increasing prevalence of exorcisms in Europe and Australia. The rhetoric of both articles seems to be suggesting that those who believe in growing numbers of demonic possessions also think there is a correspondence to involvement in various New Age practices, as well as yoga...

Are we heading for a second age of Satanic Panic like the one that last through the early Nineties?

Werewolf Order

So, I got my copy of The Satanic Screen today and thought I would try to find out some information about the books author, Nikolas Schreck. Unfortunately, most of the sources I found weren't exactly the most credible, but, nevertheless, the search sent me in some pretty interesting directions. Here are a few of the things I found:

Nikolas Schreck (born Barry Dubin) is an occultist who is married to Zeena LaVey, only daughter of Anton LaVey and Diane Hegarty, founders of the Church of Satan. Shortly after their marriage in 1988, Zeena renounced her family name and Schreck, who had been in good standing with LaVey, also had a falling out with the family after his delayed promotions to Priest in the Church.

Since their separation with the Church of Satan, Schreck and Zeena have been affiliated with several occult organizations, including the Temple of Set, formed out of philosophical differences with the Church of Satan in 1975. In 2002, the two broke from this group to form their own organization worshiping the Egyptian God, Seth (alternately spelled Set), called The Storm, though I could find little more information than just that.

The most fun parts about Schreck happened before this, however. He was the lead singer of a truly goofy goth band in the early 80s called Radio Werewolf, heard here. Pay particular attention to the very original and spooky lyrics in "1960 Cadillac Hearst" such as "Then I saw here there behind the tombstone/Yes, it was her the girl of my dreams," or "The worms and maggots are my only friends" in "Buried Alive" I was ready to write it off as a fun, tongue in cheek sort of thing, until I started reading up on the band and found that it was intended to be the media outlet for Schreck's Werewolf Order, a group apparently set on staging a violent takeover of Satanic principals and destruction of Judeo-Christian teachings. Now I'm not so sure what to think of it all.
Zeena, served both as a member of the band as well as the Werewolf Order. Like The Storm, however, I couldn't find very concrete documentation of their principals. Here, you can check out a letter from their Minister of Ideological Purity, who describes the group as "an elite Satanic militia who has taken on the responsibility of preparing the spearhead for a radical Satanic dominion." Zeena speaks about briefly it here in an interview saying:

"The Werewolf Order trains those who are drawn to it in the art of magical predation, as well as shape-shifting and transformation, thus the archetype of the Lycanthrope.

The Werewolf Order is often criticized as being not politically correct, due to our ruthless policy concerning elitism and inequality. It differs from some other magical societies in that it is aimed towards leadership rather than gathering followers."

Also, here is a pamphlet created by the order, outlining its principles. (This site also contains some bizarre phone interviews with individuals like Charles Manson and Richard Ramirez).

Schreck, like his co-editor of The Manson Files Boyd Rice, has voiced his support for Charles Manson and made a television appearance on the Wally George show calling for his release from prison (I looked pretty hard for this to no avail). In 1989, he released his film "Charles Manson Superstar" which was made of interviews with Manson with a video camera Schreck had snuck into prison. Film threat magazine calls it "The best documentary ever on Charles Manson."

A 'Poltergeist' Curse?

The three films of the Poltergeist series have been plagued by rumors of curses since the release of the original Poltergeist in 1982. In fact, it was the focus of an E! True Hollywood Story.

Among some of the eerie facts from the E! True Hollywood story, JoBeth Williams stated that producers told her the skeletons used in the famous swimming pool scene were, in fact, real skeletons.

Will Sampson was told that the skeletons used in Poltergeist II were also real. So Sampson performed an exorcism to cleanse the set.

Sounds to me like the producers just liked to mess with their actors.

But the main urban legend is that four of the stars of the series died of strange deaths. But in reality, two of the deaths were not all that strange. The website Snopes has explored the deaths and discovered that not much is out of the ordinary. They were just tragic.

Julian Beck, (creepy preacher Kane from Poltergeist II, pictured) died of stomach cancer on September 14,1985. He was 60. Ohhh spooky!

Will Sampson, (Indian spirit specialist Taylor from Poltergeist II) died on June 3, 1987, from heart/lung transplant surgery complications – severe pre-operative malnutrition and post-operative kidney failure along with a fungal infection. He was 53.

While both of the aforementioned older gentlemen’s deaths could easily be coincidences, it’s the deaths of the two young female stars that are somewhat ominous.

At the age of 22, Dominique Dunne (Dana from Poltergeist) was choked to death by her obsessive boyfriend, John Sweeney. Sweeney was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to only six years in prison. He was out in two and a half years.

Heather O'Rourke (Carol Anne from all three films) died near the end of filming Poltergeist III. In fact, a body double was used during the final scene of the film. (You only see said double from the back.) O’Rourke was diagnosed with what doctors thought was the flu, but turned out to be a bowel obstruction which caused toxins to enter her system. (The unoriginal misdiagnosis reeks of The Exorcist.) She died during an emergency procedure to remove said obstruction. She was only 12.

O’Rourke and Dunne are buried near each other in the Westwood Memorial Park cemetery in Los Angeles.

There are other “curse” related urban legends that revolve around Poltergeist ranging from first hand accounts to the utterly absurd.

JoBeth Williams (Diane Freeling) claimed that every day when she returned home from filming, pictures on her wall were always crooked. She would straighten them, only to find them crooked again the next day.

During the scariest Poltergeist scene, where Oliver Robins (Robbie Freeling) was choked by the creepy clown, Robins was reported to have been actually choked. Steven Spielberg even praised the young actor for his authenticity until he realized he was in real trouble.

One of the absurd theories involves a parking lot used to film a scene in Poltergeist III – the same space where the Utah Jazz basketball team plays their games. The “curse” apparently explains why the Jazz suck so much.

In you're interested, this website offers up a whole bunch of fun Poltergeist facts.

So, is there really a Poltergeist curse or are the events just a series of unfortunate coincidences? I would lean towards the latter.

Christploitation Films - Thief in the Night

Christplotation films are a unique genre of Christian film that “employs the same horror techniques, overstated acting, and brutal violence as their secular counterparts, except with the higher purpose of saving souls” (North, Brew Magazine ). Today, many of the films have become slick. Movies like The Omega Code, Left Behind, and numerous knock-offs have recently dealt with the idea of an oncoming apocalypse. A popular belief held by all of these films is that of the rapture. The rapture is the idea that before the world ends all Christians will be taken to heaven, leaving everyone else behind (Wikipedia's explanation here ). Most of the rapture films deal with doubters or fence sitters who must deal with their newfound understanding in the wake of the mass disappearance of God-fearing Christians everywhere. Modern rapture films have the mediocre budgets, B-list casts, and semi-grand scope to put up a good fight amongst the straight-to-dvd racks, but they simply do not deliver the scares of their predecessors. The Thief in the Night series one of the earliest in this subgenre of Christplotation films is also undoubtedly one of the best, combining the low-budget thrills, unintentional laughs, and genuinely chilling sequences worthy of “a [Lucio] Fulci- if not an [Dario] Argento,” (V-X, End Time Movies ).

I remember watching this film when I was growing up and it having a profound effect. Made in the 70’s, it is the biggest inspiration to the imitators. I consider it’s crude, amateurish filmmaking a boon to the film’s presence (much like with Romero’s Night of the Living Dead). The first film in the four part film series is about Patty, a doubting woman, who is repeatedly informed about the coming rapture by her Christian friends, particularly her newly-wed husband. When the rapture comes, reacting more out of paranoia than genuine belief, Patty joins up with some “rebels,” hiding out from the Anti-Christ’s new world order. As tensions increase, people like Patty, who scrape to get by, begin to get hunted down. The film climaxes with an awesome (well, its pretty shoddy, but its an awesome idea) guillotine scene. The other films follow the further adventures of those that have been “left behind,” The fear the Christians had of the rapture and apocalypse really shines through in this fascinating little horror film, and much like with Jack Chick’s work, (as seen here ) the sincerity can create actual moments of terror, if not belief . It may be trashy, misguided, and downright incompetent, but the any horror film that left a wake of traumatized victims in it’s wake can’t be all that bad.

Recently I stumbled on an article online. It was entitled 5 Scientific Reasons a Zombie Apocalypse Could Actually Happen. Among the reasons listed is Mad Cow Disease which "attacks the cow's spinal cord and brain, turning it into a stumbling, mindless attack cow." Called Creutzfeld-Jakob disease in humans, the symptoms include; changes in gait, hallucinations, lack of coordination, muscle twitching, myolonic jerks or seizures, and rapidly developing delerium or dementia........ you know, stuff that ZOMBIES do. (A/N: At #4 on the list is an exciting bit about a haitian guy buried in 1962 and found wandering the city in 1980)
Well since we're not in a Cinema and Zombies class, where does the relevance lie? If that's what you're asking you should loosen up, I'm getting to it.
This listing got me thinking. If medicine can explain away zombies, can it also explain away DEMONIC POSSESSION!?!?!
In the beginning of the article in the packet, Regression, Possession & Cinematic Neurosis, Mikita Brottman lists Robert C's symptoms as including, "aggressive behavior, physical violence against those who are trying to help him, the spontaneous appearance of words on his abdomen, the sound of strange voices coming from his mouth, speaking both in Latin and in reverse, and a grotesquely swollen belly and throat." She says, "His limbs twist and then untangle violently, and he vomits up vile-smelling fluids."
An article in the web-based North Texas Skeptics Newsletter discusses A.A. Allen, a man said to be one of the most controversial deliverance evangelists in the 50s and 60s. A reporter for the Sacramento Bee in 1956, notes one instance of Allen performing an exorcism on a young boy said to be possessed. The article discloses that the boy had encephalitis.
"Hey Claudia, what are the symptoms of encephalitis?", you ask.
I'd be glad to tell you, the symptoms of encephalitis can include; severe headache, nausea and vomiting, stiff neck, confusion, disorientation, personality changes, convulsions and seizures, problems with speech or hearing, hallucinations, memory loss, drowsiness, or coma. Encephalitis can appear without warning and usually lasts up to a week, but recovery can take several weeks or even months.
So does everyone who seems possessed just have encephalitis?
No, Multiple personality disorder is also a possibility or Schizophrenia.
Just these three illnesses alone seem to share an alarming number of symptoms with demonic possession.
"Well, you haven't offered enough proof to disprove demonic possession as a whole", you say.
No.
No I haven't.
The truth is I have no idea whether or not there are demons, and I have even less of an idea of whether or not those demons possess human beings. What I can see is that with the progression of medical science has come a decline in the number of demonic possessions. Geez, that's weird.
It sure makes you wonder, (if you haven't already) if there is any real example of a human being possessed by a demonic force.
I'm going to keep looking...

Meet me at the waterfront, after the social...

So, a couple of weeks ago, I invited my friends over and we decided to watch a movie. I popped in one of my favorite slasher films, Sleepaway Camp (1983). The movie came out a few years after Friday the 13th, during the heyday of 80's slasher films, and was overlooked during its small theatrical run, but has since gained a strong cult following on vhs and dvd. I have shown this movie to countless people over the years, and it has always been greeted with much enthusiasm... except during this screening. My friends seemed to wonder what I saw in this crappy little film. They were mad that I made them sit through the whole thing, telling them over and over again "just wait for the ending, it gets so much better." (for those of you who have seen this movie, you know what i'm talking about. for those of you who haven't seen this movie, i'm going to go out of my way not to give anything away).

i became a little more offended than i should have been when the film conjured up these reactions in my friends. this led me to go into a bit of analysis as to why the film strikes such a chord with me, and with many others who have seen it.

i'll give a brief synopsis before i go on. so, angela lives with her cousin ricky and her crazy aunt martha because her brother and her father were killed in a terrible boating accident years earlier. angela and ricky go to camp arawak one summer. angela has trouble being accepted by the other campers (still traumatized years later by the boating accident) and is continually made fun of and tormented (especially by the girls in her bunk, who doubt if she's ever gotten period and describing her as "a real carpenter's dream. flat as a board and in need of a screw!"). that's when people start to get murdered. but only people who piss off angela.

no doubt this movie is completely over the top and ridiculous, but the film is called sleepaway CAMP, and i really don't think it's unintentional. the dialogue is cheesy, the murders are fairly tame, the acting is pretty awful, and the 80's costumes are embarrassing, but something about this movie has staying power. underneath all of that campiness, there lies certain truths about adolescence and fears of growing into one's sexuality. and the sexual politics are not merely byproducts of having a movie about teenagers, the themes are incredibly important to the film. these themes are also aided highly by the fact that the actors in the movie actually ARE teenagers, and not 25 year olds playing 16 year olds.

in the movie, there are a couple of scenes that seem to break through the campiness - scenes that elevate the film to another level, almost by suggesting the creators of the film KNOW they're making a shallow horror film with ALMOST subliminal commentary on a teenager's fear of accepting their sexuality. but these scenes are very brief before the movie resumes at its regular pace. when the film reaches it's shocking twist ending, it's only about two or three minutes of the movie, but something feels amiss. like the film has decided to drop completely it's veneer of shitty, exploitative slasher film and take on a whole new life of its own. i've had the discussion with a friend of mine who agrees that in the last few minutes of the picture, we're taken out of this safe campy world we'd been following for the past 80 minutes and are introduced to adolescent hell. the revelation of the killer and the killer's motivations are kind of devastating if you look at it a certain way. it's so easy to look back on adolescence and treat that time as a campy nostalgic fun time, but in this movie, the characters can't sustain that kind of happy go lucky charm and the film seems to break apart and say, "look! teenage life was confusing and fucking scary as hell! it shouldn't be so easily dismissed!"

seriously, see this movie.

1980's: We Are the Monsters.

With the right in control, more and more things were becoming demonized. Hippie movement is damned and everything involved with it, like sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll. Its all that, and of course the occult and satan-worshiping, that is ruining our society, our world, and ruining the chance for Reaganomics to really work.
The very movies you think might try to counter this cultural wave with the greatest tie to occultism, the Horror genre, are some of the movies that pressed this hatred to a new step.
Starting with Psycho (1960), we were given a new perspective on a violent crime. No longer were we watching, unable to participate in the crime, we were involved in the crime. Further more though, we were the attacker. We were in the villains eyes, and we, the audience, were wielding the knife, slashing deep into the showering woman.
Hitchcock may have done that as an experiment, to see how the audience would react and try to give a new spin to cinema, but it took root. Re-emerging later, with Halloween (1978), we are again behind the hockey mask taking part in the murder of individuals. We are the werewolf, vampire, or ghoul stalking behind the bushes, watching our victim, and charging out to get them. Movies like these don't do it randomly though. We aren't put into the eyes of the monster killing innocents. No, we are targeting individuals who deserve death. In The Blob remake (1988) its two drunk college students up on lovers lane, just about to commit the horrific act of...SEX! Other people, like African Americans, drug dealers, rock'n'rollers (who are also doing drugs, and having sex) people who don't listen to their parents are all targetted, all stalked, and WE, the audience, get to be the one to kill them. We get to see through the eyes of the monster attacking.
Of course, the sweet innocent Jamie Lee Curtis won't die though. We might watch her and see her through the monster's eyes, but we'll never get close, we'll never be stabbing her from the monsters perspective. We're given her perspective, a sympathetic one. One we can relate to, and in the end we kill the monster side of ourselves. We destroy the side that condemns those horrendous sinners, the college lovers, even that black drug dealer.

...or do we? The Monster always rises again in the denoument., and so does the hatred and intolerance of such people.

Baphomet; The Sabbatic Goat

This article involves that great and oft misunderstood religious figure of Baphomet. I wasn't able to find too many good sites on the infamous figure, the wikipedia site will lead you to many good books on the subject. The name Baphomet first appears in the writings of the Inquisition papers against the Knights Templar. Baphomet, as accused by King Phillip IV of France, was a heretic idol worshiped by the mysterious group, and was used as one of the pieces of evidence that eventually brought about the downfall of the Templar. The odd thing about this was that the charge of "worshiping Baphomet" was a charge leveled uniquely at the Templars. Phillip IV threw heretic charges at many during his reign, but not until the Templars did the idol of Baphomet come up. To historians, this usually means something isn't quite as it seems. Many have postulated that "Baphomet" is actually an Old French mispronunciation of "Mahomet", Muhammad. The Templar were formed as a group to guard Crusaders on their way to the holy land, so they spent much of their time in Muslim areas. So it could be deduced that Phillip was in fact accusing the Templar of converting to Islam.
The Goat we all know and love didn't really exist in its current form until the 19th century when the occultist Eliphas Levi wrote Dogmas and Rituals of High Magic. In this tome he included an illustration (shown) that would shape the look of "The Sabbatic Goat" we still see today. Levi considered the figure of Baphomet to be the "absolute in symbolic form".
Aleistor Crowley appropriated the figure of Baphomet as a figure of fertility. To Crowley, the androgyny of the "Goat Head" fit well into his beliefs concerning dualism. The Baphomet represented the self, and the demon brother or Holy Gaurdian Angel all in one. Crowley so revered the Baphomet that he chose it as his name when he rose to the appropriate rank within the Ordo Templi Orientis.
Today Baphomet is misunderstood by a large population. Like Evangelist Jack Chick who uses false information to tell his followers that Baphomet was a demon worshiped by the Freemasons. And it doesn't help that both Levi's and Crowley's Tarot decks include the visage of the Baphomet on the "devil" card, and Anton LeVey's official symbol for his Church of Satan is the "Sigil of Baphomet". I hope that this will shed some light on this important historical symbol of duality, not of evil.

The Satanic Screen on eBay!

For those who are trying to order this...

It is up for auction on Ebay.

Starting bid: $6.66. I thought that was cute. Yes, I did.

Exorcisms for all! But do we need them?

You too can get an exorcism! Just google the word “exorcism” and you will find a paid advertisement by a pastor named Bob Larson, whom you can e-mail to arrange an exorcism. Not only that, you will be filmed for his new reality tv series!
Am I the only one that finds this odd? And how did a centuries-old spiritual rite go to on-demand service advertised on the web?
The demand for exorcisms have gone up dramatically in recent years. In the early 80's, the US Catholic church had one sanctioned exorcist. Now they have ten. In Poland, the number of sanctioned Catholic exorcists has doubled in the past five years.
And that doesn't even count the unsanctioned practitioners or the evangelical version of the practice, called “deliverance”. In 1999, the Catholic Church revised the rites of exorcism for the first time since they were written in 1614, in order to accommodate modern demand.
One of the more interesting, and thorough, things I've read on the subject is the book American Exorcism by Michael Cuneo. You can find an excerpt of it here. In this example, he talks about a deliverance he witnesses. In the book he describes the many exorcisms he attended, including a graphic multi-day mass exorcism.
But the most interesting part of the book explores why we need, or think we need, exorcisms.
One important question is did media like The Exorcist expose us to the reality that we need this spiritual cleansing, or does it give us a convenient scapegoat for our personal fallacies? Does believing someone is possessed blind us to the possibility of personal failure? Or worse, a severe psychiatric need?
Or, perhaps these rationalizations are placed in our heads by our demons, in order to hide their evil deeds. You can't empirically prove it isn't necessary, because there is much anecdotal evidence that it does. But you can't prove it is, because we haven't built a machine to measure demon levels in people. It's a bizarre thing to think about.

Women are the Devil.

In the last class we talked about the use of children, babies or the unborn in terms of the devil and cinema. This anxiety about children and Satanism, or evil in general, affected society’s fear for children’s safety from the occult. On a related note I wondered what role women might play in terms of Satan and popular movies, and if their role or depiction could be boiled down to affects on society or cinematically.
While as a film major this may be embarrassing to admit, but the first thing that came to my mind was the semi-popular, critically unclaimed 2000 film starring (the possibly dead, certainly forgotten) Brendan Fraser and more significantly (at least to this) Elizabeth Hurley as the Devil. While the latest version might be little more than pure entertainment the original Bedazzled was a 1967 Stanley Donen film, and while the concept of the devil appearing before a down-on-his-luck guy and purposefully messing up his wish granting was the same, the devil was in fact played by a man; possibly confused with Raquel Welch who was acting the part of Lust. Both of these stories were based off the Faust legend, which is “the story of the German necromancer and astrologer who sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for knowledge and power" (source: http://www.mystical-www.co.uk/faust.htm)

While the Faust legend is extremely significant seeing as it influences literature, films, and art dealing with the occult, it deviates just a bit from my original topic—women playing the devil. I’ll offer another seemingly quite different example that will actually tie in with the point you may have doubted I had. Like a lot of the occult cinema, Girlfriend from Hell, was labeled and distributed as a B-Movie. Because of the environment (high school) and main situation (house party) the movie is also one of the teen-romp genres but the nerdy girl attending the party has been taken over and made over by the devil. A fellow high school girl is of God’s power and there in lies the heavenly catfight. (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girlfriend_from_Hell)

What these two movies (and even Raquel Welch’s character in the original Bedazzle) illustrate in relation to the woman’s role as the devil is that the woman is merely used as a tool of seduction; seduction both in the literal sense, but mainly of the soul/faith sense. Putting the devil in an hourglass package only physically embodies the idea of temptation or the attraction that evil has on certain people (like the down-on-his-luck Brendan Fraser or the nerdy girl at high school). While I can’t really explain why women aren’t depicted as the devil more (I don’t mean that in a negative way) I can only assume that part of it is contributed to the fact that the Devil has largely, in all forms of culture, been depicted as a male, and this possibly stems from the fact that men have been doing the majority of these depictions.

Other Things to Check Out / Consider:

- Since we discussed the color use in Danger’s films, a more blatant yet significant use of color appears in Elizabeth Hurley’s portrayal of the devil in terms of her wardrobe and in the wishes she grants for the man.

- This New York Times article on the general portrayal of the Devil in media, mainly focuses on male actors and therefore if you want the gender-equal discussion maybe take a look at this…I feel like the male portrayal of the devil centers more on the sense of “power” (ala Al Pacino in the Devil’s Advocate) rather than the “attraction” or “seduction” aspect that woman tend to embody.

-also IMDB has an entry for all the movies mentioned in here…

Hope this isn’t too far off topic, just thought it was an interesting thing to consider; the idea of gender in terms of the cinematic representation of the Devil. I’m sure there are more examples as well; a more extensive search or prior knowledge and one could illuminate me further.

The Seal's Occult Secrets Revealed!

Today on AOL News, amid the usual celebrity claptrap and grisly headlines, is an intriguing story about an exhibit at the State Department attempting to debunk myths that the United States Seal is a repository of occult symbolism and hints of secret society influence in American government...

Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired.

At this year's Sundance Film Festival, director Marina Zenovich premiered her new documentary, "Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired". The film containing a lot of archival footage of interviews with Polanski, Sharon Tate and others was the first film to be bought at the festival.

Roman Polanski was a very interesting one to say the least. However, out of everything he went through and experienced, Zenovich chose to focus on the infamous sex scandal involving Polanski and a thirteen year old girl. (It is said he raped her in a pool at Jack Nicholson's home). While it is true, Polanski did commit the crime (there is a lot of controversy about this), the documentary focuses a lot on Judge Laurence J Ritterband who worked on this case because he used this publicity of the case to his advantage. However, he is actually not intereviewed in this documentary. Rather, the victim, attorneys, film industry reporters, Polanski's lawyer, and others were interviewed. On MSN.Com it is said that "they all revealed troubling behavior by the judge, now deceased, who was so driven by media coverage that he kept a scrapbook of clippings. Polanski presumably fled because he feared unfair treatment amid the media frenzy"

Zenovich says her documentary does not apologize for the French-Polish director, but rather a take on the murky justice and media hype around the Polanski case.

Interesting fact:

"Perhaps the most fascinating fact (and this was something I did not know) came in the reveal that, when a new judge was assigned to the case in 1997, he agreed to throw out the charges if Polanski were to return to the States - on one condition: that the hearing be televised. Because of that, Polanski decided against coming back," notes Erik Davis at Cinematical. "And who can blame him?"

ALL IN ALL....Go see this movie when it is released!!!
"Even for those familiar with the general details of the case," writes Mike D'Angelo at ScreenGrab, "Wanted and Desired will likely prove revelatory."


Another interesting fact I didn't know...Roman Polanski was raised in Poland and his home was imprisoned in a jewish ghetto. His mother was sent to a concentration camp to never be seen by Roman again and his father left him with a family so he could escape getting caught.

Ordo Templi Orientis = Freemasons?

So I was doing some random surfing online about occultism, Crowley, and the OTO. when I came across a few articles linking these things to the Freemasons. I'm not totally sure if we talked about it during class, but apparently the Ordo Templi Orientis group that Crowley was a memeber of was actually a part of the high ranking Freemasons BEFORE he took over. I had no idea that the OTO. was originally supposed to be a part of the Freemasons, but apparently Crowley had other ideas. This article talks about him reorganizing the OTO and has some more biographical information about him. His reorganization of the OTO made me wonder if he was opposed to Freemasonry, and if the Freemasons really do have any link to the occult because we all know Crowley was totally into that stuff.

This got me thinking about how the Freemasons have been tied to the occult in history. I'm sure most of you know about the history of the Freemasons, which dates back to the 1600s but this got me interested in how the occult could be tied to this mysterious fraternal organization. Of course, I'm not completely sure of the authenticity of these two articles, but they are actually pretty interesting. Freemasonry is a Religion says that "Freemasonry currently serves as the conduit between the political organizations of the global elite...and the occult groups of the Theosophical network." Maybe a bit of an extreme decleration, but it can't be argued that for centuries people have blamed the Freemasons for magical practices and some have seen it as an evil power.

This article offers the answering that Freemasonry is part of an occult partially because occult means hidden, and what could be more hidden than what happens in the Grand Lodge? It goes on to talk about how the first users of the Grand Lodge, the Illuminati, were developing evil plans of some sort and using magick, and that in the past century many groups who have played a part in the occult revival can all be linked to Freemasons.

It's obvious that we'll never know exactly what part the Freemasons have played in occult revival, or if behind those closed doors they're lighting candles and chanting spells. I think that the mystery surrounding the Freemasons is the only thing that keeps it interesting, and keeps people conjuring up those rediculous conspiracy theories.

Hooray!

The Believers has arrived at last. I can't wait to watch it this weekend. Must also dig out my VHS tapes of the Satanic Panic talk show footage from Oprah, Geraldo, et al. Despite the film's focus on voodoo, it's a close parallel to the satanic cults portrayed in 1970s films, but with the added bonus of 1980s-style paranoia of children being snatched up for human sacrifice.

Why doesn't anyone else post to the blog??? Dudes, it's a requirement. Just sayin'.