{"id":4038,"date":"2012-04-08T20:49:52","date_gmt":"2012-04-09T02:49:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4038"},"modified":"2012-04-09T10:34:19","modified_gmt":"2012-04-09T16:34:20","slug":"the-occult-experience-of-1985","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4038","title":{"rendered":"“The Occult Experience” of 1985"},"content":{"rendered":"

A friend pointed me to the Vimeo page where you can see The Occult Experience<\/em><\/a> (95 min.), an Australian television documentary from 1985, researched and co-produced by Nevill Drury<\/a>, on witchcraftandprimitivepeopleandsatanismandexorcismandallkindsofspookystuff.<\/p>\n

Watching it was hard, because I kept turning away after encountering such portentous statements as “The search for supernatural powers continues in spite of science and technology” or that people practice “ancient Celtic traditions of nature worship.”<\/p>\n

No one unpacks these assertions at all. Rather, they are just delivered as though they were the Final Word.<\/p>\n

At one point, the narrator intones, “How does it feel to be a witch in the computer age?” (At the time the documentary was made, I thought my KayPro II<\/a> portable personal computer was cutting-edge.)<\/p>\n

It has its historical interest. Hey, there’s Herman Slater<\/a> doing ritual in a Manhattan street. Why? You won’t learn from the film!<\/p>\n

And at about the 20-minute mark, Alex Sanders<\/a> delivers version number 1,045 of the original “I was initiated by my grandmother” story, which has been imitated so many times.<\/p>\n

Back then, boys and girls, to be a Craft leader you had to have some special story to tell about your magical heritage or you were nobody.<\/p>\n

And look, there is Janet Farrar <\/a>taking her clothes off while chatting with her late husband, Stewart. And the paintings of Rosaleen Norton\u2014can’t have an Australian production without those. Drury would build his later academic career on them<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Margot Adler<\/a>, Olivia Robertson<\/a>\u00a0 . . .\u00a0 so many names. But no context.<\/p>\n

The whole film is thunderingly pretentious and yet basically content-free. You would not learn anything systematic here about the development of contemporary Paganism\u2014which might be Satanic and which might be “primitive” and might involve “altered states of consciousness” (quick clip of Esalen<\/a>), and is certainly spooky spooky or silly silly, depending on your perspective.<\/p>\n

It make me wish that I could take those clips and arrange them into a meaningful narrative. Maybe some day someone will.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A friend pointed me to the Vimeo page where you can see The Occult Experience (95 min.), an Australian television documentary from 1985, researched and co-produced by Nevill Drury, on witchcraftandprimitivepeopleandsatanismandexorcismandallkindsofspookystuff. Watching it was hard, because I kept turning away after encountering such portentous statements as “The search for supernatural powers continues in spite of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[19,36,5,29],"class_list":["post-4038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-australia","tag-movies","tag-paganism","tag-witchcraft"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-138","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":928,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=928","url_meta":{"origin":4038,"position":0},"title":"The Occult Experience","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 7, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"In my office with the fast Ethernet connection, I downloaded the 1987 documentary The Occult Experience. It is available on various bittorent servers, such as here. (There was tie-in with Nevil Drury's 1987 book of the same name, I believe.)Lots of the film is actually older. Some footage goes back\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"movies\"","block_context":{"text":"movies","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=movies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11724,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11724","url_meta":{"origin":4038,"position":1},"title":"Rosaleen Norton Documentary Film about to Release","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 19, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"The Witch of Kings Cross, a documentary on the life of Australian artist and witch Rosaleen Norton (1917\u20131979), directed by Sonia Bible, is being premiered in Paris as part of L'Estrange Festival. Often described as Australia's \"most persecuted artist,\" Norton blended art and magic in a way often called \"demonic,\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"art\"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/rosaleen-norton-pie.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4769,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4769","url_meta":{"origin":4038,"position":2},"title":"Journalism and the AAR-SBL","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 2, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Journalists are few at the American Academy of Religion and Society of Biblical Literature's joint annual meetings.\u00a0 But the New York Times' Mark Oppenheimer, searching around for \"the narrative,\" noted that some fraction of the participants wore flowing robes and weirdly remarked about people carrying hefty reference books, as\u00a0 Steven\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3724,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3724","url_meta":{"origin":4038,"position":3},"title":"“My Weirdest Summer”","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 14, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"For Erik Davis, it was the summer of 1985, when he took a total-immersion course in Robert Anton Wilson. It didn't help that I spent the summer reading Aleister Crowley, Phil Dick, the Principia Discordia, and Robert Anton Wilson, especially the Illuminatus! Trilogy, Prometheus Rising, and Cosmic Trigger. Or maybe\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"California\"","block_context":{"text":"California","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=california"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7237,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7237","url_meta":{"origin":4038,"position":4},"title":"Call for Papers: The Occult Imagination in Britain","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 19, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Christine Ferguson and Andrew Radford, both of the University of Glasgow, seek contributors for an edited collection, The Occult Imagination in Britain, 1875-1947. We seek proposals for an essay collection entitled The Occult Imagination in Britain, 1875-1947, to be proposed to Ashgate\u2019s new Among the Victorians and the Modernists series.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"esotericism\"","block_context":{"text":"esotericism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=esotericism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10102,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10102","url_meta":{"origin":4038,"position":5},"title":"Call for Papers: Digital Paganism and Digital Occultism","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 15, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"For a special issue of The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies. My name is Heather Freeman (Professor of Art, UNC Charlotte, USA) and I am seeking research on Digital Paganism \/ Digital Occultism for a future issue of\u00a0The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies.\u00a0 Please see the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"art\"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/Pom-cover.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4038"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4061,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4038\/revisions\/4061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}