{"id":928,"date":"2007-09-07T20:46:00","date_gmt":"2007-09-07T20:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=928"},"modified":"2007-09-07T20:46:00","modified_gmt":"2007-09-07T20:46:00","slug":"the-occult-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=928","title":{"rendered":"The Occult Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my office with the fast Ethernet connection, I downloaded the 1987 documentary The Occult Experience<\/em>. It is available on various bittorent servers, such as here<\/a>. (There was tie-in with Nevil Drury’s 1987 book of the same name, I believe.)<\/p>\n

Lots of the film is actually older. Some footage goes back to the 1960s, such as a brief appearance of Isaac Bonewits<\/a> during his Church of Satan experience. There’s Selena Fox<\/a> and Dennis Carpenter and her coven trooping through the Wisconsin snow and some New York Witch mispronouncing “Samhain,” Alex “king of the witches” Sanders, The Temple of Set<\/a>, and Janet Farrar<\/a> teaching some students while Stewart smokes cigarettes in an armchair before robing.<\/p>\n

One of the Farrars’ initation rituals is shown at length, and there is also a segment on the Australian Witch and artist Rosaleen Norton<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Also included: Z Budapest<\/a> and her Dianic coven of the time, explaining how women used to curse warmongers, Luisah Tesh talking hoodoo, the Fellowship of Isis<\/a> at Clonegal Castle, and Michael Harner of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies<\/a>. But what the filmmakers really love is the work of H.R. Giger<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What those Australian Pentecostals<\/a> are doing in there, I’m not sure, except for the speaking in tongues and the exorcism. The latter just goes on and on (“Push it, Petra. In the name of Jeee-zuss, come out!”). Talk about savage rites!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 to the 1960s, such […]<\/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":[],"tags":[36,5,29],"class_list":["post-928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-movies","tag-paganism","tag-witchcraft"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-eY","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8553,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8553","url_meta":{"origin":928,"position":0},"title":"“The Love Witch” \u2014\u00a0“Twin Peaks” Meets “Bell, Book and Candle”","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 12, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Last November, Peg Aloi of The Media Witches reviewed The Love Witch under the deadline, \"Why Real Witches Are Going to Love (or Maybe Hate) the Love Witch.\" A pagan friend I watched the film with was shocked and called it \u201cirresponsible and potentially damaging.\u201d His concern is not unreasonable;\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"movies\"","block_context":{"text":"movies","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=movies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/witch17-300x217.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/witch17-300x217.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/witch17-300x217.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":14042,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=14042","url_meta":{"origin":928,"position":1},"title":"The Man Behind Chick Tracts","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 13, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Somewhere I have a small stash of Chick tracts -- Jack Chick's little Christian comics. I had two collecting rules: I wanted the ones that were openly anti-witch, anti-metaphysical or anti-occult, and second, I had to find them in the wild. Sending away for them would not count; I had\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\/2025\/07\/bewitched_.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4345,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4345","url_meta":{"origin":928,"position":2},"title":"“Season of the Witch”","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 14, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"On Peg Aloi's recommendation, I recently watched\u00a0Season of the Witch, also known as\u00a0Hungry Wives.\u00a0 As Peg mentioned, part of it is witchcraft-meets-Second Wave feminism, and part of it acknowledges the whole \"occult explosion\" of the late 1960s-early 1970s. Maybe it it is what the old Bewitched series would have been\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":10019,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10019","url_meta":{"origin":928,"position":3},"title":"Season of the Witch(crap), Part 2","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 4, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Season of the Witch(crap), Part 1\" here. Continuing . . . \u2022 One more \"high\" priestess joke, and you're out of here. From the Colorado Springs Independent, the weekly that gets all the cannabis advertising because the chain-owned daily paper won't touch it: \"Meet Colorado's High Priestess of Cannabis.\" Yes,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/media1.fdncms.com\/csindy\/imager\/u\/blog\/14467973\/cannaculture.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/media1.fdncms.com\/csindy\/imager\/u\/blog\/14467973\/cannaculture.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/media1.fdncms.com\/csindy\/imager\/u\/blog\/14467973\/cannaculture.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6302,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6302","url_meta":{"origin":928,"position":4},"title":"New York’s ‘Occult Revival’: Everything Old Is New Again","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 26, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"From The Revealer (see blogroll under Religion and Journalism): \"Chapel Perilous: Notes From The New York Occult Revival.\" There\u2019s been a magical revival happening in New York City for two to three years,\u201d Damon Stang, the \u201cshop witch\u201d for Catland Books in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, told the New\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4038,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4038","url_meta":{"origin":928,"position":5},"title":"“The Occult Experience” of 1985","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 8, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Australia\"","block_context":{"text":"Australia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=australia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928","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=928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}