Every single documentary I have ever watched (or tried to watch) about Occultism, Spiritism/Spiritualism, Hermeticism, Western Esotericism or related currents has been utterly worthless tripe.
So far, it has all been lurid, sensationalistic, pearl-clutching shite, broad-brush hack jobs depicting “the occult” (as a whole) as hella dangerous, a rampant threat to public safety, worst thing since non-sliced bread, etc.
So, are there any non-retarded documentaries on Occultism and/or related currents?
Say, based on solid scholarly work, preferably more descriptive than polemical, and/or at least free of hysterical sensationalism and retarded conspiracy theories (but I repeat myself)?
I haven’t looked into the subject personally, but a non-sensationalistic approach would (likely) be too boring to get funding or wide distribution. You may be limited to reading books about the subject.
One could make a sufficiently neutral documentary about any spiritual/other-worldly belief structure, and the adherents of the presented belief structure, such that it would only seem retarded to an audience that thinks the beliefs are retarded. For anyone open to or interested in the beliefs or anyone simply sociologically interested in the subcultures that arise around such belief structures, a decent documentary could be nonretaredly produced.
I’m sure at least a few such documentaries exist- at the very least a few presented from a sociological perspective, probably a few presented as biographies of major figures (any decent documentaries about Aleister Crowley?). Such documentaries wouldn’t have to be expensive, thus wouldn’t need so broad an audience.
I am, however, inclined to agree with DrFidelius that these subjects are better explored through books.
Not buying your logic. A documentary about “utterly worthless tripe” doesn’t have to be “utterly worthless tripe”, and a documentary about retards (and the history of retardation and retarded folk throughout history etc.) wouldn’t have to be be retarded. Surely that isn’t too hard to see.
Missed bienville’s reply and the edit window. But pretty much that, yes.
Quite right. And even if one disagreed with the views of the people featured in the documentary, the documentary itself could still be interesting. I’d say that’s true about any historical subject, really.
Perhaps! I have only seen one myself, but it was full of the usual “zomg!! Crowley was Bush’s granddaddy!!!11!” nonsense. Not quite what I was looking for.
Many of the best writers were involved in occultism–& their work has endured. (Bram Stoker, not the “best”, was a member of the Golden Dawn–& he wrote* Dracula*.) Actually, the Golden Dawn story would make wonderful British period TV. Love affairs, magic & art–dramatic Yeats & Crowley up to no good…
In my old Thelemic days*, I recall wandering across a few biographies of Crowley, but I never bothered to read any–I was more interested in reading his works directly.
I retain a certain fondness for the old goat, and for the belief system, even now that I’ve went all bloody rational.
One scholar I know of has criticized the Crowley-in-the-desert chapter for being overly “psychologizing”, but still – excellent book, highly recommended.
The history of occultism goes back way beyond Aleister Crowley and his ilk, and, I would venture to say, is more interesting and significant back them because it was not nearly so far out of the mainstream. I would recommend the classic historical works of Frances Yates on Renaissance Hermeticism, in which she argues that occult belief systems actually played a large and largely positive role in brining the modern scientific world view into being. (None of this requires you to believe that the occult beliefs were actually true.)
If there has ever been a TV documentary that deals well, and extensively, with any of this stuff, then I have not seen it, but that is par for the course for TV documentaries. They are really are not a very suitable medium for dealing with intellectual history, because the issues are too abstract to make for good visuals.
Why bother? Because occultist ideas, false as they might be, have a major (and not always negative) effect on the history of thought.
Yates is great, and certainly a very important character in the history of the field, but it seems that most modern experts are rather careful with her ideas. (Her thesis has politely been described as “overextended.”) A better introduction would probably be Wouter Hanegraaff’s Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture:
The best book of 2012, if you ask me. (It also goes into the Yates thing in further detail.)
You’re probably right! We’ll see if the thread bears fruit – I’m hoping against hope that there’s at least one good film out there.
