Here I read that James Dean apparently once said of someone “I have a fairly adequate knowledge of satanic forces, and I was interested to find out if this girl was obsessed with such a force.”
That’s the kind of thing I myself have only heard New Agers, Pentacostals and Charismatics say. But I have only seen a slice of the world, and the 50s were a very different time than my own time, so my experience may not be adequate to the characterization of this utterance.
Here I read that James Dean was raised as a Quaker, and later in his childhood developed a close friendship with a Methodist pastor. Would either a Quaker (of any sort) or a Methodist have talked in terms of “satanic forces” like this back then?
Alternatively, was it fashionable in Hollywood in the 50’s, as it seems to be now, to talk in “spiritist” terms?
Well, anyway, anyone know anything about the era or Dean’s biography that would help put this utterance in context?
-FrL-