I love when this happens. A highschool student recently wrote me asking to use me as a primary source for a thesis paper they are working on. So I thought I’d just answer their questions here publicly so other people could join in the conversation and add their own insights. So, without further ado… The questions posed to me are in bold, and my answers in plain text. Anybody who wants to chime in on any of these issues, please do.

1. Why do you think the occult is so prevalent in today’s pop culture?

Mainly because there’s so much info available now, whether books, dvd’s, websites, etc. When I was a kid (which really wasn’t that long ago in the grand scheme of things), this stuff was hard to find. I’d have to scour local libraries for books that were no longer on their shelves. I also remember having to find more general books on a particular subject matter, and then scan the index for maybe a few paragraphs on these types of things - or if I was lucky maybe 2-3 pages. Now pretty much anybody can sit down and within minutes find an enormous amount of info on the occult, paranormal, alternative spirituality and religion, and all kinds of other far-out topics.

I think what we’re seeing now with all this stuff is the true level of interest which has always existed but which has never been accurately reflected in the culture at large. Go back through the history of any culture, and you’ll always find stories of the weird, the unusual and the mystical. These are things that all of us have always been interested in, and it’s merely becoming more and more acceptable to announce it to the world. So, in a nutshell, I’d summarize the key factors here as increasing accessibility and acceptability.

2. Why would the government want to control occult in society?

Beats me. I’ve only heard a very few cases of the government intruding in an official sense in anything like this. One case that springs to mind - but you’d have to look into more on your own - is Wilhelm Reich. Reich was into some really mystical shit, but from what I understand got cracked down on when he started fooling with orgone (sort of like mystical organic energy) and trying to heal people with weird machines. I think in a lot of cases people in power don’t much care if you get into occult or mystical stuff, as long as you either don’t either (1) threaten the status quo in terms of political social order, or (2) start horning in on somebody’s profitable business - like in the case of Reich, or other alternative health professionals who claim to have been targeted by the government.

If we’re going to just talk about religion rather than the occult, then there’s definitely some good reasons why a government would want to regulate it. For groups of people, religions basically amount to “guiding stories” - models of character, behavior and life goals that people can pattern themselves and their lives after. If these models aren’t in line in some sense with the goals of the larger state (national community), then we start to see repression against religions. More than anything though, I’d say that the biggest control a government has over religion (that is, if it’s not an overtly theocratic government) is that they create a sort of civic or state religion where people may not necessarily “worship” a president or figurehead leader, but they do spend all their time reading about, hearing about or discussing these people’s exploits. It amounts to a sort of modern mythology that interpenetrates our lives and provides us with (for better or worse) models to copy. Then we have things like terrorism and the military which subtly tell us that these models that we worship on a national level are sacred, holy and not only worthy of protection, but expansion.

Not really sure if that totally answers your question, but that ought to at least offer a few different directions for you to choose from in developing your concepts.

3. Why wouldn’t the government want to control occult in society?

I guess civil rights issues, or something along those lines. Separation of church and state and all that stuff. Really, what one person considers the occult is nothing more than another person’s religion and vice-versa. I don’t know that there’s really any separating them. So if you’re going to talk about the occult in society, you probably ought to just look at what the dominant religion is. In this case it’s Christianity, so it’s going to characterize it’s ideological opponents as evil, wrong or negative. I used to get annoyed by that kind of stuff. But then I realized that occultists also demonize Christianity, and it’s just a natural part of what people do when they are really into one particular story-system, religion or guiding mythos.

Ideally, a government probably shouldn’t have any part in determining what’s okay religiously. But then, ideally, they probably shouldn’t also be executing prisoners, invading countries for their own profit, making it illegal to grow or ingest certain plants, or collect upwards of 50% taxes on your livelihood - but that’s a whole other set of issues bordering on anarchism and other terms your highschool teacher probably won’t appreciate too much. I mean shit, you’re probably already going to be behind the eight-ball because you’re talking about the occult.

4. Comparing cases in society today do you think there are any cases or instances that resemble the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. If yes, which ones and why?

I’m not sure there’s any clear parallel. The way I would think about it is this. The Salem Witch trials took place within a small community that was trying to purge itself of certain elements. What they were trying to get rid of was a sort of Jungian shadow version of Christianity, except inverted into witchcraft, Satanism, etc. Whether that stuff was really going on at all, or to what extent is open to debate. People say maybe ergot poisoning was actually involved instead (poisoning from exposure to a fungus in rye, similar in makeup to the compounds in LSD). In any case, what you had was a community which operated according to an overtly religious story-system. When that story-system was threatened by strange behavior - whatever it’s cause - there was a reaction against it. This happens again and again in orthodox religion and ideology. If everybody’s working under a tight set of ethical rules and guiding myths, you typically don’t have a lot of wiggle room on how you interpret that stuff. If everybody’s version is a little bit different, it’s difficult to bind people together or “control” them using those stories. So you have to get rid of the ones which don’t fit in with it.

From that perspective, we could open this debate up to modern times and look for people who are persecuted because they don’t fit neatly into our modern story-system. One good place to look might be at the Anti-Psychiatry movement of the 1970’s, which basically said that mental illness wasn’t really an illness at all; instead, we were merely persecuting people who saw reality differently from us. That’s not talked about so much now, but it’s going to become an even bigger issue today with things like forced medication of kids who are probably erroneously considered ADD, or any number of other disorders which didn’t exist before they were created by pharmaceutical companies as marketing opportunities. Now, we have parents whose children are diagnosed with these disorders, and told that their kids can’t be in school unless they take these mind-altering drugs with no long-term testing. It’s a fucking scary situation, especially for people who don’t have any alternative opportunities when it comes to schooling.

5. What do you think society is most afraid of when it comes to the occult?

Philosophically, probably the breakdown of social cohesion is my best guess. Check out Emile Durkheim for more on the importance of religion as a social cohesive force. I think I said this above already about the fear being that if everybody doesn’t have some kind of common mythological/ethical framework, then we’re all screwed as a society. Not sure I agree with that fully, but I think that’s the fear.

More practically speaking though, I think most people are simply just worried that the occult is “evil.” And they won’t ever get more philosophical about it than that. Some people really do think it’s all about devils and demons and whatnot. In a lot of cases though, the way I think the concept of evil works in a religion is sort of similar to a junk email or spam filter on email account - except it’s applied on our minds. If a piece of mail comes through (ie, an idea or whatever) that contains certain keywords, or fits a particular pattern, then it’s automatically dropped into a sort of separate mental category so that we don’t have to waste time looking at it. Nobody ever reads through the text of every single spam email they get. At least I hope not. And they know that if they click on the links, they’re likely to get a virus or something. So for most people that arrangement with evil as a mental spam filter works out because it saves them time from getting lost of tangents that don’t relate to their lives. So again, it’s sort of a natural mechanism to help us prioritize how to spend our emotional and mental energy.

6. Why is it that teens are more likely to address the occult than adults.

They’re not. They are just more vocal about it, because for the great majority they are simply doing it as a reaction against their parents and society. They are asserting their own individuality and unique cultural identity by experimenting with altering or throwing away values they were raised with. I think for teens especially, being drawn to things that are “evil” typically indicates that they are trying to expand their reality tunnel to include new elements or things which are paradoxical to the story-system they were raised in. I think a lot of teens are also drawn to dark imagery and myths because they are experiencing a lot of dark feelings as they grow up - anger, resentment, frustration, despair. In an inverted “dark” mythology, these things turn into positive attributes, things to be embraced. I actually think it’s very healthy because it allows them to integrate the Jungian shadow elements of themselves. It’s a sort of inner alchemy, transforming things that are bad into things that are good.

As far as adult interest in the occult, I think it’s easy to see that it outstrips teen interest. Just look at who’s doing most of the writing and cultural production in these areas, and who’s doing most of the consumption. Adults have more money to spend on these things in the culture, and in general greater powers of concentration, insight and maturity. Getting involved in any serious study of alternative religious practice takes years and years of intense study. While some teens may pass through an occult “phase” or get drawn into fads, adults who study this stuff do so generally for decades.

7. Why are you interested in the occult in pop culture?

Short answer: it’s cool. I mean, it’s fascinating as hell. It cuts across all aspects of culture and history. There’s always more to learn, and more ways you can grow personally and spiritually. It’s a continual challenge and adventure that mirrors in microcosm the adventure of life itself.

If you have any additional questions, please feel free to add them below, and I or somebody else will try to address them. I hope this helps for your paper and your own interest in these subjects.