The Occult Experience…
1985 Documentary

The Occult Experience is an Australian documentary filmed and screened on Channel 10 in 1985. This is the kind of thing you would never see on American TV, especially in the 80s. It is an in-depth exploration of Wicca, Satanism, the Temple of Set, Goddess worship, Egyptian mysticism, shamanism and the rise of the occult in Western societies. It is informative and entertaining to watch, and some of it is, I will admit, fucking loopy. Especially when you get to the Christian part, where they are casting demons out of people via spit and tears. Demons lurk in the bodily waters…why don’t they piss them out? That seems more appropriate. When you compare all of the belief systems and rituals, it’s funny to think that the people chanting “spit in the name of Jesus” are the ones who are considered sane by a majority of society. I found this documentary researching HR Giger, and he has a little section near the end, where he discusses his artwork and how he channels his fear and dark thoughts into it. There are two unfortunate points about this documentary – it is long, and it definitely gets a bit tedious at times, but if you find occult beliefs and paganism interesting then you can get through it all. After the jump, watch The Occult Experience, and become knowledgeable about the ways human beings find to connect to higher powers, or just to themselves…