The Academic Study of Magic list recently included a fascinating scholarly paper abstract that dovetails with the interests of TheoFantastique. Leon Marvell of Deakin University will be presenting at the International Conference on Esotericism, Culture and Religion at UC Davis with a paper titled “Under the Sign of Baphomet: Hellraiser and Popular Esotericism.” Here is the abstract:

The study of esotericism in the contemporary academy has been mainly confined to religious studies departments. There has been little attention paid to esotericism as a cultural phenomena outside of such departments, and therefore a wider range of considerations, and a wider range of possible tools of investigation, have been largely absent from studies in esotericism.

This paper proposes that investigative tools found in such disciplines as cultural studies, art theory and media theory may well be important to the study of esotericism in Western culture.

Accordingly this paper opens with the proposition that the so-called “occult revival” of the late 19th century engendered an enduring stream of popular esotericism of diverse forms which was manifested in diverse media: producing, in effect, a transmedial phenomena. We observe here a “leakage” of high esotericism into popular forms.

After a brief introduction and articulation of this thesis, the paper directs its attention to a particular example of popular esotericism: Clive Barker¹s film, Hellraiser.

This film will be analyzed in terms of its esoteric symbolism, its narrative strategies that conform to European esoteric patterns of initiation and its overall significance in terms of the study of popular esotericism.