Category Archives: Wicca

Heather Greene on her new book “Lights, Camera, Witchcraft”

November 9th, 2021 | Posted in film, television, Wicca, Witchcraft

From Joan the Woman and The Wizard of Oz to Carrie and Charmed, author and film scholar Heather Greene explores how these movies and TV shows helped influence the public image of the witch and profoundly affected how women negotiate their power in a patriarchal society. Greene presents more than two hundred examples spanning silent […]

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Titles of Interest – Bell, Book and Camera: A Critical History of Witches in American Film and Television

April 25th, 2018 | Posted in occult, Titles of Interest, Wicca, Witchcraft

A new book by my friend Heather who does an outstanding job as editor of The Wild Hunt blog. Bell, Book and Camera: A Critical History of Witches in American Film and Television by Heather Greene McFarland, 2018 The witch as a cultural archetype has existed in some form since the beginning of recorded history. […]

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Why did satanists endorse “The Witch”?

February 21st, 2016 | Posted in horror, occult, occulture, Paganism, Satan, Satanism, Wicca, Witchcraft

The new horror film The Witch is getting positive reviews, but prior to that it was the stuff of minor controversy as a Satanist group issued a public endorsement for the film, calling it a “satanic experience.” Such an endorsement would have caused a major controversy in the culture wars from Christians as happened in […]

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Witches and Wicked Bodies at the British Museum

October 7th, 2014 | Posted in Body, Paganism, Wicca, Witchcraft

From the website of the British Museum: 25 September 2014 – 11 January 2015 This exhibition will examine the portrayal of witches and witchcraft in art from the Renaissance to the end of the 19th century. It will feature prints and drawings by artists including Dürer, Goya, Delacroix, Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, alongside classical […]

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Pop Culture Reactions to “Salem”

June 2nd, 2014 | Posted in horror, Satan, television, Wicca, Witchcraft

If you haven’t seen the Salem television series on WGN it’s worth checking out. It eagerly scoops up Christian mythologies of the Witch as the consort of Satan, a frequent trope in horror films, and uses this as the major element in a reframing of the events surrounding the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. Given […]

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Cinefantastique Podcast on ‘The Wicker Man’

September 23rd, 2013 | Posted in 1970s, occult, Paganism, Wicca, Witchcraft

I was invited as a guest participant in the Cinefantastique Spotlight podcast to discuss The Wicker Man in light of the release of the “restored version,” and Rialto Films’ re-release for its 40th anniversary. This film was shot in 1973 and released in 1979, and has since become a cult classic. The story revolves around a […]

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Titles of Interest: Bewitched Again

August 7th, 2013 | Posted in Books, horror, Titles of Interest, Western esotericism, Wicca, Witchcraft

This title of interest is Bewitched Again: Supernaturally Powerful Women on Television, 1996-2011 (McFarland, 2013) by Julie D. O’Reilly. Starting in 1996, U.S. television saw an influx of superhuman female characters who could materialize objects like Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, defeat evil like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and have premonitions like Charmed’s Phoebe. The extraordinary […]

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Heather Greene Guest Essay: The Conjuring and Horror Depictions of “Evil Witches”

July 24th, 2013 | Posted in demonic, demonology, horror, paranormal, Wicca, Witchcraft

The Conjuring has been the focus of a lot of discussion recently from a variety of perspectives: It surprisingly broke box office records in its debut weekend, beating out much bigger budget movies; Salon.com claimed it was a “right-wing, woman-hating film; two individuals responsible for producing the film stated that they hoped the film, with […]

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Black Death Podcast: Peg Aloi, Medieval Horror, and Religious Dialogue

June 13th, 2011 | Posted in Christianity, horror, occult, Paganism, podcast, Wicca, Witchcraft

  TheoFantastique Podcast 2.2 for 2011 is now available. In this edition my special guest is Peg Aloi, a religion scholar and film critic and who maintains her own blog at The Witching Hour, who engages me about the film Black Death directed by Christopher Smith. In this interview and dialogue, Peg and I discuss […]

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Black Death: Promising Medieval Horror

January 12th, 2011 | Posted in horror, Wicca, Witchcraft

Recently I interviewed Peg Aloi who shared her thoughts on how the film Season of the Witch might depict the witch and how this characterization might relate to witches and Wiccans in the real world. Since our discussion this film has debuted in theaters, and many reviews have not been positive. By contrast, there has […]

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