Occult Misconceptions in Media
Occultism is poorly understood by people who don’t study it, and there are all kinds of crazy stereotypes about it that appear in media. Here’s a couple of the most pervasive ones:
1. That it is necessarily Satanic. Whenever it appears in media — even in relatively accurate films like The Ninth Gate — occultism is often presented as or implied to be Satanic. Satanic occultism does exist, but it’s only a couple decades old, and most of the people who practice it are deliberately playing off of this stereotype. The Western esoteric tradition is actually very, very Christian, which makes sense given that the majority of the West has been Christian for thousands of years. Even those spooky demon-summoning grimoires are ultimately Christian, because you command the demons in the name of God. Folk magic is largely Christian, as well. It’s only in the last seventy years or so that Western magic has been adapted to pagan and Satanic contexts. Occultism also isn’t unique to the Western world or to any particular religion — almost all religions have esoteric traditions and folk magic.
2. That occultists are a secret cabal of rich people who use black magic to run the world. This is an old conspiracy theory rooted in antisemitism, the idea being that Jewish people were secretly running the world. The word “cabal” itself comes from Kabbalah, a system of Jewish mysticism. This ancient conspiracy theory got mixed in with similar conspiracy theories about Freemasons (a fraternal society that’s all about self-improvement, full of spooky symbols but not inherently occult) and the Illuminati (a Bavarian political group that sought to spread Enlightenment values, also not occult). The idea of people worshipping Satan (or similar) to gain wealth and power is extremely common in media, and is played all kinds of different ways, sometimes for horror and sometimes for comedy. A lot of my favorite works of media include some variation of this trope, including Gravity Falls, Inside Job, The Magnus Archives, Night in the Woods, The Ninth Gate, Team StarKid’s Hatchetfield series, and the first of Robert Downey Jr.’s Sherlock Holmes movies. It’s a fun trope, but it doesn’t have much bearing on reality. The majority of occultists are just regular people with a hobby. There are some initiatory occult orders, but they aren’t very large and definitely aren’t very influential. They’re basically just social clubs with rituals attached.
3. That said secret cults of rich people are hosting depraved orgies. Lookin’ at you, Eyes Wide Shut! This association of orgies with secret evil cults is extremely old, so much so that it may have actually contributed to the modern meaning of the word. The Greek word orgia refers to secret rites practiced by mystery cults, i.e. the kinds of things that occultists actually do, but overtime it began to refer to group sex, because of Satanic-Panic-style fearmongering about what exactly the Bacchantes or early Christians were doing during their private rituals. Since Ancient Rome, it was a common accusation against any religious minorities and “witches” that they engaged in taboo sex acts. Group sex doesn’t have much at all to do with occultism, at least not directly, and I highly doubt that any occult groups are also hosting sex parties. (But if they are, how do I get an invite?)
4. That occultists practice human sacrifice. If you see the aformentioned sinister cabal anywhere in media, expect there to be a pretty virgin laid out on an altar to be sacrificed to Satan or Cthulhu or whoever. It certainly makes for a dramatic image in film, and allows for the hero to have a damsel in distress to rescue or whatnot, but real-life occultists are not murderers! The idea that secret groups of occultists practice human sacrifice is part of the same aformentioned conspiracy theory, which is as old as the Middle Ages (and has even older roots). It’s known as “Blood Libel,” the idea that Jewish people were sacrificing Christian children to Satan (because to medieval Christians, anything that wasn’t Christianity was necessarily Satanism). It’s never been true, but it and variations on it have ruined the lives of many innocent people.
5. That occultists practice animal sacrifice. Another very common image in media is of an animal, usually a goat, being sacrificed to Satan or some other similarly evil entity. Animal sacrifice was once considered standard religious practice amongst polytheists, and it was basically a barbecue with a ritual attached. Ancient rituals like the ones in the Greek Magical Papyri really do call for eye-of-newt-and-toe-of-frog-style animal parts. But any kind of animal sacrifice is a very uncommon practice amongst Western occultists, and it’s illegal in many places. I don’t think that animal sacrifice is inherently unethical, no more so than eating meat, but I wouldn’t personally practice it. Most occultists use simple cakes and wine or incense as offerings. And the worst you’ll see regarding animal parts in rituals are chicken bones used for osteomancy.
6. That you summon a demon by drawing a pentagram on the ground. This is a nearly ubiquitous image in modern media, so much so that it automatically reads as “demon summoning” when people see it. The pentagram is usually drawn in chalk or blood, and often has candles around it, and the magician sits outside it.
This is completely wrong. The circle goes around you, to protect you from the spirit you’re going to evoke. You evoke the spirit into a little triangle in front of the circle. This is what a real summoning circle looks like:
Granted, this is a lot more complicated to draw. But a circle as part of an evocation setup should at least have a Triangle of Art in front of it.
7. That you can sell your soul. Expect all of the evil rich people in the secret cabal to have sold their souls to the Devil for money and power or what-have-you. A lot of newbie occultists (especially Satanic-aligned ones) are very surprised to find out that selling your soul is not a thing. It’s existed in the folklore around Satan for a long time, but it’s never been part of serious occult practice, because most historical occultists were Christians who wanted to keep their souls! Although occultists may have very different ideas about what the soul is and how it functions, most occultists agree that you are your soul, so you can’t lose it.
8. That interacting with anything related to the occult is inherently dangerous. Perhaps this is less of a media trope, but it’s certainly a stereotype that if you engage with the occult at all, you’ll be dragged in by both feet and end up paying a terrible price. Often in media, just interacting with tools like tarot cards or an Ouija board, or opening a grimoire, will result in dangerous supernatural phenomena. Trust me, you will not become possessed by demons just by opening a grimoire, or even by gazing at the sigils in The Lesser Key of Solomon. As for whether practicing occultism is dangerous, it can be, but not in the way that people think it is. It can be a danger to your mental health, but only if you approach it haphazardly: Nyx Shadowhawk’s answer to Why is the occult disturbing?
You’ll most often see occult stuff in horror movies. And while I actually really like occult horror, it is very rarely representative of how occultism actually works in any capacity. Regarding rituals… I mean… I have yet to see a fully realistic occult ritual depicted in a film, and I can totally understand why. Traditional rituals are often similar to, if not directly based on, a mass — that means they’re long, boring, wordy, and not nearly as flashy as you might think. For all the cool tools and props that occultists might have, like knives, pentacles, wands, chalices, and so forth, the actual conducting of a ritual is mostly just reciting a bunch of stuff. All the action happens in meditation or is experiential. I’ve had some extremely intense experiences during ritual that did not look even slightly interesting visually; even that time I summoned demons, it looked like me sitting on the floor and writing in a notebook. Films need to be more interesting than that.
To date, the most realistic-looking occult ritual I’ve seen in any film is the one in The Craft, because that one’s based directly on Wicca. (Wicca is part of the lineage of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and Wicca itself is extremely influential, so a lot of Western occult traditions use a similar ritual structure.)
The Craft gets “casting the circle” (or “calling the corners,” an invocation of the spirits of the four directions) down pat, but this procedure is usually used to open a ritual, and is not the main substance of it.
Wiccan-style magic is definitely gaining some traction in modern media, since Wicca has had such a substantial influence over cultural ideas of what a witch is and what witches do. Aside from Wicca, though, accurate portrayals of ritual procedures or spellwork are a lot rarer. Even sympathetic magic, a relatively basic idea, is pretty rare. On that note…
9. Voodoo dolls. This is worthy of being its own point. Voodoo dolls are a real thing; they’re actually called “poppets,” and they’re a nearly universal technique found in folk magic traditions around the world. The idea behind sympathetic magic is that you act upon a symbol that represents a target, and whatever you do to the symbol, you do to the target. (This is especially useful when the target is immaterial.) A poppet would obviously represent a person. The stereotypical way to use them would be to stick pins in them to hurt the person, but they were just as often used to heal by being stuffed with herbs or cared for like a sick person. Voodoo is also real, but it’s not a type of magic — it’s actually a religion, and it syncretizes traditional West African religions with Catholicism. It’s based around the veneration of spirits called loa or lwa, which are somewhere between Orishas (gods), ancestor spirits, and saints. It’s practiced mainly in Haiti and Louisiana. The stereotype of Voodoo as being evil black magic is almost certainly motivated by racism, and portrayals of Voodoo in fiction nearly always have that connotation. So far, the only positive portrayal of Voodoo that I’ve seen anywhere is in Castlevania: Nocturne, in which a character called Annette evokes the loa Papa Legba.
Edit: I just remembered, the film with the most accurate occult ritual is definitely A Dark Song, which portrays the Abramelin Operation, a very complex and demanding ritual that requires months of preparation. I still have not seen this film; I know I should. (I have mixed reactions to horror.)
The list of shows that get occultism right tend not to portray any actual occult practices. Both Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood and Avatar: The Last Airbender are philosophically accurate rather than practically accurate. Both shows portray their characters performing fantasy magic rather than real magic, because it’s more interesting to watch for action-packed cartoons directed at kids, but both of them include some real philosophical ideas that underly both Eastern and Western occult traditions. One of the most accurate occult scenes I’ve seen in any media is this one from Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, in which two boys are lying on their backs on the shore of a deserted island, and one explains to the other how everything is connected to everything else:
That, I think, is the biggest thing people miss about occultism. It’s not really about being able to do magic or summon demons, and it’s certainly not about gaining wealth and power for the sake of it. It’s about spiritual advancement and self-improvement. It’s about understanding and applying certain philosophical ideas that are revealed through a series of mystical experiences. Those experiences are hard to explain to people who haven’t had them, which is why the occult is “hidden.” Even folk magicians, who are less interested in all that highbrow stuff and more interested in solving mundane problems, just want to improve their lives and the lives of people in their communities. But, you know, it’s harder to make that into an entertaining story. I admit, I like the stories about evil cults. They’re fun.
