1987 VHS • The Occult Experience 60 FPS

About

This Australian documentary travels through the overlapping worlds of modern witchcraft, Satanism, shamanism, and occult art, presenting practitioners largely on their own terms. The film opens with an introduction to modern Wicca and its Celtic roots before profiling Anton LaVey, who founded the Church of Satan in San Francisco in 1966, and Michael Aquino, whose Temple of Set emerged from LaVey's organization. Selena Fox appears representing white magic and earth healing, followed by Alex Sanders, internationally known as the king of the witches and originator of Alexandrian witchcraft, and Janet Farah, a high priestess trained under Sanders. A Wiccan initiation is filmed in full.

Later segments cover Rosaline Norton, Sydney's eccentric occult artist who died in 1979, Tarnith and Gwydian of Western Australia, and Z Budapest, founder of Dianic Witchcraft in Berkeley. New Testament Christians in Sydney demonstrate exorcism practice. The Fellowship of Isis at Clonegal Castle in Ireland, co-founded in 1976 by Lawrence Durdin-Robertson and his sister Olivia, receives extended coverage including an ordination ceremony filmed in the castle dungeon. Javanese shamans in trance, anthropologist Dr. Michael Harner demonstrating core shamanism in New York, and Swiss artist H.R. Giger reflecting on his biomechanical work as a form of personal exorcism close the film.

Archive

Internet Archive, in The VHS Vault

Licence or status

The Internet Archive states none for this item.

Credit

The Vista Group®

Language

English

Subtitles

English

Who can watch

The archive gives no rating. Invisible Network shows it to Teens profiles and older, judged from its collection and subjects. How films are placed