Occult technology

“Ancient Discoveries: Secret Science of the Occult” is a grossly misnamed BBC documentary, which I link to mostly for entertainment purposes (it´s only about 50 minutes long, for some reason the clip repeats the documentary twice). If you are a TV producer at a “serious” network and don´t know what to show the proles this week, the pro tip is (apparently) to stitch together four completely unrelated topics and connect them to “the occult”, and voilà, you just saved the ratings. That´s essentially what the BBC did here, although I´m sure some Gardnerian Wiccans or esoterick Crowleyans might decide to piggyback on whatever success this production will have (LOL).

The topics dealt with in “Secret Science of the Occult” are, in order of appearance: the mystery initiations of the ancient Mayans, the Rood of Grace at Boxley Abbey in England, the siege of Malta, and the Nekromanteion of Acheron in ancient Greece. Of these, the siege of Malta in 1565 has zero occult connections. The Rood of Grace was a miraculous crucifix exposed as a mechanical device (and hence a hoax) during a radical phase of Henry VIII´s Reformation. I admit that I found the Mayan segment fascinating – it seems my ancestors had a rather scary mystery cult deep underground, below the temples of Chichen Itza. And yes, child sacrifice was part of the picture. The Nekromanteion was, at least according to the BBC, another hoax. An underground temple in which the ancient Greeks could meet the spirits of their departed, the “spirits” were really dummies operated by pagan priests through mechanical devices, while the supplicant was high on hallucinogenic drugs and hence unable to see through the fakery.

The theme running through this production is that “the occult” is fake and that some occultic phenomena can be explained by appeals to technology. On this score, at least, the BBC is rather daring, since non-skeptical documentaries (usually of an American vintage) have more viewers. Otherwise, I was struck by the strong literalism of the “occult” claims (or is it just a BBC distortion?). The Nekromanteion was regarded as the literal entrance into Hades, just as the caverns under Chichen Itza were regarded as literally part of the Mayan underworld. No allegory here! The fact that the places were used for mystery initiations, presumably involving some pretty strange food or heavy dancing, gives the “literal” interpretation a slightly new meaning…

Don´t try this at home, kids.