Rise of the Occult

My final vampire essay (I branched out to the general occult). I felt this one was a bit redundant, but I okay nonetheless.

Meredith Hershey

Professor Herndon

Literature 3312.S001

7 December 2010

Rise of the Occult

The supernatural has been a staple in folklore and literature all over the world for years, but it’s only now that they’ve become a major aspect of entertainment and culture. Vampires are the trailblazers of a new mainstream love of horror and the occult that was, until now, usually reserved for those who identified with the darker subcultures. One would be hard-pressed to find a book, film or television series nowadays that didn’t play into society’s love of gruesome violence and supernatural beings.

            Society’s current love of the occult comes from several different aspects, mainly the fascination that most humans have with the unknown. Coby Troy, author of the article “Vampires in Pop Culture – A Modern Obsession with the Supernatural” writes “The modern obsession with supernatural characters, especially vampires, is curious yet understandable. People gravitate towards a tragic story. They are also intrigued by their fear of the unknown and the unexplainable” (Troy). Humans enjoy the sensation of being scared or unnerved. They are drawn to violence and tragedy, and typically stories involving the occult deliver.  The idea of werewolves running through the forest, or legions of zombies shuffling after a group of terrified survivors sends chills down the spines of many, but they always come back for more. The feeling of terror is almost euphoric, and it feeds into the dark parts of people’s hearts. An article from Science Daily states “This novel approach to emotion reveals that people experience both negative and positive emotions simultaneously -- people may actually enjoy being scared, not just relief when the threat is removed” (Science Daily). Horror and supernatural stories give people that rush of positive and negative emotion, making them clamor for more when such stories are available.

Occult stories of recent also spend more time developing their monsters in order to appeal to a wider range of consumers. Gone are the days where supernatural characters were vicious beings out for blood. In a time where character development and narrative matters more than fancy prose, supernatural creatures are given a voice, a personality and a point of view. Everything from ghosts to zombies receives a thorough fleshing-out when written about. Vampires in particular are one of the more sophisticated monsters, meaning their appeal is much greater. It’s easier to sympathize and enjoy a character that is affably evil at most than a character that has absolutely no redeeming qualities. These new relatable monsters give people characters that they can empathize with. Everyone at some point feels like an outcast, and more often than not, vampires and other humanoid creatures face a life of isolation and loneliness, even if they live amongst humans. Occult stories have given society characters and situations it can relate to, with that extra fantasy added in to separate the story from real life.

Vampire and other monster stories have been around for centuries, and without them society might have developed a bit differently. Considering that horror stories have long been used in both the satisfying of humanity’s darker desires, and as explanations for things that society didn’t understand, a life without them might be unpleasant. It’s easy to think that horror and the occult doesn’t add anything to the fabric of society, but it does quite a lot. Humans are prone to violence by nature, and horror stories keep them both satisfied and kept at bay. The graphic imagery presented fuels one’s baser id instincts, as well as gives the more rational parts of the brain an example of what exactly not to do. Horror keeps a person from doing things they might have actually done without a consequence-free outlet to keep them happy. Author Stephen King writes in his essay “Why We Crave Horror Movies” that “the mythic horror movie, like the sick joke, has a dirty job to do. It deliberately appeals to all that is worst in us. It is morbidity unchained, our most base instincts let free, our nastiest fantasies realized . . .” (King). Horror and the occult gives people a way to enjoy the violence with the added bonus of unlikely circumstances and non-existent elements to keep it at arm’s length. Without these harmless and legal ways to enjoy violence, keeping the darker desires locked up might be impossible. Enough people have had hard times keeping their bloodlust at bay as it is. A life without an outlet for such feelings might degenerate into chaos.

The supernatural has long been used to explain the unexplainable. Before the advent of science, monsters were portrayed as bringers of disease and general misfortune. Parents told their children gruesome stories in order to keep them on the straight and narrow, and anything that appeared out of the ordinary was attributed to ghosts and goblins. Humans injected these stories with elements of themselves to make it more plausible, as stated by Robert Carneiro of the American Museum of Natural History, who writes “What is explanation? At bottom, it amounts to translating the unknown into the known, the unfamiliar into the familiar. And what do human beings know best? Themselves. They know how people think and feel and act. And from a very early stage of culture, people have projected human thoughts and emotions into the external world, endowing objects and forces of nature with human personality and greater-than-human power” (Carneiro). These beings, such as vampires and werewolves, are cursed with unnatural power, making them capable of producing the unnatural phenomena pre-science society witnessed every day. These stories, most of which have proven to be entirely untrue, have fueled humanity’s imaginations for centuries, paving the way for the eventual scientific method as well as countless stories and works of literature built around supernatural happenings.

Horror stories in the future will most likely reflect the issues and desires of the time period. Whether or not vampires and other occult characters will continue their evolution into fully realized characters rather than creatures made to scare the consumer remains to be seen. Throughout history there’s been a slow transformation from monster to man, making once-feared beings like demons and zombies loveable. Perhaps in the future, the inclusion of a vampire will be normal, rather than novelty.  

Works Cited

University of Chicago Press Journals. "Why Do People Love Horror Movies? They Enjoy Being Scared." ScienceDaily 31 July 2007. 5 December 2010 <http://www.sciencedaily.com¬ /releases/2007/07/070725152040.htm>.

Troy, Coby. "Vampires in Pop Culture - A Modern Obsession With the Supernatural." Ezine Articles. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Dec. 2010. <http://ezinearticles.com/?Vampires-in-Pop-Culture---A-Modern-Obsession-With-the-Supernatural&id=4921530>.

King, Stephen. "Why We Crave Horror Movies." Hack n' Slash Monthly. N.p., 6 Sept. 2009. Web. 3 Dec. 2010. <http://hacknslashmonthly.blogspot.com/2009/09/why-we-crave-horror-movies.html>.

Carneiro, Robert L. "Origin Myths." Oracle ThinkQuest. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Dec. 2010. <http://library.thinkquest.org/C005854/text/types.htm>.