Mocata's Library of Magic, Religion, and the Supernatural

 After writing his very successful black magic-themed novel, The Devil Rides Out , Dennis Wheatley was asked by publishers to pen a reference book about the occult and black magic.  Wheatley advised that he did not feel he was up to that challenge, at least not at that time.  While Wheatley would eventually write such a book, he would not do so for multiple decades, when he published The Devil and All His Works in 1971.  However, back in the 1930s, when he was originally approached to write a nonfiction book about the occult, he recommended they go with a man named Rollo Ahmed. A more recent paperback edition of The Black Art Ahmed was an occultist who had also instructed Wheatley and his wife in some of the basics of yoga (not the modern stretching-in-tight-pants fad that goes by the name of yoga).  The result of this was a book called The Black Art , first published in 1936.  Wheatley also authored an introduction for the book, which, to my knowledge, h...

The Occult Experience is an Australian documentary from 1985.  There is also a companion book with the same title by Nevill Drury, who is also the co-author of the film's narration.  The film covers various modern-day religious groups from Wiccan groups to shamanism to Satanic groups to fringe Christian groups. Front cover of the VHS edition Front cover of the book Back in the days of video rental stores, The Occult Experience was a fairly common title to find.  I seem to remember finding it in the horror section, of all places, but that was likely just a misinformed video store employee's decision.  The cover is quite striking and not surprisingly so, as it features a piece by the late H.R. Giger.  Giger himself is also featured in the film, close to the end.  It was released on VHS and Laserdisc, although I do not know if it was ever released on other formats.  From what I can tell, it does not seem to have been released on DVD or Blu-ray, at least...