(Cross-posted from our sister site, Cultpunk.art) In the futuristic world of Logan’s Run (1976), humanity – or at least that portion of humanity that the movie is concerned with – is sequestered away from the unknown “world outside”, living and dying inside vast Xanadu-like pleasure domes. Their lives and deaths are supervised by an AI … Read more“Renew! Renew!” The Cult of Carrousel in Logan’s Run (1976)
In this scene from the drama Apple Cider Vinegar, Lucy Guthrie, played by actress Tilda Cobham-Hervey, experiences a shamanic vision of her own death, dissolution and reintegration into Nature during an ayahuasca retreat.
Alexis Shotwell writes for Psyche on Ursula K. LeGuin’s practical philosophy:
Recommended viewing. There hasn’t been a new addition to the canon for quite a while; this movie qualifies.
Stephanie Pouliotte writes for Geek’d-Out! on the origins and various renditions of Ray Bradbury’s classic Halloween story: It’s an important holiday after all, one that allows us to freely explore our obsession with the macabre and the unexplained, to experience “the rawness and nearness and excitement of death” as Bradbury put it. And children, he … Read moreRay Bradbury’s “The Halloween Tree”
Caleb Cucaro-Green explains the Aretheon approach to life and mortality.
The good people of Cicely, Alaska enjoy their eccentric, Day of the Dead-inflected version of Thanksgiving in this scene from Northern Exposure (1992). As explained by Marilyn Whirlwind (Elaine Miles), the indigenous people of Cicely do not regard the orthodox Thanksgiving as a day of celebration. In fact, they carry a lot of ancestral anger … Read moreThanksgiving/Day of the Dead in Cicely, Alaska (Northern Exposure, 1992)
In Richard Adams’ 1972 masterpiece Watership Down, a group of rabbits must leave the doomed Sandleford warren and embark on a perilous journey to find a new home. Along the way they encounter many strange things, including a warren of curiously fatalistic and decadent rabbits, whose philosophy is represented in verse by their poet, Silverweed: … Read moreSilverweed’s poem and the Death Cult of the Shining Wire
Any readers intrigued by the mostly inchoate phenomenon that I optimistically refer to as Poetic Faith – the notion and practice of creating one’s own religion, as a work of art – should track down Alan Moore’s story Grandeur & Monstrosity, which appears in the graphic narrative anthology “God is Dead: the Book of Acts; … Read moreAlan Moore’s “Grandeur & Monstrosity”