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Kenneth Anger, an experimental filmmaker who found a loyal cult following with his works that elucidated the dark side of pop culture, has died at 96. His gallery, Sprüth Magers, announced his death on Wednesday. Anger’s influence is vast, with filmmakers and artists of multiple generations having drawn on his lurid depictions of violence, fascism, and homoeroticism. In Anger’s films, Nazis proliferate, and the threat of carnage—of physical, mental, and sexual varieties—is ever-present. Pop music proliferates, and references to quasi-religious sects and celebrity worship are pervasive. “Anger’s films exploit Hollywood’s elaborate costumes, fantasies (both violent and erotic), otherworldly sets, and...

Jack Parsons via Wikimedia Commons John “Jack” Whiteside Parsons’s life seems too improbable to be believed. But it’s all there in the biographies, Sex and Rockets and Strange Angel (the basis of a TV series of the same name), among other places, including a streaming series based on Strange Angel. Born in 1914, Parsons died in 1952 while working on an explosive special effect for a movie in his home laboratory. The explosion has been called an accident, a suicide, or an assassination, depending on the source. An obituary in the Pasadena Independent described Parsons as “a down-to-earth explosives...

Salem Witch Sandra Wright blows in the fumes from the incense during the Salem Witches' Magic Circle at Salem Common on Halloween in Salem, MA, on October 31, 2018. The ceremony involving local and visiting witches celebrates loved ones that have crossed over into the spirit world. The witches believe that on Halloween, the veil between the living and the dead is at its thinnest and connections can be made to those being mourned or missed. A Catholic high school counselor in Pennslyvania lost her job after inviting three "witches" to speak to students, who gave them crystals that Wiccans...

Aleister Crowley from Wikipedia, founder of the religion (?) of thelema of 'spirit cooking' fame.

Dr. Michael Hesemann, a German historian of the Catholic Church, has just given an interview to Robert Moynihan’s Inside the Vatican Magazine. In this interview, which deals with the 100th Anniversary of the apparitions of Fatima, Dr. Hesemann makes the following statement: Also in 1917, Freemasonry celebrated the 200th anniversary of the foundation of the first Grand Lodge in London in 1717. The Masonic ideology is not only based on deism, but also on the Gnostic heresy of self-salvation and “enlightenment,” and has a decidedly anti-Catholic agenda. Just in 1917, Maximilian Kolbe, one of the greatest saints of the 20th...

OK this is getting weird!

You can judge a person by the people she surrounds herself with. On that ground, Hillary Clinton should never be allowed access to the awesome power of the federal government. There is no need to mention to AT readers the bizarre background of Huma Abedin, scion of a Muslim Brotherhood family who actually worked on an MB journal. Nor the shudder-inducing practice of wearing matching outfits, nor the sometimes worshipful language used by the protégé for her benefactor.

Peaches Geldof has died today at the age of 25. The mother-of-two, daughter of Bob Geldof and Paula Yates, was found by police at her house in Wrotham, Kent, at 1.35pm. Kent Police said the death was 'sudden' and 'unexplained'. In a heartbreaking statement her father Bob said: 'Peaches has died. We are beyond pain. She was the wildest, funniest, cleverest, wittiest and the most bonkers of all of us. 'Writing 'was' destroys me afresh. What a beautiful child. How is this possible that we will not see her again? How is that bearable? 'We loved her and will cherish...

A man has been found guilty of leading a "satanic" sex cult from his home in a small Welsh town. Colin Batley, 48, of Kidwelly, west Wales, presided over a group that preyed on young children and held occult rites. He was found guilty at Swansea crown court of rape and carrying out perverted sexual acts on children and adults. Batley was the self-styled high priest of the group, which operated from a series of homes in a cul-de-sac in the seaside town. He and five other alleged members insisted throughout the five-week trial that no cult had ever existed....

NEO-PAGAN Wiccans in the United States have gone to court to force the US military to accept their five-pointed star-in-a-circle symbol on tombstones in military cemeteries, a civil liberties group said today. The American Civil Liberties Union said the Wiccans want to have their symbol recognised for use in the official veterans' graveyards in the same way that Christian crosses, the Jewish Star of David and symbols for Muslims, Sikhs and adherents of other religions - 38 in all - are used.

“Your son and daughter might be the next Hansel and Gretel,” should have been the warning label on the Guide to Paganism supplied to British prison governors by the Pagan Federation. Michael Spurr, director of operations of the Prison Service, approved the new norms, which allow pagan British inmates possession of incenses and an amulet, the services of pagan “chaplains,” and the practice of rites and chants in their cells, London’s Times reported on October 17th of last year.  Pretence of Antiquity Witchcraft and paganism have been growing worldwide, especially the practice of Wicca, for which courses one can now...