THE OCCULT - Revival of Evil (1980).

 

You just can't beat this kind of vintage Christan Right anti-New Age propaganda schlock for laughs.  Imdb synopsis: "Revival of Evil investigates the growth of the occult in the United States from New Age religions and Dungeons and Dragons to heavy metal and psychic powers."

 

Folksangere - A Danish Look at the London Folk Scene in 1967.

 

John Renbourne and Bert Jansch

Following up the last Mod London post, here's a Danish documentary from 1967 focusing on the then glamorous and even illicit lifestyle of the London folk-musician.  This was a fascinating period for English folk.  In America, folk music was responding to the charge of Postwar culture either by embracing electric rock influences, or circling the wagons of traditionalism.  In London, following the trailblazing influence of Davy Graham, young musicians turned instead to a baroque mixture of jazz, blues, and Moroccan music to reinvigorate the traditional forms: 

 

There are no subs for the Danish narration of the documentary, but it's the performance footage that matters.  (As the programme takes a lengthy, Beatles-scored ogle at London's new species of mini-skirted bird, and the interviewer only really seems interested in asking the musicians about drugs, it's unlikely to be very insightful anyway.)  The footage, however, is magical, and will be of particular appeal to finger-style guitar enthusiasts; look out for a fantastic live performance by John Renbourne, historical footage of a just pre-Pentangle John and Bert Jansch working on a tune in a flat, as well an interview with a reticent (and probably stoned) Jansch:

As a bonus, check out this wonderful clip of the newly formed Pentangle filmed a year later:

Primitive London: British Beatniks, Rockers, and Assorted Scallywags.

Arnold R. Miller's Primitive London (1965) falls roughly into the same category of film as the witchploitation documentaries we looked at in earlier posts - mild titillation masquerading as stern condemnation.  No occult shenanigans to scold this time around, though, just a buzzing London in full postwar Swing.  In this enjoyable excerpt, the documentary turns its attention on the burgeoning youth subcultures of the day - Mods, rockers, beatniks, and an intriguing and all to brief section on the life of the lone wolf pinball addict:

And here's a little extra Brit Beatnik bang for your buck:

The Market, and the Room of Coveted Objects.

(This is a short poem of vaguely Sufi or Buddhistic character.  The image above is of Paul Bowles in Morocco.)

 

There is a rumour in the squares

Of upheaval, of some great change

Undermining all the old foundations

So that they will crumble down

Around us, and never raise their

Familiar forms again.

But this, too, is an ancient rumour

Spoken each summer in the squares

Someday perhaps, the squares will

Be empty, and their fountains dry;

I cannot imagine such a time.

I have gone to the stalls, every day now

For many years, to see what is new

Beneath their awnings;

I have never tired of browsing among

The wares, seeking out some novel

Object that I might possess,

Or long to possess, dreaming always

More acutely of those things that were

Deemed precious beyond my means.

When my mood is low, I am apt to think

That there is never any new thing in the stalls

Only the sensation I experience of finding

Some novel object of desire, a sensation

I have experienced many times before

So that it is not like going somewhere along a straight track

But rather a kind of pattern, as is woven by a shuttle, or a melody

That makes no progress, and only returns to the beginning

One of the dervishes told me

That a place exists where all the things

I have ever desired, yet failed to

Acquire, are all gathered together

In a room, that I might partake of

them, to my heart’s content, if

Only I could find that place.

“If it were an object” he said

“That object is there.  If it were

A person, that person is there

Waiting to turn their will to

Whatever purpose you

Had designed for them”

I asked him how I might

Find such a place, or if it were

Possible to travel there, and

He said “That room is always there 

Filled with your heart’s desires, and

You go there only by ceasing to

Desire the things that it contains.

Each thing you cease to desire

Brings you a step closer to that room;

And as you cease to desire a thing,

It vanishes from the room, so that

When you have finally taken all the steps

To arrive there, the objects of your

Desire have fled, and the room is bare.”

A related poem "No More Street Shows."

Alejandro Jodorowsky on The Tarot.

Images of Le Tarot des Imagiers du Moyen Age from Eno's Tarots.