We’ve all heard about the “magic” of Hollywood, and in fact, an appearance on that much-larger-than-life screen confers an anointing of charisma, albeit an artificial one.
While TV does the same (instant celebration, as in celebrity), it’s not as magical — no, not by a measure — as the silver screen.
And sometimes one wonders, with apologies (for possible comstockery), if real “magic” behind it there is.
That we mull over at this time when it’s impossible to avoid news of Hollywood scandal — a bit perplexing, all this frenzied talk, when one considers that the “casting couch” has been of renown for decades.
In a 1995 article, journalist Peter Keough described Hollywood as “a town where everyone is selling body and soul for fame and fortune and all – especially women – are considered commodities.” Mae West spoke loudly of her personal life, Marilyn Monroe complained about the behind-the-scenes, even Shirley Temple asserted that a producer conducted himself in a lewd way when she was but a girl of twelve.
At a 2005 class reunion, producer Chris Hanley told his former classmates that “almost every leading actress in all of [his] twenty-four films has slept with a director or producer or a leading actor to get the part that launched her career.” You only have to turn to Wikipedia. Prayer need. It was Hugh Hefner who raised funds to fix the Hollywood sign when it was in disrepair.
But let’s get back to the “magic”:
Might there be a dark energy behind Hollywood?
It’s said that in the late 1960s, Saint Padre Pio finally agreed to see his first movie. On the way, however, he suddenly shouted to stop the car, that he didn’t want to go, to turn around, that the “devil is in it” (movies).
Could that actually be true — could darkness be the energy, the ether, of celebrity?
The evil one certainly miches along the shadow lines of movies that are occult, risque, bloody (this goes for overly violent “biblical” ones). He is also in those that are blasphemous — and hardly a movie these days that does not use the Name of Jesus in vain, a very serious offense. (Such films are to be avoided like the bacteria they are.)
In an esoteric way, we look to the supernatural component to the very name “Hollywood.”
That moniker derives from holly or holy trees — which were considered sacred by occult Druids and provided the wood for the wands of ancient magicians. We have spoken of this before. Let us revisit it:
Although innocently adopted for Christmas from the pagans of old (who used it during the feast of Saturnalia), holly is far more serious business to practitioners of wicca/witchcraft than a mere ornamental. It was considered apotopraic — a ward against evil — when in fact, like the superstitious molochia “horns,” it is occult itself. To occultists it also symbolizes beauty, immortality, and material gain — all of which Hollywood is famous for.
“The Druids were tree worshipers, especially the oak,” explains one website (Secrets in Plain Site). “The holly was their most sacred symbol because it was sacred to mother Holle or Hel, the [Norse] goddess of the underworld…”
And so we see what often we do: coincidence. The sacred spear of the fierce Norse god Odin was made of — holly. The Roman god Mars is said to rule over — holly. Ancient druids cut branches from holly trees and fashioned them into magic wands used for casting spells, as we find so many movies “spellbinding.” We even call celebrities “idols.” Just down the road from Hollywood? The “magic” of… Disney (and a mouse with a wizard’s cap, holding a magic wand).
Magic. Mystique. More than at first meets the eye. Gramarye.
How many movies these days have to do with demonic creatures, with haunted houses and even haunted dolls, with aliens, with gremlins, with “It,” with sex, with transhumanism?
Are all movies “bad”? Is there something inherently askew — imbued — in celluloid?
That seems unlikely (though we’ll double-check with Padre Pio if we ever get to the place he is).
[resources: spiritual warfare books and Michael Brown retreat, deliverance, healing, signs of the rimes, Long Island]
[Footnote: Did you know that right beneath the famous “Hollywood” sign, on that hill, is a monastery with nuns who have perpetual Adoration? (See here.) That’s what lifts the blinders — and so many blinders there are; so often are good Christians blinded by movies they believe have a Christian theme but involve subtle forms of magic or make Jesus looked defeated.
See here (2 Corinthians 4:4): “The god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, Who is the image of God, should shine unto them.”]