When the first of my sleep paralysis attacks occurred in the early 1990s, I had no idea that it was the onset of a period that I would later come to recognize or characterize as a spontaneous shamanic-type initiation via nightmare.
Tag: religion and horror
Horror, meaning, and madness: Dangers of lifting the cosmic veil
(Liminalities, Cycle 1, Part 2) In my novelette “Teeth” — first published at Thomas Ligotti Online, then in The Children of Cthulhu, and then in expanded form in my Dark Awakenings — there’s a scene where the narrator reads a notebook filled with ruminations on the convergence of philosophy and religion with cosmic horror, all interwoven…
Angelic dread: Cinematic representations of terrible angels
Last December, in one of those minor seasonal news-cycle events that the sober and/or cynical among us have come to greet with a yawn, various mainstream media outlets reported that, according to a new poll (or, more accurately, yet another new poll), a majority of Americans believe in angels. “Angels don’t just sing at Christmastime,’…
Discount for preorders of DARK FAITH: INVOCATIONS featuring my story “Prometheus Possessed”
Apex Publications announced yesterday that Dark Faith: Invocations, the sequel to their very well received Dark Faith anthology, is now available for preorder. As I’ve mentioned previously, I’m pleased to be back again for this second outing with a new story — part dystopian science fiction, part supernatural/spiritual horror — titled “Prometheus Possessed.” I’m also…
New documentary follows Vatican-approved exorcist
This new documentary titled The Exorcist in the 21st Century, is slated to be released this month. Judging by the trailer, it looks to be truly interesting: The film’s website shows that it’s from the Swedish production company Gammaglimt AS. They offer this description: The Exorcist in the 21st Century takes the viewer into the…
Published: Ebook edition of ‘Divinations of the Deep’
During the past couple of years, I’ve been receiving requests for an ebook edition of Divinations of the Deep with increasing frequency, and today I’m pleased to announce that the wait is over. Divinations, the ebook, is now available in both Kindle and ePub formats (the latter for Nook, Kobo, and other ereaders). You can…
“Accepting the Monster into Your Heart”: Horror as a spiritual path
Recently, I was telling some of my college students about a shift in mass entertainment culture. A few years ago, I told them, I began to feel as if “my time,” and also that of my generation — namely, Generation X — had finally arrived. Somewhere around the turn of millennium, the appearance of things…
Jung, the numinosum, and holy dread
Recently on Twitter I had a conversation with David Metcalfe and jadkr — worthy conversationalists indeed — about the ultimate outcome of the dread-filled confrontation between the individual self and the shimmering emptiness of the infinite, the void, the Godhead. The spur for this was my tweeting of a link to an interview with Nancy…
William Peter Blatty on rewriting ‘The Exorcist’ for its 40th anniversary
This month, the second annual installment of The Dark Mirror, the horror film festival that I created in Waco, Texas, will culminate with a screening of The Exorcist. (See the article I published about it just two days ago at the festival’s blog: “‘The Exorcist’ and the modern Western zeitgeist.”) So it’s entirely appropriate that…
My interview in WACO TODAY magazine: “Tapping into darkness”
The just-released October 2011 issue of Waco Today magazine features an interview with me titled “Tapping into darkness: MCC instructor finds niche in horror fiction.”