ABRAXAS JOURNAL Special #2: Luminous Screen

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Luminous Screen is the second Special Issue of Abraxas. It is a collection of essays commissioned by guest editor Jack Sargeant that seek to explore the impact of esotericism on cinema. Printed using state-of-the-art offset lithography to the usual high standard, subjects for Luminous Screen range from the early German expressionist cinema of F.W. Murnau, to the contemporary arthouse films of Lars von Trier. In each essay, esoteric themes within these works are identified and analysed.

Introduction: Haunted Cinema and Sacred Communication – Jack Sargeant
Nosferatu Daemonium, a Cinematographic Grimoire – Leon Marvell
The Devil Made Me Do It: The Innovation and Influence of Benjamin Christensen’s Häxan – Denah A. Johnston
Loa of the Avant-Garde: Maya Deren in Haiti – John Cline
Experiments in Film and Magic: The Phantasmagoria of William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin – Jon Crabb
The Light Behind the Lens: The Occult Cinema of Kenneth Anger – Judith Noble
The Holiest of Mountains – Michael Spann
In the Tradition of Magic: The Cinema of Derek Jarman – William Fowler
Transmissions and Expansions: Occult Cinema and Public Ritual – Jack Sargeant
Hellraiser: Tantric Noir – Leon Marvell
Imagined Histories: Craig Baldwin’s Mock Up on Mu and the Fabulation of Californian Bohemia – Anthony Buchanan
‘Just Turn Green’: Dionysian Nature in Lars von Trier’s Antichrist – Lindsay Hallam
Alchemical Cinema: Film and Spectatorship Rituals – Patricia MacCormack