Lucifer Ascending: The Occult in Folklore and Popular Culture

by Bill Ellis

Despite their centuries-old history and traditions, witchcraft and magic are still very much a part of modern Anglo-American culture. In Lucifer Ascending , Bill Ellis looks at modern practices that are universally defined as "occult," from commonplace habits such as carrying a rabbit's foot for good luck or using a Ouija board, to more esoteric traditions, such as the use of spell books. In particular, Ellis shows how the occult has been a common element in youth culture for hundreds of years.

Using materials from little known publications and archives, Lucifer Ascending details the true social function of individuals' dabbling with the occult. In his survey of what Ellis terms "vernacular occultism," the author is poised on a middle ground between a skeptical point of view that defines belief in witchcraft and Satan as irrational and an interpretation of witchcraft as an underground religion opposing Christianity. Lucifer Ascending examines the occult not as an alternative to religion but rather as a means for ordinary people to participate directly in the mythic realm.

Genres: Folklore, Nonfiction, Religion, History, Occult, Satanism, Pop Culture

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Kirsten · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bill Ellis is one of my all-time favorite folklorists. His excellent Raising the Devil: Satanism, New Religions, and the Media both debunked the media frenzy surrounding the "Satanic Panics" of the 80s and early 90s and explored why such things occur, as well as illustrating the historical precedent. Now in Lucifer Ascending, Ellis takes a wider view of our fascination with the occult. Why is it that practices like using the Ouija board, visiting haunted houses, or playing "Bloody Mary" persist? Using the fundamentalist Christian flap over Harry Potter as a jumping off point, Ellis explores both society's fear and fascination with the occult. He strikes a neatly balanced view; he clearly (even as a practicing Lutheran) has no use for Fundamentalist fears of worldwide Satanic cults who use Harry Potter as a recruitment tool, but he also is aware that fascination with the occult can have serious consequences, not due to demons or malign forces, but due to the belief in such... He writes with lucidity and humor, and this book is equally accessible to the dedicated folklorist or the mere dabbler.

[Ema · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Luciferian dialectic suggests that it is no accident that the occult and religion perpetually attract each other, but without either ever absorbing or destroying the other. As a common bumper sticker notes,
religion tries to become a magic device for turning unanswerable questions into unquestionable answers. Magic, we could say, makes the process reciprocal, questioning what religion tries to make unquestionable and proposing a wider range of answers to the unanswerable.

[Magen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perusing the library shelves, I came across this title and picked it out on a whim. I didn't read the inside flap. I was sold on it the moment I saw that it was in the Dewey 130s and had the words "occult" and "folklore" on the cover. It wasn't until I got it home and saw that it was a Bill Ellis book that I felt a flutter of glee. An honest to god folklorist on my public library shelves! It's not unheard of, but I don't see it often in my small town. I'm familiar with Ellis, but not enough to recognize his work. My research interests don't overlap with his as often as I'd hope.

Anyway, I found this book a delight. It's worth mentioning, however, that because this is a scholarly text and about folklore, it is NOT a linear historical narrative, as nonfolklorists might expect. Ellis instead sets up his thesis, and follows it up with chapters examining some of the folk practices that inform that thesis. Some chapters are more interesting than others based on the reader's personal interests and perhaps connection to the folklore in question. I found the discourse on Satanic Bibles and Dumb Suppers to be particularly fascinating.

Given that this book is over twenty years old and during a lull in the Satanic Panic (which, because this isn't a linear history, takes a backseat in many ways), I think Ellis's conclusions would be worth a revisit. He concludes that the occult and associated folk practices are adolescent attempts at safely challenging and reconciling with authority in their own lives. I don't disagree with this point, but in the context of American religio-political sentiments, we are experiencing a second Satanic Panic where the occult is not just attracting adolescents, but also older women. I don't think there is all that much more to say or prove, but it's worth a conversation, I think. It may be happening and I'm just not privy to it. That's fine. This review can be my input.

I'm leaving one star off this review because I didn't like the framing of the book within the discourse on Harry Potter. Given its publication in 2004, I can remember much ado being made about the series at that time, and it was a very popular topic to pull into oh so many academic discussions ranging from literature studies to even biology, but it really hasn't aged well. Sure, it relates to Ellis's point about adolescence and transitional stages, but I don't think it was a necessary justification of his review of teenage occult practices. These were already a thing before Harry Potter, and the pop culture craze for witchcraft was already well established in the 1990s before Harry Potter was even published. Given that Ellis is a folklorist and not a pop culture scholar, I appreciate that the majority of the book is focused on folklore, but he tries to bridge the divide in a way that suggests he was turned onto the topic by, perhaps, his grandkids' reading choices rather than his observation of teen culture in general. In short, I don't think Ellis synthesizes folklore and pop culture as well as he could have, and he may as well have left out the novels altogether.

[Melora · Rating 3 out of 5]

This wasn't quite what I expected (I'd anticipated a bit more on the figure of Lucifer, and a bit less teenage tombstone tipping), but it was mostly fairly interesting. In fairness, it is pretty much exactly what the subtitle says: “The Occult in Folklore and Popular Culture.” Ellis examines various magical/occult traditions, largely in the contexts of folk magic traditions and of adolescent rebelliousness. He traces the history and function of items such as chain letters, black books, rabbit's feet (foots?) through time and cultures, looking at changes in the ways users of these items perceived their “power.” After this he spends a couple chapters discussing activities such as visits to and desecrations of graves, “dumb suppers,” and mirror summonings (“Bloody Mary” sort of things), all generally seen as adolescent “play” activities. Then there is a Ouija board chapter (ho hum), and one on “The Welsh Revival,” which I'd never heard of before, but which seems to have been an evangelical sort of revival with an emphasis on looking for demonic possession.

My interest in magical traditions is limited to the historic and literary, and Ellis, while he does a nice job with the historical aspects in the early and middle chapters, is also concerned with modern instances of experimentation with the occult. He appears to be writing for an audience which is concerned with an occult threat, mentioning the “dark journey” he has been on in writing his books on the occult, and the lonely time he has had while researching. His introduction says that his objective in writing is “to look at Christian responses to satanism from an academic point of view.” Happily, the book is actually broader in scope than this would suggest, but I probably would have passed on it if I'd known this in advance. He also, rather oddly, in my opinion, includes references to the Harry Potter books in the introductions of each chapter. While I loved the Harry Potter books, including so frequent mentions of a children's fantasy series in an academic sort of book on magical traditions struck me as peculiar.

Despite not sharing Ellis's concern with Evangelical antioccult crusaders, I found most of the material to be at least somewhat engaging. His discussion of fetishes, in the “Black Books” chapter, and the connections he drew between graveyard dust, rabbit's feet, and relics in the “Rabbit's Foot” chapter, were especially interesting. The only place he really lost me (and I skimmed, fast) was the chapter on Ouija boards. For an academic sort of book, Lucifer Ascending is very readable. Lots of amusing anecdotes, and Ellis, for the most part, avoids jargon. (There were a few. “Deliverance expert,” for instance. Though this may be a common term for his primary audience.) This isn't one I'm likely to reread, but I learned some stuff and it was reasonably entertaining.

[H. Givens · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with many history books, this one is a bit boring for full reading, but has a lot of useful information should you happen to be studying any of its topics. In this case it also suffers a bit from false advertising -- I had expected a history of pop-culture depictions of Lucifer, and that is not the case here in any way. It is instead a history of folklore practices considered to be vaguely witchcraft-y, like carrying a rabbit's foot, visiting a cemetery at night, or playing with an Ouija board. Lucifer, and and indeed pop culture, make only glancing appearances, usually as accessories for the prose. (Lots of Harry Potter references, since this was back closer to the time when Harry Potter was so controversial.) The folklore stuff can be pretty interesting though, Ellis makes some pretty interesting and convincing points about the role of this kind of folklore -- it can be used to prop up existing dogma by personal experience, for instance. Calling up a demon in order to be scared of it and send it away, thus reinforcing one's adolescent faith in Christianity. There are a lot of subheadings and some lists of takeaways, so it's well-designed for a thorough skim, which is what I gave it.

[Kira · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this look into folklore and the occult. I was a fascinating look how current folklore (children's games/tales) stems from occult practices of the past. The look into power dynamics and how occult practice may have allowed those with little power to assert some form of control was very interesting to me.

[Vianny · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had different expectations for what this book was, to what it actually turned out to be. I didn't retain anythings, and the writing style was hard to follow, but I was too stubborn to not finish it. There were some interesting points of discussion here, but ultimately a historian for whom this is the specialty is going to get more out of this book than the general public.

[Rob · Rating 2 out of 5]

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