When The Occult Becomes Entertainment

Maria Morera Johnson explores the cultural fascination with the occult and dark themes in entertainment and the need to guard our souls through discernment of what we consume. 

Turn on your favorite source of entertainment and you will likely encounter movies that glorify demonic possession, podcasts that dissect exorcisms, or TikToks about manifesting and shadow work. People can’t seem to get enough of the dark and mysterious. Maybe it’s curiosity, maybe it’s the adrenaline rush of fear, or maybe it’s that we’ve all become a little too comfortable flirting with things we once would’ve called off-limits. 

I grew up with Hasbro’s Ouija boards sold as party games for children. The Exorcist and The Amityville Horror books and films defined an era of my young teenage years. Each subsequent decade of my life featured more and deeper dives into the occult. 

When Evil Starts to Feel Normal 

We’ve reached a point where jump scares and demonic symbols barely raise an eyebrow. What used to terrify us became a regular night of programming. This constant exposure numbs our spiritual sensitivity, what Scripture in both the Old and New Testament calls the ability to discern the spirits and know good from evil. 

This desensitization process begins with a lie; it’s just entertainment. Before you know it, we’ve adopted the aesthetic and told ourselves it’s just fiction. That’s where the enemy creeps in the shadows, making us believe a snippet here, a video there is harmless. Memes and popular culture turn evil into comedy. The problem here, one of the many problems, is how comfortable we’ve become with darkness. It seems harmless, but that comes from the source of darkness by design. 

Searching for Meaning in the Wrong Places 

The rise in fascination with the occult is a symptom of something deeper: a hunger for the Truth. People want mystery, wonder, and power, they just don’t know where to find it. When faith feels distant or institutional, pseudo-spirituality fills the void. Restlessness defines the culture, and yet as faithful Catholics, we know the antidote: Saint Augustine in his Confessions states,

You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.  

Most people today are seeking this fulfillment but don’t know where to begin, and that is where the danger lies. Manifesting mimics prayer. Tarot readings and mediums mimics Scripture and spiritual reading. Scripture warns us of this danger: 

Now the Spirit explicitly says that in the last times some will turn away from the faith by paying attention to deceitful spirits and demonic instructions through the hypocrisy of liars with branded consciences. (1 Timothy 4:1-2) 

Only the light of Christ satisfies that spiritual longing. Everything else is a deep fake. 

Guarding the Doorway of the Soul 

Entertainment exists to give us pleasure and provides a break to restore us and give our minds a break from stress in our lives. But it also teaches or reinforces cultural mores and provides us with meaning and opportunities for reflection, as does much of this content that appeals to a darker storyline.   

Not all curiosity is innocent. What we consume through books, shows, and even conversations shapes what we believe and invite into our hearts and soul. Discernment isn’t fear-based; it’s wisdom-based. Pay attention to what leaves you unsettled, fearful, or spiritually dulled. This is true of any kind of entertainment. It is good to examine why we are drawn to certain types of entertainment and discern not only the reasons we are drawn to it, but how we feel afterward.  

We’re called to feed our souls with beauty, truth, and grace, not fascination with what opposes it. 

Whatever is true, honorable, pure, lovely … think about these things. (Philippians 4:8) 

The existence of these themes in entertainment, even the occasional consumption of it when we put it in the right context, should not inspire fear if we remember that God’s light is greater than the darkness. The more we are drawn to His Light, the less appealing the darkness becomes.  

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Copyright 2025 Maria Morera Johnson
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