ABSTRACT
The aim of this discussion is fairly straightforward, namely to provide an analysis of the theory of occulture, which, it is suggested, contributes to an understanding of the persistence of belief in paranormal phenomena in late-modern Western societies. This is not an essay in contemporary parapsychology; it is not a catalogue of paranormal phenomena; it is not a discussion of influential theorists and ‘authors of the impossible’ (Kripal 2010); it is not a defence of the veracity of the fantastic; nor is it a ‘professional’ debunking of the anomalous. Rather, it is an analysis of the socio-cultural conditions that encourage and support paranormal belief in ostensibly secular societies. The basic idea, as the title suggests, is one of a ‘haunted culture’ – haunted in the sense that, while, at a relatively superficial level, the dominant discourse in the West privileges the ‘normal’ and the ‘natural’ and relegates the ‘rejected knowledge’ of the paranormal and the supernatural to the periphery of society, at a deeper, primal, gut level, there is a fascination with this shadow side of Western culture (see Kripal 2010, Nelson 2001, 2012). Consequently, it would appear that belief in the paranormal is not the preserve of premodern societies, but rather continues to press in upon the human spirit and to disturb the ordered rationalism that comforts the late-modern mind.
