Amaury Figueroa-Pérez
Occultus: How we got to Magical Realism
To understand Occultus and why writers expressed their ideas using controversial themes
related to the art of the occult, is necessary to analyze historical moments and the purposes of
each writer. Writers such as Mathew Lewis, Ann Radcliffe and Mikhail Bulgakov employed the
theme of Occultus in their novels and at the same time took the audience to places in world
history that are important to discuss during a serious analysis of the development of the occult. In
this expansion article, I will collect most of the ideas of these writers and explain why the themes
related to the occult were forbidden, yet many writers flirted with them. I will also display how
occultus is employed in modern literature.
The development of literature containing themes related to occultus was controlled at all
times by institutions like the government and the church. It is important to state that the Catholic
Church had a lot of control and managed to impose their will over literary groups, individuals
and even the government. Francis Tobienne, Jr, cites Jennifer M. Corry in his book The Position
of Magic in Selected Medieval Spanish Text. Corry, an associate professor of Spanish at Berry
College, explains how the Catholic Church used its structure to exercise control over what was
published in the Middle Ages. Corry states that the Catholic Church began to evangelize
throughout Pagan Europe. Catholics considered the practice of magic a rival entity. By
incorporating many of “the Pagan magical practices that it found into its own magic and called it
miracle. As the Church grew in strength and gained the support of political leaders, it was able to
declare heretical any practice it deemed unsuitable for its purpose” (Tobienne 33).
Figueroa-Pérez 2
The Catholic Church created a script to maintain control over its members because this
religious institution did not like its congregation to be free, nor find the answers to the questions
that from many years they have been hiding. They also created counterparts to establish their
control among the society. They created the idea that there was God and the Devil, heaven and
hell, bad and evil. By doing this they controlled society’s behavior and whenever someone
became out of control they used fear to establish order.
In an interview broadcasted on NBC Dateline on August 13th 2006, John Shelby Spong,
a retired Episcopal bishop from Newark, N.J. states that “[t]he Church does not like people to
grow up, because you cannot control grown ups”(Shelby Spong). He claims that the idea of the
hell is an invention of the Church created to control humans with fear. He also claims that
religious institutions are always in the control business and people cannot understand that.
Shelby says that “if you have heaven as a place you are rewarded from your goodness and hell as
place you are punished from your evil, then you sort of have control of the population. So they
created this fiery place, which quite literally scared the hell out of a lot of people thru our
Christian history and it is part of the control tactic” (Shelby).
The expressions of Pastor John Shelby might sound unreal to some members of society,
especially to those immersed in any religion. People who grew up in a traditional basis where
everything is related to religion and God might not accept this point of view. The Catholic
Church was the center of many societies and they managed to control almost everything. They
established mechanisms to punish those who did not follow the doctrines they forced. They ruled
over kings, emperors, and tyrants. They imposed their regulations and controlled the literary
world.
Figueroa-Pérez 3
When the Catholic Church commanded the Inquisition they claimed they did it to
suppress heresy. By taking this route they claim they were keeping everyone safe and close to
divinity. Literature was affected immediately by the imposition of the Church because from that
moment on everything written was reviewed, and if the work did not meet the standards of the
Inquisitors, there was no possible way to publish it. Despite the control and the punishments,
writers like Mathew Lewis and Ann Radcliffe published their works. The Monk and The Italian
are products of this prohibition: these two novels are the example of what writers began to do to
send a message of resistance against the Catholic Church to the audience.
The Monk was published in 1796 and it was written by Mathew Lewis. It is considered to
be a Gothic novel because an atmosphere of mystery and terror prevails. The topic of Occultus
manifests in this work through some characters, the locations and the supernatural acts narrated
by Lewis. The author narrates the story of the Bleeding Nun and the Wandering Jew, folk tales
whose were spread in Europe many years before Lewis published The Monk. Mathew Lewis
explores the conflict between religion and the temptations caused by sex, but he also uses terror
to get the audience attention. In the other hand, Lewis editorial message seems to be accusing the
church for controlling its members but at the same time been untruthful. He opposes the
Church’s behavior and expresses it in the novel. He depicts the organization as a hierarchy that
wanted to control society though there was no order inside its own walls.
As Lewis did, many other writers used their novels to express their opinion. This is the
case of Ann Radcliffe, the writer of The Italian, a novel published a year after Lewis published
The Monk. Radcliffe’s intention was to protest Lewis’s novel. The Italian is considered her most
brilliant work. In this novel, Radcliffe introduces the character of Schedoni, a former leader “of
the Inquisition who is demonic, scheming with no qualms about the task, weather it entails
Figueroa-Pérez 4
abduction, torture – over murder”.1 The author uses this story to explain the historical event of
the Inquisition. This movement orchestrated by the Catholic Church was based on the following
terms: accusatio, denunciato, and inquisitio [accusation, denunciation, and inquisition]. This
process established by the religious institutions was used to control the daily life of a community
where everyone was expected to be Christian. Radcliffe narrates in her novel how corruption
harms society and how the church leaders abused the power they had.
For some writers the Inquisition was not an impediment to stop publishing books. They
found ways to present their books to the society. Although the topics related to the occult were
forbidden, they continued writing about it. Many years later and tired of the oppression caused
by the church’s rules, movements like the Reformation opened the door for writers to write
freely and for people to practice whatever religion they want.
In The Master and Margarita, a novel published in 1967, Mikhail Bulgakov collects the
idea of Occultus and combined it in three main stories; Woland story, Pontius Pilate, and
Contemporary Russia story. In his narration he revisits topics used before by Lewis and
Radcliffe. He talks about religion, including the devil as one of the characters in the guise of
Professor Woland, a master in the art of magic. Bulgakov’s influence of the tragic play novel
Faust written by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is present in most of his narration. The
representation of the occult he uses varies and they all help us to understand the intentions of
writers who agreed to write about such controversial topic as occultus.
In these three novels each writer presented their opinions regarding religion. Lewis
criticizes how the church wanted to regulate the world but they could not maintain order within
their own institution. Radcliffe provides details of how the Inquisition was used and how
corruptive forces control this policy, and Bulgakov challenges the audience to another level,
1
The Italian, back cover.
Figueroa-Pérez 5
questioning the existence of God. He writes “He is lying, lying! Oh, gods, how he is lying!”
(Bulgakov 400).
The elevated number of controversial literatures became a catalyst for more subversive
acts against the institutions regulating the publication of their works. Also, curiosity about these
forbidden arts pushed many people to find out what the buzz was about. According to Walter
Martin, Jill Martin Rische and Kurt Van Gorden, writers of the book The Kingdom of the Occult,
state that “people have accepted some aspects of the occult as valid. Spiritual defenses have been
and continue to be undermined and weakened, until it is now quite common to find Protestant
and Catholic people reading horoscopes more religiously than their Bibles and replacing their
prayer lives with yoga relaxation techniques” (Martin et. al 26). The occult vocabulary invades
today’s society with aspects that were not accepted before, due to the counterpoint to movements
like the Inquisition.
It is important to stress that the freedom of religion, writing and publishing literary works
is the result of many years battling against the Catholic Church’s suppression, and men like
Martin Luther and John Calvin fought for that freedom. The acceptance of new religions and
new beliefs is no longer condemned and the government stopped siding with the church to
impose punishments against the community when they wanted to force them to do what they
want. The government responsibility is no longer able to tell you who you should believe in.
Now they have to guaranty the right of each member of society to practice any religion without
being oppressive and punitive about people’s choices. An example of this situation is Santeria or
Yoruba religion. Even when many people dislike the dogma of this religion, the Supreme Court
Figueroa-Pérez 6
of the United States ruled in a 2009 case in favor of the practitioners of Santeria based on the
argument that everyone has the right of religious freedom.2
In actuality, members of society have an open mind and do not allow institutions like the
Catholic Church to block the process of growing as individuals or as a society. People have
choices now, and if for any reason they feel like an institution is blocking their opportunity to
grow, they move on because they have the freedom to do so. The aspects surrounding the ideas
of freedom have contributed to contemporary literature. Writers have freedom to write what they
please and using the topic of occultus it is not the exception.
New movements began to arise, among those “a literary or artistic genre in which
realistic narrative and naturalistic technique are combined with surreal elements of dream or
fantasy” (Oxford Dictionary). This genre is called Magical Realism. Nadia Choucha explains
how Magical Realism was introduced in the late
1920s serving as a theoretical development. She
claims that Magical Realism “is a subversion of
external
appearances,
an
illustration
of how
objective reality can be bent to subjective desire”
(Choucha 70). She also claims that he first stylistic
source for magical realism came from the painting
of Giorgio de Chirico, “where ambiguous scenarios
are enacted and quiet, empty squares and interiors,
introducing subliminally by the distortion of
mathematical perspectives” (70).
2
Trofeo,
Original lithograph by Giorgio De Chirico, 1970.
U.S. Court of Appeals for Fifth Circuit. Jose vs. City of Euless. No. 08-10358. Filed July 31 2009.
Figueroa-Pérez 7
Many Latin American writers began to tell stories using Magical Realism as their
resource to communicate. According to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a Colombian writer and one of
the most popular figures in the genre of Magical Realism, “[l]iterature of this type is usually
characterized by elements of the fantastic woven into the story with a deadpan sense of
presentation” (Gabriel Garcia Marquez Macondo Magic Realism). He claims that the type of
literature has come under attack for numerous reasons, among those being the constant religious
topics as a theme. In Marquez’s novel, Of Love and Other Demons, he narrates the story of
Sierva Maria, a girl who suffers a series of calamities throughout her short life. During Garcia’s
narration the reader can learn about the social atmosphere in Colombia and how the lower class
has to survive daily life.
The plot of the story begins when Sierva Maria is bitten by a dog with rabies, and people
believed that she was possessed with an evil spirit. After receiving the recommendation from a
priest, Sierva Maria’s father agreed to have her exorcized. After being exposed to the presence of
the priest named Cayetano De Laura, Sierva falls in love with him and a sexual tension began
between both of them. When the bishop hears about this situation, he imprisons Cayetano and
tortures Sierva to expulse the demons he claims is inside her. The girl who has rabies died
without giving a chance to the doctor of the town to help her heal because the Catholic Church
was in control of everything that happened in the town, and many people of the town did not
believe in medicine-science.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez introduces the mentality of the era where the hierarchy of the
Catholic Church condemned science. They disagreed on whether humans could be healed with
medicine. In a section of the book Garcia places emphasis on the library located in the seminary
as a center of knowledge, and stresses a particular conversation between the priest and the
Figueroa-Pérez 8
doctor. In this conversation it is easy to see the symbolism of both characters facing each other.
It is a confrontation between both agents claiming which one is more powerful. Religion or
science? Garcia engages in a debate between what is more useful; religion or medicine-sciences.
At the end, the audience can conclude that religion mistakenly identified and treated Sierva as a
carrier of a demon when she was actually infected with rabies. This conclusion leads the
audience to believe that the Catholic Church was wrong. Occultus is present in the development
of the plot and so in other novels written by Garcia Marquez.
The most popular novel of Garcia is Chronicle of a Death Foretold. In this story he tells
the account of Santiago Nasar, a young man who is accused of dishonoring Angela Vicario, a
newly married girl who was returned to his family by a rich man named Bayardo San Roman
because he claimed she was not a virgin. Angela’s brothers announced to most of the villagers
that they are looking for Santiago Nasar to revenge the alleged taking of Angela’s virginity. The
topic of occultus is presented in this narration by the actions and beliefs of various characters.
For example: Santiago Nasar dies because his mother misinterpreted a dream. She claims to
interpret dreams. Another element of the occult is present in the house owned by Bayardo San
Roman which was previously owned by Mr. Xius, a widower who claimed that the spirit of his
wife Yolanda remained in the house. Santeria masses and communications with dead people are
some of the areas of occultus Garcia infuses into the work (Garcia 86).
Magical Realism is not limited to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, as there are many other
writers who has manifested their stories using this genre. Isabel Allende, a Chilean writer, has
employed magical realism in several of her books. The most popular of her books is called The
House of Spirit. In this narration, she narrates the story of the Trueba family and the conflicts
they have to face during the post-colonial revolution in Chile. She introduces aspect of occultus
Figueroa-Pérez 9
by talking about ghosts, supernatura, and fortunetelling forces and religious mysteries. The use
of colors it is an important factor to represent divinity for Allende, which is why she named her
main characters with names such as Clara, Blanca and Alba, which are all different names for the
color white in Spanish. Clara, who practices fortunetelling, is the narrator of the story and she
tells everything that happened to her and her family until she dies. After her death she becomes a
ghost and her daughter Blanca becomes the narrator. Allende does not attack the church in her
tale like Garcia does, but she based most of her stories criticizing the political institutions and the
social unconformities of post-colonial Chile.
Occultus continues to be an inspiration for many writers, but in the present day, there is
no Inquisition or institution controlling what writers publish, at least in the Western world. They
can express their ideas using controversial themes thanks to the evolution of literature. It is
obvious that people have accepted some aspects of the occult as valid. These days it is normal to
talk about the horoscope, visit a fortuneteller who could predict the future, or visit a tarot reader
to know our destiny. Acceptance is not an issue anymore and nor the control religious used to
have. We come a long way from history and we can enjoy any type of book we want. No church,
no Pope, no governors can tell us what can we write or read. Now we can learn from the past and
look into the future considering what we could study and learn from those studies. Occultus is no
longer an occult art. Everyone knows about it, and no one can stop people from interacting with
it because it is a personal option now, instead of being under a prohibition imposed by the
institution that claims that there is hell and there is an evil being called the devil.
Magical Realism is the result of the evolution of occultus and it is perform in several
manners. Years of struggles and hiding have ended, and now these writers’ works can be enjoyed
by buying a book or downloading a digital file online.
Figueroa-Pérez 10
Works Cited
Allende, Isabel. La Casa De Los Espíritus. New York, N.Y: Rayo, 2001. Print.
Bulgakov, Mikhail, and Mirra Ginsburg. The Master and Margarita. New York: Grove Press,
1995. Print.
Choucha, Nadia. Surrealism & the Occult: Shamanism, magic, Alchemy, and the Birth of an
Artistic Movement. Rochester: Destiny Books, 1992. Print
De Chirico, Giorgio. Trofeo. 1970. Web. 1 Dec 2011
García, Márquez G. Crónica De Una Muerte Anunciada. Barcelona: Bruguera, 1982. Print.
Garcia Marquez, Del Amor y Otros Demonios. España: Vintage Español, 1998. Print.
Garcia Marquez, Gabriel. Gabriel Garcia Marquez Macondo. Magical Realism. Web. 1 Dec
2011. http://www.themodernword.com/gabo/gabo_mr.html
Lewis, M G, Howard Anderson, and Emma McEvoy. The Monk. Oxford [England: Oxford
University Press, 1995. Print.
“Magical Realism.” Oxford Dictionary Online. Web.
Radcliffe, Ann, The Italian: or the Confessional of the Black Penitent: A Romance. London
[England: Penguin Books, 2004. Print.
“The Church Does not Like the People to Grow up” NBC Dateline interview with Pastor John
Shelby Spong, 13 Aug. 2006. Television. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BkP9-HG8I>
Martin, Walter, Martin and Gorden. The Kingdom of the Occult. Nashville:Thomas Nelson
Inc.,2008. Print.
Tobienne, Francis. The Position of Magic in Selected Medieval Spanish Texts. Newcastle:
Cambridge Scholars, 2008. Print.
U.S. Court of Appeals for Fifth Circuit. Jose vs. City of Euless. No. 08-10358. Filed July 31 2009