Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 9, No. 2, 1992, Page 38
Lydia befriends and is befriended by the previous owners of the house, Barbara and Adam, a
couple who were drowned when, while crossing a bridge, their car swerved to avoid hitting a
dog. Lydia alone of the new residents is able to see the former owners because “I‟m strange
and unusual,” which in this context means that she is an empathetic individual who shares
the former owners‟ taste for conventional furniture and despises her stepmother‟s sculptured
grotesqueries. Indeed, she is so attracted to Barbara and Adam that she plans to kill herself
to be with them however, at the last moment she is dissuaded (despite the efforts of the
poltergeist, Beetlejuice). Ultimately, the living and the dead are reconciled, but the films ends
with Lydia being nurtured by the dead couple.
Film and novel travel parallel paths. In both, the protagonist is an isolated, friendless
adolescent whose only nurturing figures are participants in the afterlife (Barbara and Adam)
or participants in the occult (the nanny). Their sense of isolation is intensified by the absence
of a conventional maternal figure. In The White People, the protagonist‟s mother is absent in
Beetlejuice, Delia, the stepmother, is in a frenzy to exorcise the house‟s cozy conventional
environment, substituting for it a palette of postmodern excess. In response, Lydia attempts
to empower herself through the occult and by committing parasuicidal acts. Her counterpart,
Beetlejuice the poltergeist, is the destructive adolescent who deals with his depression
through manic and rebellious activity. His persona of a “macho” nonconforming ghost is very
seductive to Lydia. In The White People, the nameless protagonist dreams of spells that will
transform her into a fairy princess who can revive her mother. In both works of art, there is a
conviction that the dead/departed are more alive than the living.
Other Perceptions of the Afterlife and Its Vicissitudes
Beetlejuice is just one of the many recent films in which the dead/death is portrayed as
offering more viable alternatives than life/living. All of the dead in Beetlejuice--the dead
couple‟s caseworker, Juno, and Beetlejuice himself--are played with a verve and manic energy
usually absent from the living. The question of whether or not an isolated and vulnerable
adolescent might draw a fatal lesson from these films is a cogent one. And, despite the dead
couple‟s disclaimers and Otho‟s remark that “those who commit suicide become civil servants
in the afterlife,” the reality of life after death as portrayed in these films might disarm the
fears of the vulnerable.
The “viability” of the afterlife was raised with particular charm in the recent film Ghosts.
Through the intervention of a medium, the departed is able to intervene in every aspect of his
living fiancée‟s life. In this film, as in the afterlife of the ancient Egyptians, there is a denial of
the very reality of death because it portrays an afterlife that is like life--only more so (and
without the problems inherent in living).
A grimmer world informs the players in Flatliners. While the goal of the “medical students” is
never explicitly defined, they appear to be searching for power in a quest for the ultimate
near-death experience. While this film employs a great deal of pseudoscientific verbiage, the
ganglike activities of the participants resemble a gang of body snatchers. The gang leader and
group processes encourage the gang members to pursue longer comas, leading them to
almost perpetrate a murder as part of their “scientific” quest. The gang members are involved
in a Faustian exercise whose goal is fame (and fortune). Ironically, the powers beyond the
pale introduce morality at the end, forcing the “students” to reconsider their narcissism by
film‟s end.
In contrast to the alienated and isolated adolescents of The White People and Beetlejuice,
who, in order to treat their depression, seek and pursue empowerment through an
involvement with the occult, the participants in Flatliners seek power as part of a “satanic
Faustian” agenda characterized by the absence of internalized objects and the diminished
sense of self that is present within the pathologically narcissistic. In both cases, even though

Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 9, No. 2, 1992, Page 39
the underlying pathology is quite different, an interest in the occult leads to the exploration of
realms characterized by a lack of boundaries or rational limitation.
The Case of George S.
In literature and film, suicide or parasuicidal behavior is often linked with an interest in the
occult. The tragic case of George S. illustrates this linkage in reality:
George S. was a 16-year-old male who appeared to be a normal adolescent and was
asymptomatic until age 14. During that year, he informed his parents that he felt
suicidal. They were appropriately alarmed and sought outpatient consultation in early
May. This initial consultation was nonproductive and the family postponed their
search for treatment until after the summer recess. They hoped that the absence of
school pressure (and the presumed impact of this pressure) on an overly conforming
and rigid young man would help. The summer went well. But in October, George‟s
suicidal ideation returned. He superficially scratched his wrist. After psychiatric
consultation, he was placed on antidepressants. The medication, however, was
stopped because of presumed side-effects. Another consultation and treatment
setting was sought. A variety of treatment modalities, including individual and group
psychotherapy, were used. New medications were tried. Each approach was
nonproductive. George continued to be depressed, conforming and anhedonic.
Ultimately, in April, George went upstairs and shot himself with his father‟s pistol.
This case is presented in the context of this article because the entire wall of George‟s
bedroom was covered with runes, satanic graffiti, and bizarre androgynous figures. None of
this had been reported to his therapists.
Suicide is ultimately an unanswerable question. However, certain aspects of George‟s life
strikingly parallel the fictional portrayals in The White People and Beetlejuice. George‟s
relationship with his father was characterized by detachment (the father never attended any
family session, spoke to his therapists, or was even discussed at any length within the
sessions). George‟s suicide was apparently precipitated by his mother‟s departure on a visit.
The question remains, what was the basis of George‟s underlying angst/depression? His
inability to tell his parents about a lengthy and apparently platonic correspondence he carried
on with a female classmate suggests something of the lack of emotional intimacy within this
household, where parents and child passed each other like ships in the night. His closest
relationships appear to have been with the pets he lovingly raised.
And there is the wall: why the wall with its graffiti? Runes are more commonly utilized as a
form of divination than as a script or alphabet. They have been used as an aid in divination
and incantation. In a very real sense, their presence on the wall indicated that having failed to
communicate his intense depression to his parents, he attempted to transcend his sense of
isolation and alienation in the hope that by contacting different forces, his anguish could be
lightened. A book of Tarot was found by his bedside.
The Outsider and Other Literary Perspectives
The work of Machen represents a traditional tale of the occult. His most celebrated American
literary disciple, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, represents a transmutation to another supernatural
dimension. H. P. Lovecraft‟s work appeared primarily in Weird Tales and other pulp
magazines, which flourished in the 1920s and 1930s. Despite the appearance of his work in
the pulps, Lovecraft‟s ambitions and abilities extended beyond this.
In his crabbed, convoluted, and excessively literary style (for example, he doted on using
archaisms such as eldritch), Lovecraft began to detail the Cthulhu mythos in a series of short
stories. While Lovecraft‟s original literary focus was on the more conventional tale of the
demonic or supernatural, in the Cthulhu mythos he created something rather different. The