Hallowe'en Countdown 2018: Conditions of Absolute Reality

Image Source: Netflix via NAG Online.

This week in the Hallowe'en countdown, I will focus on the nature of reality. The horror genre plays with the idea that there is more to reality than we are willing to acknowledge.

Author Shirley Jackson opened her novel, The Haunting of Hill House (1959), with the statement that absolute reality was insane. In the story, the main, psychic character is repressed and has been psychologically abused. Her bid for freedom takes her into the maw of a malevolent, haunted house. The Wall Street Journal stated that Jackson's story is "now widely regarded as the greatest haunted-house story ever written." A passage:

"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood for eighty years and might stand for eighty more."

You can listen to Jackson's original story, below.


In the original story, the paranormal is the subconscious unleashed, when ego, rationality, manners and rigid hierarchies no longer suppress the tormented individual. This work reflects the mid-to-late 20th century's focus on exposing psychological and sexual realities.

Millennial truthers are still trying to get at the whole nature of reality, but mainly in the areas of politics, the economy, community, and human-techno spiritualism. We associate social repression mainly with the past and are now more concerned with exposing capitalist fantasies (built on debt), tech addiction, and political corruption (built on lies, black budgets, secret societies, offshore bank accounts and consumers' delusions).

The horror genre warns you about trying to expose absolute reality. If you abandon materialist illusions because you feel they fall short, you are in for a big spiritual challenge.

The Netflix adaptation of Jackson's story, released 12 October 2018, is getting rave reviews for its exploration of a family's intention to renovate an old house and sell it so they can buy their dream home (aka their capitalist fantasy) elsewhere. Hill House has other plans for them, the project goes very, very wrong.

The 2018 Netflix adaptation of Jackson's story is getting rave reviews: The Haunting of Hill House | Official Trailer [HD] | Netflix (19 September 2018). Video Source: Youtube.

Image Source: pinterest.

See all my posts on the Occult, Horror, and Ghosts.
See all my Countdowns.

Click here to see other blogs counting down to Hallowe'en!