Issue #48

Abstract: Philosophical and religious concepts often find a special, parallel life in the phenomena of mass culture. Works of popular art set up their own unusual experiments, testing the abstract constructs of theorists in the practice of imagination. However, their sometimes seemingly arbitrary and applied application of concepts such as ‘body’, ‘soul’, and ‘spirit’ often feeds from the same source of inspiration as high human scholarship — namely, ancient mythological notions, interest in which has not waned in a wide variety of research circles over the past three or four centuries. This article provides a brief, selective survey of some contemporary works of fantasy and horror that deal directly or indirectly with the theme of the soul.