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Weirdness watchers will be only too aware that the occult has seeped into the media mainstream over the last few decades. The nexus of strangeness that was once high occultism has a history spanning many millennia, but over the 20th century it passed from being the exclusive preserve of (mostly English) eccentrics into a commercial media phenomenon.

The word ‘occult’ itself means anything hidden and sinister – but how hidden is the occult these days, when you can buy pre-written spells and cheery beginners’ guides to magic in almost any high street bookstore? And just as bookshop shelves were colonised by titles written to flatter teenage witches, primetime television slots were filled with imaginary vampire-slayers and professional ghost-hunters.