DARK SHADOWS, REASON & THE OCCULT

DARK SHADOWS, REASON & THE OCCULT

Watched Collection 6 disk 4 again. Am thinking more about the relationship between the 18th century, the original Age of Reason, and the 20th century, which seemed to be the Age of Reason II, at least until the mid to late 1960's, when Dark Shadows was on.

Back when I was watching collections 1-4 when Barnabas was introduced, I wondered what was wrong with these people. How much evidence did they need that something supernatural was going on?

When I watched the first disk of Dark Shadows: The Beginning, I realized that the Collins family had a long history of spooky, creepy, things that go bump, or sob uncontrollably, in the night.

Then, in Collection 4 Episode 366, Victoria Winters is transported back in time to 1795, when Joshua & Naomi Collins & their children Barnabas & Sarah lived in the old house, & Collinwood had just been built but was not yet occupied.

Joshua's sister Abigail & the man she summoned from Salem (of all places) whom she calls the "Reverend" Trask,  insist that witchcraft is going on, & conclude that Victoria must be the witch.

In 1795, it had been 100 years since the Salem Witch trials. Modern people like Joshua & Naomi Collins thought people who believed in such things, like Abigail, were throwbacks to a bygone superstitious age, and those who took advantage of them, like Trask, were charlatans.

In 1795, just as in 1967, people thought there were no such things as witches, vampires, curses and black magic.

Dark Shadows is about the conflict between rationality and reason on the one hand, and the occult, on the other, and is told from the point of view that the latter is real and the former tragically mistaken.

It's about a time when the certainties of the 20^th century, like those of the 18^th, were about to be questioned, & perhaps shattered forever.