The

Hellwood Archive

Cult cinema, true crime, strange history and cultural oddities.

Stories from the darker corners of film, television, music, literature, crime, history and the unexplained.

Occult Unexplained

Victorian-era American parlour séance with an early wooden Ouija board, planchette and curious participants gathered around a table

Occult Unexplained

The Ouija Board Was a Victorian Start-Up: How Spiritualism Became a Mass-Market Game

The history of the Ouija board begins not with demons but with Victorian Spiritualism, Baltimore entrepreneurs and a remarkably successful...

21 Sep 2026 • Archive Note

1973 American research laboratory with sealed envelopes, drawings, scientific equipment and a bent spoon during a Cold War psychic experiment

Occult Unexplained

Uri Geller and the CIA: When Cold War Intelligence Took Psychic Powers Seriously

In 1973, Uri Geller’s supposed psychic abilities moved from television studios into experiments connected to American intelligence research at Stanford...

11 Sep 2026 • Archive Note

Two Edwardian canoeists camping among low willow-covered islands on a flooded and ominous River Danube at dusk

Music Literature

The Willows: How Algernon Blackwood Made the Danube Terrifying Without Inventing a Monster

Algernon Blackwood’s The Willows needs no vampire, ghost or visible monster: just two travellers, a flooded Danube and a landscape...

06 Sep 2026 • Archive Note

Black-painted Victorian house on a foggy San Francisco street evoking Anton LaVey’s infamous Black House at 6114 California Street

Occult Unexplained

Anton LaVey’s Black House: How an Ordinary San Francisco Home Became an Occult Landmark

Anton LaVey’s Black House was not the Gothic mansion of legend but a relatively modest San Francisco home painted black...

01 Sep 2026 • Archive Note

Eighteenth-century burglar entering a dark country inn by candlelight with an uncanny preserved hand used as a magical charm

Occult Unexplained

The Hand of Glory: The Macabre Folklore of the Thief’s Magic Candle

The Hand of Glory was supposedly fashioned from a hanged criminal’s severed hand and carried by burglars to keep entire...

27 Aug 2026 • Archive Note

Isolated early nineteenth-century Tennessee farmhouse at night evoking the Bell Witch legend

Occult Unexplained

The Bell Witch: The True History Behind America’s Famous Ghost Story

The Bell Witch supposedly spoke, sang hymns, attacked a Tennessee family and even claimed responsibility for a man’s death —...

22 Aug 2026 • Archive Note

Victorian Borley Rectory at night during a 1930s paranormal investigation

Occult Unexplained

Borley Rectory: Inside England’s Most Famous Haunted House

Borley Rectory became Britain’s most notorious haunted house through a potent mixture of strange testimony, newspaper publicity and Harry Price’s...

17 Aug 2026 • Archive Note

1970s television studio table prepared with spoons, keys and sealed containers for a paranormal demonstration

Occult Unexplained

James Randi vs Uri Geller: The Tonight Show Test That Became Paranormal History

In 1973, Uri Geller arrived on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show to demonstrate the psychic abilities that had made him an...

12 Aug 2026 • Archive Note

Occult Films of the 1960's

Okkulte Symbolik, Midnight Movies und die Geburt des Kultkinos der 1960er Jahre

Von Kenneth Angers rituellen Montagen über Jodorowskys psychedelische Western bis hin zu Hammers grellen satanischen Spektakeln war das Kultkino der...

29 Sep 2025 • Feature

Conspiracy Theory blog post header image featuring a corkboard with red string connections between various conspiracy clippings

Occult Unexplained

Warum glauben Menschen an Verschwörungstheorien?

In einer Welt voller Unsicherheiten bieten Verschwörungstheorien eine verführerische Flucht – eine Chance, dem Chaos einen Sinn zu geben, indem...

04 Jun 2025 • Feature

Paul is Dead: The Ultimate Breakdown of the Most Enduring Beatles Conspiracy

Music Literature

Paul ist tot: Die ultimative Aufklärung der hartnäckigsten Beatles-Verschwörung

Erkunden Sie die vollständige Geschichte der Beatles-Verschwörungstheorie „Paul ist tot“, von versteckten Album-Hinweisen und mysteriösen Figuren bis hin zu Verbindungen...

25 May 2025 • Feature

Ricky Kasso: The Acid King and the Dark Legacy of the Satanic Panic

Occult Unexplained

Ricky Kasso: Der Acid King und das dunkle Erbe der Satanic Panic

Die 1980er Jahre waren ein Jahrzehnt voller Paranoia, Hysterie und moralischer Panik – keine berüchtigter als die sogenannte Satanic Panic,...

01 Apr 2025 • Feature

Robert Johnson and his deal with the devil

Music Literature

Das Leben und die Legende von Robert Johnson: Der Bluesmusiker, der einen Pakt mit dem Teufel schloss

Die Geschichte von Robert Johnson, einer der ikonischsten und geheimnisvollsten Figuren in der Geschichte der amerikanischen Musik, ist von Mythen,...

23 Aug 2024 • Feature

Conspiracy Theory T-Shirts

Hellwood Culture

Die Wahrheit ist irgendwo da draußen ... auf einem T-Shirt

Hier im Hellwood HQ lieben wir eine gute Verschwörungstheorie. Und aus diesem Grund geraten unsere kreativen Köpfe oft in dunkle...

09 Mar 2023 • Archive Note