...is derived at least partly from the inadvertent appearances of camera shadows and boom mikes, as well as actors forgetting their lines. Cheese is good on almost everything.

The supernatural fad, like other fads and trends, only gets picked up by TV when it's firmly entrenched in the less fluid cultural media.

The supernatural fad continues in the literary world. It appears to be the only way to confront the question of evil in a world hungry to have that conversation, a world in which religion discredits itself by trying to be science on the one hand and trying to be politics on the other, and in which philosophy has retreated into academic obscurity. The question of evil is one to be confronted among the people by philosophy and religion. Neither is up to the task at present.

People wish for magic because they cease to believe in science, and they cease to believe in science because they no longer understand it. Science, magic, religion, supernatural lore: all of the stuff beyond our cultural understanding or out of our control begins to bleed together. Time to draw some lines.