I saw this when I was five and it scared the shit out of me.

Evidence that the US was in love with all things “occult”—

The Night Stalker garnered the highest ratings of any TV movie at that time. This is the best evidence for the incredibly positive aura that occultism had in popular culture at the time.

The early 70s were also the first time that occultism was identified in popular culture with self-help and self-understanding. Yes—it was presented in a horror, suspense, or crime theme. And yes, it was presented as likely to precipitate scary consequences. But it was not something outright evil, but a valuable technology that could be misused by naive or evil people. Contemporary occultism was presented either as (1) the hobby of rich and well-educated whites with too much free time, or (2) an aboriginal wisdom inherited by blacks that was originally “meant for good” and merely abused these days by pimps. (The Night Gallery should be applauded for breaking this stereotype. In “The Doll of Death,” the racial profiling is reversed—a distinguished older white gentleman using voodoo against a young and swarthy Latino.)