Exploring Agnostic Belief Systems in Horror: Echoes of Faith and Fear

Horror as a genre has long been a space where belief systems are tested against the unknown. In many tales, characters are confronted with supernatural forces, pushing them to rely on their cultural, religious, or personal beliefs to survive. But what happens when no single belief system triumphs over the darkness? Instead, every faith and legend seems to mirror one another, offering both no answer and all answers at once. This agnostic perspective on religion in horror provides a fascinating lens to explore the theme of uncertainty, where truth becomes a kaleidoscope of traditions and rituals.

In stories like Ray Bradbury’s The Halloween Tree, Austin Crawley’s A Halloween Tale, and Mitchell Lüthi’s Pilgrim, the protagonists battle not just the physical manifestations of evil but the weight of their own belief systems. They find themselves navigating the thin line between religious certainty and existential ambiguity, where every belief system feels valid, yet none offers ultimate salvation.

Ray Bradbury’s The Halloween Tree: The Shared Shadows of Belief

Bradbury’s The Halloween Tree is an excellent example of how belief systems intertwine across time and cultures. The story follows a group of boys who, while searching for their missing friend Pip, are led through various historical and cultural celebrations of death by the mysterious Mr. Moundshroud. From ancient Egypt to Mexico’s Día de los Muertos, each stop along their journey highlights different religious customs surrounding death and the afterlife.

What Bradbury illustrates so brilliantly is the shared human experience of grappling with mortality. Although the boys encounter different gods, rituals, and afterlife concepts, these belief systems address the same fundamental questions: What happens after death? How do we honor the dead? While no single tradition is painted as definitive, the book suggests that all beliefs are variations on the same theme — each culture echoes the others in their attempt to make sense of the same fears.

Bradbury’s narrative doesn’t prioritize one belief over another. Instead, it weaves a tapestry where all beliefs coexist. The result is a sense of unity among different religions, hinting that perhaps none hold the ultimate truth. In The Halloween Tree, the experience of belief itself matters more than any particular doctrine.

Austin Crawley’s A Halloween Tale: A Modern Reflection on Belief

Austin Crawley’s A Halloween Tale offers a more contemporary take on this theme. The story follows a group of friends who are haunted by supernatural forces in a mysterious abandoned house on Halloween night. They frantically try to figure out what this entity is and how to stop it, but as they dig deeper into folklore, religious symbols, and occult rituals, they realize the futility of pinpointing one belief system as the answer.

Crawley plays with the idea that the evil they face doesn’t conform to a single set of beliefs. Instead, it reflects elements from multiple traditions: pagan symbols, Christian exorcisms, and even indigenous mythologies all offer potential solutions, but none truly work on their own. The characters begin to understand that the lines between these belief systems are blurred — each belief offers a fragment of the truth, but no system holds the whole answer.

In A Halloween Tale, this clash of beliefs becomes a metaphor for humanity’s search for meaning in a chaotic universe. Crawley doesn’t provide a clear solution, leaving readers with a haunting conclusion: the supernatural force they face is not bound to any one religion or myth. It exists in the spaces between, where belief is fluid and adaptable.

Mitchell Lüthi’s Pilgrim: The Agnosticism of Faith

Pilgrim by Mitchell Lüthi takes this theme of belief versus doubt to a darker, more introspective level. The story centers on a group of people on a pilgrimage, each driven by their faith to deliver a holy relic that supposedly holds the power to heal as well as destroy man. As they journey, the pilgrims begin to question the reliability of their beliefs. Is their God the one true God, or are there many? Are there gods older than their own?

Lüthi uses this pilgrimage as a metaphor for the internal struggle between faith and agnosticism. As the characters are exposed to different religious interpretations of the relic’s power, they begin to see similarities between their faith and others. They start to wonder if the power they seek exists independently of any one religion or if the relic is merely a symbol, reflecting whatever the believer wants to see.

In the end, Pilgrim suggests that the power of belief lies not in the specifics of doctrine but in the act of believing itself. The relic doesn’t offer salvation because of any inherent holy power; it offers salvation because the characters invest it with meaning. Lüthi’s story embodies the idea that all religions are both correct and incorrect — the truth is not found in one tradition but in the collective echoes of faith throughout history.

The Witch (2015): Faith Fractured in the Face of the Unknowable

A modern film that perfectly reflects the agnostic exploration of belief systems is The Witch (2015), directed by Robert Eggers. Set in 17th-century New England, the film follows a Puritan family as they settle near a foreboding forest after being exiled from their colony. As strange and terrifying events begin to unfold, the family’s rigid Christian faith is tested, and paranoia about witchcraft and the devil takes hold.

What makes The Witch particularly relevant to the discussion of agnostic belief systems is its portrayal of how faith is both a source of comfort and a source of terror when confronted with forces beyond understanding. The family clings to their Christian beliefs to explain the evil they face, but as their situation worsens, their faith fractures. The witch and the evil presence in the woods don’t align neatly with the Puritan worldview, and the family’s reliance on their belief system becomes futile. Instead of offering protection, their faith drives them further into paranoia, mistrust, and, ultimately, their own destruction.

In The Witch, just as in Bradbury’s The Halloween Tree, Crawley’s A Halloween Tale, and Lüthi’s Pilgrim, the supernatural force at play doesn’t conform to any one religious explanation. While the Puritan family sees witchcraft through a Christian lens, the film hints that the evil in the forest might be tied to older pagan influences. The lines between Christian and folkloric beliefs blur, suggesting that the malevolent forces are beyond the grasp of any single faith. Like the characters in the stories we’ve discussed, the family in The Witch is left with the unsettling realization that their beliefs are inadequate in the face of true, unknowable horror.

Conclusion: Echoes Across Faiths and Cultures

In these works of fiction, the characters are forced to confront evils that transcend their individual belief systems. The agnostic theme unites these stories: no single faith, legend, or tradition holds the ultimate answer. Every belief system reflects a shared human attempt to understand the same fears and mysteries, but none offer complete salvation.

Rather than one religion being right or wrong, these stories highlight the universality of belief — every culture, every faith, and every myth provides a different piece of the puzzle. Whether it’s Bradbury’s exploration of death rituals, Crawley’s clash of pagan and Christian symbols, Lüthi’s pilgrimage, or Eggers’ depiction of Puritan paranoia, each narrative shows that the forces of horror exist beyond any one doctrine. It is both none and all beliefs that hold power in these stories. The supernatural forces they face are universal, as the fears that fuel them are shared across cultures.

Ultimately, these tales suggest that the answer to confronting evil is not found in choosing the “right” faith but in recognizing the shared echoes of belief throughout history. Through its exploration of fear and the unknown, horror provides a space where every belief system can coexist, offering both no answer and every answer at once.