Jean Cocteau's visionary rendition of Madame de Beaumont's fairy tale "Beauty and the Beast," itself the retelling of a story that may be several millennia old, is the topic of this Weird Studies episode, which proposes a journey down lunar paths to the crossroads where love and death intersect. Drawing on Surrealism, myth, and the occult, Cocteau's 1946 film transcends the limitations of media to become a living poem, a thing that is also a place, a place that is also a mind. This conversation touches on the genius of the child, the mysteries of Eros, the monstrosity of consciousness, and the sorcery of cinema.Photo by Ivan Jevtic on UnsplashClick here (https://www.nuralearning.com/art-and-contemplation.html) to register for JF's upcoming course on art.REFERENCESJean Cocteau (dir.), La Belle et la Bête (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038348/) Jaques Maritain, Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781944418762) Sergei Diaghilev (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Diaghilev), Russian impresario Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise (dir.), Beauty and the Beast (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101414/) David Thomson, Have You Seen? (https://bookshop.org/books/have-you-seen-a-personal-introduction-to-1-000-films/9780375711343) Bram Stoker, Dracula (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780141439846)Johannes Vermeer (http://www.essentialvermeer.com/), Dutch painter Philip Glass, [La Belle et la Bête](https://philipglass.com/compositions/belleetlabete/)_ (opera)Game of Thrones (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0944947/), Television series Weird Studies, Episode 84 on the Empress Card (https://www.weirdstudies.com/84) Weird Studies, Episode 94 on the Moon Card (https://www.weirdstudies.com/94)