公元之初的东汉时期,出身大姓世家的张衡(许还山饰)以《二京赋》名冠京华,他学贯五车,淡薄名利,虽三番五次承蒙召见,却无心仕途。对他来说,为人所轻贱的自然科学和机巧之术似乎有着更的吸引力,更何况天灾贫乏致令生灵涂炭。救人民于水火是他作为读书人最大的宏愿。张衡曾亲眼目睹过地震后灾区的惨状,更愤慨巫师术士对黎民百姓的蒙骗,于是游学四方,访名师,求高友,潜心研制能够预测地震的地动仪。 只是蒙昧和歹毒之人百般陷害,更何况身不由己处在权力斗争的中心,为了地动仪的发明与改进而殚精竭虑的张衡,不得已在乱流之中搏击挣扎……。American psychologist John Holden arrives in London to participate in a symposium aiming to expose witchcraft and devil-worship as a fraud, with attention centered on a cult run by a Julian Karswell. Debarking his plane, Holden learns that the symposium leader, Henry Harrington, has suddenly died and he is now in charge. What only the audience knows is that Harrington was clearly killed by a demon, apparently summoned by Karswell to avenge his persecution. Despite both threatening and cajoling behavior by Karswell, Holden determines to proceed, though the only cult member willing to talk about his experiences is in a prison psychiatric ward, catatonic after allegedly killing yet another cult member. However, Harrington's niece, Joanna, believes, based on her uncle's notes, that Karswell may indeed have some satanic powers derived from an ancient tome in an obscure language which he has been able to translate, and attempts to warn the skeptic Holden. Karswell's mother also attempts to warn Holden off. However, the thing which begins to most get to Holden are the occasional, but mounting, sensory and mental disturbances he begins experiencing after an encounter with Karswell, and the discovery that, during this encounter, Karswell secretly slipped a slip of parchment with a curse in runic symbols on it into Holden's belongings, a parchment identical to one Harrington recorded having had passed to him in a similar manner shortly before his death... [N.B. Holden at no point stays at the Karswell estate].。