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Occult. occultism
Occultism is various theories and practices
involving a belief in and knowledge or use of supernatural forces or beings. Such beliefs
and practices--principally magical or divinatory--have occurred in all human societies
throughout recorded history, with considerable variations both in their nature and in the
attitude of societies toward them. In the West the term occultism has acquired
intellectually and morally pejorative overtones that do not obtain in other societies
where the practices and beliefs concerned do not run counter to the prevailing worldview.
Occult practices centre on the presumed ability of the practitioner to manipulate natural
laws for his own or his client's benefit; such practices tend to be regarded as evil only
when they also involve the breaking of moral laws. Some anthropologists have argued that
it is not possible to make a clear-cut distinction between magic--a principal component of
occultism--and religion, and this may well be true of the religious systems of some
nonliterate societies. The argument does not hold, however, for any of the major
religions, which regard both natural and moral law as immutable.
Those aspects of occultism that appear to be common to all human societies--divination,
magic, witchcraft, and alchemy--are treated in depth below. Features that are unique
to Western cultures, and the history of their development, are treated only briefly.
The Western tradition of occultism, as popularly conceived, is of an ancient "secret
philosophy" underlying all occult practices. This secret philosophy derives
ultimately from Hellenistic magic and alchemy on the one hand and from Jewish mysticism on
the other. The principal Hellenistic source is the Corpus Hermeticum, the texts associated
with Hermes Trismegistos, which are concerned with astrology and other occult sciences and
with spiritual regeneration.
The Jewish element is supplied by the Kabbala (the doctrine of a secret, mystical
interpretation of the Torah), which had been familiar to scholars in Europe since the
Middle Ages, and which was linked with the Hermetic texts during the Renaissance.
The resulting Hermetic-Kabbalistic tradition, known as Hermetism, incorporated both
theory and magical practice, with the latter presented as natural, and thus good, magic,
in contrast to the evil magic of sorcery or witchcraft.
Alchemy was also absorbed into the body of Hermetism, and this link was strengthened in
the early 17th century with the appearance of Rosicrucianism, an alleged secret
brotherhood that utilized alchemical symbolism and taught secret wisdom to its followers,
creating a spiritual alchemy that survived the rise of empirical science and enabled
Hermetism to pass unscathed into the period of the Enlightenment.
During the 18th century the tradition was taken up by esoterically inclined Freemasons who
could not find an occult philosophy within Freemasonry. These enthusiasts persisted, both
as individual students of Hermetism and, in continental Europe, as groups of occult
practitioners, into the 19th century, when the growth of religious skepticism led to an
increased rejection of orthodox religion by the educated and a consequent search for
salvation by other means--including occultism.
But those interested turned to new forms of occultism rather than to the Hermetic
tradition: on the one hand to Spiritualism--the practice of alleged regular communication
between the living and the spirits of the dead through a living "medium"--and on
the other to Theosophy--a blend of Western occultism and Eastern mysticism that proved to
be a most effective propagator of occultism but whose influence has declined markedly over
the last 50 years.
Indeed, despite the 19th-century revival, occult ideas have failed to gain acceptance in
academic circles, although they have occasionally influenced the work of major artists,
such as the poet William Butler Yeats and the painter Wassily Kandinsky, and occultism in
Europe and North America seems destined to remain the province of popular culture.

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Author: Originally by Taliesin einion Vawr, Revised by Celtic Church of Dynion Mwyn, Inc. Copyright © 1977, 1992, 2003, 2009 by Celtic Church of Dynion Mwyn, Inc. All rights reserved. Revised: 29 Mar 2010 15:06:08 -0500
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