Occultism

Occultism (Latin, occulere, “to hide”), belief in the efficacy of a series of practices, such as astrology, alchemy, divination, and magic, based on esoteric or “hidden” knowledge about the universe and its mysterious forces. That knowledge characteristically includes the concept of “correspondences”, relationships between entities in the universe—stars, planets, gemstones, colours—and, say, parts of the human body or events in human life, so that by the use of that knowledge healings can be effected or destinies known. It may also include belief in intermediate beings—angels, gods, spirits, ascended masters—between humanity and God, who can be contacted by those who are able. True occult knowledge is obtained through initiation by those who have it, or by the study of the esoteric texts in which it is expounded.

There are occult strands within virtually all traditional civilizations. Western occultism has its roots in ancient Babylonian and Egyptian lore, especially as recorded and transmitted by Hermetic and Neoplatonic philosophers. Powerfully augmented by the Jewish kabbalistic mysticism, it was an exclusive but important presence in the middle ages, especially in the form of astrology, alchemy, and ceremonial magic rites for calling up spirits. Many important medieval and Renaissance scholars, such as Roger Bacon or Paracelsus, were really transitional between ancient occultism and modern science. A grimmer story is that of the great witchcraft persecutions of early modern Europe (c. 1400-1700), when thousands if not millions of women were tortured and destroyed by priests and clerics under accusations that they engaged in occult practices. Occultism was then increasingly regarded by the Church as connected with the worship of Satan.

Despite both religion and the rise of modern science, occultism continued as an intellectual presence in the 18th and 19th centuries, though valued more for its spiritual meaning than its practical applications. For an individual like the 18th-century Austrian doctor Franz Anton Mesmer, father of modern hypnotism, occultism was essentially a way of affirming the fundamental nature of the universe as consciousness, and the power of the human mind to interact with it directly. From such a perspective, occultism easily found a role in the 19th-century Romantic Movement, with its emphasis on the past, on symbolism, and the creative power of imagination. These themes were important in such 19th-century “reinventions” of occultism as mid-century Spiritualism, the Theosophical Society (1875), and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (1889). The last two groups especially have included a significant number of “Symbolist” and other artists, poets, and thinkers in their ranks.

In the 20th century, still another rebirth of occultism could be seen in the counter-culture of the 1960s, with its vogue for the practice and symbolism of astrology, divination devices, and magic rites, and still later in the “New Age” movement of the 1980s and 1990s. Though severely criticized by the Church on one hand, and by scientists on the other, occultism appears to meet certain deep-seated human needs for meaning, power, and symbolic expression.