The occult, in the broadest sense, is a category of
esoteric
Western esotericism, also known as esotericism, esoterism, and sometimes the Western mystery tradition, is a term scholars use to categorise a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas a ...
supernatural
Supernatural refers to phenomena or entities that are beyond the laws of nature. The term is derived from Medieval Latin , from Latin (above, beyond, or outside of) + (nature) Though the corollary term "nature", has had multiple meanings si ...
beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of
religion
Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...
and science, encompassing phenomena involving otherworldly agency, such as
magic
Magic or Magick most commonly refers to:
* Magic (supernatural), beliefs and actions employed to influence supernatural beings and forces
* Ceremonial magic, encompasses a wide variety of rituals of magic
* Magical thinking, the belief that unrela ...
and
mysticism
Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute, but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or spiritual meaning. It may also refer to the attainment of insight in u ...
and their varied
spells
Spell(s) or The Spell(s) may refer to:
Processes
* Spell (paranormal), an incantation
* Spell (ritual), a magical ritual
* Spelling, the writing of words
Arts and entertainment Film and television
* ''The Spell'' (1977 film), an American ...
. It can also refer to supernatural ideas like
extra-sensory perception
Extrasensory perception or ESP, also called sixth sense, is a claimed paranormal ability pertaining to reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses, but sensed with the mind. The term was adopted by Duke Universit ...
and
parapsychology
Parapsychology is the study of alleged psychic phenomena (extrasensory perception, telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis (also called telekinesis), and psychometry) and other paranormal claims, for example, those related to near ...
.
The term ''occult sciences'' was used in
16th-century Europe to refer to
astrology
Astrology is a range of Divination, divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of Celestial o ...
,
alchemy
Alchemy (from Arabic: ''al-kīmiyā''; from Ancient Greek: χυμεία, ''khumeía'') is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practiced in China, India, the Muslim world, ...
, and
natural magic
Natural magic in the context of Renaissance magic is that part of the occult which deals with natural forces directly, as opposed to ceremonial magic which deals with the summoning of spirits. Natural magic sometimes makes use of physical substa ...
. The term ''occultism'' emerged in
19th-century France, amongst figures such as
Antoine Court de Gébelin
Antoine Court, who named himself Antoine Court de Gébelin (Nîmes, 25 January 1725 At Google Books.Paris, 10 May 1784), was a former Protestant pastor, born in Nîmes, who initiated the interpretation of the Tarot as an arcane repository of timel ...
. It came to be associated with various French esoteric groups connected to
Éliphas Lévi
Éliphas Lévi Zahed, born Alphonse Louis Constant (8 February 1810 – 31 May 1875), was a French esotericist, poet, and author of more than 20 books on magic, Kabbalah, alchemical studies, and occultism. He pursued an ecclesiastical career in ...
and
Papus, and in 1875 was introduced into the English language by the esotericist
Helena Blavatsky
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, uk, Олена Петрівна Блаватська, Olena Petrivna Blavatska (; – 8 May 1891), often known as Madame Blavatsky, was a Russian mystic and author who co-founded the Theosophical Society in 187 ...
.
Throughout the 20th century, the term was used
idiosyncratically by a range of different authors, but by the 21st century was commonly employed – including by academic scholars of esotericism – to refer to a range of esoteric currents that developed in the mid-19th century and their descendants. Occultism is thus often used to categorise such
esoteric traditions as
Spiritualism
Spiritualism is the metaphysical school of thought opposing physicalism and also is the category of all spiritual beliefs/views (in monism and dualism) from ancient to modern. In the long nineteenth century, Spiritualism (when not lowercase) ...
,
Theosophy
Theosophy is a religion established in the United States during the late 19th century. It was founded primarily by the Russian Helena Blavatsky and draws its teachings predominantly from Blavatsky's writings. Categorized by scholars of religion a ...
,
Anthroposophy
Anthroposophy is a spiritualist movement founded in the early 20th century by the esotericist Rudolf Steiner that postulates the existence of an objective, intellectually comprehensible spiritual world, accessible to human experience. Followers ...
, the
Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn ( la, Ordo Hermeticus Aurorae Aureae), more commonly the Golden Dawn (), was a secret society devoted to the study and practice of occult Hermeticism and metaphysics during the late 19th and early 20th ce ...
, and
New Age
New Age is a range of spiritual or religious practices and beliefs which rapidly grew in Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise definition difficult. Although many scholars conside ...
.
Use of the term as a
nominalized adjective
A nominalized adjective is an adjective that has undergone nominalization, and is thus used as a noun. In ''the rich and the poor'', the adjectives ''rich'' and ''poor'' function as nouns denoting people who are rich and poor respectively.
In En ...
has developed especially since the late twentieth century. In that same period, ''occult'' and ''culture'' were combined to form the
neologism
A neologism Greek νέο- ''néo''(="new") and λόγος /''lógos'' meaning "speech, utterance"] is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted int ...
''occulture''.
Etymology
The occult (from the
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
word ''occultus'' "clandestine, hidden, secret") is "knowledge of the hidden". In common usage, ''occult'' refers to "knowledge of the
paranormal
Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Nota ...
", as opposed to "knowledge of the
measurable
In mathematics, the concept of a measure is a generalization and formalization of Geometry#Length, area, and volume, geometrical measures (length, area, volume) and other common notions, such as mass and probability of events. These seemingly ...
", usually referred to as science. The terms ''
esoteric
Western esotericism, also known as esotericism, esoterism, and sometimes the Western mystery tradition, is a term scholars use to categorise a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas a ...
'' and ''arcane'' can also be used to describe the occult, in addition to their meanings unrelated to the supernatural. The term ''occult sciences'' was used in the 16th century to refer to
astrology
Astrology is a range of Divination, divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of Celestial o ...
,
alchemy
Alchemy (from Arabic: ''al-kīmiyā''; from Ancient Greek: χυμεία, ''khumeía'') is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practiced in China, India, the Muslim world, ...
, and
natural magic
Natural magic in the context of Renaissance magic is that part of the occult which deals with natural forces directly, as opposed to ceremonial magic which deals with the summoning of spirits. Natural magic sometimes makes use of physical substa ...
.
The earliest known usage of the term ''occultism'' is in the French language, as ''l'occultisme''. In this form it appears in A. de Lestrange's article that was published in
Jean-Baptiste Richard de Randonvilliers
Jean-Baptiste is a male French language, French name, originating with Saint John the Baptist, and sometimes shortened to Baptiste (name), Baptiste. The name may refer to any of the following:
Persons
* Charles XIV John of Sweden, born Jean-Bapt ...
' ''Dictionnaire des mots nouveaux'' ("Dictionary of new words") in 1842. However, it was not related, at this point, to the notion of ''Ésotérisme chrétien'', as has been claimed by Hanegraaff, but to describe a political "system of occulticity" that was directed against priests and aristocrats.
In 1853, the
Freemasonic
Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...
author
Jean-Marie Ragon
Jean-Marie Ragon de Bettignies (born 25 February 1781 at Bray-sur-Seine, died 1862 at Bruges) was a Freemason, author and editor.
Biography
Jean-Marie Ragon was born at Bray-sur-Seine. His father worked as a notary. He was initiated into Freema ...
had already used ''occultisme'' in his popular work ''Maçonnerie occulte'', relating it to earlier practices that, since the
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
, had been termed "occult sciences" or "occult philosophy", but also to the recent socialist teachings of
Charles Fourier
François Marie Charles Fourier (;; 7 April 1772 – 10 October 1837) was a French philosopher, an influential early socialist thinker and one of the founders of utopian socialism. Some of Fourier's social and moral views, held to be radical in ...
. The French esotericist
Éliphas Lévi
Éliphas Lévi Zahed, born Alphonse Louis Constant (8 February 1810 – 31 May 1875), was a French esotericist, poet, and author of more than 20 books on magic, Kabbalah, alchemical studies, and occultism. He pursued an ecclesiastical career in ...
then used the term in his influential book on
ritual magic
Ceremonial magic (ritual magic, high magic or learned magic) encompasses a wide variety of rituals of magic. The works included are characterized by ceremony and numerous requisite accessories to aid the practitioner. It can be seen as an e ...
, ''
Dogme et rituel de la haute magie
''Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie'' ( en, Dogma and Ritual of High Magic) is the title of Éliphas Lévi's first published treatise on ritual magic, which appeared in two volumes between 1854 (''Dogme'') and 1856 (''Rituel''). Each volume is s ...
'', first published in 1856. Lévi was familiar with that work and might have borrowed the term from there. In any case, Lévi also claimed to be a representative of an older tradition of occult science or occult philosophy. It was from his usage of the term ''occultisme'' that it gained wider usage; according to Faivre, Lévi was "the principal exponent of esotericism in Europe and the United States" at that time. The term ''occultism'' emerged in 19th-century France, where it came to be associated with various French esoteric groups connected to
Éliphas Lévi
Éliphas Lévi Zahed, born Alphonse Louis Constant (8 February 1810 – 31 May 1875), was a French esotericist, poet, and author of more than 20 books on magic, Kabbalah, alchemical studies, and occultism. He pursued an ecclesiastical career in ...
and
Papus,
The earliest use of the term ''occultism'' in the English language appears to be in "A Few Questions to 'Hiraf'", an 1875 article by Helena Blavatsky, a Russian émigré living in the United States who founded the religion of Theosophy. The article was published in the American Spiritualist magazine, ''Spiritual Scientist''.
Various twentieth-century writers on the subject used the term ''occultism'' in different ways. Some writers, such as the German philosopher
Theodor W. Adorno
Theodor W. Adorno ( , ; born Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund; 11 September 1903 – 6 August 1969) was a German philosopher, sociologist, psychologist, musicologist, and composer.
He was a leading member of the Frankfurt School of criti ...
in his "Theses Against Occultism", employed the term as a broad synonym for
irrationality
Irrationality is cognition, thinking, talking, or acting without inclusion of rationality. It is more specifically described as an action or opinion given through inadequate use of reason, or through emotional distress or cognitive deficiency. ...
. In his 1950 book ''L'occultisme'',
Robert Amadou
The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of ''Hrōþ, Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory ...
used the term as a synonym for esotericism, an approach that the later scholar of esotericism Marco Pasi suggested left the term superfluous. Unlike Amadou, other writers saw occultism and esotericism as different, albeit related, phenomena. In the 1970s, the sociologist
Edward Tiryakian
Edward is an English given name. It is derived from the Anglo-Saxon name ''Ēadweard'', composed of the elements '' ēad'' "wealth, fortune; prosperous" and '' weard'' "guardian, protector”.
History
The name Edward was very popular in Anglo-Sax ...
distinguished between occultism, which he used in reference to practices, techniques, and procedures, and esotericism, which he defined as the religious or philosophical belief systems on which such practices are based. This division was initially adopted by the early academic scholar of esotericism, Antoine Faivre, although he later abandoned it; it has been rejected by most scholars who study esotericism.
By the 21st century the term was commonly employed – including by academic scholars of esotericism – to refer to a range of esoteric currents that developed in the mid-19th century and their descendants. Occultism is thus often used to categorise such esoteric traditions as Spiritualism, Theosophy, Anthroposophy, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and New Age.
A different division was used by the
Traditionalist author
René Guénon
René Jean-Marie-Joseph Guénon (15 November 1886 – 7 January 1951), also known as ''Abdalwâhid Yahiâ'' (; ''ʿAbd al-Wāḥid Yaḥiā'') was a French intellectual who remains an influential figure in the domain of metaphysics, having writte ...
, who used esotericism to describe what he believed was the Traditionalist, inner teaching at the heart of most religions, while occultism was used pejoratively to describe new religions and movements that he disapproved of, such as Spiritualism, Theosophy, and various
secret societies
A secret society is a club or an organization whose activities, events, inner functioning, or membership are concealed. The society may or may not attempt to conceal its existence. The term usually excludes covert groups, such as intelligence a ...
. Guénon's use of this terminology was adopted by later writers like
Serge Hutin Serge Hutin (1927 – 1 November 1997) was a French author of books on esoterica and the occult. He was born in France.
Writer
Hutin was a writer of many books on the occult and esoteric, he wrote about Freemasonry, secret societies, Rosicr ...
and
Luc Benoist
Luc Benoist born ''Luc Didier Marie Benoist-Lucy'' (1893–1980) was a French essayist and art historian. He published many books about the art history. His interests were centered on spirituality and symbolism.
Biography
He became assistant c ...
. As noted by Hanegraaff, Guénon's use of these terms are rooted in his Traditionalist beliefs and "cannot be accepted as scholarly valid".
The term ''occultism'' derives from the older term ''occult'', much as the term ''esotericism'' derives from the older term ''esoteric''. However, the historian of esotericism
Wouter Hanegraaff
Wouter Jacobus Hanegraaff (born 10 April 1961) is full professor of History of Hermetic Philosophy and related currents at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He served as the first president of the European Society for the Study of W ...
stated that it was important to distinguish between the meanings of the term ''occult'' and ''occultism''. Occultism is not a homogenous movement and is widely diverse.
Over the course of its history, the term ''occultism'' has been used in various different ways. However, in contemporary uses, occultism commonly refers to forms of
esotericism
Western esotericism, also known as esotericism, esoterism, and sometimes the Western mystery tradition, is a term scholars use to categorise a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas a ...
that developed in the nineteenth century and their twentieth-century derivations. In a descriptive sense, it has been used to describe forms of esotericism which developed in nineteenth-century France, especially in the
Neo-Martinist environment. According to the historian of esotericism
Antoine Faivre
Antoine Faivre (5 June 1934 – 19 December 2021) was a French scholar of Western esotericism. Until his retirement, he held a chair in the École Pratique des Hautes Études at the Sorbonne, University Professor of Germanic studies at the Univer ...
, it is with the esotericist
Éliphas Lévi
Éliphas Lévi Zahed, born Alphonse Louis Constant (8 February 1810 – 31 May 1875), was a French esotericist, poet, and author of more than 20 books on magic, Kabbalah, alchemical studies, and occultism. He pursued an ecclesiastical career in ...
that "the occultist current properly so-called" first appears. Other prominent French esotericists involved in developing occultism included
Papus,
Stanislas de Guaita,
Joséphin Péladan,
Georges-Albert Puyou de Pouvourville, and
Jean Bricaud
Jean (or Joanny) Bricaud (11 February 1881, Neuville-sur-Ain, Ain – 24 February 1934), also known as Tau Jean II, was a French student of the occult and esoteric matters. Bricaud was heavily involved in the French neo-Gnostic movement. He was ...
.
Occult sciences
The idea of occult sciences developed in the sixteenth century. The term usually encompassed three practicesastrology, alchemy, and natural magicalthough sometimes various forms of
divination
Divination (from Latin ''divinare'', 'to foresee, to foretell, to predict, to prophesy') is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic, standardized process or ritual. Used in various forms throughout histor ...
were also included rather than being subsumed under natural magic. These were grouped together because, according to the Dutch scholar of
hermeticism
Hermeticism, or Hermetism, is a philosophical system that is primarily based on the purported teachings of Hermes Trismegistus (a legendary Hellenistic combination of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth). These teachings are containe ...
Wouter Hanegraaff
Wouter Jacobus Hanegraaff (born 10 April 1961) is full professor of History of Hermetic Philosophy and related currents at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He served as the first president of the European Society for the Study of W ...
, "each one of them engaged in a systematic investigation of nature and natural processes, in the context of theoretical frameworks that relied heavily on a belief in occult qualities, virtues or forces." Although there are areas of overlap between these different occult sciences, they are separate and in some cases practitioners of one would reject the others as being illegitimate.
During the
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment; german: Aufklärung, "Enlightenment"; it, L'Illuminismo, "Enlightenment"; pl, Oświecenie, "Enlightenment"; pt, Iluminismo, "Enlightenment"; es, La Ilustración, "Enlightenment" was an intel ...
, occultism increasingly came to be seen as intrinsically incompatible with the concept of science. From that point on, use of "occult science(s)" implied a conscious
polemic
Polemic () is contentious rhetoric intended to support a specific position by forthright claims and to undermine the opposing position. The practice of such argumentation is called ''polemics'', which are seen in arguments on controversial topics ...
against mainstream science. Nevertheless, the philosopher and card game historian
Michael Dummett
Sir Michael Anthony Eardley Dummett (27 June 1925 – 27 December 2011) was an English academic described as "among the most significant British philosophers of the last century and a leading campaigner for racial tolerance and equality." He wa ...
, whose analysis of the historical evidence suggested that
fortune-telling
Fortune telling is the practice of predicting information about a person's life. Melton, J. Gordon. (2008). ''The Encyclopedia of Religious Phenomena''. Visible Ink Press. pp. 115-116. The scope of fortune telling is in principle identical w ...
and occult interpretations using cards were unknown before the 18th century, said that the term ''occult science'' was not misplaced because "people who believe in the possibility of unveiling the future or of exercising supernormal powers do so because the efficacy of the methods they employ coheres with some systematic conception which they hold of the way the universe functions...however flimsy its empirical basis."
In his 1871 book ''Primitive Culture'', the anthropologist
Edward Tylor
Sir Edward Burnett Tylor (2 October 18322 January 1917) was an English anthropologist, and professor of anthropology.
Tylor's ideas typify 19th-century cultural evolutionism. In his works ''Primitive Culture'' (1871) and ''Anthropology'' (1 ...
used the term "occult science" as a synonym for
magic
Magic or Magick most commonly refers to:
* Magic (supernatural), beliefs and actions employed to influence supernatural beings and forces
* Ceremonial magic, encompasses a wide variety of rituals of magic
* Magical thinking, the belief that unrela ...
.
Occult qualities
Occult qualities are properties that have no known rational explanation; in the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
, for example,
magnetism
Magnetism is the class of physical attributes that are mediated by a magnetic field, which refers to the capacity to induce attractive and repulsive phenomena in other entities. Electric currents and the magnetic moments of elementary particles ...
was considered an occult quality.
Aether is another such element.
Newton
Newton most commonly refers to:
* Isaac Newton (1642–1726/1727), English scientist
* Newton (unit), SI unit of force named after Isaac Newton
Newton may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Newton'' (film), a 2017 Indian film
* Newton ( ...
's contemporaries severely criticized his theory that gravity was effected through "action at a distance", as occult.
Occultism
![Eliphas Levi](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Eliphas_Levi.png)
In the English-speaking world, notable figures in the development of occultism included Helena Blavatsky and other figures associated with her Theosophical Society, senior figures in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn like
William Wynn Westcott
William Wynn Westcott (17 December 1848 – 30 July 1925) was a coroner, ceremonial magician, theosophist and Freemason born in Leamington, Warwickshire, England. He was a Supreme Magus (chief) of the S.R.I.A and went on to co-found t ...
and
Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers
Samuel Liddell (or Liddel) MacGregor Mathers (8 or 11 January 1854 – 5 or 20 November 1918), born Samuel Liddell Mathers, was a British occultist. He is primarily known as one of the founders of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a cerem ...
, as well as other individuals such as
Paschal Beverly Randolph
Paschal Beverly Randolph (October 8, 1825 – July 29, 1875) was an American medical doctor, occultist, spiritualist, trance medium, and writer. He is notable as perhaps the first person to introduce the principles of erotic alchemy to North A ...
,
Emma Hardinge Britten
Emma Hardinge Britten (2 May 1823 – 2 October 1899) was an English advocate for the early Modern Spiritualist Movement. Much of her life and work was recorded and published in her speeches and writing and an incomplete autobiography edite ...
,
Arthur Edward Waite
Arthur Edward Waite (2 October 1857 – 19 May 1942) was a British poet and scholarly mystic who wrote extensively on occult and esoteric matters, and was the co-creator of the Rider–Waite tarot deck (also called the Rider–Waite–Smith o ...
, andin the early twentieth century
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley (; born Edward Alexander Crowley; 12 October 1875 – 1 December 1947) was an English occultist, ceremonial magician, poet, painter, novelist, and mountaineer. He founded the religion of Thelema, identifying himself as the pro ...
,
Dion Fortune
Dion Fortune (born Violet Mary Firth, 6 December 1890 – 6 January 1946) was a British occultist, ceremonial magician, novelist and author. She was a co-founder of the Fraternity of the Inner Light, an occult organisation that promoted ph ...
, and
Israel Regardie
Francis Israel Regardie (; né Regudy; November 17, 1907 – March 10, 1985) was a British-American occultist, ceremonial magician, and writer who spent much of his life in the United States. He wrote fifteen books on the subject of occultism.
Bo ...
. By the end of the nineteenth century, occultist ideas had also spread into other parts of Europe, such as the
German Empire
The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...
,
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...
, and the
Kingdom of Italy
The Kingdom of Italy ( it, Regno d'Italia) was a state that existed from 1861, when Victor Emmanuel II of Kingdom of Sardinia, Sardinia was proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, proclaimed King of Italy, until 1946, when civil discontent led to ...
.
Unlike older forms of esotericism, occultism does not reject "scientific progress or modernity". Lévi had stressed the need to solve the conflict between science and religion, something that he believed could be achieved by turning to what he thought was the ancient wisdom found in magic. The French scholar of Western esotericism
Antoine Faivre
Antoine Faivre (5 June 1934 – 19 December 2021) was a French scholar of Western esotericism. Until his retirement, he held a chair in the École Pratique des Hautes Études at the Sorbonne, University Professor of Germanic studies at the Univer ...
noted that rather than outright accepting "the triumph of scientism", occultists sought "an alternative solution", trying to integrate "scientific progress or modernity" with "a global vision that will serve to make the vacuousness of materialism more apparent". The Dutch scholar of hermeticism
Wouter Hanegraaff
Wouter Jacobus Hanegraaff (born 10 April 1961) is full professor of History of Hermetic Philosophy and related currents at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He served as the first president of the European Society for the Study of W ...
remarked that occultism was "essentially an attempt to adapt esotericism" to the "
disenchanted world", a post-Enlightenment society in which growing scientific discovery had eradicated the "dimension of irreducible mystery" previously present. In doing so, he noted, occultism distanced itself from the "traditional esotericism" which accepted the premise of an "enchanted" world. According to the British historian of Western esotericism
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke (15 January 195329 August 2012) was a British historian and professor of Western esotericism at the University of Exeter, best known for his authorship of several scholarly books on the history of Germany between the W ...
, occultist groups typically seek "proofs and demonstrations by recourse to scientific tests or terminology".
In his work about Lévi, the German historian of religion Julian Strube has argued that the occultist wish for a "synthesis" of religion, science, and philosophy directly resulted from the context of
contemporary socialism and
progressive Catholicism. Similar to spiritualism, but in declared opposition to it, the emergence of occultism should thus be seen within the context of radical social reform, which was often concerned with establishing new forms of "scientific religion" while at the same time propagating the revival of an ancient tradition of "true religion". Indeed, the emergence of both modern esotericism and socialism in
July Monarchy
The July Monarchy (french: Monarchie de Juillet), officially the Kingdom of France (french: Royaume de France), was a liberal constitutional monarchy in France under , starting on 26 July 1830, with the July Revolution of 1830, and ending 23 F ...
France have been inherently intertwined.
Another feature of occultists is thatunlike earlier esotericiststhey often openly distanced themselves from Christianity, in some cases (like that of Crowley) even adopting explicitly
anti-Christian
Anti-Christian sentiment or Christophobia constitutes opposition or objections to Christians, the Christian religion, and/or its practices. Anti-Christian sentiment is sometimes referred to as Christophobia or Christianophobia, although these terms ...
stances. This reflected how pervasive the influence of
secularisation
In sociology, secularization (or secularisation) is the transformation of a society from close identification with religious values and institutions toward non-religious values and secular institutions. The ''secularization thesis'' expresses the ...
had been on all areas of European society. In rejecting Christianity, these occultists sometimes turned towards pre-Christian belief systems and embraced forms of
Modern Paganism
Modern paganism, also known as contemporary paganism and neopaganism, is a term for a religion or family of religions influenced by the various historical pre-Christian beliefs of pre-modern peoples in Europe and adjacent areas of North Afric ...
, while others instead took influence from the religions of Asia, such as
Hinduism
Hinduism () is an Indian religion or '' dharma'', a religious and universal order or way of life by which followers abide. As a religion, it is the world's third-largest, with over 1.2–1.35 billion followers, or 15–16% of the global p ...
and
Buddhism
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...
. In various cases, certain occultists did both. Another characteristic of these occultists was the emphasis that they placed on "the spiritual realization of the individual", an idea that would strongly influence the twentieth-century New Age and
Human Potential Movement
The Human Potential Movement (HPM) arose out of the counterculture of the 1960s and formed around the concept of an extraordinary potential that its advocates believed to lie largely untapped in all people. The movement takes as its premise the be ...
. This spiritual realization was encouraged both through traditional Western 'occult sciences' like alchemy and
ceremonial magic
Ceremonial magic (ritual magic, high magic or learned magic) encompasses a wide variety of rituals of magic. The works included are characterized by ceremony and numerous requisite accessories to aid the practitioner. It can be seen as an ex ...
, but by the start of the twentieth century had also begun to include practices drawn from non-Western contexts, such as
yoga
Yoga (; sa, योग, lit=yoke' or 'union ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines which originated in ancient India and aim to control (yoke) and still the mind, recognizing a detached witness-consciou ...
.
Although occultism is distinguished from earlier forms of esotericism, many occultists have also been involved in older esoteric currents. For instance, occultists like
François-Charles Barlet and
Rudolf Steiner
Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner (27 or 25 February 1861 – 30 March 1925) was an Austrian occultist, social reformer, architect, esotericist, and claimed clairvoyant. Steiner gained initial recognition at the end of the nineteenth century as a ...
were also
theosophers, adhering to the ideas of the early modern Christian thinker
Jakob Bohme
Jakob may refer to:
People
* Jakob (given name), including a list of people with the name
* Jakob (surname), including a list of people with the name
Other
* Jakob (band), a New Zealand band, and the title of their 1999 EP
* Max Jakob Memorial A ...
, and seeking to integrate ideas from Bohmian theosophy and occultism. It has been noted, however, that this distancing from the Theosophical Society should be understood in the light of polemical identity formations amongst esotericists towards the end of the nineteenth century.
Etic uses of the term
![Wouter Hanegraaff 2006 Alchemy Conference](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/Wouter_Hanegraaff_2006_Alchemy_Conference.jpg)
In the mid-1990s, a new definition of "occultism" was put forth by Wouter Hanegraaff. According to Hanegraaff, the term ''occultism'' can be used not only for the nineteenth-century groups which openly self-described using that term but can also be used in reference to "the ''type'' of esotericism that they represent".
Seeking to define occultism so that the term would be suitable "as an
etic category" for scholars, Hanegraaff devised the following definition: "a category in the study of religions, which comprises "all attempts by esotericists to come to terms with a disenchanted world or, alternatively, by people in general to make sense of esotericism from the perspective of a disenchanted secular world". Hanegraaff noted that this etic usage of the term would be independent of
emic
In anthropology, folkloristics, and the social and behavioral sciences, emic () and etic () refer to two kinds of field research done and viewpoints obtained.
The "emic" approach is an insider's perspective, which looks at the beliefs, values, ...
usages of the term employed by occultists and other esotericists themselves.
In this definition, occultism covers many esoteric currents that have developed from the mid-nineteenth century onward, including Spiritualism, Theosophy, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and the New Age. Employing this etic understanding of "occultism", Hanegraaff argued that its development could begin to be seen in the work of the Swedish esotericist
Emanuel Swedenborg
Emanuel Swedenborg (, ; born Emanuel Swedberg; 29 March 1772) was a Swedish pluralistic-Christian theologian, scientist, philosopher and mystic. He became best known for his book on the afterlife, ''Heaven and Hell'' (1758).
Swedenborg had ...
and in the
Mesmerist
Animal magnetism, also known as mesmerism, was a Protoscience#Prescientific protoscience, protoscientific theory developed by German doctor Franz Mesmer in the 18th century in relation to what he claimed to be an invisible natural force (''Le ...
movement of the eighteenth century, although added that occultism only emerged in "fully-developed form" as Spiritualism, a movement that developed in the United States during the mid-nineteenth century.
Marco Pasi suggested that the use of Hanegraaff's definition might cause confusion by presenting a group of nineteenth-century esotericists who called themselves "occultists" as just one part of a broader category of esotericists whom scholars would call "occultists".
Following these discussions, Julian Strube argued that Lévi and other contemporary authors who would now be regarded as esotericists developed their ideas not against the background of an esoteric tradition in the first place. Rather, Lévi's notion of occultism emerged in the context of highly influential radical socialist movements and widespread progressive, so-called neo-Catholic ideas. This further complicates Hanegraaff's characteristics of occultism, since, throughout the nineteenth century, they apply to these reformist movements rather than to a supposed group of esotericists.
Modern usage
The term ''occult'' has also been used as a substantivized adjective as "the occult", a term that has been particularly widely used among journalists and
sociologists
This is a list of sociologists. It is intended to cover those who have made substantive contributions to social theory and research, including any sociological subfield. Scientists in other fields and philosophers are not included, unless at least ...
. This term was popularised by the publication of
Colin Wilson
Colin Henry Wilson (26 June 1931 – 5 December 2013) was an English writer, philosopher and novelist. He also wrote widely on true crime, mysticism and the paranormal, eventually writing more than a hundred books. Wilson called his phil ...
's 1971 book ''
The Occult
The occult, in the broadest sense, is a category of esoteric supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving otherworldly agency, such as magic and mysticism a ...
''. This term has been used as an "intellectual waste-basket" into which a wide array of beliefs and practices have been placed because they do not fit readily into the categories of religion or science. According to Hanegraaff, "the occult" is a category into which gets placed a range of beliefs from "spirits or fairies to parapsychological experiments, from UFO-abductions to Oriental mysticism, from vampire legends to channelling, and so on".
Occulture
The neologism ''occulture'' used within the
industrial music
Industrial music is a genre of music that draws on harsh, mechanical, transgressive or provocative sounds and themes. AllMusic defines industrial music as the "most abrasive and aggressive fusion of rock and electronic music" that was "initiall ...
scene of the late twentieth century was probably coined by one of its central figures, the musician and occultist
Genesis P-Orridge
Genesis Breyer P-Orridge (born Neil Andrew Megson; 22 February 1950 – 14 March 2020) was a singer-songwriter, musician, poet, performance artist, visual artist, and occultist who rose to notoriety as the founder of the COUM Transmissions arti ...
. The scholar of religion Christopher Partridge used the term in an academic sense, stating that occulture was "the new spiritual environment in the West; the reservoir feeding new spiritual springs; the soil in which new spiritualities are growing".
Occultism and technology
Recently scholars have offered perspectives on the occult as intertwined with media and technology. Examples include the work of film and media theorist
Jeffrey Sconce Jeffrey Sconce is a professor and cultural historian of media and film. He is a professor in the Screen Cultures program at Northwestern University.
Early life and education
Sconce has a B.A., B.S., and M.A. from the University of Texas, Austin, a ...
and religious studies scholar
John Durham Peters John Durham Peters (born 1958) is the María Rosa Menocal Professor of English and of Film & Media Studies at Yale University. A media historian and social theorist, he has authored a number of noted scholarly works. His first book, '' Speaking int ...
, both of whom suggest that occult movements historically utilize media and apparati as tools to reveal hidden aspects of reality or laws of nature.
Erik Davis
Erik Davis (born June 12, 1967) is an American writer, scholar, journalist and public speaker whose writings have ranged from rock criticism to cultural analysis to creative explorations of esoteric mysticism. He is perhaps best known for his b ...
in his book ''Techgnosis'' gives an overview of occultism both ancient and modern from the perspective of cybernetics and information technologies. Philosopher
Eugene Thacker
Eugene Thacker is an American philosopher, poet, and author. He is Professor of Media Studies at The New School in New York City. His writing is often associated with the philosophy of nihilism and pessimism. Thacker's books include ''In the Dus ...
discusses Agrippa's 'occult philosophy' in his book ''In The Dust Of This Planet'', where he shows how the horror genre utilizes occult themes to reveal hidden realities.
See also
*
List of occult symbols
The following is a list of symbols associated with the occult. This list shares a number of entries with the list of alchemical symbols as well as the list of sigils of demons.
__TOC__
List
See also
* Iconography
*Planet symbols
A planet s ...
*
List of occult terms
The occult is a category of supernatural beliefs and practices, encompassing such phenomena as those involving mysticism, spirituality, and magic in terms of any otherworldly agency. It can also refer to other non-religious supernatural ideas like ...
*
List of occult writers
__NOTOC__
This is a list of notable occult
The occult, in the broadest sense, is a category of esoteric supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving otherwo ...
*
List of occultists
This list comprises and encompasses people, both contemporary and historical, who are or were professionally or otherwise notably involved in occult practices. People who were or are merely believers of occult practices should not be included unl ...
References
Notes
Citations
Works cited
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Further reading
*
*
*
*
External links
University of Exeter Centre for the Study of Esotericism (EXESESO)ESSWEEuropean Society for the Study of Western Esotericism, with many links to associated organizations, libraries, scholars etc.
* Joseph H. Peterson
Twilit Grotto: Archives of Western Esoterica(Esoteric Archives: Occult Literature)
''Occult Science and Philosophy of the Renaissance'''.'' Online exhibition from the Louisiana State University Libraries Special Collections.
{{Authority control
Western esotericism