The Occult Is Not A Cult

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I have been interested in the “occult” all my life, and have experienced up close and personal the fear that just the mention of the word “occult” provokes in many people. It is a hot button that will instantly repel some people away from you. Once, during one memorable conversation with a friend I drew a Tarot card for clarity, and she jumped up from her seat because “that stuff is the Devil’s hand!” Now there was a moment of real clarity, having everything to do with our then-doomed friendship and nothing to do with the question at hand.

At times people have speculated that I was a witch, a Satanist, or just a misguided miscreant from a weird Seventies cult. It was always funny, because I am a Christian with Jesus Christ as my spiritual mentor. I really don’t get why I can’t explore the mysteries set forth before us - by our very own Creator, I might add - without having to wear the black armband of exclusion and disdain. 

So just what is this “occult” thing all about, and why does it engender such feelings of blind, irrational fear and loathing? When people hear the word “occult” they instantly flash on glowing green demons with spikes in their heads or images of Linda Blair growling and spewing vomit across the screen in “The Exorcist.” What gives?

In my mind, “occult” is basically the study of natural and energetic forces pervading nature that may be observed or harnessed in order to effect change. Alchemy is a process that seeks to transform base metals into gold. Transformation is an essential function of all living things; we could not survive without the millions of energetic transformations taking place in our body cells every second of every day. Astrology is the study of the heavenly bodies which all resonate to their own particular energies. Magic is the application of natural principles to evoke a desired change. Simply put, “occult” deals with the natural sciences and how to work with them or use them, hopefully only for the good. But it’s still a misnomer – why call it “hidden” when nature is everywhere around us in plain sight?

A few dictionary definitions of “occult” will go a long way here.

Merriam-Webster states that “the meaning of occult is to shut off from view or exposure.” There’s your money word – to shut off. This implies involvement of an outside agent, so who’s doing the shutting off? We may be on to something here.

A regular online dictionary states that occult is “of or relating to magic, astrology, or any system claiming use or knowledge of secret or supernatural powers or agencies.”

Wow. They left a few dozen practices out, but made their lopsided point anyway. I never knew that magic, or my practice, astrology, made any such claims of secret or supernatural powers. I can’t fly through the air, much less even levitate, and my private candlelight rituals of praying over lottery tickets have yet to yield any success. And were I to truly possess supernatural powers the world might be a better place to live in than it is right now. 

Astrology, if anything, reveals the truth of a situation, and will even tell you when secrets are being kept, so I don’t get it. Finally, I love the word “agencies” in this definition. I’m getting warmer and warmer.

Now we hit the big time with Wikipedia: occult is “a category of esoteric supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of organized religion.”

Bam! Here organized religion, of all things, is being used as a baseline for defining the scope of what constitutes the occult and its practices. Heaven help us! But that’s where all the trouble started. “Agencies” here and “organized religion” are the operative words.

I am aware that in medieval times the Catholic Church was on a rampage to eradicate all that they did not profess to be the word of God (which was, in many cases, the word of God as misrepresented by some power crazed authorities). The Crusades, bloody wars, Inquisitions and the like followed, but let’s just cut to the chase. Roger Bacon, a monk and philosopher of the Thirteenth Century, summed it all up better than I ever could.

Bacon was known for writing his treatise “The Mirror of Alchemy” about changing metals into gold, and he also claimed to have developed an elixir that would extend life. Kind of sounds like the Spanish quest for the fountain of youth that followed a few centuries later, but I digress.

Bacon was well aware of that nasty one percent that like to shut down the flow of knowledge, hogging all the goodies to themselves. In 1252 he wrote “De Secretis Operibus Artis et Naturae, et de Nullitate Magiae” where he explains how the occult got “shut” away by special “agencies.” Bear in mind that he was also a gifted cryptologist, which is how the one percent kept all their secrets intact. 

Bacon was a man in the know. He said:

“The man is insane who writes a secret in any other way than one which will conceal it from the vulgar and make it intelligible only with difficulty even to scientific men and earnest students. On this point the entire body of scientific men have been agreed from the outset, and by many methods have concealed from the vulgar all secrets of science.”

And there we have it. The legacy of what was simply the study of life forces and energy – magic, astrology, alchemy, and other practices rooted in the natural sciences - was sequestered and hoarded among those agreed upon from the outset – those in the club. They kept these practices to themselves, “occulting” or shutting them off from the general public, for centuries. And they took it one step farther. Occult was now a bad thing, a heretical practice, and it earned you a trip to the stake or the gallows, all the while being used in earnest – and in secret, of course - by the very people who were so publicly condemning it. The Crusades, bloody wars, Inquisitions and countless other generational witch hunts resulted from this greedy and destructive psyop. 

We need only recall my Tarot-traumatized friend or the people who called me a cult witch to realize just how insidious and deep this negative “occult” programming still runs to this day. No matter. As a confirmed member of the “vulgar” class, I still work with my Tarot cards and astrology, which are anything but shut away from my consciousness, and I intend to spread the word far and wide about how useful and beneficial they are. After all, they are the offspring of nature, the gifts of divine intelligence. Until a few evil agencies came along, they were always supposed to be shared for the benefit of everyone. Too bad, guys, your game is getting stale. As for us vulgars, let’s keep sharing our knowledge of the “occult” and let’s keep tossing those cards of clarity.

BD Salerno

11-11-23