Occultism
 Occultism    | |
|---|---|
| Interest of | • Michael A. Aquino • Altiyan Childs • Aleister Crowley • William H. Kennedy • Zachary King • Anton LaVey • David Livingstone (author) • William Ramsey • Fritz Springmeier • Styxhexenhammer666 • John Todd • Vigilantcitizen |
| Believe in hidden forces that can be put to use for personal gain | |
Occultism, 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 personal benefit or on behalf of another; 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.
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.[1]
An example
| Page name | Description |
|---|---|
| Aleister Crowley | Well known British occultist with wide reaching, but little known about cultural influence. |
Related Documents
| Title | Type | Publication date | Author(s) | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aleister Crowley and Adolf Hitler - The Ideology of Evil | Article | 21 December 2010 | William Ramsey | |
| Document:The British Occult Secret Service | article | April 2008 | Michael Howard (Occultist) | On the occult connections and practices of the British Secret Intelligence Services from their origins in Medieval England through to the present day. |
| The Man Who Conjured Hitler | Article | June 2013 | Mehmet Sabeheddin |
