Je n'aime pas le soleil

      I mostly live in the shadows. Sometimes I have to force myself there, especially on the days I feel like the sun. Those days are difficult, because everyone else seems eclipsed by my manic light, which creates others’s shadows, too. I’m not sure what this means. There’re only a handful of days over the course of my life where I was the sun, so it’s not like I have control, or I can will my light in and out of existence. I can’t predict when it happens, but I can feel it; it’s like being haunted. I try not to interact with anyone when I’m sun-like, because everyone involved gets burned. Dumb and gross cliche. But, when I’m gleaming the world burns. Or it could burn. And I burn along with it. Je n'aime pas le soleil.

A Decade Old Text I Sent My Step-Father a Few Months Before He Died.

I remember a time when the three of us moved to Belmont as a family unit for the first time. Mom and I had relocated from Irving Street in Watertown and you from Beech Street. We moved to that green tri-level duplex on Waverley Avenue right down the road from your Beech Street address. I think it was 1991, which means I would’ve been around eleven years old, almost twelve. 

Twenty-four years ago the three of us lived right next door to a kid named Brendan who I ended up hanging around with for awhile. We weren’t great friends, but we did get into trouble together from time to time. For example, do you remember the toilet paper wars Brendan and I used to have between the two houses? I can recall some of the details: I’d get home after school, drop my book-bag on the ground, and begin the ascent to the third story, the musty attic-turned-bedroom that I called mine. Remember that house? The place I poked holes in the exposed shingles from the inside because I wanted to see out and get some fresh air? Holes you filled with tar from the inside and told me that they’d probably leak because shingles shouldn’t have holes poked in them? Well you were right, they did leak, so you probably had to fix that, too. 

I remember this house fondly; it had the fire-escape in the back that went to the second level guest-room. I always remember sort of coming and going as I pleased, even when mom tried to set rules and curfews, and this applied to every place that we lived, and to be honest I didn’t do it with any purpose other than the fact that I wanted to. 

At any rate, after coming home from school and settling, I’d hear the familiar thud sound that wet toilet paper makes as it hits aluminum siding. I’m not sure who initially started the whole war between us, but I can remember retaliating against Brendan’s house many times. I’d stick my head out of my third-story window to see if I could catch Brendan. He was no doubt waiting for me to run out of the front door and inspect the impact zone so he could watch with satisfaction, a lesson I learned after a few of our initial skirmishes. I couldn’t see Brendan’s entire house from the third-story window because the window faced the back of the house, the side with the fire-escape. Regardless of whether I’d catch Brendan or not, (sometimes other kids were involved on either side) I’d head to the bathroom for ammunition. Actually, I remember that there were concerns about the quality of the ammo seeing that TP is a bathroom product used for the removal of human waste. I remember the primary concern was if the TP had been used prior to employment, the creation of a biological weapon of sorts. I can attest, at least from my camp, that the TP was pure and unsullied. So, I’d grab a huge handful of “ammo,” run it under the sink for a second, which was just enough time to thoroughly saturate the wad, and then I’d run downstairs with water dripping down my elbows, kick open the door, and fire the soaked wad at Brendan’s house. Splat! 

Brendan’s house had wood siding, so the sound of wet and wadded toilet paper on wood was much different than the metallic-thud our aluminum siding made. On an interesting side note, my attic-room had a secret compartment in the floor. I noticed it once when I stumbled on a loose floorboard. I used to stash all kinds of stuff in there, adult magazines and cigarettes mostly, both items of which I hadn’t any idea how to use properly, (if such a skill even exists). 

Back to the story: On a day during one of our wars Brendan lured me out of the house. He darted past me when I made it outside and he locked himself in our entranceway. I got pretty angry. I yelled and yelled at him to open the door, and when he didn’t I simply broke the window and unlocked it myself, (only after which did Brendan say that he was just messing around. Well, so was I). But here’s the important part of the story: I learned that the concept of responsibility included a whole slew of associations that were previously unforeseen on my part, especially when I was told that it was my responsibility to replace the window. 

You took me to a local glassworks facility, a place you found by reviewing the Yellow Pages, and there we, or I rather, purchased a piece of glass. I’d never been to a glass-handling facility before, even though I’d certainly had my share of rapidly disassembling lots of glass things. You and I stood at a counter and told a middle-aged man briefly what I’d done. After a light admonishment from the gentleman, we told him what measurements we needed the new piece of glass to equal and he said ok. I remember being pleasantly surprised by how inexpensive our piece of glass turned out to be. Seeing that my being responsible entails my financial responsibility too, I had to dip into my allowance to pay for my playing the hopeless (and hapless) locksmith. But the price wasn’t a thing at all because I knew in my heart that I had to pay for what I had broken. 

I think the glass ended up costing a little more than two dollars, which was great because my allowance had left me with a crisp new five dollar bill in my wallet. So I paid, and then the clerk disappeared. The cool part was watching the clerk cut our piece of glass to size. I had never seen glass being cut before. I didn’t even know it was possible until I saw it for my own eyes. So, when I watched the clerk reappear with a small piece of glass, which was larger than we needed, take a soaked rag from a bucket, and squeeze the rag over the glass I was pretty intrigued. As the clerk wiped the glass down he grabbed a spray bottle and gave the glass a quick spritz with some concoction unknown to me. I was hooked. I was waiting for some crazy glass cutting contraption to manifest itself before us, but instead I watched as the clerk then took a small tool from his workbench and scarred the spritzed glass. After that the man picked up the glass and folded it like cardboard. At this point I was amazed. The cut looked clean and smooth to me. He then walked over to another area and quickly polished the cut edge with some belt-driven, bench-mounted mechanism. I don't remember what it was, but the machine was very noisy. The clerk then wiped down the newly-sized glass, inspected the edge, nodded in approval, and gave the piece to me. 

Now, a lot of the memory has faded from time, but that few minutes is still pretty clear to me. I’ll never forget how cool it was to watch the clerk cut that piece of glass for us. It’s funny what bits of time-space we deem significant enough to store in our brains. To me that was one of them. And there are countless others. 

When you and I got home we broke the new piece of glass within minutes. I don’t think you were upset when this happened. In fact, I feel as if you had almost anticipated the new glass breaking as a potential thing, so within those same few minutes without any hesitation or complaint we were off to the glass place, again. This time I expected the cost, but since you broke the new glass attempting to install it, I did not anticipate that I was to eat the cost of the second pane, too. I don’t remember exactly what you said, but I remember you explaining to me that though you had broken the new piece the whole thing was ultimately still my responsibility. I probably didn’t agree with you at the time, but I also probably got over that feeling pretty quickly because I knew it was the truth.

I don’t remember which car we took to the glass place. It could’ve been your brown van. On several occasions you’d take mom and me out in that beast. I loved that thing. I remember the light-brown carpet and those comfortable reclining seats in the back, the table with holes for beverages, and James Taylor singing to us as we’d head out somewhere, maybe to the ocean or maybe to the mountains for some R & R. It didn't matter. I’d stretch out in the back as wind spiraled through the front windows and brought with it a peacefulness that as I look back now seems euphoric. I've been thinking about the past decades recently. In fact, this is how I've been going to sleep at night: reminiscing and remembering and trying to recall as much of the sense information from the past as I can, the sights, the sounds, the smells, the textures, etc.  And, merrily merrily we row our boat, gently down the stream.

Echolalia

 (Echolalia). 

I don’t remember writing most of these blogs. They’re likely the byproduct of manic episodes. I sure do miss those. Life moved a million miles per second. Now it remains stagnant, though I now age like lightning. Alas. 

I do recall that I often had fantasies about being someone important one day. Maybe I’d attempt to publish some poetry and become a great poet. Do they even make those anymore? Like legitimate poets? I’m sure they do, but they are not me. Or, maybe I’d be an extravagant essayist and catch the eye of some publishing house. Alas, I’d have to write, and this funk I reside in currently remains a bog, and I've grown into a shitsack who no longer cares enough to masturbate in that particular way. Besides, Ai is on the verge of rendering this practice obsolete. 

Sometimes I still dream of being a renown musician. Tried it. Ended it. Still don’t know what happened, but it was my fault it ended abruptly, because I didn’t feel I was good enough. Never did. Damned superego. So it went with my marriage. 

The question I tend to reflect upon is: good enough for whom? The answer I tend to burp out: Who knows? What I do know is I’ve wasted a lot of my life visualizing some ideal set of circumstances for myself, and I still do. This is not how one ought to live, in the moment, in the grand scheme of things. This is precisely not how to be present. The irony: I’ll forget writing these words, too. 

Nonetheless, I’ve spent too much time observing people I love as they try to be what others want or expect them to be, which is problematic in that whole formulation, and though I’m learning to alienate myself on levels I’ve not accomplished before, I cannot help but to observe how I observe. This is intentionality. 

More than that, it’s extremely hypocritical to even think this way, that is, making unsubstantiated judgments about a variety of my observations, seeing as I’m presently fantasizing the current words I’m smacking into my phone to mean anything or that they even matter in the slightest at all. And, I’m back to the beginning. 

In the beginning was the word. Do we need the word to understand the beginning, or to merely describe it? Alas, this is my poem, and it came to me like lightning. 

 

Therapist: “Why are you lonely?”

Patient: “Well, my grandfather died a year ago, and I miss him.”

Therapist: “Ok. So, you are experiencing loneliness associated with grief. This is a normal thing.”

Patient: “I know, I’m just not sure what I can do about it other than wait it out, and it’s affecting my life in negative ways.”

Therapist: “There are many things you can do. You can reflect on the moments you spent with your grandfather and be thankful for those moments. You can do something to honor your grandfather, something you feel would make him smile, be proud of, which should open, if you think about it, a whole world of possibilities to you. Grief is an ontological modifier, meaning it never goes away, it modifies who you are moving forward, though the feelings of sadness and loneliness will come and go in frequency and potency, which, of course, differ in every case and with every individual, your particular road to recovery is and will remain unique.”

Patient: “Ok. That makes sense.”

Therapist: “When you encounter these feelings from now on, I want you to remember what I’ve said, and I want you to also remember this: the “re” in recovery means repetition. So, recovery literally means something like repeating or the repetition of covering. Recovery requires—and will continue to require—covering over these instances of sadness and loneliness over, and over again. You’ll have to do this for the rest of your life. Your being has been modified by your loss, and your recovery entails encountering that modification every day.”

Patient: “Sounds sort of like Sisyphus.”

Therapist: “Indeed. And there are both healthy ways and unhealthy ways to do this thing called recovery. It’s up to you to choose what you habituate, and how you care for yourself. This is therapy. You are the therapist.”

 

Occultism Not So Occulted

            I was bored during the pandemic, so I became intimate with the World Wide Web and the occult. What follows is what I came up with. it might be good or bad, but that's not really what I was after when writing this; I was bored, and this web-wandering was interesting to me, at least at the time.    When one reads or hears the word occult one usually connects the term with magic and its hidden practices. Occultism, generally defined, involves a variety of “theories and practices inspired by the knowledge and or use of supernatural forces or beings.”[1] Until fairly recently, occultism was not usually a common talking point in checkout lines at the grocery store, nor was it discussed with much frequency or seriousness in quotidian conversations among friends. Only when some perceived controversy concerning the magical developed in popular culture was occultism investigated by the masses, though perhaps investigate is too strong a word for the vast majority. However, organized religion took and takes such conversations and investigations quite seriously, and it has for millennia, especially those steeped heavily in Christian Fundamentalism. The occult conversation, however, seems to be making its way into contemporary mediums and digital domains, i.e., the grocery checkout line being replaced by social media sites, blogposts, and virtual forums. The reason for such a transition, simply put, pertains to the initiate’s anonymity in a newly established landscape of virtual reality, a quality much appreciated by the surreptitious occultist.

In his book, Lucifer Ascending: The Occult in Folklore and Popular Culture, Bill Ellis begins with the storm triggered by J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series and the intense reactions within some Christian communities as a result. Of course, the Harry Potter series is a work of fiction, a work of which the general public would only see or hear of any mote of controversy as the media began to talk about it. The main concern of the Harry Potter series, according to the Christian Fundamentalists, pointed directly at the occult practices being made accessible to “millions of young people [who] are being taught to think, speak, dress, and act like witches by filling their heads with the contents of these books.”[2] Such an argument is nothing new. We can recall Socrates in Plato’s Republic arguing similarly regarding why certain popular myths were unsuitable, especially for the youth. Nonetheless, the Christians’ concern was not that Rowling’s work was popular, but rather what the work seemed to be popularizing: the occult, its practices, and the ease of access to its magic.

Much has changed since 1997 when Rowling published her first book in the Harry Potter series. Indeed, much has changed since Bill Ellis published Lucifer Ascending in 2004. The most remarkable change in popular culture, and perhaps culture per se, pertains to the explosion of the internet and the ease of access one has to an absurd amount of information. A cursory search for the occult on one of the internet’s most popular sites, YouTube, reveals hours upon hours of (seemingly) non-fiction content. From occult supply shops, to the how-tos, and the who’s who of occultism, the sheer amount of information about “hidden” things is staggering. In other words, popular culture is now digitally inundated with all things occult, and whereas Rowling’s Harry Potter never claimed to be true, it is quite the opposite for occultism’s most recent online practitioners.

The aim of my paper will be directed towards the landscape of these newest virtual occultists. Since occultism is a vast landscape itself, my paper will focus mainly on the practice of magic, the no-longer-secret societies, symbology, and their digital entanglement within the World Wide Web of information. What was once fairly difficult to gain access to, which is to say the occult, in its many iterations and forms, appears no longer to be quite so hidden, but instead appears ubiquitously and in plain sight.

 

Toward a New Wave of Digital Occultism

At the turn of the nineteenth century, traditional occult narratives changed drastically with the explosion of industrial capitalism. In his book, Modern Occult Rhetoric, Joshua Gunn traces this trend of “metamorphosing into a phenomenon of mass culture,” back to Francis Barret’s 1801 publication The Magus, or Celestial Intelligencer; Being a Complete System of Occult Philosophy. [3] Gunn argues the importance of Barret’s system by stating three specific reasons, the first of which was Barret’s focused attention to “good and bad species of magic,” a distinction spanning back to the Roman Empire.[4] Gunn’s second reason ties into his first, namely, that Barrett’s dedication of a large portion of his work primarily to black magic might have been a deliberate attempt to sensationalize, and thus popularize what was previously mostly occulted:

The Magus contains a section on what to do in case one “accidentally” conjures an evil or familiar spirit. Moreover, the tome contained four pages of color illustrations of principal “Evil Damons,” from “fallen angels” to the “Spirit of Antichrist,” so that in the case of unexpected evocation, the magus could know exactly whom he or she was dealing with![5]

The third and final reason, according to Gunn’s argument, ties into both the first and second, as Barrett’s book strongly influenced a passionate and fervent reader, specifically Eliphas Levi, who would bring magic out of the shadows and into the view of the masses by the middle of the nineteenth century, and Levi would do so with a similar sensational characteristic noted above.[6] If there is one place where the vulnerable and gullible are at the most risk of losing their grasp on conventional constructions of reality, then it must be the mania triggered by sensationalistic methodologies. Sensationalism, after all, can sell just about anything.

The importance of the three aforementioned reasons pertains to a dramatically shifting occult discourse, relocating it from the pursuit of hidden (and forbidden) knowledge into a pursuit of profit and entertainment value.[7] The occult provider as entertainer thus becomes an important theme in the transition into modern (and post-modern) culture, as the main concern trends towards the profitability rather than the practice of the occult. Of course, this is not to say that seeking profitability renders profit-seeking practitioners as inauthentic, though one might as well consider at least a percentage as such, and likely a percentage similar to the previous age’s charlatan in search of a quick buck. Alas, this part of humanity has not changed in the slightest. In fact, one could argue charlatanism has increased exponentially since the birth of the internet. Nonetheless, the importance of understanding the move towards profitability should shed at least some light upon the explosion of occultism in the digital domain(s) which saturate the internet. Consider Gunn’s interpretation of Anton LaVey and the founding of his Satanic Church in 1966, an event which nourishes the provider-as-profiteer sentiment iterated in the aforementioned paragraphs:

Satanism represents the “fetishization” of the occult into a commodity, or the rendering of occultism into a transactable form. That Satanism transforms the occult into an imagistic, social form marks its rhetoric as the last of final expression of a logic that began with the popular representations of occultism of the mid-ninteenth century: as the occult became increasingly visible in the mass media, its meaning as the elite study of secrets receded behind the aesthetic value of its imagery.”[8]

If LaVey and his Church of Satan were responsible for anything, then it was the introduction of Satanism to the masses. LaVey and his church accomplished this by staging “ironic publicity stunts” which were designed to draw attention to the once highly forbidden dark art. Simultaneously, such a public visibility of Satanism was seen as an effort to intentionally infuriate the earlier dominant principles inherent in Fundamental Christianity. Virtual Occultism, in my view, follows the same line of reasoning. Occultism as popularized a profitable spectacle, i.e., as a commodity, then, might explain the expansion of virtual occult gurus and their platforms, since pay-per-click advertisements, page views, and browser searches all generate mammoth amounts of income for both virtual charlatan and non-charlatan, alike. It seems to me, however, that some other force is at play; either something sinister, or something arising out of a predictable consequence of ignorance.

For those in search of occult knowledge on the internet a guru is merely a few quick keystrokes and mouse-clicks away. The newly self-guided initiate might not care whether the guru derives income from his or her platform of choice. Moreover, the new initiate perhaps even considers the guru’s wealth as a proof of his or her success and, finally, views such success as a proof of authentic occult practitioner. The new initiate might view ease-of-accessibility as also a sign of sorts, which is to say, as yet another form of evidence toward authenticity. The number of biases required for such a logic becomes obvious the longer one meditates on the complicated relationship between practitioner and client.

In my uninitiated view, one cannot fully fault the practitioner-as-profit-seeker for the multitude of occult-based websites, even if said practitioner is inherently inauthentic. The newly, self-appointed initiate is equally to blame for the demand of virtual occultism and its digitally supplied content. From online Tarot readings, to numerology, to astrology, to exorcisms, to name just a few examples, virtual divination organizations have drastically broadened their territory, thus narrowing the divide between practitioner-provider and initiate-client. The “supply-side” belongs to the occult-practice provider and his or her commodities, and the “client-side”, by comparison, belongs to the seeking self-initiate.[9] The client’s relationship to the provider is dubious initially, but the client sets the pace for the relationship’s development both in intensity and in its perpetuation. After all, as the platitude goes: it takes two to tango. However, something deeper lurks beneath the surface of this virtual relationship, something which seems to be, in my limited view, very existential.

In the very concept of an online social network resides the notion of decentralized connections made across a vast digital landscape by a multitude of individuals, each of which tend to share a common interest or interests. Inherent in these connections resides the desire for community. In other words, the internet, doing what it was designed to do, brings together ideas and people in a communal manner. On the surface, a desire for the communal seems quite benign. However, if one were to scrutinize this communal aspect, then one might consider it as virtual entanglement of previously unacquainted parties. The obvious consequences of such entanglement, which is to say, an expansion and broadening, is the simultaneous increase in accessibility, i.e., the ability for a viable connection between groups otherwise disconnected; between the practitioner-provider and the initiate-client:

“In the posh community of Scottsdale, Arizona, Bob Larson sits in a basement office, staring intently into his computer screen. A young man stares back, his image blurred a bit by the screen…. The young man, David, is in Norway and, according to Larson, is possessed by multiple demons…Larson raises his finger and traces the sign of the cross in front of the screen. “I’m going to reach out, across the miles, and anoint you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit”[10]

No longer must the client desperately await spiritual remediation in the virtual world. Indeed, a cure is but a few mouse-clicks away. All one has to do is merely add the existential panacea to his or her shopping-cart, validate payment, and check out.

Not only did the transition into the digital age usher in a new way of gathering occultism proselytes, “it also dramatically altered the overall social organization of Paganism,” thus hearkening towards a sentiment where such online activity evolves into an actualized virtual reality, blurring the lines between conversion, identity construction, and worldview.[11] Simply put, the digital wave of occult related websites, ease of accessibility, connection, and demand for such groups, seems to demonstrate new wave occultism as an innovative form of virtual mysticism, and one replete with its own, concomitant religion-like devotees. The evidence reveals a movement towards a more solitary initiation rite; one not confined to the sphere of secret societies and lodges, but one consigned to engaging with occultism from the comfort of a computer chair.

The interest of the newly, self-initiated occultist finds its momentum in messaging other occultists or participating in online research, thus revealing a move away from traditional occult structures and gatherings, and a move toward increasingly more individualized forms of practice.[12] According to Joshua Gunn, “[t]he decentering of speech and text in our society of surveillance and publicity heralds the death of the Great Magus as much as it does the Great Orator,” the deaths of which “are one and the same, representing a transformation from the age of modern occultism to the postmodern occultic.”[13]

While some researchers parse out the entertainment value of occult related activities, and while others argue the profitability aspect as crucial, still other researchers readily suggest economic reasons as equally relevant to the digital occultism conversation. As political debates revolve around border security, population explosion, declining job markets, wage gaps, access to education, and the like, the economic qualities of digital occultism seem to coincide with a crisis-like fervency:  

“To the degree that Western societies are failing to provide a secure labor market, job descriptions such as that of the angel adviser have emerged out of the individual searchings and strivings of their members. Not even guardian angels or gods know where globalization, the structural ruptures of Western society or digitality will lead us…. The need for reincarnation may be a signal to feel the good old days as a lifeline within us; the present vanishes into identity crises, and only clairvoyants can predict the future.[14]

Indeed, as any source of crisis has the tendency to generate elevated conversion rates within a variety of belief systems, and since virtual occultism offers its own, unique variety of systems to choose from, the ease of accessibility encourages the initiate to explore an avenue of remedy previously unavailable to the general public. With a simple internet search, one finds a swath of occult services offered. However, according to a handful of scholars, occultism and its many flavors offer no conversion stories.[15] In other words, initiates are not specifically converted to their occult practice of choice, but rather they discover it, as if led by divine digital-navigation, thus lending credence to both their newfound “home,” and the (divine?) process which urged them towards discovering it in the first place, be it by crisis or by providence.[16] For the initiate, much less risk is involved in virtual occultism. No need for public gatherings in secret. No need for secret handshakes or private vocabulary in the public forums. The open-source nature of virtual occultism provides the desired anonymity and secrecy its seekers appreciate. The relative ease of which participants can escape if things get too uncomfortable is made apparent by a quick pressing of a computer’s on-off button.

It would be no stretch of the imagination to predict the emanant ubiquity of virtual, internet-based occultism increasing substantially in the coming years. If ever there is a need to be met, then the chances of the internet providing an answer for said need fares far better than merely average. One could even make the claim we have already reached such a ubiquity, as digital devices are found on just about every individual, regardless of class, race, gender, or socio-economic awareness, thus rendering the occult to represent what used to be hidden, but which is now everywhere and easily accessible.

Moreover, even the device used to access the internet, as some occult researchers have noted, the computer itself can be integrated into the ritual practices of on- and offline occultism:

…well-known Pagan author Patricia Telesco weaves almost every aspect of her computer into her craftworking. For her, program passwords become charms that “[reflect] personal attributes or characteristics that you’re trying to develop”; when powered down, “the [computer] screen becomes an excellent scrying surface”; and in what we might call “font magic,” “boldface can be used to engender courage and strikethrough can be used for [ritual] decreasings and banishings.”[17]

As the above quotation indicates, the approach modern occultists use to signify the importance of technology (their computers included) is to make it a part of the process and, sometimes, the ritual itself. Further still, since both the practitioner and initiate alike use computers to transmit information regarding traditional occult customs, beliefs, rituals, and societies, “many modern Pagans now regard computer technology as an integral part of the modern Pagan path, another magickal tool little different from the candle, the cup, and the cauldron.”[18] Additionally, the internet, the computer, and now the smartphone can be viewed as a type of memory device, a practice deeply respected by occultists of previous eras. The convenience of not having to carry around countless pages of grimoires, alchemical dictionaries and recipe books, incantations, and spells, rituals and sacraments, is not difficult to imagine, especially considering the fact that all one needs to do in order to access such arcana is to reach in one’s pocket or purse, grab one’s smartphone, dip into virtual reality, and retrieve a library-sized inventory of occult material.

            The line between conventional reality and virtual reality is quickly disappearing. From virtual banking, to telemedicine, to online degree programs, web-based dating sites, to internet occultism, to name a few, a new reality is emerging ferociously from the depths of the World Wide Web. Further, this new reality alters the initiates psyche, thus developing a new mode of being, and one inextricably intertwined in the tentacles of virtual entanglement. This emerging techno-world in its many iterations was, of course, exacerbated by the 2020 pandemic. Forced lockdowns and isolation over the course of an entire year, (even longer for some) produced a crisis of global proportion, thus leaving people a substantial amount of time to wander around the virtual world in search of a meaningful solution for terminal boredom, on the one hand, and impending doom on the other.

One is inclined to inquire as to why such a compelling desire for virtual spirituality seems to pervade the lives of countless individuals. One can only guess the reasons, though dissatisfaction of one’s life generally seems to fit the bill. Coupled with crisis, dissatisfaction of one’s life appears as ample breeding ground for the self-seeking initiate, and with the explosion of virtual occultism, the initiate has a variety of options to choose from in order to quell such an existential quandary. The digital techno-landscape of virtual reality is organized in such a fashion as to warrant the exercise of radical freedom, at least in the West. In other words, explicit content, pornography, dark-web drug transactions and prostitution rings, to name a few, all beckon to the virtual wanderer, and not to convert said wanderer, but instead to entice the wanderer to discover the dark recesses of the World Wide Web by him- or herself without limitation. The virtual occultist is no different in this regard: “[i]nfluenced far more by popular culture and subcultural peer pressure, there has, again, been a shift away from the authoritarian aspects of religion and toward the creation of personal spiritual paths.”[19]

Returning to the concept of the World Wide Web as memory device, the real significance of virtual occultism finds itself imbedded within the network of wired ideas. This memory device has influenced contemporary culture considerably:

“From the relatively mundane to the bizarrely esoteric, from approaches to health and wellbeing to conspiracies relating world domination and apocalypse, popular culture disseminates occultural content, creates synergies and encourages new spores of occultural though to emerge.”[20]

By drawing upon a memory device which does not forget, i.e., the World Wide Web, a memory is not only available, but is capable of being imprinted upon the seeking self-initiate. Furthermore, a virtual reality as networked and as expansive as the internet seeks to unite a mass of similarly interested initiates, thus establishing a virtual community of practitioners and clients, alike. However, since the virtual world is a relatively new phenomenon it comes as no surprise that scholarship concerned with a new category of virtual occultism is thin and lacking. Of course, this is not to say that no scholarship exists whatsoever, but rather insists a serious need for further inquiry. Previously neglected and understudied virtual occult research is presently being addressed by contemporary scholars in order to determine whether or not a crisis moment lurks just beneath a massive web of information. These scholars include historians, theologians, and social scientists, to mention a few, each of which bring their own snapshots of (historical) memory into the dialogue concerning digital esoterica.

            As we make our way through the age of information, we find our conscious perceptions being influenced by a wide array of data, from news media outlets to open-source public forums, contemporary culture is not without its fair share of knowledge inundation. With such an overwhelming amount of digitally available information, we find our post-modern selves retreating into the dark spaces offered by virtual reality. A multitude of people are presently carving out their own existences in such dark spaces, the consequences of which will not totally reveal themselves until scholarship collects, interrogates, and articulates large swaths of the aforementioned data. I predict these consequences to illustrate the difference in attitudes and opinions people make regarding such information and its many-faced technological domains. In other words, the further we “progress” into and through the information age, the further away we move from our human sense of community, which is to say, the more occulted we as humans will become. In fact, it is here, in this communally cut-off culture that we find ourselves thirsting for its re-establishment, and it is here, in this age of information that virtual reality offers its fantasy by way of bringing forth that which was previously hidden; its artificial solution to a larger, existential dilemma of attempting to live, nay flourish, in a digital age: “[t]he Internet is so big, so powerful and pointless that for some people it is a complete substitute for life.”[21]

 

Works Cited

Armson, Morandir. “The Search for ‘Meaning’: Occult Redefinitions and the Internet.” The pomegranate (Corbett, Or.) 16, no. 1 (2014): 55–79.

Asprem, Egil, and Kennet Granholm. Contemporary Esotericism. 1st ed. London: Routledge, 2014.

Brown, Andrew. BrainyQuote.com, BrainyMedia Inc, 2022. https://www.brainyquote. com/quotes/andrew_brown_104628, accessed December 08, 2022.

Cowan, Douglas E. “Book Excerpt: The Mists of Cyberhenge: Mapping the Modern Pagan Internet.” The pomegranate (Corbett, Or.) 7, no. 1 (2007).

Doering-Manteuffel, Sabine. “Survival of Occult Practices and Ideas in Modern Common Sense.” Public understanding of science (Bristol, England) 20, no. 3 (2011): 292–302.

Ellis, Bill. Lucifer Ascending : the Occult in Folklore and Popular Culture. Lexington, Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky, 2004.

Gunn, Joshua. Modern Occult Rhetoric : Mass Media and the Drama of Secrecy in the Twentieth Century. Tuscaloosa, Ala: University of Alabama Press, 2005.

Lewis, James R. “Becoming a Virtual Pagan: ‘Conversion’ or Identity Construction?” The pomegranate (Corbett, Or.) 16, no. 1 (2015): 24–34.

Nikki Bado-Fralick. “Review of Cyberhenge: Modern Pagans on the Internet by Douglas E. Cowan.” The pomegranate (Corbett, Or.) 7, no. 2 (2007): 241–.

Partridge, Christopher. The Occult World. London: Routledge, 2015.

---

[1] Gilbert, R. Andrew. "occultism." Encyclopedia Britannica, September 9, 2022. https:// www.britannica.com /topic/occultism.

[2] Ellis, Bill. Lucifer Ascending : the Occult in Folklore and Popular Culture. Lexington, Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky, 2004.

[3] Gunn, Joshua. Modern Occult Rhetoric : Mass Media and the Drama of Secrecy in the Twentieth Century. Tuscaloosa, Ala: University of Alabama Press, 2005.

[4] Gunn, 15.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid., 16.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Gunn, Joshua. Modern Occult Rhetoric : Mass Media and the Drama of Secrecy in the Twentieth Century. Tuscaloosa, Ala: University of Alabama Press, 2005. p. 175.

[9] Cowan, Douglas. “The Occult on the Internet.” Christopher Partridge. The Occult World. London: Routledge, 2015. p. 536.

[10] Partridge, Christopher. The Occult World. London: Routledge, 2015. p. 532.

[11] Nikki Bado-Fralick. “Review of Cyberhenge: Modern Pagans on the Internet by Douglas E. Cowan.” The pomegranate (Corbett, Or.) 7, no. 2 (2007): 25.

[12] Nikki Bado-Fralick. “Review of Cyberhenge: Modern Pagans on the Internet by Douglas E. Cowan.” The pomegranate (Corbett, Or.) 7, no. 2 (2007): 31

[13] Gunn, Joshua. Modern Occult Rhetoric : Mass Media and the Drama of Secrecy in the Twentieth Century. Tuscaloosa, Ala: University of Alabama Press, 2005. p. xxix.

[14] Doering-Manteuffel, Sabine. “Survival of Occult Practices and Ideas in Modern Common Sense.” Public understanding of science (Bristol, England) 20, no. 3 (2011): 292–302.

 

[15] Lewis, James R. “Becoming a Virtual Pagan: ‘Conversion’ or Identity Construction?” The pomegranate (Corbett, Or.) 16, no. 1 (2015): p. 25.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Cowan, Douglas E. “Book Excerpt: The Mists of Cyberhenge: Mapping the Modern Pagan Internet.” The pomegranate (Corbett, Or.) 7, no. 1 (2007) p. 69.

[18] Ibid. 69-70.

[19] Partridge, Christopher. “Occulture is Ordinary.” Asprem, Egil, and Kennet Granholm. Contemporary Esotericism. 1st ed. London: Routledge, 2014. p. 115-16.

[20] Ibid., 123.

[21] Andrew Brown Quotes. BrainyQuote.com, BrainyMedia Inc, 2022. https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/andrew_brown_104628, accessed December 08, 2022.