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.
