It’s Called “Occult” Because It’s Hidden

In my professional life, I am currently in the middle of Major Drama that I cannot talk about right now. I think that it will be all for the best, but the details will have to remain occult for a bit longer.

Plus I seem to be getting some kind of equinoctial crud (this happens) that leaves me feeling tired and achy. Thus I observe the Turning of the Wheel.

So let me direct you to a post at The Teeming Brain on “Haunted by Our Amnesia: The Forgotten Mainstream Impact of the Occult/Esoteric ‘Fringe.’

When one starts to look, it’s as if history mirrors physics, where some hypothesize that nearly 84% of the mass in the universe is composed of dark matter. It seems as if the main historical influences that affect us exist in a shadow realm that few give credence to, yet this realm forms the main source of the ebb and flow that pushes us forward. What the media, mainstream science, and academia consider “fringe” is often at the very heart of the issues we face.

Think of it: both the much-lauded leader Mohandas Gandhi and the common funerary practice of cremation (in the context of American culture) have their roots firmly planted in the Theosophical Society, an organization that most people today know of as a New Age joke, if they know of it at all. (See, for example, Gary Lachman’s forthcoming biography Madame Blavatsky: Mother of Modern Spirituality for a look at the ironic “open hiddenness” of both Theosophy and its formidable founder in today’s spiritual marketplace.)

And there is more, so read the whole thing.

2 thoughts on “It’s Called “Occult” Because It’s Hidden

  1. Ghandi’s debt to both Blavatsky and to Tolstoy is a wonderful testament to the ability of Ideas to cross cultural barriers. But, then again, when one considers who influenced Tolstoy and Blavatsky, well, it all fits together rather nicely.

  2. Pitch313

    Robots conduct transactions on stock exchanges so quickly that they can make a profit that accrues because of the sheer rapidity with which these robots can accomplish transactions. (So far as I can understand it, and I suspect that I really don’t.)

    What could be more occult than that? Spinning straw into gold is a mere Fairy bagatelle.

    At the same time, I hold “fringe” ideas and movements somewhat apart from “occult” ideas and notions. Many occult ideas were fringe at one time but now are commonplace and popular (Ouija apps for smartphones and such). Fringe ideas and movements, I think, gotta be minority and subversive somehow that occult ones need not be. For me, hollow Earth remains on the fringe in a fashion that excellent furniture thanks to ecstatic believers in communities of Christ does not.

    OK! I am confused about Mt. Shasta and whether its a fringey mountain or an occult one…maybe Count St. Germain was a Dero in disguise, or some such.

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