Is Occultism Intellectually Sound?

Two books convinced me

Many artists and seekers describe an epiphanic moment where an idea, performance, or work of writing galvanized their search.

For me, deliverance arrived in two books: The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age by Frances A. Yates (1979) and Al-Kemi by André VandenBroeck (1987).

The works, while different in nature, resolved a deeply felt question: Is occultism an intellectually sound path?

Most mainstream intellects and pedagogues consider occultism—when they do at all—as gimmick or superstition. Frankfurt School philosopher Theodor W. Adorno, wrote in his essay “Theses Against Occultism” in 1947:

Occultism is the metaphysic of dunces.

He was wrong. I evince his error. Yet Adorno’s guild-view helped me realize that many of the intellectuals I admired growing up were susceptible to judging category of query versus scale of quality—topic over treatment. That is the barstool next to ersatz seriousness. Overused, it leads to dowdiness and foolishness.

The thrill of judgment without query, of receiving impressions from peer groups, limits breadth and clarity. Distinguished historians and biographers often neglect occult-influenced episodes and relationships—sometimes of a pivotal nature—in the lives of their subjects, including Frederick Douglass (hoodoo), Mahatma Gandhi (Theosophy), Charles Lindbergh (Spiritualism), Theodore Dreiser (paranormalism), and Upton Sinclair (telepathy).

Hoodoo and the Making of Frederick Douglass

Isis Resurrected: Reckoning with Madame H.P. Blavatsky

What Is Occultism?

Before praising the two books on which I open, I must clarify terms.

The central idea of the occult, simple in concept yet seismic in implication, is the existence of unseen dimensions or intersections of time, all possessed of their own events, causes, intelligences, and perhaps iterations of ourselves; the influence of these realms is felt on and through us without mediation by religion or doctrine.

Since relatively early in the modern revival of the search for ancient spiritual origins during the Renaissance—by spiritual, I mean extraphysical—this outlook has been known, broadly but not exclusively, by the English term occult from Latin occultus for secret or hidden.

Within Renaissance culture, occult served to label rediscovered fragments, sometimes posthumously reconstructed, of ancient religious concepts from Egypt, Greece, Rome, and Persia.

In strict terms, occultism is a Western concept. Although there exist esoteric (Greek esoterikós for “inner”) teachings within Vedic, Buddhist, Animist, Taoist, Confucian, and Shamanic traditions around the world, the occult rose from the West’s rupture with its religious past during the rise of the Abrahamic religions, particularly early Christianity.

In an important distinction, occultism differs from esotericism insofar as the esoteric usually corresponds to an exoteric or outer counterpart, generally a traditional religion of which esotericism reflects the inner core. The occult is independent of religion—though not necessarily rejecting of it.