We're certainly interested in the aesthetics and the ritualistic spirit of occultists.
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Occultists were believers and charlatans capitalized on it, but artists for the most part have eschewed it.
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Other r/occultists doubted that a novice magick user like Tacodirtshield1 could even accomplish such a task.
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And, of course, Donald Trump was elected thanks to "meme magic," according to legions of shitposting pseudo-occultists.
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In the eyes of the witches and other occultists performing the rite, each instance has been a success.
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I'm sure that I'm going to be called out by occultists for taking liberty where I might have.
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In the late nineteenth century, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn were a group of mystics and occultists.
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So say occultists, warlocks, and 16th-century hatemongers, all intent on divining the meaning and portent of every bite you take.
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Related: How to Conjure Friends and Influence Yourself Meet the Artists/Occultists Channeling the Death of Monsanto A Bespoke Occult Glyph for Every Quandary
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Related: Magician-Computer Interaction Designer Makes Technoccult Artifacts Witches as Women Empowered by the Occult Meet the Artists/Occultists Channeling the Death of Monsanto
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Péladan differed from many other occultists in insisting that his Rosicrucian rhetoric was an extension of authentic Catholic doctrine, which Church institutions had neglected.
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But occultists and herbalists of yore found parsley to be both lucky and unlucky, depending on what seems to be the vagaries of their whim.
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The figure of Baphomet was associated with the 12th-century Catholic military order the Knights Templar and has since been worshiped by occultists including Aleister Crowley.
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I know that sounds mundane, but it's actually very witchy— all good occultists know a magical practice is a called that because it takes daily rehearsal!
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Their supernatural powers attract the attention of powerful French film producer André Korben, played by Emmanuel Salinger, who enlists the occultists for an ambitious new film project.
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The series follows Morpheus (also known as Dream), the personification of dreams, who had been imprisoned by occultists in 1906 and eventually escaped decades later in the 1980s.
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You, too, can surf the etheric waves between the old school occultists and the new wave of social media pagans, with Louv's free book and numerous online courses.
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Border science, as distinct from pseudoscience, was a term adopted by 1930s occultists to cover fields like parapsychology, astrology, or clairvoyance that suddenly found favor with Hitler's fact-averse government.
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Kurlander also records the attempts of leaders like Reinhard Heinrich to expel occultists from the Party, which proved impossible given that the science-averse Nazi religion depended on superstition to justify itself.
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Related: Meet the Artists/Occultists Channeling the Death of Monsanto Cut-Out Collages Turn Medical Magazines into 'Lord of the Flies' Characters Artist Recreates 78 Tarot Cards with Sculpture, Collage, and Poetry
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Millennial occultists might seem silly to outsiders, but you don't have to believe in hexes, witchcraft or magic to take them seriously as a sign that many people find the present intolerable.
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From her own herpes misdiagnoses to why powerful women are undermined by being labeled as witches, Coffey has spoken to doctors, occultists, and other comedians, using humor to dismantle the stigma surrounding difficult topics.
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ALEXIS SOLOSKI One of the first plays that pushed Soho Rep beyond dramatic classics, this eccentric Len Jenkin drama had a story, impossible to parse, which somehow involved occultists, oculists and a stolen diamond.
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Bilé agreed, claiming that, overall, "occultists are better equipped to deal with these forces" because they are not so quick to demonize (literally and figuratively) and often work with similar forces in their own magical pursuits.
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The actresses play sisters in the film – American spiritualists Laura and Kate Barlow, respectively – whose supernatural powers attract the attention of a French film producer (Salinger) who enlists the occultists for an ambitious new film project.
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While this delight is predicated on the idea that the occult is fantastical and bogus, it nevertheless seems to highlight the Nazis' hypocrisy—they also persecuted occultists—and not emphasize present-day witches' connections to Nazism.
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How can you reconcile all that with the memes in which she appeared with her eyes shooting out lasers and stories about groups of occultists praying for her to get more speaking time in the second debate?
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One of the bureaus of the SS paid attention to Freemasons, to occultists—they kind of lumped all of these groups together in a way that doesn't really make much sense but makes sense in a Nazi mindset.
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It was Israeli occultists Mortuus Umbra's first international show ever, and while they were perhaps the most surprising addition to the Oration lineup, it all made sense once they hit the stage and locked into their hypnotic black/death groove.
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The leak comes at a vastly inopportune time, as the band is poised to appear at Eternal Warfare fest next week, and head out on a short West Coast tour with legendary Italian occultists Mortuary Drape, but they're making the best of it.
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Advertise on Hyperallergic with Nectar Ads In the 203s, three of America's greatest avant-garde filmmakers and occultists – Jordan Belson (1926-2011), Bruce Conner (1933 – 2008), and Harry Smith (1923 – 1991) – worked for the alternative, idiosyncratic greeting card company, Inkweed Studios (later known as The Haunted Inkbottle).
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The market is saturated with bands who cop influences from Slint as well as Satyricon; we could blame Deafheaven, or Wolves in the Throne Room (or if we're feeling trollish, Weakling) but no matter its origin, the current North American black metal scene is as awash in pretty, melodic atmospheric bands as it is wargoats and clumsy occultists.
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There are, especially among English-speaking occultists, numerous variant forms of Abramelin Oil.
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On these travels he also met and befriended occultists in England and Paris, France.
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Western occultists make different kabbalistic associations with Manipura. For some occultists, it relates to the sephirot of Hod and Netzach. Netzach is the quality of energy to overcome different obstacles. Hod is the tendency to control and break down energy into different forms, the two forms being contending and balancing forces.
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Ch. 61-65. According to the experience of Father John (Adlivankin), who works in the St. John of Kronstadt rehabilitation center assisting former sectarians and occultists, he repeatedly heard people’s confessions of how they often observed a state of complete "dispassion", i.e. the absence of any sinful thoughts. This was when they were sectarians and occultists.
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According to his account, he instead sent typescripts of the work to several occultists he knew, putting the manuscript away and ignoring it.
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In various cases, certain occultists did both. Another characteristic of these occultists was the emphasis that they placed on "the spiritual realization of the individual", an idea that would strongly influence the twentieth-century New Age and Human Potential Movement. This spiritual realization was encouraged both through traditional Western 'occult sciences' like alchemy and ceremonial magic, but by the start of the twentieth century had also begun to include practices drawn from non-Western contexts, such as yoga. Although occultism is distinguished from earlier forms of esotericism, many occultists have also been involved in older esoteric currents.
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Through the darker centuries, it became popular with occultists like Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, Pico della Mirandola and Eliphas Levi before being formalised in popular new-age magic.
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The Theban alphabet is a writing system, in particular a substitution cipher of the Latin alphabet, used by early modern occultists and popular in the Wicca movement.
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Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron died in Paris on 17 January 1805. His work became one of the most important references for nineteenth century spiritualists and occultists in France.
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Nazi occultists Karl Maria Wiligut and Guido von List both claimed that heraldry began in the world of the Germanic gods, and was created by Wotan, the god of war.
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Challenges, debunks or doubts many other oddball theories that circulated among occultists of the time. An entire section is dedicated to explain that the Earth does not have a "soul".
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Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu, designed by Matt Leacock and Chuck Yager, was released at GenCon 2016. In this version of the game, players battle against occultists to prevent the summoning of the monster Cthulhu.
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Occultists, on the other hand, are divided on the issue, with some saying that it can be a tool for positive transformation; others reiterate the warnings of many Christians and caution "inexperienced users" against it.
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He maintained that occultists do not have access to Christ even if they are "Christian" occultists, for then though they have access to Him, He "does not want to have access to them". Walter considered the occultists' pursuit of spiritual sensations, of achieving the vision of supersensible worlds as confusing means with goals. As he would often say: To achieve transcendental experience is extremely easy and there are many techniques to do this, but one does not get better from the amount of perception, and therefore according to Walter Steiner in his writings did not emphasize enough the basic task of man, which could be expressed in simple words: fulfilling the ideal of the Good. People who knew him well at that time report that having read the diary of Sister Faustyna (who died in 1938) Walter began to cooperate with her closely.
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Indeed, the emergence of both modern esotericism and socialism in July Monarchy France have been inherently intertwined. Another feature of occultists is that—unlike earlier esotericists—they often openly distanced themselves from Christianity, in some cases (like that of Crowley) even adopting explicitly anti-Christian stances. This reflected how pervasive the influence of secularisation had been on all areas of European society. In rejecting Christianity, these occultists sometimes turned towards pre- Christian belief systems and embraced forms of Modern Paganism, while others instead took influence from the religions of Asia, such as Hinduism and Buddhism.
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Independent on Sunday (London) 6 November 2005.Stauffer, Vernon. New England and the Bavarian Illuminati, New York, 1918. She claimed that the secret society's members were occultists, plotting communist world domination, through a Jewish cabal, the Masons and Jesuits.
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In September 1939 the Nazi government gathered together psychics, mediums, dowsers, and occultists into an organization to assist the war efforts against the West. They called this unit the Institute for Occult Warfare (IOW) of which Straniak was a member.
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She spent most of her time in Paris where she became involved with the theosophists and other occultists. Through her uncle, General Pyotr Vasilyevich Orzhevsky (ru), she became involved with Pyotr Rachkovsky of the Okhrana, the Imperial Russian secret service.
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According to Richardson, Fortune fell into "relative obscurity" after her death, having been overshadowed by her more famous contemporary, Aleister Crowley. The historian of esotericism Dave Evans agreed, stating that Fortune had been "somewhat less" influential than Crowley. Hutton nevertheless considered her to be the "foremost female figure" of early 20th century British occultism, while historian Alex Owen referred to her as "one of the most significant clairvoyants and occultists of the postwar period". Similarly, Knight termed her "one of the leading occultists of her generation", and the anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann referred to her as "one of the most influential twentieth-century magicians".
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Before the other occultists, Keerson offers Elizabeth a desecrated host from a pyx. Elizabeth takes the host, but moments later throws herself from the window to her death before the occultists can complete the ritual. Henderson, having obtained Keerson's name from Jimmy before his death, traces Keerson to the his parish, and becomes convinced he is responsible for Elizabeth's death. Upon Henderson's arrival, Keerson admits to performing the black mass, and reveals to Henderson knowledge of intimate details of his life, such as that Henderson was happy upon receiving the news that his wife had died in a car accident.
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Hanegraaff noted that this etic usage of the term would be independent of emic usages of the term employed by occultists and other esotericists themselves. In this definition, occultism covers many esoteric currents that have developed from the mid-nineteenth century onward, including Spiritualism, Theosophy, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and the New Age. Employing this etic understanding of "occultism", Hanegraaff argued that its development could begin to be seen in the work of the Swedish esotericist Emanuel Swedenborg and in the Mesmerist movement of the eighteenth century, although added that occultism only emerged in "fully-developed form" as Spiritualism, a movement that developed in the United States during the mid-nineteenth century. Marco Pasi suggested that the use of Hanegraaff's definition might cause confusion by presenting a group of nineteenth-century esotericists who called themselves "occultists" as just one part of a broader category of esotericists whom scholars would call "occultists".
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The book's contents have not been substantiated by any evidence beyond Smith's testimony. Despite this, the book allegedly inspired imitative accusations throughout the world, against members of the Church of Satan, other occultists, and others who seemed to have no association with the occult.
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Although there were various other respective influences (e.g., Etteilla's pip card meanings in the case of Waite/Colman Smith), Waite/Colman Smith's and Crowley/Harris' decks were greatly inspired by the Golden Dawn's member-use tarot deck and the Golden Dawn's tarot curriculum. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was essentially the first in the Anglophone world to venture into esoteric tarot. Francophone occultists such as Court de Gebelin, Etteilla, Eliphas Lévi, Oswald Wirth and Papus were influential in fashioning esoteric tarot in the French-speaking world; the influence of these Francophone occultists has come to bear even on interpretation of the Tarot de Marseille cards themselves.
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Hockley was a close friend of Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie and other British Rosicrucians and occultists of his period. He was purportedly a pupil of Francis Barrett, author of The Magus (1801). In March, 1884 he joined the London Spiritualist Alliance.M. A. Oxon (William Stainton Moses).
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His term "vril" lent its name to Bovril meat extract. "Vril" has been adopted by theosophists and occultists since the 1870s and became closely associated with the ideas of an esoteric neo-Nazism after 1945.Julian Strube. Vril. Eine okkulte Urkraft in Theosophie und esoterischem Neonazismus.
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Another, unrelated Enclave in Marvel Comics first appeared in the pages of Tomb of Dracula vol. 2 #2 in December 1979. The group consisted of Damian Burnemissza, Druig, Satas, Kirk Druker, and Sondra. This Enclave was an organization of occultists dedicated to the worship of the demon Asmodeus.
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In 1970, Martello founded the Witches International Craft Associates (WICA), through which he issued The WICA Newsletter, set up to explain what Witchcraft and Wicca was to the wider public and to serve as a resource through which occultists could contact one another. In April 1970 he appeared on the WNEW-TV Channel 5 documentary series Helluva Town, performing Witchcraft rites with several assistants in Central Park. That year saw one of New York's first substantial gatherings of occultists, the Festival of Occult Arts, as well as the first Earth Day celebration and the first Christopher Street Gay Liberation Day parade. These events inspired Martello's desire to hold a public Witchcraft Sabbat celebration.
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The film deals with a grieving mother, Martha (Barbeau), trying to uncover the terrifying secret jeopardizing her family. With her son (Brendon), Martha becomes entwined in a conspiracy involving a fabled witch, Nazi occultists, and the United States of America (U.S.) government. The film purports to be inspired by an actual military document.
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According to Lataif-e-sitta, the nafs is just below the navel. The nafs incorporates all the elements of man's "lower self", which is tamed in order to attain closeness to Allah. Western occultists make the kabbalistic association of Svadhisthana with the Sephirah Yesod. Yesod is also associated with the sexual organs.
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Divino Otelma says he believes in reincarnation and says that he is the incarnation of God and that he was in the past a priest from Atlantis, a woman pharaoh and one of the Quindecimviri sacris faciundis. He defines himself Count of Quistello, First Theurgist of the Church of the Livings, Great Master of the Theurgical Order of Helios, European President of the Order of Occultists of Europe, National President of the Order of Italian Occultists, President of the Italian Centre of Astrological Studies and of the Astrological-Occultist Union of Italy, Source of Life and Salvation, Dispenser of Archetypal Truth, Light of Livings. In 1991 he founded the political party ‘’Europa 2000’’ and in 2003 he took his second degree, in history.
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Tidrick's work on Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi's life has received much attention. In her book Tidrick argues that Gandhi's student life in London was his decisive and formative period where he acquired the ideas which would be put to use till his death. This point of view differs from more conventional understandings of Gandhi's intellectual inheritance that locates his ideas in Ancient India. William Dalrymple called her work "Brilliant" and remarked that her research brought certain unexplored dimensions of Gandhi's intellectual life to light such as the influence of occultists of London "she locates the roots of Gandhi’s thought in the lunatic spiritualist fringe of late-Victorian England, among the occultists, high fibre-ists and mediums who flourished in late 19th- century London".
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He published his subsequent ideas as The Rollright Ritual in 1975. In this book, he described a ritual that occultists could perform at the site which drew heavily upon the practices carried out by Cochrane. Gray worked with Robert Cochrane. Cochrane's letters to Gray survive and are a key source for understanding his beliefs.
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"When the book was finally published, critics snickered, Oriental scholars were outraged, and other scholars pointed out that the work was largely stolen from books by other occultists and crank scholars like Ignatius Donnelly's book on Atlantis."Sedgwick, Mark. (2004). Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century. Oxford University Press. p. 44.
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Lamen of Ordo Templi Orientis. Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.) ('Order of the Temple of the East' or 'Order of Oriental Templars') is an occult initiatory organization founded at the beginning of the 20th century. The origins of the O.T.O. can be traced back to the German-speaking occultists Carl Kellner, Heinrich Klein, Franz Hartmann and Theodor Reuss.
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Additionally, Sahagun refers to classes of religious specialists not affiliated with the established priesthood. This included wandering curers, black magicians, and other occultists (of which the Aztecs identified many types, most of which they feared) and hermits. Finally, the military orders, professions (e.g. traders (pochteca)) and wards (calpulli) each operated their own lodge dedicated to their specific god.
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Mysticism, Meridian, New York. usually referred to as science. The term is sometimes taken to mean knowledge that "is meant only for certain people" or that "must be kept hidden", but for most practicing occultists it is simply the study of a deeper spiritual reality that extends beyond pure reason and the physical sciences.Blavatsky, H. P. (1888).
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Other occultists have criticised this definition, believing that the Left–Right dichotomy refers merely to different kinds of working and does not necessarily connote good or bad magical actions. In more recent definitions, which base themselves on the terms' origins in Indian Tantra, the Right-Hand Path, or RHP, is seen as a definition for those magical groups that follow specific ethical codes and adopt social convention, while the Left-Hand Path adopts the opposite attitude, espousing the breaking of taboo and the abandoning of set morality. Some contemporary occultists, such as Peter J. Carroll, have stressed that both paths can be followed by a magical practitioner, as essentially they have the same goals. Another distinguishing characteristic separating the two is based upon the aim of the practitioner.
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She is described as both beauty and beast. In a sleazier part of town, Vanessa and Raymond encounter a group of hardcore occultists who seem to sense Vanessa’s evilness and welcome her. She surprises them though when she transforms into the beast and slaughters all save Raymond. The next morning, Jenny angrily confronts Raymond over the phone and then abruptly hangs up.
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Not all futurists engage in the practice of futurology as generally defined. Pre-conventional futurists (see below) would generally not. And while religious futurists, astrologers, occultists, New Age diviners, etc. use methodologies that include study, none of their personal revelation or belief- based work would fall within a consensus definition of futurology as used in academics or by futures studies professionals.
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Regardie's works gained a growing readership in the Counterculture of the 1960s. He received correspondence from many of his readers, much of which he thought was unhinged; he collected these in a manuscript he called Liber Nuts. His house was burgled twice, with the burglars seeking to steal Golden Dawn and Crowleyan material. He befriended various occultists, including Christopher Hyatt.
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In the painted cards attributed to Bonifacio Bembo, the Magician appears to be playing with cups and balls.Bill Butler, Dictionary of the Tarot. (Schocken, 1975; ) In esoteric decks, occultists, starting with Oswald Wirth, turned Le Bateleur from a mountebank into a magus. The curves of the magician's hat brim in the Marseilles image are similar to the esoteric deck's mathematical sign of infinity.
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Harwood (1989), pp. 108–09 After, she dabbled in the occult and became friendly with prominent London occultists. In 1902 she co-wrote with Florence Farr — who for a time led the Order of Golden Dawn — two plays on the occult, The Beloved of Hathor and The Shrine of the Golden Hawk, which were subsequently published as a pair.Tryphonopoulos (1990), p.
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Skeptics argue that the connection of conspiracy theorists and occultists follows from their common fallacious premises. First, any widely accepted belief must necessarily be false. Second, stigmatized knowledge—what the Establishment spurns—must be true. The result is a large, self-referential network in which, for example, some UFO religionists promote anti-Jewish phobias while some antisemites practice Peruvian shamanism.
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Occultists, like Freemasons, were among those harassed and vilified by most National Socialists. While the Nazi state persecuted astrologers, Rudolf Hess and Heinrich Himmler consulted them. Krafft moved into the orbit of the National Socialist elite in November 1939 when he made a remarkable prediction. He predicted that the Führer's life would be in danger between 7 and 10 November.
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The image of Perchta on the Rožmberk castle contains a mysterious inscription in the Enochian script, that in his personal journals already mentioned Rudolphian occultists John Dee and Edward Kelley. In 1465 the castle was pawned again to the Lobkovic family. This loan too was paid off. The Starý (Horní) hrad (Old or Upper castle) burned down in 1522 and was never rebuilt.
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While visiting North Devon, Regardie began writing a book on Qabalah, for which he drew upon the writings of occultists like Crowley, Éliphas Lévi, and A. E. Waite. The result, A Garden of Pomegranates, was published by Rider and Company in 1932. He dedicated the book to Crowley. He followed this with a more substantial volume on Qabalah, The Tree of Life: A Study in Magic.
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Elizabeth grows paranoid after she finds herself being followed by Keerson's associates, but Meg dissuades her fears. On the night of her death, Elizabeth arrives at the brothel for the planned "festivities" for which Meg has promised a large payoff. There, Meg drugs Elizabeth's drink. Shortly after, Keerson—in fact a Roman Catholic priest—and other elite occultists arrive to hold a Black Mass.
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Siegfried Adolf Kummer from his book "Heilige Runenmacht" Siegfried Adolf Kummer (born 24 September 1899 in Radeberg, died 1977 in Dresden)Profile of Siegfried Adolf Kummer was a German mystic and Germanic revivalist. He is also most well known for his revivalism and use of the Armanen runes row. He, along with Friedrich Bernhard Marby, were imprisoned during the Third Reich for being unauthorised occultists.
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Its membership was open to any belief system but mainly consisted of occultists, spiritualists and theosophists. The International Psychic Gazette was a monthly periodical founded in 1912 as the official organ of the ICPR but ceased after a few months. It was revived as an independent publication, the Psychic Gazette by Scottish businessman and editor John Lewis. It survived for over twenty years, 1913–1935.
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For instance, occultists like François-Charles Barlet and Rudolf Steiner were also theosophers, adhering to the ideas of the early modern Christian thinker Jakob Bohme, and seeking to integrate ideas from Bohmian theosophy and occultism. It has been noted, however, that this distancing from the Theosophical Society should be understood in the light of polemical identity formations amongst esotericists towards the end of the nineteenth century.
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In the English-speaking world, where there is little or no tradition of using tarots as playing cards, tarot decks only became known through the efforts of occultists influenced by French tarotists such as Etteilla, and later, Eliphas Lévi. These occultists later produced esoteric decks that reflected their own ideas, and these decks were widely circulated in the anglophone world. Various esoteric decks such as the Rider-Waite-Smith deck (conceived by A. E. Waite and rendered by Pamela Colman Smith), and the Thoth Tarot deck (conceived by Aleister Crowley and rendered by Lady Frieda Harris)—and tarot decks inspired by those two decks—are most typically used. Waite, Colman Smith, Crowley and Harris were all former members of the influential, Victorian-era Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn at different respective points in time; and the Golden Dawn, in turn, was influenced by Lévi and other French occult revivalists.
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This entailed breaking his oath of secrecy and brought anger from many other occultists. During the Second World War he served in the U.S. Army. On returning to the U.S., he gained a doctorate in psychology before relocating to Los Angeles in 1947 and setting up practice as a chiropractor. In 1981 he retired and moved to Sedona, Arizona, where he died of a heart attack four years later.
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Occultists embraced it as an autobiography of a previous existence. Historians claimed that the calendar used in the book had never existed and also that there was no evidence whatsoever for the existence of an "avenue of trees" referred to in the book. Supposedly, after World War II a text was found which, when translated, proved to be the calendar referred to by Grant in the 1937 book.
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Schultz studied in Berlin and devoted himself to poetry, painting and eventually the secret sciences. During the course of his career he authored some forty books, most of which have been forgotten and lost in obscurity. However, he remains one of the most important esotericists of 20th- century Germany. This is mainly because his works, although obscure, were nevertheless extremely influential on other German occultists and esotericists of the day.
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The Moon and Serpent Grand Egyptian Theatre of Marvels is a group of occultists and performers including writer and magician Alan Moore, Bauhaus member David J, and musician Tim Perkins, who perform occult "workings" consisting of prose poetry set to music. Several of these "workings" have been released onto CD. It was also the name of the group's first performance piece which was released as a spoken word CD in 1996.
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Some subsequent occultists have followed Blavatsky, at least to the point of tracing the lineage of occult practices back to Atlantis. Among the most famous is Dion Fortune in her Esoteric Orders and Their Work. Drawing on the ideas of Rudolf Steiner and Hanns Hörbiger, Egon Friedell started his book ', and thus his historical analysis of antiquity, with the ancient culture of Atlantis. The book was published in 1940.
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Criticism of both terms has come from various occultists. The Magister of the Cultus Sabbati, Andrew D. Chumbley, stated that they were simply "theoretical constructs" that were "without definitive objectivity", and that nonetheless, both forms could be employed by the magician. He used the analogy of a person having two hands, a right and a left, both of which served the same master.Chumbley, Andrew, quoted in Evans, Dave (2007).
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Gu Yong (d. 8 BCE), minister to Emperor Cheng of Han, specialist on the Yijing, is known for harsh criticism of the contemporary fangshi practices: > All those occultists, who turn their backs on the right path of benevolence > and correct duty, who do not revere the model of the Five Classics but who > rather are brimming with claims about the strange and marvelous, about > spirits and ghosts, who stand in unquestioning reverence of the sacrificial > practices of every locale,... who say that immortals are to be found in this > world and who imbibe all manner of longevity drugs, who capriciously set out > on distant quests and travel so high that their shadows are cast upwards,... > who have mastered the transformation of base metal to gold, who have made > uniform the five colors and five stores within their bodies — those > occultists cheat people and delude the masses.Liu Kwang-ching, “Socioethics > as Orthodoxy,” in Liu Kwang-ching, ed., Orthodoxy In Late Imperial China > (Berkeley, 1990), 53–100:59.
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Since his manuscript, proposing the research into the runes by the "means of occult insight", was rejected from the Imperial Academie of Sciences in Vienna, the supporters of List formed a List Society (Guido-von-List-Gesellschaft) to finance his research. The Society was founded officially on 2 March 1908. Its members included völkisch authors as well as occultists (for example Franz Hartmann and the complete membership of the Vienna Theosophical Society).
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Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (; ; 14 September 1486 – 18 February 1535) was a German polymath, physician, legal scholar, soldier, theologian, and occult writer. He is considered one of the most influential occultists of the early modern period. His book on the occult Three Books of Occult Philosophy was published in 1533, but was condemned as heretical by the inquisitor of Cologne. His work drew heavily upon the influences of Kabbalah, Hermeticism and neo-Platonism.
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Just before the dawn of the 20th century, there were a number of "antiquarian" and "folklore" societies in England that chronicled curiosities and pursued their own chosen researches. One such society was known as the Societas Rotae Fulgentis (i.e., “Society of the Blazing Wheel”) and had been slowly amassing a wealth of knowledge and research from its various antecedents in the Ogdoadic Tradition. To this society belonged two dedicated occultists, Charles Kingold and George Stanton.
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Richet held a deep interest in extrasensory perception and hypnosis. In 1884, Alexandr Aksakov interested him in the medium of Eusapia Palladino. In 1891, Richet founded the Annales des sciences psychiques. He kept in touch with renowned occultists and spiritualists of his time such as Albert von Schrenck-Notzing, Frederic William Henry Myers and Gabriel Delanne. In 1919, Richet became honorary chairman of the Institut Métapsychique International in Paris, and, in 1930, full-time president.
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Marie-Anne de La Ville (1680–1725de Coynart, Charles. Une sorcière au XVIIIe siècle: Marie-Anne de La Ville, 1680-1725 (Hachette et cie, 1902).), was a French fortune teller and occultist. La Ville managed a successful business with clients from powerful parts of society. She performed various alleged magical acts for money, and her business has been compared to that of La Voisin, whose net of occultists was dissolved in 1679.
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He was also the first to declare that a pentagram or five-pointed star with one point down and two points up represents evil, while a pentagram with one point up and two points down represents good. Lévi's ideas also influenced Helena Blavatsky and the Theosophical Society. It was largely through the occultists inspired by him that Lévi is remembered as one of the key founders of the 20th-century revival of magic.
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Bennett was, along with George Cecil Jones, Crowley’s primary teacher during his days in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Bennett was educated at Hollesly College, and scraped by as an analytical chemist. Bennett was initiated into the G.D. in 1894, taking the motto "Iehi Aour" ("let there be light"). He was always very poor and tormented by illness, but still made a strong impression on other occultists of the time.
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Modern occultists display his image, loosely connected now with Hermetic gnosticism. Typically, "Harpocrates is the Babe in the Egg of Blue that sits upon the lotus flower in the Nile". He may be termed the 'god of silence' and said to represent the higher self and be the 'holy guardian angel' and more in similar vein, adapted from Aleister Crowley's often- reprinted Magick. Many Discordians consider Harpo Marx to have been a contemporary avatar of Harpocrates.
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Today new interpretations of alchemy are still perpetuated, sometimes merging in concepts from New Age or radical environmentalism movements. Groups like the Rosicrucians and Freemasons have a continued interest in alchemy and its symbolism. Since the Victorian revival of alchemy, "occultists reinterpreted alchemy as a spiritual practice, involving the self-transformation of the practitioner and only incidentally or not at all the transformation of laboratory substances", which has contributed to a merger of magic and alchemy in popular thought.
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The Murrayite thesis provided the blueprint for the contemporary Pagan religion of Wicca. In the 1950s, several British occultists claimed they had found remnants of the surviving Witch Cult. The first of these was Gerald Gardner, who claimed to have discovered a coven of such witches - the New Forest Coven, in 1939. Gardner said that he was concerned that the religion would die out, and so initiated more members into it through his Bricket Wood coven.
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Krafft was arrested on June 12, 1941 as part of a crackdown on astrologers, faith healers and occultists following Rudolf Hess's flight to Scotland. While imprisoned, Krafft's health began to fail and he developed a persecution complex. He wrote to a senior official predicting that British bombs would very soon destroy the Propaganda ministry in Berlin (another true statement). He contracted typhus, and eventually died on 8 January 1945 en route to the Buchenwald concentration camp.
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The existence of a Vril Society was alleged in 1960 by Jacques Bergier and Louis Pauwels.Goodrick-Clarke (2002), 113. In their book The Morning of the Magicians, they claimed that the Vril-Society was a secret community of occultists in pre-Nazi Berlin that was a sort of inner circle of the Thule Society. They also thought that it was in close contact with the English group known as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
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Gray was born on 25 March 1913 in Harrow, Middlesex.Richardson and Claridge 2003. p. 13. His mother, Christine Ash Gray (née Christine Chester Logie) was an American with a Roman Catholic background. But she took a great practical interest in Western esotericism and associated with other occultists, believing herself to be the reincarnation of Marie-Noémi Cadiot (1832–1888), the wife of the influential French occultist Eliphas Lévi (1810–1875).Richardson and Claridge 2003. pp. 16–17, 36.
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Isis Unveiled: A Master-Key to the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology, published in 1877, is a book of esoteric philosophy and Helena Petrovna Blavatsky's first major work and a key text in her Theosophical movement. The work has often been criticized as a plagiarized occult work, with scholars noting how Blavatsky extensively copied from many sources popular among occultists at the time.Hart, James D; Leininger, Phillip. (1995). The Oxford Companion to American Literature.
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The Rule of Three (also Three-fold Law or Law of Return) is a religious tenet held by some Wiccans, Neo-Pagans and occultists. It states that whatever energy a person puts out into the world, be it positive or negative, will be returned to that person three times. Some subscribe to a variant of this law in which return is not necessarily threefold. The Rule of Three is sometimes described as karma by Wiccans; however, this is not strictly accurate.
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During the Second World War she organised a project of meditations and visualisations designed to protect Britain. She began planning for what she believed was a coming post- war Age of Aquarius, although she died of leukemia shortly after the war's end. Fortune is recognised as one of the most significant occultists and ceremonial magicians of the early 20th century. The Fraternity she founded survived her and in later decades spawned a variety of related groups based upon her teachings.
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Recognizing this as an opportunity to acquire the resources needed to establish a stronger connection to the Ogdru Jahad, Rasputin joined forces with the Nazis and soon assembled a team of Nazi occultists, consisting primarily of Ilsa Haupstein, Leopold Kurtz, and Prof. Doktor Karl Ruprecht Kroenen. This team was known as Project Ragna Rok. On December 23, 1944, Rasputin and his colleagues opened a doorway into the void, and Hellboy was brought forth, albeit unbeknownst to the Nazis (but not to Rasputin).
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Hitler stripped Hess of all of his party and state offices, and secretly ordered him shot on sight if he ever returned to Germany. He abolished the post of Deputy Führer, assigning Hess's former duties to Bormann, with the title of Head of the Party Chancellery. Bormann used the opportunity afforded by Hess's departure to secure significant power for himself. Meanwhile, Hitler initiated Aktion Hess, a flurry of hundreds of arrests of astrologers, faith healers and occultists that took place around 9 June.
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Karl von Eckartshausen (; – ) was a German Catholic mystic, author, and philosopher. Born in Haimhausen, Bavaria, Eckartshausen studied philosophy and Bavarian civil law in Munich and Ingolstadt. He was the author of The Cloud upon the Sanctuary (:de:Die Wolke über dem Heiligtum), a work of Christian mysticism which was later taken up by occultists. Translated into English by Isabelle de Steiger, the book was given a high status in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, particularly by Arthur Edward Waite.
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Within the first few years after the appearance of the Oera Linda Book, its recent origin was established not only based on the exceptional claims being made, but also because of a number of anachronisms it contained. The text was nevertheless a source of inspiration for a number of occultists and speculative historians. While there was some debate among Dutch academics and in a number of newspapers about the book's authenticity during the 1870s, by 1879 it was widely recognized as a forgery.
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D'Annunzio held the inaugural speech and subsequently became an associated professor and a lecturer in the same institution. D'Annunzio was a Grand Master of the Scottish Rite Great Lodge of Italy which in 1908 had separated from the Grand Orient of Italy. Subsequently, he adhered to the mystic and philosophic movimento known as Martinism.years later was introduced to the Martinism, collaborating in Fiume with other 33rd degree Scottish Rite Freemasons and occultists like Alceste De Ambris, Sante Ceccherini and Marco Egidio Allegri.
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His studies brought him into the social circles of contemporary scientists and occultists such as John Dee and Mary, Countess of Pembroke (having even served as her laboratory assistant for a time). From this premise, the 2000 book Following the Ark of the Covenant, by Kerry and Lisa Boren, claims that Dee entrusted to Gilbert the Arc of the Covenant to carry to the New World on one of his voyages.Boren, Kerry and Lisa Boren. Following the Ark of the Covenant.
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After graduating from university in mathematics, for the best part of ten years he worked on a massive book entitled Traits of Astro-Biology. This expounded his own theory of "Typocosmy": the prediction of the future based on the study of an individual's personality, or type. By the early 1930s, when Hitler had come to power, Krafft enjoyed a unique status among occultists and prophets in Germany. The National Socialists, later to become his patrons, at first posed a threat to him.
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Les Jumeaux The town square, where there is a weekly open-air market on Wednesdays, is the location of the famous seventeenth century "Great Cross of Hendaye", a stone cross carved with alchemical symbols that occultists find to contain encrypted information on a future global catastrophe. The church of Saint-Vincent was built in 1598, and largely reconstructed over the centuries following fires and bombardments. Its most recent transformation was finished in 1968. The 13th-century crucifix is the principal treasure.
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This rite was performed by the Church of Satan appearing in the documentary Satanis in 1969. Some occultists accompany it with similar addresses to other gods or figures they revere. Rituals involving the phrase tend to be more likely to be mentioned in the press at Halloween. "Ave Satani", the theme song for The Omen (1976), written by Jerry Goldsmith, which won him an Academy Award, has a title which is intended to mean "Hail Satan" in Latin, in opposition to "Ave Christi".
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Still living in his parents' home, he began dressing in unconventional and flamboyant garb, and became popular with other students at the college, with a particularly strong friendship developing between Spare and Sylvia Pankhurst, a prominent Suffragette and leftist campaigner.Baker 2011. pp. 20-21. Rejecting Christianity and developing an interest in western esotericism, he read several books on Theosophy by Madame Blavatsky, namely Isis Unveiled, and wanting to explore the topic further, he also read the works of prominent occultists Cornelius Agrippa and Eliphas Levi.
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They are typically numbered from 0 to 21. Prior to the 17th century, the trumps were simply part of a special card deck used for gaming and gambling. There may have been allegorical and cultural significance attached to them, but beyond that, the trumps originally had little mystical or magical import. When decks are used for card games (Tarot card games), these cards serve as permanent trumps and are distinguished from the remaining cards, the suit cards, which are known by occultists as the Minor Arcana.
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In 1895 Delville published his Dialogue entre nous, a text in which he outlined his views on occultism and esoteric philosophy. Brendan Cole discusses this text in detail his book on Delville, pointing out that, though the Dialogue reflects the ideas of a number of occultists, it also reveals a new interest in Theosophy. In the late 1890s, Delville joined the Theosophical Society. He was probably introduced to Theosophy directly through his friendship with Edouard Schuré, the author of the widely influential book Les Grandes Initiés.
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Nick and Isobel Jenkins host a caravan of four young occultists on their land: Fiona Cutts, daughter of Roddy Cutts; Scorpio Murtlock, an intense young man; Barnabas Henderson; and Rusty. They fish for crayfish; Murtlock locates a farmer's lost dog. Widmerpool has embraced counter-culture after his stay in the United States, and, disdaining the form of address "Lord Widmerpool", is calling himself "Ken Widmerpool". He is appointed Chancellor of a new university, and has paint thrown over him by students (the Quiggin twins).
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The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies (sometimes "!!?" is appended to the title) is a 1964 American monster movie written and directed by Ray Dennis Steckler.The Loft Cinema Steckler also starred in the film,BFI billed under the pseudonym "Cash Flagg". Upon release, the film received negative reviews, and is regarded by some critics as being one of the worst movies ever made. In the film, three friends visit a carnival and stumble into a group of occultists and disfigured monsters.
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In Young Justice #3, Peter David showed Mxyzptlk's origins as a serious-minded researcher, who travels through time, summoned by computer-based occultists. He takes the opportunity to conduct some scholarly studies. He chooses to examine a Halloween party in Happy Harbor, focusing on the results of aging a portion of the teens and causing some of the others to frantically dance out of control. What Mxyzptlk does not know was that Robin, Superboy, and Impulse were hired by the town's adults to chaperone the party.
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The Slade was known for encouraging young women in the Arts, at the turn of the nineteenth century. Moina was awarded a scholarship and four merit certificates for drawing at the School. She became friends with Beatrice Offor, with whom she shared a studio. It was also at the Slade in 1882, that Moina met her future friend Annie Horniman, who would become the major financial sponsor for the Matherses, as struggling artists and occultists, in backing the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
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Along the way the player can meet and recruit several people as companions. Naomi Sugiura a 17-year-old schoolgirl who ended up in the sewers after being chased by a group of occultists. Kyoji Kamiya who is A 28-year-old serial killer who carries a gun stolen from his first victim, who was a cop. Leroy Ivanoff is a 30-year-old veteran Russian soldier that follows the creature deeper into The Mesh in a quest for vengeance for destroying his team.
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Wasserman began working in 1973 at Weiser Books, then the world’s largest bookstore and publishing company to specialize in esoteric literature. While working at Weiser, he met and befriended filmmakers and occultists Harry Smith and Alejandro Jodorowsky. Wasserman worked with Brazilian occultist Marcelo Ramos Motta to publish the Commentaries of AL in 1975, for which he wrote the introduction. Additionally, he supervised the 1976 Weiser publication of The Book of the Law, the first popular edition to append the holograph manuscript to the typeset text.
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Without referring to a specific documentary Mattias Gardell, a historian who studies contemporary separatist groups, writes: Hitler and the Occult includes a scene in which Hitler is seen as speaking at a huge mass meeting. While Hitler's speech is not translated, the narrator talks about the German occultist and stage mentalist Erik Jan Hanussen: "Occultists believe, Hanussen may also have imparted occult techniques of mind control and crowd domination on Hitler" (see below). Historians have dismissed myths such as those about Erik Jan Hanussen.
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Cora L. V. Scott Paschal Beverly Randolph Consequently, many early participants in Spiritualism were radical Quakers and others involved in the mid-nineteenth-century reforming movement. These reformers were uncomfortable with more prominent churches because those churches did little to fight slavery and even less to advance the cause of women's rights. Such links with reform movements, often radically socialist, had already been prepared in the 1840s, as the example of Andrew Jackson Davis shows. After 1848, many socialists became ardent spiritualists or occultists.
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The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies (sometimes billed as The Incredibly Strange Creatures) is a 1964 American monster movie written and directed by Ray Dennis Steckler. Steckler also starred in the film, billed under the pseudonym "Cash Flagg". In the film, three friends visit a carnival and stumble into a group of occultists and disfigured monsters. Produced on a $38,000 budget, much of it takes place at The Pike amusement park in Long Beach, California, which resembles Brooklyn's Coney Island.
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Ace of Wands from the Rider-Waite Tarot deck Wands are used in The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Thelema, and Wicca, and by independent practitioners of magic. Wands were introduced into the occult via the 1200s Latin grimoire The Oathbound Book of Honorius. The wand idea from the Book of Honorius, along with various other ideas from that grimoire, were later incorporated into the 1500s grimoire The Key of Solomon. The Key of Solomon became popular among occultists for hundreds of years.
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In their biography of Gray, Richardson and Claridge noted that he held to "many of the prejudices of his class, age and locale". He was openly racialist, and Richardson and Claridge claimed that he was also racist, because he used the word "Nigerian" as a euphemism for the derogatory term "nigger". Despite these views, they related that he was neither sexist nor homophobic, getting along well with women and taking no issue with several homosexual occultists that he knew.Richardson and Claridge 2003. p. 10.
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Gardner stated that the rituals of the existing group were fragmentary at best, and he set about fleshing them out, drawing on his library and knowledge as an occultist and amateur folklorist. Gardner borrowed and wove together appropriate material from other artists and occultists, most notably Charles Godfrey Leland's Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches, the Key of Solomon as published by S.L. MacGregor Mathers, Masonic ritual, Crowley, and Rudyard Kipling. Doreen Valiente wrote much of the best-known poetry, including the much-quoted Charge of the Goddess.
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Madeline Montalban (born Madeline Sylvia Royals; 8 January 1910 – 11 January 1982) was an English astrologer and ceremonial magician. She co-founded the esoteric organisation known as the Order of the Morning Star (OMS), through which she propagated her own form of Luciferianism. Born in Blackpool, Lancashire, Montalban moved to London in the early 1930s, immersing herself in the city's esoteric subculture, and influenced by Hermeticism she taught herself ceremonial magic. She associated with significant occultists, including Thelemites like Aleister Crowley and Kenneth Grant, and Wiccans like Gerald Gardner and Alex Sanders.
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Some occultists including Rudolf Steiner, Max HeindelMax Heindel, Christian Rosenkreuz and the Order of Rosicrucians, 1909 and (much later) Guy Ballard, have stated that Rosenkreuz later reappeared as the Count of St. Germain, a courtier, adventurer and alchemist who reportedly died on 27 February 1784. Steiner once identified Rembrandt's painting "A Man in Armour" as a portrait of Christian Rosenkreuz, apparently in a 17th-century manifestation. Others believe Rosenkreuz to be a pseudonym for a more famous historical figure, usually Francis Bacon. Steiner gave lectures on Rosenkreutz and Rosicrucianism.
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The Occult Review was a British illustrated monthly magazine published between 1905 and 1951 containing articles and correspondence by many notable occultists and authors of the day, including Aleister Crowley, Meredith Starr, Walter Leslie Wilmshurst, Arthur Edward Waite, Franz Hartmann, Florence Farr, and Paul Brunton. Edited by Ralph Shirley and published in London by William Rider and Son, LTD. (later Rider & Company), it is said to have been devoted to the investigation of supernormal phenomena and the study of psychological problems. It was published under different names from 1905 to 1951.
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In 1935, Naglowska presented a speech at the Club de Faubourg in which she was billed as the "High Priestess of Love of the Temple of the Third Era" and speaking on the topic of "Magic and Sexualitly: What is Magic Coitus? What is the Symbolic Serpent." The club was tried and convicted for "outrage to public decency" but later successfully appealed the conviction. During her time in Paris, she also published a newspaper called La Flèche (The Arrow) to which she and other occultists, including Evola, contributed articles.
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When he arrives at the scene, Garou finds occultists in the middle of a ceremony to sacrifice an upstart politician who was running on a platform of reform and anti-corruption. Garou is knocked out and wakes up the next morning in his bed, not remembering how he got there, though he has a pentagram carved into his stomach. Garou's senses become extremely sharp, and his wounds heal near-instantly. As he investigates the case, he surprises Jessica and his coworkers, all of whom had written him off as lazy and incompetent.
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Lammas Night tells the story of a group of English witches who act to save their country from Nazi attack during the Second World War. Woven within the story of their efforts are the visions and fragmented memories of a male witch, who gradually comes to realize his role in an ancient cycle of royal death, reincarnation, and sacrifice. The story opens with the British evacuation of Dunkirk in May of 1940. Among the evacuees is Captain Michael Jordan, an adherent of the "Oakwood Group" of occultists based at the fictional Oakwood Manor in Kent.
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From Ozone Park, he moved to Manhattan, where a counter-cultural community had built up around the Greenwich Village and the Lower East Side that contained an array of gay people, hippies, occultists and others adopting bohemian lifestyles. Without money, he resorted to working as a rent boy, and made use of both marijuana and LSD. Although he briefly returned to Catholicism, in 1971 he read a copy of Witchcraft Today (1954), a book authored by Englishman Gerald Gardner, the founder of Gardnerian Wicca, and it reignited his interest in Pagan religion.Lloyd 2012. pp.
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Choronzon is a demon or devil that originated in writing with the 16th-century occultists Edward Kelley and John Dee within the latter's occult system of Enochian magic. In the 20th century he became an important element within the mystical system of Thelema, founded by Aleister Crowley, where he is the "dweller in the abyss",Crowley, Aleister (1989). The Confessions of Aleister Crowley, ch. 66. Penguin. The Vision and the Voice, Aethyrs 9, 10 and 11 believed to be the last great obstacle between the adept and enlightenment.
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Crowley has remained an influential figure, both amongst occultists and in popular culture, particularly that of Britain, but also of other parts of the world. In 2002, a BBC poll placed Crowley seventy- third in a list of the 100 Greatest Britons. Richard Cavendish has written of him that "In native talent, penetrating intelligence and determination, Aleister Crowley was the best-equipped magician to emerge since the seventeenth century." The scholar of esotericism Egil Asprem described him as "one of the most well-known figures in modern occultism".
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The desired effect was to confirm the Han emperor's Heavenly Mandate through the continuity offered by his possession of these same sacred talismans. It is because of this politicized recording of their history that it is difficult to retrace the exact origins of these objects. What is known is that these texts were most likely produced by a class of literati called the fangshi. These were a class of nobles who were not part of the state administration; they were considered specialists or occultists, for example diviners, astrologers, alchemists or healers.
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Sussex Notes and Queries, Vol. 10, Number 3, August 1944, p. 58 The story is widely known orally with variations (such as the Devil offering porridge or milk instead of soup) but may be of relatively recent origins, with its first known appearance in print dating to Arthur Beckett's 1909 book The Spirit of the Downs. The occultists Aleister Crowley and his associate Victor Neuburg, who lived in Steyning two miles away from Chanctonbury Ring, were reportedly convinced that the site was a "place of power" for its pre-Christian religious significance.
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Occultists sometimes associate archangels in Kabbalistic fashion with various seasons or elements, or even colors. In some Kabbalah-based systems of ceremonial magic, all four of the main archangels (Gabriel, Michael, Raphael and Uriel) are invoked as guarding the four quarters, or directions, and their corresponding colors are associated with magical properties.The Pagan's Path, Metaphysics 101: The Archangels Lucifer or Satan in Christian traditions, or Iblis in Islam, is considered an archangel by Satanists and many non-Satanists, but most non-Satanists consider him evil and fallen from God's grace.
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Dummett's analysis of the historical evidence suggested that fortune-telling and occult interpretations were unknown before the 18th century. During most of their recorded history, he wrote, Tarot cards were used to play a popular trick-taking game which is still enjoyed in much of Europe. Dummett showed that the middle of the 18th century saw a great development in the game of Tarot, including a modernized deck with French suit-signs, and without the medieval allegories that interest occultists. This coincided with a growth in Tarot's popularity.
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The other play mechanics include the free market economics, which allows the players to design and craft goods, and the player-run social structure, including Houses (formerly guilds) and politics. The world consists of over twenty thousand locations, known as rooms, ranging from common countryside to more exotic and surreal environments. Players may choose among eighteen classes, ranging from familiar fantasy elements such as paladins to more unusual options such as Tarot-using Occultists. Recent structural changes have enriched the environment of Achaea further, by opening up the seas to player controlled ships.
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Occultists, magicians, and magi all the way down to the 21st century have cited Lévi as a defining influence. Waite made 34 references to Lévi in all including references to five of Lévi's books in the bibliography. Among the first to seemingly adopt Lévi's ideas was Jean-Baptiste Pitois. Pitois wrote two books under the name Paul Christian that referenced the tarot, L'Homme rouge des Tuileries (1863), and later Histoire de la magie, du monde surnaturel et de la fatalité à travers les temps et les peuples (1870).
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The Soulmother of Küssnacht (died 1577) was a Swiss medium and an alleged witch in the city of Küssnacht in the canton of Luzern in Switzerland. In 1573 the priests of Luzern sent a formal complaint to the bishop of Konstanz about the great superstitions and beliefs in wise women, the occult and such. They pointed out one of these occultists, the very center of all superstition they disliked: a woman known as "The Soulmother" or "The mother of souls" in Küssnacht. Her case is a known example of a witch trial toward a medium.
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Dictionary of Occult, Hermetic and Alchemical Sigils, written by Fred Gettings in 1981, is a massive reference, guide & source book, which examines variations in, developments of, & meanings of sigils & symbols, used by occultists, alchemists, astrologers, hermeticists, magicians & others, over the past millennium. Contains several thousand sigils from the hermetic, astrological and alchemical tradition. These are classified alphabetically. Gettings also included a useful graphic index which links their graphic form with a related verbal meaning and this would make it much easier to use these sigils meaningfully in ceremonies, etc.
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Greenwood's work is based upon her fieldwork within the practicing Pagan community. Chapter five examines the attraction of magic for its practitioners, and its uses for psychotherapy and healing. Greenwood explores the ways in which occultists use magic as a rebellion against Christianity, and their construction of a "magical identity", believing this to be "organized around a deep internal exploration of the self through an interaction with the otherworld". She also looks at magic and the acquisition of power, and the sense of empowerment discovered by magicians who were former abuse victims.
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Geshe Kelsang Gyatso. Tantric Grounds and Paths Western occultists make various differing Kabbalistic associations with Vishuddha. Some associate it with the hidden sephirah Da'at, where "wisdom" and "understanding" are balanced in the supernal realm by the aspect of "knowledge", a tangible idea which is then expressed, leading to the act of the creation. Others associate it with the sephirah Chesed and Geburah (mercy and strength) which are intimately associated with morality and the concept that both expansion, as expressed by Chesed, and limitation, as expressed by Geburah, are necessary for the creation of individual beings.
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Doctor Psycho was also one of several villains created for Wonder Woman who were occultists, beguiling the masses for their own self-enriching purposes. As Wonder Woman's rogues and supporting cast were largely jettisoned during the period that Robert Kanigher wrote and edited the issues, Doctor Psycho remained one of the few villains to appear in the Golden, Silver, and Bronze Age adventures. The character was also one of the few such villains to be modernized in the early issues of the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths Wonder Woman.
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Aleister Crowley loved Machen's works, feeling they contained "Magickal" truth, and put them on the reading list for his students, though Machen, who never met him, detested Crowley. Other occultists, such as Kenneth Grant, also find Machen an inspiration. Far closer to Machen's personal mystical world view was his effect on his friend Evelyn Underhill, who reflected some of Machen's thinking in her highly influential book Mysticism. One chapter of the French best-seller The Morning of the Magicians, by L. Pauwels and J. Berger (1960), deals extensively with Machen's thought and works.
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That paragraph does not actually mention the Tree of Life though, but simply a tree. Paragraph 95 states that a tree is inside the twelve diagonal boundary lines that are mentioned in the Sepher Yetzirah. Because the Tree of Life consists of 10 sephiroth, P.F. Case associated the three 'mother' letters (aleph, mem, shin) and seven 'double' letters of the Sepher Yetzirah with ten corresponding sephiroth. Until the publication of The Tarot, most English- speaking occultists had never heard of Case's Cube of Space concept, much less were they aware of how it related to the much better-known 'Tree of Life' diagram.
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It drew extensively on traditional Jewish Kabbalistic and medieval Christian sources, bolstered with a profound knowledge of ancient religions and philosophy, and all imbued with a vitality very relevant to modern life. Freedman also wrote many articles, and translated Latin, Greek and Hebrew texts into English, including a version of the Kabbalistic text the Sefer Yetzirah, and one of Giordano Bruno's Latin esoteric manuscripts. His written output was prolific, energetic and highly erudite, and mostly rooted in ancient and scholarly sources rather than the ideas of other modern occultists. In 1978, the Society also began offering a free meditation course by correspondence.
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A black magical item created from Eternity's own substance during the sixth century by a group of renegade occultists to give whomever wears it equal power to anyone they may face, unless they are below the natural ability of the mask's user. This allowed for example, an untrained peasant to be on equal grounds with the Black Knight and fight him for three days straight. If the would-be user's intent was to commit acts of evil, the mask had no effect on them. So far the upper limits of this ability have yet to be established.
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The first few Islamic hospitals that arose in Baghdad, in the early 9th century, were to quarantine those who suffered from leprosy. At first, it was considered by many as a "leprosorium" due to its limited purpose; nonetheless, these hospitals still salaried doctors whose specialties were not solely limited to leprosy. The function of these hospitals soon became diversified over time as newly built hospitals in Baghdad began to incorporate the knowledge from Islamic physicians, scientists such as Al-Razi. Al-Razi's hospital in Baghdad, had 24 physicians on staff; these physicians had diverse specialties, including, physiologists, occultists, surgeons, and bonesetters.
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Archaeologist Paul Bahn considered the various hypotheses pertaining to the village of Rennes-le-Château as "beloved of occultists and 'aficionados' of the Unexplained". He groups the mysteries of Rennes-le-Château with those of the Bermuda Triangle, Atlantis, and ancient astronauts as being sources of "ill-informed and lunatic books".Paul G Bahn, "The ruins of a mystery" (Times Literary Supplement, 29 March 1991). Likewise another archaeologist Bill Putnam, co-author with John Edwin Wood of The Treasure of Rennes-le-Château, A Mystery Solved (2003, 2005) dismisses all the popular hypotheses as pseudo-history.
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Although the social status of nobles, officials, farmers, and artisan-craftsmen were considered above the station of the lowly registered merchant, wealthy and successful businessmen acquired huge fortunes which allowed them to rival the social prestige of even the most powerful nobles and highest officials. Slaves were at the bottom of the social order, yet they represented only a tiny portion of the overall population. Retainers attached themselves to the estates of wealthy landowners, while medical physicians and state-employed religious occultists could make a decent living. People of all social classes believed in various deities, spirits, immortals, and demons.
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The sojourn of Vivekananda to the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893 had a lasting effect. Vivekananda founded the Ramakrishna Mission, a Hindu missionary organisation still active today. In the early 20th century, Western occultists influenced by Hinduism include Maximiani Portaz – an advocate of "Aryan Paganism" – who styled herself Savitri Devi and Jakob Wilhelm Hauer, founder of the German Faith Movement. It was in this period, and until the 1920s, that the swastika became a ubiquitous symbol of good luck in the West before its association with the Nazi Party became dominant in the 1930s.
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Throughout all of these disparate spiritual interests, she retained faith in the Thelemic ideas of Crowley. As well as entertaining old friends who came to visit her in her home, Cameron also met with younger occultists, such as the Thelemite William Breeze and the industrial musician Genesis P-Orridge. Cameron aided Breeze in co-editing a collection of Parsons' occult and libertarian writings, which were published as Freedom is a Two-Edged Sword in 1989. Cameron was acquainted with the experimental film-maker Chick Strand and appeared in the latter's 1979 project Loose Ends, during which she narrated the story of an exorcism.
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The game begins with an amnesiac Edward Carnby, a paranormal investigator recovering from an exorcism performed on him by a group of occultists led by Crowley. A guard is instructed to take him to the roof for execution, only to be dragged away and slaughtered by an unseen force. He wanders the collapsing building in search of an exit; witnessing several people being killed in a similar fashion as the guard, as well as a young woman becoming possessed by a demon which claims to know of his past. After battling the entity, he meets art dealer Sarah Flores.
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It is often said, Kether (the "highest" Sephira) is in Malkuth and Malkuth is in Kether.Aleister Crowley, Magick (Book Four), Red Wheel / Weiser, LLC, Boston, 1994, p138 As the receiving sphere of all the other Sephiroth, Malkuth gives tangible form to the other emanations. The Divine energy comes down and finds its expression in this plane, and our purpose as human beings is to bring that energy back around the circuit again and back up the Tree. Some occultists have also likened Malkuth to a cosmic filter, as it lies above the world of the Qliphoth, or the Tree of Death.
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Anthony Munday mentions Robin Goodfellow in his play The Two Italian Gentlemen, 1584, and he appears in Skialtheia, or a Shadowe of Truth in 1598. William Shakespeare may have had access to the manuscript of Lewes Lewkenor's translation of The Spanish Mandevile of Miracles, or, The Garden of Curious Flowers (1600) a translation of Antonio de Torquemada's, Jardin Flores Curiosas. The following passage from The Spanish Mandeville discusses the mischievous spirits: After Meyerbeer's successful opera Robert le Diable (1831), neo-medievalists and occultists began to apply the name Robin Goodfellow to the Devil, with appropriately extravagant imagery.
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Theodor Fritsch around 1920 The Germanenorden was founded in Berlin in 1912 by Theodor Fritsch and several prominent German occultists including Philipp Stauff, who held office in the Guido von List Society and High Armanen Order as well as Hermann Pohl, who became the Germanenorden's first leader. The order was a clandestine movement that wished to create a small but devoted group and was a sister movement to the more open and mainstream Reichshammerbund.Richard S. Levy, Antisemitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution, Volume 1, ABC-CLIO, 2005, p. 269 In 1916, during World War I, the Germanenorden split into two parts.
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The influence of the "Cosmic Circle" on Stefan George and his entourage is apparent by his use of the swastika in some of his publications, such as the Blätter für die Kunst. The "cosmic" influence can also be traced in the article "The Seventh Circle" and in his later work. As there was, however, in 1904, a rupture between George and the Schuler circle, its overt influence was intermittent. From about the turn of the century Schuler kept in touch with occultists such as Henri Papus, and later took part in spiritualist séances directed by Albert von Schrenck-Notzing.
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Clauneck is who a myriad of modern-day Hermetic occultists demand or beg money from, and while rightly so this is where their understanding of Clauneck's vast dominion begins and ends. In the Grimorium Verum Clauneck is first or “numero uno” in the ordering of the eighteen servitor spirits. Clauneck's numbering demonstrates his supremacy within the legion's hierarchy, and denotes the respect held for him by Lucifer. However even more importantly the number one is the first indication of value by which all value is essentially an addition or subtraction of “1” or a sum totals of “1s”.
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Later relating that he experienced several visions at this time, he devised several magical rituals using the kitchen as a temple, based upon what he had read in books and his own innovation.Richardson and Claridge 2003. pp. 39–42. He attended lectures given by the Theosophical Society and also met a number of famous occultists who were friends of his mother; these included Arthur Wilson, who later tried to found a commune in Canada, and Victor Neuburg (1883–1940), whom Gray would always remember as "one of the gentlest men I ever met".Richardson and Claridge 2003. pp. 44–46.
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Several 19th and 20th century occultists claimed to belong to or to have contacted these Secret Chiefs and made these communications known to others, including H.P. Blavatsky (who called them the "Tibetan Masters" or Mahatmas), C.W. Leadbeater and Alice A. Bailey (who called them Masters of the Ancient Wisdom), Guy Ballard and Elizabeth Clare Prophet (who called them Ascended Masters), Aleister Crowley (who used the term to refer to members of the upper three grades of his order, A∴A∴), Dion Fortune (who called them the "esoteric order"), and Max Heindel (who called them the "Elder Brothers").
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Among those to read the work was the occultist Dion Fortune, who considered it to be "quite the best book on magic" that she had read. She and Regardie met, but while the latter admired her writings he was unimpressed with her in person. Regardie later publicly criticised her for misrepresenting his works in her reviews of them; she had claimed that his works bolstered her beliefs about the Masters, although Regardie insisted that he was sceptical about the existence of such entities. The publication of works on Qabalah aimed at a general audience angered some occultists who thought Regardie was sharing information too widely.
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Although no divination system using this pack of cards ever existed in previous centuries, and because of this allegorical and cosmological content, in recent years tarot occultists have proposed systems of divination and cartomancy that use the minchiate deck. In Charles Godfrey Leland's 1890 book Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches, an incantation is given that mentions the use of "40 cards", which are renamed in the spell as 40 gods who are being invoked to compel the goddess Laverna to do the caster's bidding. Paul Huson has speculated that these 40 cards are the 40 trumps of the minchiate deck.Huson, Paul, The Devil's Picturebook, p.
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Among its members were a number of occultists, spiritualists, and Theosophists. Initial relations between the Order and the Theosophical Society were cordial, with most members of the order also prominent members of the T.S.Godwin, Chanel, Deveney, 1995, page 52 Later there was a falling out, as the Order was opposed to the eastern-based teachings of the later Blavatsky (Davidson considered that Blavatsky had fallen under the influence of "a greatly inferior Order, belonging to the Buddhist [sic] Cult"). Conversely, the conviction in 1883 of the Secretary of the Order, Thomas Henry Burgoyne for fraud, was claimed by the Theosophists to show the immorality of the Order.
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Deeply troubled by his failure in the face of such an overwhelming national crisis, he turns to a friend for solace. This friend, once a member of Graham's Intelligence section, is the (fictional) younger brother of both King George VI and the Duke of Windsor, and is named Prince William, Duke of Clarence. Intrigued by Gray's indirect references to occult matters during their discussions, Prince William presses Gray for more information. The Prince eventually volunteers to be the royal patron of the Oakwood Group and its Lammas night undertaking, but as Gray Graham works to develop his network of occultists the Battle of Britain reaches its crescendo.
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In much the same way that Satan has been championed by some of those who object to the Abrahamic God, Choronzon has been turned into a positive figure by some iconoclastic occultists, in particular chaos magicians who object to what they see as the stultifying and restrictive dogma of Thelema. Peter Carroll's "Mass of Choronzon"Carroll, Peter J. The Mass of Choronzon is a ritual with the purpose of casting the energy of one's ego into the universe to effectuate an unknown desire.Carroll, Peter J.. Liber Null and Psychonaut. This, in part, has served as an inspiration for modernized ritual effectuation based on the "333 current".
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Aleister Crowley's "Liber 777" associates it with Isis, Cybele, Demeter, Rhea, Woman, The Virgin Mary, Juno, Hecate, The "threes" of the Tarot, etc. Occultists have compared the Sephira with the chakras of Indian mysticism, and one such comparison is in comparing both Binah and Chokhmah with the Ajna chakra, which is where both Shiva and Shakti are united. For its negative opposite on the Tree of Death, it has the demonic order Sathariel, ruled by the Archdemon Lucifuge Rofocale. In the correlation of Binah with Shakti and Chokhmah with Shiva, Shakti is the animating life force whereas Shiva is dead, a corpse, without her energy.
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The sojourn of Vivekananda to the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893 had a lasting effect. Vivekananda founded the Ramakrishna Mission, an Indian religious missionary organization still active today. Hinduism-inspired elements in Theosophy were also inherited by the spin-off movements of Ariosophy and Anthroposophy and ultimately contributed to the renewed New Age boom of the 1960s to 1980s, the term New Age itself deriving from Blavatsky's 1888 The Secret Doctrine. In the early 20th century, Western occultists influenced by Hinduism include Maximiani Portaz – an advocate of "Aryan Paganism" – who styled herself Savitri Devi and Jakob Wilhelm Hauer, founder of the German Faith Movement.
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Engraving of occultists John Dee and Edward Kelley "in the act of invoking the spirit of a deceased person"; from Astrology (1806) by Ebenezer Sibly. In the wake of inconsistencies of judgment, necromancers and other practitioners of the magic arts were able to utilize spells featuring holy names with impunity, as any biblical references in such rituals could be construed as prayers rather than spells. As a consequence, the necromancy that appears in the Munich Manual is an evolution of these theoretical understandings. It has been suggested that the authors of the Manual knowingly designed the book to be in discord with ecclesiastical law.
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Among her clients were Madame de Grancey, an acquaintance of Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, and the marquis de Feuquieres, previously the client of La Voisin, who reportedly hired her to summon a demon by the name of Prince Babel. La Ville was arrested in a great raid against the occultists of Paris in October 1702. This raid had been made after general lieutenant Marc-René de Voyer de Paulmy d'Argenson (1652–1721), had warned that the religion in the capital was endangered because of a growing professional class of occultists.Anne Somerset - The Affair of the Poisons: Murder, Infanticide, and Satanism at the Court of Louis XIV (St.
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The List-inspired Germanenorden (Germanic Order or Teutonic Order, not to be confused with the medieval German order of the Teutonic Knights) was a völkisch secret society in early 20th-century Germany. It was founded in Berlin in 1912 by Theodor Fritsch and several prominent German occultists including Philipp Stauff, who held office in the List Society and High Armanen Order as well as Hermann Pohl, who became the Germanenorden's first leader. The group was a clandestine movement aimed at the upper echelons of society and was a sister movement to the more mainstream Reichshammerbund. The order, whose symbol was a swastika, had a hierarchical fraternal structure similar to Freemasonry.
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In the late 1970s, Ray Sherwin and Peter Carroll, two young British occultists with a strong interest in ritual magic, began to publish a magazine called The New Equinox. Both were connected with a burgeoning occult scene developing around a metaphysical bookshop in London's East End called The Phoenix. Both men quickly became dissatisfied with the state of the magical arts and the deficiencies they saw in the available occult groups. So in 1978 they published a small announcement in their magazine proclaiming the creation of a new kind of magical order, one based on a hierarchy of magical ability rather than invitation, a magical meritocracy.
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Parsons' interest in the occult led in 1939 to him and Helen joining the Pasadena branch of the Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.). At age 15, Northrup moved in with sister Helen and her husband Jack, while she finished high school. Parsons had subdivided the house, a rambling mansion next door to the estate of Adolphus Busch (which later became the first Busch Gardens), into 19 apartments which he populated with a mixture of artists, writers, scientists and occultists. Her parents not only knew about her unconventional living arrangements but supported Parsons' group financially. Northrup joined the O.T.O. in 1941, at Parsons' urging, and was given the title of Soror [Sister] Cassap.
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Modern occultists claim that some Hermetic texts may be of Pharaonic origin, and that the legendary "forty-two essential texts" that contain the core Hermetic religious beliefs and philosophy of life, remain hidden in a secret library. The book Kybalion, by "The Three Initiates", addresses Hermetic principles. Within the occult tradition, Hermes Trismegistus is associated with several wives, and more than one son who took his name, as well as more than one grandson. This repetition of given name and surname throughout the generations may at least partially account for the legend of his longevity, especially as it is believed that many of his children pursued careers as priests in mystery religions.
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At a time, the Toy Maker was the brightest pupil of Rinaldo Gandolfi; Though, he much preferred to build toys for children and the skill that gave him his name made him legendary across the lands. However, hearing of his skill was Walter Bernhard, a member of the Bernhard family who offered the Toy Maker a place in his Castle to make his craft. In time, the Toy Maker realized that Walter came from a family of dark occultists. Walter summoned a demon to possess the Toy Maker's kindly soul, thereby twisting his craft in the darkest way and making weapons of death and destruction, some being the Dark Pain, the Stopwatch, the Macabre Puppet, and Gargoyles.
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He gained a reputation as a miracle worker amongst Paris occultists. Having been harassed for practicing medicine without a license, he went to St Petersburg where he was awarded his Doctor's Diploma in recognition of extraordinary feats of remote healing conducted in St Petersburg. Grand Duchess Militza Nikolaevna of Russia later introduced Philippe to Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia in 1901, and Philippe enjoyed a brief influence over the imperial couple, until he was exposed as a charlatan in 1903 and was expelled from Russia.King, Empress, 153 In October 1884 he presented a paper (published in French) entitled "Principles of Hygiene applicable in Pregnancy, Childbirth and Infancy" at the University of Cincinnati, Ohio.
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Her final novel, Moon Magic, was apparently left unfinished prior to the outbreak of the Second World War; a protégé later completed it, claiming to have done so through channeling Blavatsky's disembodied spirit, and it was published posthumously. Fortune corresponded with a number of prominent occultists in this period. One of these was Israel Regardie, whose book The Tree of Life was regarded by Fortune as "quite the best book on magic" that she had read. Regardie later publicly criticised her for misrepresenting his works in her reviews of them; she had claimed that his works bolstered her beliefs about the Masters, although Regardie insisted that he was sceptical about the existence of such entities.
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In 1933, the eclectic German Faith Movement (Deutsche Glaubensbewegung) was founded by the religious studies scholar Jakob Wilhelm Hauer, who wanted to unite these disparate Heathen groups. While active throughout the Nazi era, his hopes that his "German Faith" would be declared the official faith of Nazi Germany were thwarted. The Heathen movement probably never had more than a few thousand followers during its 1920s heyday, however it held the allegiance of many middle-class intellectuals, including journalists, artists, illustrators, scholars, and teachers, and thus exerted a wider influence on German society. The völkisch occultists—among them Pagans like List and Christians like Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels—"contributed importantly to the mood of the Nazi era".
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As a consequence of these writings the Ludendorffs added occultists to the Stab-in- the-back legend. She criticized the works of Jakob Wilhelm Hauer, an Indologist who supported völkisch ideas, but emphasised the Indo-European origins of the Germans. She criticized the lack of depth and tendency towards jargon in his seminal 1932 work Der Yoga als Heilweg and argued that the teachings of Krishna and Buddha had in fact been adopted by the writers of the Old and New Testaments, making Indian religion off-limits given her aversion to Christianity. Hauer feared Ludendorff´s power in völkisch circles, given her work and her influential husband, would de-emphasise the Indian aspects of his ideas in subsequent writings.
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While working in California Gerald Suster met Israel Regardie and Gerald Yorke, two of the few remaining occultists who had studied directly under Aleister Crowley. Suster made great progress in A∴A∴, and became a well-known figure in the London occult and pagan scenes. He prefaced every speech & comment with the words: "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law"; the immediate source of the utterance is the Book of the Law. In 1989 he became a tutor at Boarzell Tutorial College in Sussex; however his teaching career came to an abrupt end when he was featured in an exposé of his occult activities in the News of the World newspaper on 16 April 1989.
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1927, he wrote: After Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1938, Lanz hoped for Hitler's patronage, but Hitler banned him from publishing his writings and copies of Ostara were removed from circulation. After the war, Lanz accused Hitler of having not only stolen but corrupted his idea, and also of being of "inferior racial stock". There is no strong scholarly consensus as to whether Hitler was significantly influenced, directly or indirectly, by Lanz's work, and no strong evidence that he was interested in the occult movement as a whole apart from its racial aspects, though the association has been repeatedly made by critics and occultists during and after the Third Reich.
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Jordan is officially working for MI-6, as part of their Occult Studies Division, and he is carrying sensitive information proving that Adolf Hitler is using occult means to plan for the invasion of Great Britain, an operation called Sealion. After his safe return to Oakwood, Jordan shares this Intelligence with Colonel John "Gray" Graham, his military superior and wartime leader of the Oakwood Group. While Gray uses Jordan's collected information to plan a more conventional psychological warfare campaign against the Nazi invasion, he also attempts to unify the many disparate groups of British occultists to work in concert on Lammas night, one of the major Sabbats. Gray is at first unsuccessful.
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From eastern France and Switzerland, the game spread north to Sweden and east to Russia starting from the middle of the 18th century, making it one of the most popular card games of that era until being overtaken by Whist in the 19th century. One well-known artisan producing tarot cards in the Marseilles pattern was Nicolas Conver (circa 1760). It was the Conver deck, or a deck very similar to it, that came to the attention of Antoine Court de Gébelin in the late 18th century. Court de Gébelin's writings, which contained much by way of speculation as to the supposed Egyptian origin of the cards and their symbols, called the attention of occultists to tarot decks.
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Based on Renaissance-era occultism, the pentagram found its way into the symbolism of modern occultists. Its major use is a continuation of the ancient Babylonian use of the pentagram as an apotropaic charm to protect against evil forces. Éliphas Lévi claimed that "The Pentagram expresses the mind's domination over the elements and it is by this sign that we bind the demons of the air, the spirits of fire, the spectres of water, and the ghosts of earth." In this spirit, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn developed the use of the pentagram in the lesser banishing ritual of the pentagram, which is still used to this day by those who practice Golden Dawn-type magic.
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List died on 17 May 1919, a few months before Adolf Hitler joined a minor Bavarian political party and formed it into the NSDAP. After the Nazis had come to power, several advocates of Armanism fell victim to the suppression of esotericism in Nazi Germany. The main reason for the persecution of occultists was the Nazi policy of systematically closing down esoteric organisations (although Germanic paganism was still practised by some Nazis on an individual basis), but the instigator in certain cases was Himmler's personal occultist, Karl Maria Wiligut. Wiligut identified the monotheistic religion of Irminism as the true ancestral belief, claiming that Guido von List's Wotanism and runic row constituted a schismatic false religion .
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And no man who has once acquired this power will ever care to return to the old habit of abandonment to passion; for he will see that he was then a slave, whereas now he is a king". Craddock writes that: "There is a belief among some occultists that an earnest wish breathed at that time, when husband and wife are one, will not fail to be granted. This opens, it is said, the door to those who practice what is called 'black magic', and enables them to work harm upon other human beings." Craddock continues: "What foundation there is for this belief as applied to the magicians I do not see.
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Wilkins makes two main points: first, Webster is not addressing the actual state of the universities, which were not as wedded to old scholastic ways, Aristotle, and Galen, as he said; and secondly Webster's mixture of commended authors, without fuller understanding of the topics, really was foolish. In this approach Wilkins had to back away somewhat from his writings of the late 1630s and early 1640s. He made light of this in the way of pointing to Alexander Ross, a very conservative Aristotelian who had attacked his own astronomical works, as a more suitable target for Webster. This exchange was part of the process of the new experimental philosophers throwing off their associations with occultists and radicals.
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L. Sprague de Camp enjoyed debunking doubtful history and pseudoscientific claims. The work provides a detailed examination of theories and speculations on Atlantis and other lost lands, including the scientific arguments against their existence and how it has been continued, developed and imitated by later theorists, speculators, scientific enquirers, enthusiasts, occultists, quacks, and fantasists throughout history. Major speculative locales as Atlantis, Mu, and Lemuria are covered in depth, with the origins of lesser-known ones such as Thule, Hyperborea, and Rutas also treated. The work shows how the misinterpretation of Mayan writings created the Mu myth, and how the name Lemuria originated from the geological hypothesis about a land bridge between India and South Africa.
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Lesage came from Venoix near Caen and was originally a wool trader. He later moved to Paris and was there employed in the organisation of La Voisin, an organisation of occultists who also provided poisons, with the task to perform alleged magical rituals. In 1667, he officiated, alongside abbé Mariette in a black mass, arranged by La Voisin for the royal mistress Madame de Montespan, where she asked for the king to love her by the help of Satan. The same year, Lesage was condemned to the galleys for having participated in black masses; he was freed in 1672 by the connections of La Voisin and resumed his position in her organisation.
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Occultistic pentagram showing the five Hebrew letters of the "Pentagrammaton" from the 1897 book “La Clef de la Magie Noire” by Stanislas de Guaita. mystic Jakob Böhme with names of Jesus, and a derivation of the pentagrammaton from the Tetragrammaton. The first ones to use a name of Jesus something like "Yahshuah" were Renaissance occultists. In the second half of the 16th century, when knowledge of Biblical Hebrew first began to spread among a significant number of Christians, certain esoterically minded or occultistic circles came up with the idea of deriving the Hebrew name of Jesus by adding the Hebrew letter shin ש into the middle of the Tetragrammaton divine name yod-he-waw-he יהוה to produce the form yod-he-shin-waw-he יהשוה.
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Michael Paul Bertiaux (born January 18, 1935) is an American occultist and Old Catholic Bishop, known for his book Voudon Gnostic Workbook (1988), a 615-page compendium of various occult lessons and research papers spanning the sub- fields of Voodoo, Neo-Pythagoreanism, Thelema and Gnosticism. Long considered by occultists one of the underground classics of 20th century occultism, the book was out of print for many years and fetched increasingly high prices in the antiquarian market before it was reprinted in paperback by Red Wheel/Weiser in 2007. Note that the unique spelling of "voudon" is an innovation of Bertiaux's, (though it is similar to the traditional spelling of vodun). Bertiaux also coined the term vudutronics to refer to his idiosyncratic interpretation of this religion.
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In 1900, Com married David Elkington, one of her many suitors who owned a tea plantation in the British colony of Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka). It was agreed with the Gardners that Gerald would live with her on a tea plantation named Ladbroke Estate in Maskeliya district, where he could learn the tea trade. In 1901 Gardner and the Elkingtons lived briefly in a bungalow in Kandy, where a neighbouring bungalow had just been vacated by the occultists Aleister Crowley and Charles Henry Allan Bennett. At his father's expense, Gardner trained as a "creeper", or trainee planter, learning all about the growing of tea; although he disliked the "dreary endlessness" of the work, he enjoyed being outdoors and near to the forests.
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Spiesberger is well known as the single most important person to revive Germanic mysticism after the second world war, including the Armanen Runes and the Pendulum. Due to the Nazi suppression and imprisonment of "non-authorised" or "non- officially sanctioned" runic/Germanic mystics and revivalists and their respective organisations during the Third Reich (see Nazi mysticism) the runes were so closely associated with the Nazis that the use and discussion of them in academic as well as esoteric circles was hampered by adverse public opinion. Those of the old rune magicians and occultists who had survived the war in Germany, slowly began to make their way back to their work, and new voices were also heard. The best known of these new voices was Spiesberger.
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Campion-Vincent says that "four currents can be distinguished in the study of mysterious animal appearances": "Forteans" ("compiler[s] of anomalies" such as via publications like the Fortean Times), "occultists" (which she describes as related to "Forteans"), "folklorists", and "cryptozoologists". Regarding cryptozoologists, Campion-Vincent says that "this movement seems to deserve the appellation of parascience, like parapsychology: the same corpus is reviewed; many scientists participate, but for those who have an official status of university professor or researcher, the participation is a private hobby". In her Encyclopedia of American Folklore, academic Linda Watts says that "folklore concerning unreal animals or beings, sometimes called monsters, is a popular field of inquiry" and describes cryptozoology as an example of "American narrative traditions" that "feature many monsters".Watts (2007: 271).
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A well-meaning half-Demon (or Cambion) whose true name is Anung Un Rama ("and upon his brow is set a crown of flame"), Hellboy was summoned from Hell to Earth as a baby by Nazi occultists (spawning his hatred for the Third Reich). He was discovered on a fictional Outer Hebrides Island by the Allied Forces; amongst them, Professor Trevor Bruttenholm, who formed the United States Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (B.P.R.D.). In time, Hellboy grew to be a large, red-skinned adult with a tail, horns (which he files off, leaving behind circular stumps on his forehead), cloven hooves for feet, and an oversized right hand made of stone (the "Right Hand of Doom"). He has been described as smelling of dry-roasted peanuts.
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Crowley was bewildered and concerned by the endeavor, complaining to Germer of being "fairly frantic when I contemplate the idiocy of these louts!" Motivated to find a new partner through occult means, Parsons began to devote his energies to conducting black magic, causing concern among fellow O.T.O. members who believed that it was invoking troublesome spirits into the Parsonage; Jane Wolfe wrote to Crowley that "our own Jack is enamored with Witchcraft, the houmfort, voodoo. From the start he always wanted to evoke something—no matter what, I am inclined to think, as long as he got a result." He told the residents that he was imbuing statues in the house with a magical energy in order to sell them to fellow occultists.
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It received a particularly enthusiastic reception by occultists such as Dion Fortune, Lewis Spence, Ralph Shirley, and J. W. Brodie Innes, perhaps because its claims regarding an ancient secret society chimed with similar claims common among various occult groups. Murray joined the Folklore Society in February 1927, and was elected to the society's council a month later, although she stood down in 1929. Murray reiterated her witch-cult theory in her 1933 book, The God of the Witches, which was aimed at a wider, non-academic audience. In this book, she cut out or toned down what she saw as the more unpleasant aspects of the witch-cult, such as animal and child sacrifice, and began describing the religion in more positive terms as "the Old Religion".
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Though suspending its activities in the Greater German Reich, the ONT survived in Hungary until around the end of World War II. It went underground in Vienna after 1945, but was contacted in 1958 by a former Waffen-SS lieutenant, Rudolf Mund, who became Prior of the Order in 1979. Mund also wrote biographies of Lanz and Wiligut. The term "Ariosophy" (wisdom concerning the Aryans) was coined by Lanz von Liebenfels in 1915, with "Theozoology" describing its Genesis and "Ario-Christianity" as the label for the overall doctrine in the 1920s. This terminology was taken up by a group of occultists, formed in Berlin around 1920 and referred to by one of its main figures, Ernst Issberner-Haldane, as the 'Swastika-Circle'.
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Indeed, the foundation in La Borie Noble (Hérault department) of the Community of the Ark, Lanza's numerous trips and conferences throughout the world, his struggle for non-violence in the mind of his master Gandhi, and especially his numerous publications, ensured a relative success for the Message retrouvé that Lanza prefaced. However, this preface, although skilfully written, is far from being Lanza del Vasto's best- known text. Many of Lanza's disciples are unaware of its existence. As for the praise of the Message retrouvé that René Guénon published (see above), it had a dark side: if it increased the audience in certain circles (metaphysicists, occultists, hermeticists, alchemists etc.), Guénon also aroused violent oppositions and had many enemies in both Catholic and esoteric circles.
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William G. Gray (1913–1992), better known to many as Bill Gray, was an English ceremonial magician, Hermetic Qabalist and writer, who published widely on the subject of western esotericism and the occult. Gray founded a magical order known as the Sangreal Sodality. Born to a working-class family in Harrow, Middlesex, Gray moved around a lot as a child, living in various locations across England, and also in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, where he took a particular interest in the rituals of the Roman Catholic Church. Developing an early interest in western esotericism from his mother, who was a professional fortune teller, he met a number of famous occultists in his youth, including Victor Neuburg, Aleister Crowley and Dion Fortune.
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The book is divided into two sections: in the first part, a narrative retells the formative years of the young Adolf Hitler between 1907 and 1918, when he lived as a starving artist on the streets and in the asylums of Vienna, and then joined World War I as a volunteer on the Western Front. When the war ends, Hitler comes into contact with members of the Thule Society in Munich, an association of occultists who had launched a political party, the German Workers Party (DAP).The narration ends in 1920 when Hitler takes over the DAP and turns it into the Nazi Party (NSDAP). In an interview with The Guardian, author Claus Hant explained that the events after 1920 are exhaustively documented in the numerous Hitler biographies.
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As part of her plans for the post-war period, Fortune began mooting the idea of bringing together all of Europe's occultists to pool their knowledge. She also began discussing the possibility of uniting occult groups with the Spiritualist movement, writing articles that were more favourable towards Spiritualist mediums than she had previously been and meeting with Charles Richard Cammell, the editor of Light—the magazine of the College of Psychic Studies—who then published a favourable article about her. By at least 1942, Fortune corresponded with the prominent occultist and ceremonial magician Aleister Crowley, praising him as "a genuine adept" despite the many differences between their respective occult philosophies. She later visited him at his home in Hastings, with Crowley's assistant Kenneth Grant noting that the pair got along well.
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Although sex features in her novels, it is never described in graphic detail. Nevertheless, her later occult novels entail depictions of heterosexual sex outside of marriage, suggesting that by this point Fortune no longer believed that sex must be restrained to wedlock. The scholar Andrew Radford noted that Fortune's "reactionary and highly heteronormative" view of "sacralised sexuality" should be seen as part of a wider tradition among esoteric currents, going back to the ideas of Emanuel Swedenborg and Andrew Jackson Davis and also being found in the work of occultists like Paschal Beverly Randolph and Ida Craddock. Fortune was among those who popularised the idea of a division between the left-hand path and right-hand path which had been introduced to Western esotericism by the Theosophist Helena Blavatsky.
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As the early modern period commenced in the late 15th century, many changes began to shock Europe that would have an effect on the production of grimoires. Historian Owen Davies classed the most important of these as the Protestant Reformation and subsequent Catholic Counter-Reformation, the witch-hunts and the advent of printing. The Renaissance saw the continuation of interest in magic that had been found in the Mediaeval period, and in this period, there was an increased interest in Hermeticism among occultists and ceremonial magicians in Europe, largely fueled by the 1471 translation of the ancient Corpus hermeticum into Latin by Marsilio Ficino (1433–99). Alongside this, there was a rise in interest in the Jewish mysticism known as the Kabbalah, which was spread across the continent by Pico della Mirandola and Johannes Reuchlin.
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From his base in London, he would frequent Atlantis bookshop, thereby encountering a number of other occultists, including Austin Osman Spare and Kenneth Grant, and he also continued his communication with Karl Germer until 1956. In 1952, Gardner had begun to correspond with a young woman named Doreen Valiente. She eventually requested initiation into the Craft, and though Gardner was hesitant at first, he agreed that they could meet during the winter at the home of Edith Woodford-Grimes. Valiente got on well with both Gardner and Woodford-Grimes, and having no objections to either ritual nudity or scourging (which she had read about in a copy of Gardner's novel High Magic's Aid that he had given to her), she was initiated by Gardner into Wicca on Midsummer 1953.
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Since the time of Mathers' translation, The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage has remained popular among English-speaking ceremonial magicians and occultists interested in Hermetic Qabalah, Christian Kabbalah and grimoires. A paperback reprint during the renewed rise of interest in hermeticism during the 1970s placed the book before a new generation of readers, and one offshoot of this was that a number of people, both within and without the Thelemic and Golden Dawn communities, claimed to have either undertaken the Abramelin operation in toto or to have successfully experimented with the magic squares and Abramelin oil formula found in the text. There are several important differences between the original manuscripts and Mathers' edition. First, one of the four books was missing entirely from the French manuscript with which he worked.
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The Thule Society originated as an offshoot of the Germanenorden in 1917, and notoriously became associated with the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei in 1919 and thus involved in the formative phase of the Nazi Party. By the rise of the Third Reich in 1933, the Thule society had been dissolved, and esoteric organisations (including völkisch occultists) were suppressed by the Nazi regime, many closed down by anti-Masonic legislation in 1935. Nevertheless, some elements of Germanic mysticism found reflection in the symbolism employed by the Nazis, mostly due to Heinrich Himmler's interest in the occult and sponsorship of the Austrian Ariosophist Karl Wiligut. As early as 1940, the occult scholar and folklorist Lewis Spence identified a neopagan undercurrent in Nazism,Spence, Lewis, Occult Causes of the Present War, 1940: p85.
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Motivated to find a new partner through occult means, Parsons began to devote his energies to conducting black magic, causing concern among fellow O.T.O. members who believed that it was invoking troublesome spirits into the Parsonage; Jane Wolfe wrote to Crowley that "our own Jack is enamored with Witchcraft, the houmfort, voodoo. From the start he always wanted to evoke something—no matter what, I am inclined to think, as long as he got a result." He told the residents that he was imbuing statues in the house with a magical energy in order to sell them to fellow occultists. Parsons reported paranormal events in the house resulting from the rituals; including poltergeist activity, sightings of orbs and ghostly apparitions, alchemical (sylphic) effect on the weather, and disembodied voices.
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Unlike older forms of esotericism, occultism does not reject "scientific progress or modernity". Lévi had stressed the need to solve the conflict between science and religion, something that he believed could be achieved by turning to what he thought was the ancient wisdom found in magic. The French scholar of Western esotericism Antoine Faivre noted that rather than outright accepting "the triumph of scientism", occultists sought "an alternative solution", trying to integrate "scientific progress or modernity" with "a global vision that will serve to make the vacuousness of materialism more apparent". The Dutch scholar of hermeticism Wouter Hanegraaff remarked that occultism was "essentially an attempt to adapt esotericism" to the "disenchanted world", a post-Enlightenment society in which growing scientific discovery had eradicated the "dimension of irreducible mystery" previously present.
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The theft of the Gold Tiberius, an unintentionally unique commemorative coin commissioned by Tiberius which is stated to have achieved legendary status in the centuries hence, from a mysterious triad of occultists drives the plot of the framing story in Arthur Machen's 1895 novel The Three Impostors. Tiberius has been represented in fiction, in literature, film and television, and in video games, often as a peripheral character in the central storyline. One such modern representation is in the novel I, Claudius by Robert Graves, and the consequent BBC television series adaptation, where he is portrayed by George Baker. George R. R. Martin, the author of The Song of Ice and Fire series, has stated that central character Stannis Baratheon is partially inspired by Tiberius Caesar, and particularly the portrayal by Baker.
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Eventually taking an Austrian named Emile Napoleon Hauenstein to be his magical teacher, he joined the British Army and served for several years, fighting in the Second World War. Returning to Britain, he befriended and performed rituals with members of many different occult currents in Britain at the time, including Robert Cochrane, and published a number of books on the subject of the esoteric. 1975 saw the publication of The Rollright Ritual, a book about the rituals and alleged spiritual interactions which he had experienced at the Rollright Stones, a Neolithic stone circle in the Cotswolds. The life and work of Gray is referenced in the works of various occultists and academics studying western esotericism, while in 2003 the authors Alan Richardson and Marcus Claridge published a biography of him, entitled The Old Sod.
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Instead, from her early publications onward many of her ideas were challenged by those who highlighted her "factual errors and methodological failings". However, the publication of the Murray thesis in the Encyclopaedia Britannica made it accessible to "journalists, film-makers popular novelists and thriller writers", who adopted it "enthusiastically". Influencing works of literature, it inspired writings by Aldous Huxley and Robert Graves. Subsequently, in 1939, an English occultist named Gerald Gardner claimed to have been initiated into a surviving group of the pagan Witch-Cult known as the New Forest Coven, although modern historical investigation has led scholars to believe that this coven was not ancient as Gardner believed, but was instead founded in the 1920s or 1930s by occultists wishing to fashion a revived Witch-Cult based upon Murray's theories.
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New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos was edited by Ramsey Campbell and published by Arkham House in 1980 in an edition of 3,647 copies. In his introduction, Campbell noted that "[i]n recent years the Mythos at times has seemed in danger of becoming conventionalized," despite the fact that "Lovecraft's intention and achievement was precisely to avoid the predictability and resultant lack of terror which beset the conventional macabre fiction of his day." Therefore, Campbell wrote, "in this anthology I have tended to favor less familiar treatments or uses of the Mythos.... They contain few erudite occultists, decaying towns, or stylistic pastiches.... Indeed, one of our tales hints at the ultimate event of the Mythos without ever referring to the traditional names."Ramsey Campbell, "Introduction", New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos.
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Early in 1920, Karl Harrer was forced out of the DAP as Hitler moved to sever the party's link with the Thule Society, which subsequently fell into decline and was dissolved about five years later, well before Hitler came to power. Rudolf von Sebottendorff had withdrawn from the Thule Society in 1919, but he returned to Germany in 1933 in the hope of reviving it. In that year, he published a book entitled Bevor Hitler kam (Before Hitler Came), in which he claimed that the Thule Society had paved the way for the Führer: "Thulers were the ones to whom Hitler first came, and Thulers were the first to unite themselves with Hitler." This claim was not favourably received by the Nazi authorities: after 1933, esoteric organisations were suppressed (including völkisch occultists), many closed down by anti-Masonic legislation in 1935.
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In the imperial period, it is evident from many Latin authors and from the historians that Rome swarmed with occultists and diviners, many of whom in spite of the Lex Cornelia almost openly traded in poisons, and not infrequently in assassination to boot. Paradoxical as it may appear, such emperors as Augustus, Tiberius, and Septimius Severus, while banishing from their realms all seers and necromancers, and putting them to death, in private entertained astrologers and wizards among their retinue, consulting their art upon each important occasion, and often even in the everyday and ordinary affairs of life. These prosecutions are significant, as they establish that and the prohibition under severest penalties, the sentence of death itself of witchcraft was demonstrably not a product of Christianity, but had long been employed among polytheistic societies. The ecclesiastical legislation followed a similar but milder course.
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From the European Renaissance on, Judaic Kabbalah became a significant influence in non-Jewish culture, fully divorced from the separately evolving Judaic tradition. Kabbalah received the interest of Christian Hebraist scholars and occultists, who freely syncretised and adapted it to diverse non-Jewish spiritual traditions and belief systems of Western esotericism.Kabbalah: A Very Short Introduction, Joseph Dan, Oxford University Press 2007, Chapter 5 - Modern Times I: The Christian Kabbalah Christian Cabalists from the 15th-18th centuries adapted what they saw as ancient Biblical wisdom to Christian theology, while Hermeticism lead to Kabbalah's incorporation into Western magic through Hermetic Qabalah.Christian and Hermetic versions of Kabbalah are receiving their own scholarship in Renaissance Studies and Academic study of Western esotericism today Presentations of Kabbalah in occult and New Age books on Kabbalah bear little resemblance to Judaic Kabbalah.
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The militia movement's anti-government ideology was (and is) spread through speeches at rallies and meetings, books and videotapes sold at gun shows, shortwave and satellite radio, fax networks and computer bulletin boards. It has been argued that it was overnight AM radio shows and propagandistic viral content on the internet that most effectively contributed to more extremist responses to the perceived threat of the New World Order. This led to the substantial growth of New World Order conspiracism, with it retroactively finding its way into the previously apolitical literature of numerous Kennedy assassinologists, ufologists, lost land theorists and—partially inspired by fears surrounding the "Satanic panic"—occultists. From the mid-1990s onward, the amorphous appeal of those subcultures transmitted New World Order conspiracism to a larger audience of seekers of stigmatized knowledge, with the common characteristic of disillusionment of political efficacy.
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When the Cold War Fifties gave way to the New Age Sixties, the many years of Tyberg's avant-garde efforts burst into bloom. With her "My Search for Universality" talks, she was hailed as "one of the South-land's great women leaders and lecturers". The East-West Cultural Center became known as the focal point for Southern California's spiritual activity and its auditorium on Sunday afternoons was the first US launching pad for yogis who went on to have "a huge impact on modern Yoga": Swamis Muktananda, Satchidananda, Chidananda, Ramdas and Mother Mirabai, Sikh, Sufi, and Buddhist masters from Sri Lanka, Japan, and Cambodia, as well as Indian cultural and political leaders. Tyberg invited noted Western mystics, occultists and astrologers such as Dane Rudhyar and Marie de Vrahnes from Lourdes as well as early health food proponents such as Bernard Jensen.
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Among the Listians – Kummer and Marby are not mentioned by Goodrick-Clarke among the signatories who endorsed the List Society around 1905 but both men were indebted to "Listian" ideas – who were subjected to censure were the rune occultists Friedrich Bernhard Marby and Siegfried Adolf Kummer, both of whom were denounced by Wiligut in 1934 in a letter to Himmler.Karl-Maria Weisthor (i.e. Wiligut) to Himmler, 2 May 1934, Bundesarchiv, Koblenz, Himmler Nachlass 19, cited in Flowers writes: "The establishment of [an] 'official NS runology' under Himmler, Wiligut, and others led directly to the need to suppress the rune-magical 'free agents' such as Marby". Despite having openly supported the Nazis, cited in Marby was arrested by the Gestapo in 1936 as an anti-Nazi occultist and was interned in Welzheim, Flossenbürg and Dachau concentration camps.
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Upon doing so, he is abducted by the Cerberus, who take him to another part of Carcer City. Cash is subsequently forced to kill other gang members across various abandoned locations, including a Nazi skinhead gang called the Skinz, a sadistic paramilitary called the Wardogs (who have kidnapped Cash's family to use as bait), a group of psychopatic killers in monkey costumes called the Monkeys, and an outlaw gang called the Innocentz (which consit of the Skullyz, a group of Hispanic occultists with skull makeup, and the Babyfaces, demented perverts that wear baby masks). During all of this, the Director monitors Cash's actions, but later has his family killed, causing Cash to vow revenge. After eliminating the final gang - a group of schizophrenic psychopaths that wear smiley masks and call themselves the "Smileys" - Cash is instructed to follow the "White Rabbit", a man dressed in a rabbit costume.
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Spence's researches into the mythology and culture of the New World, together with his examination of the cultures of western Europe and north-west Africa, led him to the question of Atlantis. During the 1920s he published a series of books which sought to rescue the topic from the occultists who had more or less brought it into disrepute. These works, including The Problem of Atlantis (1924) and History of Atlantis (1927), adopted theories inaugurated by Ignatius Donnelly and looked at the lost island as a Bronze Age civilization that formed a cultural link with the New World, which he invoked through examples he found of parallels between the early civilizations of the Old and New Worlds. Despite Spence's erudition and the width of his reading, the conclusions he reached, avoiding peer-reviewed journals,Though Spence wrote reviews of popularizations of mythology and folklore for Folklore.
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Starr was born in Prestbury House, Hampton, at Richmond in the County of Middlesex, England to well-to-do land owning parents ("landed proprietors") William Brooks Close and Mary Baker Brooks Close. When Starr was one year old his parents separated and he was raised by his mother. He received his education at Winchester College in Hampshire. Starr was a psychologist, homeopath, occultist and an editorial writer. He was also the principal player in bringing Meher Baba to the West for the first time at the start of the 1930s, although he himself did not remain a follower for very long. In the early 20th century, Starr wrote for The Occult Review, an illustrated monthly journal containing articles and correspondence by many notable occultists of the day, including Aleister Crowley, Arthur Edward Waite, W. L. Wilmshurst, Franz Hartmann, Florence Farr, and Herbert Stanley Redgrove.
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In 2013, Asprem and Granholm highlighted that "contemporary esotericism is intimately, and increasingly, connected with popular culture and new media." Granholm noted that esoteric ideas and images could be found in many aspects of Western popular media, citing such examples as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Avatar, Hellblazer, and His Dark Materials. Granholm has argued that there are problems with the field in that it draws a distinction between esotericism and non-esoteric elements of culture which draw upon esotericism; citing the example of extreme metal, he noted that it was extremely difficult to differentiate between artists who were "properly occult" and those who referenced occult themes and aesthetics in "a superficial way". Writers interested in occult themes have adopted three different strategies for dealing with the subject: those who are knowledgeable on the subject including attractive images of the occult and occultists in their work, those who disguise occultism within "a web of intertextuality", and those who oppose it and seek to deconstruct it.
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His publishing company (De Laurence, Scott & Co.) and spiritual supply mail order house was located in Chicago, Illinois. De Laurence was a pioneer in the business of supplying magical and occult goods by mail order, and his distribution of public domain books, such as Secrets of the Psalms by Godfrey Selig and Pow Wows or the Long-Lost Friend by John George Hohman had a great and lasting effect on the African American urban hoodoo community in the southern United States as well as on the development of Obeah in Jamaica. Although he is mocked and reviled among modern occultists for his plagiarism of the Pictorial Key to the Tarot by Arthur Edward Waite, and the S.L. MacGregor Mathers version of the Key of Solomon, he also wrote his own works, including The Master Key a personal development book. In addition, he is believed to have co-written some books with his fellow Chicago resident, the prolific New Thought and yoga author William Walker Atkinson.
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Gregory Shushan published an analysis of the afterlife beliefs of five ancient civilizationsOld and Middle Kingdom Egypt, Sumerian and Old Babylonian Mesopotamia, Vedic India, pre-Buddhist China, and pre-Columbian Mesoamerica and compared them with historical and contemporary reports of near-death experiences, and shamanic afterlife "journeys". Shushan found similarities across time, place, and culture that he found could not be explained by coincidence; he also found elements that were specific to cultures; Shushan concludes that some form of mutual influence between experiences of an afterlife and culture probably influence one another and that this inheritance, in turn, influences individual NDEs. In contrast, it has been argued including Schlieter in 2018 that near-death experiences and many of their elements such as vision of God, judgment, the tunnel, or the life review are closely related to religious and spiritual traditions of the West. It was mainly Christian visionaries, Spiritualists, Occultists, and Theosophists of the 19th and 20th century that reported them.
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While the king is uncertain—except in the case of the elephants carrying the world on the back of the turtle—that these mysteries are real, they are actual modern events that occurred in various places during, or before, Poe's lifetime. The story ends with the king in such disgust at the tale Scheherazade has just woven, that he has her executed the very next day. Another important literary figure, the Irish poet W. B. Yeats was also fascinated by the Arabian Nights, when he wrote in his prose book, A Vision an autobiographical poem, titled The Gift of Harun Al-Rashid, in relation to his joint experiments with his wife Georgie Hyde-Lees, with Automatic writing. The automatic writing, is a technique used by many occultists in order to discern messages from the subconscious mind or from other spiritual beings, when the hand moves a pencil or a pen, writing only on a simple sheet of paper and when the person's eyes are shut.
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By this point, geomancy must have been an established divination system in Arabic-speaking areas of Africa and the Middle East. Other translators, such as Gerard of Cremona ( 1114 – 1187), also produced new translations on geomancy that incorporated astrological elements and techniques that were, up until this point, ignored. From this point on, more European scholars studied and applied geomancy, writing many treatises in the process. Henry Cornelius Agrippa (1486-1535), Christopher Cattan (La Géomancie du Seigneur Christofe de Cattan (1558)), and John Heydon (1629 – 1667) produced oft-cited and well-studied treatises on geomancy, along with other philosophers, occultists, and theologians until the 17th century, when interest in occultism and divination began to dwindle due to the rise of the Scientific Revolution and the Age of Reason. Geomancy underwent a revival in the 19th century, when renewed interest in the occult arose due to the works of Robert Thomas Cross (1850-1923) and of Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873).
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In them, Pitois repeated and extended the mythology of the tarot and changed the names for the trumps and the suits (see table below for a list of Pitois's modifications to the trumps). Batons (wands) become Scepters, Swords become Blades, and Coins become Shekels. However, it wasn't until the late 1880s that Lévi's vision of the occult tarot truly began to bear fruit, as his ideas on the occult began to be propounded by various French and English occultists. In France, secret societies such as the French Theosophical Society (1884) and the Kabbalistic Order of the Rose-Cross (1888) served as the seeds for further developments in the occult tarot in France.. The French occultist Papus was one of the most prominent members of these societies, joining the Isis lodge of the French Theosophical Society in 1887 and becoming a founding member of the Kabbalistic Order of the Rose-Cross the next year.
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Ant-Man: Last Days #1 In Marvel Comics #1000, it was revealed that Jerry was a subject in a side project of Project Rebirth, the government project that created Captain America, called Project Thunderer. Thunderer's mask is a magical item called the Eternity Mask, which was created by a group of renegade occultists from Eternity's own substance during the days of King Arthur. When his friend William Naslund, the Spirit of '76 (as Captain America) was killed by the android Adam II, Thunderer blamed the Scientists' Guild, also known as the Three Xs and later the Enclave, for their role in Naslund's death as they were responsible for bankrolling Professor Horton to create another android like the Human Torch, as well as supplying Adam-II's programming with the Three Xs's ideas for the next stage of mankind, leading to the android's madness. Changing his identity to Dark Avenger, Carstairs swears to take down the Three Xs. However, Carstairs was killed and the Eternity Mask taken by the Enclave.
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Paula Findlen, Routledge, 2004 in Oedipus Aegyptiacus (1652) used the tablet as a primary source for developing his translations of hieroglyphics, which are now known to be incorrect. His book was the source for the English physician and philosopher Sir Thomas Browne, who, in his discourse The Garden of Cyrus (1658) alludes to "the figures of Isis and Osyris, and the Tutelary spirits in the Bembine Table". Seventeenth century scholars of comparative religion such as Kircher and Browne attempted to reconcile the wisdom of antiquity with Christianity, the Bembine Tablet was interpreted as a vehicle for such syncretic thought; thus Browne proposes in his discourse: "Though he that considereth........ the crosse erected upon a pitcher diffusing streams of water into two basins, with sprinkling branches in them, and all described upon a two-footed altar, as in the Hieroglyphicks of the brazen Table of Bembus will hardly decline all thought of Christian signality in them." Kircher's speculations were used by several occultists, including Eliphas Levi, William Wynn Westcott and Manly P. Hall, as a key to interpreting the "Book of Thoth" or Tarot.
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One of these associate groups is the U.S.-based Tempel ov Blood, which has published a number of texts through Ixaxaar Press, while another is the California-based White Star Acception, which has been designated as the ONA's "Flagship Nexion" in the United States despite diverting from mainstream ONA teachings on a number of issues. During the early 1990s, the Order stated that it was entering the second stage of its development, in which it would leave behind its prior focus on recruitment and public outreach within the occult community and that it would instead focus on refining its teachings; its resulting quietness led some occultists to erroneously speculate that the ONA had become defunct. In 2000, the ONA established a presence on the Internet, using it as a medium to communicate with others and to distribute its writings. In 2008, the ONA announced that it was entering the third phase in its history, in which it would once again focus heavily on promotion, utilising such social media as online blogs, forums, Facebook, and YouTube to spread its message.
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In the first part of the 20th century, the English Egyptologist and anthropologist Margaret Murray (1863-1963) had published several papers and books propagating a variation of the Witch-cult hypothesis, through which she claimed that the Early Modern witch trials had been an attempt by the Christian authorities to wipe out a pre-existing, pre-Christian religion focused around the veneration of a horned god whom the Christians had demonised as the Devil. Although gaining some initial support from various historians, her theories were always controversial, coming under early criticism from experts in the Early Modern witch trials and pre-Christian religion. Eventually, her ideas came to be completely rejected within the academic historical community, although were adopted by occultists like Gerald Gardner (1884-1964) who used them as a historical basis in his creation of the contemporary Pagan religion of Wicca. The definitive rejection of Murray's Witch-Cult theories among academia occurred during the 1970s, when her ideas were attacked by two British historians, Keith Thomas and Norman Cohn, who highlighted her methodological flaws.
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But according to K. Edney of the New Zealand SRIA, Felkin's interest in Freemasonry was probably slight; he was never Master of the Lodge nor joined the Holy Royal Arch, and it is unlikely that he joined any higher degrees; his motive for joining Freemasonry and the SRIA seems to have been to gain credibility with continental occultists and contact members of the original Rosicrucian society. Anna Sprengel, a member of this fabled German society of nearly god-like adepts, had allegedly warranted the founding of the Golden Dawn, and Felkin believed that she and her order still existed deep under cover in Germany, along with the tomb of Christian Rosencreutz. In search of this group he and Harriet travelled to Europe in 1906, 1910 and 1914, and on one of these trips he met with Rudolf Steiner and claimed to have contacted other Rosicrucian adepts. Felkin considered Steiner to be an extremely high initiate, and after their meeting incorporated elements of Anthroposophy into his practice, including homeopathy.
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Within a year, a recording contract was forged and with MCA's backing, World Entertainment War recorded their self-titled debut album at Pearlman's Alpha Omega Studios in Studio C of the Hyde Street Studios in San Francisco, as was specified in their MCA contract. Backing vocals were performed by Jonnie Axtell, Atom Ellis, Eugene "Bud" Harris, and Paul K. Johnson, II. Additional background vocals were provided by members of the diverse and loosely-knit team of occultists (Pagans, Druids, Ceremonialists, Goddess worshippers, and Faery- Folk) whose expertise Brezsny had recruited, and among whose often glaring doctrinal differences Brezsny had made peace, resulting in collaborative and highly theatrical rituals that became a signature of the band's iconoclastic live performances. "Imagine instead a pagan revival meeting mixed with a dance therapy session and a cynics' pep rally and a tribal hoedown and a lecture at the "Anarchists Just Wanna Have Fun" Think Tank". Mark Senasac engineered, mixed, and produced, with Ulrich Wild also engineering, and Stephen Marcussen did the mastering.
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Skeptics argue that the term "New Age movement" is a misnomer, generally used by conspiracy theorists as a catch-all rubric for any new religious movement that is not fundamentalist Christian. By this logic, anything that is not Christian is by definition actively and willfully anti-Christian. Paradoxically, since the first decade of the 21st century, New World Order conspiracism is increasingly being embraced and propagandized by New Age occultists, who are people bored by rationalism and drawn to stigmatized knowledge—such as alternative medicine, astrology, quantum mysticism, spiritualism, and theosophy. Thus, New Age conspiracy theorists, such as the makers of documentary films like Esoteric Agenda, claim that globalists who plot on behalf of the New World Order are simply misusing occultism for Machiavellian ends, such as adopting 21 December 2012 as the exact date for the establishment of the New World Order for the purpose of taking advantage of the growing 2012 phenomenon, which has its origins in the fringe Mayanist theories of New Age writers José Argüelles, Terence McKenna, and Daniel Pinchbeck.
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In Hitler's Table Talk one can find this quote: Jackson Spielvogel and David Redles in an article published by the Simon Wiesenthal Center assert alleged influences of various portions of the teachings of H.P. Blavatsky, the founder of The Theosophical Society with doctrines as expounded by her book "The Secret Doctrine", and the adaptations of her ideas by her followers, through Ariosophy, the Germanenorden and the Thule Society, constituted a popularly unacknowledged but decisive influence over the developing mind of Hitler.Jackson Spielvogel and David Redles: Hitler's Racial Ideology: Content and Occult Sources, The Simon Wiesenthal Center, 1997 The scholars state that Hitler himself may be responsible for turning historians from investigating his occult influences. While he publicly condemned and even persecuted occultists, Freemasons, and astrologers, his nightly private talks disclosed his belief in the ideas of these competing occult groups—demonstrated by his discussion of reincarnation, Atlantis, world ice theory, and his belief that esoteric myths and legends of cataclysm and battles between gods and titans were a vague collective memory of monumental early events. In his childhood, Hitler had admired the pomp of Catholic ritual and the hierarchical organization of the clergy.
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The album, which is meant to be read as an "operetta in three acts", is set in Bohemia, in the year of 1913, and tells the story of Atrament, a young wandering occultist who just arrives in the village of Jilemnice with the intent of furthering his studies on the occult arts there (since at the time the village was a major venue for occultists and Spiritist mediums). He settles at an inn ran by the rich landlord Spiritus, and falls in love at first sight with his beautiful daughter, Kalamaria (who is secretly a witch), being requited. However, the village's hejtman (captain), Satrapold, also loves Kalamaria, and after injustly arresting Atrament, he kidnaps Kalamaria with the help of his groom Blether and takes her to his castle. Satrapold plans to escape to Cairo with her (betraying Blether in the process, who flees to the nearby town of Železný Brod in disgrace, never to be seen or heard from again), but before he is able to do so she uses her mystical powers to discover that he is actually the villainous Poebeldorf under disguise, and that the real Satrapold was also imprisoned by him.
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Although the need to present himself as a self-made man prevented him from publicly writing or speaking about the debt he owed to Eckart, in private Hitler acknowledged Eckart as having been his teacher and mentor, and the spiritual co-founder of Nazism. The two first met when Hitler gave a speech before the DAP membership in 1919. Hitler immediately impressed Eckart, who said of him "I felt myself attracted by his whole way of being, and very soon I realized that he was exactly the right man for our young movement." Although not a member, Eckart was involved at the time with the Thule Society, a secretive group of occultists who believed in the coming of a "German Messiah" who would redeem Germany after its defeat in World War I. He began to see in Hitler the possibility that he was that person. Eckart, who was 21 years older than Hitler, became the father-figure to a group of younger volkisch men, including Hitler and Hermann Esser, and acted as mediator between the two when they clashed, telling Esser that Hitler, who he esteemed as the DAP's best speaker, was the far superior man.
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