#saneoccultism

[booksandwitchery]

Part II: Sane Occultism

After I finished devouring the Wicca for Beginners book by Thea Sabin (which, as I stated earlier, was wonderful until the uber theistic woo-woo stuff) I decided I had to keep digging; I felt possessed with a need to find meaning in life-- something to keep me grounded, I suppose. I felt (and to a certain extent, still feel) untethered and lost. I must have purchased at least fifteen books to start (special thank you to The Open Book for having a storewide 50% off sale) and now I’m probably at 30+...

But I digress. The next book that I began was called Sane Occultism by Dion Fortune, which was a hard did-not-finish for me, but nonetheless held some solid writing and ideas that resonated. These ideas were the following:

1. Despite the stereotypes associated with the word, “we can define occultism as an extension of psychology, for it studies certain little known aspects of the human mind and the mind side of nature.” Note: Still thinking that much of occultism is pseudoscience and conjecture, but I found it interesting that Fortune defines the term this way.

2. “Experience of the rarer forms of natural phenomena brings the conviction that their influences, in a subtle way, and little understood fashion, affect normal human life very much more than is realized.” -- In other words, though it is hard for many of us to admit, there are still things about life that science has not been able to explain yet, and these phenomena might just impact us more than we know.

3. “The astral plane is simply thought into existence by the composite imagination of the globe, and we are freed from its dominion when we realize its subjective nature.” For those curious, the term astral simply means “having to do with a substance, unperceivable by the senses, that is believed to pervade space and to constitute a nonphysical body belonging to each individual.” Now, I take Fortune’s words here to mean that the astral plane is unknowable, we cannot fathom its mysteries because of the constraints of our intellect--we can, however, interact with and interpret unexplained phenomena according to our own flawed, subjective human experience. I guess this would be a good time for me to state that it’s important not to take theosophy too seriously--we’re only human and we’re all just grasping for meaning wherever we can.

4. “We have to distinguish between the symbolic expression of abstract ideas and the actual delineation of concrete objects. There is no god of Israel to fight in battle and snuff up the savior of burnt offerings, but--there is a logos, and the nature of the logos can only be apprehended by those who can meditate in an empty shrine.” This one gave me chills honestly, because it suggests (rightly, I think) that many belief systems fail to admit that much of their doctrine is founded upon symbolism or archetypes more-so than actual concrete existence; for example, Wiccans may claim to worship the god (sun) and goddess (moon) --but aren’t they actually just worshiping facets of deity according to dualities because this is easier for humans to grasp? And similarly, aren’t their beliefs in various cultural pantheons just facets of nature, anthropomorphized to psychologically assist them with feelings of closeness to it? When we can truly grasp this idea, it’s much easier to see how connected all world religions are--how connected we all are, really.

5. “’As above, so below,’ has ever been the maxim of the occultist; it is a clue which will take us safely through the labyrinth, and to it we must cling. There is no religion higher than the truth. It is better to endure the torture of uncertainty than to believe a lie.”