How has occultism, throughout history, been interpreted both as a legitimate pursuit of spiritual knowledge and self-understanding, and as a practice surrounded by mystery, fear, and controversy, and in what ways do these differing perceptions influence how contemporary society views topics such as astrology, tarot, symbolic rituals, and other esoteric traditions?
-
Hi guest! As you can see, the new Wizard Forums has been revived, and we are glad to have you visiting our site! However, it would be really helpful, both to you and us, if you registered on our website! Registering allows you to see all posts, and make posts yourself, which would be great if you could share your knowledge and opinions with us! You could also make posts to ask questions!
Between Spiritual Knowledge and Mystery in Contemporary Society
- Thread starter rodtigo
- Start date
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2023
- Messages
- 6,038
- Reaction score
- 29,766
- Awards
- 19
This thread and the Gardner one sound like school essay assignments, hard to answer in less than 5,000 characters (= maximum amount for a post).
FYI, replying to a post in 'The Order' sections once is enough to give you access to the forum library for one week, you don't have to open a thread every single time if that's part of your motivation (since you asked in a previous post).
In an introduction to a scholarly book on the Kabbalah, its author explained that certain rabbis in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages weren't satisfied with the brief description in Genesis concerning the creation of man and the universe and strove to attain a more direct and sophisticated understanding of God instead, resulting in Jewish mysticism. Choosing the way of the hermit is impossible in Judaism due to its strong emphasis of community and family life, so their mysticism was based on scripture, not on solitary free-form gnosis. Kabbalist authors were rabbis themselves, insisted on the strict fulfilment of all the 613 commandments of Judaism, and were always at great pains to avoid the slightest whiff of heterodoxy, which is why the conservative Jewish Establishment couldn't very well persecute them for heresy, what with the Kabbalists being such ultra-orthodox ascetics. A striking example was Joseph Karo (1488-1575) who had a (rather tyrannical) guardian angel or personal genius but was also a highly respected legal scholar, so some Kabbalist mystics had a foot in both camps.
There is that pair of books by James Webb called "The Occult Establishment" and "The Occult Underground" which is what it frequently boils down to: what's accepted by those in power and what leads a more or less precariously independent existence? Vajrayana Buddhism, as Tibet's state religion, gobbled up the indiginous Bön shamanism after 'cleansing' it of unacceptable practises like blood sacrifice and black magic - the Underground became part of the Establishment. As a power structure, the spiritual Establishment will always be suspicious of charismatic outsiders like St. Francis of Assisi who wasn't even a priest and thus not directly bound by church authority. He was a leader of a radical grassroots movement that was so popular that it left the Establishment no other choice than to co-opt it and turn it into a Christian order to avoid losing control over their flocks.
A secret mystic in his closet or a hermit in his cave poses no danger to the Establishment - a sorcerer does. Again it's about power: here's a person suspected of exerting authority without official sanction and who is neither a noble nor a prince of the Church, allegedly capable of inflicting harm against which there's no protection, so that person has to go. In this case, the Establishment will even receive support from ordinary folk who resent one of their own rising above the crowd by unfair (= supernatural) means. Nobody likes a loose cannon.
Cross-cultural mysticism, i.e. occultism, is largely a 19th century phenomenon. Before that, mystics remained bound by their own religion and were sometimes on the edge, sometimes as part of the mainstream as in the case of the Safed Kabbalists mentioned above. It's different with magic which has always borrowed from any tradition that promised to be useful. I'm currently reading "The Mechanics of Providence: The Workings of Ancient Jewish Magic and Mysticism" by Michael D. Swartz where the author mentions prayers to Helios in Greek found on Jewish incantation bowls so it wasn't all one-way as far as the Greek Magical Papyri were concerned. Amazing.
There's this book by scholar Wouter J. Hanegraaff called "Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture", and I think that's what we're discussing in this forum: rejected knowledge, abadoned magical tech. The NewAge movement has largely become part of the Establishment - often ridiculed but largely accepted as harmless. Magic, on the other hand, is still Underground. Emboldened by scientific and technological progress, today's society feels confident enough to dismiss magic outright but at least we have modern scholarship to thank for uncovering, investigating, and analysing all this rejected knowledge we're studying and applying here, otherwise it would become completely lost under all that media content competing for our attention.
The Establishment may reject knowledge but still hates the idea of unsanctioned power, that will never change.
FYI, replying to a post in 'The Order' sections once is enough to give you access to the forum library for one week, you don't have to open a thread every single time if that's part of your motivation (since you asked in a previous post).
Post automatically merged:
In an introduction to a scholarly book on the Kabbalah, its author explained that certain rabbis in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages weren't satisfied with the brief description in Genesis concerning the creation of man and the universe and strove to attain a more direct and sophisticated understanding of God instead, resulting in Jewish mysticism. Choosing the way of the hermit is impossible in Judaism due to its strong emphasis of community and family life, so their mysticism was based on scripture, not on solitary free-form gnosis. Kabbalist authors were rabbis themselves, insisted on the strict fulfilment of all the 613 commandments of Judaism, and were always at great pains to avoid the slightest whiff of heterodoxy, which is why the conservative Jewish Establishment couldn't very well persecute them for heresy, what with the Kabbalists being such ultra-orthodox ascetics. A striking example was Joseph Karo (1488-1575) who had a (rather tyrannical) guardian angel or personal genius but was also a highly respected legal scholar, so some Kabbalist mystics had a foot in both camps.
There is that pair of books by James Webb called "The Occult Establishment" and "The Occult Underground" which is what it frequently boils down to: what's accepted by those in power and what leads a more or less precariously independent existence? Vajrayana Buddhism, as Tibet's state religion, gobbled up the indiginous Bön shamanism after 'cleansing' it of unacceptable practises like blood sacrifice and black magic - the Underground became part of the Establishment. As a power structure, the spiritual Establishment will always be suspicious of charismatic outsiders like St. Francis of Assisi who wasn't even a priest and thus not directly bound by church authority. He was a leader of a radical grassroots movement that was so popular that it left the Establishment no other choice than to co-opt it and turn it into a Christian order to avoid losing control over their flocks.
A secret mystic in his closet or a hermit in his cave poses no danger to the Establishment - a sorcerer does. Again it's about power: here's a person suspected of exerting authority without official sanction and who is neither a noble nor a prince of the Church, allegedly capable of inflicting harm against which there's no protection, so that person has to go. In this case, the Establishment will even receive support from ordinary folk who resent one of their own rising above the crowd by unfair (= supernatural) means. Nobody likes a loose cannon.
Cross-cultural mysticism, i.e. occultism, is largely a 19th century phenomenon. Before that, mystics remained bound by their own religion and were sometimes on the edge, sometimes as part of the mainstream as in the case of the Safed Kabbalists mentioned above. It's different with magic which has always borrowed from any tradition that promised to be useful. I'm currently reading "The Mechanics of Providence: The Workings of Ancient Jewish Magic and Mysticism" by Michael D. Swartz where the author mentions prayers to Helios in Greek found on Jewish incantation bowls so it wasn't all one-way as far as the Greek Magical Papyri were concerned. Amazing.
There's this book by scholar Wouter J. Hanegraaff called "Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture", and I think that's what we're discussing in this forum: rejected knowledge, abadoned magical tech. The NewAge movement has largely become part of the Establishment - often ridiculed but largely accepted as harmless. Magic, on the other hand, is still Underground. Emboldened by scientific and technological progress, today's society feels confident enough to dismiss magic outright but at least we have modern scholarship to thank for uncovering, investigating, and analysing all this rejected knowledge we're studying and applying here, otherwise it would become completely lost under all that media content competing for our attention.
The Establishment may reject knowledge but still hates the idea of unsanctioned power, that will never change.
Last edited: