Occultism:

Esoteric systems of belief and practice that assume the existence of mysterious forces and entities.

(See also: Occultism, Psychic, Psychic Dictionary, Parapsychology, Parapsychology Dictionary)

Occult:

That which is hidden or known only to a few.

Occultism:

The study and or practice of that which is occult, especially (in this century) in reference to the powers of the mind.

(See also: Occult, Pagan, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

OCCULT - n. or adj. hidden, secret. (NAD)

(See also: OCCULT, Wiccan Pagan, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

OCCULTISM - science of secret knowledge. (NAD)

(See also: OCCULTISM, Wiccan Pagan, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

OCCULT: to conceal and hide away knowledge from the uninitiated. Latin: occulere; The secret knowledge of the ancients is considered hidden from the profane.  You are very very very close now.

(See also: OCCULT, Witchcraft, Wicca, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

Occultism

Belief in supernational forces and beings.

(See also: Occultism, New Age, Body mind and Soul)

Occult Arts Blavatsky in "Occultism versus the Occult Arts" (Studies in Occultism), distinguishes between occultism (gupta-vidya, the path of wisdom) and occult arts (evil occultism, sorcery, black magic, spells, incantations, etc.).

While true occultism completely renounces self, the occult arts are practiced with selfish motives or from love of evil. Even where there is no sinister motive in one who ventures upon the occult arts, yet he enters a field where danger and destruction threaten unless he is protected by a training in true occultism. He will arouse in himself forces with which he cannot cope, open doors which later he seeks in vain to close, and put himself at the mercy of evil wills probably stronger than his own.

(See also: Occult Arts, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

OCCULT: Literal meaning is "hidden" and is broadly applied to a wide range of metaphysical topics which lie outside the accepted realm of mainstream theologies.

(See also: OCCULT, Paganism, Pagan, Pagan Dictionary)

OCCULT ("hidden, concealed"): Secret, esoteric; term used for magick and other esoteric arts and sciences, such as astrology or alchemy.

(See also: OCCULT, Magickal Traditions, Magickal Paths, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

OCCULT

The occult today is in ruins because it has been prematurely made public. It is a body of knowledge that is too fragile for those without wisdom. Because of power being placed in the hands of the ignorant, the word "occult" has, largely through the bullying of the Christians, falsely become a synonym for "evil." It is for that very reason that the term was originally chosen. The occult has always been a secret study that should never be made public. It deals with sacred truth and the public, being composed mostly of fools, can only pervert it.

At this point, however, we have no choice but to move forward with it, to try to undo the harm by providing more light on the subject.

In general, occultism has three basic tenets: 1) man is in the process of evolving to higher spiritual states of being; 2) the cosmos is energy; 3) there are hierarchies of intelligence above and below human intelligence, which control or influence the cosmos for good and evil, as human intelligence, of course, in its own right also does.

(See also: OCCULT, Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul, )

Occultism [from Latin occultus hid]

The science of things behind the veils of nature both visible and invisible, things hidden from the multitudes. In theosophy frequently synonymous with the esoteric philosophy or secret doctrine. The study of genuine occultism signifies penetrating deep into the causal mysteries of universal being; the occult arts, by contrast, include psychism, black magic, hypnotism, psychologization, and similar uninstructed or malevolent uses of astral and mental forces.

The term occult has noble, but largely forgotten origins. It properly defines anything which is undisclosed, concealed, or not easily perceived. Early theologians, for example, spoke of "the occult judgment of God," while "occult philosopher" was a designation for the pre-Renaissance scientist who sought the unseen causes regulating nature's phenomena. In astronomy, the term is still used when one stellar body "occults" another by passing in front of it, temporarily hiding it from view. Writing a century ago, when the word had not acquired today's mixed connotations, H.P. Blavatsky defined occultism as "altruism pure and simple" -- the divine wisdom or hidden theosophy within all religions.

As the study or science of things which are hid and secret, occultism is a generalizing term because what is hid or secret in one age may readily be in a succeeding age more or less commonly known and open to public investigation. Many things that in medieval Europe were distinctly secret and therefore occult, are today the field of scientific investigation; and what is now considered to be occult, if science continues in its progress and research, may in the succeeding age in its turn become open and matter of common knowledge. Occultism then will simply have shifted its field of investigation and study to matters still more secret, still more recondite, still more deeply hid in fields of nature which are now scarcely suspected.

Theosophy or the wisdom-religion is the study of the ancient wisdom of the gods, and comprises in any one period that particular portion of knowledge which has been delivered to those who study it; whereas occultism in any age is that portion of the ancient wisdom dealing with matters which at such time are secret, hid, and unknown to the multitude.

Thus occultism is that portion of theosophy which has not yet been openly and publicly promulgated. Occultism is founded on the principle that Divinity is concealed -- transcendent yet immanent -- within every living being. As a spiritual discipline occultism is the renunciation of selfishness; it is the "still small path" which leads to wisdom, to the right discrimination between good and evil, and the practice of altruism.

(See also: Occultism, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

A Theosophical definition of Occultism :

Occultism

This word meant originally only the science of things hid; even in the Middle Ages of Europe those philosophers who were the forerunners of the modern scientists, those who then studied physical nature, called their science occultism, and their studies occult, meaning the things that were hid or not known to the common run of mankind. Such a medieval philosopher was Albertus Magnus, a German; and so also was Roger Bacon, an Englishman  - both of the thirteenth century of the Christian era.

Occultism as theosophists use the term, and as it should be used, means the study of the hid things of Being, the science of life or universal nature. In one sense this word can be used to mean the study of unusual "phenomena," which meaning it usually has today among people who do not think of the vastly larger field of causes which occultism, properly speaking, investigates. Doubtless mere physical phenomena have their place in study, but they are on the frontier, on the outskirts  - the superficialities  - of occultism. The study of true occultism means penetrating deep into the causal mysteries of Being.

Occultism is a generalizing term for the entire body of the occult sciences  - the sciences of the secrets of universal nature; as H. P. Blavatsky phrases it, "physical and psychic, mental and spiritual; called Hermetic and Esoteric Sciences." Occultism may be considered also to be a word virtually interchangeable with the phrase esoteric philosophy, with, however, somewhat more emphasis laid on the occult or secret or hid portions of the esoteric philosophy. Genuine occultism embraces not merely the physical, physiological, psychological, and spiritual portions of man's being, but has an equal and indeed a perhaps wider range in the studies dealing with the structure and operations as well as the origin and destiny of the kosmos.

See also: Occultism, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)

occult medicine: Field that encompasses astrology, aura analysis, biorhythm, Christian Science, clairvoyant diagnosis, faith healing, Kirlian photography, medical graphology, mesmerism, palmistry, shamanism, TCM, and witchcraft.

(See also: Occult medicine, Body Mind and Soul, Alternative Health, Alternative Health Dictionary)

Occult Sciences The whole range of the sciences of the secrets of nature -- physical, psychic, mental, and spiritual; also

"called Hermetic and Esoteric Sciences. In the West, the Kabbalah may be named; in the East, mysticism, magic, and Yoga philosophy, which latter is often referred to by the Chelas in India as the seventh 'Darshana' (school of philosophy), there being only six Darshanas in India known to the world of the profane. These sciences are, and have been for ages, hidden from the vulgar for the very good reason that they would never be appreciated by the selfish educated classes, nor understood by the uneducated; whilst the former might misuse them for their own profit, and thus turn the divine science into black magic" (TG 237).

(See also: Occult Sciences, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Occult Sciences. The science of the secrets of nature - physical and psychic, mental and spiritual; called Hermetic and Esoteric Sciences.

 In the West, the Kabbalah may be named; in the East, mysticism, magic, and Yoga philosophy, which latter is often referred to by the Chelas in India as the seventh "Darshana" (school of philosophy), there being only six Darshanas in India known to the world of the profane.

These sciences are, and have been for ages, hidden from the vulgar for the very good reason that they would never be appreciated by the selfish educated classes, nor understood by the uneducated; whilst the former might misuse them for their own profit, and thus turn the divine science into black magic. It is often brought forward as an accusation against the Esoteric philosophy and the Kabbalah that their literature is full of "a barbarous and meaningless jargon" unintelligible to the ordinary mind.

But do not exact Sciences - medicine, physiology, chemistry, and the rest - do the same? Do not official Scientists equally veil their facts and discoveries with a newly coined and most barbarous Greco-Latin terminology? As justly remarked by our late brother, Kenneth Mackenzie - "To juggle thus with words, when the facts are so simple, is the art of the Scientists of the present time, in striking contrast to those of the XVIIth century, who called spades spades, and not ‘agricultural implements ‘."

Moreover, whilst their facts would be as simple and as comprehensible if rendered in ordinary language, the facts of Occult Science are of so abstruse a nature, that in most cases no words exist in European languages to express them; in addition to which our "jargon" is a double necessity -

(a) for the purpose of describing clearly these facts to him who is versed in the Occult terminology; and

(b) to conceal them from the profane.

(See also: Occult Sciences, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary, )

ANTI-OCCULT STRATEGIES

Because of Hitler's occult interests, anti-occultists have tried time and again to establish that all those from whom he adopted his twisted ideas were themselves fascist and racist. Similarly, in the 1930's everyone was tagged with either the Communist or Fascist label, whether deservedly or not. Attempts to link Hitler to the sympathies of Aleister Crowley, HPB, Jung and the rest are constantly being forced upon gullible and confused people. The fact is, the Nazis used anyone and anything they could to gain power, as do all villains. Accusations against the occult, however, invariably come down not to anti-semitism practices, but, on the contrary, to a tendency to question Christian authority. Even Nietzsche, the 3rd Reich's most esteemed philosopher, though a strong enemy, it turns out, of the Catholic Church, was deeply opposed to Anti-semitism.

Jung's essay in 1936 on Wotan is often cited in which he simply stated that the God of the German people was not Jesus, but Wotan. That the Nazis could take inspiration from that is hardly Jung's fault, as he merely pointed out the obvious. Evil imagination can take what it needs from any source and we might with far more justification have accused the Vatican of Pro-Fascist tendencies. The charge against Mme. Blavatsky is equally irresponsible. A careful scrutiny of her writings will reveal a deep and abiding affection for the jews, alone with an equally strong antipathy for Xtianity. Attempts to link Blavatsky to "master race" ideas would seem to fare somewhat better, until we learn that she considered the Aryan, Semitic and Turanian branches to have derived from a common pre-Abrahamic source. And when she speaks of races, she really refers to the reincarnated human race itself.

It is true that Gurdjieff spent the war in Paris and survived the German occupation, but he did not survive through collaboration and he undoubtedly put himself in great danger by devoting his time to caring for elderly, impoverished refugees. As for Crowley, the fact that Mussolini shut down his Cefalu Lodge and that the German Gestapo put his Golden Dawn Society on the "Enemies of the Reich" list speaks for itself.

(See also: ANTI-OCCULT STRATEGIES, Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul, )

PAGAN, OCCULT, WITCHCRAFT SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP OF MENSA: A special interest group (SIG) of Mensa, the organization for persons scoring in the top two percentile on IQ testing. Only Mensa members can be full members of the SIG but non-Mensans may join as associate members. Their newsletter, Pagana, is considered to be one of the best Pagan journals.

(See also: PAGAN, OCCULT, Pagan Organisations, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary, Wicca, )

occult: Hidden, or kept secret; revealed only after initiation.

See: mysticism, occultism.

(See also: Occult, Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

PAGAN, OCCULT, WITCHCRAFT SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP OF MENSA: A special interest group (SIG) of Mensa, the organization for persons scoring in the top two percentile on IQ testing. Only Mensa members can be full members of the SIG but non-Mensans may join as associate members. Their newsletter, Pagana, is considered to be one of the best Pagan journals.

(See also: PAGAN, OCCULT, WITCHCRAFT SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP OF MENSA, Magickal Traditions, Magickal Paths, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

A Theosophical definition of Aupapaduka :

Aupapaduka

(Sanskrit) A compound term meaning "self-produced," "spontaneously generated." It is a term applied in Buddhism to a class of celestial beings called dhyani-buddhas; and because these dhyani-buddhas are conceived of as issuing forth from the bosom of Adi-buddhi or the kosmic mahat without intermediary agency, are they mystically said to be, as H. P. Blavatsky puts it, "parentless" or "self-existing," i.e., born without any parents or progenitors. They are therefore the originants or root from which the hierarchy of buddhas of various grades flows forth in mystical procession or emanation or evolution.

There are variants of this word in Sanskrit literature, but they all have the same meaning. The term aupapaduka is actually a key word, opening a doctrine which is extremely difficult to set forth; but the doctrine itself is inexpressibly sublime. Indeed, not only are there aupapaduka divinities of the solar system, but also of every organic entity, because the core of the core of any organic entity is such an aupapaduka divinity. It is, in fact, a very mystical way of stating the doctrine of the "inner god."

[NOTE: Later research shows that anupapadaka, as found in Monier-Williams' Sanskrit-English Dictionary, is a misreading of aupapaduka. Cf. Franklin Edgerton, Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1953, 2:162.  - PUBLISHER]

See also: Aupapaduka, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)