Now it's time to discuss that thing that people call "occultism." Many of my readers will probably notice that Satanism and Devil worship are commonly considered to be "occult religions," along with such practices as Wicca, Druidism, and Thelema. But you might be wondering, what exactly does this terminology mean?

The word occult means "hidden from view, concealed, or covered over." According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, it first appeared in print in 1533, and was first associated with the "supernatural sciences" (e.g., magic, alchemy, astrology, etc.) in 1633. In medicine, occult applied to things which are detectable only by microscopic examination or chemical analysis. Today, the word is generally used as a synonym for esotericism, or "knowledge that is not known to the general public, but which is only revealed gradually to a selected few in training."

But there's a problem with this. Many religions that are popularly described as "occult" today are not esoteric by any means. If you walk into most any book store in the United States, you can usually find at least one whole shelf dedicated to "How To" books about witchcraft, black magic, and other occult practices. Now that knowledge of the occult is readily available for popular consumption, it is no longer always esoteric. In most cases, occultism is now exoteric, which means "not confined to an inner circle of disciples or initiates; comprehensible to or suited to the public; popular."

So it is obvious that being occult does not make something esoteric, and being esoteric does not make something occult. So that definition has gone flying out the window!

Many Christians would use the word occult to mean anything that has to do with gaining supernatural knowledge or power apart from the biblical god. This definition, however, is useless for two reasons:

(1) Many self-described occultists are very uncomfortable with that word supernatural. Quite a few of them believe that they are tapping into forces that are perfectly natural, and which are only unexplained. Being unexplained in this sense does not necessarily make something "supernatural." Wiccans, for instance, will probably be the first ones to tell you that there is nothing supernatural about what they do.

(2) Most self-described occultists are not followers of the Abrahamic god, and are therefore unlikely to define what they do in terms of Christianity. To someone who does not believe in Jehovah, any and all spiritual knowledge or power comes from someone or something else.

But perhaps it would be helpful if we considered why religions like Christianity are often called revealed religions. This is because the basic building block of their beliefs is a particular book or text which is held to be "sacred." For instance, Christianity has the Bible, while Jews have the Torah and Muslims have the Koran.

On the other hand, Devil worshipers, Wiccans, and other occultists all have one thing in common: the basic building block of our beliefs is not necessarily any scripture, but our own personal experiences.

To be sure, many occultists practice what is called "channeling" or "automatic writing," in which a person "taps into" a god or spirit and has them give a message that is later written down. Aleister Crowley, for instance, supposedly "channeled" a spirit named Aiwass in order to write Liber AL, "the Book of the Law."

Since both the Bible and the Koran are supposedly messages revealed by Jehovah through his prophets, then these too can be considered "channeled texts." But there's a major difference between the channeled texts of revealed religions and the channeled texts of occultists; a difference that is best illustrated in terms of how the text relates to the experiences of the practitioner.

In revealed religions, the practitioner's experiences are expected to conform to whatever is in the channeled text. If a practitioner's experiences should deviate from that text in a major way (or sometimes even in just a minor way), the practitioner is said to be "deceived." Hence why Christians are so quick to define supernatural knowledge or power that does not come from their god as "occult" or "Satanic." Here, the channeled text is often considered a perfect and absolutely unalterable instruction manual. And the spiritual experiences of the individual are not considered to be anywhere near as authentic or dependable as whatever is dictated by the text.

In occult religions, however, it's the precise opposite. There is considerably more room for the individual to favor their own experiences over that of any particular channeled text. In fact, many occultists are perfectly happy writing their own channeled texts, which is totally blasphemous in revealed religions. For example, Thelemites might all recognize Liber AL as the most sacred scripture of their religion, but there is no rule in Thelema that prevents practitioners from contacting spirits and channeling texts on their own.

And I've never heard anybody claim that Liber AL is the only channeled text that can lay a claim to "the truth." (As opposed to popular claims that are made about the Bible.)

So far as I know, Wiccans do not have a single holy text to which they all adhere. Not even Satanists do! Sure, we have The Satanic Bible, but its author LaVey never claimed the book to have been "channeled," and it is not universally accepted by all Satanists everywhere as a "sacred scripture." In fact, many Devil worshipers disagree with most, if not all of the book. When we're talking about a bunch of people who follow the Lord of All Blasphemy - whether symbolically or literally - then even The Satanic Bible can end up being used as toilet paper.

So in the end, occultism is any kind of spiritual practice in which the individual is encouraged to determine their own truth in terms of their own experiences. It is a form of belief which favors examination and analysis over blind faith in the alleged experiences of others. An occultist is a person for whom accepting the "truth" of the biblical prophets is not enough; they wish to forge their own direct relationships with the divine, and to determine truth and error by and for themselves.

Practitioners of revealed religions believe that everything we need to know about the divine is given to us in a certain book; occultists, on the other hand, know that we are all like the blind men and the elephant, searching our way through the darkness for what is hidden.

There are certainly some people in occult religions who behave more like they are in revealed religions. In Satanism, for example, there are some individuals who believe that a particular text - usually either The Satanic Bible or the Al-Jilwah of the Yezidi - should be accepted as the "end all, say all" of Satanic truth. But such people are to occultism as the Amish are to Christianity; they are vastly outnumbered by the majority of occultists. Hell, LaVey wrote in The Satanic Bible that "Herein you will find truth and fantasy." (Emphasis mine.) This indicates that even LaVey did not expect people to agree with absolutely everything in the book.

Now some people think that you have to practice witchcraft or crystal gazing in order to be an occultist. It's true that you can practice these if you want to, but you don't have to. There are many different kinds of occultism, but I think they can mostly be condensed into two primary branches:

Magic: a form of occultism in which it is attempted to control or forecast natural events, effects, or forces by invoking the supernatural (whether it be in the form of a god, an energy, or one's own inner self). In theory, it is essentially like practicing rituals that are designed to help you make your own wishes come true. Magic differs from prayer in that it suggests more human capability for control over the supernatural than prayer does. (I.e., instead of leaving the prayer to be answered by a god, you are supposedly arranging for the prayer to be answered by itself.) Examples of magic include witchcraft, astrology, alchemy, Tarot reading, Thelema, etc.

Mysticism: a form of occultism in which it is believed that the supernatural can be directly experienced by the individual, without need for such "intermediaries" as priests or popes. Unlike with magic, there is no concept of "exerting human control" over the supernatural. While a magician might invoke the Devil to do some kind of "work" with Him, a mystic will invoke the Devil just for the sake of experiencing Him. Magic and mysticism are often confused with each other, but mysticism is usually more devotional in nature than magic. Examples of mysticism include Gnosticism, Sufism, Quakerism, Native American "Ghost Dances," Voudon spirit possession, etc.

Whether you favor mysticism or magic, Devil worship is an occult enterprise. This is because most of us do not see Set as a lawgiving shepherd god who reveals Himself through a particular book that we all must accept as true. Instead, we tend to see Him as an anarchic trickster spirit who reveals Himself to different people in different ways. He's wild, He's wooly, He's a chaos god! And His only rule is that there aren't any rules.

We may worship Him, but this doesn't mean we're His mindless zombie slaves. We don't believe He "commands" us or legislates morality and truth for us. Instead, we simply honor Him as a spirit who gives us guidance and inspiration as we navigate through the world of the unknown. He is there to help us, but it is up to us to determine truth and error by and for ourselves.

And we wouldn't have it any other way!