Occultism Meaning: What Is Occultism and Where Did It Come From?

What Is Occultism?

Occultism is the study and practice of knowledge that is held to be hidden from ordinary experience or mainstream culture. The word "occult" simply means "hidden" in Latin, and the tradition of occultism is, at its core, the investigation of the hidden dimensions of reality: the forces and laws that operate beneath the surface of what ordinary senses and conventional education reveal.

This investigation has taken many forms across history. Renaissance scholars like Cornelius Agrippa and Marsilio Ficino studied the occult forces in plants, stones, and planets as part of a natural philosophy that preceded the mechanistic science of the 17th century. Later occultists developed elaborate systems of ceremonial ritual, Kabbalistic symbolism, and alchemical practice as means of working with these hidden forces. Modern occultists study the same traditions, often bringing contemporary psychological and scientific frameworks to bear on ancient materials.

The popular image of occultism, shaped by sensationalist media and centuries of religious polemics, bears little resemblance to the reality of the tradition. Most practising occultists are engaged in sincere spiritual development, philosophical investigation, and the cultivation of what they understand to be higher capacities of consciousness. The traditions they work within - Hermeticism, Kabbalah, Rosicrucianism, Theosophy - are among the richest intellectual and spiritual streams in Western history.

Academic study of occultism has grown enormously since Wouter Hanegraaff established Western esotericism as a legitimate field of academic inquiry at the University of Amsterdam in the 1990s. The journal Aries: Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism, the works of scholars like Kocku von Stuckrad, Marco Pasi, and Egil Asprem, and the recognition of Western esotericism as a category in religious studies have transformed how the academy understands a tradition it once dismissed or ignored.

Etymology: What Does Occult Mean?

The English word "occult" comes directly from the Latin occultus, the past participle of occulere, meaning "to hide" or "to conceal." The root combines ob- (over) with celare (to hide), giving the sense of something covered over, concealed from ordinary view.

In medieval and Renaissance natural philosophy, "occult qualities" (qualitates occultae) were properties of things that could be observed in their effects but not explained by the four Aristotelian qualities (hot, cold, wet, dry). The magnet's attraction to iron was an occult quality. The tides' response to the moon was occult. The sympathy between distant objects was occult. These were not supernatural - they were simply hidden from the explanatory framework available at the time.

The modern sense of "occultism" as a category designating esoteric spiritual practices was largely created by the 19th-century French occultist Eliphas Levi (Alphonse Louis Constant, 1810-1875). Levi used "occultisme" to describe the synthesis of Kabbalah, Tarot, alchemy, and ceremonial magic that he was developing. His Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (1856), translated as Transcendental Magic, popularised this usage and was enormously influential in shaping subsequent Western occultism.

History of Occultism

The history of occultism is inseparable from the history of Western esotericism more broadly: a continuous, evolving current of thought and practice that runs from ancient Egypt and Greece through the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Enlightenment to the present day.

Ancient Roots: Mystery Schools and Hermetism

The deepest roots of Western occultism lie in the ancient mystery religions and the Hermetic philosophical tradition. The Eleusinian Mysteries at Eleusis, the Dionysian mysteries, the Orphic tradition, and the Mithraic mysteries all preserved esoteric knowledge accessible only through initiation. These traditions held that direct experiential knowledge of hidden realities was available to the prepared initiate.

The Hermetic texts (composed in Greek-speaking Egypt between roughly 100-300 CE and attributed to the legendary Hermes Trismegistus) provided the philosophical framework that would later become central to Western occultism. The Corpus Hermeticum described a cosmos animated by divine intelligence, a human soul capable of direct knowledge of the divine, and a path of inner transformation through philosophical and practical work.

Neoplatonic philosophy (Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, Proclus, 3rd-5th century CE) contributed a systematic account of the soul's descent from the divine One through successive levels and its possible return through philosophical practice and theurgy (ritual working with divine forces). Iamblichus's defense of theurgy against Porphyry's more purely philosophical approach established the practical-ritual dimension of Neoplatonism that would feed directly into later occultism.

Renaissance Occultism

The single most important moment in the formation of Western occultism was Cosimo de' Medici's commissioning of Marsilio Ficino to translate the Corpus Hermeticum in 1463. Ficino, who had been working on Plato, interrupted that work to translate the newly arrived Hermetic texts, which Cosimo believed to be more ancient and more important.

The result was Ficino's De Vita (On Life, 1489) and Theologia Platonica, which synthesised Hermetic philosophy with Neoplatonism and created a framework of correspondences between celestial influences, plants, stones, and the human body that became the intellectual basis of Renaissance natural magic. Ficino's magic was "benevolent Neoplatonism": drawing down beneficial celestial influences through specific combinations of objects, music, images, and practices.

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola added Kabbalah to this synthesis in his 1486 Conclusiones, arguing that Christian Kabbalah provided the strongest proof of Christian truths. Pico's Oration on the Dignity of Man is essentially an occult manifesto: the human being's unique capacity to ascend through all levels of reality is what makes us the centre and wonder of creation.

Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim's Three Books of Occult Philosophy (De Occulta Philosophia, completed 1510, published 1531) is the most comprehensive survey of Renaissance occultism. Spanning natural magic (working with elemental and celestial forces), celestial magic (working with planetary influences and astrology), and ceremonial magic (working with divine names and spiritual beings), Agrippa's work synthesised the entire tradition available to him and remained the standard reference for Western occultists for four centuries.

John Dee (1527-1608), mathematician, court astrologer to Elizabeth I, and one of the most remarkable minds of the Elizabethan era, developed what he called Enochian magic through a series of scrying sessions with his associate Edward Kelley. Dee and Kelley claimed to receive communications from angels who revealed a celestial language (Enochian), tables of correspondences, and a system of angelic magic. Whatever one makes of the metaphysical claims, the Enochian system became one of the most influential magical systems in Western occultism.

The 19th-Century Revival

Occultism experienced an extraordinary revival in the 19th century, responding to the twin pressures of scientific materialism and institutional religion's perceived failure to address the spiritual needs of modernity.

Eliphas Levi (1810-1875) synthesised Kabbalah, Tarot, and ceremonial magic into a coherent system, coining the term "occultisme" and presenting the occult tradition as the hidden wisdom behind all religious traditions. His image of Baphomet, his account of the Astral Light as the medium of magical operation, and his Kabbalistic interpretation of the Tarot became foundational for subsequent Western occultism.

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891), arguably the most important occultist of the 19th century, co-founded the Theosophical Society in New York in 1875. Her two major works, Isis Unveiled (1877) and The Secret Doctrine (1888), presented an elaborate synthesis of Eastern and Western esoteric traditions centred on a doctrine of cosmic evolution through successive "root races" and the teaching that all religions share a common esoteric core. Blavatsky's Theosophy introduced Indian and Tibetan spiritual concepts to Western audiences at scale and influenced an enormous range of subsequent movements.

The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, founded in London in 1888 by William Wynn Westcott, Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, and William Robert Woodman, became the most influential occult organisation in modern history. Its grade system synthesised Kabbalah (specifically the Hermetic Qabalah based on the Tree of Life), Hermeticism, Rosicrucianism, Enochian magic, astrology, and Tarot into a single coherent curriculum.

The Golden Dawn's membership included some of the most prominent figures of late Victorian and Edwardian culture: W.B. Yeats (who credited the Order with shaping his poetic symbolism), Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, and Aleister Crowley. After internal conflicts tore the Order apart around 1900, its descendants included A.E. Waite's Independent and Rectified Rite (responsible for the Rider-Waite Tarot, still the world's most popular Tarot deck), Crowley's A.A. (Argenteum Astrum), and Dion Fortune's Society of the Inner Light.

Dion Fortune (Violet Mary Firth, 1890-1946) is arguably the most important occultist of the 20th century for the quality and clarity of her writing. Her Mystical Qabalah (1935) remains the best introduction to Hermetic Qabalah. Her Cosmic Doctrine and The Sea Priestess translated occult philosophy into psychologically accessible language that influenced the development of modern Western spirituality significantly.

Modern Occultism

Contemporary occultism is diverse, intellectually vibrant, and significantly shaped by the internet's ability to connect practitioners across geographic boundaries. Several broad streams are currently active:

Traditional occultism continues the practices of the Golden Dawn, Thelema, and related initiatory traditions. The Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO), various Golden Dawn offshoots, and Thelemic lodges maintain formal initiatory structures and traditional ritual practices.

Chaos magic, developed in the 1970s-80s by Peter Carroll and Ray Sherwin, rejected fixed belief systems in favour of a pragmatic approach: any symbol system works if used with the right mental state. Chaos magic pioneered psychological approaches to magical practice that have become mainstream in broader occultism.

Contemporary paganism and Wicca, though often distinct from ceremonial magic, shares occult roots. Wicca was developed by Gerald Gardner in the 1950s drawing on Golden Dawn material, Freemasonry, and folk tradition. Modern paganism encompasses a wide spectrum from reconstructionist approaches to academic spiritual paths.

Academic Western esotericism has brought rigorous historical scholarship to occult traditions, with university programs in Amsterdam, Exeter, and elsewhere training scholars who study these traditions with the same tools applied to any religious or intellectual history.

The Main Branches of Western Occultism

Hermeticism is the philosophical core of Western occultism, based on the Corpus Hermeticum and the principle of correspondence ("as above, so below"). It provides the cosmological framework within which most other Western occult traditions operate.

Kabbalah and Hermetic Qabalah supply the most comprehensive symbolic map: the Tree of Life with its ten Sefirot and twenty-two paths provides a filing system for virtually all occult symbolism, correlating Tarot, astrology, alchemy, divine names, and angelic hierarchies into a single structure.

Alchemy operates both as a practical laboratory tradition (the precursor of modern chemistry) and as a philosophical and spiritual path. The alchemical stages (nigredo, albedo, citrinitas, rubedo) describe both outer chemical operations and inner psychological and spiritual transformation.

Astrology maps the influence of celestial bodies on earthly events and individual character. Esoteric astrology, as taught by Alice Bailey and others, goes beyond personality description to map the soul's evolutionary journey through successive incarnations.

Ceremonial Magic involves the deliberate invocation and evocation of spiritual forces through precisely structured rituals using specific symbols, names, correspondences, and timing. From the medieval grimoire tradition through the Golden Dawn to contemporary chaos magic, ceremonial magic represents one of the most practically developed dimensions of occultism.

Theosophy and Anthroposophy represent systematic attempts to synthesise Eastern and Western spiritual knowledge into coherent accounts of cosmic evolution, the structure of the human being, and the path of spiritual development.

Key Figures in Occult History

Hermeticism and Occultism

Hermeticism is not merely one branch of occultism among others, it is its philosophical foundation. The Hermetic texts provided Western occultism with its core convictions: the cosmos is a living, intelligent whole permeated by divine presence; the human being contains within themselves all the levels of the cosmos ("as above, so below"); direct knowledge of the divine is available to the prepared soul; and the path of inner transformation leads from the limited individual self to participation in the divine mind.

Every major Western occult tradition traces its ultimate authority to the Hermetic lineage. The Golden Dawn explicitly positioned itself within a Hermetic Rosicrucian tradition. Theosophy claimed to recover the ancient wisdom preserved in Hermetic sources. Anthroposophy (Rudolf Steiner's spiritual science) acknowledged its roots in Hermetic and Rosicrucian streams while insisting on a new and more rigorously cognitive approach.

The principle of correspondence at the heart of Hermetic philosophy is what makes the occult's vast symbol system coherent: because the same divine pattern ("as above") manifests at every level of reality ("so below"), a planet, a metal, a plant, a musical note, a colour, a Tarot card, a Hebrew letter, and a part of the human body can all be placed in correspondence with each other through their shared participation in the same archetypal pattern. This is the intellectual framework underlying the elaborate table of correspondences that has been the working tool of Western occultism since Agrippa.

Rudolf Steiner and Occultism

Rudolf Steiner's relationship to occultism is both intimate and critically distanced. His early career was spent in the Theosophical Society, the dominant occult organisation of his era, and he used the word "occultism" extensively in his early lectures. His major work Occult Science: An Outline (GA13, 1910) bears the word in its title and treats its subject matter, cosmic evolution, the structure of the human being, and clairvoyant investigation of supersensible worlds, with complete seriousness and detailed specificity.

Steiner gradually replaced "occultism" with "spiritual science" (Anthroposophy) as he distanced himself from Theosophy and developed his own approach. The change in terminology reflected a real change in emphasis: whereas traditional occultism often relied on authority (ancient lineages, received texts, initiatory secrets), Steiner insisted that genuine spiritual knowledge must be verifiable through the same kind of intersubjective testing as natural-scientific knowledge, though applied to supersensible rather than physical phenomena.

Steiner's reading of the history of occultism was deeply Hermetic. He saw the Rosicrucian stream as the vehicle through which Hermetic wisdom was preserved and developed for the modern era, and understood his own Anthroposophy as the contemporary expression of that stream.

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