January
Occult Eye - Occultism 101
Since childhood, I have taken steps towards being an occultist, although I didn’t know what to call it at the time. With the last year spent being very active with the local Fairbanks Pagans & Heathens, I’ve found that occultism isn’t well understood my most. I welcome you to the first of my occult articles. I welcome questions, so ask away. In every article, I’ll include some suggested learning, in case anyone wants to start learning.
What Is Occultism?
Occultism is an academic-based study of the supernatural, various religions, and various magical practices. It’s quite broad so there are several ways to go about studying the occult. There isn’t a set way to be an occultist; it’s almost a solitary practice. The general occultist will have a solid foundation of knowledge and practice relating to the supernatural/paranormal (i.e. ghosts, bigfoot, mythic creatures, etc), knowledge of various religions (not just various types of Christianity), some foreign language knowledge, and will know the basics of various magical practices with some practice. The ultimate goal for most occultists is “ultimate arcane knowledge”.
I generally just call myself a “General Occultist” or simply “an Occultist” because most people don’t quite understand what it is I do anyway.
Occultist Facts
Anyone can be an occultist. It’s not for any particular religion. You don’t even need to belong to any religion. Just have an open mind.
An occultist should have a working ability to read either Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, or other ancient languages. On top of this, they should have a working ability to read other languages associated with what they’re studying.
An occultist will be able to tell you details about various paranormal incidents around the world, then turn around and hold an in-depth conversation about certain religious topics and/or magic practices.
Occultists are into energy work, magic circles, conjuring/summoning, and stones.
Ancient and old knowledge is more enticing than new knowledge, usually.
Occultists tend to collect copies of old or ancient texts, even if it’s a collection of pdf files and reprint books.
Occultists will try everything from summoning an entity to weather magic to ritual dances to mojo bags to astrology to i-ching. Everything is fair game if it seems applicable.
Hot topics that often drive occultists are: power, levitation at will, telekinetics, immortality, various physical manifestations of power (i.e. ball of light, starting a fire from nothing, parting water, etc), consulting their daemon/daimon, astral projection, finding the akashic records, etc
Mathematics, science, and the language arts (everything you learned from English class) are used all the time with occultists.
Occultists will often publish a book of their work...or two or maybe five…
The Occult is Scary
To a lot of people, the occult is a scary beast. People open doors that they can’t close. They want to jump right into something too advanced for themselves. I have advice for those of you interested in pursuing occultism: always have an exit strategy. If something goes wrong, you need to know what to do to fix it. If that doesn’t work, have a back up.
It will get scary fast, if you don’t take precautions. Since this is a factor, there are two main types of occultists the practical and the theoretical. The practical occultist is a little more hands on. They want to give those rituals and spells a try. The theoretical occultists are very cautious and tend to just study all the time. They’re read about stuff, but haven’t given it a try.
If this was a Harry Potter film, we would start discussing Defense Against The Dark Arts class right now. Hopefully, you are reading this and can think of at least 5 different ways to protect yourself and your space if a spell or ritual goes wrong.
Have I Ever Had A Scary Experience?
Yep. I have stuff go on all the time. In fact, I’ve been told that what I think is mundane is actually kind of creepy. I also tend to down-play a lot of stuff. I do keep a lot of protections going where I live, but especially in my bedroom. The last place I want something to happen is the place I sleep.
How Would One Get Started?
There are so many different ways to start studying the occult, but let’s see...I suppose if I was going to train someone, I would have them start by doing ALL of the following 25 things.
Read “Ghosts” by Hans Holzer
Read “Timaeus & Critaeus” by Plato
Take an “Intro to Latin” class, which can be found online or through your local university.
Read “The Professional Ghost Investigator” by Jessie Desmond. (That’s me.)
Go to a cemetery and practice ghost investigation techniques.
Create a protection circle.
Read the Christian bible - whichever version you want. Already read it? Read the “Nag Hammadi”.
Read the Torah.
Read or watch a documentary on Aleister Crowley.
Read or watch a documentary on John Dee and Edward Kelly.
Learn about the different types of witchcraft.
Read up on faeries from two very different regions.
Read up on your local flora and then go forage for stuff.
Start a small collection of useful herbs: sage, mint, mugwort, chamomile, and lavender.
Hold a seance.
Try out a few candle spells.
Read “The Lesser Key of Solomon”, followed by “The Goetia”.
Find an old grimoire or text from the 1500s that discusses magical practice.
Find an old grimoire or text from the 1700s that discusses magical practice or alchemy.
Learn about various cultural death rites.
Study basic energy work.
Teach yourself to astral travel.
Learn tarot or some other divination card system.
Learn about and gather at least 5 items of protection.
Take notes on everything.
This is a lot to digest. The list is long and the texts are intense. All I can say is that once you get through all of these items, you will probably figure out where you want to go with your occultism. It took me a long while to figure it out and, of course, things change. Also, on top of all this stuff, you’re going to be looking at other stuff that interests you. Read and absorb everything.
Occult Eye is a regular article that focuses on the occult and becoming an occultist. Jessie has been a practicing occultist for more than 25 years. Any questions or comments can be sent to the author, Jessie. #Occult #OccultEye