occultism

occultism, a group of esoteric religious traditions emerging primarily from 19th-century Europe. In particular, the term occultism is associated with the ideas of the French Kabbalist and ceremonial magician Éliphas Lévi as well as the various figures, both in France and abroad, who were strongly influenced by his writings. In the academic study of esotericism, the term is often used in a broader sense to characterize all esoteric traditions that have adapted to an increasingly secular, globalized, and scientific world, including Spiritualism, Spiritism, Wicca, and the New Age milieu.

History

The term occultism derives from occult, itself adopted from the Latin word occultus, meaning “hidden” or “secret.” In medieval and early modern Europe this term had been used in reference to “occult properties,” or forces that, even if invisible to the human eye, were believed to exist within material objects. In the 16th century the term occult gained additional meanings, coming to also describe specific traditions of thought, usually called “occult sciences” or “occult philosophies.” Among the traditions repeatedly labeled under these terms were alchemy, astrology, and magia naturalis (“natural magic”), all of which are now typically regarded as forms of esotericism.

The earliest known use of the term occultism comes from French, where l’occultisme appears in Jean-Baptiste Richard’s 1842 work Enrichissement de la langue française (“Enrichment of the French Language”). The word’s popularization nevertheless results largely from its use by Alphonse Louis Constant, a French author who published a series of books under the pseudonym Éliphas Lévi in the 1850s and ’60s. Sometimes referred to as the “founder of occultism,” Lévi was a committed Roman Catholic and socialist interested in many older esoteric traditions, including ceremonial magic, Kabbalah, and the use of the tarot. In his writings, most notably his highly influential Dogme et rituel de la haute magie (The Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic; 1854–1856), he wrote about a purported ancient and universal tradition of spiritual wisdom, the knowledge of which could help bridge the modern divide between science and religion. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many of the influential French figures who were inspired by Lévi—including Stanislas de Guaita, Joséphin Péladan, and Papus—also went on to describe their beliefs and practices as occultisme.

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Central to the promotion of the term occultism in the English language was a Russian writer, Helena Blavatsky, who first used it in an 1875 article. Blavatsky’s work was the ideological core of Theosophy, an esoteric new religion established in the United States during the 1870s, and she used occultism in reference to the ancient wisdom tradition that she claimed to be promoting on behalf of “the Masters,” a secretive body of spiritual adepts purportedly based in Tibet. In her 1875 article she added that “the East” was the “cradle of Occultism,” highlighting Theosophy’s subsequent emphasis on integrating Hindu and Buddhist ideas with esoteric traditions more familiar to Europeans. Over the course of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Theosophy gained an international following and played an important role in popularizing the term occultism in relation to modern esoteric traditions.

Within the competitive milieu of esoteric and culturally alternative spiritualities, the label of occultist became an identity marker through which many individuals sought to distinguish themselves from other groups. Most self-described occultists in the 19th and early 20th centuries distanced themselves from Spiritualism, a religion that had emerged in the United States during the 1840s before spreading rapidly across Europe and the Americas. Spiritualism focused on contacting the spirits of the dead, but many occultists regarded this as a dangerous practice that opened Spiritualists up to malevolent entities. In turn, other esotericists tried to distance themselves from the occultists. An example of this is the Traditionalists, a loose group that emerged in the early 20th century and who maintained that self-described occultists perverted the ancient primordial wisdom tradition that they were allegedly committed to studying.

Both Lévi and Blavatsky exerted a sizable influence over the broad environment of esoteric traditions that arose from the late 19th century onward—many of which operated under the banner of occultism. Lévi’s approach to ceremonial magic, for instance, fed into the formation of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a group established in 1880s Britain. One of the Golden Dawn’s members was Aleister Crowley, a Briton who went on to establish his own religion, Thelema, and wrote prolifically on esoteric topics. Both the Golden Dawn and Crowley in turn influenced Wicca, a modern Pagan religion that came to public attention in 1950s Britain before spreading abroad. Lévi’s ultimate influence can also be seen in smaller esoteric groups established from the latter half of the 20th century, such as modern religious Satanism and Chaos Magick.

Blavatsky’s influence was just as prominent as Lévi’s. Theosophy became an international phenomenon and played an important role in introducing Asian religious notions about karma and reincarnation to European and European-descended audiences. Groups that splintered from Theosophy included Anthroposophy, established by the Austrian Rudolf Steiner in the 1910s, and the Society of Inner Light, formed by the Briton Dion Fortune in the 1920s. Theosophy’s teachings about the Masters would be adapted by American new religions like the “I AM” Activity and the Church Universal and Triumphant, while its eclectic combination of ideas from varied cultural contexts fed heavily into the New Age milieu that reached huge audiences from the 1960s onward.

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The 19th century had seen the popularization not only of the term occultism but also the term esotericism, the latter encompassing a broad range of religious and spiritual traditions. In the 20th century these terms would sometimes be used synonymously, although in other cases attempts would be made to distinguish them, for instance with the argument that esotericism should refer just to theoretical ideas, and occultism to attempts to enact those ideas in practice, an ultimately untenable division. These variations in usage highlight that such terms have been highly malleable and attention must be paid to the specific context in which they appear.

Academic uses

Occultism was generally viewed with considerable prejudice by academics in the 19th and 20th centuries. Reflecting the ongoing influence of Enlightenment ideologies, these academics often associated it squarely with irrationality, as evidenced for instance by Theodor Adorno’s “Theses Against Occultism” from 1947. As such, occultism was not regarded as a respectable subject for academic inquiry, and it was only in the 1990s and 2000s, with the emergence of a distinct subfield devoted to the study of (Western) esotericism, that scholarly studies of the topic began to appear in larger numbers.

Rather than using the word occultism in the same way that Lévi or Blavatsky had done, these academics sought to repurpose the term by giving it a definition better suited for academic analysis. The most prominent figure to do so was the Dutch historian Wouter J. Hanegraaff, who in an influential 1996 study defined occultism to mean Western esoteric traditions that attempted to “come to terms with a disenchanted world.” From this perspective occultism encompasses not just those who have called themselves occultists but also Spiritualists, psychical researchers, Wiccans, and New Agers, all of whom were developing esoteric ideas within modern societies that had undergone processes of secularization and in which science was generally perceived as the best method for explaining the world. Some historians have followed Hanegraaff in broadening the term occultism, whereas others have preferred to employ the word in a more restrictive sense to cover only those who have used it as a self-description.