Call Popular Occultism example essay topic

In the period of history in which we are living, there is a very strong element of revolt. Revolt against all established institutions. This is good, as those established institutions are, for the most part, extremely oppressive of human personal liberty, and human freedom of thought. People are rightly perceiving all forms of government as basically more interested in their own power and profit than they are in the people they supposedly represent. People are tired of having their own futures and the futures of their children put at risk by the insane scramble for power among those who hold the reins of the various governments all over the planet. People are fearsome at seeing the environment put at extreme risk by corporate greed in partnership with government.

Among the most important of these revolts has been one against established religions, and particularly the Judeo-Christian Religion of the West. It is that aspect of the planet-wide revolt that is the primary subject of this essay. Human beings being what they are, and possessing a really strong 'urge-to-religion' or 'urge -to-believe', and an even stronger 'urge to have someone else be responsible for them', much of this revolt against religion, is itself in the form of a religious phenomenon. One of the most wide-spread forms this revolution has taken is the adoption of religions and belief systems that are perceived as victims of the Judeo-Christian culture. And so, we have many people today who consider themselves to be practitioners of religions they believe to be pre-cursors to the Judeo Christian culture.

They call themselves 'Pagans' and or 'Wiccans'. Unfortunately, while they are good people and harmless, they are misguided in their beliefs, and in some ways, their beliefs are dictated by the views of the dominant Judeo-Christian Culture. For the very word 'Pagan' is a pejorative, a word of contempt used by the Roman Military for civilians (and specifically 'rustic' civilians), and then picked up by the earliest Christian converts who considered themselves to be 'Milit i-Christi' or 'Soldiers of Christ'. Basically, in our society, the only true definition of the meaning of 'Pagan' is that the person who identifies themselves in that fashion is not a Jew, a Christian, a Muslim, or any other mainstream religion, but conversely that they are neither an atheist nor an agnostic but a person who is a believer. They believe themselves to be following in the footsteps of the people who lived before Christianity conquered, but Christianity has been so extremely efficient at eradicating most traces of those belief systems, that the 'New Pagans' have no idea as to the source of their belief structure, which in fact is primarily myth, legend, and literature. Unfortunately too much of what they believe is tainted by the Judeo-Christian ethos.

Much, if not in fact most, of Neo-Paganism is also heavily influenced by 'Popular Occultism'. 'Wicca' or 'Witchcraft' is believed to be the 'knowledge' and practices of the ancient 'wise people' who were healers and advisors of primitive people. But all that can be said about modern Wicca is that it was invented by Gerald Gardner who was a Theosophist, and a Rosicrucian, and a member of 'The Golden Dawn' who put together a pastiche of his own ideas and some historical research into the traditions of the English country folk. It too is indelibly tainted by the Judeo-Christian Ethos.

Because of Gardener's 'Golden Dawn' connection,' Wicca' is far more heavily influenced by 'Popular Occultism' than is 'Neo-Paganism'. It is absolutely clear to me that both of those movements; 'Neo-Paganism' and 'Wicca' were very much flavored and inspired by the works of Charles W. Leadbeater and Annie Besant. These two people, and two others; Dion Fortune and Aleister Crowley are the sources of the entire 'New Age Movement'. Without the pseudo theosophy of Leadbeater and Besant, neither Dion Fortune or Aleister Crowley would have had much to work on, and most certainly Alice Bailey, the least original of all of them, would have been entirely mute. None the less, it's all an act of rebellion against mainstream religion. But by far the most popular, and oldest form that his 'revolt' takes, is 'Popular Occultism'.

The primary source of MODERN 'Popular Occultism' is Theosophy. 'Occultism' is a fascinating, but entirely fictitious topic, unfortunately it is also a dangerous topic as too many people get totally enmeshed in it's fictions and begin to live in those fictions totally excluding reality from their lives. They also allow themselves to become extremely narrow in their ability to accept ideas that in anyway contradict, or impugn, or differ even mildly from their chosen paradigm. They also have a tendency to become rather insensately hostile to anyone who questions their belief system in any way. Now 'Paganism' has at least some real basis in the fact that there were religions prior to the triumph of Christianity, and that, superficially at least, we know something about what those people may have believed in.

'Wicca' too has a basis in the ancient traditions of the rural folk. But does 'Occultism' have any real Historical Basis? Not really. Let's look at the soil out of which 'Occultism's prang. 'Occultism' basically springs forth out of the age old, and terribly primitive belief humans have in 'magic'.

What's so terribly primitive about the human belief in 'magic' is that the belief is based on the idea that 'magic' contravenes nature. That is pure ignorance, nothing, nothing at all, contravenes nature. In that case, there is no such thing as 'magic'. To primitive humankind, anything they didn't understand, and they understood almost nothing, was 'magic'. Unfortunately, the notion that things not understood are 'magical' has persisted to our own times, and not simply in rural areas. It is probably truest to say that what we today, call 'Occultism' had it's original roots in various movements called 'Gnosticism' in the first centuries of the common era.

Men like Carpocrates, Basil ides, and Valentin us who were influenced by Babylonian and Persian dualistic ideas and legends of the Magic. These leaders influenced the great uneducated masses of the classical milieu and the misunderstandings of their ideas by those self-same ignorant masses, are the thing that bore fruit in what we now call 'Occultism'. The Gnostics (so-called'), and the Manicheans are probably the source of most of the basis of 'Popular' or ' Fairy tale Occultism' present in the world today. Where did all this begin? Where does it come from?

It comes out of the fact that Christianity has always chosen to present it's opponents as 'servants of Satan' or 'magicians-sorcerers'. It began with the depiction of 'Simon Magus' as evil incarnate. Now, it is also very true that quite early on the bureaucrats of Institutional Christianity recognized that Gnosticism and Manichean ism were antithetical to their institutional goals and agenda. this was totally unacceptable to the bureaucrats. In response, the two philosophies became in 'incarnation of evil'. In the end, as it was institutional Christians who wrote history, the Gnostics and Manicheans and their mythology became inextricably entwined with 'the enemy'. The polemicists of the church created the myth of 'Occultism', to be enabled to charge their 'enemy' with collusion with 'THE ENEMY', i.e. with 'Satan'.

What this means is that what is called 'Occultism' today, began as an ecclesiastical fantasy advanced to consolidate the power of the Roman church's Bureaucracy, 'The Curia Romanum'. Down the years since The Emperor Constantine handed the Roman Empire to the Christians on a silver plate, there have been people who have desperately striven to ameliorate, if not undo, the terrible moral, intellectual, and physical harm that Christianity was doing. These people were Humanists of the Thales-Plato lineage, they have always represented and preserved the finest of what the classical milieu represented, as well as the ideals of freedom and personal liberty that were the best of what the Kelts had to offer. The Church (at first only the Roman and Greek churches, but then the various Protestant sects) has always charged these people with 'magic' 'sorcery' 'al chemism' and 'witchcraft', and of course being in the service of Satan who is no more real than Jesus or Simon Magus.

The saddest thing is that 'theosophy' which was supposed to be a support and encouragement for the group I call 'The Humanist Collective' or 'The Association of Adepts', and which some people call; 'THE ILLUMINATII', (who have nothing whatsoever to do with either 'occultism' or 'magic') has turned out to be the primary inspiration for 'Popular Occultism'. How did this happen? Based upon my own investigation of the work of Yelena Petrovna Blavastkaya, this was really not her original intent. When one reads her first book 'Isis Unveiled' one becomes aware that she was no friend of Christianity and was very much involved in the work of the humanist collective in the west. As one does further research, one begins to be aware that this woman was somehow co opted, in all likelihood with her full consent and cooperation, from her support of European Liberation Movements, and made to serve the purposes of Indian Nationalism. Then, upon her death (8th of May, 1891), the entire movement she founded was not simply co opted, but perverted to serve the fantasies of a man (Charles Webster Leadbeater) who was not simply all caught up in to the unreality of 'Occultism' and 'Christian Occultism' but was equally caught up in the toils of 'sexual magic' originated in certain German magical 'orders' and with the political movements, Nazism and Fascism that were part and parcel of these 'orders'.

Now, it's very easy to see why a Russian aristocrat could regard the dissolution of the British Empire with equanimity and approval, and in fact, the Hindu-Muslim Indian Nationalists with whom Blavatsky worked, were no more intrinsically revolutionaries than Blavatsky herself, or the Humanist-Adepts with whom she worked. After all H.P.B. was very heavily involved with the Carbonari and the Italian Liberation Movement of Garibaldi, Mazzini, and Cavour, and had been involved in various European Liberation Movements for many years. One can easily understand how the liberation of India would comfortably fit with the Humanist Agenda. It's what happened next that is troublesome.

But what is most troublesome at all is her relationship with the members of the Humanist Collective, and the methodology which she used to reveal and yet not reveal the reality of that collective. That methodology permitted the eventual perversion of her work and mission. Now, as Yelena Petrovna, Countess Blavatskaya was claimed to be the ultimate source of not simply Annie Besant and Charles Leadbeater, but was also, both on her own, and through their agency, the inspirational source of Aleister Crowley, Dion Fortune, and Alice Bailey, perhaps I should spend a moment or two on 'H.P.B. ' and her character, activities, and mission. The most important fact about 'H.P.B. ' is not that she was simply a very advanced and talented paranormal or 'psychic' but that she was the highest level of Shaman, a Tulku.

What is a 'Tulku'? Well, setting aside all the religious nonsense that usually surrounds the term, a 'Tulku' is simply the highest level of attainment a shaman can reach. What that means in the 'real world' is that a 'Tulku' is a person who is in constant, un-interrupted contact with extra-physical centers-of-consciousness. This has nothing at all to do with either 'magic' or 'religion' and is simply a fact of life.

Now, it is also a fact of life that the state-of-being called 'Tulku' is the primary distinguishing mark of an 'adept', and it enables the adept ii to be in constant contact by way of this extra-physical linkage. That's all, they are not 'magicians' or any other kind of fantastical creature. They are simply extremely intelligent and talented men and women working diligently for the betterment of mankind. When 'H.P.B. ' decided to 'go public' as it were, the majority of the members of the Humanist Collective objected due to fears that the publicity would obstruct their work and privacy to do that work. 'H.P.B. ', who was as stubborn as the proverbial Mule, was determined to 'do her thing' come what may. And so she covered up the reality of the adept ii by making them the kind of 'magical' 'mystical' fantastic creatures we see in her later works and in the works of those she inspired.

It is my belief that once 'Isis Unveiled' was written and published, she felt she accomplished her goals (she was right). 'Isis Unveiled' was a virtual intellectual and metaphysical earthquake. What were her actual goals? Well, they were very complex. In the first place she wanted to combat the excessive materialism that was so prevalent in her age. Secondly she wanted to reinstate the connection between metaphysical speculation and scientific research that had been lost with the conquest of reason by Christianity.

Thirdly, she wanted to de-stabilize the religious paradigm of the west and the society that religious paradigm served to support. Lastly she wanted to introduce to the western nations the fact that other people were their intellectual equals. Now, the question that naturally arises, is what kind of person was Yelena Petrovna, Countess Blavatskaya? And what happened to her between the time she founded the Theosophical Society in 1875 and her death in 1891, and what were the effects of that period on what we now call 'Popular Occultism'? Born to an extremely aristocratic and privileged Russian-German Family in 1831, H.P.B., in 1849, made a 'marriage of convenience (to both concerned parties) with General Count Nic ephor Blavatsky, and then, almost immediately with his full consent and collusion, 'deserted' her husband to go off adventuring accompanied by soldiers of his guard serving as an escort. The next years of her life were spent traveling in unusual places sometimes accompanied by other aristocratic women who like her were Lesbians.

The next phase of her life has her really heavily involved in various liberation movements, primarily those engaged in revolt against the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Her first involvement was with the Hungarian Liberation Movements, and then she became involved in the movement of the Carbonari to free the Italian peninsula from Austrian hegemony and create an actual Italian Nation. In the course of these activities she almost lost her life several times. Her involvement with Garibaldi and his movement was so intense, and at such a high level that she participated in the Battle of Montana (3rd November, 1867) as an officer of the Dragoons (dressed as a man) and was so badly wounded that she came very close to death. In between 1867 and 1873, she traveled widely apparently preparing herself for her next efforts. Those efforts begin in 1873 when she left Europe for America and changed from being a social-political revolutionary to being a spiritual revolutionary.

Two years later she founded the Theosophical Society, which upon it's foundation was anything but what it has become. Between 1875 and 1878 she was engaged in writing 'Isis Unveiled', which hit the intellectual's publication like a 'bombshell'. That doesn't mean it was the kind of 'best seller' we think of when either Tom Clancy or Danielle Steele type books are mentioned, but for its time and type it was a very important book. It certainly gave people lots of new things to think about, it also made a great many people terribly angry, which was good for them. And then, in 1878, she left the United States, of which she had just become a citizen, and went, carrying an American Diplomatic Passport with Colonel Henry Steele Olcott and went to India where she concentrated her efforts (with one visit to Europe in 1884) until her final expulsion from India in 1885. She left India an embittered, resentful, and angry woman.

And at the same time she was desperately ill with Bright's Disease (A major Kidney disorder), Which may have impaired her judgement in the ensuing years. Why do I say 'it may have impaired her judgement in the ensuing years'? Because it was then that the twin causes of all the trouble that 'Popular Occultism' represents came into being. From 1885 until 1891 H.P.B. was engaged primarily in two efforts; she was writing the 'Secret Doctrine', and creating the 'Esoteric Section of the Theosophical Society'. A worse pair of decisions was never made. Why were these a 'pair of bad decisions'?

Well, because they provided the fertile soil out of which Charles Webster Leadbeater and Annie Besant were enabled to grow a fantastic crop of nonsensical and harmful ideas, and proved the basis and inspiration for even larger crops of even more harmful ideas to grow. When I review the 'Secret Doctrine', I am compelled to assume that H.P.B., assuming she hadn't lost her mind', wrote this vast and terribly harmful work out of one of, or some combination of all of, the three following reasons. Firstly, there is a distinct possibility that as a Shaman and psychic-channel who was not totally in control of her faculties she was misled by extra-physical centers-of-consciousness and truly believed that what she was writing was valid. It is very hard, even under the most positive conditions to be certain that extra-physical communications are valid, and H.P.B. wrote the 'Secret Doctrine' in the worst possible conditions. Secondly, it is just remotely possible that H.P.B. expelled from India, betrayed, and she truly felt she had been, by Henry Olcott and others she felt she should have been able to trust and rely on, wrote the book with malice aforethought, knowing full well the kind of trouble it would get the Theosophical Society into.

Lastly, there is a very strong possibility that H.P.B. Wrote the 'Secret Doctrine' as an intentional 'blind', a misleading document which was intended to ameliorate the mistake she had made in revealing the existence of the association of adepts. Her goal being to so discredit herself and the Theosophical Society that no reasonably intelligent person would take anything issuing from Theosophy seriously therefore providing cover for the actual work of the adepts. Now, when... to the writing of 'The Secret Doctrine', is added the creation of the 'Esoteric Section', one is inclined to believe that this was clearly an act of malice, but whether it was H.P.B.'s personal malice that was involved, or some other kind of malice, or a combination of these things, we cannot know. But this we do know: this is when the trouble began. These are the sources of all the nonsense that became what we now call popular occultism. In the period between her expulsion from India and her death, a period during which she was terribly caught up in the writing of 'The Secret Doctrine' and in the all too related foundation of the 'Esoteric Section of the Theosophical Society' both activities which are exemplars of the very worst aspects of 'Popular Occultism', the theosophical society received a new class of members, who upon Blavatsky's death, proceeded with ruthless determination to assume control of this movement.

In so doing they perverted it entirely. 'Occultism' is entirely nonsensical, entirely harmful. It is harmful because it isn't either real or true. It is harmful because of the megalomania it induces in it's adherents. Nowhere is this more clearly evidenced than in the life of Aleister Crowley, a really brilliant man whose Occultism and substance abuse destroyed him. Dion Fortune, on the other hand made a great success as an author on occult subjects, but her work has misled an enormous number of people.

As to the tremendous literary output of Alice Bailey, if all that was valid in that huge pile of books was extracted, one would be left with a pamphlet. Alice Bailey may have been a psychic, that is not sure though as she certainly gave no such evidence as H.P.B. did of phenomena, she was clearly not a Shaman, and if, indeed, her books were channeled and not simply derived from the works of Leadbeater, Besant, Wedgewood, and Arun dale, then the source of her channeling was, instead of a ' Tibetan Adept ' most probably a committee of dead theosophists. Theosophists moreover, who had never really comprehended or understood what theosophy was all about. Metaphysics is a speculative philosophical-scientific investigation into the nature of the real, it has absolutely no connection with 'Occultism' which has nothing to do with any reality. It is the sorting out of the truth from the fiction that is the primary function of the Ouroboros Foundation, it's educational center, and the results of that investigation, that 'sorting out', will be published in it's publishing program. People interested in participating should contact the writer.