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Comment by dismalaf | Hacker News Reader

This is super cool. There's also a popular YouTube channel called "ESOTERICA" in which an academic expert on the occult presents a lot of occult topics from a scholarly point of view (as opposed to the woo often associated with the topic).

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The SHWEP (Secret History of Western Esotericism Podcast) is also great for getting into the esoteric from an academic bent, Highly recommended for those with the stomach to deep dive into obscure primary sources

https://shwep.net/

https://www.youtube.com/@TheEsotericaChannel

Francis Yates is also a fun introduction to the history of hermeticism and alchemy through a historian's perspective, and how it contributed to the creation of science.

It is sometimes said that Isaac Newton, godfather of modern science, was not the first scientist but rather the last magician. The majority of his scholarly output was in fact focused on alchemy and the occult.

Aleister Crowley somewhat echoes this juxtaposition in the motto of his magickal journal, The Equinox: "The Method of Science, the Aim of Religion."

One of the founders of the royal society, John Wilkins, wrote a popular book about magick: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_Magick

Stems from the then popular interest in Natural Magick. Evolved into science and engineering.

I believe the Royal Society in particular had strong connections to the so-called Rosicrucians, or at least were very interested in the texts. It's likely no such group ever really existed, but the learned men of the day seem to have taken inspiration from the texts, which read very much like academics frustrated by the constraints of the Reformations. So they had a loose network which flew under the radar to avoid trouble. Eventually part of this becomes the Royal Society. There was even a short-lived monarchy in Bohemia which was essentially coopted Rosicrucian ideas to create what resembles a liberal monarchy which tried to insulate itself from the chaos of the reformations.

https://ia903209.us.archive.org/30/items/the-rosicrucian-enl...

I love his channel. I have no interest in this subject but I like his style of lecturing and showing/teaching. I watch all his stuff when it drops.

Yup I have no particular interest in the topic but I have always enjoyed history, archaeology and the study of philosophy/religion so a lot of what he talks about intersects with things I enjoy so I watch.

IMHO, the occult is just pre-modern social psychology and propaganda. How to get people to join your religion and fight, do bad stuff, and die for you is really old technology. Before modern psychology "Spellcasting" was saying something to someone for the effect it would have on them to manipulate their psychology to get them to do the thing you wanted them to do. It was a sort of pre-modern NLP. Christians and people of other Abrahamic faiths co-existed with and did not like these guys and the feeling was generally mutual.

"Occult" means hidden practices. So it covers both non-mainstream religious/mystical/magical practices, but it also covers "hidden" beliefs within religions.

Stuff like Kabbalah is considered occult, as it Christian mysticism, or folk mysticism that coexists with religion.

Also, one can study things without making judgements about them. The history of human beliefs is interesting.

One of the interesting things I realize when I meet occult practitioners of the Hermeticist varieties is they refuse to acknowledge they are a religion and what they believe is only as true as any other religion. Like one adherent told me the universal consciousness has parts and I said, "that's fine that you believe that, but you acknowledge that is your religious belief?" and this person refused to even say that instead claiming that it was the absolute truth and not religion. I mean only the most bigoted religious zealot would claim that all other religions are false and his was the absolute truth and not a religion because it was absolutely true.

This is exactly how I feel when people start telling me about their own religious beliefs about things like "gender identity," right down to the absolute certitude in their faith and the bigoted, zealous excommunication of nonbelievers and heretics.

Now I'm wondering which church excommunicated you...

This is your opinion. I do not share your opinion. The occult is a wide range of topics and practices, generally split (but not cleanly) into theurgic and thaumaturgic activities. That is, manifestation of the three common desires (wealth, power, love / sex etc.), and then deification and approaching and sometimes joining with / uniting with God. Occult meaning, hidden.

If you read many of the grimoires, there is very little NLP of any kind. The Papyri Graecae Magicae is one of the oldest explicitly magical documents we have from Greek Egypt, and it does have some manipulation spells (as most magical documents do) but none of this has to do with coersion to join a religion or join in a war, or to "do bad stuff". It's largely "technology" used by a practicing magician (a moonlighting Egyptian priest) to help the laity deal with their daily lives regarding helping their crops grow, animals not get sick, healing sick children, getting revenge on their neighbors and former lovers etc.

Magic is always a tool in the hands of the oppressed as a response to tyrannical hierarchy.

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