Thread: Why do people think the occult is evil? Is It?

Okay something i wanted to know for a long time. Ive always felt very drawn to practicing magick and anything to do with having out of body experiences and just experiencing deeper spiritual realities in general and any practices that put you directly in touch with the spiritual realm, these practices are considered occult by most i guess. but ive always been wary or afraid of these practices because of how they are viewed by society. I have read into the conspiracy stuff quite a bit as well and i do definately believe that powerful and not very nice people are heavily involved in very malevolent occult rituals. but does this make the occult itself evil? Is this THEIR domain only. Ive heard that the goal of most occult practices is becoming a living God and that this is what Luciferians want, when you read about some of it it does tend to suggest this, such as kundalini awakening or crossing the abyss and ascending to godhead. Anyway though i guess im asking, could the occult itself be an evil body of knowledge that has been obtained from demonic communication, such as john dee's enochian magic, is it always about communing with spirits, and are these spirits usually demonic? Or is the occult basically more about just exploring the unknown and spiritual aspects of nature and ourselves and its the person practicing it that makes it good or evil, the occult just being a route to understanding, your choice how you use that understanding. the other thing also is, can things like meditation or going into trances or having out of body experiences open you up to demonic influence, because your letting your guard down basically, ex: if you leave your body spirits may be waiting for you on the other side to take possession of your empty body, or during meditation being possessed by something because your dropping all your thoughts and your consciousness is wide open. I just feel like i need a better understanding of it before i start to practice this stuff, i guess nothing good comes without a price though, it just depends on how great that price is, if its your soul its not worth it. How safe are these practices if you know what your doing? If someone can please explain exactly what the real deal is with the Occult and why it is viewed the way it is, I would be very grateful.

Ive always felt very drawn to practicing magick...

What does "practicing magick" mean to you? How do you define "magick"?

"...experiencing deeper spiritual realities in general and any practices that put you directly in touch with the spiritual realm, these practices are considered occult by most i guess".

Not necessarily. Do you consider yourself an adherent of any particular religion or spiritual tradition? The major Western faiths; Christianity, Judaism, Islam, all have Mysticism movements which are methods-practices for "experiencing deeper spiritual realities": "Mysticism is the phenomenon of having a unique experience of communion with God, an ultimate reality, divinity, or insight into spiritual truths" - wiki. Mysticism isn't necessarily synonymous with "occult"

"Occult" generally refers to knowledge or truths that are hidden - specifically, hidden within the scriptures, symbols, teachings or traditions of a religion or spiritual movement, (again, in the West that usually means hidden within Christianity, Judaism or Islam). Occult practitioners would seek to extract & perceive this hidden knowledge by 'decoding scriptures', (as in Gematria) - by Necromancy (communicating with deceased Saints or others who might possess knowledge that was never acknowledged or recorded in orthodox traditions of a religion - by Demonology or Angelology (petitioning or forcing demons or angels to divulge knowledge they possess, that humankind is not intended by God to have access to under normal circumstances) - by focus assisted Divination ("fortune-telling" using a scrying mirror, tarot cards, runestones, etc) - or by Identification with/ Union with a Diety (by invocations that invite Diety to dwell within you, by systems of spiritual progression/attainment such as Kaballah or yogic-meditative practices whereby the practitioner becomes "like God", or "like a God").

If the hidden knowledge itself is considered to be "forbidden", then accessing it might be considered an evil thing to do. More often the knowledge itself is not considered forbidden or evil in itself, but various means of acquiring it could be.

I have read into the conspiracy stuff quite a bit as well and i do definately believe that powerful and not very nice people are heavily involved in very malevolent occult rituals.

You are already "under a spell", so to speak. Conspiracy theorists are all (whether they understand this or acknowledge it or not) black magicians. They purport to have access to hidden or suppressed knowledge, they profess that possession of this "knowledge" endows them with superior (super-natural) insights and infallible analysis about "what's really going on" in this world - making them the equivalent of a biblical Prophet - but they invariably use this "knowledge" to cause their listeners to become possessed by demons of fear, suspicion and paranoia, demons of hatred, predjudice and discord, and by demons of misunderstanding and confusion.

There would be no rational reason for powerful people to be involved in "malevolent" occult ritual. In today's world, performing rituals must be the least reliable or efficient means for creating change in the external world of our shared experience. Wealth, political power, social influence (including propaganda & marketing campaigns), scientific research, innovation/ invention, skill, talent, education etc. are all more efficient means of gaining power, holding power and extending power, than 'occult' ritual would be. If Bill Gates had relied on performing rituals, he'd still be a penniless schmuck chanting invocations of Satan or Christ-Jehovah in his garage.

"...could the occult itself be an evil body of knowledge that has been obtained from demonic communication, such as john dee's enochian magic, is it always about communing with spirits, and are these spirits usually demonic"

Whatever knowledge Dr John Dee obtained through Edward Kelly's scrying, in so-called "Enochian", both of them claimed that the source of this information was angels - not demons. The invocations Dee used call upon the Christian Diety, not Satan or any pagan god/dess: "Almighty, Everlasting, True and Living God, make haste to deliver me. Lord of Lords, King of Kings Jehovah Zebaoth, make haste to help me.
Glory be to God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost: As it was in the beginning, is now
and forever, world without end: Amen."

How is this any more a "demonic" communication than Moses chatting with a burning bush?

As for your concerns about being possessed by demons if you "leave your body" - any proper system of ritual practice involving "astral travel", will include various safeguards intended to protect the traveler's physical & spiritual wellbeing. If you are open to belief in demonic possession, I'd assume you'd be open to belief in the safety of a magic circle guarded top, bottom and all 4 sides by Archangels?

Could be evil. Then again, maybe not. I suppose it depends. To reiterate what GaianGuy said, there are protective measures you can take before doing astral work, etc. Keep in mind though, all of these things (leaving the body, going to another plane, etc.) are really just shifts in awareness, and these different aspects of the self are always there. We just need to turn our attention to them.

WoW I dont even know where to start on this one.
Well the word Occult means hidden or cut off from view.
I study the Occult as a Witch I practise the Occult.
My practise is older then Christianity or the views of a God who is judgemental and a Devil looking to steal your soul to hell.
Nothing can posses me nothing can take over unless I allow it to.
If possession was as easy to obtain as a meditation ritual where you are outside your body then dont you think there would be alot of Possessed people running around? I mean seriously if that the way we are thinking wouldnt Near death experiances,Meditation,Dreaming,Prayer cause people to be possessed?
Now do I personally believe in possession? I have been studying claims of possession and interviewing people for about 20yrs on and off. I only met one person during that entire time that made me raise an eyebrow, and say to myself "Maybe". Many main stream people who claim possession for many different reasons most of them are just crazy and seeking attention.
I am not talking about religions that its a common practise in to become possessed by dietys like Voodoo rituals etc,
I am a practitioner of Magic and Occult I am not evil nor do I believe in "Black Magic" I believe magic is pure energy and people come in different spiritual colors and people take things to a dark place but Magic itself is not black nor white I think of it as like when light hits a prisim and just think of us as the prisims, we reflect the colors not the energy itself.
There generally arent bad occultist or Satanist or any faucet there of.
Generally all your murders and cereal killers oddly enough had christian or religious backgrounds or familys. I have never read in the paper that a group of Witches or Satanist or anything inbetween went out murdering people or harming anyone. We generally are good people who got off the Hamster wheel a little early.
If you have fear of the Occult or Magicks or anything like that I recommend not to practise just yet untill you feel more confortable with you. I think you might have alot of personal fears manifesting and untill you cleanse that you shouldnt practise anything. IMO.

By practicing magick i mean, communing with spirits or spiritual forces(the good kind), the elements and energies of nature, and causing change to things in the material world.

No I am not a part of any religion like that, I have a few New age beliefs but I am mostly after a non New Age form of spirituality.

There isn't necessarily hidden knowledge in scriptures, occultists or esotericists may just be interpreting them in that way, trying to find hidden secrets.

Yes you're right, the knowledge itself may not be forbidden, just the means of acquiring it. But then that poses the question, what means of acquiring higher knowledge are there, without using forbidden or dangerous means to do so, and who or what sets the standard for this so that people don't hurt themselves?

This I disagree with, as you would probably expect I would, some stuff in the conspiracy realm admittedly is paranoia yes, but I believe some of it does have truth. I disagree that the best means of doing things would be through material means such as you say. I think that if you could invoke a demon these beings must be very powerful and could give you almost anything you desired if you gave it something in return, like a sacrifice, which is what it would want because the blood has a lot of energy and power. That to me is a rational reason for these people wanting to invoke demons, power. There is a lot of things humans don't know and can't do. If you give a lot of demons a lot of things or do them a lot of favours, maybe they would give you a lot of power. To me that just seems possible. Perfoming rituals is not inefficient or unreliable if you know exactly what you're doing and what you're calling upon and why. These people could have a pact with demons for whatever reason going back generations, who's to say they don't?
Just because it seems crazy doesn't mean it couldn't be true. If there are people who call upon the forces of light, why not the opposite? If demons exist and they are malevolent in nature, their plans for humanity must be in turn extremely malevolent. Why wouldn't they have helpers on earth?

As for John Dee, just because he said, or the beings he invoked said they were angels, doesn't mean they were. And I've also heard that towards the end of his divinations, he started to believe that these so called angels were demons. They were giving him information about how to open the Abyss. Aleister Crowley continued his work when he went out to the Mojave desert to do just that, open the Abyss.

Regarding Astral projection....yes i guess it would be like with anything, use the right protection. What system of Astral projection do you know of that uses protection rituals, because I've never seen any.

And see what doesn't make sense to me about using the names of god or archangels in occult rituals is that some occultists (the Gnostics who practiced kundalini raising, Helena Blavatsky) have said that the bible god is actually the demiurge or the true devil, which would make his angels evil too, so why use those names?

I think it has a lot to do with the mind set a lot of people grow up with. A lot of the judeo-christain main stream culture frowns on such things. So rather you know it or not, you take in a lot of that attitude simply from growing up in the western world. So by the time you reach adult hood its almost a sub conscience thing.

Okay let's get this even more simple and please keep up.
I am a Practitioner of the Occult and I study the Occult I study that which is hidden and or forgotten. I am a Romanian Scottish full blooded Gypsy who was raised around the Craft.
Alot of our teachings was never written word. There was a time where people would kill someone if they knew or thought they were Witches and or Gypsies. So alot wasnt written down but passed down.
We had to hide when we would cast and hide who we was or what we did through fears of being ripped out of dwelling and raped and murderd.
Times has changed yes, people are more exceptable? mmm some are. My Ex's Mum told me I needed to go to hell because of my beliefs and she preferd it better when people of pagan beliefs were killed. So some people still has reservations from coming out of the broom closet. So some of our work is still hidden.
Witchcraft is older then the God,Devil,Demon teachings. So speaking for myself I have never sacraficed anyone to a demon and ask for power. I might as well sacrafice something to the Easter Bunny I think I would get the same result.
Blood sacrafices hmm wow. Umm I have used my own blood in rituals and spells yes I have also taken a drop if blood from a friend who was diagnosed with cancer and was very sick taken her Chemotherapy, So I could work a spell to help her during that time.
I know many people from all sides of Occult I can speak for them when I say they havent used a blood sacrafice for anything.
I suggest if you want to use a blood sacrafice to conjure a demon to grant you powers you use your own.
Because if you knew any basic laws with magicks or asking for things offering up something else is blood life for you to gain powers wouldnt work if the demon really wanted that blood he would have taken it himself in the first place. No he would probably want something very special to you for this favor that would be a more fair trade because then you are loosing something you really want to gain something you really want. So if your not willing to give up some limbs or a few vital organs I suggest you find another hobby.

You pose a rather interesting question. I would not hesitate to claim, that from a judeo-christian standpoint the occult is "evil". I provide evidence such as Exodus 22:18 "suffer not a witch to live" or Deuteronomy 18:10 "There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch."
Moreover there are many places in the bible, particularly the gospels which dictate reliance on God, and the occult expands one's own sphere of influence. Do I *personally* find the occult to be evil? I feel that evil is a term thrown around far, far too often. And no, inherently I do not believe that one could call Occult practices in and of themselves "evil". But no one can really tell you that, mate. That's something that you will have to decide for yourself.

Originally Posted by Darius

P.S:in my opinion,some people believe it's evil since other people having free will,power,or knowedge that they themselves don't have means that they are harder to control.This is most often seen in public schools in the U.S,where kids are taught that being themselves is wrong,and conformity is seen as the most important thing to learn.

Excellent point! I was unaware as to the mistranslation, however it is safe to say that the bulk of modern Christians who DO believe in the occult see it as a tool of the devil.

Personally, it matters little to me. I was raised and confirmed in the Catholic Church (although I shed that belief many years ago), so I am rather well acquainted with their views on the matter. It seems to me, however, that one can observe a cycle of views on the occult. The views of the population seem to shift, over the course of a few generations, from respectful to fearful to disbelief. Right now I feel that we are mid transition from fearful into disbelief, with a greater emphasis on the disbelief end.

Darius thank you so much on the break down of Exodus 22v18
I was about to mention it when I seen you had already posted it.
Makes me feel so good to know there are people like you around that look a little deeper then fear and motive and instead see cause and effect.
If the majority of Christians wasnt so biblical illiterate they would keep punching that scripture to death. I get so tired of hearing it I swear.