1 - Introduction: occultism in a global perspective

Summary

Terms such as “the occult”, “occultism”, “occult sciences”, “occult properties” and “occult philosophy” share a good deal of semantic commonality, and all have their etymological root in the Latin adjective “occultus”, meaning “hidden” or “secret”. Broadly speaking, what distinguishes occultism as a branch of human activity is an orientation towards hidden aspects of reality, those that are held to be commonly inaccessible to ordinary senses; an activity that simultaneously shares a certain similarity with both science and religion but cannot be reduced to either of them. The texts gathered in the present volume focus on occultism as a form of theory and practice that assumed its distinctive form in mid-century France and became widely popular through writings of Alphonse Louis Constant, better known as Éliphas Lévi (1810–75), and that subsequently found its most influential organizational paradigm – in the English-speaking world – in the shape of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn towards the end of that same century. Thematic concerns of this cultural phenomenon are to a large degree similar to what is currently and commonly referred to as Western esotericism, with prominent place given to disciplines such as magic, alchemy, astrology, tarot and their subdivisions and correlates.