Thursday, April 30, 2015

Snake-Oil Salesman: Spinning the Occult



Snake-Oil Salesman: Spinning the Occult


I read recently in a book about disinformation that ‘spin’ is a polite word for deception. It got me thinking. Why is it that traditional paradigms of religion such as Christianity, Buddhism, or even Islam are ‘treated’ differently than religious minorities such as Thelema? Why are occult systems subject to exorbitant amounts of ‘spin’? Is the deception merely monetary and would Thelemites be given more favorable provenance? Probably. But this systemic mischaracterization goes beyond creating a counterfeit reality or ‘spinning a yarn’. The real problem is in denying pertinent information about occultism by refusing to think critically about it. Of all the religious systems out there, paradigms of the occult are the most conducive for ontological discussion. After all, the entire mythos is based on creation, sustainment, and interaction of Being. In each state of affairs is a network of interactive autonomy. Whereas traditional religious systems have an already established set of supernatural beings. (i.e. Father, Son, Spirit etc…), occult is a fluidic assemblage of invisible mediators that stay in flux re-assembling and re-newing themselves continuously. They are both determinate and self-determining. Invocation is simply the means of gaining rapport and making contact.   

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