Occulture
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This changed very much during the second half of the nineteenth century, for many reasons. One main reason was that esoteric ideas and magical work became rooted in open-minded cultural environments rather than in insular fraternities where intra-nepotism was more important than personal development per se. The British Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn is one of the most famous occult groups from this time. With culturally active people like William Butler Yeats, Aleister Crowley, Arthur Edward Waite, Arthur Machen, Florence Farr, and Maud Gonne the environment itself attracted individuals who wanted both sides of the coin: both an esoteric path of self-development but also techniques and strategies to use in their own creative work. The thematics of occultism spilled over into their work too, thereby helping establish a wider interest.
A parallel manifestation could be seen in the romantically Goethean world of post-Theosophy Rudolf Steiner and his Anthroposophical movement. Approaches and techniques that not long before this were regarded as mere hocus-pocus with no validity in a bourgeois society or culture now emerged as substantial parts of people’s lives and creativity, and they continue being influential to this day in ecological thinking and holistic teaching methods.
However, one could argue that these were fairly soft “leaks” into the general mind frame. An exception would be Golden Dawn–trained Aleister Crowley (1875–1947). But Crowley’s impact had more to do with his provocative, often scandalous personality and his need for attention rather than the core of his magical-philosophical system of Thelema, which is essentially very creative and pro-individualistic. Crowley was also interesting as someone who tried to merge a scientific attitude with inner occult research. Seeing that so much of our accepted science today has its sources within the occult sciences, Crowley’s early methodological wishes may yet bring out some really radical finds. Today, it’s almost as if science itself has surpassed occultism, not only in using a truly esoteric language of its own, but also in its wild speculation and research about both inner and outer space.
Considerably tougher strains of distinct counterculture popped up in slightly more expected arenas: the art world. I’m thinking specifically of Dada rather than surrealism as a post–World War One psychological safety valve. Many of the protagonists from both these scenes were interested in the then-emerging phenomena of psychology and psychoanalysis but also in more distinctly esoteric things.
André Breton’s manifesto of the surrealists contains many interesting formulations:
We must give thanks to the discoveries of Sigmund Freud. On the basis of these discoveries a current of opinion is finally forming by means of which the human explorer will be able to carry his investigation much further, authorized as he will henceforth be not to confine himself solely to the most summary realities. The imagination is perhaps on the point of reasserting itself, of reclaiming its rights. If the depths of our mind contain within it strange forces capable of augmenting those on the surface, or of waging a victorious battle against them, there is every reason to seize them—first to seize them, then, if need be, to submit them to the control of our reason.1
If this is not a formulation of a magical Weltanschauung, I don’t know what is. John Moffitt’s book on Duchamp, Alchemist of the Avant Garde, also reveals many highly fascinating occult sources in the work of one of the giants of contemporary art. And there are many other examples.
One thing that’s consistent in both the inspiration from and actual application of occultism is a strong sense of individualism, which may be a key ingredient in its presence in many countercultural phenomena. The history of magic shows that even when integrated in sanctioned religious or societal contexts, magical practice has been driven onward by individuals with a unique set of experimental tools. We’re looking at a refinement and empowerment of the individual through a progression, symbolic and preferably real too, that will enhance not only his or her life, but also spill over in a general benevolence through wisdom. The parallels to the work of the artist are obvious.
When collective approaches are attempted, the process and results turn into something else: manipulations, politics, demagogia, power tripping, and so forth. Initial communal goals are one thing; a causal manipulation of the masses another. The history of magical groups is a history of crash landings or slow degeneration. Very seldom do we find success stories about fully developed higher creatures who spread their inner light within group contexts and beyond. Very often it’s an all-too-human scenario of power struggles within groups and secret societies that pushes the potential for self-development back into the shadows in order for ego inflation and chaos to shine. This has usually brought forth a general marginalization of initially very interesting ideas. To a great extent, I believe this has to do with the use of a language and terminology that is too obfuscated, arcane, and symbolic. Instead of simply seeing what needs to be done and how, many individuals haven’t been able to see the beauty of the forest because of all the trees in the way.
A sublime symbol of the swinging-pendulum phenomenon in human history is the emergence at about the same time of atomic energy and LSD. The vast potential of destruction and the vast potential of reappraisal and creation were ushered in at the same time and unleashed paranoid and fierce global power struggles on one hand and major cultural shifts on the other. I’m not saying LSD has been singularly responsible for the countercultural effects of the 1960s. But it was certainly a key agent that helped initiate a wave of major changes in the Western mind.
Integrated in the psychedelic 1960s was a major influx not only of Eastern teachings, yoga, and meditation but also of Western esotericism. The colorful open-mindedness of the times made young people question not only current political authority but also traditional authorities like the established world religions. Many people sought out magic and occultism—most in the sense of “pop occultism” and the integration of alluring symbolism, but some in a more serious and devoted way. The environment was an overall experimental one, and young people were suddenly no longer afraid to voice their own opinions.
People like Crowley, Blavatsky, and Gurdjieff became icons. Young people sought out their teachings, as the books gradually came back in print. And let’s not forget Carl Gustav Jung and Hermann Hesse, who were very popular among this emerging generation, and who were both from a highly esoteric or spiritual background. This led to an integration of ideas based in the inner sphere and an empowerment that were all part of the same environment as antiwar sentiments, civil rights, women’s rights, environmentalism, and many other things we take for granted today. The overall countercultural movement of the sixties unmasked various hegemonies that had been temporarily emaciated by the Second World War and its industrial atrocities. But it did so not primarily, as could be expected, by a full-frontal attack using a similar language, but rather one from various unexpected corners and in many different ways. One could say that it was like a choir of messages and resistance, but composed of individually distinct voices.
The unmasking of this perhaps unnecessary existential dualism took different forms in different media. In a general us-versus-them attitude (from both sides), even general entertainment was infused with the conflicts to a higher degree than ever before, from simple tales like the motorcycle movies The Wild Angels and Easy Rider to slightly more philosophical and paranoid examples like the wonderful British TV series The Prisoner. Again, a psychedelic sensibility helped change both form and content, sometimes to surprising degrees.
In literature too, the themes and forms revolved around countering the old restrictions with something new, radical, and also philosophical-magical filtered through individualism. One example could be the early literary experiments of William Burroughs and his “cut-ups” and anticontrol stances. Burroughs was very interested in magic and experimented with his own system of ritually changing things, predominantly through his literary working process.
Another illuminating example would be John Fowles’s The Magus, from 1965, a beautiful story of
an individual fighting a world of illusions based on old-school power structures and morals. This was later turned into an incredibly psychedelic film, starring Michael Caine and Antony Quinn. In a similar vein would be David Ely’s 1963 novel Seconds, which is another intricate and ultraparanoid insight into the relationship between a frustrated individual who wants existential change but is only offered it through a highly controlled, commercial, and moralistic organization. This was also turned into a beautiful and unnerving film, starring Rock Hudson.
Many of the writers at the time were immersed not only in a contemporary fascination with esoteric and psychological themes but also reached farther back into pagan times for philosophical inspiration. Fowles wrote,
We often forget to what an extent the Renaissance and all its achievements sprang from a reversion to the Greek system. The relationship between paganism and freedom of thought is too well established to need any proof; and all monotheistic religions are in a sense puritan in tone—inherently tyrannical and fascistic. The great scientific triumphs of the Greeks, their logic, their democracy, their arts, all were made possible by their loose, fluid concepts of divinity; and the same is true of the most recent hundred years of human history.2
If we keep looking at the 1960s, another interesting countercultural angle is the creation of Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan in 1966. LaVey’s flamboyant, hedonistic, and life-affirming group publicly declared their hatred of the hippies and psychedelic culture, thereby affirming basic values of conservative America. But still they bore the stigma of the satanic affiliation in public opinion, thereby making them a counter-counterculture too weird and frightening to deal with.
In the early 1980s, Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth (TOPY) was developed by British artist Genesis P-Orridge (and associates) as a social, artistic, and magical experiment. The term occulture, coined by P-Orridge, became not only a distanced and fascinating term but also a very active and integrated banner for individual and group behavior rooted in magic. TOPY was like a mix of a traditional magical order, a hippie commune, an active think tank developing radical ideas, and a producer of very tangible culture in terms of products like records, videos, performances, concerts, books, booklets, and many other things. The overall goal was to help the human individual to liberate herself from the chains of her past, whether psychological, emotional, sexual, cultural, religious, and so on. The biggest change, though, was that the discourse was public and nonsymbolic. One made no secret about methodology, technology, or goals. This audacity led to problems and stigmatization for the already infamous P-Orridge and eventually to the dissolution of the first phase of TOPY. But still the activities left shock waves and inspirations that carry on to this day.
The 1980s were a vital time for occultism in general. Various new branches and groups popped up in Europe and the United States, integrating new technology, psychedelics, and radical politics in work that had previously been quite academic, intellectual, and soft-spoken. This was amplified further in the 1990s, when we could see the emergence and integration of the Internet. If the magician needs a menstruum or an agent through which to send his or her desires, what better place than an invisible and far-reaching technological platform?
Although the technology of any social media platform is not countercultural in itself, the development of cryptological applications, deep webs, and other hidden (occult) platforms by definition are. One of the most interesting examples recently was the emergence of the Silk Road website, through which you could order basically anything under the radar. In a way, it represented a total and efficient individual freedom of choice using the same technology as the sanctioned market platforms. But as the market there was mainly for drugs, weapons, and other illicit items and services, it couldn’t last for long. Wikileaks and other phenomena like Anonymous are similar in attitude. One uses the technology available and furthers one’s own goals through a non-sanctioned development of it. The multinational IT corporations are always there with tempting and lucrative offers for the most prominent hackers.
Anonymous and also the Occupy movement’s use of the masked Guy Fawkes figure from the film V for Vendetta reveals an esoteric connection: V was originally a graphic novel created by Alan Moore, whose interest in the occult is well known. Moore’s integration of esoteric themes and personalities in his work has helped make several of them popular in new generations. An interesting detail is also that the film V for Vendetta was written by the Wachowski brothers, who had earlier created the Matrix trilogy—a cosmic soap opera filled not only with technological-supernatural fantasies but also imbued with a distinctly Gnostic philosophy of individual liberty. To further accentuate the contemporary malleability of a traditional outlook, the Wachowski brothers have recently morphed gender and are nowadays the Wachowski sisters.
During the autumn of 2015, some radical American occultist artists performed a public ritual and exhibition in a gallery in Los Angeles. This was in order to counter the Swiss corporation Nestlé’s attempts to increase business revenues by turning water into a commodity to a greater extent than it already is. This ritual was even called a death curse and followed classic ritual methodology. It is interesting not only because of its conscious use of visibility and the provocation that brings but also because it uses magic-as-art-as-magic as an instigator for change that would normally be handled in political or intellectual arenas of protest. It isn’t the objects or the art in itself here that matters, but the overall goal that these individuals hope to achieve, not by petitions and public debate, but by highly irrational yet at the same time highly structured methods.
Also recently, a Florida candidate for the Senate by the name of Augustus Sol Invictus admitted in international media that he had ritually sacrificed a goat and drunk its blood after a three-week fasting experience in the desert. No matter what will happen to Augustus I find his honesty and audacity remarkable and a very fine countercultural example of pushing the boundaries of what’s accepted within “normal” society.
Femen and their bared-breasts shock tactics could be regarded in a similar way. There’s nothing specifically occult about displaying your titties in protest per se, but within the specific contexts of, for instance, protests against the Vatican or fundamentalist Islam, the provocation transcends mere shock value and touches critically upon millennia-long traditions of misogynistic, antihuman, and antilife behavior.
It seems that the freer the world becomes, at least in potential, the quicker the repressive forces reply. Saudi Arabia, so prosperous in many ways, still sticks to Sharia laws and is one of the few countries in the world with an active inquisition in the form of its antisorcery squad. People are still being executed because they have been convicted of performing magic and witchcraft.
Despite isolated local draconian attitudes like this, the debate within Western academia is whether or not a “re-enchantment” is in fact taking place in our overall global culture. Religious or narrower cultic behavior signals a deep dissatisfaction with a too-rational world containing increasing threats of global annihilation as a result of shortsighted causality and hubristic empiricism. Is the emergence of thematically magical things within pop culture perhaps just the tip of the iceberg that is currently melting?
I would say that the reemergence of transcendental mind frames, sympathetic magical thinking, and ritualistic behavior fully constitutes a re-enchantment of the human psyche and of culture. The emergence of the areas and topics within academia and public visibility does not. It is interesting to note, however, that they do seem to go hand in hand. This has to a great extent been made possible by the fact that many academics and intellectuals have themselves been formatted within various esoteric environments like magical groups and orders in their youth. So here we see an example of how youthful experimentation can indeed lead to tangible adult presence if there is perseverance and if the time is right, so to speak. But in itself, intellectual work on the topics does not constitute a re-enchantment of our world.
/> Today, we can just sit back and watch very interesting goings-on. On the big level, there are things like the touring Hilma af Klint exhibition that has so far been seen by over a million people in Europe. She was hardly countercultural by definition but was clearsighted enough to realize that her work was so magical and radical, so ahead of her own times, that she stated in her will that the paintings mustn’t be shown until at least twenty years after her death. Today, the time for appreciation seems more than right.
The presence of magical themes in pop culture through Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings should indicate the same thing. In a dualistic, binary, and suprarational culture, our need for mythic realms become evident and therefore violently saturated in commercial exploitation.
On a more concrete and countercultural level, we can see beautiful bookmaking as a radical tool of effecting not only change but also acting as a safeguard to preserve valuable ideas and traditions. The work of publishers like Scarlet Imprint in the UK with making exquisite editions of very radical writings, and perhaps my own work with the Fenris Wolf journals, are some examples of going against the grain of contemporary fragmentation and fleeting digi-culture. If ideas can create change now, that’s great. But it’s equally important to preserve them for future generations in lasting formats. Despite recent almost incredible technological innovations, it seems that still the two most radical innovations in human culture are the harnessing of fire and the book.
A vast amount of occulturally significant things are going on today: this lecture series, for instance, and international European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism (ESSWE) conferences within academic esotericism studies, the Here to Go symposium (biannual) in Norway, the Equinox Festival (London, 2009), the Occult Humanities Conference (New York City, 2016), the Psychoanalysis, Art and the Occult symposium (London, 2016)—a cross-fertilization between artistic and intellectual realms in real, tangible human interactions. These are not countercultural examples at all anymore, but rather evidence that what was once counter was then countered by moralistic and repressive tendencies and then eventually ended up as a constructive synthesis of beneficial ideas tangible in the real world. As in many other fields of human endeavor, it’s conservative resistance to the radical resistance that makes the radical resistance strong. But if there’s one thing history teaches us, sometimes painfully so, it’s that life and culture are never static. The pendulum always swings.