Old Occult Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Old Occult. Here they are! All 91 of them:

Then Raya saw Rebecca West, the fourteen-year-old who only saved her own life by testifying against her mother, and then she saw her own face reflected in these girls – a swirl of chance, and life and sorrow.
Sara Pascoe (Being a Witch, and Other Things I Didn't Ask For)
A Witch is a person who has honestly explored their light and has evolved to celebrate their darkness.
Dacha Avelin
Have a look around, my pretty, we are surrounded by Death in all forms – just the two of us are still alive –
Simona Panova (Nightmarish Sacrifice (Cardew))
Witches do not need to fix problems. Witches fix the enegery AROUND problems. Then the problems fix themselves.
Dacha Avelin (Embracing Your Inner Witch: The Maidens Guide to Old World Witchcraft)
Magick is an art; using reality and the world as its canvas.
Dacha Avelin (Old World Witchcraft: Pathway To Effective Magick)
Even with all this power, it comes down to the same old things. Connections, money, influence.
Edward Williams
You are the most powerful tool in your life. Use your energy, your thoughts and your magick wisely!
Dacha Avelin (Embracing Your Inner Witch: The Maidens Guide to Old World Witchcraft)
A wise witch knows the shadows come from the light.
Dacha Avelin (Embracing Your Inner Witch: The Maidens Guide to Old World Witchcraft)
A witch is wise. She has earned her wisdom. She has learned to love her shadows and has grown more beautiful because of it. She has proven she can stand comfortably within her powers. She has become the true embodiment of a witch.
Dacha Avelin
There is nothing more powerful than a witch who knows how to contain her power. Standing comfortably within its mystery and allure.
Dacha Avelin (Embracing Your Inner Witch: The Maidens Guide to Old World Witchcraft)
An experienced witch does not rely on karma. She relies on magickal justice.
Dacha Avelin
When a witch embodies self-love, her energy becomes magnetic and her sense of possibility becomes contagious.
Dacha Avelin (Embracing Your Inner Witch: The Maidens Guide to Old World Witchcraft)
Witchcraft involves being willing to understand and embrace your true self. It is about exploring your light and learning to celebrate your darkness.
Dacha Avelin (Embracing Your Inner Witch: The Maidens Guide to Old World Witchcraft)
There is no doubt that the Old Testament is a physiological and anatomical textbook to those capable of reading it from a scientific viewpoint.
Manly P. Hall (Occult Anatomy of Man & Occult Masonry)
I’m probably the only sixteen-year-old girl in a three hundred mile radius who knows how to distinguish between a poltergeist from an actual ghost (hint: If you can disrupt it with nitric acid, or if it throws new crap at you every time, it’s a poltergeist), or how to tell if a medium’s real or faking it (poke ‘em with a true iron needle). I know the six signs of a good occult store (Number One is the proprietor bolts the door before talking about Real Business) and the four things you never do when you’re in a bar with other people who know about the darker side of the world (don’t look weak). I know how to access public information and talk my way around clerks in courthouses (a smile and the right clothing will work wonders). I also know how to hack into newspaper files, police reports, and some kinds of government databases (primary rule: Don’t get caught. Duh).
Lilith Saintcrow (Strange Angels (Strange Angels, #1))
He is old and powerful, and he can’t know of you yet, because he will know what you are, and what you can do, but more importantly, how to use you.
John Pease (Ezekiel's Eyes)
Witchcraft is the magick of the Earth itself. It is the essence that can bind life together.
Dacha Avelin (Embracing Your Inner Witch: The Maidens Guide to Old World Witchcraft)
Witches are liberated from their own fears and limited thinking. In turn, their presence has the power to liberate and consciously expand others.
Dacha Avelin
You alone are Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Spirit.
Dacha Avelin (Old World Witchcraft: Pathway To Effective Magick)
Day after day I read Freud, thinking myself to be very enlightened and scientific when, as a matter of fact, I was about as scientific as an old woman secretly poring over books about occultism, trying to tell her own fortune, and learning how to dope out the future form the lines in the palm of her hand. I don't know if I ever got very close to needing a padded cell: but if I ever had gone crazy, I think psychoanalysis would have been the one thing chiefly responsible for it.
Thomas Merton (The Seven Storey Mountain)
There is no such thing as White Magick or Black Magick. If you are participating in magick, you are interfering with the natural order of how life would have developed without your hand in it. You are manipulating reality to suit your own personal needs. Regardless of whether you perceive it as "positive" or "white light", you are manipulating life. If you are afraid of this responsibly or are intimidated by this statement, I encourage you to reexamine your belief structure. Witchcraft requires confidence and courage.
Dacha Avelin (Old World Witchcraft: Pathway To Effective Magick)
When you embrace a sacred relationship with your inner witch, you awaken within you qualities of the elements and forces of nature. This is the discovery and the connection of your powerful self.
Dacha Avelin (Embracing Your Inner Witch: The Maidens Guide to Old World Witchcraft)
Witchcraft is more than just a practice, it is a way of life. A way of looking at the physical and spiritual as a collaborative source of manifestation. We are in tune with nature, in tune with ourselves and in alignment with our all-knowing inner witch.
Dacha Avelin (Embracing Your Inner Witch: The Maidens Guide to Old World Witchcraft)
Witchcraft is a way of looking at the physical and spiritual as a collaborative source of manifestation.
Dacha Avelin (Embracing Your Inner Witch: The Maidens Guide to Old World Witchcraft)
Explore your light and celebrate your darkness.
Dacha Avelin
There was an old belief that in the embers Of all things their primordial form exists, And cunning alchemists Could re-create the rose with all its members From its own ashes, but without the bloom, Without the lost perfume Ah me! what wonder-working, occult science Can from the ashes in our hearts once more The rose of youth restore? What craft of alchemy can bid defiance To time and change, and for a single hour Renew this phantom-flower?
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The greatest delight which the fields and woods minister, is the suggestion of an occult relation between man and the vegetable. I am not alone and unacknowledged. They nod to me, and I to them. The waving of the boughs in the storm, is new to me and old. It takes me by surprise, and yet is not unknown. Its effect is like that of a higher thought or a better emotion coming over me, when I deemed I was thinking justly or doing right.
Richard Powers (The Overstory)
Becoming a Witch isn't something we acquire. The Witch is already within us. She is someone we become ready and willing to embrace. Someone we realize we ARE.
Dacha Avelin (Embracing Your Inner Witch: The Maidens Guide to Old World Witchcraft)
Magick is not just something you do. Magick is something you ARE.
Dacha Avelin (Embracing Your Inner Witch: The Maidens Guide to Old World Witchcraft)
Keda's oldness was the work of fate, alchemy. An occult agedness. A transparent darkness. A broken and mysterious grove. A tragedy, a glory, a decay. - Titus Groan
Mervyn Peake
These last few months Vida had started believing in all kinds of strange things she'd have laughed at when we lived back in Avalon. She'd tried every spell she could find in the dusty old books she brought home from thrift shops and garage sales; none of them ever worked, and it was awful watching her try.
Judith Clarke (Starry Nights)
The greatest delight which the fields and woods minister is the suggestion of an occult relation between man and the vegetable. I am not alone and unacknowledged. They nod to me, and I to them. The waving of the boughs in the storm is new to me and old. It takes me by surprise, and yet is not unknown. Its effect is like that of a higher thought or a better emotion coming over me, when I deemed I was thinking justly or doing right.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson)
Something that once had importance might be forgotten by most people but because millions of people once knew it, a force is present that can be harnessed. There might be so much significance attached to a song, for example, or a fact, that it can’t die but only lies dormant, like a vampire in his coffin, waiting to be called forth from the grave once again. There is more magic in the fact that the first mass worldwide photo of the Church of Satan was taken by Joe Rosenthal – the same man who took the most famous news photo in history – the flag-raising at Iwo Jima. There’s real occult significance to that – much more than in memorizing grimoires and witches’ alphabets. People ask me about what music to use in rituals – what is the best occult music. I’ve instructed people to go to the most uncrowded section of the music store and it’s a guarantee what you’ll find there will be occult music. That’s the power of long-lost trivia. I get irritated by people who turn up their noses and whine ‘Why would anyone want to know that?’ Because once upon a time, everyone in America knew it. Suppose there’s a repository of neglected energy, that’s been generated and forgotten. Maybe it’s like a pressure cooker all this time, just waiting for someone to trigger its release. ‘Here I am,’ it beckons, ‘I have all this energy stored up just waiting for you – all you have to do is unlock the door. Because of man’s stupidity, he’s neglected me to this state of somnambulism – dreaming the ancient dreams – even though I was once so important to him.’ Think about that. A song that was once on millions of lips now is only on your lips. Now what does that contain? Those vibrations of that particular tune, what do they evoke, call up? What do they unlock? The old gods lie dormant, waiting.
Anton Szandor LaVey (The Secret Life of a Satanist: The Authorized Biography of Anton LaVey)
On the Samael Qlipha, the magician makes a pact with the dark forces and realizes the invitation of Friedrich Neitzsche to re-evaluate old values. Insanity becomes wisdom; death becomes life. Samael is the 'Poison of God.' Here is where illusions are poisoned, and all categories and conceptions are deconstructed until nothing is left. The dark side of the astral plane could be compared to a chalice filled with poison or an intoxicating fluid. While Gamaliel is the chalice, Samael is the elixir and the following lower Qlipha, A'arab Zaraq, is where the magician experiences the effect.
Thomas Karlsson (Qabalah, Qliphoth and Goetic Magic)
A Witch is a woman who emerges from deep within herself. She is a woman who has honestly explored her light and learned to celebrate her darkness. She is a woman who is able to fall in love with the magnificent possibilities of her power. She is a woman who radiates mystery. She is magnetic. She is a witch.
Dacha Avelin (Embracing Your Inner Witch: The Maidens Guide to Old World Witchcraft)
It is no accident that, of the early Jesuit scholars who were pioneers in making China's culture known in Europe, those who concerned themselves with the Book of Changes were all later declared to be insane or heretic. Indeed, to the Chinese themselves the study of the I Ching is not to be taken lightly. By an unwritten law, only those advanced in years regard themselves as ready to learn from it. Confucius is said to have been seventy years old when he first took up the Book of Changes.
Hellmut Wilhelm (Understanding the I Ching)
I can't wait to hike around the mountains looking for old bones,” Stacey said. “Can we do it at midnight under a full moon on Friday the 13th?
J.L. Bryan (House of Whispers (Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper, #5))
The old Arab epigram drifted into his mind, that God invented silk so that women could be naked in clothes,
Chet Williamson (A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult)
A Witch awakens within herself qualities of the elements and forces of nature.
Dacha Avelin (Embracing Your Inner Witch: The Maidens Guide to Old World Witchcraft)
If you are drawn to the path of Witchcraft, it is because you've had some kind of life experience that has shocked you … and awakened you
Dacha Avelin (Old World Witchcraft: Pathway To Effective Magick)
There is a collective force reawakening on the Earth each day: the reawakening of the Witch. Within every woman drawn to the path of witchcraft resides the powerful spirit of the Witch.
Dacha Avelin (Embracing Your Inner Witch: The Maidens Guide to Old World Witchcraft)
The moment I was old enough to play board games I fell in love with Snakes and Ladders. O perfect balance of rewards and penalties O seemingly random choices made by tumbling dice Clambering up ladders slithering down snakes I spent some of the happiest days of my life. When in my time of trial my father challenged me to master the game of shatranji I infuriated him by preferring to invite him instead to chance his fortune among the ladders and nibbling snakes. All games have morals and the game of Snakes and Ladders captures as no other activity can hope to do the eternal truth that for every ladder you climb a snake is waiting just around the corner and for every snake a ladder will compensate. But it's more than that no mere carrot-and-stick affair because implicit in the game is the unchanging twoness of things the duality of up against down good against evil the solid rationality of ladders balances the occult sinuousities of the serpent in the opposition of staircase and cobra we can see metaphorically all conceivable opposition Alpha against Omega father against mother here is the war of Mary and Musa and the polarities of knees and nose... but I found very early in my life that the game lacked one crucial dimension that of ambiguity - because as events are about to show it is also possible to slither down a ladder and lcimb to truimph on the venom of a snake... Keeping things simple for the moment however I recrod that no sooner had my mother discovered the ladder to victory represented by her racecourse luck than she was reminded that the gutters of the country were still teeming with snakes.
Salman Rushdie
The old beliefs will be brought back to honor again.... The whole secret knowledge of nature, of the divine, the demonic.... We will wash off the Christian veneer and bring out a religion peculiar to our race.
Adolf Hitler
Altogether forty-five Emperors had claimed the Spear of Destiny as their possession between the coronation in Rome of Charlemagne and the fall of the old German Empire exactly a thousand years later. And what a pagentry it was! THe Spear had passed like the very finger of destiny through the millenium forever creating new patterns of fate which had again and again changed the entire history of Europe. ... According to the legend associated with the Spear of Longinus, the claimant to this talisman of power has a choice between the service of two opposing Spirits in the fulfilment of his world historic aims -- a Good and an Evil Spirit.
Trevor Ravenscroft (The Spear of Destiny)
Behind the veil of all the hieratic and mystical allegories of ancient doctrines, behind the darkness and strange ordeals of all initiations, under the seal of all sacred writings, in the ruins of Nineveh or Thebes, on the crumbling stones of old temples and on the blackened visage of the Assyrian or Egyptian sphinx, in the monstrous or marvelous paintings which interpret to the faithful of India the inspired pages of the Vedas, in the cryptic emblems of our old books on alchemy, in the ceremonies practiced at reception by all secret societies, there are found indications of a doctrine which is everywhere the same and everywhere carefully concealed.
Éliphas Lévi
But mostly I'm just respectful of old ways. I believe things for a reason, and in the old days they did things for a reason. And if you don't understand why—well, you might end up opening a few doors better left closed. That's all.
Elizabeth Hand (Wylding Hall)
Chandu the Magician was among the first and last shows of its kind, in two distinct runs separated by 12 years of silence. Partners Raymond R. Morgan and Harry A. Earnshaw were brainstorming in 1931, looking for a new radio idea, when Earnshaw mentioned the public’s high interest in magic. They created Frank Chandler, who would fight the world’s evil forces with occult powers and a far-reaching crystal ball. Evil was personified in Roxor, a villain who dominated both runs.
John Dunning (On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio)
But by casting aside Fear we take several steps upward in the scale, and place ourselves in touch with the strong, helpful, fearless, courageous thought of the world, and leave behind us all the old weaknesses and troubles of the old life.
William Walker Atkinson (Fourteen Lessons in Yogi Philosophy and Oriental Occultism)
The Gauls were so advanced in the practical phases of occultism that they gave every condemned criminal a respite of five years, after sentence of death, before execution, in order that he might prepare himself for a future state by meditation, instruction and other preparation; and also to prevent ushering an unprepared and guilty soul into the plane of the departed—the
William Walker Atkinson (Reincarnation and the Law of Karma A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect)
But what;s happening is that each year our old flat earth of conventional reason becomes less and less adequate to handle the experiences we have and this is creating widespread feelings of topsy turviness. As a result we're getting more and more people in irrational areas of thought-- occultism, mysticism, drug changes and the like-- because they feel the inadequacy of classical reason to handle what they know are real experiences.
Robert M. Pirsig (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainance)
Then, if I am lucky enough to be taken with such poetic pseudo-seriousness, my nether mouth may be acknowledged as one capable of speech – were there not, of old, divinatory priestesses, female oracles and so forth? Was there not Cassandra, who always spoke the truth, although admittedly in such a way that nobody ever believed her? And that, in mythic terms, is the hell of it. Since that female, oracular mouth is located so near the beastly backside, my vagina might indeed be patronisingly regarded as a speaking mouth, but never one that issues the voice of reason. In this most insulting mythic redefinition of myself, that of occult priestess, I am indeed allowed to speak but only of things that male society does not take seriously. I can hint at dreams, I can even personify the imagination; but that is only because I am not rational enough to cope with reality.
Angela Carter (The Sadeian Woman: An Exercise in Cultural History (Virago Modern Classics Book 79))
What, in fact, do we know about the peak experience? Well, to begin with, we know one thing that puts us several steps ahead of the most penetrating thinkers of the 19th century: that P.E’.s are not a matter of pure good luck or grace. They don’t come and go as they please, leaving ‘this dim, vast vale of tears vacant and desolate’. Like rainbows, peak experiences are governed by definite laws. They are ‘intentional’. And that statement suddenly gains in significance when we remember Thorndike’s discovery that the effect of positive stimuli is far more powerful and far reaching than that of negative stimuli. His first statement of the law of effect was simply that situations that elicit positive reactions tend to produce continuance of positive reactions, while situations that elicit negative or avoidance reactions tend to produce continuance of these. It was later that he came to realise that positive reactions build-up stronger response patterns than negative ones. In other words, positive responses are more intentional than negative ones. Which is another way of saying that if you want a positive reaction (or a peak experience), your best chance of obtaining it is by putting yourself into an active, purposive frame of mind. The opposite of the peak experience—sudden depression, fatigue, even the ‘panic fear’ that swept William James to the edge of insanity—is the outcome of passivity. This cannot be overemphasised. Depression—or neurosis—need not have a positive cause (childhood traumas, etc.). It is the natural outcome of negative passivity. The peak experience is the outcome of an intentional attitude. ‘Feedback’ from my activities depends upon the degree of deliberately calculated purpose I put into them, not upon some occult law connected with the activity itself. . . . A healthy, perfectly adjusted human being would slide smoothly into gear, perform whatever has to be done with perfect economy of energy, then recover lost energy in a state of serene relaxation. Most human beings are not healthy or well adjusted. Their activity is full of strain and nervous tension, and their relaxation hovers on the edge of anxiety. They fail to put enough effort—enough seriousness—into their activity, and they fail to withdraw enough effort from their relaxation. Moods of serenity descend upon them—if at all—by chance; perhaps after some crisis, or in peaceful surroundings with pleasant associations. Their main trouble is that they have no idea of what can be achieved by a certain kind of mental effort. And this is perhaps the place to point out that although mystical contemplation is as old as religion, it is only in the past two centuries that it has played a major role in European culture. It was the group of writers we call the romantics who discovered that a man contemplating a waterfall or a mountain peak can suddenly feel ‘godlike’, as if the soul had expanded. The world is seen from a ‘bird’s eye view’ instead of a worm’s eye view: there is a sense of power, detachment, serenity. The romantics—Blake, Wordsworth, Byron, Goethe, Schiller—were the first to raise the question of whether there are ‘higher ceilings of human nature’. But, lacking the concepts for analysing the problem, they left it unsolved. And the romantics in general accepted that the ‘godlike moments’ cannot be sustained, and certainly cannot be re-created at will. This produced the climate of despair that has continued down to our own time. (The major writers of the 20th century—Proust, Eliot, Joyce, Musil—are direct descendants of the romantics, as Edmund Wilson pointed out in Axel’s Castle.) Thus it can be seen that Maslow’s importance extends far beyond the field of psychology. William James had asserted that ‘mystical’ experiences are not mystical at all, but are a perfectly normal potential of human consciousness; but there is no mention of such experiences in Principles of Psychology (or only in passing).
Colin Wilson (New Pathways in Psychology: Maslow & the Post-Freudian Revolution)
It is the sheer weight of the robot that makes us feel we are living in a ‘wooden world’. We can see for example that the moment Ouspensky or Ward returned from the mystical realm of perfect freedom and found themselves ‘back in the body’ they once again found themselves saddled with all their boring old habits and worries and neuroses, all their old sense of identity built up from the reactions of other people, and above all the dreary old heaviness, as if consciousness has turned into a leaden weight. This is the sensation that made the romantics feel that life is a kind of hell — or at the very least, purgatory. Yet we know enough about the robot to know that this feeling is as untrustworthy as the depression induced by a hangover. The trouble with living ‘on the robot’ is that he is a dead weight. He takes over only when our energies are low. So when I do something robotically I get no feedback of sudden delight. This in turn makes me feel that it was not worth doing. ‘Stan’ reacts by failing to send up energy and ‘Ollie’ experiences a sinking feeling. Living becomes even more robotic and the vicious circle effect is reinforced. Beyond a certain point we feel as if we are cut off from reality by a kind of glass wall: suddenly it seems self-evident that there is nothing new under the sun, that all human effort is vanity, that man is a useless passion and that life is a horrible joke devised by some demonic creator. This is the state I have decribed as ‘upside-downness’, the tendency to allow negative emotional judgements to usurp the place of objective rational judgements. Moreover this depressing state masquerades as the ‘voice of experience’, since it seems obvious that you ‘know’ more about an experience when you’ve had it a hundred times. This is the real cause of death in most human beings: they mistake the vicious circle effects of ‘upside-downness’ for the wisdom of age, and give up the struggle.
Colin Wilson (Beyond the Occult: Twenty Years' Research into the Paranormal)
To make a tarte of strawberyes," wrote Margaret Parker in 1551, "take and strayne theym with the yolkes of four eggs, and a little whyte breade grated, then season it up with suger and swete butter and so bake it." And Jess, who had spent the past year struggling with Kant's Critiques, now luxuriated in language so concrete. Tudor cookbooks did not theorize, nor did they provide separate ingredient lists, or scientific cooking times or temperatures. Recipes were called receipts, and tallied materials and techniques together. Art and alchemy were their themes, instinct and invention. The grandest performed occult transformations: flora into fauna, where, for example, cooks crushed blanched almonds and beat them with sugar, milk, and rose water into a paste to "cast Rabbets, Pigeons, or any other little bird or beast." Or flour into gold, gilding marchpane and festive tarts. Or mutton into venison, or fish to meat, or pig to fawn, one species prepared to stand in for another.
Allegra Goodman (The Cookbook Collector)
The aged sisters draw us into life : we wail, batten, sport, clip, clasp, sunder, dwindle, die : over us dead they bend. First saved from water of old Nile, among bulrushes, a bed of fasciated wattles : at last the cavity of a mountain, an occulted sepulchre amid the conclamation of the hillcat and the ossifrage. And as no man knows the ubicity of his tumulus nor to what processes we shall thereby be ushered nor whether to Topher or to Edenville in the like way is all hidden when we would backward see from what region of remoteness the whatness of our whoness hath fetched his whenceness.
James Joyce (Ulysses)
To my mind, it’s far from accidental that for the past few decades, every presidential election here in the United States has been enlivened by bumper stickers and buttons calling on voters to support the presidential ambitions of Cthulhu, the tentacled primeval horror featured in H. P. Lovecraft’s tales of cosmic dread. I’m sorry to say that the Great Old One’s campaign faces a serious constitutional challenge, as he was spawned on the world of Vhoorl in the twenty-third nebula and currently resides in the drowned corpse-city of R’lyeh, and as far as I know neither of these are U.S. territories. Still, his bids for the White House have gone much further than most other imaginary candidacies, and I’ve long thought that the secret behind that success is Cthulhu’s campaign slogan: “Why settle for the lesser evil?
John Michael Greer (The King in Orange: The Magical and Occult Roots of Political Power)
I've studied, alas, philosophy, law and medicine, recto and verso, and now I regret it, theology also, oh God, how hard I've slaved away, with what result? Poor foolish old man, I'm no whit wiser than when I began! I've got a Master of Arts degree, on top of that a PhD, for ten long years, around and about, upstairs, downstairs, in and out, I've led my students by the nose with what result? That nobody knows, or ever shall know, the tiniest crumb! Which is why I feel completely undone. Of course I'm cleverer than these stuffed shirts, these Doctors, M.A.s, scribes and priests, I'm not bothered by a doubt or a scruple, I'm not afraid of Hell or the Devil--but the consequence is, my mirth's all gone; no longer can I fool myself I'm able to teach anyone how to be better, love true worth; I've got no money or property, worldly honors or celebrity. A dog wouldn't put up with this life! Which is why I've turned to magic, seeking to know, by ways occult, from ghostly mouths spells difficult,
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Faust)
He recounted how, after the last of Charlemagne's forty-seven victorious campaigns, when he was returning from Saxony, a comet flashed across the sky and the Emperor's horse shied and threw him to the ground. The great Frankish Emperor had fallen so violently that his sword belt had been torn off him and the Spear, which he was clasping in his left hand, had been hurled some twenty feet away from him. At the same time there were earth tremors in the Royal Palace at Aachen, and the word "Princeps" had mysteriously faded from the red ochre inscription high up on a central beam in the Cathedral, which had formerly read 'Karolus Princeps.' Charlemagne himself had taken little notice of these portents, which his courtiers had taken to be a prophecy of his imminent death. In Einhard's own words: 'He refused to admit that any of these events could have any connection ith his own personal affairs.' Yet the 70-year-old Emperor drew up his last will and testament just in case these portents were correct. And they were!
Trevor Ravenscroft (The Spear of Destiny)
Bobby conjured up something that scared him to death and he ran out of the house and never came back. Of course you’re supposed to close those doors but they never did… I found these cards dating back to the Salem witch trials that were at a house in New York where we lived with Raven, and they were covered in human blood. They were horrifying. I took about ten of them and they almost destroyed my life…The toilets flushed black and there was infestation of flies. Objects were flying off the counters at us. The house smelled like Rosewater Lavender, which was an old cologne people used in the 1600’s. We would tell the spirit to leave but it would go into another room. I was someone who didn’t believe in any of this and in two weeks I had to become an expert or it would have killed me and my son. Finally I found out who it was, what it was and I had to return it to Salem. Since then it has been a process of getting rid of the residual effects. I had an exorcism done several times….I am a very religious person because of it today. I won’t go into it any further but I will say that Cliff Burton of Metallica had the other half of the artifacts that I had and I really believe they killed him
Jon Wiederhorn
Old Hubert must have had a premonition of his squalid demise. In October he said to me, ‘Forty-two years I’ve had this place. I’d really like to go back home, but I ain’t got the energy since my old girl died. And I can’t sell it the way it is now. But anyway before I hang my hat up I’d be curious to know what’s in that third cellar of mine.’ The third cellar has been walled up by order of the civil defence authorities after the floods of 1910. A double barrier of cemented bricks prevents the rising waters from invading the upper floors when flooding occurs. In the event of storms or blocked drains, the cellar acts as a regulatory overflow. The weather was fine: no risk of drowning or any sudden emergency. There were five of us: Hubert, Gerard the painter, two regulars and myself. Old Marteau, the local builder, was upstairs with his gear, ready to repair the damage. We made a hole. Our exploration took us sixty metres down a laboriously-faced vaulted corridor (it must have been an old thoroughfare). We were wading through a disgusting sludge. At the far end, an impassable barrier of iron bars. The corridor continued beyond it, plunging downwards. In short, it was a kind of drain-trap. That’s all. Nothing else. Disappointed, we retraced our steps. Old Hubert scanned the walls with his electric torch. Look! An opening. No, an alcove, with some wooden object that looks like a black statuette. I pick the thing up: it’s easily removable. I stick it under my arm. I told Hubert, ‘It’s of no interest. . .’ and kept this treasure for myself. I gazed at it for hours on end, in private. So my deductions, my hunches were not mistaken: the Bièvre-Seine confluence was once the site where sorcerers and satanists must surely have gathered. And this kind of primitive magic, which the blacks of Central Africa practise today, was known here several centuries ago. The statuette had miraculously survived the onslaught of time: the well-known virtues of the waters of the Bièvre, so rich in tannin, had protected the wood from rotting, actually hardened, almost fossilized it. The object answered a purpose that was anything but aesthetic. Crudely carved, probably from heart of oak. The legs were slightly set apart, the arms detached from the body. No indication of gender. Four nails set in a triangle were planted in its chest. Two of them, corroded with rust, broke off at the wood’s surface all on their own. There was a spike sunk in each eye. The skull, like a salt cellar, had twenty-four holes in which little tufts of brown hair had been planted, fixed in place with wax, of which there were still some vestiges. I’ve kept quiet about my find. I’m biding my time.
Jacques Yonnet (Paris Noir: The Secret History of a City)
For him, the moment when the crown was placed on the new monarch's head was a moment of climax, a moment of release. Like everyone else, even with the help of the television commentary he had not really understood these final stages of the service; but to him they conveyed, nonetheless, a sense of correctness that was actually enhanced, not undermined, by their obscurity. Geoffrey had not cared for the atmosphere of the immediate post-war years: dangerous forces - rationalism, inclusiveness, egalitarianism - seemed to have been unleashed by the war, and threatened to shake the foundations of the old order. But now, this ponderous, arcane, incomprehensible ceremony felt to him like a breath of stale air, wafting its viewers back to an earlier, more solid world, a world rooted not in dubious human values but made up entirely of dazzling abstractions and occult hierarchies. Before their very eyes, even the Queen herself, this passive, inscrutable, twenty-seven-year-old woman at the centre of the ritual, had become no longer a human being in any meaningful sense but a mere symbol. And this was entirely right. This was her destiny. Just look, Geoffrey said to himself, how everybody here is mesmerized by the solemnity of this moment, accepting its truth, its inevitability. Even (looking at Doll as he thought it) even the Socialist! The old ways have won again. Tradition has won again. And so it will always be. England doesn't change.
Jonathan Coe (Bournville)
The rose is a symbol of the inner mysteries of Witchcraft. A red rose symbolizes the mysteries as they reside in Nature, within the living things. The white rose symbolizes the Otherworld and the mysteries hidden in secret places. When a single rose appears with white petals in the center of red petals, this represents the mysteries joined together within one reality. Thorns appearing with the rose represent challenges and the dedication required to fully grasp the enlightenment of the rose. One of the symbolisms associated with the rose reveals the covenant between the Witch and the Faery. In this, we find that both are stewards of the portal that opens to the inner mysteries. The Faery holds the celestial key, and the Witch bears the terrestrial key. When the two are joined together, they form an X—the sign of the crossroads. In this formation, where the keys cross we find a third point, the in-between place at the center. This is where the portal exists, and this is where it opens between the worlds. Look at the shape of the X and you can see four pointed tip markers (the V shapes). The upper half of the X points down, and the lower half points up. On the sides of the X, you can see that the left and right halves point to the center. This shows us that when the celestial and terrestrial realms join, they pull together the left ways and the right ways. These are occult terms for esoteric and exoteric modes of consciousness. In the fusion, everything briefly loses its distinction, its ability to mask the opposite reality, and in doing so, the secret third reality emerges in the center of it all. If this sounds confusing or nonsensical, then the guardian of that portal is doing its job well. The material in this book will connect you with an entity connected to the rose and its mystery. This is the previously mentioned She of the Thorn-Blooded Rose. With her guidance, you can be directed to the portal, and through it you can meet a variety of beings and entities. However, her primary task is to connect you with the Greenwood Realm and the plant spirits within it. In your journey to encounter these spirits, you will pass through the organic memory of the earth. You'll walk upon roads of mystical concepts and be accompanied by the Old Ones of
Raven Grimassi (Grimoire of the Thorn-Blooded Witch: Mastering the Five Arts of Old World Witchery)
The Midnight Game The "Midnight Game" is an old pagan ritual, used mainly as punishment for those who have broken the laws of the pagan religion in question.  While it was mainly used as a scare tactic to not disobey the gods, there is still a very existent chance of death to those who play the Midnight Game.  There is an even higher chance of permanent mental scarring. It is highly recommended that you DO NOT PLAY THE MIDNIGHT GAME.   However, for those few thrill seekers searching for a rush, or for those delving into obscure occult rituals, these are simple instructions on how to play. Do so at your own risk...   WARNING: I have played this game. People have died. Do not play this game. He will always be watching.   Instructions   PREREQUISITES:   It must be exactly 12:00 AM when you begin performing the ritual. Otherwise, it will not work.   MATERIALS:   You will need a candle, a piece of paper, a writing implement, matches or a lighter, salt, a wooden door, and at least one drop of your own blood. If you are playing with multiple people, they will need their own of the aforementioned materials and they will have to perform the steps below accordingly.   STEP 1:   Write your full name (first, middle, and last)on the piece of paper. Put at least one drop of blood on the paper. Allow it to soak into the paper.   STEP 2:   Turn off all of the lights in the place you are doing this. Go to your wooden door, and place the paper with your name on it in front of the door. Now, take out the candle and light it. Place it on top of the paper.   STEP 3:   Knock on the door twenty-two times. The hour must be 12:00 AM upon the final knock. Then, open the door, blow out the candle, and close the door. You have just allowed the "Midnight Man" to enter your house.   STEP 4:   Immediately relite your candle.   This is where the game begins. You must now lurk around your now completely dark house, with the lit candle in your hand. Your goal is to avoid the Midnight Man at all costs, until 3:33 AM. Should your candle ever go out, that means the Midnight Man is near you. You must relight your candle in the next ten seconds.   If you are not successful in doing this, you must then immediately surround yourself with a circle of salt. If you are unsuccessful in both of your actions, the Midnight Man will create a hallucination of your greatest fear, and rip out your organs one by one. You will feel it, but you will be unable to react.   If you are successful in creating the circle of salt, you must remain in there until 3:33 AM.   If you are successful in relighting your candle, you may proceed with the game. You must continue to 3:33 AM, without being attacked by the Midnight Man, or being trapped inside the circle of salt, to win the Midnight Game. The Midnight Man will leave your house at 3:33 AM, and you will be safe to proceed with your morning.   ADDITION:   Indications that you are near the Midnight Man will include sudden drop in temperature, seeing a pure black, humanoid figure through the darkness, and hearing very soft whispering coming from an indiscernible source. If you experience any of these, it is advised that you leave the area to avoid the Midnight Man.   DO NOT turn any of the lights on during the Midnight Game.   DO NOT use a flashlight during the Midnight Game.   DO NOT go to sleep during the Midnight Game.   DO NOT attempt to use another person's blood on your name.   DO NOT use a lighter as a substitute for a candle. It will not work.   AND DEFINITELY DO NOT attempt to provoke the Midnight Man in ANY WAY.   Even when the game is over, he will always be watching
Adam L. (Creepypasta: Expanded Edition)
It was evening back in what used to be the Southern Bohemian Occult when Charlotte and the coven walked through her familiar bent, iron gate, past the small cemetery, and under the long, forest tunnel. They walked into the town square she had not seen in what felt like an eternity. They were not greeted by any sort of parade. There were no celebrations for the unsung heroes of the night as they made their way past the old, abandoned inns and shops.
Shayne Leighton (The Vampire's Daughter (Of Light and Darkness, #1))
Science Fiction is a group of symptoms and not a disease,” so a medical student (failed) told me once. “It's like the old disease hydropsy that doctors treated for so long before discovering that it was only a collection of symptoms, sometimes for a heart disease, sometimes for a liver or kidney disease, or sometimes even for a septic throat.” Well, the symptoms for Science Fiction are a prowling avidity to search out and read certain occult texts; an uneasiness or excitement that permates the whole routine of life; it's the ‘itchy ears’, as mentioned in Scripture, seeking for ‘new things’. The symptoms are usually a falcon-like hunting or questing; a series of sudden tuneful encounters; a group of euphorias and buoyancies that cry in opposite directions to be hoarded like misers' treasures and simultaneously to be shared with fellow sufferers of the symptoms; feeling that the ‘World We Live In’ is somehow masked and needs to be unmasked. These and other symptoms indicate either a strange disease or diseases, or they indicate a perpetually new kind of health. Tracing the symptoms back to the ‘disease’ does indicate that the disease is multiple, that it has such names as Hard Science Fiction, Soft Science Fiction, High Fantasy, Low Fantasy, Non-Conforming Adventure Fiction. And sometimes it bears such non-consensus names as Biological Fiction, Ontological Fiction, Eschatological Fiction (did Teilhard, for instance, know that he was writing Eschatological Fiction?), Theological Fiction, or Psychological or Philosophical or Technological or Geological or Historical Fiction. These things and many others share the same complex of symptoms.
R.A. Lafferty (It's Down the Slippery Cellar Stairs (Essays on Fantastic Literature 1))
All the great cat goddesses such as Isis, Bast, Diana and Hecate, with their eternal Moon link, combine woman with Cat. Emphasising this empathy, the mysterious feline has always been construed as woman and vice versa. Since time immemorial, women have been thought to possess an ability as mediums, with a talent for soothsaying and clairvoyance. Second sight, too, is deemed to be a natural female attribute. Cats, silently wise and 'knowing', with eyes reflecting the secrets of time itself, arc said to be 'old souls', and the attraction of woman to Cat could be seen to represent a look back to an ancient part of the human soul. And what woman deep within her Moon-centred self doesn't nurture a fascination with the past — the 'unknown'; ancient, forbidden secrets; and the mystical world of the occult? Perhaps, at some distant point in time, Cat and woman with their beguiling ways and inbuilt urge to procreate underwent a transmigration of souls, each now sharing the ' complex psyche of the other. Both are symbols of fertility; both project innate feminine traits of intuitive sensuality and nurture and cherish their young. The female cat, both domestic and in the wild, is known to be a caring, efficient mother and the old French proverb, Jamais chatte qui a des petits n'a de bans morceaux, (a cat with little ones has never a good mouthful) illustrates the devotion and selflessness of the maternal feline.
Joan Moore
But what's happening is that each year our old flat earth of conventional reason becomes less and less adequate to handle the experiences we have and this is creating widespread feelings of topsy turviness. As a result we're getting more and more people in irrational areas of thought-- occultism, mysticism, drug changes and the like-- because they feel the inadequacy of classical reason to handle what they know are real experiences.
Robert M. Pirsig (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainance)
the tradition of the thousands of ancient parchments saved when the Alexandrian library was destroyed; the thousands of Sanskrit works which disappeared in India in the reign of Akbar; the universal tradition in China and Japan that the true old texts with the commentaries, which alone make them comprehensible—amounting to many thousands of volumes—have long passed out of the reach of profane hands; the disappearance of the vast sacred and occult literature of Babylon; the loss of those keys which alone could solve the thousand riddles of the Egyptian hieroglyphics records; the tradition in India that the real secret commentaries which alone make the Veda intelligible, though no longer visible to profane eyes, still remain for the initiate, hidden in secret caves and crypts; and an identical belief among the Buddhists, with regard to their secret books.
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (The Secret Doctrine Volume One)
Perhaps more potent than hunting, fertility, or the earth’s mysteries was the fear of death. Formal burials have been found, dating from as early as 60,000 BCE, containing bones scattered with red ocher (suggestive of blood). Some burials also included flowers or necklaces to accompany the deceased into the next life. At Kebara Cave in Israel, Neanderthals buried several skeletons and skull bones, probably as a post-mortem rite. Early peoples, too, seem to have had a fear of dead spirits. At Gough’s Cave in Somerset, incisions on bones that are around 15,000 years old indicate that they engaged in ritual cannibalism. The aim of this may have been to acquire the powers of the dead or to prevent their spirits from inflicting damage on the living.
D.K. Publishing (A History of Magic, Witchcraft, and the Occult (DK A History of))
Magic is as old as humankind. As soon as early people became aware of their environment, they believed it to be filled with spirits whose aid they invoked to control it, either directly through shamans—who they thought could travel into the spirit world—or through art. It is thought that early people modeled figurines and painted animals on cave walls in the belief that doing so would give them magical power over their world.
D.K. Publishing (A History of Magic, Witchcraft, and the Occult (DK A History of))
Unveiling the Benefits of Numerology Certification Courses in Mumbai | Occult Science Numerology Certification Courses in Mumbai, Offer people the chance to study and practice numerology, an old metaphysical science that looks at the meaning of numbers in our life, much like in many other regions of the world. These Courses offer Various Advantages: Awareness of Numerology: The principles of numerology, including the significance of numbers, their vibrations, and how they connect to various facets of life, are covered in a systematic curriculum offered by certification schools. The basis for advanced studies is this understanding. Enhancing your personal growth: journey of self-discovery can be achieved while learning numerology. People can learn more about their own personality traits, strengths, weaknesses, and life path thanks to this. A deeper understanding of oneself and personal improvement can result from this self-awareness. Choosing a career: As a professional numerologist, you may have more employment options after earning a certification in numerology. To clients looking for guidance regarding their lives, relationships, and job decisions, you can provide readings, consultations, and counsel. This can be a fulfilling and possibly lucrative career. Improved Decision-Making: Making vital choices in life can benefit from the use of numerology. By comprehending the energies connected to particular numbers and their compatibility with individual vibrations, it can assist people in making informed decisions about their job, relationships, and other parts of life. Compatibility in relationships: Numerology can be utilized for determining a pair's compatibility in a relationship. Understanding one other's numerical compatibility can enhance communication and reduce tension. Integrative Health: Numerologists who hold this viewpoint consider it to be complementary to other forms of holistic medicine. Based on a person's data, it can offer insights into their health difficulties and possible treatments. Growth spiritually: Numerology has been described as a form of spirituality. It may improve a person's awareness of spirituality and offer a structure for exploring into queries about the soul's journey. The Self-Employed: Numerologists have the option to work for themselves, giving them the freedom to set their own hours. Those looking for independence and a work-life balance may find this particularly appealing. Helping others: Many people find satisfaction in using numerology readings to help others. Giving customers advice and insight can be a satisfying way to make a difference in their life. Personal hobbies and interests: Certification programmes can be an interesting hobby and a way to further your personal development, even if you don't want to follow numerology as a career. It's important to do some research about a numerology certification course's subject matter, an organization or instructor who teaches it, and the certification's standing in the industry before enrolling. Additionally, while numerology can be an original and unique topic of study, think about whether it fits with your personal interests and objectives. For More Details: Click Here
Occulscience2
Serpents are symbols of change and renewal. Like the earth they renew their fertility by replacing old skin with new. Since they could slither above and below the earth, they were considered keepers of the earth’s secrets and hence symbols of occult lore.
Devdutt Pattanaik (Myth = Mithya: A Handbook of Hindu Mythology)
There’s an old Quidneck saying about fools: The only thing worse than one of them is two of them.
Chet Williamson (A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult)
The building was old. A more prosperous community would have torn it down years ago, but Ice Islanders just kept fixing it, making do. The prevailing attitude seemed to be that good teachers and not fancy buildings were the key to a solid education. A teacher needed books, a blackboard, chalk, and a classroom. Period. The function of the building was to keep the students warm and dry; anything else would be extravagant.
Chet Williamson (A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult)
You ever see that thing on old tombstones, that Momento mori? That’s Latin. You know what it means?” The roommate gave a negative grunt. “It means something like, ‘Remember you gotta die.’ And that’s what this whole thing is like, like one great big reminder that we’re all gonna go sooner or later, so we better be damn good to each other while we’re here.
Chet Williamson (A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult)
The more things change, the more they stay the same, it thought, savoring the brute constancy of humans and their achievements, no matter how far through the ages they slithered. It was over 800 years old, and didn’t look a day over seventy-five.
Chet Williamson (A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult)
Meanwhile, halfway across the Atlantic, something awakened in the cargo hold of a freighter bound for Europe. It smiled like an old man who’d just proved once again that his bowels still worked.
Chet Williamson (A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult)
The Iranian regime strictly follows Twelver Shiism, the dominant branch of Shiite Islam.1 The Twelvers believe in twelve imams who are directly descended from Muhammad through his daughter Fatima and her husband, Ali (the first imam).2 Fatima and Ali’s two sons were the second and the third imams, and so it continued through the family lineage. Shiites believe all but the twelfth imam were martyred by the Sunnis.3 The twelfth imam, Abu Al Qasim Muhammad ibn Hasan ibn Ali, called al-Mahdi (the Guided One), went into occultation4 (ghayba; disappearance or hiding) when he was five years old. Shiites believe that the Mahdi “disappeared down a well in what is now a golden-domed [Shiite] shrine called Al []Askariyyayn, in Samarra, Iraq.”5 The Mahdi will reappear sometime near the end of the world. Shiites further believe that Jesus will also return and assist the Mahdi to convert the world to Shiite Islam.6 “ ‘The Imam Mahdi will lead the forces of righteousness against the forces of evil in one final apocalyptic battle in which the enemies of the Imam will be defeated.’ ”7 Accordingly, Shiites believe they must hasten the Mahdi’s return. Once he returns, the Mahdi will rule from Jerusalem.8
Jay Sekulow (Unholy Alliance: The Agenda Iran, Russia, and Jihadists Share for Conquering the World)
The argument, as we have seen, is an old one. Today it is disguised by the outward trappings of tongue-in-cheek occultism, or therapeutic witchcraft, or climate change activism, or a fervent belief in “the science,” or some form of transgenderism or transhumanism. But the substance of these belief systems has an ancient pedigree that stretches all the way back to the Garden and the serpent and the Fall, when a very real, literal Satan made his famous claim about the tree and the fruit that would echo down the eons: “You will not die. You will be like God.” And if man can become like God, then what is to say man cannot become God—or at least a god?
John Daniel Davidson (Pagan America: The Decline of Christianity and the Dark Age to Come)
Garlock, you might have thought, had taken the Christian opposition to Rock as far as anyone could: “Bringing racism into his attack, Garlock noted that rock had its roots in the music of Africa, South America, and India, places he said where voodoo, sex orgies, human sacrifices, and devil worship abounded. Garlock linked some rock performers with Satan.”17 Yet, even further excesses of abuse on the theme of Rock-as-Satanic have followed as the years have passed. Possibly the craziest is Jacob Aranza’s claims that “75 percent of the rock and roll today (top 10 stuff!) deals with sex, evil, drugs, and the occult.” And that this is all part of a decades’ long, four step plan, “Satan’s Agenda”, to “pronounce rock stars as messiahs”.18 Jeff Godwin took this even further: “The Lord has also revealed to some Christians that incarnate demons from the netherworld actually are members of some of the most popular bands.”19 Converts are famous for their zeal, and as early as 1957 one celebrated rock’n’roller turned on the music that had propelled him to fame when he found religion. Richard Wayne Penniman, better known as Little Richard, stopped playing rock’n’roll and began to preach against it: “I was in the eighth grade at San Diego Adventist Elementary School, his conversion touched my life. Little Richard arrived at our school with an entourage of about three black limousines and a staff of personal assistants in black suits. He spoke in chapel, then preached Sabbath morning in a local church (probably San Diego 31st Street), then spoke and sang in the afternoon for a standing-room-only Associated MV (AY) meeting at the old San Diego Broadway church.
Andrew Muir (Bob Dylan & William Shakespeare: The True Performing of It)
Too old and too respectable to be considered sinister, Louis T. Culling has headed a sex-occult group called the G.B.G. (Great Body of God) since the 1930s. In A Manual of Sex Magic, published in 1971, Culling frankly admits his debt to Crowley’s teachings. Only in an appendix does he grant that some find that this magic works even better with marijuana, and then he adds that the G.B.G. does not recommend this since it involves breaking the law.
Robert Anton Wilson (Sex, Drugs & Magick – A Journey Beyond Limits)
To this epoch of ardent abstractions and impassioned logomechaies belongs the philosophical reign of Julian, an illuminatus and Initiate of the first order, who believed in the unity of God and the universal Dogma of the Trinity, and regretted the loss of nothing of the old world but its magnificent symbols and too graceful images. He was no Pagan, but a Gnostic, infected with the allegories of Grecian polytheism, and whose misfortune it was to find the name of Jesus Christ less sonorous than that of Orpheus.
Albert Pike (Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry)
They come at last to the door holding a great key. At the same instant night. When not evening night. Head bowed she stands exposed facing east. All dead still. All save hanging from a finger the old key polished by use. Trembling it faintly shimmers in the light of the moon. Wooed from below the face consents at last. In the dim light reflected by the flag. Calm slab worn and polished by agelong comings and goings. Livid pallor. Not a wrinkle. How serene it seems this ancient mask. Worthy those worn by certain newly dead. True the light leaves to be desired. The lids occult the longed-for eyes. Time will tell them washen blue. Where tears perhaps not for nothing. Unimaginable tears of old. Lashes jet black remains of the brunette she was. Perhaps once was. When yet a lass. Yet brunette. Skipping the nose at the call of the lips these no sooner broached are withdrawn. The slab having darkened with the darkening sky.
Samuel Beckett (Company / Ill Seen Ill Said / Worstward Ho / Stirrings Still)
Here, gods are used by influencers to show off their wit. Believe in gods? Oh , it’s not in fashion. Some weird cult from Egypt or Asia— well, yes, these novelties are so interesting, why not take that up. But stay away from the old boring gods! From the religion of our ancestors. Better occultism, dark mysticism, reincarnation, debauchery, Isis . There are prostitutes in Isis’s temples!
Jacek Bocheński (Naso the Poet: The Loves and Crimes of Rome's Greatest Poet (The Notorious Roman Trilogy))
According to the “consciousness model“ of magic, thoughts can be objectivated and become reality. In simpler terms, both the outer life and the inner life of the human being is a reflection of one‘s intentional thoughts, and, thus, a “magician“ is a person who actively does things instead of just thinking or talking about them. Not only has quantum physics proved that, at the quantum level, matter reacts to the “observer“, namely, to one‘s thoughts, but also everyone can easily confirm that one‘s immediate environment (for instance, one‘s home, the activities that one performs, one‘s profession, etc.) is an expression of the fundamental significations and the major driving forces of one‘s inner life. Hence, from an elevated perspective, “magic“ means wisdom put into action with faith and focused thought in order to produce history according to one‘s will. This notion of magic is explicitly referred to in the Bible, specifically, in Matthew 2:11 – 12, where we read that three Magi visited and worshiped Jesus Christ, the Messiah, after his birth, bearing gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. In principle, magic is the traditional science of the secrets of nature and of the human being. It is the old name of the subject-matter of the ancient occult initiates and intellectuals of India, Chaldea, Persia, Egypt, and Homeric Greece.
Nicolas Laos (The Meaning of Being Illuminati)
The greatest delight which the fields and woods minister, is the suggestion of an occult relation between man and the vegetable. I am not alone and unacknowledged. They nod to me, and I to them. The waving of the boughs in the storm, is new to me and old. It takes me by surprise, and yet is not unknown. Its effect is like that of a higher thought or a better emotion coming over me, when I deemed I was thinking justly or doing right. —RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Richard Powers (The Overstory)
Ninety feet directly beneath the center courtyard café in the middle of the Pentagon—previously known as the Ground Zero Cafe, because when the bomb dropped that was where it would most likely detonate—there is a deep subbasement office with ferroconcrete walls and a filtered air supply, accessible by discreet elevators and staircases from all five wings of the main building. It was designed as a deep command bunker back when the worst threats were raids by long-range Luftwaffe bombers bearing conventional explosives. Obsolescent since the morning of July 16, 1945—it won’t withstand a direct ground burst from an atom bomb, much less more modern munitions—it still possesses certain uses. Being deep underground and equidistant from all the other wings, it was well suited as a switch for SCAN, the Army’s automatic switched communications system, and later for AUTOVON. AUTOVON led to ARPANET, the predecessor of the internet, and the secure exchange in the basement played host to one of the first IMPs—Interface Message Processors—outside of academia. By the early 1980s a lack of rackspace led the DoD to relocate their hardened exchanges to a site closer to the 1950s-sized mainframe halls. And it was then that the empty bunker was taken over by a shadowy affiliate of the National Security Agency, tasked with waging occult warfare against the enemies of the nation. The past six months have brought some changes. There is a pentagonal main room inside the bunker, and within it there is a ceremonial maze, inscribed in blood and silver that glows with a soft fluorescence, converging on a dais at the heart of the design. The labyrinth takes the shape of a pentacle aligned with the building overhead: at each corner stands a motionless sentinel clad head to toe in occlusive silver fabric. Robed in black and crimson silk and shod in slippers of disturbingly pale leather, the Deputy Director paces her way through the maze. In her left hand she bears a jewel-capped scepter carved from the femur of a dead pope, and in her right hand she bears a gold-plated chalice made from a skull that once served Josef Stalin as an ashtray. As she walks she recites a prayer of allegiance and propitiation, its cadences and grammar those of a variant dialect of Old Enochian.
Charles Stross (The Labyrinth Index (Laundry Files, #9))
Kundalini is a primitive spirit, a creative force that typically resides in a dormant state within our bodies. We realize our innate power and completeness upon awakening. We know there is everything within us that we need to be happy and fulfilled. Kundalini is not a physical reality but a perceptible reality. Once we have been awakened, we are shedding our old tendencies, and negativity like a snake sheds off its old skin. The kundalini is said to empower us with Shakti — that Divine Mother's primordial energy. Charged with this feminine creative force, we get filled with the vigor, enthusiasm, willpower, and self-confidence that we need to shake off negative memories and emotions hidden deep within our subconscious mind. Our mind is getting dormant. Issues and issues that had once held our focus now seem insignificant. Such a mind-state automatically produces intuitive wisdom.  Released from the endless chain of uncertainty and misunderstanding, insight is our guardian and guide.  The strength of discernment is unfailing. The reason kundalini awakening is such a remarkable aspect of spiritual awakening is that it is not based on complex theological arguments or religious norms that are culturally defined. Instead, Kundalini concentrates on the divine's immediate, ultimate experience within us. And regardless of your particular religious background and values, we can all use kundalini yoga to assist in our spiritual evolution. Most ancient myths allude to the meaning of kundalini. Tiresias narrative is a prime example. If Tiresias–the ancient Greek seer discovered two copulating snakes, he would stick his staff between them to distinguish them. He was immediately turned into a woman and remained like that for seven years until he was able to repeat his action and turn back into a male. In this novel, the force of change, powerful enough to completely reverse both male and female physical polarities, emerges from the fusion of the two serpents, passed on by the ring. Tiresias staff was later passed on to Hermes along with serpents. Several medical organizations use the ancient Greek icon of Hermes, the Greek god and messenger of all gods, called “Karykeion.” In occult Hermetic philosophy, Hermes Caduceus represents the masculine's potential as a central phallic rod surrounded by two coupling serpents ' writhing, woven Shakti energies. The rod also represents the spine (sushumna), while the serpents perform metaphysical currents (pranas) along the inda and pingala channels from the chakra at the base of the spine to the pineal gland in a double helix pattern.
Adrian Satyam (Energy Healing: 6 in 1: Medicine for Body, Mind and Spirit. An extraordinary guide to Chakra and Quantum Healing, Kundalini and Third Eye Awakening, Reiki and Meditation and Mindfulness.)
Cursing and healing. Left-hand path and right-hand path. Black and white. Desiring and repelling. They are all part of the same circle. All interlocking forms of spiritual, magickal and transformational work. Human energies in the spiritual, coming into the material world through perfectly natural means. 
Dacha Avelin
The lesson in this path is taught sufficiently by the trump of the Hanged Man, a personal favorite. The Hanged Man is one of the better teachers of all the trumps on how to train the human mind (Hod) to work from the spiritual perspective. Since the figure on the card is being hung upside down, this indicates that the values of the higher world are most often the reverse of the lower. The Hanged Man gives an indication of serenity through chaos, as his face is placid despite being strung up and his head about to be submerged in a body of water in the Thoth Tarot. This explains why most mystics throughout time have been thought to be insane: their ideas and values are normally at odds with dogma and culture, and they are revolutionaries and radicals. Most often, when engaging with the higher spheres of consciousness, one encounters realities that far surpass culture’s understanding of what is and is not acceptable. The Hanged Man encapsulates the expression of mystic action, which is rarely understood in conventional culture. When these spiritual ideas and values are expressed, the prevailing mindset of society often misinterprets these expressions, becomes afraid, and retaliates either through crucifixion, persecution, or banishment. Hence, the secrecy of occultism. Crowley calls this path and trump the “card of the Dying God,” and perhaps he has a point. Path 23 is the roadway where old ideas are purged to make way for a new, higher perspective in accordance with the spiritual Will of the universe. Turning one’s point of view upside down, in reverse, a pachakuti, is the magical formula of seeing the world via the perspective of spirit. It is the prime elixir of alchemy.
Daniel Moler (Shamanic Qabalah: A Mystical Path to Uniting the Tree of Life & the Great Work)
The Canavans - they had for decades and centuries brought to the Ox elements that were by turn very complicated and very simple: occult nous and racy semen.
Kevin Barry (That Old Country Music)