Where do we go from here? By Pete Carroll Occult revivals occur
when the social, economic or intellectual status quo is disturbed
by the unexpected. Affluence combined with the collapse of the
Roman state religion caused one revival. The rediscovery of
classical knowledge in the Renaissance brought about another.
Dissatisfaction with catholic hellfire christianity spawed
spiritualism, theosophy, the Golden Dawn and Crowley. In our
own time anti-semitism, affluence, drugs and oriental ideas
spawned another outburst. Occult revivals are stimulated by
economics and by the availability, rather than the creation of
ideas. Roman culture was subject to a huge influx of ideas, cults
and philosophies from conquered peoples. Written material
surviving from this synthesis appeared again as hermetics in the
Renaissance. The revivals of the late nineteenth century and the
nineteen-sixties owe much to the availability of scientific ideas
and oriental philosophies. It is probably more useful then, to look
for impending changes in the general situation rather than within
the occult itself if we want to second guess the next revival. The
period between one revival and the next is shortening rapidly and
we are probably due for another around the turn of the century,
give or take a decade. I`d like to try and identify some of the
factors which may help shape it. Firstly the millenium.
Christianity is unfortunately not yet completely extinguished and
humanity will have to cope with a rising tide of apocalypse mania
as the calendrical millenium draws closer. Right wing christian
fundamentalists in America may even be in a political position to
inaugerate a real Armageddon by then. I hope that whatever
courage and imagination there is in the occult is put to good use in
undermining this sort od idiocy. Those occultists who do jump on
the millenial bandwagon have only disaster or ridicule to look
forward to. Economics has a powerfull effect on the ocult climate.
A fairly rapid increase in affluence will often provoke a revival as
leisure time becomes available and some minds turn to higher
things. Conversely, a decline in living conditions will sometimes
make people seek what they have lost, or a substitute, by occult
means. Boom propelled revivals are usually much more fun than
slump propelled upsurges. In this country, any increment in
occultism arising from socio-economic desperation, is likely to be
some species of neo-nazi mystic nationalism. As with millenium
madness, the greater honour will, in the long run, go to those
occultists who oppose such nonsense. However, the metaphysical
fallout from the sixties may yet carry us through to the next boom
revival and these problems may not yet arise. It seems unlikely
that anthropology or archaeology will be able to make fresh ideas
available for cannibalisation by the occult in the next revival.
Computerised libraries, satellite photography and global
communication systems leave few stones unturned. There seems
little chance lost ancient manuscripts, magical tribes or forgotten
occult civilisations coming to light nowadays. So it is to science
itself that I think we should turn for fresh ammunition. There are
already discernable strains of space mysticism in some quarters of
the occult. Questions about the reality or otherwise of supposed
visits by aliens should not distract us from recognising that UFO-
mania itself is a mystico-religous phenomena. The UFO-ologist
wants to personally receive wisdom for the whole of humanity
from some superhuman being. Seeking angels in space suits is to
repeat humanity`s perennial mistake, pretending to look outside
for what is really inside ourselves. Quantum physics has been
quietly undermining the whole basis of mechanistic cause and
effect type science for nearly sixty years. It has been said that if
you are not shocked by the implications of quantum physics then
you have not understood it. This may be perfectly true for the
scientist but for the magician, quantum physics provides elegant
confirmation of many of his theories. A quantitative approach to
quantum physics is beyond all but the best mathematician. Many
of the principles are enshrined in equations for which we have few
verbal or visual analogies. Because of this very few laymen or
philosophers have been able to appreciate what has been going on.
Briefly in qualitative terms, we now have hard experimental
evidence which strongly implies that physical process are, at root,
acausal; they just happen out of themselves and that
consciousness, or at least the decisions of the observer, can
modify or control what happens. Secondly it would seem that pure
information can travel anywhere instantaneously and perhaps
persists indefinitely, providing there is some sort of affinity, or
magical link as we would call it, between that which emits and
that which receives. Very few liberties need to be taken with
quantum physics to fit in virtually the whole of parapsychology. It
remains to be seen if quantum physics can be presented in
sufficiently accessible form to provoke another occult revival. A
quantum based revival would effectively demolish the spirit
hypothesis. A "spirit" would have to be recognised as nothing
more than the information that a phenomeenon emitted about
itself when it existed physically. Anything else would have to be
put down to the creativity of the observer`s subconsciousness.
Thus the "tree-ness" of a tree or the quality of a thought is just an
extension of the object itself on the plane of non-local
information. If you talk to Egyptian gods your subconsciousness
is, at best, simply animating the general personality characteristics
of the gods projected by their worshippers millenia ago. Spirits
cannot be gaseous vertebrates with powers of independent
discoursive thought. On the practical level quantum physics
implies that the medium of magic is not some sort of nebulous
psychic energy or force, it is simply a transfer of information.
Magical healing or attack is accomplished by long range
telepathic suggestion not by astral bandages or thunderbolts. The
quantum paradigme forces a re-examination of reincarnation.
There is no reason why anybody should not be able to tap the
memories of any historical person. Conversely we can all look
forward to fragments of our ideas and personalities manifesting in
other people in the future. Telekinesis and related phenomena can
be accommodated within the quantum paradigma if we allow
intent to expand upon the small degree of fundamental
uncertainty, or more properly indeterminacy, in the position and
momentum of any object. Prophecy is always the most doubtful of
the magical arts although short term prediction or precognition
can often be impressive. The quantum model allows for this
providing the operator later observes the precognised event. Such
apparent nonsense as astrology and homeopathy begin to make
more sense in a quantum paradigm which suggests that
expectation can have real effects via what one might call a
magical level. This is quite over and above the purely
psychological effects of expectation that materialists usually
invoke to explain away these things. I`ve heard the quantum
occult paradigm described as Big Bang Mysticism and Electro
Gnosis. I rather like this, for it implies that the universe is being
viewed as a self-created magical organism and that magic itself is
a technology we can potentially master because it is a part of the
nature of ordinary reality. Of course, what is missing in this
scheme are the pseudo certainities of belief in gods and higher
powers or even a benign cosmic mind. It throws us back on our
own powers and ingenuities, but isn`t this what the best occultism
has always been about anyway ?