How many of you think the occult is evil?

[Tab]

Define evil.

[Logic]

me

[xander]

quote:Originally posted by Hiebreed

Hey, how many of you think the occult is evil and how many actually engage in occult practices?

the occult is much of what one makes of it. i engage in occult activities frequently, even though at times the only thing that occurs is an altered emotional state.

Xander

[James S]

Too subjective.

As Tab said, define evil.

The literal meaning of the word Occult (in its most basic defenition) is "hidden from view". A more expanded definition would be "Having an import not apparent to the senses nor obvious to the intelligence. Beyond ordinary understanding."

Ask a Wiccan or Pagan and we'd say no.

If you were to ask a Pentecostal or fundamentalist christian, the answer would be "Hell yes!" The irony here is that by pure defenition of the word, Christianity is also occult.

James.

[Adrian]

Greetings,

As has already been mentioned, "occult" simply means "hidden" in literal terms, and could apply to anything.

The reason most Spiritual, mystical and Magical pursuits are occult, is because they had to remain hidden from the persecution of the dogmatic religions and others, otherwise they would not be occult at all, but rather a natural aspect of living.

Occult, far from being evil, is just the opposite, and many occultists would say that the churches are evil due to the death and suffering inflicted on followers of Spiritual traditions over the years.

With best regards,

Adrian.

[kakkarot]

to hiebreed:

1) no

2) 546,543,164 people give or take 32,000 [].

~kakkarot

[Mustardseed]

Yes I do believe it is evil, and that many pick up spiritual hitchikers from these activities. Tarot cards and divining as well. They all rely on the help of spiritual powers and one can open oneself to dark spirits through this stuf. How evil !!!! well I also believe addiction to drugs is evil, love and greed of money, sexual perversions etc.

You are, and what is more you become, what you desire to be. People mainly seek power through this, and are often corrupted. Be carefull if you play with fire you might get burned. Dont take my word for it though, look up Robert Bruces book for references and look at the problem some people on this thread has gotten themselves into. Make up your own mind.

Regards Mustardseed

[Hiebreed]

Fine let me rephrase my question, "How many of you think white magick (spells) are evil, how many think the tarot is evil? Even if you use it for good purposes?

[kakkarot]

tools are not evil. people are evil. and evil people can use any tool they want to propogate their evil.

good people sometimes silly-ly ([|)]) name tools as "evil" because they can lead the morally weak away from doing good if they are not careful in what they are doing ("Nearly all men can stand adversity. If you truly want to test a man's character, give him power" -i forget who said it). as well some evil people arrogantly call some tooks evil because they want to seem "more cool" in what they're doing.

a tool is neither good nor evil: a good person can use a knife just like an evil person can. a good person can use divination methods just like an evil person can. the only thing that differentiates who is good from who is evil is the *purpose* of what is being done: whether to help people or to harm people.

~kakkarot

[Fortier Du Lune]

Wow... I'm new here and was just exploring, but after reading all this i realize this is a place for the wise. I guess I'd better leave hahahahaha...[8D]

[xander]

Originally posted by kakkarot


people are evil.

>I don't think people are born evil. I think that it's a combination of circumstance, experience, and perception.
>we must also consider the definition of evil. For example in nazi germany the nazis considered jews and their associates to be evil, the jews considered the nazis to be evil. The winners get to write the history books and thus we call the nazis evil. However, if the nazis would have won the history books would say things championing hitler and the early nazi movement, the jews would be a people relegated to myth as they would be gone by now.
>individuals, especially those with power, often consider themselves good and others as evil. Introspection is lacking in most people, including those in power such as law makers.

Xander

[kakkarot]

i didn't say from birth. and i'm not saying *all* people are evil. what i said was that tools are not evil, people are. as in: it is not the tools that are good or evil, it is the people that use the tools that are good or evil.

must i really spell that out for people? -_-

~kakkarot

[WalkerInTheWoods]

Good and Evil are merely opinions. One person's good is another's evil, and vise versa.

And last time I checked Astral Projection and practically everything else on this site is considered occult.

Do I think the occult is evil? No

Do I engage in occult practices? Yes

[Gandalf]

Tarot cards and divining as well. They all rely on the help of spiritual powers and one can open oneself to dark spirits through this stuf
Mustardseed
----------------------------------------------------

Mustardseed, I have used Tarot cards for years, as well as many other forms of oracles and I can't disagree with you enough!
Tarot cards, like any oracle like I ching or runes, are called 'oracles' as they are used to find answers to personal issues by allowing you to communicate with your sub-conscious self, who know more than you do. Tarot cards primary reason is to enlighten the *present* and to give advice on what path to take, while warning of particualr consequences of taking certain decisions.

When you consult an oracle, you are consulting yourself, not demons!
Dreams are also forms of oracles, are you saying we should not interprete our dreams or ask for guidance through our dreams? christians seem to do that quite often! You certainly havnt made any real study of tarot cards or any oracle imo, and books from 'christian science' bookstores on the topic certainly shouldnt be trusted!

I'm afraid your quote above is an all too common example of christian progaganda which you repeat either without thinking about it or you have swallowed it whole. This smear campaign has been ongoing for years and is now so widespread that there is now a common beleif amongst the general public that the term 'occultism' = 'satanism', this is the churches doing.
As example, how often do you see 'occultism', or 'witchcraft' thrown in with 'evil' or 'black magic' in the media/press?
I've actually given up writing in to explain the difference!

As far as the term 'occult' goes, despite what the church, the media and bad holywood movies would have you believe, the tem just refers to hidden knowedge.
btw this very forum would be refered to a 'occult' by many christian groups who, if it was up to them, would have us all shut down!
Regards,
Douglas

[jason]

I would have to say that is isn't anything-it just is.

it's what the person does w/it that counts.just like if you have a great big sharp knife.you can rip someones guts out,or you can chop the vegtables![]

[xander]

quote:Originally posted by jason


if you have a great big sharp knife.you can rip someones guts out,or you can chop the vegtables![]

hmmmmm.....I smell a B Movie! Attack of teh Mutant Vegetables!

Xander

[Fortier Du Lune]

quote:Originally posted by Gandalf

Tarot cards and divining as well. They all rely on the help of spiritual powers and one can open oneself to dark spirits through this stuf
Mustardseed
----------------------------------------------------

Mustardseed, I have used Tarot cards for years, as well as many other forms of oracles and I can't disagree with you enough!
Tarot cards, like any oracle like I ching or runes, are called 'oracles' as they are used to find answers to personal issues by allowing you to communicate with your sub-conscious self, who know more than you do. Tarot cards primary reason is to enlighten the *present* and to give advice on what path to take, while warning of particualr consequences of taking certain decisions.

When you consult an oracle, you are consulting yourself, not demons!
Dreams are also forms of oracles, are you saying we should not interprete our dreams or ask for guidance through our dreams? christians seem to do that quite often! You certainly havnt made any real study of tarot cards or any oracle imo, and books from 'christian science' bookstores on the topic certainly shouldnt be trusted!

I'm afraid your quote above is an all too common example of christian progaganda which you repeat either without thinking about it or you have swallowed it whole. This smear campaign has been ongoing for years and is now so widespread that there is now a common beleif amongst the general public that the term 'occultism' = 'satanism', this is the churches doing.
As example, how often do you see 'occultism', or 'witchcraft' thrown in with 'evil' or 'black magic' in the media/press?
I've actually given up writing in to explain the difference!

As far as the term 'occult' goes, despite what the church, the media and bad holywood movies would have you believe, the tem just refers to hidden knowedge.
btw this very forum would be refered to a 'occult' by many christian groups who, if it was up to them, would have us all shut down!
Regards,
Douglas

[Fortier Du Lune]

quote:Originally posted by Gandalf

Tarot cards and divining as well. They all rely on the help of spiritual powers and one can open oneself to dark spirits through this stuf
Mustardseed
----------------------------------------------------

Mustardseed, I have used Tarot cards for years, as well as many other forms of oracles and I can't disagree with you enough!
Tarot cards, like any oracle like I ching or runes, are called 'oracles' as they are used to find answers to personal issues by allowing you to communicate with your sub-conscious self, who know more than you do. Tarot cards primary reason is to enlighten the *present* and to give advice on what path to take, while warning of particualr consequences of taking certain decisions.

When you consult an oracle, you are consulting yourself, not demons!

I'm afraid your quote above is an all too common example of christian progaganda which you repeat either without thinking about it or you have swallowed it whole.

I'm sorry about that last post. my computer was acting up. but to my argument. i highly disagree with your debate on whom you communicate with while using forms of oracles and/or divination.  I strongly feel that we only believe what we are communicating to, or who even. some belief systems may feel we talk to demons, some another form of higher power, and some our subconscious, or maybe even our neighbors! But who are we to decide which is correct? the fact is: WE DONT KNOW. nor will we ever i beleive unless the apocolypse engulfs us and the carrots all over the planet start spewing the secrets to life, death, and infinity! That's my personal opinion. No doubt there are many of you that highsly disagree with my argument, but it's my belief that our beliefs shape our beliefs (does that makes sense? oh well). Trying to decide on whether we talk to spirits, demons, gods, or ourselves through oracles and divination would be like deciding the true religious path. Can we truly judge?

Jess

[no_leaf_clover]

quote:You are, and what is more you become, what you desire to be. People mainly seek power through this, and are often corrupted. Be carefull if you play with fire you might get burned. Dont take my word for it though, look up Robert Bruces book for references and look at the problem some people on this thread has gotten themselves into. Make up your own mind.

Where does Robert Bruce say the occult is evil?

And btw, 'astral projection' is considered occult by many, many people.

[Gandalf]

i highly disagree with your debate on whom you communicate with while using forms of oracles and/or divination. I strongly feel that we only believe what we are communicating to, or who even. some belief systems may feel we talk to demons, some another form of higher power, and some our subconscious, or maybe even our neighbors!
Fortier Du Lune_
--------------------------------------------

Tell me how 'spirits' can get involved in interpreting tarot cards?
The only person interpreting them is YOU! Due to the many meanings attributed to each card, your mind starts finding connections between cards and forms a useful piece of advice from the spread.
There is nothing 'mystical' about this it is psychology; for that reason there are many psychologists who use tarot cards to help patients work through problems and make them think about areas of their life that perhaps they had neglected.

At what point can a 'spirit' come into the process? In fact, your mind makes patterns out of many random phenomena on a daily basis, by your argument even lying back and looking at shapes in the clouds invites 'demonic influences', as does interpreting dreams.

Tarot or any oracle follows the same process.
Try to think about what you actually DO when you use tarot cards, or imagine shapes in the fire, or work out what advice your dreams are telling you, and you will see that the 'evil spirit' argument makes no sense. In reality we are influenced by our subconsious all the time, and there are many tools that can help us to gain a bit of clarity as to what it is saying.
To sum, tarot reading is akin to a form of visual psychiatric counciling; but only a true churchman would call that 'evil'.

Douglas

[Fortier Du Lune]

Once again it differs by belief. You may believe the logical sense. But others, including myself, may believe that our subconscious feelings, thoughts, even dreams, may be influenced by other forces. I'm not saying that you're wrong in any way. But your trying to change my beliefs and the beliefs of possibley other people in the world I find rather offensive. You are somewhat applying logical realistic aspects to an indefinite mystical science, if that's the word i could use. By no means do I mean to prove your beliefs wrong in anyway, i'm simply stating that i find them rather narrow-minded in the fact that it is very possible indeed that there are forces outside those of which we see,hear,feel,taste,smell and know. The sensual aspects of life are only the beginning. I believe myself that intuition is gently guided at times by other entities. What those entities are i wont kid myself about. I don't really know at all. It could be that i have an amazing subconscious ability to predict when something's up. But i highly doubt it. Though my intuition and other things, by my own feelings among other things, seem more as if guided by another than simply something that i don't actually know, but i do know at the same time. Hence I have no confidence whatsoever in the fact that I'm telling myself things. Though i don't doubt that our brains may very well find patterns in tarot cards, clouds, dreams, and such, there are many things like ouija boards, intuitive pulls, de ja vu, etc, that i just can't believe are coming from myself. I don't really care about whether you agree with me or not at this point, but i just ask that you don't rule out all possible aspects of something, as it may just be found offensive by someone like me who also like a bit of debate every now and then
I hope you understand where I'm coming from []
Jess

[LogoRat]

Its only Evil depending on how you look at it.

If you are afraid of fire(because you got burned as a child), you might think ppl that are building a campfire would be evil.

If you as a child was jumped on by a friendly playing dog that said woff, you might be afraid of dogs when you are adult and see dogs as evil.

You might think ppl that demolish houses with big machines would be evil if you have never understood that they do it to build something better on that ground and that it is planned and will not harm you.

Occultism is a very huge area, there are some parts in it that a few ppl would consider evil, but that is only because they have a view on reality that is limited. Look beyond your belief and you shall see that what you might think is evil is not evil at all for others.

It is only Evil if you think it is.

[Gandalf]

Fortier Du Lune_
I apologise if I caused offence, that was not my intention; for the record I have no problem with the notion of non-physical forces influencing our minds per say.
The problem I have is the seemingly paranoid notion that by using tarot or any oracle, this is any more risky than everyday life, where we are influenced by our subconscious mind on a constant basis.

What then would you say the difference is? If something can influence us while using tarot cards, it can influence us any time, so why worry about it? Unless you think there is somthing 'evil' about the cards themselves, in which case you must explain why this is the case:

Firstly, for those who think that tarot cards are from the devil, a short history is required:

What we call tarot cards first made their appearence in Medieval Europe around 14th/15th century in Spain, spreading to Italy and the rest of Europe quickly.
Contrary to new age thought, Tarot cards were originally common playing cards, you can find many of the rules for the original games on the net.
After a few years, gifted individuals who specialised in reading fortunes and using oracles, found them useful as a divining tool; up until this time they also used other random gaming devices such as dice etc (but who would say that dice are evil?).
Tarot cards thus began to be used for divining but they also continued to be used for gaming.

During the 18th/19th century when tarot/playing cards were modernised and simplified by many gaming companies (into the modern deck we are familiar with), the old deck continued to be used by the diviners while the general gaming public switched to using the modern deck. At this point the decks went along different paths, and the old deck gradually adopted the mystical connotations that we understand today as tarot.

In the mid to late 19th century several occultist realised the value of these cards as an oracular tool and infused them with further kabbalistic meanings and other occult symbolism. The two greatest results of this project were Waite's deck and Crowley's Thoth tarot, two excellent oracles.

Due to the shared origins of both old and new decks, you can see how both are similar in many respects, but with swords becoming clubs, cups becoming hearts etc, while many of the trumps have survived in a formalised fashion ie king queen etc.
even the death card, which originaly was just a feature of the old gaming deck, became ace of spades.

I am in no way degrading the tarot or any oracle, far from it, but what i am saying is that their origin is not mystical in any way; ignore new agers that try to state that such cards originated in Egypt etc as there is no evidence for this.
Their occult value as an oracle has been quite rightly recognised however, by Crowely, Waite and others, and they have become an indispensible oracular tool to many people around the world.

Douglas

PS I highly recomend downloading some of the original card games for tarot though; it is a great novelty thing to do with you tarot cards and you are also using the cards for their purest and original purpose!

[Gandalf]

I forgot to ask... for those that use Tarot cards, what decks do you prefer? I like the good old Rider-Waite but thats the tradtionalist in me!
Crowely's Thoth tarot is good as well but a little to archetypal for me, requiring a good deal of occult knowledge to understand all the symbols.
What's your opinion on all the modern decks? I think there are some good ones out there but also some real dogs; for tarot cards to be of use, the person who made them has to have a good understanding of subconsious imagery and archetypes, and I suspect that many new decks are just gimmicks to make cash.. eg the Vampire tarot..I mean, come on!

Regards,
Douglas

[greatoutdoors]

Fortier Du Lune,
Please don't get into that old "I'm offended" line -- it's so old it's growing moss! Gandalf was not trying to convert you from or to anything, he was just giving his take on the subject. You know, sort of like you did??? [] If you want to see "offended" check out the Mayatnik posts.

My opinion, for what it's worth, is that Tarot cards are a tool you can use to sort through your choices in life. Is there some "higher power" govering how the spreads come down? I don't know. [?]

Another personal opinion:
The terms "occult", "mystical", "metaphysical", etc. all describe phenomena we just don't understand at the present time. I believe in time we will understand more about how our brains function and will find that what is occult today is just a part of normal physiology tomorrow. I'm not saying there are no other beings "out there" somewhere, I just don't know. I am content to keep practicing and working toward understanding more than I do now. For me, that's hard enough!

Gandalf, can you point me to a website that has rules for games using Tarot cards? I've got some friends I play card games with most weekends and that would absolutely blow their minds! []

Also, if anyone knows of a Tarot deck based on wolves, I would be MOST interested. I've found one so far, but it is pretty crudely done. I want them to look like they'll walk off the page!