20. Methods Of Defence IV-g

No one has said harder things of the occult movement than I have, and if I thought that there were any organised system of evil influence, I should not hesitate to say so, for I have the integrity of the movement very much at heart; but I honestly do not believe that there is any generalised organisation of the occult movement, whether for good or evil, whatever may be one’s conception of good and evil. One can, of course, only speak of that which one has seen, but I think it would have been impossible for me to have been as intimately associated with that movement as I have been and never to have crossed its trail at any point. I have crossed so many trails, and seen, I will not deny it, so much that was evil, but this particular evil I have not seen, and I do not believe it exists outside the imagination of people with bees in their bonnets. The true nexus of the occult movement is devotion to a common ideal, but this ideal is approached by an infinite diversity of paths, as many as the breaths of the sons of men. I am sorry for the hypothetical person who has the task of organising the occult movement, for occultists of different schools cannot be induced to co-operate. Any technique which differs from that which they are used to is suspect; any unfamiliar contact is black. The great majority of the heads of schools that I have known have sat each in his own circle of light and damned everybody else. Like the old lady who watched her son march past with the Territorials, they exclaim, “They’re all out of step except our Jock.” I had once dreamed of a federation of occult societies with an annual convention, but I soon realised that it was unwork able. If occultists cannot be got to organise to serve their own interests, it is very unlikely that they would ever be got to organise to serve anybody else’s. The most prevalent abuses of Western occultism are immorality, drug-taking and the bamboozling of silly women. Its worst faults are credulity, a slipshod scholarship that verges on illiteracy, and a widespread sappiness of intellect. Fortune-telling in all its forms and some very spurious spiritual healing constitute another slur upon what should be holy ground. It is difficult to do justice to ideals which one does not share, but it has always seemed to me that the highly-coloured humanitarianism with which certain sections of the movement are soaked is not an ornament. “By their fruits ye shall know them.” Such fruits of this as I have seen have appeared to me to be somewhat over-ripe. The finest minds in occultism are totally unknown outside their own Orders. A very common clause in initiation oaths binds the candidate not to reveal the names of his fellow members. If this oath were broken, the general public would get some surprises. Occultism not being in good repute with the general public, men in public positions cannot afford to have their names associated with it; their interest is therefore carefully concealed, and they only speak of it to those upon whose sympathy and discretion they can count. Those who know what to look for, however, can pick them out readily. Anyone who is accustomed to the analysis of literary style can detect the regular reader of the Bible. Anyone who knows the occult rituals will detect their flavour in the literary or oratorical style of a man who is habituated to their use. Perhaps at this length of time I may be forgiven if I break the Oath of the Mysteries that binds to secrecy concerning the names of initiates and suggest that the key to the Bacon-Shakespeare controversy may lie in the fact that Bacon and Shakespeare were members of the same Order?