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Re:2,178 Occult Books Now Digitized and Put Online by nashashmi on Friday August 15, 2025 @02:15PM (#44915695)
Some people here are reacting like the occult is fake.

Magic is fake. It is an illusion and it is fun and games. And we have lots of stories about it, both fantasy and horror.

Occult is real. There is no such thing as white magic. There is only black magic. And such magic involves making trades with spirits and demons and establishing relationships with them. These demons do not have a code. They slowly guide you towards a state where you humiliate yourself and put yourself in a compromised state. Addicted. Disconnected. Repulsed.

Please be careful around these things. It’s fun until someone dies. As this professional witch will tell you. https://www.facebook.com/shadow.control.en/videos/zhanna-kus...

Re:2,178 Occult Books Now Digitized and Put Online by altruios on Friday August 15, 2025 @02:39PM (#44916005)
I can not take you seriously.

You contradict yourself.

> Magic is fake.

> There is only black magic.

You are talking about demons.

Your link is to a facebook post...

I can not take you seriously.

Re:2,178 Occult Books Now Digitized and Put Online by NoGravitas on Friday August 15, 2025 @04:44PM (#44917060)
Presumably the fake magic is stage magic, while the black magic in question is what we would now distinguish as "magick", and it's silly that they didn't use that spelling.
Re:2,178 Occult Books Now Digitized and Put Online by balamatom on Friday August 15, 2025 @09:40PM (#44919293)
Is SEO occult?
Re:2,178 Occult Books Now Digitized and Put Online by DANmode on Saturday August 16, 2025 @05:53AM (#44921841)
Only if you work at Google.
Re:2,178 Occult Books Now Digitized and Put Online by balamatom on Sunday August 17, 2025 @01:45AM (#44929182)
More like only if you don't?
Re:2,178 Occult Books Now Digitized and Put Online by DANmode on Sunday August 17, 2025 @09:14PM (#44936435)
Depends on if you view Occult as mysterious,

or obvious, and sketchy.

Re:2,178 Occult Books Now Digitized and Put Online by balamatom on Monday August 18, 2025 @10:13AM (#44940847)
More like anti-memetic. Dark forest full of things that actively resist being learned about, you know? And studying them by whatever little info can be gleaned from their outside manifestations.

Beyond the original PageRank algo (which should've been baked into browsers by now, if decentralization was more than a buzzword) Google's rankings work by being secret, no? Also things like app store acceptance criteria - also under the somewhat flimsy excuse that people would game them if they knew what they were. (Some rankings if they're that gamable, lol.) It's there that I draw a strong connection. (Personally I find it a little silly to comply with this modus operandi but the compute vendors are also mysteriously powerful, so that's what we have, complete with cottage industry of SEO ninjas, Agile facilitators, and similar technoshamans.)

Also copy protection and crackers, lol, all "informational arms race" scenarios, or ones where transparency has come to paradoxically erode instead of fortify trust, have a trace of what I've come to refer to as occult. That's why there's quite a bit of superficial similarities between hackery and occultism, and an overlap in aesthetics. But when there's also a conceptual overlap people usually tend to look away, lest they see a fnord or some other wild shit. There are not literal 17th century demons in there (unless someone is particularly fond of the goth out button), but the collective disavowal can occasionally be harnessed to work a lil magicks ;P

Re:2,178 Occult Books Now Digitized and Put Online by nashashmi on Friday August 15, 2025 @10:01PM (#44919442)
Never knew that spelling existed. But yes. That is what was meant.
Re:2,178 Occult Books Now Digitized and Put Online by cess11 on Friday August 15, 2025 @02:59PM (#44916211)
We're already compromised and humiliated, why not bring forth some embers of the Morning Star along the way?
Re:2,178 Occult Books Now Digitized and Put Online by just-working on Friday August 15, 2025 @02:31PM (#44915907)
Exactly. We must turn the LORD and not these demons.
Re:2,178 Occult Books Now Digitized and Put Online by Trasmatta on Friday August 15, 2025 @04:41PM (#44917038)
Sadly, "the LORD" has never done much for me, but diving into the occult has at least been fun!
Re:2,178 Occult Books Now Digitized and Put Online by amanaplanacanal on Friday August 15, 2025 @07:44PM (#44918556)
Some folks think that the Creator is actually a usurper from the real divinity, and that therefore all of creation is inherently evil.
Re:2,178 Occult Books Now Digitized and Put Online by Trasmatta on Friday August 15, 2025 @07:49PM (#44918583)
Gnosticism is also fun!
Re:2,178 Occult Books Now Digitized and Put Online by vixen99 on Saturday August 16, 2025 @04:51AM (#44921520)
Which/Whose Lord?
Re:2,178 Occult Books Now Digitized and Put Online by nashashmi on Saturday August 16, 2025 @07:37AM (#44922345)
Lord is a word used to describe a personal relationship , like “save me my Lord” and “Ask your Lord”. Even when the Lord is being referred to the same God.

The Lord the commenter here is referring to as the ultimate Lord who has no Lord or power above him and who is beholden to no one.

In occult, the idea is to substitute your Lord from the ultimate power to the lower orders. Going back to the comment, he means to say don’t substitute your Lord for someone smaller.

Re:2,178 Occult Books Now Digitized and Put Online by rokkamokka on Friday August 15, 2025 @02:28PM (#44915871)
James Randi comes to mind
Re:2,178 Occult Books Now Digitized and Put Online by nashashmi on Friday August 15, 2025 @10:02PM (#44919449)
Great man he was for debunking fraud. People like him terrify even the black magicians.
Re:2,178 Occult Books Now Digitized and Put Online by NoGravitas on Friday August 15, 2025 @04:43PM (#44917051)
Arthur Waite's "The Book of Ceremonial Magic" is an interesting look at what magic qualifies as white and black magic. For Waite, white magic is that aimed at mystical union with God, so essentially synonymous with Christian mysticism. None of the ceremonial magic he discusses qualifies, and he considered anything practical other than "The Cloud of Unknowing" to be unnecessary and probably useless in that direction. Most of the Renaissance and early modern books he discusses are mostly or all black magic, though some of them include information on contacting angels, which he considers neutral.
Re:2,178 Occult Books Now Digitized and Put Online by nashashmi on Friday August 15, 2025 @10:07PM (#44919487)
Today’s black magic can be traced to the time of King Solomon. He had powers that were of wonder. And people tried to emulate it. There are secret orders that are dedicated to exploring and protecting the information gained from that time.

Two angels were sent down to teach the people magic but each time they taught they told the learners this information will be a great test and temptation to you and lead you to hell. (So why teach it?)