FACT AND FABLE IN PSYCHOLOGY
THE MODERN OCCULT
I
If that imaginary individual so convenient for literary illustration, a visitor from Mars, were to alight upon our planet at its present stage of development, and if his intellectual interests induced him to survey the range of terrestrial views of the nature of what is "in heaven above, or on the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth," to appraise mundane opinion in regard to the perennial problems of mind and matter, of government and society, of life and death, our Martian observer might conceivably report that a limited portion of mankind were guided by beliefs representing the accumulated toil and studious devotion of generations,—the outcome of a slow and tortuous but progressive growth through error and superstition, and at the cost of persecution and bloodshed; that they maintained institutions of learning where the fruits of such thought could be imparted and the seeds cultivated to bear still more richly; but that outside of this respectable yet influential minority, there were endless upholders of utterly unlike notions and of widely diverging beliefs, clamoring like the builders of the tower of Babel in diverse tongues.
It is well, at least occasionally, to remember that our conceptions of science and of truth, of the nature of logic and of evidence, are not so universally held as we unreflectingly assume or as we hopefully wish. Almost every one of the fundamental, basal, and indisputable tenets of science is regarded as hopelessly in error by some ardent would-be reformer. One Hampden declares the earth to be a motionless plane with the North Pole as the centre; one Carpenter gives a hundred remarkable reasons why the earth is not round, with a challenge to the scientists of America to disprove them; one Symmes regarded the earth as hollow and habitable within, with openings at the poles, which he offered to explore for the consideration of the "patronage of this and the new worlds;" while Symmes, Jr., explains how the interior is lighted, and that it probably forms the home of the lost tribes of Israel; and one Teed announces, on equally conclusive evidence, that the earth is a "stationary concave cell ... with people, Sun, Moon, Planets, and Stars on the inside," the whole constituting an "alchemico-organic structure, a Gigantic Electro-Magnetic Battery." If we were to pass from opinions regarding the shape of the earth to the many other and complex problems that appeal to human interests, it would be equally easy to collect "ideas" comparable to these in value, evidence, and eccentricity. With this conspicuously pathological outgrowth of brain-functioning,—although its representatives in the literature of the occult are neither few nor far between,—I shall not specifically deal; and yet the general abuse of logic, the helpless flounderings in the mire of delusive analogy, the baseless assumptions, which characterize insane or "crank" productions, are readily found in the literary products of occultism.
The occult consists of a mixed aggregate of movements and doctrines, which may be the expressions of kindred interests and dispositions, but present no essential community of content. Such members of this cluster of beliefs as in our day and generation have attained a considerable adherence or still retain it from former generations, constitute the modern occult. A conspicuous and truly distinctive characteristic of the occult is its marked divergence in trend and belief from the recognized standards and achievements of human thought. This divergence is one of attitude and logic and general perspective. It is a divergence of intellectual temperament, that distorts the normal reactions to science and evidence, and to the general significance and values of the factors of our complicated natures and of our equally complicated environment. At least it is this in extreme and pronounced forms; and shades from it through an irregular variety of tints to a vague and often unconscious susceptibility for the unusual and eccentric, combined with an instability of conviction regarding established beliefs that is more often the expression of the weakness of ignorance than of the courage of independence.
In their temper and course of unfoldment, occult doctrines are likely to involve and to proceed upon mysticism, obscurity, and a disguised form of superstition. In their content, they are attracted to such themes as the ultimate nature of mental action, the conception of life and death, the effect of cosmic conditions upon human events and endowment, the delineation of character, the nature and treatment of disease; or indeed to any of the larger or smaller realms of knowledge that combine with a strong human, and at times a practical interest, a considerable complexity of basal principles and general relations. Both the temper and the content, the manner and the matter of the occult, should be borne in mind in a survey of its more distinctive examples. It is well, while observing the particular form of occultism or mysticism, or, it may be, merely of superstition and error, which one or another of the occult movements exhibits, to note as well the importance of the intellectual motive or temperament that inclines to the occult. It is important to inquire not only what is believed, but what is the nature of the evidence that induces belief; to observe what attracts and then makes converts; to discover what are the influences by which the belief spreads. Two classes of motives or interests are conspicuous: the one prominently intellectual or theoretical, the other moderately or grossly practical. Movements in which the former interest dominates, contain elements that command respect even when they do not engage sympathy; and that appeal, though it may be unwisely, to worthy impulses and lofty aspirations. Amongst the movements presenting prominent practical aspects are to be found instances of the most irreverent and pernicious, as well as of the most vulgar, ignorant, and fraudulent schemes which have been devised to mislead the human mind. Most occult movements, however, are of a mixed character; and in their career, the speculative and the practical change in importance at different times, or in different lands, or at the hands of variously minded leaders. Few escape, and some seem especially designed for the partisanship of that class who are seeking whom they may devour; who, stimulated by the greed for gain or the love of notoriety, set their snares for the eternally gullible. The interest in the occult, however, is under the sway of the law of fashion; and fortunately, many a mental garment which is donned in spite of the protest of reason and propriety, is quietly laid aside when the dictum of the hour pronounces it unbecoming.