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.