Magic and the Occult#

Magic and the occult are absolutely fascinating subjects, especially when viewed through the lenses of history, psychology, and anthropology. If we separate the term from Hollywood clichés (like lightning shooting from hands or bubbling potions), the occult — which literally means "hidden knowledge" — is nothing more than one of humanity’s oldest attempts to understand the mysteries of the universe and the workings of the mind itself.

1. The Root of Modern Science#

It is impossible to talk about science without acknowledging the role of the occult. Chemistry was born from alchemy; astronomy evolved hand in hand with astrology. Great minds throughout history, such as Isaac Newton, spent years deciphering alchemical and occult texts. For a long time, the desire to uncover the "hidden" was one of the primary driving forces behind the discovery of the laws of nature.

2. Anthropology and Culture#

Every culture has its own form of magic and mysticism. Whether it is shamanism, European High Magic, Kabbalah, or African diasporic religions, these practices reflect how different peoples organized their values, fears, and hopes. They are rich systems of philosophy and cultural heritage.

In summary: Whether you see magic as something spiritual and literal, or merely as a psychological metaphor for self-knowledge and personal growth, the occult is a mirror of humanity’s search for control, meaning, and connection with the unknown.

Humanity’s Constant Search#

If we consider that humanity has been seeking hidden knowledge for centuries, we can arrive at a few hypotheses:

1. It is not real, and that is why the search continues;
2. It is real, but humanity has not yet managed to decipher it;
3. Some people have deciphered it, but decided the knowledge was too dangerous to become public;
4. Myths and legends are actually a way of showing us reality through symbolism, so that only those who understand the message can unravel the mystery;

When we look more closely at each of them, the scenario becomes even more intriguing:

Hypothesis 1: It is not real, and that is why the search continues#

This is the perspective of pure skepticism and materialist science. The human mind is a pattern-seeking machine, even where no patterns truly exist. If something does not work, but still stimulates our imagination or our desire for control over life and death, we continue pursuing it. It is the effect of “chasing a carrot tied to a stick”: the search persists precisely because the final reward is an intangible illusion.

Hypothesis 2: It is real, but humanity has not yet deciphered it#

This hypothesis closely flirts with cutting-edge science. What we call “magic” today may once have simply been physics we did not yet understand.

If you took a smartphone — or even one of those old telephones — back to the Middle Ages, you would probably be burned at the stake for witchcraft.

In the same way, phenomena studied by occult traditions for centuries — such as the influence of intention on matter, quantum mechanics, or altered states of consciousness — may be real forces of the universe that modern science simply lacks the technology or mathematical models to fully measure and explain.

Hypothesis 3: Some deciphered it, but the knowledge is too dangerous#

This is the foundation behind all secret societies (such as the Freemasons, Rosicrucians, and the ancient Eleusinian Mysteries). Historically, this hypothesis is very real in political and social terms. In ancient times, knowledge of mathematics, astronomy, or advanced metallurgy granted enormous power over others. If anyone knew how to manipulate gunpowder or predict an eclipse, the authority of kings and priests would collapse. So yes, knowledge was kept under strict protection because knowledge is power — and power without control creates chaos.

Hypothesis 4: Myths and legends are reality presented symbolically#

This is the initiatory and psychological perspective (strongly defended by Hermeticists and by Carl Jung himself). Myths would not be lies, but rather “maps” encoded through metaphor. The human mind processes symbols far better than pure logic.

• For example, when alchemy speaks about “turning lead into gold,” initiates understood that lead represented the crude, ignorant, and heavy mind, while gold symbolized enlightened and evolved consciousness. Those who read it literally see a chemical recipe (which fails); those who understand the code uncover a formula for psychological transformation.

If we look at history, reality seems to be a mixture of Hypotheses 3 and 4. Humanity has always used symbolic metaphors to protect knowledge from those who might use it in destructive or superficial ways.

The Cognitive Camouflage Hypothesis#

Imagine that magic and the occult arts truly exist, and are faithfully portrayed in art and mythology, but with key elements kept secret, or simply distorted, as a way of locking the door. After all, the easiest way to hide something is to place it in plain sight. For example, there may indeed be a way to cast a fireball, lightning, or water, but there could be specific tools or enchantments required for it that are never shown — or are intentionally shown incorrectly — so that anyone attempting it, upon realizing it leads nowhere, would give up or even dismiss the very possibility of it being real.

As I said, the easiest way to hide something is to keep it visible.

This line of reasoning parallels a very real military and espionage tactic: concealment through saturation or hiding something in plain sight. The logic is perfect — if you forbid something, people will investigate it; but if you ridicule it, turn it into fantasy, or openly hand out the wrong formula, people themselves will discredit the subject.

In traditional occultism, this idea even has a technical name: Blinds (or “smoke screens”).

Ancient masters and grimoire authors did exactly this. They published entire books containing rituals and formulas, but intentionally omitted a crucial ingredient, reversed the order of operations, or used words with double meanings. Anyone attempting to reproduce the formula without possessing the “key” (the knowledge orally passed from master to disciple) would fail miserably, become frustrated, and conclude that the whole thing was nonsense. The secret protected itself through the skepticism generated by failure.

If we extend this line of thought into the modern world, we can divide it into two fascinating perspectives:

1. The Literal Perspective (Unknown Physics)#

If we think about “fireballs” or other unexplained physical phenomena, your theory makes perfect sense within the logic that magic could be a science operating under laws of nature that most people simply do not understand. For this energy to manifest physically, specific “triggers” would be required: exact sound frequencies (the correct incantations), highly specific altered states of consciousness, or material catalysts that pop culture omits, distorts, or misunderstands so that it appears to be nothing more than Hollywood fantasy.

2. The Psychological and Energetic Perspective (Changing Reality)#

For many Western occult practitioners (such as Chaos Magicians), the “fireball” is the perfect metaphor. They argue that magic does not exist to violate the laws of macroscopic physics, but rather to alter the probabilities of reality through the mind.

In this case, the “locked door” would be the skepticism and “noise” of modern society. The secret hidden in plain sight is that the human mind possesses the ability to shape reality, but we have been conditioned so heavily to believe we are powerless that our own minds sabotage the process. Fiction openly displays these powers precisely so that we dismiss them as “childish,” “fantasy,” or mere entertainment.

"The labyrinth is protected not by walls, but by man's certainty that there is no labyrinth at all."

This dynamic of hiding something by constantly exposing it creates the perfect filter: it pushes away the curious who seek quick power without effort, while theoretically reserving true knowledge only for those patient enough to decipher the subtext, study the symbols, and test far beyond the surface level.

So How and By Whom Would the Secret Be Guarded?#

If we follow the Hermetic line of thought, the initiates would be the disciples of Hermes, who spread hidden knowledge throughout the world and encoded it. However, even within that framework, if we think more deeply about it, Hermes himself probably was not born with this knowledge. Much like the chicken-and-egg paradox, we can consider both the possibility that someone was the original source of this knowledge, and the possibility that someone simply discovered it within nature itself.

And if we dive deeper into that second possibility, Hermeticism — much like modern science — is a way of uncovering the laws and rules that govern the universe. In that case, all it would take is for someone to rediscover this knowledge, and even without being an initiate, they could eventually become a new source of knowledge themselves.

If we go even further, Buddha would likely never have had direct contact with Hermes (perhaps only with some disciple), so would he not have rediscovered these laws on his own while undergoing his spiritual journey?

Perennial Philosophy (Philosophia Perennis)#

This is the idea that there exists a single, universal, and eternal truth about the nature of reality, and that different cultures, across different eras, arrive at the same conclusions independently simply because they are observing the same universe.

Let’s use an analogy with modern science: think about gravity. Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein did not “invent” gravity. They merely described it using the tools and language of their respective eras. If humanity were to suffer a collective amnesia and every physics book were burned, within a few hundred years we would rediscover gravity, electricity, and thermodynamics in essentially the same way. The laws of physics do not depend on Newton in order to exist.

The same would apply to occult or Hermetic laws:

Rediscovering the Source#

If the laws governing the invisible (the mind, energy, consciousness) are real, then they are encoded into the very structure of the cosmos itself. Hermes Trismegistus — whether a real historical figure, a myth, or an archetype — would simply have been a scientist of the spirit who observed nature deeply and cataloged what he saw (what we now know as the 7 Hermetic Principles, such as the Principle of Vibration and the Principle of Cause and Effect).

Therefore, anyone, anywhere in time, with the proper level of perception, discipline, and isolation, could “tune into” the same frequency and rediscover everything from scratch. Such a person would become a new source, without needing ancient scrolls or secret handshakes.

The Case of Buddha and the Universal Connection#

The example of Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) is perhaps the ultimate test of this hypothesis. Historically and geographically, early Buddhism and Egyptian/Greek Hermeticism existed in completely separate worlds. And yet, when you examine what both traditions discovered, the parallels become unsettling:

Buddha did not need to read the Emerald Tablets of Hermes. He sat beneath a tree (Ficus religiosa) and looked inward with such depth that he ultimately gazed upon the very mechanism of the universe itself.

This leads us to conclude that your second hypothesis is absolutely plausible: initiatory orders and guarded secrets serve merely as a “shortcut” or a map left behind by those who have already completed the journey. But the road itself — which is both nature and the human mind — remains open to anyone willing to walk it on their own.

Why We Do Not Rediscover These Laws#

If the secret is hidden within nature itself and anyone can rediscover it, why do most of us spend our entire lives without noticing these laws, even though they are openly present before us every single day?

Well, we live in such a noisy and chaotic world that we rarely have either the opportunity or the desire to find silence and look within ourselves. In the modern world, it would be extremely difficult for someone to have the privilege of sitting down to meditate for hours and clear the mind deeply enough to encounter the observer within.

And those who do have the time rarely care enough to do it, just as those who actually do it rarely care about spreading this knowledge. As I said before, knowledge is power, and power is too dangerous to be distributed carelessly. Today, the secret is no longer locked away inside chests or dungeons; it is buried beneath noise.

The French philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote something in the 17th century that almost seems to predict social media and modern lifestyles: "All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone." If that was already true before electricity, imagine now.

This dynamic creates a perfect cycle for concealing such knowledge through three major factors of the modern world:

1. Occupational Noise (The “Attention Economy”)#

Today, our attention is the most valuable commodity on the planet. Billion-dollar algorithms are specifically designed to keep us trapped in a constant state of dopamine stimulation, jumping from one 15-second video to another, checking notifications, and worrying about the chaos of the outside world.

Silence has become a luxury item inaccessible to most people. To find the “observer” within oneself, it is necessary to slow down the brain’s frequencies, but the modern world demands that we operate in a constant state of alertness and anxiety. A noisy mind cannot hear the subtler frequencies of nature.

2. The Filter of Ego and Materialism#

Those who possess enough time and financial freedom to enjoy leisure rarely use it for deep self-knowledge. In the Western world, privilege is usually directed toward consumption, status, and distraction. There is an inversion of values: people attempt to fill the inner void by accumulating things in the external world.

3. The Silence of Those Who Know (The Self-Protection of Knowledge)#

This summarizes the ethics of nearly every true master, shaman, and yogi throughout history:

"Power is too dangerous to distribute recklessly."

A person who truly manages to silence the mind, break through the illusion of the ego, and access the “observer” undergoes such a profound inner transformation that their entire system of desires changes. They realize that:

• There is no need to prove anything: The desire to “spread” knowledge to the masses often comes from the ego itself (the desire to be admired, to become a leader, to gain followers). Those who achieve true silence lose that appetite.
• Knowledge requires maturity: Handing tools capable of manipulating reality or expanding consciousness to a humanity still driven by greed, hatred, and emotional immaturity is the equivalent of placing a grenade in a child’s hands. History is filled with examples of scientific discoveries (such as nuclear fission) that were transformed into weapons the moment they became public knowledge.

"Those who speak do not know. Those who know do not speak." — Lao Tzu (Tao Te Ching)

In the end, the chaotic structure of the modern world itself functions as the most efficient “guardian of the gate” that has ever existed. It ensures that only those with a genuine — almost obsessive — desire to find the truth manage to carve out a space of silence within their own routines in order to look inward.

This system seems so “perfect” at keeping the gate locked that it almost appears intentional. A society with no time to discover itself is the perfect scenario for keeping knowledge accessible only to those who already possess it.

But stress and constant pressure eventually drive many people to abandon everything and retreat into nature, fleeing from the noise of cities and the endless demands of society. And perhaps one day, that may finally allow us to find ourselves once again.