How I Became an Occultist

I’ve been interested in magic for pretty much my entire life. I was one of those kids who was inherently unsatisfied with life as it was, and felt like there needed to be more out there. I left offerings for fairies and unicorns in the woods behind my house. I was sad that my dreams didn’t consist of riding unicorns and dancing with princes at royal balls. I genuinely thought that I needed to stumble through a portal into a fantasy world before my childhood ended, because “once you grow up, you cannot go back.” I was terrified that I would lose my capacity to believe in magic when I reached adulthood, since every story warned me that that would be the case: Grown-ups didn’t believe in Santa Claus (learning that Santa wasn’t real was a brutal blow, but not a mortal one). Susan loses the ability to return to Narnia. And the Disney Fairies books stated outright that whenever a child grows up and stops believing in fairies, a fairy dies, so you should clap your hands to save them. (This is part of the original Peter Pan lore from the stage play, as a bit of audience participation. But still. Imagine how it feels to read that as a child.) My quest to find magic had a ticking clock.

This is a bit ironic in hindsight. I know more about magic now than I ever did as a child, and I simply could not have acquired most of that knowledge and skill back then. As a child, I dipped my toes into every field of science (motivated by Magic School Bus episodes and other kids’ science media). As an adult, I’ve dipped my toes into every field of (Western) magic, and I’ve become something of a jack-of-all-trades occultist. I have very good general knowledge of Western occultism, especially for my age. The foundations of that knowledge were laid when I was still a kid.

For a while, I was obsessed with the Ology series of books, which were some of the most beautiful, immersive, and creatively-made kids books out there! The original book in the series was Dragonology, a field guide to dragons that was written like a series of ecological notes, describing dragons species’ biology, habitats, behavior, etc. with samples of their skin and so forth. The other books (Mythology, Egyptology, Vampirology, etc.) are similar, presenting field-guide-style information about the subject matter in encyclopedic two-page spreads, with a framing device that tells an overarching story about the book’s “author.” The interactive parts of these books — tactile samples, removable cards and other pieces, books-within-books, etc. — were by far the best part. Of all these books, my favorite was Wizardology, which (to my child mind) might as well have been an actual grimoire:

First of all, the book is beautiful. It has lovely, striking art and early-modern-style diagrams, text, and designs. Its conceit is that it was written by Merlin to train the next generation of wizards. I was convinced that there had to be some real magic in it somewhere. I poured over it, solving its secret puzzles and codes (which I remember being disappointing, à la “BE SURE TO DRINK YOUR OVALTINE!”), and attempting some of its spells, to no avail. But here’s the thing — I was fucking right! There actually was some real magic worked into this book. In fact, there’s more real occultism in this book than in any other children’s book I’ve seen! Written in the inside cover is the ABRACADABRA charm, which was a real talisman. The word was written repeatedly, with one letter disappearing each time, so that it formed an inverted triangle. Wearing it on one’s person would encourage a disease to disappear, like the letters. The back cover of the book includes the SATOR square, another written spell that was supposed to put out fires and prevent disaster (the oldest version of it appears scrawled on a wall in Pompeii). This book also introduced me to real “wizards” like Paracelsus, Agrippa, and John Dee. It also includes an actual correspondence table (which I couldn’t make heads or tails of as a child), an image of a real Jupiter talisman, a woodcut-style illustration based on the famous one of Dr. Faust, and the myth of Cerridwen and Gwion (told in full). I learned more legit magic from this book than I realized, it just didn’t mean anything to me as a kid. As a kid, you expect magic to be waving wands and brewing potions, you don’t expect it to be diagrams and word tables

The other big childhood influence on my occult study was The Sorcerer’s Companion, a guide on the myths and lore behind Harry Potter, by Elizabeth and Allan Zola Kronzek. The influence that Harry Potter itself had on me is the topic of another post— it definitely spurred and maintained my interest in magic, but also monopolized my perspective on it for a while. The Sorcerer’s Companion wasn’t really about Harry Potter, per se; rather, it used Harry Potter as a framing device to talk about real-world history and mythology. This book introduced me to a lot of the topics and ideas I study now: ceremonial magic, natural magic, witch trials, tarot cards, cunning folk, alchemy, and a lot of folklore. I also treated this book kind of like a grimoire, or like an occult encyclopedia. It was the closest thing to a true occult book I had at the time. This book created the illusion that Rowling was more knowledgeable about the history of magic than she actually was.

I remember reading this book and thinking that real magic sounded complicated and inaccessible. Why do I have to make a wand by cutting a branch at the new moon with a new knife, and then whittle it myself? How am I supposed to do that? (I still feel that way sometimes, but now I know enough to intelligently cut corners.) I wanted to do magic so badly I could taste it, but it seemed so difficult and impractical, and I wasn’t sure how to get over that hump. I thought I’d never really learn or understand ceremonial magic. As usual, I neglected to consider that life is long, and there’s a lot of opportunity to learn things. I wish I could turn back to my child self and tell her that she would one day understand all this stuff, well enough to call herself a wizard.

Beyond that, I didn’t discover “real” magic until I was about thirteen, when I stumbled across Wiccan websites. (I completely forget how, I think it was just fated.) These sites informed me that magic was in fact real, and that there was a way to be a witch in real life. I latched onto it like a strangler fig. If there was a way to do real magic, then by the gods, I was gonna learn it! So I did the basic stuff that all newbie witches start with: drawing down the moon, spell bags, circle castings. And I felt stuff! It clicked fast. Wicca also fit nicely into my new interest in comparative religion.

I never really intended to become Wiccan. I became Wiccan because I thought that celebrating Sabbats, invoking the goddess by drawing down the moon, and saying things like “blessed be” and “merry meet” were just things that witches did. I thought I had to do them to be a witch myself, and while I understood that there was a religious component, I thought Wicca was some modern adaptation of a primordial ur-religion. That turned out to not be true, and that was pretty damn devastating. (Same thing with the comparative religion.) I ended up sticking with paganism, because it suited me, but I treated paganism and occultism as separate fields from that point forward. “Witchcraft” dominated the discussion on occultism up through the 2010s, so I didn’t even know what my options were. And when I discovered those options — when I discovered just how many subfields of occultism there were — the floodgates opened.

The most recent picture of my magical library. Don’t ask how many of these I’ve actually read.

I don’t have an occult library, I have five occult libraries: One on witchcraft and folk magic, one on alchemy, one on ceremonial magic and classic occultism, one on Ancient Greek magic and mysticism, and one of general occult scholarship. And some misc stuff in between. It’s hard to fit all of that on one bookshelf. I routinely run out of space every birthday and Christmas, and have to rearrange the bookshelf again. I get some books just to cite them. I get other books because they seem cool and interesting, and then read them to find almost no new information. Then there are the books I get just to have in my collection. (Do I need a hard copy of the Lesser Key of Solomon? No, but what occult library doesn’t have a Lesser Key of Solomon?) I’m very proud of this collection! The image above isn’t even everything, it’s just what fits on that bookshelf! The Red Book is one of the jewels of that collection, and it’s the size of a coffee table.

I’ve dedicated the last twelve years of my life to this. I have dedicated so much time, mental energy, and resources to this pursuit. It’s one of the great pursuits of my life.

As for my actual practice, I practice pretty irregularly — frequently enough that I’m not an armchair magician, but less frequently than I’d like. Despite having gotten into occultism for the sake of casting spells, that turned out to not be my greatest strength. My greatest strength is mysticism, interacting with gods and receiving arcane and philosophical knowledge directly from them. I have an extraordinary natural aptitude for mysticism. That’s not me bragging, that’s just a fact. I have mystical experiences at the drop of a hat (relatively speaking). So, that means that my actual aptitudes are backwards relative to the way most occult books are structured; most books work up to the mysticism, spirit communication, astral travel, katabasis and so forth. I started there. The “easy” spellwork stuff, the stuff that involves physical materials and physical effects, does not come as naturally to me. So, I’ve had to structure my practice kind of weirdly. And I’m probably underselling my practical achievements. For being entirely self-taught and self-guided (and completely undisciplined), I’m pretty far along in my initiation. If I were to compare my progress to a traditional system of initiation, I’m at least a journeyman, if not an adept.

Then I went to Yale for grad school. My actual degree was in medieval studies, but I basically used that as an excuse to go through the Beinecke’s amazing collection of occult manuscripts. I thought I’d be lucky if it had only one or two occult manuscripts. Nope, it had an entire collection, with some truly impressive holdings, including the oldest known Ars Notoria, a Ripley Scroll, alchemical writings of Isaac Newton, commentaries by A.E. Waite in his own hand, and a long list of medieval and early modern alchemical works with gorgeous illustrations. I comprehended that I hit the jackpot when my paleography teacher (who happened to be a specialist in alchemy) took me aside to show me the Ripley Scroll.

Opening the Ars Notoria, and seeing those diagrams for the first time, was one of the best moments in my entire life.

Magical diagrams from the oldest known copy of the Ars Notoria. Photo by me.

After spending my whole childhood wishing for some real magic, I got to see and touch a real medieval spellbook! This is one of those moments that felt like something out of a movie. It felt inherently fantastical. Again, I wish I could turn back to my child self and tell her that one day she’d get to see real magic books — not just books about magic, but the real deal, on parchment and everything — for herself. So, my adulthood is more magical than my childhood. But why shouldn’t that be? The irony is that this is the kind of experience that I could only have as an adult, and that I could only really appreciate as an adult.

In fact, most of my current knowledge about magic and occultism would have been lost on me as a kid (as evidenced by the real magic in Wizardology going over my head). Certain kinds of magical logic and skills come naturally to children, but the actual systems and techniques of Western esotericism (mostly) aren’t something a child could do. The complicated philosophy that underlies it is mostly beyond a child’s understanding. Not to mention all of the scholarly skills that are necessary: writing essays, research skills, reading primary sources, analyzing them in context, consulting other scholars, translating Latin (badly), etc. I also care very much about the quality of my scholarship, keeping information thorough and accurate, and citing good sources, all of which I learned how to do in school. I apply all of that to my occult study, which is basically an intellectually demanding and expensive hobby.

I’m lucky enough to have spent my education studying things I’m really interested in, like magic. Years of humanities studies have equipped me with the scholarly skills I need to study it, and some natural ability also helps. I’m lucky to have amassed so many occult books. I’m lucky to have had my experiences with real grimoires and alchemical texts in grad school. I’m lucky to have a supportive family that didn’t mind me burning candles and incense in my room, and doing other weird things.

All that, and I’m only 26.

I’m not currently working as an occult scholar in any professional capacity, but esotericism is so understudied that maybe it doesn’t even matter. Besides, I’m more interested in conveying all of this to laypeople than I am in publishing original research in academic journals for five other people. That’s part of why I share all of this information online. This is clearly one of my callings in life, and I’m gonna keep following it.