Andrew Sage

However, there is a resistance to the kind of academic styling that we saw very prevalent at this conference to talk about the occult

more generally as an area of study in addition to just idiosyncratic practice or part of a larger social neo-pagan movement, which is, again, very much the focus of most U.S.-based conferences.

As an editorial note, when we're talking about magic, to clarify, we're not talking about stage magicians.

We're referring to magic with a K, that is rituals and practices based on occult knowledge that seeks to cause change in accordance with will, whether that's change within yourself or in our consensus reality.

Occult magical practice can also serve as a form of spirituality, mysticism, an alternative religious practice, or an alternative to religion, with its beliefs and praxis largely influenced by historical esoteric orders, mystery traditions, paganism, witchcraft, herbalism, astrology, hermetic philosophy, and alchemy.

And all these things are influences.

I'm not saying that the actual historic manifestations of these things are the same

as the modern occult practices that are influenced by these things, because often these can be wildly varying, especially when you talk about things like witchcraft and alchemy, which have been misinterpreted or reconstructed into completely new forms than what the historical manifestation of them actually contained.

But a lot of modern day occultism has manifested as an individually mediated spirituality,

containing some of the group ritual or ritual aspects of something like Catholicism, but with the individuality of Protestantism.

Many conferences have an opening ceremony, and as I previously mentioned, a culture had an opening ritual.

This accomplishes a very similar goal to any opening ceremony, to get attendees in a certain headspace, prepare them for the rest of the conference, and set a certain mood in which the rest of the events will kind of follow suit.

The occulture opening ritual called upon the attendees' demiurgic capacity, how they are part of creating the reality of what this conference is and how it will continue for the next few days.

Back to the panel.

The framing of the ritual was a blindfolded woman holding the scales of balance, and each person put a intention for the week or for the conference or for themselves into a stone, which was handed out to each person who entered the ritual.

And at a certain point, these stones were placed onto the scales of balance to create an equilibrium between the two sides of the scale, along with, you know, chanting, meditation, and a lot of incense.

A significant deal of incense, given that we were in a former German forge warehouse.

The billowing smoke that existed throughout the conference from fires to incense to various other inflammatory items was rather impressive.

But in terms of actual ritual design, it met several elements that I found to be rather impressive.

One, it was encompassing of all of those elements that we would later expect to see in the actual body of the conference itself.