Social Meanings of the Occult

Abstract

Data from a participant-observational study of the tarot are used to explore the social meanings of modern occultism and to examine certain rival contentions about these beliefs, practices, adherents, and the manner in which activities are or are not organized socially. Unlike collective behavioral audiences, which employ occultisms as a form of popular entertainment, the occult practitioners reported here participate in an “esoteric community” involving practitioner-client relations, social networks, and small cult-like groups. Although the occult tarot constitutes an elaborate theosophy, contemporary adherents selectively subscribe to these doctrines and they freely mix the occult, other esoteric teachings, and elements of traditional culture. When the tarot is used in a divinatory fashion as a service to the general public for pay, problems of legitimacy commonly arise. Occultists in the community deal with this problem by presenting themselves as “professionals.” Within the nominally pluralistic climate of American society, occultisms thereby become another path to dealing meaningfully with life's problems and expressing individual identity. Organized in terms of loose collections of practitioners and groups and supported by the larger cultic milieu, occult communities represent an adaptation to modern society which is likely to persist long after particular groups fail or particular individuals move on to other social scenes.

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