I appear to have created a stir with this blog in which I said I had a series of realisations lately and suddenly lost the urge to try sharing serious occult information outside my group. The move prompted claims that I was either making it up, or that there was something wrong with me for not wanting to share. I was being arrogant. But really it has become too difficult.

Sharing has been a big part of my life. When I was at primary school I was more or less suspended as a ring leader of a lunch swapping racket. Kids coming to school who were bored with what their mothers made for them could swap elements of their lunch for someone else’s. The kids thought it was great, the school administration thought it was wrong. At the age of five I was banned from the school grounds during lunch break and had to go to my sister’s kindergarten for lunch.

My life as a journalist has been about sharing stories and information. My first occult group Builders of the Adytum blocked my advancement into its Chapter because the leader Will Chesterman was frightened that I might share the order’s secrets because I was a journalist. As a technology journalist I was a big fan of open source against the proprietary Apple and Microsoft. My books have all been about sharing ideas that I had about various forms of occult technology. All this was to a point that I believed sharing my occult discoveries was my remit. Instinctively I still feel that way, but it is clear that I was wrong.

Occult realisations

Realisations are like rainwater on stone. They are harmless until they freeze and crystalise and shatter the rock which was once their home. I have been working on Greek and Roman magic and Theurgy. I was chatting to someone about it and suddenly I realised that I not only believed something I was actually living it. Other occult ideas followed.

My instinct was to write about it and share. Detail how I got to that point and what changes it was making. I started to put out some notes and found myself shouted done by the usual internet clowns. This was par for the course and I normally expected it. But this time it was different.

This occult information was too personal to go through that particular trial by fire. I did not want to argue such life changing magical visions and experiences with those who really only wanted to assert their own intellectual superiority. It was not that I thought my ideas were right, or better than theirs – they just were and they didn’t need defending.

But this meant not sharing occult information, or at least sharing it with those who would not play those games or wanted to learn how to get to the same place. There was little chance that those who listened to my description would have been particularly excited by it. In fact intellectually there was little to it, but there was certainly a reality to it. It would be understandable for someone to say “you put yourself through all that for THAT how does that help humanity?” The only answer to that is “if you have an experience which is like that you would know.” The whole sharing system breaks down because communication fails. It is not because there is a big occult secret it is because it requires two people to be able to meet half-way.

Within my own group where people have worked on similar lines for a while and know where I am coming from, that is possible. But a general sharing is not. Someone like me cannot articulate what it is about something that makes it so important. It is like an emotion, a memory and a colour and powered by an image. But it does something – something very personal which cannot be shared.

Once you realise that there are some occult things which can’t be shared, you realise that some of the material which gets you to that place should not be either. Again, it is not because it is secret, it is because it is irrelevant to those whose spiritual path is not yours. What is the point of finding something important about Homer’s Iliad if someone thinks their spiritual path is about summoning a Christian demon? How important are Ancient Greek mantras to those who masturbate on homemade sigils? What use is it to talk about changing nature of the Western Magic to someone who shouts loudly that they were all copied from a superior Indian spiritual culture?

It is not saying that there is anything wrong with these paths or ideas, just that they don’t need my material. They will get their own realisations in their own way.

It is sad, but it is inevitable. It does not mean I stop writing about magic and the occult. It just means that sharing is only of a certain type. Sure it might have an edge caused by my experiences and they will reflect in my writing. But it is impossible to exchange occult information like I used to share my hundreds and thousands sandwiches.