Occultism See Occult Sciences.

Occult Sciences The science of the secrets of nature-physical and psychic, mental and spiritual; called Hermetic and Esoteric Sciences. In the west, the Cabala may be named; in the east, mysticism, magic, and Yoga philosophy. The latter is often referred to by the Chelas in India as the seventh "Darshana" (school of philosophy), there being only six Darshanas in India known to the world of the profane. These sciences are, and have been for ages, hidden from the vulgar, for the very good reason that they would never be appreciated by the selfish educated classes, who would misuse them for their own profit, and thus turn the Divine science into black magic, nor by the uneducated, who would not understand them. It is often brought forward as an accusation against the Esoteric Philosophy of the Cabala, that its literature is full of "a barbarous and meaningless jargon," unintelligible to the ordinary mind. But do not exact Sciences-medicine, physiology, chemistry, and the rest-plead guilty to the same impeachment? Do not official scientists veil their facts and discoveries with a newly-coined and most barbarous Graeco-Latin terminology? As justly remarked by our late Brother, Kenneth Mackenzie, to juggle thus with words, when the facts are so simple, is the art of the Scientists of the present time, in striking contrast to those of the seventeenth century, who called spades, and not "agricultural implements."

Moreover, whilst their "facts" spades would be as simple, and as comprehensible if rendered in ordinary language, the facts of Occult Science are of so abstruse a nature, that in most cases no words exist in European languages to express them. Finally our "jargon" is a double necessity-(a) for describing clearly these facts to one who is versed in the occult terminology; and (b) for concealing them from the profane.

Occultist One who practices Occultism, an adept in the Secret Sciences, but very often applied to a mere student.

Occult World, The The name of the first book which treated of Theosophy, its history, and certain of its tenets. Written by A.P. Sinnett, then editor of the leading Indian paper, The Pioneer, of Allahabad, India.

Olympiodorus The last Neo-platonist of fame and celebrity in the school of Alexandria. He lived in the sixth century under the Emperor Justinian. There were several writers and philosophers of this name in pre-Christian as in post-Christian periods. One of these was the teacher of Proclus, another a historian in the eighth century, and so on.

Origen A Christian Churchman, born at the end of the second century, probably in Africa, of whom little, if anything, is known, since his biographical fragments have passed to posterity on the authority of Eusebius, the most unmitigated falsifier that has ever existed in any age. The latter is credited with having collected upwards of one hundred letters of Origen (or Origenes Adamantius), which are now said to have been lost. To Theosophists, the most interesting of all the works of Origen is his Doctrine of the Preexistence of Souls. He was a pupil of Ammonius Saccas, and for a long time attended the lectures of this great teacher of philosophy.