Esoteric Halloween Special
On Halloween Eve, the souls of the damned and the demons enter the world with their fullest fury: their ethereal energy is at an apogee. Since the time of year for it has come, I will be revealing profound forbidden knowledge from tomes locked away in dusty, forgotten libraries over the centuries. You will learn sinister séances, wretched rituals and speak in twisted tongues from blasphemous books. Now, go forth and become a master of dark arts, and learn to bend reality to your will, as long as you are willing to pay the price. If you think that doing so will not break your spirit, read on at your own peril. Your soul, however, will never be the same.
If you’ve read the first paragraph in full, you probably realized that I am messing around. I have no magical secrets to teach you. I don’t enter into parlance with demons. While I do not believe these things are entirely made up, I am sure that 99% of those who are involved with these things have little to no clue about what they are talking about, and/or are willingly deceitful towards either themselves or other around them.
As I see it, there is no grimoire that can be read or incantation that can be recited to make people truly “understand” the esoteric. The genuine understanding and belief in the spiritual is primarily based on three things: faith, revelation and experience. The latter two are closely connected. Without those things, you are engaging in half-hearted performance art at best.
It is not so different for religion. This is not a critique of religion itself, but rather the understanding many of those who call themselves believers have of it, regardless of their specific beliefs. One can read a text and agree, and it can make perfect sense to them, or they can listen to a story being told and understand it and all its messages. However, if nothing occurs to reinforce their faith, namely, something related to it that feels “real” rather than “fantastical” to them, their beliefs merely rely on what they conjure or connect in their head from elsewhere to support it.
This is not to say that something is not real or did not happen because a human has not experienced it himself or herself. But a human needs an experience like this to truly be convinced of something. Otherwise, I do not believe their faith will ever be the strongest that it could be, and it is likely to wane with time. This is a large reason why many people nowadays do not consider themselves religious or spiritual: simply, they do not feel a connection with something that they’ve not read, seen, or heard.
That said, it doesn’t mean those things are necessarily false or that lack of belief is a “correct” position; they simply do not have a connection, for one reason or another. One who is an admitted atheist is more honest with themselves than someone who engages in performative actions but does not truly “feel” God. The latter merely apes what they observe from others and hopes that they will eventually develop this. In truth, this connection is not something that you can force, and those who try to force it open will find it ever harder to reach.
Conversely, there is an honesty in many people who claim to have been touched by God, the divine, or even demons. To many of them, it feels very real, regardless of a spiritual connection, or their mind convincing them that they have had one. Of course, for others, it is a great con, and they take advantage of those who have never felt such an experience and desperately want to feel vindicated.
I myself would say I am religious – though, I would not say I am conventionally devout – and I have my own experiences, most of which I cannot be open about. The “stranger would likely look at me like I was crazy” trope applies here. There is a confirmation given to me by the revelation from these experiences. Even if I have doubts about other things I’ve read or heard other people say, I have a foundation to fall back on and cross-reference.
Experience is the strongest foundation of faith in anything. That is not to say you can’t convince, bully or trick people into believe other things, whether they be spiritual or not. But what you gain from experience is not something anyone can take away from you or easily contest.
You can “teach” the esoteric, but it all exists in a nebulous cloud between truth and falsehood until something does, or does not happen. So, use voodoo magic, or some incantation you found off of /x/ to summon a demon into your living room at your own risk. Nothing will happen. Probably. In any case, you will learn something from the experience. Experience will teach you in ways nothing else can. Experience will give you faith, or rob you of it.