Occult history has changed our America. Perhaps more so, my America, feasibly my bantam world.
Occult birthed me a second birth, a growing and milking wide-eyed admiration. It offered me a mystic view of the universe from a 5’3 perception. Yes, it looks very vast from here.
They say what you’re passionate about when you are young will hint at your true self. My awe of reading Goosebumps at nine and an absent of fear in graveyards at night most likely didn’t raise an eyebrow in my mother. When I had my first babysitting job and discovered an Ouija board in the basement, I was thrilled when my employer let me take it home. Once I hit my adult years I found myself a clairvoyant and clairaudient with a passion for crystal magic and spirituality. My interests were a tip-off to a world that didn’t seem so fictional or even far away. While my judgement upsurges with age, this childhood captivation remains and manifests.
By definition, the occult is supernatural and magical beliefs, practices, and phenomena. This doesn’t limit astrology, religion, divination, or spiritualism. American soil has been soaked with these influences since the late seventieth century eventually aiding in the progression to today’s model of religion universality.
According to the book Occult America: White House Séances, Ouija Circles, Masons, and the Secret Mystic History of Our Nation by Mitch Horowitz, tracking the history begins with the American colonies who gained a status for counterattack against the Elizabethan age and its spirituality.
“Freemasonry, Renaissance occultism, and Christian mysticism formed the wave of alternative spiritual
ity that eventually swept the nation and the world. Esoteric figures and ideas also placed a real and long-range impact on the society’s culture and politics,” according to Horowitz.
In Horowitz’s written article on his book, he credits four out of many individuals for sparking the spiritual revolution in America. The first person credited is Johannes Kelpius, a young scholar who directed pilgrims in 1694 to a colony on the Wissahickson creek on the edge of Philadelphia. Kelpius believed the world was going to end in 1694 based on a passage from the biblical Book of Revelation which led him to moving his followers.
The second is a woman named Mother Ann Lee from Manchester, England who ran from her charges of witchcraft and brought the Shaking Quakers (AKA: The Shakers) to the New World in 1775, debuting one of the first religious communes. Lee was the leader of the Shakers, a name in which originated from their worship of overjoyed dancing. She was known for performing miracles, such as healing the sick.
In 1776, Jemima Wilkinson was a twenty-four woman who claimed to have resurrected from the dead to return as a supernatural medium. She was the first female religious leader born in America. She also claimed to be sent by God, who entered her body in order to preach his messages. After this rise from death, she became the “Publick Universal Friend” and never went by Jemima again.
Lastly, Horowitz credits Andrew Jackson Davis an American Spiritualist who spoke of his visions of Heaven as “a place that included all of the world’s people – blacks, whites, Indians, salves, and followers of every faith.” He was known as “t
he Poughkeepsie Seer” after self-proclaiming himself as a clairvoyant.
The tolerance in premature America created a bond with occult and liberalism. Since women could be religious leaders, especially in Spiritualism where they contacted the dead ritually, suffrage was created. Once the nineteenth century met the movement of Spiritualism, newspapers were often leading protesters, watering suffragism.
Today’s attitude towards accepting your neighbor’s religion roots from this period of spiritual exploration. Through this birthing, occult changed our world in America. Perhaps more so, my America, feasibly my bantam world.